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“I wish Thy way. But when in me my self would rise, and long for something otherwise, then, Holy One, take sword and spear, and slay.” – Amy Carmichael

Mary Slessor 1848-1915

Mary Slessor was born on 2nd December 1848 in Gilcomston, a suburb of Aberdeen, the second of seven children, only four of whom survived childhood. Her father, Robert Slessor, originally from Buchan, was a shoemaker to trade. Her mother, from Oldmeldrum, was a deeply religious woman of sweet disposition, who had a keen interest in missionary work in the Calabar region of Nigeria.

In 1859, the family moved to Dundee in search of work. Mrs. Slessor became a member of the Wishart Church, named after the nearby Wishart Arch from which Protestant martyr George Wishart had reputedly preached to plague victims during the epidemic of 1544.

Mary’s father became an alcoholic and was unable to continue his shoemaking work. He finally took a job as a mill labourer. Mrs. Slessor was determined to see her children properly educated, and the young Mary not only attended Church but, at the age of eleven, began work as a “half timer” in the Baxter Brothers’ Mill. Mary spent half of her arduous day at a school provided by the mill owners, and the other half in productive employment for the company. Thus began a harsh introduction to the work ethic which was to dominate her life.

By the age of fourteen, Mary had become a skilled jute worker. The life of a weaver, no longer with the benefit of company schooling, was daunting by modern standards. Up before 5 a.m. to do the housework, Mary worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with just an hour for breakfast and lunch.

Fortunately, Mary had benefited significantly from her rudimentary education. More importantly, she developed an intense interest in religion and, when a mission was instituted in Quarry Pend (close by the Wishart Church), Mary volunteered to become a teacher. Later, the mission moved to Wishart Pend, where the Church still stands, and so began a formative period in Mary’s life during which she learned to cope with both physical and mental hardship.

The story is told of how she stood her ground against a local gang, who swung a metal weight on a string closer and closer to her face. This stalwart young woman defied the gang by obtaining their agreement that, should she not flinch, then all her tormentors would join the Sunday School class. Mary triumphed, and gained experience which she would later exploit in her contacts with even more threatening tribes in a distant land. Strangely, although entranced by the accounts of work in Nigeria outlined in the “Missionary Record”, this courageous woman doubted her own ability to perform similar deeds, describing herself as “wee and thin and not very strong”. Eventually, however, she applied to the Foreign Mission Board of the United Presbyterian Church, effectively offering her life to the people of the Calabar region. After a brief period of training in Edinburgh, Mary set sail in the S.S. Ethiopia on 5th August 1876, and arrived at her destination in West Africa just over a month later. She was 28 years of age, red haired with bright blue eyes shining in enthusiasm for the daunting task ahead. Some of the old hands in Calabar might have been excused for questioning whether she would last her first full year. Portuguese mariners first visited the present day Nigeria in the 15th century to pursue trade with the kingdom of Benin, which straddled the land between Lagos and the Niger delta. By the year 1811, Wilberforce’s great anti-slavery reforms started to take effect, and so the slave trade, which had disrupted society and government, finally began to crumble. In 1861, Britain seized Lagos in order to preserve her trading interests, the first of a series of colonial initiatives which led to the establishment of the Nigerian Protectorate in 1914. When Mary Slessor arrived, she was to witness one of the most turbulent periods in the history of this process. The culture and customs of her new flock are well described in Charles Partridge’s book, “Cross River Natives”. Witchcraft and superstition were prevalent in a country whose traditional society had been torn apart by the slave trade. Human sacrifice routinely followed the death of a village dignitary, and the ritual murder of twins was viewed by the new missionary with particular abhorrence. Her dedicated efforts to forestall this irrational superstition were to prove a resounding success, as photographs of Mary with her beloved children testify. In this primitive society, women were treated as lower than cattle, and Mary was so successful in raising their standing in society that she may be considered as one of the pioneers of women’s rights in Africa. She also became fluent in the Efik language, so that she might use humour and sarcasm to reinforce her arguments. Unlike most missionaries, she lived in native style and became thoroughly conversant with the language, the culture and customs, and the day-to-day lives of those she served so well. Unfortunately it was dangers other than those from aggressive natives and wild animals that faced missionaries from a relatively healthy Western European environment. It was not until 1902 that Sir Ronald Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the Anopheles mosquito and its role as a host for the deadly malarial parasite. This knowledge was too late for Mary Slessor and her colleagues. Like lambs to the slaughter, they came to a country with its river mists and overpowering heat, where diseases and infections were legion, and they succumbed in their hundreds to the very fevers from which the modern traveller is mercifully spared. Their average life expectancy was just a few years, and those who survived and returned home often endured recurring fevers and ill-health for the rest of their lives. In letters reproduced here, Mary bravely makes light of her experiences, but the horrors of forty years of debilitating suffering may be clearly discerned through the surface humour and stoicism. In the early years of the 20th century, some remedies and precautions were becoming available, and Mary provided vaccination against the dreaded smallpox, and set up mission hospitals for treating illnesses and injuries suffered by the native peoples. Mary’s dedicated work with the people and her almost total integration with them culminated in an official request by the Governor that she combine her missionary activities with an administrative position as a Member of the Itu Court. Her letters to Charles Partridge chronicle this period of colonial expansion. Roads were being driven into the interior, and military expeditions were starting to make use of motor vehicles. Untold dangers faced all those involved in these hazardous enterprises, and Mary Slessor, though ever keen to discount her own perilous situation, retained a pragmatic attitude to the dangers facing lesser mortals. In one letter she urges that the expedition should include a “Maxim” [machine gun].

She was constantly urging the Foreign Mission Board in Edinburgh to finance extensions of her work in the interior. The trading markets which she had enthusiastically encouraged attracted people from far afield, and her attempts to reach out to them were the natural consequences of these contacts. Gradually the money was forthcoming and, as new missionaries took over responsibility for the posts vacated by Mary, she was able to move ever further into the heartland. Her courage in braving the hostility provoked by these incursions is legendary.

The recurring illnesses and general hardships which she faced as a matter of course all took their toll on this redoubtable woman. By 1915, her physical strength had greatly declined, and the woman who had once thought nothing of all-night treks through the rain forest was finally reduced to travelling in a hand-cart propelled by one of her assistants. On the 13th January 1915, after an excruciating and prolonged bout of fever, Mary Slessor died. In his biography of 1980, James Buchan described her as the “Expendable Mary Slessor”. Expendable she may have been, but few have given so much of themselves to so many, and under such appalling conditions. The grave of Mary Slessor, marked by an imposing cross of Scottish granite, is in the heart of the country she served so well. She was accorded a state funeral and, in 1953, the new head of the Commonwealth, Elizabeth II, made her own pilgrimage to the graveside. Mary Slessor is still remembered in Dundee, as in her adopted homeland, and there is a growing world-wide interest in her work.

The finest tribute was from those of her own who knew her best. To them she was “Mother of All The Peoples” or, more simply, “Ma”. The collection of Books and Letters and Slessor Source Material in Dundee Central Library’s Local Studies Department and in the City Archives may be viewed during the normal opening hours of the Department. The Mary Slessor Foundation aims to continue the work of Mary Slessor, albeit in modern form.

For more on Mary Slessor click here.

A Pathetic Incident by Miss Slessor
From a letter written by Miss Slessor acknowledging a parcel of work from St. Luke’s, Montrose.
Miss Slessor’s Return to Darkest Africa.
No More Sorrow by Miss Slessor
Some Thoughts Written in Mary Slessor’s Bible
The Awakening up the Cross River, by Miss Slessor.
Triumphing over Superstition by Miss Slessor

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"God and One are a Majority" Mary Slessor: From Factory Girl to Leading African Missionary

She was one of the most incredible missionary women ever. Her life seemed like one great adventure with God. Her mission began on her mother's lap. As a child, her mother taught her about Calabar, the deadly coast of Nigeria, known as "the white man's grave." Like other Scottish children, she donated her precious pennies to help the mission work. Eventually she asked the Presbyterian church to send her to Calabar, too.

In 1875, her answer came in the mail. "Dear Miss Slessor, I take great pleasure in informing you that the Board of Foreign Missions accepts your offer to serve as a missionary, and you have been appointed teacher to Calabar." Mary, a twenty seven-year old factory worker, rejoiced to read those words.

But could she go when her family needed her income from the factory? From the age of only eleven she had worked in the sweat shops of Dundee as a common mill hand, preparing jute and flax for the weavers. In time, she had become a skilled weaver herself, able to manage two sixty-inch looms at once, turning out ships' canvas, sacking, sheets, and cloth. While a little girl, and exhausted by her work, for she was "wee and thin and not very strong," Mary still made the most of her opportunities. She attended school when not working and learned reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, sewing, knitting, and a little music. If she was too tired to follow the arithmetic problems, the teacher punished her by making her stand during class. In winter, when the nights came early, she dodged drunks and thieves as she walked home in the dark to do her chores and face her father. And facing her father was not something to look forward to.

Her Drunken Dad Mary's father, Robert Slessor, was an alcoholic. He probably felt useless, for the mills hired women and boys in preference to men, who had to be paid higher wages. When Robert came home violent, red-haired Mary stood up to him. To protect her from beatings, Mrs. Slessor shooed her out into the street, to wander crying until her father fell into a drunken sleep. But Mary learned to hold her own.

She was quick with her tongue. She described herself as a "reckless lassie" full of mischief, who ran barefoot, jumped, and climbed trees like a boy. She would never completely outgrow her tomboy practices. But one day an old widow gathered Mary and some friends around her hearth. Pointing to the fire blazing in it, she warned them that unless they repented and believed in Christ, their souls would "burn in the lowin' bleezin' fire for ever and ever!" The words startled Mary, and she turned to Christ.

After she became a Christian, Mary tried to help children whose lives were as bleak as her own. She held Bible classes to tell them of the friend she had found in Christ Jesus. She took classes of boys into the countryside for picnics and raced and played with them. Her behavior raised the eyebrows of people in the pews who always wanted things done "properly."

Some toughs did not want to hear what Mary had to say. They jeered and slung mud at her. Once they surrounded her while their leader whirled a lead weight around and around on a string, approaching closer and closer to her face. She stood without flinching, praying inwardly, but determined not to duck or run. The lead grazed her forehead, but she stood with steady eyes. The ringleader dropped the lead. "Its OK boys. She's game!" He made his whole gang attend meeting that night. With persistent effort she led many youngsters to Christ.

Off to Africa On August 5, 1876 she sailed for Africa aboard the S. S. Ethiopia. When she arrived in Calabar Mary quickly learned about cruel gods carved of wood and stone. The Nigerians sacrificed humans to these gods. Mary put her own life on the line, trying to rescue slaves and women from death. She also fought against the practice of judging by ordeal. A person suspected of doing wrong might be forced to eat poison beans, or boiling oil might be poured over him. The gods were supposed to protect the innocent from harm, but of course they didn't. Every one tested by these methods was "guilty." Such cruelty infuriated Mary. When one man poured boiling oil on the hands of an eleven year old boy, she grabbed a scoop of the scalding liquid and chased the man to pour it on him to show him that he was not innocent either. Everyone laughed, except the poor boy who was still screaming in agony.

Another horror was the treatment of wives after the death of a husband. They were automatically suspected of witchcraft. A chicken was beheaded in front of each wife. Depending on how it flopped, the wife was pronounced guilty or innocent. The legs of the "guilty" wives were broken and the women thrown alive into their husband's grave. Ma Eme, a chief's sister, went through this ordeal. Her chicken declared her innocent, and she fainted from relief. After that, she often informed Mary secretly when ordeals were happening so that Mary could rescue the accused women.

Facing the Forces of Fear and Evil The Nigerians enslaved and branded each other. Girls were fattened up to sell as slave wives. Slaves were expendable, and when a chief died, dozens were killed. Other evils included throwing unwanted babies into the bush to be nibbled by insects or gobbled by leopards. Twins were believed to be a great evil. One had the devil as its father, said the Nigerians, but since no one knew which one, both were buried alive or thrown into the forest. Their mother was driven away to die. The tribes fought and danced and got drunk. Sometimes they ate one another. Everyone lived in fear. A secret society known as the Egbo went around in masks and beat people. Once Mary chased a group of Egbo and tore off a mask.

