1900 - Protestant Martyrs in Inner Mongolia

August – September 1900

Inner Mongolia

Standing: Carl Suber, N.J. Friedstrom (who escaped), David Stenberg;

Sitting: Hilda and Clara Anderson, Hannah Lund.

The Scandinavian Alliance Mission (now TEAM — The Evangelical Alliance Mission) was founded in Chicago in 1890, with the goal to help Scandinavian Christians living in North America become missionaries. SAM commenced work in China in 1895 when a red-bearded Swede, David W. Stenberg arrived at Kalgan (now Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province), before moving into Inner Mongolia to work among the Ordos tribe. Born at Jonköping, Sweden, in 1872, he went to America and studied at the Chicago Theological Seminary. Stenberg became the team leader in Inner Mongolia. It was said of him, “There is nothing bad about him, he is pure gold. He was a favourite with all.”[1] Wanting to integrate himself totally into Mongolian culture, Stenberg “clad himself in woollen Mongolian skirts, rode a camel, travelled with the nomadic shepherd people, ate their food and learned their language.”[2] When other missionary recruits first joined Stenberg. they mistook him for a Mongolian.

At the beginning of the 20th century the mission had 35 missionaries (21 adults and 14 children) in Inner Mongolia. The majority of them worked at Guihua (now Hohhot), where they laboured “in the towns and villages of the neighbourhood, and amongst the Chinese who had settled in the great plains of Mongolia.”[3]

All of the missionaries had to be hardy folk. One report said:

“These workers were most earnest in the prosecution of the rough pioneering work they had undertaken. For the greater part of the year, and sometimes for the whole year, they lived in tents in the open plains of Mongolia, living on native food, and without a settled home.”[4]

After seeing little fruit for their endeavours, the Scandinavians decided to copy the strategy that the Catholic Church had used in Inner Mongolia for decades. Using funds raised by churches in the United States, they purchased a large tract of land and founded a farming colony. They then invited poor Mongolians to come and live on the farm, provided them with tools and a plot of land, and shared the Christian message with them.

Inner Mongolia was full of rumours of violence and impending death to the Christians. In May, David Stenberg wrote, “At present we have to bear with very evil reports…. The fight is severe. We expect a breaking out…but we know God is on our side, and after this hour of darkness shall dawn the day of salvation for the Mongols.”[5]

Emil Olson and his wife.

In June 1900, when escape from the Boxers seemed the only chance of survival, seven of the Alliance missionaries and seven children tried to flee across the desert on camels. Before they had gone too far, however,

“Robbers intercepted them and took everything, even their clothes. In the trauma two of the missionaries gave birth. French missionary priests found the fourteen and the two infants naked in the desert and subsisting on roots. The priests gave them covering and took them back to the Catholic mission station.”[6]

A Catholic priest later shed additional light on the plight of these forlorn martyrs:

“The Protestant missionaries…had been sent in June with seven camels and 700 or 800 taels of silver towards Urga, and robbed by their escort of their camels, 600 taels of silver, and the greater part of their baggage, and after wandering about for some weeks they were destitute…. We sent to fetch them, and on the 7th August ten of them arrived. On the 9th another arrived with his wife and newborn child. On the 10th another missionary’s wife gave birth to a daughter.

The party then was three men, with their wives, one unmarried lady, and seven children—all Swedes. They told us that after having been robbed by their escort they had been robbed by other soldiers, who took their remaining silver and baggage; and then by the beggars, who took their remaining provisions and clothes.”[7]

Carl Lundberg and his wife.

Carl L. Lundberg, his wife, and their three children, were among the rescued missionaries taken in by their Catholic brothers at their station in the small town of Patsebolong. In a letter home, dated just six days before his martyrdom, Lundberg wrote,

“In Hohhot, where we were stationed, the people began to treat us badly, so we left, intending to reach Urga [now Ulan Baatar in Mongolia] and Russia; but on the second day we were at different times and gradually robbed of all we possessed. The robbers stripped us even of some of the clothes we were wearing, so that we were both hungry and cold. In our vicinity lived four Catholic priests, who invited us to come to them; and we went. We have now been here eight days, but even here it is very dangerous, as Boxers and soldiers intend coming to destroy it.

All stations we know of belonging to our Mission are destroyed, but of the missionaries we know nothing. Those of us here are Mr. and Mrs. Emil Olson and three children, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Anderson with two children, one only a few days old, Miss Emelie Erickson, myself, and wife and two children. Our way to the coast is cut off. If we are not able to escape, tell our friends we live and die for the Lord. I do not regret coming to China. The Lord has called me, and his grace is sufficient. The way He chooses is best for me. His will be done. Excuse my writing, my hand is shivering.”[8]

Five days later Lundberg penned a final note, “The soldiers have arrived and will attack our place. The Catholics are prepared to defend themselves, but it is in vain. We do not like to die with weapons in our hands. If it be the Lord’s will let them take our lives.”[9]

Albert Anderson and his wife.

