Henry Morton Stanley
Friday was the anniversary of the 1871 meeting between Henry Morton Stanley and Dr. David Livingstone, and Aussiegirl has a piece over at Ultima Thule about the legendary African explorer and missionary whom newsman Stanley was so presumptuous toward.
Livingstone went to Africa to explore and win souls for Christ, but Stanley went for more Earthly reasons, and he, more than anyone, opened the Dark Continent to eventual European colonization. He helped Belgian Emperor Leopold establish a personal kingdom in what is now Zaire (the Belgian government was not interested in colonizing Africa, so their king sent Stanley to claim it for his personal estate) and he discovered the great falls which form the ultimate end of the Congo river (Stanley Falls). Stanley was the last of the great explorers.
Born John Rowlands in Denbigh, Wales, he was orphaned at an early age and raised in a workhouse. In 1859 he sailed to New Orleans, where he met an American merchant named Henry Stanley, who, for all practical purposes, adopted the young orphan.
Stanley joined the Confederate army and was captured at Shiloh in 1862. He agreed to join the Union artillery but was released after contracting dysentery. After recovering, he joined the Union navy, and also served on a number of merchant vessels before moving out to the Rockies.
He became a correspondent for the Missouri Democrat, covering a number of military campaigns against Indians in Kansas and Missouri. In 1868 he moved back east to accept a position with the New York Herald, and first visited Africa as a correspondent covering the British campaign against Ethiopian Emperor Theodore II.
The Herald sent Stanley all over the world; to Suez, to the Crimea, to Persia, India, etc. His best-known assignment was to locate the elusive missionary Dr. Livingstone, and his success made him a world-reknown figure. Livingstone was living in a town called Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika when Stanley found him, and everyone remembers his remark ``Dr. Livingstone, I presume``.
Stanley`s account of his adventures lead to his assignment covering the British war with the Ashanti on the Gold Coast (now Ghana), then he was given a tremendous assignment; he was to explore the heart of Darkest Africa, and find the headwaters of the Congo River. This expedition lasted from 1874 to 1877. Starting in Zanzibar, he circumvented the shores of Lake Victoria (where he brutally butchered any resistance by the natives) and did likewise with Lake Tanganyika. Stanley discovered the headwaters of the Congo on this trip as well.
When Stanley returned from this expedition, he tried to find support for development of the Congo basin and central Africa, but the British weren`t interested. Neither were any of the other governments in Europe, but the King of Belgium-Leopold-was and he began carving a personal Empire in what is now Zaire and the Central African Republic. Stanley was responsible for the construction of roads and other infrastructure, and he was sneeringly given the name Bula Matari (breaker of rocks) by the locals.
The Berlin West Africa Conference granted Leopold rights to the Congo Free State (as it was called) based primarily on Stanley`s development work (the French had been making inroads in this region) and so the Belgian King controlled the entire Congo basin.
In 1883 the British suffered a terrible defeat; the Sudanese staged an uprising, lead by Muhammad Amad, an Islamic Imam known as the Mahdi. Britain`s fabled governor of the Sudan was Charles ``Chinese`` Gordon, a pius Christian man and tremendous soldier whom the ``dervishes`` killed when they seized Khartoum. The Mahdi`s men drove the British almost completely out of the Sudan, with the exception of a tiny southern province called Equatoria. Equatoria was governend by a gentle, bookish fellow named Mehmed Emin Pasha, a German convert to Islam, who doggedly rebuffed every attack on his territory. He held out from 1883 with no reprovisions and no reinforcements, and saving Equatoria became a `cause celeb` among the well-to-do in London.
They called in Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley was given absolute command over the expedition, and was instructed to bring relief to the province, if possible, or to save Pasha from Gordon`s fate, if necessary.
Stanley`s benefactors recommended that he follow a route similar to the one he had taken on his first voyage of exploration; Zanzibar to present day Tanzania, up the Rift Valleys, along the chain of lakes to the shores of Lake Albert (present day Uganda) and from there to the north side of the lake to the southern boundary of Equatoria. This was explored country, it was possible to reprovision, and Stanley could claim the entire region for Britain along the way.
This did not suit Stanley`s lust for adventure, and he immediately changed the itinerary once his expedition set off. Stanley decided to route his course via the Congo and the enormous, unexplored Ituri Forest in the heart of the jungle. His ship stopped at Banana Point (now Pointe Noire) and transferred his men to a boat which steamed up to Leopoldville, the Capital. There he recruited 800 Askaris (soldiers) and 700 African porters, and, along with 8 Europeans in command, headed further up the Congo to Stanley Falls, where one of the last outposts of Arab slavers had a small city. Here Stanley left his security chief, a British officer, in command of the main group while he lead a scouting party into the Ituri.
