We might never learn her birth name. We will never know her family or even see a photograph of them. What we do know is that Saint Bakhita was born around 1869 in a little village called Olgossa in the Darfur region of Sudan. This village, near the great Algilerei Mountains, borders the African nation of Chad. Sudan is the largest country in the continent of Africa.
Although there had been many Christians in Sudan in earlier centuries, there were not many native-born Christians anywhere in Central Africa by the time Bakhita was born. Pope Gregory XVI sent missionaries to the region in 1846. But disease and poverty made it extremely difficult to preach the Gospel in this part of Africa. Over the years, many Sudanese people, especially those living in the northeastern part of the country, had, due to Arab influence, become Muslim.
In Darfur, Bakhita’s family had never heard of Jesus. The peace-loving, hardworking people of their tribe followed traditional African beliefs. When she was a child, Bakhita had no knowledge of God, although she sensed that the beauties of nature had been created by a Higher Being. It was not until much later in her life that she would come to understand and rejoice in the love of the Lord.
One bright, warm morning, children played and danced near the thatched mushroom-shaped huts of Olgossa. Outside the village two girls, one seven years old and the other a few years older, walked happily together through the grass and bushes. As they searched for herbs and tasted wild berries, they laughed and talked in the Daju dialect of their tribe. Neither of the friends noticed the two strange men moving silently toward them. Suddenly, one man blocked the dusty path. The other stepped between the girls to separate them.
“Would you please go into the forest and bring back my package?” the man asked the smaller child in a friendly tone of voice. He added, “It’s near those bushes—I left it there by mistake.”
The girl hesitated to make sure she understood the request—but only for a moment. A well-mannered child, she wanted to obey this stranger as promptly as she would her own parents. Her older friend walked slowly along the path that led to the village. She kept glancing back, hoping to see her playmate quickly joining her.
“Oh, don’t worry,” the stranger assured her. “Your friend will soon catch up!”
The smaller child at the edge of the woods looked for the package. Where could it be? There was nothing near the bushes, so she moved deeper into the forest. Still no package! She was puzzled and wondered if the stranger would be disappointed.
Suddenly, both men were beside her. The child looked around in panic. Where was her friend? Why was she alone with these strangers? One of the men grabbed her arm and drew a large dagger. “Shout and you’re dead!” he whispered.
The child froze in terror. Her dark eyes locked on her kidnappers and she trembled all over. “Follow us—and quickly!” the man with the dagger ordered. She could barely move her arms and legs. The second man pulled out a gun and prodded her on. She wanted to scream, but her voice died in her throat.
The three walked on in silence. At last, one of the men asked, “What is your name?” The girl stared up at her captors. She tried to speak, but no sound came from her lips.
“Shout and you’re dead!”
“Well,” one man said to the other, “she doesn’t seem to have a name. We’ll have to give her one.” A trace of a smile crossed his face. “We’ll call you Bakhita. That means ‘the lucky one’ in Arabic. Just the right name for you!” The smile faded. “Now, let’s move!”
The child’s new name, sarcastically assigned her by a slave trader, would become the name she would be known by for the rest of her life. That frightened little girl couldn’t have imagined where the road of her life would lead. In the future, she would taste the love of the true God. Bakhita would find Jesus, Christianity, the Catholic Church, and a religious vocation as a Canossian Daughter of Charity. But for now she could see only the dark forest and the menacing faces of her captors.
Through the night, the three trudged on. Bakhita’s bare feet and legs bled from the sharp thorns and stones of the rough trail. She thought of her parents, her brothers and sisters, and her friends back home in the village. Are they searching for me? Will they see the tracks left by the kidnappers? Will they catch up to us?
Bakhita remembered the terrible day several years before when slave traders had raided her village. They had captured several women and children, including her oldest sister. Although Bakhita, along with the rest of her family, had been in the fields outside the village that day, she remembered the wails and tears when her family and the other villagers returned and learned of the raid. Some of the men had tried to track the slave traders, but it was no use. Bakhita’s sister was gone forever.
As far back as 1462, Pope Pius II had condemned slavery as a terrible crime, and many popes and missionaries after him had worked to end the practice. Great Britain signed the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1833, and in 1856 all the European nations, as well as Egypt, signed the Treaty of Paris, which officially did away with slavery. But slavery didn’t end. In fact, it was still a flourishing institution in Central Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. At this critical time in the life of Bakhita, Sudan, and especially the Darfur region, were especially targeted by Arab slave traders, who frequently invaded small villages. And now Bakhita, too, had been kidnapped!
The little girl heard strange sounds far off in the forest. She shivered in fear. One of her captors threw Bakhita a piece of water-melon to eat. She was so thirsty—but she shook her head, refusing it. She knew she would never be able to swallow food through the lump in her throat.
Slowly the night sky grew lighter. In the early dawn the slave traders led Bakhita to their village. They dragged the seven-year-old to a hut and locked her in a tiny room. What was going to happen now?
The little girl looked around. The room was filled with tools and scrap iron. It had a dirt floor and a dank smell. One small window let in a sliver of light. She was alone.
After some time, the door re-opened. A hand quickly shoved a piece of brown bread and some water toward Bakhita. Other than receiving a meager handful of food once a day, the child had contact with no one. Days passed. Bakhita counted them by observing the dim light of the window turn to darkness, then become brighter once more.
Her imprisonment lasted over a month. Bakhita thought longingly of her parents and family. She pictured the neat, thatched huts of her village, the fields, the flowers, and the berry bushes. In her mind, the child once again felt the warmth of the sun and the safety of her family’s love. How I miss my mother and father, my brothers and sisters...how loving and good they are! When will I see them again? When will they find me and take me home? Night after night hot tears rolled down her cheeks. Night after night her sobs faded into whimpers. Exhausted, the little girl would finally fall asleep.
