Serving God and the Empire: Mary Slessor in Southeast Nigeria, 1876-1915

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Periodical article

Title:	Serving God and the Empire: Mary Slessor in Southeast Nigeria, 1876-1915
Author:	Proctor, J.H.
Year:	2000
Periodical:	Journal of Religion in Africa
Volume:	30
Issue:	1
Pages:	45-61
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Nigeria Great Britain
Subjects:	missionary history colonialism biographies (form) History and Exploration Religion and Witchcraft Women's Issues Historical/Biographical
About person:	Mary Mitchell Slessor (Scottish)(1848-1915)
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1581622
Abstract:	During thirty-eight years (1876-1915), Mary M. Slessor served as a Scottish Presbyterian missionary in southeastern Nigeria. She became 'a great political factor of much value to the British Administration'. Her surviving letters and diaries, together with accounts by missionaries and officials who observed her in action, provide the basis for this analysis of how she combined her services to the Administration with her effort to convert the heathen in service to God. Mary Slessor saw no conflict in principle between these two types of service, for she was convinced that the missionary enterprise benefited from the colonial system and vice versa. In 1892, Sir Claude Macdonald, the High Commissioner and Consul General of the Niger Coast Protectorate, invited her to become vice-consul for the Okoyong tribe with authority to preside over a local court. In 1904 she transferred her base to Ikot Obong among the Ibibio people, where she became Permanent Vice President of the Native Court. Notes, ref.