Mary contracted malaria. She had to return to Scotland. On furlough she told church women about Calabar and many became interested in her work. Strangely, although Mary was very bold to talk to African chiefs, she was too shy to speak in front of men in Scotland's churches.

Single Mom with Many Kids When she returned to Africa, Mary was allowed to work alone in Old Town. She liked her new freedom. For fun, she climbed trees. She ate when she felt like it and set her own work pace. Her house was soon full of orphans and twins that she rescued, fed, and cuddled.

One twin became so sick that Mary took her into the hills where it was cooler. She brought her other babies with her. A leopard entered her tent and seized a baby boy in its mouth. Mary grabbed a flaming stick and drove it into the leopard's face. The leopard dropped the boy and fled howling. Fortunately, the boy was not hurt.

While at Old Town, Mary ate African food and learned African ways. With simple medicines she cured sickness. When trade routes were cut off by a war, she secretly led men across the mission station at night so they could sell their goods. When Chief Okon asked her to visit Ibaka and teach his people about Christ, she was brought up river in an impressive war canoe with thirty-three oarsmen.

However, Mary again became ill and had to return to Scotland. When she recovered, she could not go directly back to Africa because her sister was dying. The last three members of Mary's family died within a year of each other. It was almost two years before Mary could return to Africa.

Up-Country More than ever, she wanted to work up country. The mission board was afraid to send her alone, and other missionaries did not like to work with her because she lived a helter skelter life. Mary could not change her style, as it was so much part of her. And she knew that she always had to be ready to drop everything at a moment's notice to help where she was needed in order to save lives. Finally the mission gave in. On August 4th, 1888, Mary set out for Okoyong. The canoe landed near dusk. An eerie silence hung over the forest. No one met her. It turned out everyone was at a funeral. Mary had to find her way to a hut in darkness and pouring rain. To calm the fears of the children with her, she sang silly songs. "What is courage, but faith conquering fear?" she asked.

From then on, Mary worked alone, pushing further and further inland. Because Mary understood the people's customs so well, they brought their quarrels to her to settle. The British government made her a vice-consul with authority to judge. When the slave trade ended, the people of the countryside needed new income. Mary helped them make peace with the people on the coast so that they could trade palm oil in exchange for goods.

She made a major contribution in bringing an end to some of the worst ways. She grabbed women and took them to her house before they could be forced to drink poison. More than once she sat up all night, or even several nights, to protect slaves from execution. When the natives insisted on clinging to cruel practices, Mary asked the British to send an armed force into the interior to "palaver" with the chiefs. The expedition won a peaceful end to some of the evils. More importantly, Mary increasingly and widely helped the Africans recognize that lives were worth saving.

In 1914, she fell so sick that she was taken by canoe to the government hospital. She recovered for a few weeks but collapsed again in January. As she lay semi-conscious she whispered "O God, release me." She died January 13, 1915. She had not ended all evil practices, but she had an extraordinary influence for good over thousands of square miles of Africa.

Years after Mary's death, African women still reenacted the story of the time she drove off a hippopotamus by yelling and waving her umbrella. "God and one are always a majority," Mary often said.

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Mary Slessor – An Extraordinary Scottish Missionary

Mary Slessor, 1848-1915, was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary to Africa. She made a huge impact on Nigeria and beyond. One source claims “much of West Africa was evangelised due to the open door that Mary Slessor created for the next generation of missionaries to follow after her. Today, hospitals, schools, orphanages and churches all stand because of the impact Mary Slessor left in West Africa.”

I have been moved as I have researched the life of this remarkable Scottish pioneer. What can we learn from her life and work?

1. She ‘redeemed’ a tough childhood. Born into a poor working-class family, she lived in the slums of Dundee and had no proper education. Her father Robert Slessor was a shoemaker by trade but he was an alcoholic and, unable to keep up shoemaking, took a job as a labourer in a mill. He was reported to have forced Mary out on the streets for days, leaving her hungry and abandoned. But she turned those unhappy experiences into a passion to rescue African children. Her most often chronicled ministry was to twins born in certain tribes in Nigeria. There was a belief that the birth of twins was considered a particularly evil curse. Natives feared that the father of one of the infants was a ‘devil child’, and that the mother had been guilty of a great sin. Unable to determine which twin was fathered by the evil spirit, both babies were often abandoned to die. Mary adopted every such child she found abandoned, while sending out “twins’ missioners” to find them and bring them to the Mission House. It was reported that some mission compounds were “alive with babies”.

2. The influence of a godly mother. Her mother was a spiritual woman who read each issue of the Missionary Record, a monthly magazine published by the United Presbyterian Church to inform members of missionary activities and needs. The life of David Livingstone, the great missionary to Africa, inspired Mary. When she heard of his death, she determined to follow in his footsteps as a missionary to Africa. She applied to the United Presbyterian Church’s Foreign Mission Board. After training in Edinburgh, she set sail in the SS Ethiopia on 5 August 1876. What if her mother had had no interest in cross cultural mission, or had not sown those seeds into her heart?

3. Mary lived with the people she wanted to reach rather than in a mission compound. She went to live in the huts and villages of the people, leaving no barrier between her and them. For 15 years she lived with the Okoyong and the Efik peoples. She learned to speak the native Efik language and made close personal friendships amongst them. She entered into the lives of the people she was reaching with the Gospel. She developed a deep knowledge of local customs and culture . She allowed herself to be transformed by the people. She adopted every practice of theirs that she could, unless it conflicted with the Bible’s truths. She wore tribal woman’s clothing. This Scottish woman was practically a native.

4. She had a deep faith in God. She prayed: “Lord, the task is impossible for me but not for Thee. Lead the way and I will follow. Why should I fear? I am on a Royal Mission. I am in the service of the King of Kings.”

5. She allowed the Lord to define her specific call . She had a particular burden for the Okoyong tribe because violence, drugs and slavery was so destructive to their tribe. Theirs was a place where darkness reigned through poverty, murder and disease.

6. She had a wide ministry. Mary evangelised, settled disputes, established social changes and introduced Western education. One success was to create a basic economy to the Okoyong tribe. Not only did this serve as a unifying factor for the tribespeople, but the trading helped to create better relationships with the surrounding tribes. Other achievements included the strengthening of women’s rights, innocent children being rescued, education systems, orphanages.

7. She overcame difficulties and struggles. She contracted malaria in 1879 and then again three years later, forcing her to return twice to Scotland to recover. Back again in Calabar, Slessor received news that her mother and sister had died. She was overcome with loneliness, writing, “There is no one to write and tell my stories and nonsense to.”

But she laid hold of the Lord in her pain. “Heaven is now nearer to me than Britain, and no one will worry about me if I go up country.”

When Mary died on 13 January 1915 she was given something like a state funeral in Nigeria. To some Nigerians she is simply remembered as “Mother of All The Peoples”. How amazing for one who began in the slums of Dundee.

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Undiscovered Scotland

Mary slessor.

Mary Slessor lived from 2 December 1848 to 13 January 1915. She made her name as a Scottish missionary to Nigeria, where her strong personality won her trust locally and afforded her considerable success in promoting both Christianity and women's rights. Her life is celebrated on a Scottish £10 note issued by Clydesdale Bank.

Mary Slessor was born in Aberdeen, moving to Dundee at the age of 11 in 1859. Her father was a shoemaker who lost his job due to an addiction to alcohol and eventually found work in Dundee's jute mills. Mary's mother was a strongly religious woman who ensured that Mary attended church and that she kept up her education by attending school on a half time basis, after family circumstances meant Mary also had to start work in the jute mills. By the time she was 14, Mary was a skilled jute worker, now working from 6am to 6pm each day having finished her formal education.

While still young, Mary joined a local mission to the poor, working to instill Christian values in Dundee's deprived areas. There is a famous story of her forcing a group of local youths to attend Sunday School as part of a dare in which she refused to flinch as one of them swung a heavy metal weight close to her face.

In 1876 at the age of 28, Mary applied to be a missionary with the Foreign Mission Board of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. She received training in Scotland before setting sail on the S.S. Ethiopia on 5 August 1876, arriving in Calabar in south-eastern Nigeria just over a month later.

The country she found was in a state of chaos. The colonial power, Britain, had seized control, but was more interested in the maintenance of trade than in the welfare of the Nigerians. The slave trade was still a recent memory in the country, and infanticide and human sacrifice still took place. Women's rights were next to non-existent. And disease was rife: Mary herself suffered from malaria.

Mary's determination steadily won her the respect of the Nigerians she came into contact with. Unlike most missionaries, she lived among those she worked with. She became fluent in the local language, Efik, and developed a deep knowledge of local customs and culture. Eventually the regional Governor offered her Membership of the Itu Court. Mary also adopted a number of local children rejected by their parents: twins were considered at the time in Nigeria to be cursed, and could even be sacrificed as a result.

By the early 1900s Mary was helping vaccinate Nigerians against smallpox. But she was also suffering from increasingly severe bouts of malaria. Her strength declined, to the point where a woman who once embarked on all-night treks through the rain forest had to travel in a hand-cart pushed by an assistant.

Mary died on 13 January 1915. She was given a state funeral in Nigeria and in 1953 her grave was visited by Queen Elizabeth. To Nigerians she is simply remembered as "Mother of All The Peoples" .

Diana Leagh Matthews

Rebel to Redeemed…Sharing HIS Kind of Love

Heroes of the Faith: Mary Slessor, Mother to Orphans in Nigeria

Mary Slessor was a Scottish missionary to Nigeria.

Mary Slessor

Mary Mitchell Slessor was born on December 2, 1848 in Aberdeen, Scotland. She was the second of seven children born to Robert and Mary Slessor. Her father was a shoemaker, but the family were very poor, due to his alcoholism. Her mother often worked in the mills to help make ends meet.

At the age of eleven, Mary went to school have a day and worked in the mills half a day.

Soon thereafter, her father and two brothers died of pneumonia. By the age of fourteen, she was working twelve hour days in the mill.

She soon shared an interest in her mother’s faith. When a school was set up nearby, she decided she wanted to teach.

Upon learning of the death of missionary and explorer David Livingstone, she decided to follow in his footsteps. She applied to the United Presbyterian Church’s Foreign Mission Board and received her training.

Mary Slessor with some of her children

She set sail on August 5, 1876 on the SS Ethiopia, arriving in West Africa a month later. She worked hard to learn the tribes language and traditions.

She was forced to return to Scotland to recover after contracting malaria. She returned to Calabar, in South Africa, sixteen months later.

She adopted every child she found abandoned and either cared for them at the Mission House or adopted them as her own. Twins were especially taboo to the people she served and seen as evil. For this reason she found many twins.

She adopted one twin and named her Janie, when the boy twin died.

Two deputies inspecting the mission in 1881-2 stated, “…she enjoys the unreserved friendship and confidence of the people, and has much influence over them.” This they attributed partly to the singular ease with which Slessor spoke the language.

She and Janie later returned to Scotland on a health furlough for the next three years. She

cared for her mother and sister and shared her missionary work at many churches.

Upon returning, she continued to rescue twins, heal the sick and spread the gospel. She soon received word of the death of her mother and sister.”She was overcome with loneliness, writing, “There is no one to write and tell my stories and nonsense to.” She had also found a sense of independence, writing, “Heaven is now nearer to me than Britain, and no one will worry about me if I go up country.”

In August 1888, she traveled north to Okoyoung, where only male missionaries had been and were often killed. She learned to speak the native language of Efik and made close personal friendships. for the next fifteen years she lived with the people in a traditional Efiks house.

She became known as Ma Slessor.

“Her insistence on lone stations often led Slessor into conflict with the authorities and gained her a reputation for eccentricity. However, her exploits were heralded in Britain and she became known as the “white queen of Okoyong”. Slessor continued her focus on evangelism, settling disputes, encouraging trade, establishing social changes and introducing Western education.”

Mary Slessor with her children

In 1892, she became vice-counsul in Okoyong and presided over the native court. In 1905 she was named vice-president of Ikot Obong native court.

