Capitein, Jacques Elise Jean

Capitein, Jacques Elise Jean, a negro convert. a Protestant theologian and missionary, was born upon the coast of Guinea. At the age of seven or eight years he was purchased, upon the banks of the St. Andrew's, by the captain of a Dutch vessel, Arnold Steenhard, who in turn gave him up to a trader of Elmina, James Van Goei, Who gave him the name Capitein, and brought him to the Hague, where he was baptized and instructed in the elements of the ancient and Shemitic languages by Miss Roscam. Early in 1738 Capitein went to the University of Leyden, where he studied theology. After taking his degree he was appointed, in 1742, pastor at Elmina in Africa.' After his departure for the coast of Guinea, in the same year, not mulch was known of him, though some asserted that he had returned to his early idolatrous religion. Among his writings are an elegy on Manger, his master, in Latin verse, translated into French by Gregory, in the Litterature des Negres:-De Vocatione Ethnicorum (Leyden,, 1738) — Dissertatio Politico-theologica de Servitute Libertati Christianse ion Contraria (ibid. 1742, translated into Dutch by Jerome of Brilhelin, and containing the portrait of the author) :- Uifgewrochte Predikatien (:Amsterdam, eod.). The portrait of Capitein, by Reynolds, is found in Blumenbach's Manual of Natural History. See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.