page_title: Alfred Saker
section_title: Working with fellow missionaries
hierarchical_section_title: Alfred Saker / Biography / Working with fellow missionaries
caption_attribution_description: English: Joseph Merrick at an Isubu funeral in Cameroon, 1845. Merrick was a Jamaican native who became one of the first Christian missionaries to Cameroon.
context_page_description: Alfred Saker was a British missionary of the London Baptist Missionary Society. In 1858 he led a Baptist Mission that relocated from the then Spanish island of Fernando Po and landed in Southern Cameroons. According to the record, he bought land from indigenous Bimbia chiefs, established a seaside settlement christened Victoria after the reigning British Empress. The settlement was renamed Limbe by decree in 1982 by President Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroun.
  Alfred Saker wished to be known under no other designation than a "Missionary to Africa".
  He was a leader of the early British Baptist missionaries that established churches on Fernando Po Island and Cameroon. His 1844-1876 mission work included translation - between 1862 and 1872 - of the Bible into the Duala language.
context_section_description: One of the fascinating things in the work of Saker was working with people from Jamaica. Joseph Merrick can be seen as the pioneer of the work in Cameroon. He had a talent for learning languages and within a short time he preached in Isubu and Douala. He died on the way to Jamaica in the year 1849.
caption: Joseph Merrick at an Isubu funeral, Limbe (1845).
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