Mary Slessor and the End of Twin-Killing in Calabar
A Dundee mill-worker who arrived in Calabar in 1876, Mary Slessor lived in the bush as 'Ma' to local Efik and Ibibio communities and helped end the custom of killing twin infants.
Mary Slessor was born in Aberdeen in 1848 and grew up in extreme poverty in Dundee, working in the jute mills from the age of 11. Inspired by reports of David Livingstone, she applied to the United Presbyterian Church's Foreign Mission Board and sailed for Calabar (in what is now Cross River State, Nigeria) in 1876.
Where most missionaries stayed close to the coast, Slessor moved inland to live among the Okoyong, Aro and other communities — eating their food, learning Efik, and dispensing rough-and-ready medicine. The Efik of the time believed twins were demonically conceived and exposed them to die in the bush. Slessor rescued and raised dozens of twin infants herself and, working with sympathetic local chiefs, helped make the practice socially untenable.
She was eventually appointed a vice-consul by the British colonial administration and adjudicated local disputes from her hut. She died at Use Ikot Oku in 1915 and remains one of Scotland's most-remembered missionaries — featured on the Clydesdale Bank £10 note from 1997 to 2017.