The Legacy of Mary Slessor Jeanette Hardage

ixty-six-year-old Mary Mitchell Slessor lay dying in the work in one of the mills to help support the family. By the time Svillage of Use Ikot Oku, Nigeria. Feverish, weak, and she was eleven, Mary also went to work in the mill. Like many going in and out of consciousness, she prayed, "0 Abasi,sana mi others around them, the Slessors lived in the slums and knew the yak" (0God,let mego). Herprayerwas granted justbeforedawn meaning of hunger. Before long, Mary's father and both her on January 13, 1915. The woman known as eka kpukpru owo brothers died, leaving behind only Mary, her mother, and two (everybody's mother) had lived nearly forty years in Nigeria, but sisters. herdeathwasnoted around the world, and herinfluence lives on today. Practical Training How did Mary Slessor, a petite redhead from the slums of Dundee, Scotland, become a role model for others, even today? David Livingstone, missionary hero of the day, had urged fellow How did she come to wield such influence in the land known to Christians not to let die the fire of opening Africa to Christianity. her compatriots as the white man's grave? How did she fit into Slessor responded to this call. She read everything she could lay theBritishEmpire'splanto"civilize" Nigeria?A studyof SIessor's hands on, including the works of Milton,Carlyle, and others. She life reveals certain factors leading to a missionary fervor, com­ becameaneagerstudentof the Bible andwasconvinced shemust bined with a large measure of down-to-earth common sense. give herself to God's service. As later years were to show, once Through the trying circumstances of her youth, she learned to she felt certain of God's leading on any matter, nothing kept her face and overcome difficult situations in ways that often chal­ from following through. This admirable characteristic some­ lenged the mission methods and attitudes of her era. times put her at odds with coworkers and the mission board. Slessor's life, apart from twelve-hour workdays, revolved The Mission at Calabar around the church. As a teenager, she began teaching Sunday school and working with a youth club. On Saturdays she often In 1841 Hope Masterton Waddell, an Irish clergyman serving led her group on outings-running races with them, climbing with the Scottish Presbyterian mission in Jamaica, received a trees, hiking up her skirts when necessary. Her usually docile copyof Sir T. FowellBuxton'sbookTheSlaveTrade andIts Remedy. attitude gave way to exasperation whenshe learned that some of The author proclaimed that God would inspire men from the the church elders disapproved of such behavior. West Indies to return to their African homeland with the Gospel Her notes for a lesson she taught at Wishart Church in 1874 of Jesus Christ. Buxton's book spurred Waddell to urge col­ contain an urgent plea which is also an unwitting foretelling of leagues and congregants to seek to establish a mission in Africa. her own life story. Slaves had been freed in Jamaica in 1833, and Waddell and other missionaries had a strong ministry among the people there. Thank God! For such men & women here & everywhere, who in The synod in Jamaica sentWaddell as their representative to the face of scorn, & persecution ... dare to stand firmly & fearlessly the Foreign Mission Board in Edinburgh to plead for permission for their Master. Their commissionis todaywhat it was yesterday. to go to Calabar, near the southeastern coast of present-day 'Go ye into all the world, & preach the Gospel to every creature.' ... not the nice easy places only, but the dark places, the distant Nigeria. At first the society denied the request, but the persis­ places ... to the low as well as the high, the poor as well as the rich, tence of the Jamaican group paid off, and in 1846 the first the ignorant as well as the learned, the degraded as well as the contingent of missionaries finally reached Calabar. The mission refined, to those whowill mockas wellas to those whowillreceive saw some successes, but for years mission stations remained for us, to those who will hate as well as to those who will love us.' the most part clustered around the coastal villages near the mouths of the Cross and Calabar Rivers. She answered her own challenge to go when news reached By the time of Mary's birth in 1848, her mother (alsoMary Britain of Livingstone's death in 1874. Slessor), like hundreds of other Scottish Presbyterians, eagerly The ForeignMissionBoard agreed to sendSlessorto Calabar read each issue of the MissionaryRecord. TheUnited Presbyterian as a teacher upon completion of a three-month training course in Church (later United Free Church of Scotland) published this Edinburgh. She wrote in later years that the training would have monthly magazine to inform members of missionary comings been more beneficial hadit been "morepractical."