Josephine Bakhita - Conversion and Freedom

Conversion and Freedom

By the end of 1882 El Obeid came under the threat of an attack of Mahdist revolutionaries. The Turkish general began making preparations to return to his homeland. He sold all his slaves but selected ten of them to be sold later, on his way through Khartoum. There in 1883 Bakhita was bought by the Italian Vice Consul Callisto Legnani, who was a very kind man. For the first time since her captivity she was able to enjoy some peace and tranquillity. Two years later, when Legnani himself had to retun to Italy, Bakhita begged to go with him. By the end of 1884 they left already besieged Khartoum, on a risky 650-kilometer (400 mi) trip on camel back, to Suakin, which then was the largest port of Sudan. In March 1885 they left Suakin for Italy and in April, at the Italian port of Genoa, they were met by the wife of a friend, Augusto Michieli, who had escaped from Khartoum with them. Callisto Legnani gave Bakhita as a present to Signora Maria Turina Michieli, and her new masters took her to their family villa at Zianigo, near Mirano Veneto, about 25 km (16 mi) west of Venice. She lived there for three years and became nanny to the Michieli's daughter Alice, known as Mimmina, born in February 1886. With her new family Bakhita even spent about nine months in Sudan again.

Suakin had also been besieged but remained in Anglo-Egyptian hands. Augusto Michieli acquired there a large hotel, decided to sell his entire property in Italy and to move his family to Sudan permanently. The selling of his house and lands took much longer than expected and by the end of 1888 Turina had to see her husband before the sale was complete. Since the villa in Zianigo was already sold, Bakhita and Mimmina needed a temporary place to stay. At the advice of their business agent Illuminato Cecchini, on 29 November 1888, Signora Turina Michieli left them in the custody of the Canossian Sisters in Venice. But when she returned to take them both to Suakin, Bakhita firmly refused to leave. For a full three days Mrs. Michieli tried to force the issue, but the superior of the institute for baptismal candidates (Catechumenate) that Bakhita had attended, complained to the authorities. On 29 November 1889 an Italian court ruled that, because Sudan had outlawed slavery before Bakhita's birth and because in any case Italian law did not recognize slavery, Bakhita had never legally been a slave. Bakhita had now reached the age of maturity; for the first time in her life she found herself in control of her own destiny. And she chose to remain with the Canossians.