They set forth in canoes up the unexplored Aruwimi river (a tributary of the Congo) with men following on foot behind, and they had to hack their way through some of the thickest and most dangerous jungle on Earth. The natives of the Ituri were pygmies who were most adept at shooting poisoned blowguns, and Stanley was attacked by an army of them at one point. Ever ruthless, he opened up on his attackers with a machine gun they had totted with them, wiping virtually the entire tribe out. Food was unusually scarce, and at one point they could not move because 52 men were too sick to travel. Snake bites, spider bites, malaria, dysentery, all took their toll. Lack of food became acute, and Stanley`s group found the remains of an Arab slaving village which had been recently abandoned; it was little wonder there was such hostility and such little food, since the slavers had picked the land clean and had antagonized the locals. The few survivors reached the edge of the Ituri on December 2, 1887.
Meanwhile, the rear party found life among the slavers to their liking, and failed to move out in a timely fashion. Opium and hashish came liberally from their hosts, as did the favors of nubile young slave girls, since the Arabs sought to sabotage the expedition lest Stanley succeed and displace them. The rear guard finally got moving, and made a slow, agonizing hike through the trail blazed by Bula Matari. They ate or used up most of the supplies meant for Pasha, and lost numerous men. Stanley could wait no longer, so he built a fort for the rear (when they arrived) and constructed a boat to sail north on the lake.
He reached Equatoria on April 29, 1888 with just a handful of ragged, starving ``rescuers`` who were more in need of rescue than the Governor and his people. Pasha did not want to leave, preferring to stand with the people he had grown to love, so Stanley headed back down the shore of the lake, and found his rear had still failed to show. He tracked back 90 miles into the forest, and found the men on the point of death, having only 98 of the original 258 men still alive.
By the time Stanley brought back his rear column the Mahdi had made serious inroads into Equatoria, and yet Pasha still refused to leave. Never one to be denied, Stanley essentially kidnapped him and spirited him east to the coast. They reached Zanzibar in December of 1889, and Stanley won universal acclaim for his ``rescue`` of the British governor. Pasha immediately returned to his beloved home, where he was killed by forces of the Mahdi in 1892.
Stanley returned to England and regained his British citizenship (which he had surrendered after immigrating to America) and he successfully ran for Parliament in 1895. He was knighted in 1899 by Queen Victoria, and died in 1904, having married and settled into a quiet (for him) domestic life.
Stanley was a ruthless man, a driven man who was absolutely determined to succeed and who lived for praise and accolades as much as for money. He opened the heart of Africa to European colonization, and his call for commercialization and Christianization of the natives had a lasting impact on the entire Continent, as well as one the future of the Great Powers. The scramble for Africa lead to Italian and German resentment, since these nations were late getting into the game and so managed to get a mere toehold on the Continent. This resentment would lead to the Great War, which would lead to Hitler and the Second World War, and would ultimately completely remake Europe and the world order. In short, Stanley was a most relevant man, indeed!
I hope everyone enjoyed this little glimpse at one of history`s most colorful and important figures.
Livingstone went to Africa to explore and win souls for Christ, but Stanley went for more Earthly reasons, and he, more than anyone, opened the Dark Continent to eventual European colonization. He helped Belgian Emperor Leopold establish a personal kingdom in what is now Zaire (the Belgian government was not interested in colonizing Africa, so their king sent Stanley to claim it for his personal estate) and he discovered the great falls which form the ultimate end of the Congo river (Stanley Falls). Stanley was the last of the great explorers.
Born John Rowlands in Denbigh, Wales, he was orphaned at an early age and raised in a workhouse. In 1859 he sailed to New Orleans, where he met an American merchant named Henry Stanley, who, for all practical purposes, adopted the young orphan.
Stanley joined the Confederate army and was captured at Shiloh in 1862. He agreed to join the Union artillery but was released after contracting dysentery. After recovering, he joined the Union navy, and also served on a number of merchant vessels before moving out to the Rockies.
He became a correspondent for the Missouri Democrat, covering a number of military campaigns against Indians in Kansas and Missouri. In 1868 he moved back east to accept a position with the New York Herald, and first visited Africa as a correspondent covering the British campaign against Ethiopian Emperor Theodore II.
The Herald sent Stanley all over the world; to Suez, to the Crimea, to Persia, India, etc. His best-known assignment was to locate the elusive missionary Dr. Livingstone, and his success made him a world-reknown figure. Livingstone was living in a town called Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika when Stanley found him, and everyone remembers his remark ``Dr. Livingstone, I presume``.
Stanley`s account of his adventures lead to his assignment covering the British war with the Ashanti on the Gold Coast (now Ghana), then he was given a tremendous assignment; he was to explore the heart of Darkest Africa, and find the headwaters of the Congo River. This expedition lasted from 1874 to 1877. Starting in Zanzibar, he circumvented the shores of Lake Victoria (where he brutally butchered any resistance by the natives) and did likewise with Lake Tanganyika. Stanley discovered the headwaters of the Congo on this trip as well.
When Stanley returned from this expedition, he tried to find support for development of the Congo basin and central Africa, but the British weren`t interested. Neither were any of the other governments in Europe, but the King of Belgium-Leopold-was and he began carving a personal Empire in what is now Zaire and the Central African Republic. Stanley was responsible for the construction of roads and other infrastructure, and he was sneeringly given the name Bula Matari (breaker of rocks) by the locals.