? Whatever the and goings, progress, problems, and needs. The exploits of the training, it surely did not include house-building and concrete­ famous missionary explorer David Livingstone, as well as those making, chores she found herself involved in through the years. serving in Calabar and elsewhere, enthralled Mrs. SIessor, and At the same time Slessor continued to be a serious student and she communicated her enthusiasm for missions to her children. teacher of the Bible in Africa. She came to exemplify the truth set Mary's childhood had a dark side in the person of her forth by missions historian Andrew Walls that missionaries "set alcoholic father, Robert. In 1859 he moved the family from themselves to intellectual effort and acquired learning skills far Aberdeen to Dundee, hoping for a change. He worked briefly as beyond anything which would have been required of them in a shoemaker,thenin oneof thecity'stextilemills,buthe soonwas their ordinary run of life.'? laid off and then reverted to his old lifestyle. Mary's mother was already a skilled weaver and began Arrival at Calabar

Slessor embarked for Calabar on August 6, 1876, and in Septem­ Jeanette Hardage is a freelance South Carolina writer with a longstanding ber set foot on African soil at Duke Town, forty miles inland up interest in Christian mission. Sheis working ona biography ofMary Slessor. the Calabar River estuary. Neither the oppressive tropical

178 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH climate nor the innu merable insects or wild animals could da mpe n her high hopes, wonder, and enthus i­ asm. She ad mired her teach er, lon gtime m issionary Mrs. Euphe mia Su therland, whom she du tifu lly fol­ lowed around as she learned th e business of being a "fema le age nt"-teaching, dispensing medicati ons, and mak ing th e rou nds of the women's yards surround ing Duke Town, mission headquarters in th e greater Cala­ bar region. Slessor eagerly followed advice given her to make the study of th e Efik lan guage her highest priority. She wa s such an ap t student of the language th at she was described by Africa ns as having an Efik mouth. During her firs t yea rs in Calabar Slessor began to understand th e religiou s beliefs of th e people, their social relationsh ips, their law s and customs (especially as represented by the governing Ekp e frat ernity), and th e problem s presented by polygamy, slavery, and drunkenness. She abho rred the practices of twin-mur­ der and the sac rifice of wives and slaves upon th e death of a chief. She began to make eleva ting the status of Man) Slessor in Scotland, 1898, w ith four adopted child ren, 16 year women one of her prior ities. Her eccentricities and old Jani e (Jean), Mary (5), A lice (3), and Maggie (16 months). headstrong personality became m ore ev ident as she Photograph by A. R. Edwards. Courtesy of McManus Gallerie s, broke tradition by sheddi ng her Victorian petticoats Dundee City Council Leisure and Arts, Dundee, Scotland. and climbing trees. She marched bareheaded and bar e­ foot th rou gh th e jung le an d d eclin ed to filter her wa ter - ha bits In 1883 Slessor returned to Scotland, sick ag ain, wi th bab y she maintained for yea rs. Janie in tow. The child was a great attraction in the churches and Within three years Slessor, no w thirty yea rs old, was ill and homes visited . The furl ough extended to tw o and a half yea rs, homesick. Frequent attac ks of feve r sid elined her, and she suf­ with one d elay after ano ther. Fina lly, Siess or left her mother and fered from th e harmattan, the dusty Saharan wind th at blew you nger sister in the care of a friend and returned to Ca labar in during th e dry season and cons ume d her ene rgy.She we nt home 1885, thi s time to Creek Town, across th e river and farther inl and to Scotland, but after a stay of a little over a yea r, she returned to from Duke Town. Calaba r. She served wi th other missiona ries in Creek Town but Slessor had begged to go to a different station and was longed to move on to new territory. She had told the Ca labar delighted to find she was assigned to Old Town, a few mil es up Mission Commi ttee of her d esire to go to th e people of Okoyong the Ca labar River. Here she wa s freer to go her own way, th ough even before her first furl ough. Wh en both her mother and her in theory she remained under the supe rvision of Duke Town.She remaining sister di ed by early 1886, she had no more family ties found that by living like an Afr ican (tea was the only European to Scotland. She mourned-then looked towar d the move she felt nicety she allowed herself), she could now live m ore cheaply and God called her to. She sai d, " 1am read y to go anywhe re, provided send more of her small salary home to care for her mother and it be forwa rd .:" sis ters. Responsible for several ou tstations, she trekked mil es through th e jungle to cond uct Sunday servi ces, telling everyone Okoyong Territory she met about th e Savior of the world sent by th e one true and loving God . Mission represen tatives had visited Okoyong territory numer­ For years missionari es had ru shed to rescue twins or or­ ous times but found no welcome