MARY MITCHELL SLESSOR was a Scottish missionary to Nigeria. Born on 2 December 1848 in Gilcomston, Aberdeen, Scotland in a poor working"class family. She was the second of seven children of Robert and Mary Slessor.
The Slessors lived in the slums of Dundee. Before long, Mary's father died of pneumonia, and both her brothers also died, leaving behind only Mary, her mother, and two sisters. By age fourteen, Mary had become a skilled jute worker, working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with just an hour for breakfast and lunch.
Her mother was a devout Presbyterian who read each issue of the Missionary Record, a monthly magazine published by The United Presbyterian Church (later The United Free Church of Scotland) to inform members of missionary activities and needs.
Slessor developed an interest in religion and, when a mission was instituted in Quarry Pend (close by the Wishart Church), she wanted to teach. She was 27 when she heard that David Livingstone, the famous missionary and explorer, had died, and decided she wanted to follow in his footsteps.
and arrived at her destination in West Africa just over a month later.
Just 28 years of age, red haired with bright blue eyes, Slessor was first assigned to the Calabar region of Nigeria in the land of Efik people.
She was warned that the Efik people there believed in traditional West African religion and had superstitions in relation to women giving birth to twins. Slessor lived in the missionary compound for 3 years, working first in the missions in Old Town and Creek Town. She wanted to go deeper into Calabar, but she contracted malaria and was forced to return to Scotland to recover.
Her work and strong personality allowed her to be trusted and accepted by the locals while spreading Christianity, protecting native children and promoting women's rights.
She left Calabar for Dundee in 1879. After 16 months in Scotland, Slessor returned to Calabar, but not to the same compound. Her new assignment was three miles farther into Calabar, in Old Town. Since she assigned a large portion of her salary to support her mother and sisters in Scotland, she economized by learning to eat the native food.
As a young missionary, Slessor confronted such issues as lack of Western education, and widespread human sacrifice at the death of a village elder, who, it was believed, required servants and retainers to accompany him into the next world.
The birth of twins was considered a particularly evil curse. Natives feared that the father of one of the infants was an evil spirit, and that the mother had been guilty of a great sin. Unable to determine which twin was fathered by the evil spirit, the natives often abandoned both babies in the bush " left them in the jungle in clay pots to die. Slessor adopted every child she found abandoned, and sent out twins missioners to find, protect and care for them at the Mission House. Some mission compounds were alive with babies. Slessor once saved a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, but the boy did not survive. Mary took the girl as her daughter and called her Janie.
WP Livingstone testified that when two deputies went out to inspect the Mission in 1881"82, they were much impressed. They 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.
After only three more years, Slessor returned to Scotland on yet another leave due to her health. This time, she took Janie with her. During the next 3 years, Slessor looked after her mother and sister (who had also fallen ill), raised Janie, and spoke at many churches, sharing stories from Calabar.
Later, she returned to Calabar. She saved hundreds of twins out of the bush, where they had been left either to starve to death or be eaten by animals. She helped heal the sick and stopped the practice of determining guilt by making the suspects drink poison. As a missionary, she went to other tribes, spreading the word of Jesus Christ.
News reached Slessor during her third mission to Calabar 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." 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."
Slessor was a driving force behind the establishment of the Hope Waddel Training Institute in Calabar, which provided practical vocational training to Efiks. Arochukwu, a town on the far west of Calabar also witnessed the superstitious threat against twins.
In August 1888, Slessor traveled north to Okoyong, an area where previous male missionaries had been killed. She thought that her teachings, and the fact that she was a woman, would be less threatening to unreached tribes. For 15 years, Slessor lived with the Okoyong and Efik people. She learned to speak Efik, the native language, and made close personal friendships wherever she went, becoming known for her pragmatism and humour. Slessor lived a simple life in a traditional house with Efiks. 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.
In 1892, Slessor became vice"consul in Okoyong, presiding 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. Though she suffered failing health in her later years, she remained in Calabar.
For the last four decades of her life, Slessor suffered intermittent fevers from the malaria she contracted during her first station to Calabar. However, she downplayed the personal costs, and never gave up her mission work to return permanently to Scotland. The fevers eventually weakened Slessor to the point where she could no longer walk long distances in the rainforest, but had to be pushed along in a hand"cart. In early January 1915, while at her remote station near Use Ikot Oku, she suffered a particularly severe fever. Slessor died on 13 January 1915.