In 1913 she was awarded the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

Even failing health did not stop her work.

Mary Slessor died on January 13, 1915. Her body was covered with a Union Jack flag and travelled down the Cross River, which was the “colonial equivalent of a state funeral”.

Several memorials in and around Calabar and Okoyong testify to her value and memory. A girl’s house in Ghana was opened and named “Slessor House”.

“A bust of Slessor is now in the Hall of Heroes of the National Wallace Monument in Stirling.”

Classic DACB Collection

Slessor, mary (a).

1848-1915 Presbyterian Nigeria

The Legacy of Mary Slessor

Sixty-six-year-old Mary Mitchell Slessor lay dying in the village of Use Ikot Oku, Nigeria. Feverish, weak, and going in and out of consciousness, she prayed, “ O Abasi, sana mi yak ” (O God, let me go). Her prayer was granted just before dawn on January 13, 1915. The woman known as eka kpukpru owo (everybody’s mother) had lived nearly forty years in Nigeria, but her death was noted around the world, and her influence lives on today.

How did Mary Slessor, a petite redhead from the slums of Dundee, Scotland, become a role model for others, even today? How did she come to wield such influence in the land known to her compatriots as the white man’s grave? How did she fit into the British Empire’s plan to “civilize” Nigeria? A study of Slessor’s life reveals certain factors leading to a missionary fervor, combined with a large measure of down-to-earth common sense. Through the trying circumstances of her youth, she learned to face and overcome difficult situations in ways that often challenged the mission methods and attitudes of her era.

The Mission at Calabar

In 1841 Hope Masterton Waddell, an Irish clergyman serving with the Scottish Presbyterian mission in Jamaica, received a copy of Sir T. Fowell Buxton’s book The Slave Trade and Its Remedy. The author proclaimed that God would inspire men from the West Indies to return to their African homeland with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Buxton’s book spurred Waddell to urge colleagues and congregants to seek to establish a mission in Africa. Slaves had been freed in Jamaica in 1833, and Waddell and other missionaries had a strong ministry among the people there.

The synod in Jamaica sent Waddell as their representative to the Foreign Mission Board in Edinburgh to plead for permission to go to Calabar, near the southeastern coast of present-day Nigeria. At first the society denied the request, but the persistence of the Jamaican group paid off, and in 1846 the first contingent of missionaries finally reached Calabar. The mission saw some successes, but for years mission stations remained for the most part clustered around the coastal villages near the mouths of the Cross and Calabar Rivers.

By the time of Mary’s birth in 1848, her mother (also Mary Slessor), like hundreds of other Scottish Presbyterians, eagerly read each issue of the Missionary Record. The United Presbyterian Church (later United Free Church of Scotland) published this monthly magazine to inform members of missionary comings and goings, progress, problems, and needs. The exploits of the famous missionary explorer David Livingstone, as well as those serving in Calabar and elsewhere, enthralled Mrs. Slessor, and she communicated her enthusiasm for missions to her children.

Mary’s childhood had a dark side in the person of her alcoholic father, Robert. In 1859 he moved the family from Aberdeen to Dundee, hoping for a change. He worked briefly as a shoemaker, then in one of the city’s textile mills, but he soon was laid off and then reverted to his old lifestyle.

Mary’s mother was already a skilled weaver and began work in one of the mills to help support the family. By the time she was eleven, Mary also went to work in the mill. Like many others around them, the Slessors lived in the slums and knew the meaning of hunger. Before long, Mary’s father and both her brothers died, leaving behind only Mary, her mother, and two sisters.

Practical Training

David Livingstone, missionary hero of the day, had urged fellow Christians not to let die the fire of opening Africa to Christianity. Slessor responded to this call. She read everything she could lay hands on, including the works of Milton, Carlyle, and others. She became an eager student of the Bible and was convinced she must give herself to God’s service. As later years were to show, once she felt certain of God’s leading on any matter, nothing kept her from following through. This admirable characteristic sometimes put her at odds with coworkers and the mission board.

Slessor’s life, apart from twelve-hour workdays, revolved around the church. As a teenager, she began teaching Sunday school and working with a youth club. On Saturdays she often led her group on outings-running races with them, climbing trees, hiking up her skirts when necessary. Her usually docile attitude gave way to exasperation when she learned that some of the church elders disapproved of such behavior.

Her notes for a lesson she taught at Wishart Church in 1874 contain an urgent plea which is also an unwitting foretelling of her own life story.

Thank God! For such men & women here & everywhere, who in the face of scorn, & persecution . . . dare to stand firmly & fearlessly for their Master. Their commission is today what it was yesterday. ‘Go ye into all the world, & preach the Gospel to every creature.’ . . . not the nice easy places only, but the dark places, the distant places . . . to the low as well as the high, the poor as well as the rich, the ignorant as well as the learned, the degraded as well as the refined, to those who will mock as well as to those who will receive us, to those who will hate as well as to those who will love us.[1]

She answered her own challenge to go when news reached Britain of Livingstone’s death in 1874.

The Foreign Mission Board agreed to send Slessor to Calabar as a teacher upon completion of a three-month training course in Edinburgh. She wrote in later years that the training would have been more beneficial had it been “more practical.”[2] Whatever the training, it surely did not include house-building and concretemaking, chores she found herself involved in through the years. At the same time Slessor continued to be a serious student and teacher of the Bible in Africa. She came to exemplify the truth set forth by missions historian Andrew Walls that missionaries “set themselves to intellectual effort and acquired learning skills far beyond anything which would have been required of them in their ordinary run of life.”[3]

Arrival at Calabar

Slessor embarked for Calabar on August 6, 1876, and in September set foot on African soil at Duke Town, forty miles inland up the Calabar River estuary. Neither the oppressive tropical climate nor the innumerable insects or wild animals could dampen her high hopes, wonder, and enthusiasm. She admired her teacher, longtime missionary Mrs. Euphemia Sutherland, whom she dutifully followed around as she learned the business of being a “female agent”–teaching, dispensing medications, and making the rounds of the women’s yards surrounding Duke Town, mission headquarters in the greater Calabar region.

Slessor eagerly followed advice given her to make the study of the Efik language her highest priority. She was such an apt student of the language that she was described by Africans as having an Efik mouth.

During her first years in Calabar Slessor began to understand the religious beliefs of the people, their social relationships, their laws and customs (especially as represented by the governing Ekpe fraternity), and the problems presented by polygamy, slavery, and drunkenness. She abhorred the practices of twin-murder and the sacrifice of wives and slaves upon the death of a chief. She began to make elevating the status of women one of her priorities. Her eccentricities and headstrong personality became more evident as she broke tradition by shedding her Victorian petticoats and climbing trees. She marched bareheaded and barefoot through the jungle and declined to filter her water–habits she maintained for years.

Within three years Slessor, now thirty years old, was ill and homesick. Frequent attacks of fever sidelined her, and she suffered from the harmattan, the dusty Saharan wind that blew during the dry season and consumed her energy. She went home to Scotland, but after a stay of a little over a year, she returned to Calabar.

Slessor had begged to go to a different station and was delighted to find she was assigned to Old Town, a few miles up the Calabar River. Here she was freer to go her own way, though in theory she remained under the supervision of Duke Town. She found that by living like an African (tea was the only European nicety she allowed herself), she could now live more cheaply and send more of her small salary home to care for her mother and sisters. Responsible for several outstations, she trekked miles through the jungle to conduct Sunday services, telling everyone she met about the Savior of the world sent by the one true and loving God.

For years missionaries had rushed to rescue twins or orphaned babies before they could be killed. Slessor herself became a champion baby-saver. One of her earliest twin adoptees, Jane, lived with her until Slessor’s death more than thirty years later. From then on, her African household always included babies and young children. Eventually, she raised six girls and two boys as her own.

As early as 1882 Slessor began to explore along the river. She sometimes stayed away for days at a time, visiting different villages, meeting the people, listening to their stories of hardship and sorrow, carrying medicine to treat their illnesses, and preaching informally. The people responded with affection to her open acceptance of them and her mastery of their language. She began to travel further afield in response to appeals from village chiefs. In Ibaka, thirty miles downstream, people came from miles around to see the white Ma (an honorific term similar to Madam, often applied to a mother figure). She dispensed medicines, worked with the women, and held morning and evening services daily for two weeks.

In 1883 Slessor returned to Scotland, sick again, with baby Janie in tow. The child was a great attraction in the churches and homes visited. The furlough extended to two and a half years, with one delay after another. Finally, Slessor left her mother and younger sister in the care of a friend and returned to Calabar in 1885, this time to Creek Town, across the river and farther inland from Duke Town.

She served with other missionaries in Creek Town but longed to move on to new territory. She had told the Calabar Mission Committee of her desire to go to the people of Okoyong even before her first furlough. When both her mother and her remaining sister died by early 1886, she had no more family ties to Scotland. She mourned–then looked toward the move she felt God called her to. She said, “I am ready to go anywhere, provided it be forward.”[4]

Okoyong Territory

Mission representatives had visited Okoyong territory numerous times but found no welcome there. Fearsome reports of guns and drunkenness, trial by ordeal with poison beans, human sacrifice, cannibalism, and skulls on display circulated about the people and the territory–between the Cross and Calabar rivers, about thirty miles from Duke Town. Understandably, the mission committee in Calabar was not enthusiastic about sending a lone woman into such danger, but finally at the end of 1886 they approved her request. Then ensued more than a year of negotiations with Okoyong chiefs. Slessor finally took matters into her own hands in June 1888 and went alone to finalize arrangements for her move. “I had often a lump in my throat,” she admitted, “and my courage repeatedly threatened to take wings and fly away.”[5]

Slessor trekked four miles inland from the Calabar River to Ekenge, where she met Chief Edem and his sister, Ma Eme, and received a promise of land for her house. Thus began fifteen years of service to a people who sometimes loathed her but more often loved her. Ma Eme became Slessor’s friend and often aided the white Ma in rescuing babies, women, and slaves, though she did not become a Christian through the years, as Slessor had so hoped.

Mary considered Okoyong territory home, first in Ekenge, then in Akpap a few miles away, where the people moved when farmland soils were depleted. It was here that stories of her reckless bravado in dealing with dangerous situations grew and spread throughout neighboring districts. Chiefs and slaves alike came to believe that the white Ma had a special magic of her own. Here, too, many of her personal encounters with other white men and women-missionaries, military men, and popular Victorian traveler Mary Kingsley–were recorded. Kingsley, who called Slessor a “veritable white chief over the entire [Okoyong] district,” observed, “Her great abilities, both physical and intellectual, have given her among the savage tribe an unique position, and won her, from white and black who know her, a profound esteem . . . and the amount of good she has done, no man can fully estimate. . . . [Okoyong] was given, as most of the surrounding districts still are, to killing at funerals, ordeal by poison, and perpetual internecine wars. Many of these evil customs she has stamped out.”[6]

In 1890, while Slessor recuperated back in Duke Town from fever, she met a new missionary teacher, Charles Morrison, eighteen years her junior. He was attracted to her both by her reputation and by the fact that they both enjoyed literature and poetry. How the couple kept their deepening friendship out of the limelight in Calabar is hard to fathom. The relationship is not mentioned in other missionary correspondence, but when Slessor returned to Scotland for furlough in 1891, she appeared wearing an engagement ring. She had agreed to marry Morrison on the condition that the Foreign Mission Board approve his going to join her in Ekenge. It did not.

For Slessor there was never any thought that she would leave the ministry to which God had called her or abandon her assurance that she was to keep moving forward, so the engagement was off. She left no written record of her relationship with Morrison or her disappointment at being denied marriage.

In 1892 the British consul general, Major Claude MacDonald, appointed Slessor vice consul of the Okoyong territory. She had insisted that “her people” were not ready for a British court system, so it was natural to hand the job officially to her, since she was already doing it informally. She served several years, then resigned over a disagreement with a new young district commissioner. She resumed the same job again (now called vice president of the native court) in 1905 and became well known for her quick and fair, though often unconventional, judgments.