there. Fear some rep orts of gu ns phan ed babies before they could be killed .Slessor herself became and drunkenness, trial by ordeal with poison bean s, human a cha m pion baby-sav er. One of her earliest twin adoptees,Jan e, sacrifice, cannibalism, and skulls on di splay circulated abou t the live d with her until Slessor's death m ore than thirty years later. people and the territory-between th e Cross and Calabar riv ers, From th en on, her African househ old always included babi es about th irty m iles from Duke Town. Understandably, the mis­ and you ngchild ren .Eve ntua lly, she raised six girls and two boys sion committee in Ca labar was not enthusiastic abo u t sendi ng a as her own. lone w oman into such d an ger, but finally at the end of 1886 they As ea rly as 1882 Slessor began to explore along th e river. She app roved her reque st. Then ensue d more th an a year of negotia­ some times stayed away for days at a time, visiting d ifferent tion s with Okoyong chiefs. Slessor finally took matters into her villages, meeting the people, listening to their stories of hardship own hands in June 1888 and went alone to fina lize arrangeme nts and sorrow,carrying m edi cine to treat their illnesses, and preach­ for her move. "1had ofte n a lump in my throat," she admi tted, ing inf ormally. The people res ponded wi th affection to her open "a nd my courage rep eatedl y threatened to take wings and fly acceptance of them and her mastery of th eir language. She began away."? to travel further afield in response to appeals from village chie fs. Slessor trekked four miles inl and from the Ca labar River to In Ibaka, thirty mil es downstream, people came from mil es Ekenge, where she met Chie f Edem and his sister, Ma Eme , and around to see th e w hite Ma (an honorific term similar to Madam, received a p romise of land for her hou se .Thus began fifteen yea rs often applied to a mother figure). She dispensed medicines, of service to a people w ho sometimes loathed her but more often worked with the w omen, and held morning and evening servi ces loved her . Ma Eme became Slessor's friend and often aided th e daily for two weeks . white Ma in rescu ing babi es, women, and slaves, tho ug h she did

October 2002 179 not become a Christian through the years, as SIessor had so useless with these cannibals" and proceeded to attack and defeat hoped. them? Though she may not have questioned the British military Mary considered Okoyong territory home, first in Ekenge, intervention at Arochuku, the use of force was not Slessor's own then in Akpap a few miles away, where the people moved when method of operation. She did take firm stands against the evils farmland soils were depleted. It was here that stories of her she saw (and was known in later years to box the ears of unruly reckless bravado in dealing with dangerous situations grew and men as if they were naughty children), but she always sought to spread throughout neighboring districts. Chiefs and slaves alike win people by telling of, and demonstrating, the great love of came to believe that the white Ma had a special magic of her own. God. Here, too, manyof herpersonal encounters withotherwhite men No sooner had the military conquest ended than Slessor and women-missionaries, military men, and popularVictorian determined to moveup Enyong Creek into Aro country. She told the missions committee that it was time for an ordained mission­ aryto come to Akpapandbuildup the churchfor Okoyongso she could move on. (By now she was telling the Foreign Mission Slessor never had any thought Board what she expected to happen, not just making polite of leaving the ministry to requests.) Her fame preceded her arrival, and she began a new which God had called her, work in 1904 at the village of Itu on the west bank of the Cross River near the junction of Enyong Creek, the place that became so the engagement was off. her headquarters for several years. About this time Charles Partridge became district commis­ sioner of the Itu area, and he and Slessorbegana long friendship. traveler Mary Kingsley-were recorded. Kingsley, who called His headquarters was twenty-five miles from Itu, so they often Slessor a "veritable white chief over the entire [Okoyong] dis­ had occasion to correspond. He saved her many letters to him trict," observed, "Her great abilities, both physical and intellec­ written from 1905 through 1914 and donated them to the city of tual, have given her among the savage tribe an unique position, Dundeein 1950.In these letters we see Slessor's relationship with and won her, from white and black who know her, a profound someoneoutsidethe churchwhosefriendship shevalued highly. esteem and the amountof good she has done, no mancanfully Partridge wrote in his presentation of the letters, in which he estimate [Okoyong] was given, as most of the surrounding acknowledges his own agnosticism and his disdain for mission­ districts still are, to killing at funerals, ordeal by poison, and aries in general: "I have had intercourse