The Berlin West Africa Conference granted Leopold rights to the Congo Free State (as it was called) based primarily on Stanley`s development work (the French had been making inroads in this region) and so the Belgian King controlled the entire Congo basin.
In 1883 the British suffered a terrible defeat; the Sudanese staged an uprising, lead by Muhammad Amad, an Islamic Imam known as the Mahdi. Britain`s fabled governor of the Sudan was Charles ``Chinese`` Gordon, a pius Christian man and tremendous soldier whom the ``dervishes`` killed when they seized Khartoum. The Mahdi`s men drove the British almost completely out of the Sudan, with the exception of a tiny southern province called Equatoria. Equatoria was governend by a gentle, bookish fellow named Mehmed Emin Pasha, a German convert to Islam, who doggedly rebuffed every attack on his territory. He held out from 1883 with no reprovisions and no reinforcements, and saving Equatoria became a `cause celeb` among the well-to-do in London.
They called in Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley was given absolute command over the expedition, and was instructed to bring relief to the province, if possible, or to save Pasha from Gordon`s fate, if necessary.
Stanley`s benefactors recommended that he follow a route similar to the one he had taken on his first voyage of exploration; Zanzibar to present day Tanzania, up the Rift Valleys, along the chain of lakes to the shores of Lake Albert (present day Uganda) and from there to the north side of the lake to the southern boundary of Equatoria. This was explored country, it was possible to reprovision, and Stanley could claim the entire region for Britain along the way.
This did not suit Stanley`s lust for adventure, and he immediately changed the itinerary once his expedition set off. Stanley decided to route his course via the Congo and the enormous, unexplored Ituri Forest in the heart of the jungle. His ship stopped at Banana Point (now Pointe Noire) and transferred his men to a boat which steamed up to Leopoldville, the Capital. There he recruited 800 Askaris (soldiers) and 700 African porters, and, along with 8 Europeans in command, headed further up the Congo to Stanley Falls, where one of the last outposts of Arab slavers had a small city. Here Stanley left his security chief, a British officer, in command of the main group while he lead a scouting party into the Ituri.
They set forth in canoes up the unexplored Aruwimi river (a tributary of the Congo) with men following on foot behind, and they had to hack their way through some of the thickest and most dangerous jungle on Earth. The natives of the Ituri were pygmies who were most adept at shooting poisoned blowguns, and Stanley was attacked by an army of them at one point. Ever ruthless, he opened up on his attackers with a machine gun they had totted with them, wiping virtually the entire tribe out. Food was unusually scarce, and at one point they could not move because 52 men were too sick to travel. Snake bites, spider bites, malaria, dysentery, all took their toll. Lack of food became acute, and Stanley`s group found the remains of an Arab slaving village which had been recently abandoned; it was little wonder there was such hostility and such little food, since the slavers had picked the land clean and had antagonized the locals. The few survivors reached the edge of the Ituri on December 2, 1887.
Meanwhile, the rear party found life among the slavers to their liking, and failed to move out in a timely fashion. Opium and hashish came liberally from their hosts, as did the favors of nubile young slave girls, since the Arabs sought to sabotage the expedition lest Stanley succeed and displace them. The rear guard finally got moving, and made a slow, agonizing hike through the trail blazed by Bula Matari. They ate or used up most of the supplies meant for Pasha, and lost numerous men. Stanley could wait no longer, so he built a fort for the rear (when they arrived) and constructed a boat to sail north on the lake.
He reached Equatoria on April 29, 1888 with just a handful of ragged, starving ``rescuers`` who were more in need of rescue than the Governor and his people. Pasha did not want to leave, preferring to stand with the people he had grown to love, so Stanley headed back down the shore of the lake, and found his rear had still failed to show. He tracked back 90 miles into the forest, and found the men on the point of death, having only 98 of the original 258 men still alive.
By the time Stanley brought back his rear column the Mahdi had made serious inroads into Equatoria, and yet Pasha still refused to leave. Never one to be denied, Stanley essentially kidnapped him and spirited him east to the coast. They reached Zanzibar in December of 1889, and Stanley won universal acclaim for his ``rescue`` of the British governor. Pasha immediately returned to his beloved home, where he was killed by forces of the Mahdi in 1892.
Stanley returned to England and regained his British citizenship (which he had surrendered after immigrating to America) and he successfully ran for Parliament in 1895. He was knighted in 1899 by Queen Victoria, and died in 1904, having married and settled into a quiet (for him) domestic life.
Stanley was a ruthless man, a driven man who was absolutely determined to succeed and who lived for praise and accolades as much as for money. He opened the heart of Africa to European colonization, and his call for commercialization and Christianization of the natives had a lasting impact on the entire Continent, as well as one the future of the Great Powers. The scramble for Africa lead to Italian and German resentment, since these nations were late getting into the game and so managed to get a mere toehold on the Continent. This resentment would lead to the Great War, which would lead to Hitler and the Second World War, and would ultimately completely remake Europe and the world order. In short, Stanley was a most relevant man, indeed!
I hope everyone enjoyed this little glimpse at one of history`s most colorful and important figures.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 4:17 PM
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