Josephine Bakhita

Life events

1. Born — 1869

   Born around 1869 in the village of Olgossa, Darfur (present-day western Sudan), one of the Daju people; her father was brother to the village chief.

2. Imprisoned — 1877

   Seized by Arab slave traders at age 7–8 and forced to walk approximately 960 km barefoot to El-Obeid, where she was sold twice on arrival; she was sold three additional times over the following twelve years (1877–1889), and her original birth name was lost to the trauma of abduction.

3. Other — 1883

   Purchased in Khartoum by Italian Vice Consul Callisto Legnani, who treated her without violence; when Mahdist pressure forced Legnani to flee Sudan in late 1884, she begged to accompany him and the party made a 650-km camelback journey to Suakin, departing for Italy in March 1885 and arriving at Genoa in April.

4. Educated — 1888

   On 29 November 1888 she was placed in the care of the Canossian sisters in Venice, where she received her first formal instruction in Christianity; she later recalled: 'Those holy mothers instructed me with heroic patience and introduced me to that God who from childhood I had felt in my heart without knowing who He was.'

5. Baptized — 1890

   On 9 January 1890, after an Italian court ruled on 29 November 1889 that she had never been legally a slave under Italian or British law, she was baptized with the names Josephine Margaret Fortunata, confirmed, and received Holy Communion — all administered by Archbishop Giuseppe Sarto, Cardinal Patriarch of Venice (later Pope Pius X).

6. Consecrated — 1896

   After entering the Canossian novitiate on 7 December 1893, she took her religious vows on 8 December 1896, welcomed again by Cardinal Sarto.

7. Other — 1902

   Assigned in 1902 to the Canossian convent at Schio in the province of Vicenza, where she served for 42 years as cook, sacristan, and portress (doorkeeper) until her death in 1947; Vicenzans came to know her as Sor Moretta ('little brown sister').

8. Died — 1947

   Died at 8:10 PM on 8 February 1947 at Schio; her body lay in repose for three days while thousands paid their respects, and her remains were translated to the Church of the Holy Family of the Canossian convent of Schio in 1969.

Relationships

Documented claims

• While enslaved by a Turkish general, she was subjected to scarification: 114 patterns were cut into her breasts, stomach, and right arm with a razor, then filled with salt to ensure permanent scarring. (likely)
• Her freedom was secured on 29 November 1889 when an Italian court ruled that, because Britain had outlawed slavery in Sudan before her birth and Italian law had never recognised slavery as legal, she had never been a slave in law. (certain)
• Her baptism, confirmation, and first Holy Communion on 9 January 1890 were all administered by Giuseppe Sarto, then Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, who later became Pope Pius X. (certain)
• Pope Benedict XVI opened his 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi with an account of her life as a paradigmatic example of Christian hope. (certain)
• Canonized on 1 October 2000 by Pope John Paul II, she became the first female Black Catholic saint of the modern era and is venerated as patron saint of Sudan and of the Catholic Church in Sudan. (certain)