Enyong Creek

Arochuku lay up Enyong Creek, off the Cross River. The Aro people purportedly continued slaving expeditions, taking of skulls, and cannibalism. Accounts, even if exaggerated, by survivors who had escaped from Arochuku were the last straw for the British. In 1901 the Foreign Office decreed that “persuasion was useless with these cannibals” and proceeded to attack and defeat them.[7] Though she may not have questioned the British military intervention at Arochuku, the use of force was not Slessor’s own method of operation. She did take firm stands against the evils she saw (and was known in later years to box the ears of unruly men as if they were naughty children), but she always sought to win people by telling of, and demonstrating, the great love of God.

No sooner had the military conquest ended than Slessor determined to move up Enyong Creek into Aro country. She told the missions committee that it was time for an ordained missionary to come to Akpap and build up the church for Okoyong so she could move on. (By now she was telling the Foreign Mission Board what she expected to happen, not just making polite requests.) Her fame preceded her arrival, and she began a new 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 her headquarters for several years.

About this time Charles Partridge became district commissioner of the Itu area, and he and Slessor began a long friendship. His headquarters was twenty-five miles from Itu, so they often had occasion to correspond. He saved her many letters to him written from 1905 through 1914 and donated them to the city of Dundee in 1950. In these letters we see Slessor’s relationship with someone outside the church whose friendship she valued highly. Partridge wrote in his presentation of the letters, in which he acknowledges his own agnosticism and his disdain for missionaries in general: “I have had intercourse with many distinguished people. . . . Of the women, I place first Mary Slessor, whom you call ‘the White Queen of Okoyong’! She was a very remarkable woman. . . . Excepting Miss Slessor, I thoroughly disapprove of all missionaries!”[8]

Slessor wrote to Partridge about people they both knew- British officers, local chiefs, missionaries, and others; she discussed everything from legal cases she was handling to the weather and insects. She shared much more with him than she did with many mission coworkers.

Slessor took her beloved adopted son Dan with her on her final furlough to Scotland in 1907. While there she wrote to Partridge several times. On one occasion she responded to news of an illness he had: “[T]hen comes your letter with its woeful tale of sickness. . . . I ought to be preaching to you & telling you ‘it serves you right’ for you are such an agnostic. & etc. etc. but I am too sorry to indulge in this. . . . Have you good reading? It is such a good help to keep off nervousness & weariness to have a good book, & someone to read with.”[9] & When she returned to Africa, the plucky trailblazer continued to move forward, “just to take hold,” and she spent the last four years of her life itinerating between Use Ikot Oku and Ikpe, twenty miles apart on Enyong Creek, a long and difficult trek before roads were built. Much of that time she was deathly ill, but always she rallied, even crawling to Sabbath services when necessary, determined to carry out the commission she was convinced was hers. In each new place she faced the same problems she had contended with at previous stations.

In 1913 Mary Slessor received an award from the British government. She was elected an Honorary Associate of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. When she actually received the medal, she was most embarrassed. In keeping with her character, she accepted it on behalf of all the missionaries who served in Calabar.

Slessor’s last letter to Partridge was written on Christmas Eve 1914. She confided that she did not much care whether or not she survived her “long illness.” She was depressed by the deaths of two friends and by the news of the war in Europe. Less than a month later, she died.

Remembrance

Mary Slessor’s stubborn drive to open new territory to education and the presentation of the gospel message stands as a prime example of what Ogbu Kalu, Nigerian church historian and professor of world Christianity and mission at McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, refers to as “a broader view of the style and vision of the [missionary] enterprise.” He states, “Her vision was much broader and more activist than her compatriots could imagine.”[10]

Slessor demonstrated her social activism in a number of ways: her persistent rescue of twins and orphans, in some cases adopting and raising the children as her own; her determination to make life better for women in general, especially in setting up vocational training schools for them; her use of the “each one teach one” principle later espoused by Frank Laubach and other modern literacy proponents (she would send a couple of boys who had learned to read into a village that had invited her to come, and they would teach not only reading but also what they knew of the Bible); and her participation in settling disputes, whether as an agent of the British government or on an informal, personal basis. She brought a semblance of order to communities in a time of social and political upheaval.

Kalu says, “Slessor represents [a] genre of missionary presence which rejected the social and spatial boundaries created by the ‘ark syndrome’ in missionary attitude.”[11] In Calabar she was a catalyst that challenged the mission to change emphasis, to become a sending body rather than a mostly stationary body, a practice the mission’s converts had been urging for some years. She garnered support from younger mission colleagues, in addition to being admired by British colonial personnel and the people of the districts where she lived and worked.

Mary Slessor’s importance in the history of the development of the church in Africa cannot be denied. She is remembered–by some, venerated–in both Scotland and southeastern Nigeria. In 2000 she was chosen one of the millennium persons of Calabar, the place she began her witness. She is honored in the area with statues, each a likeness of Slessor holding twin babies. A hospital and schools are named for her. In Scotland a ten-pound note bears her picture. Queen Elizabeth laid a wreath at her grave in Calabar in 1956. The museum in Dundee displays stained glass windows that depict events from her life. Slessor herself would have shunned such goings-on. Regardless, she left a trail of churches and schools, a host of people who admired her deeply–and many who still do.

Jeanette Hardage

Slessor Notebook, 1874, Dundee Museum, DUNMG/MSColl, 1984- 258.

James Buchan, The Expendable Mary Slessor (New York: Seabury Press, 1981), p. 25.

Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1996), p. 172.

W. P. Livingstone, Mary Slessor of Calabar (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1916), p. 55.

Buchan,* Expendable Mary Slessor*, p. 84.

Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988; originally published 1897), p. 74.

Buchan, Expendable Mary Slessor , p. 168.

Charles Partridge, “Letter [to Dundee],” August 24, 1950, Dundee Central Library.

Mary Slessor, “Letter [to Partridge],” October 3, 1907, Dundee Central Library.

Ogbu Kalu, “Personal Correspondence [E-mail to author],” February 25, 2002.

Selected Bibliography:

Works by Mary Slessor

Dundee Archives, Dundee, Scotland

“Personal Letters [misc.],” 1876, 1901-14.

“Personal Reports,” Women’s Missionary Magazine , 1901-13.

Dundee Art Galleries and Museum DUNMG/MSColl

“Diaries,” 1911 and 1914 (1956-16(a-b)).

“Notebook,” 1874 (1984-258).

Personal Bibles (with handwritten commentaries), 1910 and undated (1984-257; 1953-6(c)).

“Personal Letters [misc.],” 1877-1914 (1986-396; 1986-397(1-2); 1998-102; 1984-259(1-5); 1980-510).

Dundee Central Library, Local Studies Department

“Letters [to Charles Partridge],” 1905-14.

“The Prodigal Son [in Efik],” voice recording. Recorded by Charles Partridge in Nigeria; ca. 1905.

National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

“Personal Letters [misc.],” 1884-1914 (Acc 5239/1; 6825/15).

“Personal Reports,” Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland [title varies], 1875-1915.

University of Edinburgh Main Library, Department of Special Collections “Letter [to Agnes Young],” February 24, 1913.

Works About Mary Slessor

Of numerous biographies the most useful for study are: Buchan, James. The Expendable Mary Slessor . New York: Seabury, 1981.

Christian, Carol, and Gladys Plummer. God and One Redhead. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1970.

Livingstone, W. P. Mary Slessor of Calabar, Pioneer Missionary. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1916.

Significant information on the Scottish Presbyterian mission work in Calabar or on Mary Slessor appears in:

Hudson, J. Harrison, Thomas W. Jarvie, and Jock Stein. Let the Fire Burn: A Study of R. M. McCheyne, Robert Annan, and Mary Slessor. Dundee: Handsel Publications, 1978, pp. 42-65.

Johnston, Geoffrey. Of God and Maxim Guns: Presbyterianism in Nigeria, 1846-1966. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier Univ. Press, 1988.

Kalu, Ogbu, ed. A Century and a Half of Presbyterian Witness in Nigeria, 1846-1996. Lagos: Ida-Ivory Press, 1996.

Luke, James. Pioneering in Mary Slessor Country. London: Epworth, 1929.

McFarlan, Donald M. Calabar: The Church of Scotland Mission, 1846-1946. London: Thomas Nelson, 1946.

Proctor, J. H. “Serving God and Empire: Mary Slessor in South-Eastern Nigeria, 1876-1915.” Journal of Religion in Africa 30, no. 1 (2000): 45-61.

Taylor, W. H. “Mary Slessor (1848-1915), Pedagogue Extraordinary.” Scottish Education Review 25, no. 2 (1993): 109-22.

Taylor, W. H. Mission to Educate: A History of the Educational Work of the Scottish Presbyterian Mission in East Nigeria, 1846-1960. Leiden: Brill, 1996.

This article is reprinted from the International Bulletin of Missionary Research , Oct. 2002, vol. 6, No. 24, by permission of the Overseas Ministries Study Center, New Haven, Conn. For details visit www.OMSC.org . All rights reserved.

Mary Slessor, 1848-1915

Went to Africa in 1876

"To heathen Africa she gave a new conception of womanhood, and to the world at large an imperishable example of Christian devotion."

To this verdict every student of African mission history must agree. Scotland also gave to Africa this devoted servant of her Lord, as she gave to the land of Ham so many great Christian workers. Mary Slessor was born December 2, 1848, in the city of Aberdeen, the second of a family of seven children. Her father was a drunkard, who made life miserable for his entire family, but her mother was a beautiful Christian woman who reared her children in the fear of God. And yet those more rugged traits which made her a great missionary in Africa, Mary inherited from her father, whose death was so great a blessing to the family. For many years her mother had to work in a factory to earn a scant living for her children; but after the death of her father, Mary worked for the family, and even when she was in Africa she supported her mother from her meager salary.

But never would the sunshine of Christian faith and joy pass from the simple home, even in those terrible later years when the father, almost frantic from drunkenness, would cause nights of terror. After the unhappy Saturdays, when Slessor spent his week's wages in drinking, there would come a happy Sunday when the mother with her seven children would hurry to Sunday school where Mary became a teacher when she was yet almost a child. Even then she dreamed of Africa, and her favorite game was to teach an imaginary school of black children. She read avidly, and was a constant student of the Bible and of Milton's Paradise Lost . In spite of this she was a mischievous, impulsive, strong-willed child who was able to beat down any boy that picked a fight with her. Her work in the factory brought her constantly in contact with the roughest element of the city, and this tended to make her a rough and ready antagonist for every one who happened to attempt to oppose her.

In 1874, the Christian world was profoundly moved by the news of Livingstone's death. Everybody spoke of the great missionary hero who by his own choice had died in the jungle of Africa. Now Mary could no longer restrain her passion for missionary work in Africa. She confided her wish to her mother who replied :

"My child, I'll willingly let you go. You'll make a fine missionary, and I'm sure God will be with you."

After some months of special training in missionary work, she was appointed for the West Coast of Africa, the "white man's grave." On August 5, 1876, when Mary was twenty-eight years old, she took the vow to consecrate her whole life for this part of Africa, and immediately sailed from Scotland, her beloved country.

Her field was to be in the city of Calabar, where the United Presbyterian Church had done missionary work for many years. Calabar was the principal coast city of Nigeria, which Great Britain protected by her flag. Nigeria was a part of the slave coast from which each year thousands of slaves were shipped to the west. Some of these slaves, who had been sold to Jamaica, in 1824, conceived of the thought of bringing the Gospel to their home country. The mission was planted and the United Presbyterian Church took charge of it. In 1845, greater interest in the work was aroused by Hope Waddell, who spent some time in Scotland in the interest of African missions.

While the mission was fairly successful, Old Calabar remained what it always had been, a wretched and wicked Sodom, where vice and heathenism flourished. Here all the superstitions and barbarous customs of paganism were practiced, and besides the natives learned from the depraved white people many additional criminal practices. Belief in demons was universal, witchcraft and the horrible poison ordeal were practiced everywhere. Human sacrifices were offered on the river bank for success in fishing. When twin children were born they were buried alive or exposed in the woods, while the unfortunate mother was driven into the bush or even killed; for it was believed that the second child to which she gave birth was the product of her mingling with an evil spirit. When chiefs or other great men died their wives were buried alive with them, while their slaves were slain and their heads thrown into the grave. To these hideous customs must be added the horrors of incessant warfare, of slavery and slave-raiding which made the whole country a veritable hell of degradation. Surely, Mary Slessor could not have chosen a field where missionary work was needed more than right at Calabar!

