REVEREND MARY MITCHELL SLESSOR, Obongawan Okoyong (Queen of Okoyong) - 1848-1915. Mary Slessor was born December 2, 1848 in Gilcomston, close to Aberdeen, Scotland. She was second of seven children of Robert and Mary Slessor. In 1876, at 28 years of age, Mary was sent to Calabar region by the Presbyterian Church. She was warned by the mission house in Scotland that witchcraft and superstition were prevalent. The ritual sacrifice of children, and twins in particular, was customary among the people she would be ministering to, but Mary was undaunted. She wanted to go deeper into Calabar, malaria forced her to go home to Scotland and recover. She left Calabar for Dundee in 1879. She was in Scotland for 16 months before heading back to Africa. While in Calabar, she confronted a lot of issues, one of which was the widespread human sacrifice at the death of a village elder, who, it was believed required servants and retainers to accompany him in the next world, and the lack of education or any status for women, the other being the birth of twins which was considered an evil curse. In August 1888, she travelled north of Okoyong, an area where missionaries were previously killed, but Mary was sure that her teachings, and the fact that she was a woman, would be less threatening to unreached tribes than male missionaries had been. Unlike other missionaries, Mary lived as part of the tribe, learned to speak Efik, the native language, and made close relationships wherever she went. Mary Slessor went to live among the Efiks and the Okoyong which lived in Calabar in present day Nigeria. There she successfully fought against the killing of twins at infancy. Mary Slessor was a driving force behind the establishment of the HOPE WADDELL TRAINING INSTITUTE founded in 1895 in Calabar, which provided practical vocational training to Africans. In 1913, she was awarded the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Rev. Mary Slessor suffered failing health due to malaria for over 40 years which eventually took her life on 13th January 1915, aged 66 years. She was buried in Calabar with full military honours, attended by the Provincial Commissioner and other British officials.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 11:19:12 +0000
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