Several memorials in and around the Efik provinces of Calabar and Okoyong testify to the value placed on her work…
Mary Slessor Road in Calabar
Mary Slessor Roundabout
Mary Slessor Church
Statues of her (usually carrying twins) at various locations in Calabar
Slessor received the colonial equivalent of a state funeral after her body was transported down the Cross River to Duke Town. A Union Jack covered her coffin. Attendees included the Provincial Commissioner, along with other senior British officials in full uniform. Flags at government buildings were flown at half mast. Nigeria's Governor"General, Sir Frederick Lugard, telegraphed his "deepest regret"' from Lagos and published a warm tribute in the Government Gazette.
SAMUEL AJAYI CROWTHER was born in Osogbo (in what is now Iseyin Local Government), Oyo State, Nigeria.
At just 12 years old, he was captured, along with his mother and toddler brother and other family members, along with his entire village, by Muslim Fulani slave raiders in 1821 and sold to Portuguese slave traders after slavery was banned in British colonies.
Later, he was freed by the British and taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone.
While in Sierra Leone Crowther was cared for by the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) and was taught English. He converted to Christiaity.
On 11 December 1825 he had a rebirth by baptism and he named himself after the vicar of Christ Church, Newgate, London " Samuel Crowther, who was one of the pioneers of the CMS.
In 1827 he returned to Freetown and attended, as the first student, the newly opened Fourah Bay College, an Anglican missionary school, where he studied Latin, Greek and Temne. After completing his studies he began teaching at the school.
Crowther married a schoolmistress, Asano (i.e. Hassana; she was formerly Muslim), baptized Susan who was also rescued from the Portuguese slave ship that originally brought Crowther to Sierra Leone, and had also converted to Christianity. Their children included Dandeson Coates Crowther, former archdeacon of the Niger Delta. Crowther was father"in"law to Thomas Babington Macaulay, a junior associate, who married Crowther's 2nd daughter, Abigail Crowther. Crowther's grandson, Herbert Macaulay (Thomas Babington Macaulay and Abigail Crowther's son) became one of the first Nigerian nationalists and played an important role in ending British colonial rule in Nigeria.
Crowther was selected to accompany the missionary James Schön on the Niger expedition of 1841. Together with Schön, he was expected to learn Hausa for use on the expedition. The goal of the expedition was to spread commerce, teach agricultural techniques, spread Christianity, and help end the slave trade.
Following the expedition, Crowther was recalled to England, where he was trained as a minister and ordained by the Bishop of London. This was after Schön had written to the Church Missionary Society noting Crowther's usefulness and ability on the expedition, recommending them to prepare him for ordination. He returned to Africa in 1843 and with Henry Townsend, opened a mission in Abeokuta, in today's Ogun State, Nigeria. Still in 1843, a grammar book which he started working on during the Niger expedition was published; and a Yoruba version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer followed later.
Under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society, he led a CMS Niger Mission that arrived Onitsha on 26 July 1857.
Crowther also compiled A vocabulary of the Yoruba language, including a large number of local proverbs, published in London in 1852. He also began codifying other languages. Following the British Niger Expeditions of 1854 and 1857, Crowther produced a primer for the Igbo language in 1857, another for the Nupe language in 1860, and a full grammar and vocabulary of Nupe in 1864.
In 1864, he was ordained as the first African bishop of the Anglican Church; he was consecrated a bishop on St Peter's day 1864, by Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury at Canterbury Cathedral. He later received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the University of Oxford.
Crowther's attention was directed more and more to languages other than Yoruba, but he continued to supervise the translation of the Yoruba Bible (Bibeli Mimọ), which was completed in the mid" 1880s, a few years before his death.
Princess Diana
"The vicious circle of fear, prejudice and ignorance has increased the spread of AIDS to an alarming level. Due to fear and prejudice, many still do not want to listen.
After all, AIDS is a killer."
" Princess Diana
“The People’s Princess” as she was described by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Diana stepped down from her royal pedestal to mix with the lowest, the poor and the hungry and even those plagued with bubonic disease. She gave them hope, comfort and succour. Most of all, she gave them love. These acts earned her the name, "The Princess of Hearts”.
Princess Diana traversed the world seeking to heal the wounded and helpless and those neglected by society. She visited Nigeria in March 1990 in company of Prince Charles, her hubby, and left a great impact in the hearts of many Nigerians after that visit. During that memorable visit, the Prince and Princess presented a £5,000 incubator to Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) to help cut down the country‘s infant mortality rate; a royal gesture, which many Nigerian parents owe the lives of their children to, today.
Diana created such an image that even after her death; an attempt to continue her charity work generated (as at June 1995) more than £150 million in form of donations to Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. All through her life, she was involved with more than sixty charity organizations worldwide.
Her name and personality brought financial blessing to many charity organizations.
First Black South African President and Human Rights Lawyer
“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires.”
Nelson Mandela