The horrors of heathenism did not terrify her, since from earliest childhood she had been in contact with vice and sin. She dearly loved the African people for Christ's sake, and at once set out to learn the native language much to the astonishment of the blacks, who said of her that she was gifted "with an Efik mouth." For three years she zealously devoted herself to her new and hard tasks. Then the dreadful coast fever seized her, and she was obliged to return to Scotland for a rest.

But in 1880, Mary Slessor returned to Calabar with new ardor, and now she was allowed to work in Old Town, among the natives, where she employed her own missionary methods. A large part of her meager salary was sent home and she lived largely on native food, which cost her little or nothing. But the chief reason why she preferred living in Old Town, was because she there could become like the natives themselves whom she meant to raise from degradation to purity of life. Her first missionary work was to save the babies that were to be killed or exposed to death. These she gathered and brought to her home, which in a short time became a veritable foundlings' home. But she succeeded in saving also many of the poor mothers who were to be killed, and these together with the children she instructed in the Christian religion. Had she been more inclined to organize her mission work, she might have started a large educational and industrial training school like Lovedale in South Africa, but she was no organizer and was very much averse to routine work. In fact, after a few years' toil in Calabar, she became tired of the humdrum life there, and she begged the Mission Council to permit her to begin work in the interior. For a woman this was a bold and daring venture, and the Mission Council long hesitated before granting her permission. But in 1886, they at last gave consent to her ceaseless requests, and she started off at once for the country of Okoyong, which lies in the angle between the Calabar and the Cross River.

In the district of Okoyong, Mary Slessor encountered a fierce and powerful tribe of Bantu origin, lighter in color than most of the blacks in Nigeria and of finer physique, but thoroughly degraded. Their barbarism was appalling. Head-hunting was one of their favorite pursuits, and between fights they were given to drunkenness and bloody brawls. It was not easy for the white woman to gain permission to settle in the territory of this cruel and oppressive tribe. But in 1888, after many futile attempts, Mary Slessor boldly sailed up the Cross River as far as Ekenge, and begged permission of Chief Edem to establish a mission house in his village. The chief's sister, Ma Eme, at once took a liking to the bold Scottish lass, and induced her brother to permit her to live among the natives. To the end of her life Ma Eme remained a heathen, but she always supported Mary Slessor's work. Mary now returned to Calabar to prepare for a permanent settlement in Okoyong.

On August 3, 1888, her preparations were completed, and in the early hours of a dull gray day Mary Slessor set out for Okoyong. A drizzling rain fell upon the hot country, as a few Christian friends accompanied her to the river and bade her farewell; they said:

"We will pray for you, but you are courting death."

When leaving Calabar, she had five orphan children in her home, the oldest of which was eleven, while the youngest was a babe in arms. No one wanted them and so she took them with her though they added to the hardships of the voyage. Late that night the missionary party were in the Okoyong country, four miles from the village of Ekenge, which was concealed far back in the tropical forest. With her tired and weeping children Mary at once set out for the village where she arrived in a state of complete exhaustion. The oarsmen whom she had commanded to follow, did not arrive, and so alone she went through the forest to the landing place where after a long and severe tongue lashing she finally succeeded in rousing the men from their sleep. By midnight the supplies had been secured in Ekenge.

Mary at once supervised the erection of a mission compound. A mud-walled house was built with several out-stations for the supplies and the women and children whom she might harbor. Unfortunately, the rainy season had set in, so that the whole compound was soon swimming in a pool of muddy water. But Mary was not discouraged. With bare feet and bare head, her hair having been cut short like that of the natives, she worked each day, subsisting on native food, drinking unfiltered water, getting drenched with rain, and doing everything that might have killed an ordinary person. The natives took to her at once, for she perfectly mastered their language, and her fearlessness and good humor made her pleas irresistible. When they fought, she plunged into the midst of the combatants. When they threatened her, she threatened them in turn; when they laughed, she joined in with them. Sometimes she would scold; at other times she would weep; often she would turn her back upon them when they would not obey, but always she kept her commanding attitude which awed the natives into respect. Yet she was no vixen; it was her love for that work that made her so overpoweringly bold. Later, in Scotland, when she was on her furlough, she was so shy that she could not address a meeting as long as a single man was in the audience. But in Africa the chiefs from far and near bowed to her commands and fulfilled her wishes.

Soon the mission compound was full of children who were to be killed, and their mothers driven into the bush. Each day she scoured the woods to find babes exposed and mothers beaten and expelled from the tribal town. These she would bring to the compound, and though by doing this blessed work, she violated every tribal custom, no one dared to interfere with her or molest those whom she sheltered in the compound. Above the house flew the British flag, and in Calabar there were British cannon. Yet, after all, it was her personality which subdued the natives to her will. Of her feats of heroism untold stories are narrated. Once she rescued a babe which had lain exposed in the bush for almost five days, and which she found almost eaten up by the flies and insects. With infinite patience she nursed the little girl back to health. Many years afterwards the young woman was married to an educated native in the service of the Government, and she lived in a fine home and drove around in a motor car. She never forgot the kindness of her good godmother and remained to her end a true Christian. Another time, a son of Chief Edem had been crushed under a heavy log, and upon the advice of a witch doctor, a neighboring tribe was captured to be slaughtered as a propitiatory sacrifice. With great boldness Mary took the burial rites into her own hands, and by her persistent pleas and her irresistible commands saved the victims from a cruel death. In the end, a cow was sacrificed at the grave. It was the first chief's grave in Okoyong which was not saturated with human blood.

In 1891, the British Government appointed her Vice-consul for Okoyong, and though she did not like the routine work connected with it, she readily accepted it because it gave her increased prestige and authority. In 1894, after a service of three years as an official of the Government, she could write in her report:

"No tribe was formerly so feared because of their utter disregard of human life, but human life is now safe in Okoyong. No chief ever died without the sacrifice of many human lives, but this custom has now ceased. Some chiefs, in commenting on the wonderful change, said: `Ma, you white people are God Almighty. No other power could have done this.'"

With the officials of the Government she was always on the best of terms. One of them in later years has given this description of her, as she sat in court and administered justice:

"There was a little frail old lady with a lace shawl over her head and shoulders, swaying herself in a rocking chair and crooning to a black baby in her arms. Her welcome was kind and cordial. I had had a long march on an appallingly hot day, and she insisted upon complete rest before we proceeded to the business of the court. It was held just below her house. Her compound was full of litigants, witnesses, and onlookers, and it was impressive to see with what deep respect she was treated by them all. The litigants emphatically got justice, sometimes, perhaps, like Shylock, 'more than they desired'; and it was essential justice, unhampered by legal technicalities."

Those who sought the settlement of their disputes at the hands and court of Mary Slessor sometimes traveled hundreds of miles and her judgments were never disputed.

However, in spite of her many administrative duties, Mary Slessor never forgot the one great task which had attracted her to Africa. Amid her many labors and difficulties she always testified of Christ. In the mission compound she held services; she daily taught the children at school, and visited the homes of the natives to instruct and comfort them. Sometimes she lost count of the days and on Sundays she would mend the roof of the church with her own hands, while on Mondays she conducted services. But her call to services was always answered by the natives, over whom she exerted perfect control.

In 1896, overcome by ill health, she returned to Scotland on her second furlough, after a stay in Africa of sixteen years. Since she could not entrust her babies to the natives, she brought four of the smallest and most helpless ones with her. She was given one ovation after another, yet she was so shy that she avoided crowds wherever possible, and begged her friends to meet her singly, rather than in groups. While in Scotland, she pleaded with the Mission Council to permit her to open a new mission station farther in the interior of the country. After three years her desire was gratified and a male missionary was appointed in her place in Ekenge. Just then an epidemic of smallpox harassed the whole country. Mary Slessor turned her house in Ekenge into a mission hospital, and leaving it in charge of native helpers, hurried to the more populous town of Akpap, where she fought the disease single-handed. Her old chief, Edem, had caught the infection, and she nursed him faithfully until he died. Then with her own hands she made a coffin, dug the grave, and buried him. When finally two missionaries arrived from Calabar, they found her exhausted from her arduous labors, while her hospital-home in Ekenge was full of corpses, not a single soul having been left to take care of the sick.

Meanwhile the British armies had penetrated the country west of the Cross River, and had even gone beyond the Niger, where mighty cannibal tribes inhabited the Ibo country. At Itu there was a great slave-market from which captives were constantly shipped to Calabar. At Arochuku, thousands of pilgrims worshiped a most terrible idol, called the long Ju-Ju. The British force took Arochuku, subdued the tribes, and demolished Ju-Ju. In this way a vast and populous country was thrown open to the work of Christian missionaries. Mary Slessor could not restrain her desire to follow the missionary call into this wild and unknown territory, and finally the Mission Council permitted her to take up work among the degraded natives of this section of Nigeria. She was now fifty-four years of age, but with fresh vigor she set out on the new venture. Twelve more years she was spared for work and achievement in Nigeria. She established herself first at Itu and, later, when a medical missionary took charge of this important field, she pushed on up country. Everywhere the people received this strange, good woman with joy and respect. In her work she was assisted by Christian boys and girls from Okoyong, and the progress of the missionary enterprise was as rapid as it was encouraging. The old Ju-Ju idol had been overthrown by the Christian God, and so the natives wanted to know who this mighty Lord was. At one unknown place, called Akani Obio, Mary Slessor was kindly received by a chief named Onoyom, who at Calabar had been instructed in the Christian religion, but who later on had returned to heathenism. He now offered to build a church in which Mary Slessor might teach the people, and contributed fifteen hundred dollars for the mission compound which she erected. When, with other converts, he later came to the Lord's Table, he said:

"Akani Obio is now linked on to Calvary. I am sure our Lord will never keep it from my mother."

Her success was so great that the British Government, in 1905, again asked her to administer justice in and around Itu. She consented to do the work, but refused the high salary offered to her, since she was supported by mission funds. With great tact and skill she discharged the duties of this office until ill health obliged her, in 1909, to resign the post. For a number of years she rode from village to village on a bicycle, which her Government friends had bought for her, but toward the end of her life she had to be drawn from place to place in a rickshaw.

In 1912, her health was completely shattered, and her many friends arranged for a short vacation in the Canary Islands. She accepted the offer, hoping that her life might be spared for a few more years of service. She was a frail little lady, with a face wrinkled like yellow parchment, but in spite of her weakness she was full of enterprise and fun. When she returned to Calabar, she received from the King of England the silver cross of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which is conferred only on persons who are eminently distinguished for philanthropy. She was glad to escape the publicity connected with this great honor and said, as she returned to the interior, that she could never "face the world again after all this blarney." Her mind was still busy with new missionary projects. Near Itu she founded an industrial home for women and girls. To Scotland she sent letter after letter asking for new workers. She urged the Missionary Council to provide motor cars for their missionaries in order that they might gain more time for missionary work. She herself moved from place to place, opening village after village to the ever increasing number of Christian missionaries that were sent to Nigeria. Finally, only one solitary city, the populous town of Iban, held out, refusing steadfastly to receive the Christian missionaries. But she was undaunted. So long and ardently she pleaded with the town chiefs that at last she gained the victory. That night she wrote a letter to her friends in Scotland, telling them that "she was the happiest and most grateful woman in the world."

But a last heavy blow was to strike this ardent woman missionary. This was the cruel World War, which penetrated also into Africa. When she heard the first news of the great tragedy, she was at Odore Ikpe, where she was building a mission compound. When she heard that Belgium had been invaded and the French armies were on the retreat, and when she learned that her own country was involved in the struggle, she sank back as if struck by lightning. Her native girl helpers put her to bed, where she lapsed into unconsciousness. Afterwards they placed her in a boat and rowed her to Itu. Under the careful medical care she rallied and returned to her mission station, where she taught her classes as usual, though she could no longer stand while conducting the service. But right to the last Sunday of her life and by sheer force of will, she continued in her work. Death claimed her on Wednesday, January 13, 1915, just as the dawn was breaking. Her body was taken to Calabar, where she was buried on Mission Hill, a most beautiful cemetery, which overlooks a large part of the city where she labored so faithfully when she served as a missionary apprentice. For thirty-nine years she had served Africa, bringing to this darkened country the light and life of her Lord.

