John Ezzidio

Born in Nupe territory around 1810, Ezzidio was captured by slave raiders as a youth and placed aboard a slave ship bound for Brazil. In 1827, the British Royal Navy intercepted the ship and freed him in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Apprenticed to a French merchant, he saved his modest earnings and founded his own commercial import-export enterprise, trading directly with London firms and purchasing extensive commercial properties. A pillar of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Ezzidio was elected by the Mercantile Association in 1863 to the Sierra Leone Legislative Council—the first African to hold a legislative seat in the British Empire.