Remembering Joshua Hart: The First Bonny Christian Martyr
The history of Bonny, a city in southeastern Nigeria, is rich and fascinating. A small traditional fishing village, Bonny soon metamorphosed into a trading city-state that at some point in history was one of Africa’s largest hubs for slave exports. Many early Christians in Bonny were martyred for their faith, with the most prominent of them being Joshua Hart. The story of Joshua Hart and some of these early Christians need to be widely told and retold across the body of Christ in Africa. They serve as inspiration for the living to continue to grow in the faith. The depth of commitment to righteousness, which led early Bonny Martyrs to pay the supreme price, is still required of today’s African Christians.
Joshua Hart was the slave boy of a Bonny Chief known as Captain Hart. Joshua converted to Christianity even though his master made it clear that he was not in support of that faith. Joshua remained committed to both his unbelieving master and to his Lord and master, Jesus Christ. Yet, when it came to the point where he was asked to choose between obeying his earthly master or his savior, he chose the Lord and paid the price with his very life.
Early Christianity in Bonny
Christianity began in Bonny with the deposition and exile of King Dappa Pepple by the chiefs of the trading houses of Bonny in 1854. Dappa Pepple would later find himself in England where he lived for five years. While in England, Dappa Pepple converted to Christianity and adopted the name William. King Dappa Pepple (now King William Pepple) returned to Bonny in 1861 and requested the Church of England to send a missionary to his home country. The Bishop of London sent Bishop Ajayi Crowther who arrived in Bonny and was given an evil forest to establish a Christian mission station.
King William Pepple died in 1866 and was succeeded by his son King George Pepple. King George was known to be a more committed Christian than his father and strongly supported the Christian mission.
At that time in Bonny, the iguana was the totem of the community; Bonny people revered and worshipped the animal. The entire town was filled with iguanas and it was an abomination to disrespect one, not to mention kill one. Yet, in 1867, King George Pepple declared an end to the worship of iguanas. He ordered Christians to kill the hundreds, if not thousands, of iguanas that called Bonny home. Unbelievers were mortified by the King’s decree. They expected some fatal consequences to befall Christians, but nothing of the sort happened.
Non-Christians felt deeply hurt by the killing of their worship totem, but could not do much about it, since it was the king’s decree. Problems simmered underground between Bonny Christians and non-Christians until Christmas Day of 1873, when nine converts were baptized. Some of these converts were slaves to pagan masters. The converted slaves would do no work on Sundays, as it was considered the Lord’s Day. The stand of the converted slaves angered many of the chiefs, who refused to let their slaves attend church on Sundays. Defiantly, the slaves would creep out in the dark to go meet in secret places for worship. Bishop Crowther had to intervene in the situation. He implored slaveowners to understand that the bodies and souls of their slaves belonged to God; that if a slave died, the masters would be unable to hold back the souls from leaving the body. If they did not have power over their souls in death, why then did they wish to wield power over their souls in life? Bishop Crowther’s diplomatic and respectful language touched the hearts of some slave owners who allowed their slave converts to attend Sunday services. Yet, there remained deep resentment towards Christians in Bonny.
Joshua Hart’s Journey to Martyrdom
As more Bonny indigenes believed and got baptized, tensions increased. By 1874, tensions had overflowed into violent persecution of Christians. The issue of meat sacrificed to idols, which Christians generally refused to eat, became the outlet for the anger of non-believers. Joshua Hart was one of those Christians who suffered persecution. A courageous zealot whose word was his bond both to God and man, Joshua refused to eat meat that Captain Hart, his master, had sacrificed to idols and ordered his entire household to partake of. At first, Joshua was lightly punished and asked to comply with the order.When Joshua refused to eat the food, his punishment got more severe. On Captain Hart’s orders, Joshua was thrown high up in the sky and allowed to fall on the ground, yet he refused to eat food offered to idols.
With blood gushing from his badly bruised body, Joshua is reported as saying to his master, “If my master requires me to do work for him, however hard, I will try my best to do it. But if he requires me to partake of things sacrificed to the gods, I will never do it.”
What followed Joshua’s statement was a death sentence. He was tied hands and feet and placed in a canoe, which was paddled into the waters – he was going to drown. As Joshua was paddled to his death, he prayed to God to forgive those who were about to kill him, muttering the very prayer said by Christ before his death, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Captain Hart was enraged. “You be praying again?” He screamed as he picked Joshua up and threw him into the river. Joshua’s floating body was picked up and placed in the canoe to give him a final chance to save his life. He refused. Joshua was thrown back into the water and when his body floated again, he was struck with paddles and pierced with a sharp pole. Joshua Hart became the first Bonny martyr in November 1875.
Emboldened by Captain Hart’s actions, widespread persecution of Christians became the norm in Bonny. One man chose death by starvation rather than eat food sacrificed to the Bonny gods. “Master, I am on God’s side; therefore, I cannot eat things offered to idols,” he said. A group of Christians were stripped naked and tied to trees in ant-infested parts of the town. Even free men were not left out. Two free men were in chains for a year, for refusing to renounce Christ; they equally rejected the highly coveted Bonny Chieftaincy titles offered to them if they returned to traditional religion. One of them was said to have responded to his persecutors, “Jesus has put a padlock on my heart and has taken the key to heaven.”
During this period of persecution, some Christians fled to Ndoki, a neighboring town, and while there, Christianity was propagated and began to grow. Over time, however, the persistence of Christian converts in Bonny and their tendency to choose death over the renunciation of their faith forced the persecutions to die down in the town.
In an unusual turn of events, Captain Hart became a changed man by 1878 and was openly canvassing for the freedom of worship in Bonny. Christians were allowed to meet in the open and to hold house meetings. Sunday worshippers grew into the hundreds. Chief Captain Hart died on April 9, 1879, “almost repentant of his active persecution of Christianity and had ordered that on his death his cult objects be disposed of.” He was said to have warned all worshippers of Bonny gods that the gods were “lying vanities” and “seriously commanded them to destroy all the images and figures of the gods which might be found in his quarter of the town.”
Joshua Hart’s death was a seed that led to the emergence of Bonny as the Christian town it is known to be today. The Bible says that blood speaks. The blood of Abel cried from the earth for vengeance against Cain. The blood of Jesus, however, calls for forgiveness and therefore speaks better things. The blood of Joshua Hart also called for forgiveness on behalf of Bonny and, to date, Christianity continues to thrive in the town.