>> More Mary Slessor

The Mary Slessor Foundation

Committed to improving the lives of people in akpap okoyong, nigeria, mary mitchell slessor.

Mary Mitchell Slessor was born on 2 December 1848 into a working class family in Aberdeen. The family moved to Dundee in 1857 in search of work. Her father was a trained shoemaker but due to his struggle with alcoholism, the family suffered very severe hardship. Mary, her mother and older brother Robert had to find work in the mills to support the family, she had five younger siblings and they all lived in a one room house in a slum area of Dundee.

The experience of living in poverty and struggling to survive helped Mary to develop the resilience, drive and determination that would prove invaluable in her later life as a missionary in Africa.

Mary became a mill girl in the Baxter Brothers and Co. Ltd. Lower Dens Mill and attended the mill’s half-time school. The Scotland Education Act of 1872 encouraged employers to provide some education for the children that they employed. This meant very long working days for the children who would often attend school for six hours after they had finished their shift in the mill. By the time she was fourteen, Mary was a linen power loom weaver, a skilled job. She became an avid reader and like David Livingstone, would read when she could during her working day, with a book propped on her loom.

Life in Dundee in 1800s

The industrialization of towns and cities across Scotland in the early 1800s, resulted in huge increases in population as people moved from rural areas to towns for work. The population in Dundee rose from 26,000 in 1801 to a staggering 166,000 in 1840 with the development of textile, shipbuilding and whaling industries. Housing and sanitation couldn’t keep pace with such expansion and many working class families, including the Slessors, ended up living in overcrowded slum areas with little or no sanitation.

With no welfare state at this time, families without a regular income could fall quickly into desperate circumstances, suffering from hunger and disease, with infant mortality extremely high.

Many people tried however to retain an image of respectability despite their desperate living conditions, especially in front of those of authority, such as church elders, even if this meant going to the pawn shop on a Saturday night to retrieve Sunday best clothes to attend church the next morning.

The Call to Africa

In her twenties, Mary volunteered to teach at a new Dundee mission in Queen Street, in one of the poor areas of the city. Bible study was taught and what would be considered a youth group nowadays was organized with trips to the country for the local children to give them some respite from their daily lives. Her sense of humour and down to earth approach made her a popular teacher. Her own experience of growing up in poverty and deprivation meant she could relate well to the local children and understood what their lives were like.

Missionary work in 1800s

Many churches in Scotland had strong links with their foreign missions across the world. It was considered an important role for congregations to raise funds and support missionary work. There was a constant demand for people with different skills including teaching and the trades (carpenters, printers, builders etc.) to volunteer to undertake work in the foreign missions.

The Slessor family attended the United Free Presbyterian, Wishart Church in the Cowgate area of Dundee. Mary’s mother was a devout Christian woman who felt it was important to send missionaries to remote parts of the world. So despite the family’s difficult circumstances, she was keen for her children to consider this work, even though in general, recruits to the missions tended to be from better off families.

The Wishart Church was linked to the Calabar Mission in West Africa, an area we now know as Southern Nigeria. Churches published monthly magazines to keep congregations informed about work in the missions. Hearing about life in what were then very remote and unimaginable parts of the world such as Africa, Jamaica and China was a revelation to people back in Scotland in the 1850s and these were read avidly. Large sums of money were raised by local congregations to support missionary work and these sums were listed for each parish in magazines such as The Missionary Record and The Women’s Missionary Magazine .

Legacy in Nigeria and Britain

By 1914 Mary Slessor was 66 and suffering from increasing ill health and disability following years of hardship and continual demanding work in a tropical climate. She had suffered many bouts of malaria as well as other tropical diseases and had often gone without food in difficult times, both while growing up in Dundee and as a missionary. All of these hardships had taken their toll on her physically, she died on 13 January 1915 in the village of Use, with many of her children at her side.

There was widespread mourning at her death and she was given a state funeral by the British in Calabar attended by people who had travelled many miles from their villages. She was buried in the cemetery in Duke Town. A large cross of granite from Scotland marks her grave.

Mary Slessor was very well known across the Calabar region by the time of her death due to the number of people she had worked with and helped. Her teaching, caring and nursing skills and ability to sort out local disputes in a just manner, made her much more than a missionary. Her role as vice-consul and magistrate had brought her to the attention of British government officials across the region and back home.

Her dedication to the people of Calabar and respect and support for them as individuals, having genuine concern for their welfare, was a completely new experience for them. Her work to try to stop twin murders, rescue abandoned children, improve the lives of women and develop trade links between tribes, made a huge impact on the future development of the country.

In Nigeria there are many reminders of Mary Slessor, statues of her holding twins, roads, streets and hospitals named after her. Similarly in Britain streets are named after her in several cities including Coventry, Dundee and Glasgow.

A commemorative stained glass window depicting scenes from her life was commissioned and installed in 1923 in the building which is now The McManus, Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum. Many books were written about her life and commemorations held on significant anniversaries.

On the 13th January 2015, a newly commissioned memorial to Mary Slessor was unveiled in Dundee outside The Steeple Church on the 100th anniversary of her death.

First Impressions of Calabar

The port at Duke Town would have been busy with traders and other traffic as she arrived, but extremely different from the whaling and textile port of Dundee that she was familiar with. The blazing sunshine, tropical greenery and very different smells and sounds would have been an overwhelming contrast to what she was accustomed to. Mud huts of different sizes with woven roofs were the main form of housing.

The mission at Calabar had been established in 1846, so by the time Mary Slessor arrived there in 1876 it was a thriving place with many missionaries and other staff. Some of those who were there to greet her on her arrival had been in Duke Town for many years.

Mary set to work quickly teaching the children and working in the dispensary. She began to learn the local language, Efik, so that she could communicate with the local people. With red hair, blue eyes and a strong Dundonian accent, she would have stood out among the other missionary workers.

She soon began to adapt to the new environment, abandoning some of the Victorian dress styles which missionaries from Britain still wore, but were impractical for active work in a hot climate and she cut her hair short. She also ate the local food. Many missionaries ate food which had been transported from Britain, but this was expensive. She was sending money from her missionary salary back to Dundee to support her mother and two sisters and so tried to save as much as possible.

Life in Calabar was very different to British Society. Differences included: the very different climate and terrain, wild animals in the jungle areas, local customs, superstition and witch craft, tropical diseases and aggression from some local tribes who didn’t welcome outsiders. Alcoholism was widespread among the local population due in part to foreign countries, including Britain, bringing large stocks of gin into the region for trade. Many missionaries didn’t last long, either dying from disease or being sent home ill. Earlier missionaries had been killed by local tribesmen.

Local tribes often mistrusted each other and fought resulting in loss of life on both sides. Grudges were held over long forgotten incidents and slights.

Slavery had been abolished in Britain in 1833 but was still widespread in Africa in 1876. Kings, chiefs and other powerful men had many slaves. When their owner died, Slaves would be killed to accompany him in the next world. The slave trade worldwide had damaged the Calabar region and its culture, many of its young men had been lost.

Mary found the hierarchy that assisted among the missionary community difficult to deal with at times and was relieved to have the opportunity to visit mission stations further up the Creek River where things were simpler. She began to feel that her time would be better spent in areas where there were fewer missionaries than in the well-staffed mission in Duke Town. She asked about moving further inland to work, but was told this was not safe for a woman on her own.

One of the key challenges for missionaries wanting to work further into the region was the lack of roads. Travel was either via canoe up the Calabar, Cross and Creek Rivers, or on foot for many miles through dense tropical forest and swamp land.

The First Church in Okoyong – at Ifako

“Ma’s” Quarters at Akpap This was the first hut in which she lived with the children before the Mission House was built

Customs and Beliefs

Missionaries to Calabar faced a strong culture of superstitions and beliefs that were held and enforced in local tribes and communities. Life was governed by fear of curses and punishments.

Witch doctors had a very strong influence over the local people and were held in great fear. They were called on by the tribal chiefs to apportion blame when accidents happened or disputes were to be settled. They would administer brutal justice which often resulted in the death of innocent people.

The esere bean, which is indigenous to the area and poisonous to humans were used at tribal trials to prove innocence. The accused were made to consume a potion made from the bean and it was considered that they were innocent if they vomited up the poison. If they died it was considered that they were guilty of whatever they had been accused of.

Other punishments included boiling oil being poured over the accused and taking the Mbiam oath involved having to drink a foul liquid described by Mary Kingsley, explorer, as made of ‘ filth and blood’ and recite an oath.

Mary intervened when Chief Edem of Ekenge’s son Etim died as the result of a house building accident. The witch doctor was summoned to say who was responsible for this death and another village was accused. To try and avert many deaths, Mary had an elaborate coffin made for the dead son and dressed him up in a European suit with feathers and other decorations to make him look as impressive as possible for onlookers to stop the murder of prisoners taken from the other village. Chief Edem was wary of carrying out his threat to kill in Mary’s presence and so she and Charles Ovens, the missionary carpenter, kept a vigil for two weeks to save the prisoners.

Mary gradually won the trust of local people as she lived with them, learning about their lives and helping them. She was gradually asked to mediate in disputes and resolve issues. Working tirelessly she tried to improve the lives of women and children in particular, sometimes putting her own life at risk in dealing with highly charged confrontations with chiefs, other local leaders and witch doctors.

Twins and Adopted Family

One of the most harrowing customs that Mary encountered in this particular part of Africa was in relation to the birth of twins. It was considered that when twins were born, one of them was the child of the devil and as it wasn’t known which twin this was, they both had to be killed. The mothers were then ostracized and banished from their community with no means of support. The rescuing, protection and raising of surviving and abandoned twins and their mothers became one of Mary’s key roles in her work in Africa as well as working to change the culture and beliefs that were held in relation to twins.

Mary adopted some of the abandoned twins as her own. The first of these was Janie whose twin had been killed. Part of the role of a missionary was to look after the local children and teach them reading and writing to enable them to learn bible stories, however they were not encouraged by the mission societies who employed them to adopt them into their own family. Mary, always following her instincts, ignored this rule and is known to have adopted nine rescued children. They became her family and helped her in her work as she gradually worked as the only missionary in more remote parts of Calabar.

Malaria in 1800s

In 1876 when Mary first arrived in Calabar, it was not known that mosquito bites transmitted the parasites that cause malaria. Many missionaries and other Europeans died of the disease. Symptoms include, a high temperature, sweating and chills, headaches, vomiting and muscle pains. This was often the reason for missionaries dying or being sent home ill. Mosquitos breed in fresh or brackish water (salt water in estuaries and rivers) and so those living in mission houses near to the Calabar rivers were often at risk.

Ronald Ross won Britain’s first Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1902 for his research into malaria. Through his practical experiments with mosquitoes and patients, he discovered that the disease is spread by the transfer of malaria parasites through a mosquito’s bite.

Quinine, the active plant ingredient from the South American cinchona tree, had the biggest impact in the early 20th century in reducing the number of deaths from malaria. However by the 1930s, the parasites were becoming quinine resistant, other medicines were then developed.

Malaria in 2015

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with approximately 167 million people. 97% of the population live in malaria prone areas. Malaria is the number one public health problem in the country with an estimated 100 million cases annually and over 300,000 deaths each year among children under five.

Various charities work in the country to try to adequately address the problem including Christian Aid which has implemented a NetsForLife program across various states to distribute mosquito nets to those particularly at risk. They use community based education programs to monitor net usage and promote environmental sanitation.

Mary suffered from serious bouts of malaria and other tropical illnesses throughout her life in Africa. In June 1879 she was sent home to Dundee for her first furlough (leave of absence) following a particularly severe bout of malaria. The normal tour of duty as a missionary at that time was four years before being allowed to return home on leave. Mary was allowed home a year early for this first furlough.

