1900 - Ferdinand Hamer

July 24, 1900

Duocheng, Inner Mongolia

Ferdinand Hamer.

Ferdinand Hamer, the son of a grocer from Nijmegen in The Netherlands, was born in 1840. He arrived in China at the tender age of 25, and went on to spend many decades of faithful and effective service. Hamer was named the first Vicar Apostolic of Gansu Province in 1878. In 1889 he was assigned to the Apostolic Vicariate of Southwest Mongolia, but due to many health problems, Hamer did not arrive in Inner Mongolia to take up his new appointment until 1891. A stomach ailment caused the bishop to return to Europe for a time of recovery. Hamer used this time back home to raise funds for a new church building at the village of Sandaoho, near the Yellow River.

By the time Hamer returned to China a severe famine was causing thousands of people to starve to death throughout north China. Hamer used the church building money to buy food and save the lives of many. He reported:

“From all sides the poor people have come flocking in, hoping to be received into the bosom of the Church and get some temporal relief. During the last two months we have acquired more than two thousand people asking to be baptized, people which, under normal circumstances, would never have the idea to become Christians without being animated by necessity.”[1]

Although he never learned to speak either Mongolian or Chinese with any fluency, Hamer was “loved by the Chinese Christians for his extraordinary goodness, his compassion for all the suffering and his great spirit of prayer.”[2] Hamer was about to have his 60th birthday when the Boxers increased their influence across northern China. A severe famine caused many Chinese to blame the missionaries for bringing a spiritual curse on their country. The Boxers used the misery of the starving people to their advantage. Local Catholics urged Hamer to flee to the coast before it was too late, but he chose to remain at his post and not abandon his Chinese friends, even though he ordered the other missionaries under his care to leave. Hamer had given his life to the Chinese and Mongolian Catholics, and now he was prepared to die with them.

One historian says that after Bishop Hamer was put in prison, “his fingers and toes were cut off, and he was taken from village to village until death ended his sufferings.”[3] Another account says that for four days Hamer

“underwent interrogation after interrogation, derision, humiliation and all kinds of refined tortures. On July 24 the heroic leader was atrociously put to death. Three poles were tied together to form a tripod furnished with an iron hook at the top. Bishop Hamer was stripped of his clothes and covered with cotton cloth, which was then soaked with oil. Then the victim was tied and hooked up at the top of the poles with his feet up and head down. The cotton was set afire. There was a dreadful scream, and then the martyr became silent forever.”[4]

An eyewitness provided an even more vivid description of Hamer’s death: “All his hair was pulled out, and his fingers, nose, and ears cut off. After this they wrapped him in stuff soaked in oil, and, hanging him head downwards, set fire to his feet. His heart was eaten by two beggars.”[5] Several hundred Catholics under the care of Bishop Ferdinand Hamer were also put to death. Many of the young women and girls were sold to Muslim traders, to be used as concubines and sex-slaves.

1. Knipschild, “Ferdinand Hamer, Martyr in China,” 18.
2. From a profile of Bishop Hamer on the www.veritas.org.sg website.
3. Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China, 511.
4. From a profile of Bishop Hamer on the www.veritas.org.sg website.
5. Edwards, Fire and Sword in Shansi, 106-107.