Name Victor Okrafo-Smart | ||
The Reverend Victor Okrafo-Smart is a Sierra Leone-British author and genealogical researcher. Smart published a book in 2007 called Okrafo: Over a Century in the Lives of a Liberated African Family, 1816-1930, in which he described his ancestral Sierra Leone Creole heritage.
Smart resides in Nottingham, United Kingdom. He has given presentations on how to trace African/Caribbean ancestry. Professor Christopher Fyfe, a Scottish historian and scholar on Sierra Leone, worked with Smart on identifying primary sources of research.
The book
One of Smart's paternal ancestors came from a royal house in Nigeria and was captured in 1816 by African slave traders. The captives were sold into slavery and transported from Nigeria, but the ship was intercepted by the British, who had abolished the international slave trade. They took the slaves to the newly established colony of Sierra Leone, where they were freed and enabled to settle. Smart traces his family and their accomplishments through the years.