| Adelaide Casely-Hayford | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 27 June 1868 Freetown, Sierra Leone |
| Died | 16 January 1960 (aged 91) Freetown, Sierra Leone |
| Nationality | Sierra Leonean |
| Profession | activist, educator, writer |
| Religion | Christian |
Adelaide Casely-Hayford, née Smith (27 June 1868 - 16 January 1960), was a Sierra Leonean Creole advocate, an activist for cultural nationalism, educator, short story writer, and feminist. She established a school for girls in 1923 to instill cultural and racial pride during the colonial years under British rule. Promoting the preservation of Sierra Leone national identity and cultural heritage, in 1925 she wore a traditional African costume to attend a reception in honour of the Prince of Wales, where she created a sensation.
Contents |
Adelaide Casely Hayford, née Smith, was born on 27 June 1868 in Freetown, Sierra Leone to a mixed race father (of English and royal Fanti parentage) from the Gold Coast and a Creole mother of English, Jamaican Maroon, and Sierra Leone Liberated African ancestry. The young Adelaide and her sisters spent most of their childhood and adolescence in England, where her father had retired in 1872 with his family on a pension of 666 poundsterling. In England, she attended the Jersey Ladies College. At the age of 17, Smith went to Stuttgart, Germany to study music at the Stuttgart Conservatory. She returned to England where, together with her sister, she opened a boarding home for African bachelors, who were there as students or workers.
While in England, Adelaide Smith married J.E. Casely Hayford (a.k.a. Ekra-Agiman). Their marriage may have given her a deeper insight into African culture and influenced her transformation into a cultural nationalist. Their daughter Gladys Casely-Hayford became a well-known Creole poet.
After twenty-five years abroad, Casely-Hayford and her sisters returned to Sierra Leone. Inspired by the ideas of racial pride and co-operation advanced by Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), she joined the Ladies Division of the Freetown Branch. She rose to be its president. In June 1920, she resigned from the association because of a conflict of interest between it and her proposed Girls' Vocational School. She toured the United States, giving public lectures to correct American notions about Africa.
Back in Freetown, Casely-Hayford embarked on establishing a vocational institution to help girls learn their cultural background and instill national pride. In October 1923, the Girls' Vocational School opened in the Smith family home with fourteen pupils. As principal, Casely-Hayford would have preferred the pupils to wear native dress to school, but their parents rejected this idea.
She spent her later years writing her memoirs and short stories. Her short story "Mista Courifer" was featured in Langston Hughes' African Treasury: Articles, Essays, Stories, Poems (1960), a collection published in the United States of short works by African writers.
Casely-Hayford opposed the injustices of the colonial system and advocated cultural nationalism, earning the respect of British authorities.