Richard Duke|4 December 2017
Synopsis:
•In 1849 (when Mary Slessor was 1 yr old) Consul Beecroft in agreement with King Eyo II and King Archibong I banned human sacrifice and the killing of twins in Old Calabar. Obutong broke the deal and as a consequence were bombed out of existence by Beecroft in 1855.
•On 18 January 1855 (when Mary Slessor was 7 yrs old) Duke Ephraim and some other Efik Chiefs entered into a further Agreement with the British Consul Hutchinson to Abolish the Murder of Twin Children in Old Calabar.
•Why is Mary Slessor who came to Calabar in 1876 (21yrs after the aforementioned Agreement) erroneously ascribed to as the person who stopped the killing of twins in Calabar?
•Mary Slessor never had the Missionary mandate or British colonial infrastructure to enforce the stopping of the killing of twins.
•It’s one thing to pick up babies and give them sanctuary, it’s another thing getting to the core of the matter by engaging with the Kings and Chiefs of Old Calabar to bind them to an enforceable Agreement to declare a ban on the practice. The people were stubborn but it took the intervention of military force to make them to comply.
•Don’t forget that Mary Slessor only came to Calabar in 1876. On arrival she met Rev Edgerley, Rev Hope Waddell and Rev Hugh Goldie who were already involved in Missionary work in Old Calabar 30 years before Mary Slessor touched her foot on Calabar soil.
•In fact it was Rev Hugh Goldie who spent nearly 50yrs in Calabar who taught a young Mary Slessor how to speak Efik Language as part of her induction.
•In order to consolidate the efforts of the Missionaries in Calabar the British Consuls persuaded the Efik Chiefs to sign an Agreement to stop the killing of Twin children.
•Rev Edgerley and his wife were recorded as having carried out the first Twin saving act in Calabar in Old Town in 1852.
•When the Old Town people continued the practice in addition to sacrificial killings, Rev Edgerley got some British Captains to bomb the place. This struck the fear of God into the other Efik chiefs.
•To the credit of Mary Slessor she rescued twins and created a sanctuary for them to stay with her; but this was mainly done in Okoyong where she was also the Vice President of the Native Court and used her position to enforce the ban against the murder of twins.
•Mary Slessor may have stopped it in Okoyong in 1876 but surely not in Calabar. Please let’s update our History books.
•Next time you are asked the question “Who stopped the killing of Twin children in Old Calabar?”; the answer is, “Based on logistics it was stopped through the enforcement of a voluntary agreement signed between Duke Ephraim on behalf of the Chiefs of Old Calabar and the British Consul Hutchinson in January 1855”.
Richard Duke
Is an Efik Historian
