He only managed to convert one African, a tribal leader called Sechele. However Sechele found the Christian rule of monogamy too constricting, and soon lapsed. Livingstone never did find the source of the Nile, but he did find the source of the Congo instead, which in itself is no small achievement!
David Livingstone memorial at Victoria Falls. Whilst Livingstone may not have achieved his two goals, he achieved a huge amount nonetheless.
He traversed the entirety of the Kalahari desert twice! He did this latter journey with his wife and small children! Perhaps his greatest achievement however, was his contribution to the abolition of African slavery. Great Britain and the United States of America had already outlawed slavery by this point, but it was still rife in the Arab continent and within Africa itself.
Africans would be enslaved and traded in places in the Middle East. Africans would also be enslaved by other Africans from different tribes within Africa. Although exact accounts differ, Livingstone witnessed a massacre of local Africans by slave traders on one of his earlier expeditions. Already firmly against slavery, this galvanized him further into action, and he wrote accounts which he sent back to the UK detailing the brutality of the slave trade.
And a mere two months after his death the Sultan of Zanzibar outlawed slavery in his country, which effectively killed the Arab slave trade. Slave traders and their captives. This is not indicative of the man himself however. He absolutely abhorred slavery, and furthermore he did not agree with big game hunting. He was also a great linguist and could communicate with the indigenous peoples in their own tongues.
Stanley finally located him, he supposedly greeted Livingstone with this now-famous phrase. You must be the gentleman I'm looking for— Doctor Livingstone, I presume? He found Livingstone in the town of Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika on 10 November , greeting him with the now famous words "Dr Livingstone, I presume? How did Dr Livingstone die? Why did Stanley look for Livingstone? As for Stanley, he returned to Africa to fulfill a promise he had made to Livingstone to find the source of the Nile.
Did Livingstone find the source of the Nile? In Livingstone returned to Africa and mounted an expedition through the central portion of the continent with the objective of discovering the source of the Nile River. As months stretched into years, little was heard from the explorer. Rumors spread that Livingstone was being held captive or was lost or dead. Where was David Livingstone's heart buried? Westminster Abbey. How was Victoria Falls discovered? If dead I will find him and bring his bones to you.
At the time that Stanley began his relief operation, Dr. David Livingstone was the most renowned of all the explorers of Africa. Among other exploits, the Scottish missionary and abolitionist had survived a lion attack, charted the Zambezi River and walked from one side of the continent to the other.
In , he had embarked on what was supposed to be his last and greatest expedition: a quest to locate the fabled source of the Nile River. Many Europeans had given him up for dead. Stanley knew that Livingstone had last been spotted in the vicinity of Lake Tanganyika, but reaching the area proved to be a monumental task. Between March and October of , the New York Herald expedition endured repeated setbacks as it trudged though endless miles of swampland and jungle.
Crocodiles and swarming tsetse flies killed their pack animals, and dozens of porters abandoned the caravan or died from illnesses. She alludes the lingering effect of this meeting on popular culture, but tends to scatter her references throughout the book. Another pattern she notes is how Livingstone's missionary and exploratory work was subsumed behind a Boys Own adventure narrative.
Both of these cultural themes could have been developed more fully in a chapter of their own. And as she notes how our views of Africa are still informed by this meeting, one wishes the cultural transformation of the handshake could have been documented parallel to what these changes signified about European views of Africa.
My final complaint concerns her treatment of Livingstone. While trying to illustrate his humanity she tends to overreach in her condemnation. At one point she suggests it is "arguable" that he drove his wife to alcoholic despair and his son to depression and death in the American Civil War. Such condemnation hanging its hat on an "arguable" point ends up taking away from her worthy critiques.
As noted these substantive problems are relatively minor. Pettitt has demonstrated that this meeting between Stanley and Livingstone has become part of a symbolic landscape, and as such it deserves to be examined critically. Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Stanton Foundation.
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