While on furlough, missionaries would visit local churches and missionary organisations to give talks about their work and experiences to raise funds and encourage more missionary recruits.

Find Out More about Mary

Thanks to Leisure and Culture (Dundee City Council) a wealth of information exists about Mary Slessor.

There is a permanent exhibition in the Upper Gallery of the McManus, with some audio visual capability, which incorporates a number of notable artefacts but particularly Mary’s bible, awash as it is with notes, thoughts and messages, written along the perimeter of virtually every page.

The Leisure and Culture website also provides links to a library of letters to and from Mary Slessor and a host of other articles, which are a phenomenal record which not only illustrate her character, but her dexterity, sense of humour and political acumen. Click here.

The late Edna Healey, in conjunction with Scottish Television, produced a documentary, over two episodes, entitled:-

“One More River: The Life of Mary Slessor in Nigeria”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueHn3uXKv5k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhp112hHuLs

Becoming a Missionary

Mary’s application to the Foreign Mission Board to go to Calabar was accepted. She travelled to Edinburgh for a three month training course in the skills that were thought to be important to become a missionary. Many of the practical skills that Mary already had as a skilled weaver and a resourceful woman having grown up in very difficult circumstances, were probably more useful for the life she was about to embark on.

Before she left Dundee, the congregation of the Wishart Church presented her with a gold watch.

On 5th August 1876 at the age of 28 she boarded the SS Ethiopia at Liverpool sailing to Duke Town in Calabar. The journey from Britain to West Africa in 1876 took roughly five weeks. Like most new missionaries at the time, she travelled, with set ideas about the work to be done and some misconceptions about the native people and their country. Many of these ideas were about to change.

Trade Links

After returning from her first furlough in 1880, Mary was sent to Old Town in Calabar a few miles from Duke Town. From then on she proceeded to work in increasingly remote villages up river, setting up new missions and building churches and schools. As the only missionary in these areas, she was helped by the local people to build mission houses but often lived in very basic mud huts sleeping on the floor surrounded by her children and others she had rescued and their mothers.

One of the ways in which Mary tried to improve the lives of the villagers in the communities in which she lived and worked, was to encourage the tribes to trade with each other instead of fighting. Her skill in speaking Efik, which was the main trading language, meant that she could converse easily with local leaders and discuss the benefits of trade.

She contacted King Eyo VII in Creek Town and asked him to invite a delegation of tribesmen from Okoyong to come and discuss the possibility of trading their palm oil and other produce. Considerable discussion was needed to persuade the Okoyong Chiefs to leave their weapons behind before embarking on the visit, which they eventually agreed to as long as Mary came along as well.

Chiefs became aware of the benefit of their people being able to speak English to trade more widely and so numbers in her classes increased to learn ‘Book’ as they called the Bible teaching. This was not necessarily to be able to learn the Bible, but to be able to negotiate with other traders from other countries in Calabar port.

The British Proctectorate

As word of ‘The White Ma’ spread around the Calabar district as the years went on, Mary was called on to help sort out local disputes in many difficult situations. Living with the people she was able to understand the detailed intricacies and histories behind local situations and disagreements. She was asked to attend court hearings for the local tribal justice systems and eventually oversee them and give judgments. Her skill in healthcare and being able to treat a variety of ailments, also enabled her name to become well known and trusted around the region and she would be sought out to give advice and medicine.

Calabar or Southern Nigeria as we now know it, became a British Protectorate in 1900. European countries such as Britain and France were gradually creating more formalized systems in West Africa following a history of trade and colonization. This brought some benefits such as new roads, but many problems.

Consul Claud Macdonald who arrived in Calabar in 1891 planned to set up a new system of courts in the area as part of the Protectorate. He had heard about the work of Mary Slessor and asked her about the planned court system. In her usual forthright manner she said that external people trying to settle local disputes would be a disaster. She therefore found herself appointed as his vice-consul to Okoyong appointed by the Secretary of State. She then had to manage challenging situations where she was representing the local people and dealing with British government officials, all of this, while continuing her missionary work and raising her children.

This role did however, make her the first female magistrate in the British Empire.

Missions Box

Think outside the missions box, mary slessor.

“O God! Old and feeble and unworthy as I am, help me to win them.” – Mary Slessor

Mary Slessor was born in Scotland in 1848. Her mother was a Christian. She knew God worked through prayer, so she spent hours praying. Mary’s mother was praying her son, Robert would become a missionary. On the other hand, her father was a shoemaker and drunkard.

Move to Dundee

In 1859, the Slessor family moved to Dundee. Mary’s mother hoped her husband would overcome his addiction to alcohol. Due to his alcoholism, Mary’s father lost his job. Mary started attending half a day of school provided by the Mill and the other half working in the Mill when she was eleven. At the age of 14, Mary started working full time from 6 am to 6 pm. Her only breaks were an hour for breakfast and an hour for lunch.

Mary was “a wild lassie” before becoming a Christian. She got into all sorts of trouble and looked back then with both amusement and shame. One day while Slessor was getting into mischief with her friends, an old widow by beckoned them into her house. The widow described the horrors of Hell and the eternal torment facing those who didn’t know Jesus.

Mary couldn’t sleep that night. The idea of eternal torment haunted her throughout the night. She came to the conclusion it would be best for her to make peace with God so she wouldn’t have to go to Hell. Once Slessor learned about the love of Jesus, she never used the same fear tactics to bring anyone into the kingdom.

Learning to Read

Mary did not know how to read until she was 14. Mary taught herself to read since she was working full time and had no way to get an education. She decided like David Livingstone to make time to read. Mary would go to the mill before work and read. Sometimes she would forget the time until the bell for work went off. Many of the mill workers were illiterate. She would get into conversations with Atheists, who were shocked a mill worker knew so much. Often times, Mary would be asked to address groups in Dundee. Mary dreaded these times and refused to stand on the platform above the common people. Instead, she sat with the people and talked to them in a conversational style. The people loved Mary and asked her to come back.

Mary and her mother faced abuse from her father especially on Saturday. Often, Mary and her mother would sew anxiously waiting for their father to get back home. Sometimes Mary would get kicked out on the street and forced to stay there for a few nights. Slessor would weep in the cold during her times on the street. These times of abuse would form in her a deeper sense of compassion and empathy for children with no parents. Eventually, her father died of pneumonia.

Ambition to be a Missionary

Mary’s mother took a monthly magazine from the United Presbyterian Church called Missionary Record . Mary was entrenched by the stories in the magazine especially the ones from Calabar.

Mary’s favorite person to read about was David Livingstone. His life inspired her to pursue being a missionary in Africa. When Livingstone died in May 1873, Mary decided she would take the place of David.

One day, a missionary came and spoke at Mary’s church. As he described the work being done in Africa, Mary’s eyes were opened. From that moment, she knew God was calling her to Africa. Her brother was contrary, saying she was only a girl and he would be the missionary in the family.

As it happened, Robert did become a missionary to New Zealand not to Africa. Robert died a few years after starting his service in New Zealand.

Church Work

As a youth, Mary was active in her church. Mary taught Sunday school at her Presbyterian Church. Often times, she would go onto the street and rally youth to attend the Sunday school classes. Many of these youth were part of gangs. Sometimes, the gang members would threaten Mary. She stood her ground though which brought many of them to Christ.

On one occasion a boy threatened to whip Mary if she didn’t leave. She persisted in telling him the Gospel. He was amazed by Mary’s boldness and followed her to Sunday school.

Another boy’s gang circled around her. The leader had a lead pipe. He swung it around as if he was going to hit her with it. Amazingly though, Slessor did not flinch or back off. With the order of the gang leader, they followed her to Sunday school because of her trust in God.

Years later, that boy would have a decent job and a family. He sent a picture of his family to Slessor. His encounter with Jesus had changed his life completely. The gang leader could have easily sat in jail his whole life instead of having a family who he loved.

Slessor was offered another job at the Victoria United Presbyterian Church with the Sunday morning mission service for youth. Mary would go around and knock on tenement doors. Even though they were sleeping, they would follow her. They esteemed Mary and as a result their lives were changed as many of them came to Christ.

Foreign Mission Board

In 1875, Mary applied for the Foreign Mission Board. She offered herself to go anywhere. Mary was accepted and assigned to Calabar as a teacher. Mary’s mother enthusiastically let her go to the training school. In March 1876, Mary started training school. For three months, Mary studied to be a missionary. Finally, in August 1876, Mary sailed off to Calabar.

One month after leaving in September 1876, Mary arrived in Calabar. Calabar was known as “the white men’s grave.” Very few outsiders have left Calabar to tell about it. To the tribes of Calabar, life meant very little. They would kill without any remorse and had no sense of right. More horrific than anything was the act of twin killing. People in Calabar believed that having a twin was the result of an evil spirit and a curse to the village.

Mary started in Duke town, where the mission was well established. They had different institutions including schools, hospitals and orphanages. Through all of these, people came to know Christ.

At 27 years of age, Mary started to learn Efik, the local language. Slessor was discouraged by the fact the missionary work was too routine. Mary wanted to explore and go to places where the name of Jesus had never been heard. She also wanted to live in the same huts of the natives instead of the luxurious houses of a missionary.

When Mary picked up the language, she decided to travel alone despite the warning that it might be dangerous. Slessor recognized she could get to know people better without a translator. Many of the places she went to were clustered with missionaries unlike inland Calabar.

Just three years after coming to Calabar, Mary was forced to take a furlough to Scotland due to sickness.

When Mary got back to Calabar, she was assigned to Old Town, a town with no missionary in it. In front of the meeting house, there was a skull. In addition, each house had their own gods hanging off the roof. To Slessor, this was a symbol of the darkness in the town.

Mary ministered to the people by providing medical care and teaching the Bible. The chief, King Eyo Honesty the sixth was a Christian and asked her for advice on dealing with outsiders. Mary in turn asked the chief about how to deal with the natives.

Further Inland

Despite the fact Mary’s ministry was successful; she had a burden to reach the Okoyong tribe. These people were in bondage to their drugs, slavery and violence. Slessor couldn’t help but wonder how she could reach out to the Okoyong people?

The people of Old Town and King Eyo Honesty the Sixth tried to dissuade Mary from going to the Okoyong tribe because of their reputation. Slessor was not one to be dissuaded. She insisted on going despite the danger. The chief sent a bodyguard with Slessor to see that she got to the Okoyong safely.

Slessor went completely native. She no longer dressed Scottish but instead dressed as a woman would in Calabar. Mary traveled barefoot and even went to the point of drinking unfiltered water.

What she found would have scared most people off. In the Okoyong tribe, twins were considered the seeds of evil spirits and the second to be born was murdered. On multiple occasions, Slessor intervened before the twins could be murdered. Other times, the twins were dropped onto her doorstep secretly before they could be killed. Slessor adopted many of these children and took them in as her own. At one time, she had as many as twelve children.

In addition, in front of the meeting house, there was a skull. To Mary, this was a symbol of the cruelty and the darkness of the tribe. The women didn’t have any rights and were killed without remorse. Whenever a women’s husband died, she was murdered along with the slave. The Okoyong had the belief they would be able to serve the husband in the afterlife this way.

Many times, people in the Okoyong tribe would fight against each other if they got in a dispute. On one occasion, there was a violent outbreak. Everybody had gotten in a circle to attack each other. Just in time, Mary came between the two groups. One of the instigators threatened to shoot her if she didn’t move. Slessor stood her ground despite the threat. The instigators were amazed at this white woman standing up to them and backed off.

Sometimes Mary had to come up with something clever to intervene in the situation since the conflict was too far for her to get to before any one got killed. On one occasion she was nowhere close to the scene of the violence. Slessor sent a runner with a piece of parchment paper wrapped with a velvet ribbon. Slessor would scribble on it to make it look like an important piece of paper. The instigators spent all day trying to figure out what the piece of parchment paper was until Mary could come and settle the conflict. After breaking up the conflict, Mary would sit and knit at the scene to make sure no other conflict would break out.