The Catholic priests and two of the Alliance missionaries, Olson and Anderson, tried to escape. Before they could get far,

“They were captured, ordered to undress, then made to kneel for beheading. The others fared no better. The Boxers killed them with guns and swords, then set fire to the church. Another seven Alliance missionaries with three children and four workers from other missions huddled together in a chapel at Patsebolong. Warned by the local magistrate that Boxers were on their way to kill them, the group set out for the coast. They ran into an ambush planned by the magistrate, and all were killed except one of the wives. Left for dead, she was rescued and taken into the tent of a Mongol widow. However, the treacherous magistrate’s wife learned where she was and sent soldiers to the tent. They murdered her in bed.”[10]

A Catholic priest who survived the ordeal, Pierre Ole Back, later wrote: “The Swedish women and children were killed or burned in the church. Two of the Swedish missionaries were killed with swords, and the third was beheaded next day in a neighbouring village. The remainder of the Christians took to flight.”[11]

At another location, Olaf Bingmark, his wife, and two young sons first sensed there was trouble on the horizon when the Chinese children at their school stopped attending. Rumours were rife that Bingmark was extracting the eyes of Chinese boys to use in his medicine. A Chinese peddler named Zhao, whom the Bingmarks had helped many times, betrayed the Bingmarks and helped the Boxers gain access to their home. Boxers “dragged them outside and attacked them with swords and stones while an artist stood by sketching the violence. The picture, as later revealed, showed the two little boys kneeling and imploring mercy.”[12] The Bingmarks had many Chinese friends who found the events abhorrent. Their closest friend was a Chinese evangelist who was arrested by the Boxers and tortured mercilessly for ten days. His sufferings were finally ended with a flash of a Boxer sword.

Miss A. Gustafson was a beloved missionary-teacher, the only foreigner at an isolated mission station. When she was warned that the Boxers were coming to kill her, Gustafson and a Chinese evangelist fled, but just “a few miles down the road she was overtaken and stoned to death. Her body was thrown into a river and never seen again.”[13] Other Alliance missionaries who gained a martyr’s crown include Mr. and Mrs. C. Noven and their two children, Miss K. Hall, Mr. A. E. Palm, and Kristina Orn. Orn had only arrived from Sweden a few months earlier, to assist in an orphanage of 30 children.

Another massacre took place in a different part of Inner Mongolia during the month of September. Those martyred were also Swedish missionaries working under the leadership of another organization—the Swedish Mongolian Mission, which had been established under the presidency of Prince Bernadotte of Sweden that same year.

Born in Sweden in 1872, Carl J. Suber graduated from the Chicago Theological Seminary in 1896 and left almost immediately for Inner Mongolia. A year later the work was strengthened by the arrival of N. J. Friedstrom and three single ladies: Hannah Lund, Hilda Anderson, and Clara Anderson. One who knew them said, “There could not be found any braver souls; they were fully consecrated to the Lord’s service.”[14] In the autumn of 1899, Mr. and Mrs. Helleberg, and a single man, Emil Wahlstedt, arrived in China to

The Hellebergs had originally worked with the Christian & Missionary Alliance, but due to financial difficulties were compelled to return to Sweden. They transferred allegiance to the Swedish Mongolian Mission and returned to China in 1899, “full of bright hopes for the future.”[15]

In August all the missionaries attempted to flee north into Mongolia. Half a day into their journey they met a Mongol who advised them to turn back. Stenberg and the women decided to go on, as a Mongol chief had promised to protect them. Friedstrom and Suber remained where they were, but after sensing Stenberg and the women had fallen into danger, Friedstrom searched for them while Suber remained with the caravan. When Friedstrom did not return, a friendly Mongol was sent to investigate what had happened to the missionaries. He came back two weeks later with horrifying news:

“The Mongol chief had protected them for a while, but on orders from the authorities in Beijing he had murdered them all including Suber. The chief had pretended to send them to Urga [Mongolia], furnishing them with carts and soldiers, but when they arrived at a lonely spot in the desert the soldiers killed them all, cutting off their heads and preserving the heads in salt in the earth, later to take them to Beijing and get the money reward that had been offered them. When Chinese Government officials sent out to have the bodies properly buried, they found that the Mongols had burned the bodies to ashes. Sometime later a Mongol was induced to lead the missionaries and officials to the spot and there they found a blonde curl and a shoe, the only identification. They dug up earth and ashes of the martyr dead and each pile was placed in a coffin and buried in a cemetery provided by the Chinese Government.”[16]

Stenberg and the three ladies were killed on September 1, 1900, and Suber perished about ten days later. The slaughter occurred at Dallat Hosso, in the Ordos District, near the Yellow River. Friedstrom was the only member of the group to escape. Providentially, a sandstorm covered his tracks just after he left. The list of martyrs at Dallat Hosso included a Mongolian Christian woman named Halahan, who had arrived at the mission in a

“wretched filthy condition, so sick that her life was despaired of. She was nursed and loved back to life and health by the missionary sisters and had been taught the love of God…. Halahan was urged by the missionaries to leave them and escape, but would not do so, and with them won a martyr’s crown.”[17]

1. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 81.
2. Hefley, By Their Blood, 29.
3. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 83.
4. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 80.
5. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 81.
6. Hefley, By Their Blood, 18.
7. E. H. Edwards, Fire and Sword in Shansi: The Story of the Martyrdom of Foreigners and Chinese Christians (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1903), 105-106.
8. Hefley, By Their Blood, 18-19.
9. Hefley, By Their Blood, 19.
10. Hefley, By Their Blood, 18-19.
11. Edwards, Fire and Sword in Shansi, 108-109.
12. Hefley, By Their Blood, 18.
13. Hefley, By Their Blood, 18.
14. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 82.
15. Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 82.
16. O. C. Grauer, Fifty Wonderful Years (Chicago, Illinois: Scandinavian Alliance Mission, 1940), 240-241.
17. Broomhall, The Chinese Empire, 365.