Formerly Masha Hatashil Kathish, he was born in the Sudan in the Upper Nile region, the son of a tribal chief and a member of the Dinka tribe, who believe that they are Jewish in origin. He was taken into slavery c.1876 in an Arab raid. Freed following General Gordon's campaign, but having no family, he was placed in the care of Niamin soldiers. Their camp was visited by missionaries of the CMS's Uganda Mission, who chose him to be their servant. At his baptism in 1882 he took a new name, entered Cliff College and was subsequently confirmed. Leaving college in 1886 he was employed by the YMCA in London and from 1887-88 in the Sudan. On his return to England he began to drift towards Nonconformity. After about a year in North Africa, he lived for a time in Wakefield and Barnsley, and as a lay reader in the Wakefield Diocese became known as 'the Black Evangelist of the North'. In 1910 he moved to Scunthorpe as an evangelist in the Bethel Free Mission, became a member at Centenary PM chapel and a local preacher. In 1913 he married his landlady, Mrs. Eliza Holden. During the Wilberforce centenary celebrations in 1938 he was employed as a guide, being described as 'Britain's only freed slave'. He wrote a number of books, including two autobiographical volumes, Jehovah-Nissi: the life story of Hatashil Masha Katish (Birmingham, 1901) and I was a Slave (1939); also The Ethiopian Valley: the history, religion and customs of the people called the Dinkas. He died in August 1946.

Entry written by: DCD
Category: Person
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