Christian Jacob Protten

Christian Jacob Protten also Christian Jakobus Africanus Protten or Uldrich (15 September 1715 – 24 August or 23 October 1769) was a Euro-African Moravian missionary pioneer, linguist, translator and educationalist-administrator in Christiansborg on the Danish Gold Coast in the eighteenth century. The first recorded grammatical treatise in the Ga and Fante languages was written by Protten and published in Copenhagen in 1764.

Early life Ancestry and family Christian Jacob Protten was born on 15 September 1715 in Christiansborg, Gold Coast, now known as the suburb of Osu, Accra in Ghana. His Danish father, Jacob Protten, alias "Prot", "Prodt", "Prott", was a soldier stationed with the garrison at the Christiansborg Castle in Osu. was a princess and the daughter of a chief or king, Nii Ofori Ashangmo, the ruler of the Ga state from 1660 to 1680. Protten had two older siblings: a brother, Wilhelm or Friderich Protten (born 28 April 1709) and a sister, Anna Protten (born 2 February 1713), both raised in Christiansborg. Within the confines of the fort, Protten was introduced to Christianity and mastered the Danish language. Protten recalled that the decision to send him to a school in Denmark was against his will. Shortly thereafter, he became acquainted with the Moravian fellowship and moved to Herrnhut, the Moravian colony at Berthelsdorf, which later became Saxony, staying there for the next twelve months and learning German along the way. In 1737, Christian Protten, along with Moravia native, Henry Huckoff, sailed from Amsterdam, the Netherlands to the Gold Coast to begin a new life as Moravian missionaries. Rebecca Freundlich was born on the island of Antigua in Antigua and Barbuda. Rebecca Freundlich had an arranged marriage to Matthaus Freundlich. They were married on 4 May 1738. The Freundlichs were persecuted and imprisoned for their Christian faith while they were sharing the Gospel to slaves in Saint Thomas. In effect, his grammatical output was an example for both Zimmermann and the Basel Mission pastor and historian, Carl Christian Reindorf (1834–1917), whose literary masterpiece, The History of the Gold Coast and Asante was written in the Ga and English languages and published in 1895 in Basel. Moreover, as a mulatto or an Atlantic Creole, Protten was able to hone his linguistic talents and abilities by blending his African upbringing and his European education, through a spatial awareness of the missionary settings he lived in during the 1700s. Fay, Robert (2005), “Protten, Christian Jacob (1715–1769), Religious Educator, Missionary” Oxford: Oxford University Press Frederiks, Martha Theodora; Rose, Maximilian (23 October 2024). "Christian Protten: A Transcription and Translation of Two Early Writings". Journal of Moravian History. 24 (2): 134–179