Article on Mary Slessor: Christian and Humanitarian Missionary of Imperialism

In 1848, Mary Slessor, a bonny redhead, was born near Aberdeen Scotland, the second of seven children; unlike three of her siblings, she survived childhood. Her father was a shoemaker, but his alcoholism forced her to work in the local textile mill from a young age. She began her working life as a "half timer," laboring half the day at the mill and attending school the remainder, her tuition financed by her employer. By fourteen she was a full timer, toiling twelve hours a day amid the local jute mill's racket and dangers.

But Mary had an ambitious desire to serve God, and her cursory education put her in good stead. After teaching school for a time, she took the call as a missionary for the Presbyterian Church, trained a short time in Edinburgh, and then sailed for what today is southwestern Nigeria, arriving in 1876 at the age of twenty eight. As innocent as were here motives, she was part of the "scramble for Africa." As much as any group, missionaries were the cultural messengers of imperialism, and their message was often the most disturbing and destructive to local cultures. Those who converted, whatever their motives, shed their old ways to some degree and set themselves apart and at odds from the rest of their culture. It was just as Jesus Christ had predicted when he told his disciples, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Matthew 10:34-36).

British presence in what is now Nigeria began innocently enough, as an attempt to abolish the slave trade in the early 19th century. British naval patrols stopped slave ships and took the captives to ports, such as Freetown, Sierra Leone, which functioned very much like refugee camps, and were often administered by British Christian missionaries. By mid-century, British interest in Nigeria as a supplier of palm oil increased, and in 1861, they made the port of Lagos a crown colony. Out of increasing economic interest and the need to keep other colonial powers out, Britain slowly increased its presence and influence in the region, but it was not until 1906 that the entire region came under British political control. Mary Slessor arrived during this period of building British presence, and her mission spanned Nigeria's colonial consolidation.

What Mary Slessor found in Africa both captivated and shocked her. The country was beautiful, the tropical forests were majestic, and she loved the warmth of the Ibo people and their culture. However, some of the Ibo's traditional practices were disturbing. Despite the fact that the slave trade to the Americas from the region had been abolished in 1811, and the Atlantic slave trade had been shut down entirely by the early 1860s, many Africans, including the Ibo, continued to practice it locally. Moreover, all women were often treated as if they were property, and a man married as many as he could afford to support. Head hunting was an important form of ceremonial warfare, and human sacrifice accompanied the death of important individuals in the community. Most shocking to Mary was the practice of twin infanticide. The Ibo considered the birth of twins a terrible omen, and they abandoned twin children in the forests to die of exposure. Mary, with Christianity and Liberalism as her weapons, fought the rest of her life to root out slavery, the abuse of women, and human sacrifice, and she expanded her missionary activities to as many of the Ibo tribes as she could reach. She became a mother to many twins and other unwanted children who had been abandoned. She also served in an administrative position within the British government, playing a role in imposing civilizing Western laws.

In 1915, she succumbed, as had countless other Europeans in Africa, to malaria, sacrificing her life in the service of her African wards. Her contribution was recognized with a state funeral, and even Elizabeth II paid respects at Mary's Nigerian grave, which is marked by an imposing cross of Scottish granite.