Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging

truth for the Colson Center on John Stone Street.

The 2023 Wilberforce Award recipient is Shadonke Johnson, a pastor and church planner from Sierra

Leone.

The award was named after William Wilberforce, whose work as an English politician led to

the abolishment of slavery in 1833 across the British Empire, as an incredible link between

William Wilberforce and Shadonke Sierra Leone.

Now, the first Europeans to reach Sierra Leone were Portuguese mariners who arrived in 1462

and gave the region its name after a mountain they thought looked like a sleeping lion.

Prior to the arrival of the Portuguese, the territory of Sierra Leone with its rainforest

that sheltered it from other regions in West Africa had become a haven for people, fleeing

violence and jihad.

However, in the 16th century, the warring Monty people moved into the area, bringing conflict

among various tribes, chiefdoms and kingdoms from the region.

By the 17th century, the Monty were selling prisoners of war to European slave traders,

and the free town Estuary became a major center of the Atlantic slave trade during the 17th

and 18th centuries.

In 1745, an English slave ship called the Pegasus landed in Sierra Leone, among its crew

was a man named John Newton.

Newton was so disliked that a shipmates abandoned him in Sierra Leone to a slave dealer there

named Amos Cloud.

Cloud gave Newton to his wife as a slave who abused him like she did all of her other slaves.

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