The question was why do the Okoyong continue their violent outbursts? As Slessor looked deeper, she found the tribe had no way of earning an income. This meaningless life led to both drinking and violence. Mary came up with a solution. She asked the chief about trading with outsiders. The chief disapproved of the idea. Despite the chief’s disapproval, Slessor started having the tribe trade. This new trading created inter-tribal peace for the first time. No longer did they fight. In addition, it created good relations with outsiders. King Eyo Honesty the Sixth hosted a feast for the Okoyong. He declared that if they would follow Jesus, then they would always be provided for. The Okoyong were amazed at the hospitality of Duke Town. Many of them started following Jesus because of this. As the Gospel continued to spread among the Okoyong, civilization came to them much faster than it did among the coast. It was only with a change of heart, that the outward change could come.

In time, Mary was made the judge of the Okoyong tribe by the British government. They were impressed by Slessor’s work and saw she was the most qualified for the job. She settled the disputes of the tribe and stopped their violent ways.

Mary felt a prompting from God to go to the Azo, a cannibalistic tribe. The Okoyong warned her not to go because she might die. The Azo people were not receptive to the Gospel at first. They had no interest in the God Mary was preaching. In time though, a whole village of 200 people came. The people were illiterate, so Slessor called for pastors to instruct the new believers.

Continued Travels

Mary did not stay in one spot for long. Her goal was to preach the Gospel and then establish a church in the village. Even as Slessor got old, she continued to travel with the help of natives and missionaries.

Throughout her ministry, Mary picked up diseases such as Malaria. Each time, Slessor had to go back to Scotland in order to recover. Mary bounced right back into her ministry after recovering from her illness.

World War I struck in July of 1914.Even Africa was affected by the war. This shocked Mary who after hearing the news, fell ill. She bounced back to her work after recovering in a hospital. After about 40 years of ministry, Mary died on January 13, 1915 while working in Itu.

Mary left a legacy not only in Calabar but also in her home town, Dundee. In Nigeria, Slessor is remembered and venerated even to this day. There are festivals throughout Nigeria commemorating her journey to reach the villages with the good news. A hospital was created in her honor in Itu, called Mary Slessor hospital to provide for the medical needs of the community. Churches from Mary Slessor still stand and are vibrant. On a church in Dundee, there is a stained glass window depicting the life of Mary Slessor. The most important thing though is not the buildings and decorations made in her honor. Instead, the changed lives are the most important legacy of all. If Mary had not kept on going further inland with her sickness and opposition, then not as many people would have come to know Jesus.

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Mary Slessor: Forward into Calabar (Christian Heroes: Then and Now)

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Mary Slessor: Forward into Calabar (Christian Heroes: Then and Now) Paperback – November 19, 2001

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Mary Slessor's story in an ageless epic of a woman who would stop at nothing to reach the lost with the life-giving gospel of Christ. (1848-1915).

Reading age 9 - 12 years
Part of series Christian Heroes: Then & Now
Print length 203 pages
Language English
Grade level 4 - 6
Dimensions 5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches
Publisher YWAM Publishing
Publication date November 19, 2001
ISBN-10 1576581489
ISBN-13 978-1576581483
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Mary Slessor

Forward into calabar.

'I'm not going anywhere, Mary mused. I'm twenty-seven years old. I work in a cotton mill twelve hours a day. God, Mary prayed, send me somewhere, anywhere, just send me to be a missionary .' God would indeed answer the prayer. For 39 years, Mary Slessor would labor in love among the tribes of Africa's Calabar region. Braving sickness, danger, and death, Mary became the cherished 'White Ma' to entire tribes. Her faith and pioneering spirit brought an example of the life found in Jesus Christ.

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Christian Heroes: Then & Now chronicles the exciting, challenging, and touching true stories of ordinary men and women whose trust in God accomplished extraordinary exploits for His kingdom and glory.

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Publisher ‏ : ‎ YWAM Publishing (November 19, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 203 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1576581489
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1576581483
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 9 - 12 years
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 4 - 6
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches
#163 in Religious Leader Biographies
#398 in Children's Biographies (Books)
#10,001 in Religion & Spirituality (Books)

About the author

Janet benge.

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Customers find the book well-written and inspirational. They say it's an exciting life story of a brave and faithful woman of God. Readers also mention the book stirs faith in young readers' hearts.

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"...Janet and Geoff Benge are experienced writers who write in an engaging and easy to read and digest style...." Read more

"... Reads very well and simply .My only critique is its general silence on the actual message Mary brought to Africa...." Read more

"THis is such a great series of missionary stories. They are very well written ...." Read more

"...beings I have ever heard of; and this account of her life is very well written ...." Read more

Customers find the story inspiring, exciting, and dramatic. They say it stirs the faith in young readers hearts. Readers also mention the book is a great series of missionary stories.

" Very inspiring story of a woman who was about as genuine a person as you would want someone to be. Talk about woman's lib...." Read more

"A life of courage, great faith and selfless commitment . Talk about woman power!..." Read more

"THis is such a great series of missionary stories . They are very well written...." Read more

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Mary Slessor Biographies
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Mary Slessor, the “White Queen of Calabar” Dies, 1915
Mary Slessor Biographies

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Mary Slessor (1848–1915)/ മേരി സ്ലെസർ (1848–1915)
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Mary Slessor........She saved twin babies #information #history #facts #scottish scottish
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Mary Slessor
Mary Slessor. Mary Mitchell Slessor was born on 2, December 1848 in Gilcomston, Aberdeen, Scotland, to a poor working-class family who could not afford proper education.She was the second of seven children of Robert and Mary Slessor. Her father, originally from Buchan, was a shoemaker by trade.Her mother was born in Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, and was a deeply religious woman. [3]
Who Was Mary Slessor?
Who Was Mary Slessor? Simonetta Carr. 5 Min Read. There is something about Mary Slessor that has turned her into a legend. By the time she died, she was as well-known as one of her role models, David Livingstone. Today, her name is still highly regarded both in her native Scotland (her image appeared on a 1997 Clydesdale Bank £10 note) and on ...
Who was Mary Slessor?
Answer. Mary Mitchell Slessor (1848—1915) was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary to West Africa. She advocated to improve conditions for women and worked tirelessly to protect native children. Among her notable achievements was putting an end to the abusive tribal practice of twin infanticide.
About Mary
About Mary. Mary Slessor was a hard working Scottish mill girl and an unorthodox Sunday School teacher, who, inspired by David Livingstone, became a missionary in Calabar, Nigeria, an area where no European had set foot before. Despite several bouts of illness and constant danger, she lived with the tribes, learned their language, and ...
'The Queen of Okoyong': The legacy of Mary Slessor
Scots missionary worker Mary Slessor, who died 100 years ago on 13 January, worked tirelessly to improve the lives of ordinary citizens of Calabar, Nigeria. To begin with, Mary Slessor was every ...
Mary Slessor 1848-1915
In his biography of 1980, James Buchan described her as the "Expendable Mary Slessor". Expendable she may have been, but few have given so much of themselves to so many, and under such appalling conditions. The grave of Mary Slessor, marked by an imposing cross of Scottish granite, is in the heart of the country she served so well.
"God and One are a Majority" Mary Slessor: From Factory ...
Mary's father, Robert Slessor, was an alcoholic. He probably felt useless, for the mills hired women and boys in preference to men, who had to be paid higher wages. When Robert came home violent, red-haired Mary stood up to him. To protect her from beatings, Mrs. Slessor shooed her out into the street, to wander crying until her father fell ...
Mary Slessor
Mary Slessor, 1848-1915, was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary to Africa. She made a huge impact on Nigeria and beyond. One source claims "much of West Africa was evangelised due to the open door that Mary Slessor created for the next generation of missionaries to follow after her. Today, hospitals, schools, orphanages and churches all stand ...
Mary's Legacy
Mary's Legacy. Extract from "Everyone's Mother" written by Jeanette Hardage. "Mary Slessor was an extraordinary woman. In her work as a missionary in the Calabar region of Nigeria, she demonstrated a rare ability to combine steely resolve and uncompromising strength with deep compassion and remarkable selflessness.
Mary Slessor: Biography on Undiscovered Scotland
Her life is celebrated on a Scottish £10 note issued by Clydesdale Bank. Mary Slessor was born in Aberdeen, moving to Dundee at the age of 11 in 1859. Her father was a shoemaker who lost his job due to an addiction to alcohol and eventually found work in Dundee's jute mills. Mary's mother was a strongly religious woman who ensured that Mary ...
PDF Mary Slessor Biography
A Brief Biography of Mary Slessor by E. E. Enock and J. Chappell Contents Chapter 1 That for Which She Was Apprehended Chapter 2 Learning the Ways and the People Chapter 3 Light in the Darkness Chapter 4 Storming Satan's Stronghold Chapter 5 Christ Triumphing in Okoyong Chapter 6 "Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my heart, my life, my all."
Heroes of the Faith: Mary Slessor, Mother to Orphans in Nigeria
Mary Slessor was a Scottish missionary to Nigeria. Mary Mitchell Slessor was born on December 2, 1848 in Aberdeen, Scotland. She was the second of seven children born to Robert and Mary Slessor. Her father was a shoemaker, but the family were very poor, due to his alcoholism. Her mother often worked in the mills to help make ends meet.
Slessor, Mary (A)
Sixty-six-year-old Mary Mitchell Slessor lay dying in the village of Use Ikot Oku, Nigeria. Feverish, weak, and going in and out of consciousness, she prayed, " O Abasi, sana mi yak " (O God, let me go). Her prayer was granted just before dawn on January 13, 1915. The woman known as eka kpukpru owo (everybody's mother) had lived nearly ...
Mary Slessor biography
Mary Slessor was born December 2, 1848, in the city of Aberdeen, the second of a family of seven children. Her father was a drunkard, who made life miserable for his entire family, but her mother was a beautiful Christian woman who reared her children in the fear of God. And yet those more rugged traits which made her a great missionary in ...
About Mary
Mary Mitchell Slessor was born on 2 December 1848 into a working class family in Aberdeen. The family moved to Dundee in 1857 in search of work. Her father was a trained shoemaker but due to his struggle with alcoholism, the family suffered very severe hardship. Mary, her mother and older brother Robert had to find work in the mills to support ...
Slessor, Mary (1848-1915)
Slessor, Mary (1848-1915)Scottish Presbyterian missionary to West Africa. Name variations: Mary Mitchell Slessor. Born Mary Mitchell Slessor in December 1848 in Gilcomston, near Aberdeen, Scotland; died of swamp fever on January 13, 1915, in Use, the Calabar, Nigeria; daughter of Robert Slessor (a shoemaker) and Mary Slessor (a weaver and textile factory worker); attended public schools ...
Mary Slessor
Mary and Janie landed in Plymouth, Devon in January 1891 and headed for Topsham to meet old friends and visit the graves of Mary's mother and sister. Staying at "Majorfield," a nearby house in the village, Mary rested much of the spring to regain her strength.². In both March and April Slessor received letters from James Buchanan ...
Mary Slessor
Missionary Bio's. Mary Slessor. December 8, 2015 December 3, 2019 "O God! Old and feeble and unworthy as I am, help me to win them." - Mary Slessor. Early Life. Mary Slessor was born in Scotland in 1848. Her mother was a Christian. ... Literacy Rates By Country, Literacy Statistics, Read And Write, World Literacy Rate, Youth Literacy ...
Mary Slessor: Forward into Calabar (Christian Heroes: Then and Now)
I work in a cotton mill twelve hours a day. God, Mary prayed, send me somewhere, anywhere, just send me to be a missionary.' God would indeed answer the prayer. For 39 years, Mary Slessor would labor in love among the tribes of Africa's Calabar region. Braving sickness, danger, and death, Mary became the cherished 'White Ma' to entire tribes.

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Mary Slessor, 1848-1915

The Mary Slessor Foundation

Life in Dundee in 1800s

The Call to Africa

Legacy in Nigeria and Britain

First Impressions of Calabar

Customs and Beliefs

Twins and Adopted Family

Find Out More about Mary

Becoming a Missionary

Trade Links

The British Proctectorate

Missions Box

Move to Dundee

Learning to Read

Ambition to be a Missionary

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Continued Travels

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