with many distin­ perpetual internecine wars. Many of these evil customs she has guished people.... Of the women, I place first Mary Slessor, stamped OUt."6 whom you call 'the White Queen of Okoyong'! She was a very In 1890, while Slessor recuperated back in Duke Town from remarkable woman.... Excepting Miss Slessor, I thoroughly fever, she met a new missionary teacher, Charles Morrison, disapprove of all missionariesl'" eighteen years her junior. He was attracted to her both by her Slessor wrote to Partridge about people they both knew­ reputation and by the fact that they both enjoyed literature and British officers, local chiefs, missionaries, and others; she dis­ poetry. How the couple kept their deepening friendship out of cussed everything from legal cases she was handling to the the limelight in Calabar is hard to fathom. The relationship is not weather and insects. She shared much more with him than she mentionedin othermissionarycorrespondence,butwhenSlessor did with many mission coworkers. returned to Scotland for furlough in 1891, she appeared wearing Slessor took her beloved adopted son Dan with her on her an engagement ring. She had agreed to marry Morrison on the final furlough to Scotland in 1907. While there she wrote to condition that the Foreign Mission Board approve his going to Partridge several times. On one occasion she responded to news join her in Ekenge. It did not. of anillness he had: "[T[hencomes yourletter withits woeful tale For Slessor there was never any thought that she would of sickness.... I ought to be preaching to you & telling you 'it leave the ministry to which God had called her or abandon her serves you right' for you are such an agnostic. & etc. etc. but I am assurance that she was to keep moving forward, so the engage­ too sorry to indulge in this.... Have you good reading? It is such ment was off. She left no written record of her relationship with a good help to keep off nervousness & weariness to have a good Morrison or her disappointment at being denied marriage. book, & someone to read with."? In 1892theBritishconsulgeneral,MajorClaudeMacDonald, When she returned to Africa, the plucky trailblazer contin­ appointed SIessor vice consul of the Okoyong territory. She had ued to move forward, "just to take hold," and she spent the last insisted that "her people" were not ready for a British court four years of her life itinerating between Use Ikot Oku and Ikpe, system, so it was natural to hand the job officially to her, since she twenty miles apart on Enyong Creek, a long and difficult trek was already doing it informally. She served several years, then before roads werebuilt. Much of thattime she was deathly ill, but resigned overa disagreement with a new youngdistrict commis­ always she rallied, even crawling to Sabbath services when sioner. She resumed the same job again (now called vice presi­ necessary, determined to carry out the commission she was dent of the native court) in 1905 and became well known for her convinced was hers. In each new place she faced the same quick and fair, though often unconventional, judgments. problems she had contended with at previous stations. In 1913 Mary SIessor received an award from the British Enyong Creek government. She waselected anHonoraryAssociate of theOrder of SaintJohn ofJerusalem. Whensheactuallyreceived the medal, Arochuku lay up Enyong Creek, off the Cross River. The Aro she was most embarrassed. In keeping with her character, she people purportedly continued slaving expeditions, taking of accepted it on behalf of all the missionaries who served in skulls, and cannibalism. Accounts, even if exaggerated, by survi­ Calabar. vors who had escaped from Arochuku were the last strawfor the Slessor's last letter to Partridge was written on Christmas British. In 1901 the Foreign Office decreed that "persuasion was Eve 1914.She confided thatshedid notmuchcare whetheror not

180 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH she survived her "long illness." She was depressed also by the personalbasis. She broughta semblance of order to communities deaths of two friends and by the news of the war in Europe. Less in a time of social and political upheaval. than a month later, she died. Kalu says, "Slessor represents [a] genre of missionary pres­ ence which rejected the social and spatial boundaries created by Remembrance the 'ark syndrome' in missionary attitude."11 In Calabar she was a catalyst that challenged the mission to change emphasis, to MarySlessor's stubborn drive to open new territory to education become a sending body rather than a mostly stationary body, a and the presentation of the gospel message stands as a prime practice the mission's converts had been urging for some years. example of what Ogbu Kalu, Nigerian church historian and She garnered support from younger mission colleagues, in addi­ professorof worldChristianityand missionat McCormickTheo­ tion to being admired by British colonial personnel and the logical Seminary, Chicago, refers to as "a