Journal of Various Visits to the Kingdoms of Ashanti, Aku, and Dahomi, in Western Africa

The progress of a Methodist missionary in the territories of the Ashanti and the kingdom of Dahomey in the 1840s.

Missionary Thomas Birch Freeman (1809–1890) wrote this journal between 1840 and 1843, to report back to the Methodist Missionary Society on the work he was doing in West Africa. He describes his visits to different tribes such as the Ashanti and Fanti, and the success of his missionary work.Methodist missionary Thomas Birch Freeman (1809–1890) was one of the most successful missionaries of his day, founding churches in Nigeria and the Gold Coast. The son of an African father and English mother, he possessed great diplomatic skills in dealing with colonial administrators and native rulers, and Methodist churches spread rapidly using literate converts as lay preachers, particularly among freed and repatriated slaves. His resignation was caused by financial problems due to poor accounting. His Journal was serialised in a Methodist periodical between 1840 and 1843, published as a book in 1843, and revised the following year. His attempts to get the slave trade and the practice of human sacrifice abolished in Dahomey were frustrated, but he was much more successful in founding missions. The book is a fascinating picture of life in West Africa in the mid-nineteenth century.