Scipio Vaughan was born as an Omoba in 1784 in the Owu kingdom of Abeokuta in Yorubaland.
12 Facts About Scipio Vaughan
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Scipio Vaughan was captured by European trans-Atlantic slave traders in 1805 and taken together with other captured slaves to the Velekete Slave Market in Badagry, one of Nigeria's slave portal, from where he was shipped in a slave ship to America and taken upcountry to Camden, about 30 miles northeast of Columbia, South Carolina to Charleston, South Carolina, United States.
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Scipio Vaughan was so skilled as an ironmonger that he established a reputation in the area as a talented artisan for his work in fashioning iron gates and fences.
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In 1827, Scipio Vaughan became a free man and remained one for the rest of his life.
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Scipio Vaughan was the first free black of Camden and a successful small businessman and land-owner.
6.
On his deathbed in 1840, Scipio Vaughan told his sons to return to his native Yorubaland in Africa.
7.
Scipio Vaughan escaped, took refuge in Abeokuta and served as a military sharpshooter.
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Scipio Vaughan became part of the Lagos elite, and was a wealthy and prosperous merchant.
9.
Scipio Vaughan led a revolt against white missionaries, in the 1880s, helping to establish the Ebenezer Baptist Church, the first indigenous and independent church in West Africa in 1888, located at 50a, Campbell Street, Lagos Island.
10.
James Churchill Scipio Vaughan revisited his South Carolinian home and family before his death in Lagos, Nigeria in 1893.
11.
Scipio Vaughan's descendants included several state legislators during the Reconstruction period, politicians, diplomats, entrepreneurs and a high proportion of teachers, doctors and lawyers, among other professionals.
12.
Ayo Scipio Vaughan became a nursing administrator and married a British architect, Alan Richards, with whom she had four children including the filmmaker Remi Scipio Vaughan-Richards.