broader view of the people of the districts where she lived and worked. style and vision of the [missionary] enterprise." He states, "Her MarySlessor's importance in the history of the development vision was much broader and more activist than her compatriots of the church in Africa cannotbe denied. She is remerrLbered-by could imagine.":" some, venerated-in bothScotland and southeastern Nigeria. In Slessor demonstrated her social activism in a number of 2000 she was chosen one of the millennium persons of Calabar, ways: her persistent rescue of twins and orphans, in some cases the place she began her witness. She is honored in the area with adopting and raising the children as her own; her determination statues, eacha likeness of Slessor holding twinbabies. A hospital to make life better for women in general, especially in setting up and schools are named for her. In Scotland a ten-pound note vocational training schools for them; her use of the "each one bears her picture. Queen Elizabeth laid a wreath at her grave in teach one" principle later espoused by Frank Laubach and other Calabar in 1956. The museum in Dundee displays stained glass modern literacy proponents (she would send a couple of boys windows that depict events from her life. Slessor herself would who had learned to read into a village that had invited her to have shunned such goings-on. Regardless, she left a trail of come, and they would teach not only reading but also what they churchesandschools,a hostof peoplewhoadmiredherdeeply­ knew of the Bible); and her participation in settling disputes, and many who still do. whether as an agent of the British government or on an informal,

Notes 1. Slessor Notebook, 1874, Dundee Museum, DUNMG/MSColl, 1984­ 6. Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in WestAfrica(Boston: Beacon Press, 1988; 258. originally published 1897), p. 74. 2. James Buchan, The Expendable Mary Slessor (New York: Seabury 7. Buchan, Expendable Mary Slessor, p. 168. Press, 1981), p. 25. 8. Charles Partridge, "Letter [to Dundee]," August 24, 1950, Dundee 3. Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Central Library. Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 9. Mary Slessor, "Letter [to Partridge]," October 3, 1907, Dundee 1996), p. 172. Central Library. 4. W. P. Livingstone, Mary Slessor of Calabar (London: Hodder & 10. OgbuKalu, "PersonalCorrespondence [E-mailto author]," February Stoughton, 1916), p. 55. 25,2002. 5. Buchan, Expendable Mary Slessor, p. 84. 11. Ibid.

Selected Bibliography Works by Mary Slessor Christian, Carol, and Gladys Plummer. Godand One Redhead. London: Dundee Archives, Dundee, Scotland Hodder & Stoughton, 1970. "Personal Letters [misc.]," 1876, 1901-14. Livingstone, W. P. Mary Slessor of Calabar, Pioneer Missionary. London: "Personal Reports," Women's MissionaryMagazine, 1901-13. Hodder & Stoughton, 1916. Dundee Art Galleries and Museum DUNMG/MSColl "Diaries," 1911 and 1914 (1956-16(a-b». Significant information on the Scottish Presbyterian mission work in "Notebook," 1874 (1984-258). Calabar or on Mary Slessor appears in: Personal Bibles (with handwritten commentaries), 1910 and Hudson, J. Harrison, Thomas W. Jarvie, and Jock Stein. Let theFireBurn: undated (1984-257; 1953-6(c». A Study ofR. M. McCheyne,RobertAnnan, andMary Slessor. Dundee: "Personal Letters [misc.]," 1877-1914 (1986-396; 1986-397(1-2); Handsel Publications, 1978, pp. 42-65. 1998-102; 1984-259(1-5); 1980-510). Johnston, Geoffrey. Of Godand Maxim Guns: Presbyterianism in Nigeria, Dundee Central Library, Local Studies Department 1846-1966. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier Univ. Press, 1988. "Letters [to Charles Partridge]," 1905-14. Kalu, Ogbu, ed. A Century and a Half of Presbyterian Witness in Nigeria, "TheProdigalSon[in Efik]," voicerecording. RecordedbyCharles 1846-1996. Lagos: Ida-Ivory Press, 1996. Partridge in Nigeria; ca. 1905. Luke, James. Pioneering in Mary Slessor Country. London: Epworth, 1929. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh McFarlan, Donald M. Calabar: TheChurchofScotlandMission, 1846-1946. "Personal Letters [misc.]," 1884-1914 (Ace 5239/1; 6825/15). London: Thomas Nelson, 1946. "Personal Reports," Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Proctor, J. H. "Serving God and Empire: Mary Slessor in South-Eastern Churchof Scotland[title varies], 1875-1915. Nigeria, 1876-1915." Journal ofReligion in Africa30, no. 1 (2000):45-61. Universityof EdinburghMainLibrary, Departmentof SpecialCollections Taylor, W. H. "Mary Slessor (1848-1915), Pedagogue Extraordinary." "Letter [to Agnes Young]," February 24, 1913. Scottish Education Review 25, no. 2 (1993): 109-22. Taylor, W. H. Mission to Educate: A History of the Educational Workof the Works About Mary Slessor ScottishPresbyterian Mission in EastNigeria, 1846-1960.Leiden: Brill, Of numerous biographies the most useful for study are: 1996. Buchan, James. The Expendable Mary Slessor. New York: Seabury, 1981.

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