Having finally met with Dr. David Livingstone in November 1871, the following year (1872), Henry Morton Stanley published the book titled How I Found Livingstone. This book included the most pertinent information on the orders from his boss at the New York Herald (James Gordon Bennett, Jr.) to find Livingstone; his overseas expeditions; and how he and Livingstone finally met at Ujiji, explored parts of Africa, and later parted ways. What was, however, missing to those with interest in the histories of precolonial east and central Africa, the spread of Christianity, and the suppression of the slave trade, were the written notes and journals which Stanley, a correspondent with the New York Herald, kept on those expeditions.
This collection of archival materials belongs to the Royal Museum of Central Africa (RMCA), which is located in Tervuren, Belgium, and run by the King Baudouin Foundation (KBF). The KBF purchased the Henry Morton Stanley (HMS) private papers, photographs, and correspondences and designated a place for them at the RMCA. We have to appreciate the painstaking role of the volume’s editors, Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi (representing the RMCA) and James L. Newman (from the University of Syracuse), in assembling these documents. The resulting publication provides reference to Stanley’s thoughts and actions, and the political and economic contexts in which the expeditions were conducted (xi–xiii, 3–5).
The Stanley Archives is comprised of documents which are organized in three notebooks and two journals. They contain details on Stanley’s journeys and experiences and his meeting with Livingstone, a missionary of the London Missionary Society (LMS). In 1869, Bennett ordered Stanley to conduct the expeditions to discover Livingstone’s whereabouts. By then, there were numerous rumors circulating about Livingstone, speculating that he was lost in Africa, that he was married to an African princess, or that he was dead. Stanley’s attempt to find Livingstone that year ended in failure.
The second attempt eventually met with success when the two met at Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, on November 10, 1871. That was where Stanley uttered the now famous phrase, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” (1–3). Stanley’s expeditions took him to Suez, India, and later to east and central Africa. Local African and Arab groups assisted Stanley and his crewmen with supplies, workers, and security. The local porters, sometimes slaves, called the Wapagazi, were crucial to the expeditions (7–12).
The editors have organized this volume into several sections, including Journals (S.A. 7, S.A. 11, S.A. 12, and S.A. 73); Field Notebooks (S.A. 1, S.A. 8, S.A. 9, and S.A. 10); an Account Book of the Herald; and a Muster Roll of the soldiers they engaged. Since the documents, dated from 1868 to 1872, do not tell one connected narrative, it is incumbent upon the readers to pick and choose those that appeal to their teaching and research interests.
The documents in Journal S.A. 73, “Excerpts,” range from January 1871 to May 1872. Among other subjects covered, they include how Stanley and his crewmen “bought” their pathways in Africa and the Indian Ocean islands and “paid 154.5 dollars to Capt. Richmond ‘Fallon’ for passage to Seychelles” (17). Furthermore, they encountered numerous challenges, including those related to security; ecology (heavy rains, bitter drinking water, and crocodile bites); diseases (smallpox, fever, dysentery, and sleeping sickness); and the deaths of their donkeys and dogs (21–30). The discovery of quinine helped to reduce the death rates of those suffering from fever (98).
We also learn how Stanley viewed the indigenous Africans. He considered them to be “uncivilized” peoples, which was largely a reflection of nineteenth-century European thought. On numerous occasions, he referred to the Africans in derogatory terms as “natives.” Stanley also purchased three African slaves for sixty U.S. dollars in September 1871, namely Kalulu, Bill Alli, and Majwara (30, 128). This was in significant contrast to Livingstone’s attempts to help end the slave trade and replace it with “legitimate trade.” When Stanley and Livingstone met, they discussed, among other things, issues pertaining to the navigation of African lakes and rivers; British politics (Livingstone supported the conservative policies of Benjamin Disraeli, while Stanley supported the liberal policies of William E. Gladstone); and other family affairs (35–42). In Journal S.A. 11, Stanley also recorded that, although Livingstone was seemingly old and frail, he had no intention of retiring until he had explored the watershed between the Zambezi and the Nile rivers (192). Another revelation is that Livingstone’s initial aim had been to be a missionary in Asia and that it was the Opium Wars that had forced him to change his plans (237).
The “Notebooks” include “full transcripts” of Stanley’s records. These include purchases (food, utensils, animals, and weapons) and ethnological observations (on Arabs, Swahili Arabs, and indigenous Africans). Also essential to the expeditions was the use of maps of the African interior (303). The Appendix includes full length letters, contracts, instructions to Stanley’s crewmen, and correspondences. These archives document the support provided to Stanley, including assistance from the British Consul at Zanzibar (John Kirk) and from John Webb, the U.S. consul at Zanzibar (475–524).
This is a very impressive collection of archival materials. Historians of precolonial Africa, nineteenth-century Europe, the suppression of the slave trade, and the spread of Christianity to Africa will find use for the full transcripts, maps, and photographs in this volume. They will appreciate the context and the political and socio-economic challenges encountered by those who dared to explore the African interior during the nineteenth century, of which Stanley and Livingstone were among the outstanding examples. However, to truly appreciate the documents compiled in this volume, one must be familiar with the histories of the aforementioned themes and time periods. Only then will this volume be worthy of addition to historians’ collections.
