Cultural Commentary. was a Scottish missionary and one of the greatest European explorers of Africa, whose opening up the interior of the continent contributed to the 'Scramble

*David Livingstone

was a Scottish missionary and one of the greatest European explorers of Africa, whose opening up the interior of the continent contributed to the 'Scramble for Africa'.

Livingstone was born at Blantyre, south of Glasgow on 19 March 1813. At 10 he began working in the local cotton mill, with school lessons in the evenings. In 1836, he began studying medicine and theology in Glasgow and decided to become a missionary doctor. In 1841, he was posted to the edge of the

Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. In 1845, he married Mary Moffat, daughter of a fellow missionary.

Livingstone became convinced of his mission to reach new peoples in the interior of Africa and introduce them to Christianity, as well as freeing them from slavery. It was this which inspired his explorations. In

1849 and 1851, he travelled across the Kalahari, on the second trip sighting the upper Zambezi River. In 1852, he began a four year expedition to find a route from the upper Zambezi to the coast. This filled

huge gaps in western knowledge of central and southern Africa. In 1855, Livingstone discovered a spectacular waterfall which he named 'Victoria Falls'. He reached the mouth of the Zambezi on the Indian Ocean in May 1856, becoming the first European to cross the width of southern Africa.

Returning to Britain, where he was now a national hero, Livingstone did many speaking tours and published his best-selling 'Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa' (1857). He left for Africa again in 1858, and for the next five years carried out official explorations of eastern and central Africa for the British government. His wife died of malaria in 1862, a bitter blow and in 1864 he was ordered home by a government unimpressed with the results of his travels. At home, Livingstone publicised the horrors of the slave trade, securing private support for another expedition to central Africa, searching for the Nile's source and reporting further on slavery. This expedition lasted from 1866 until Livingstone's death in 1873. After nothing was heard from him for many months, Henry Stanley, an explorer and journalist, set out to find Livingstone. This resulted in their meeting near Lake Tanganyika in October 1871 during which Stanley uttered the famous phrase: 'Dr Livingstone I presume?' With new supplies from Stanley, Livingstone continued his efforts to find the source of the Nile. His health had been poor for many years and he died on 1 May 1873. His body was taken back to England and buried in Westminster Abbey.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/livingstone_david.shtml)

* Exploration of Africa ( British Empire—Colonial Africa (1795 to 1909)

Substantial British Influence in Africa was not established until the 19th century, and was confined to several regions which have separate histories. By the turn of the 20th century, British holdings included Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) and Nigeria in West Africa; the region now composed of South Africa, Botswana, Zambezi, and Zambia in the south; and Uganda and Kenya in the East. In addition, British forces controlled the regions of Egypt and Sudan, although nominally these were still part of the Ottoman Empire. Although British traders, including slave traders, had operated off the west coast of Africa for several hundred years, they confined their operations mainly to a few coastal trading ports and islands, since the African interior was thought to be uninhabitable by Europeans. Britain did not actually gain control of Capetown in South Africa until around 1800, and did not acquire her other colonial holdings until the late 19th century. British colonization of Africa therefore occurred nearly 100 years after its colonial expansion in Asia, and over 200 years since its colonization of North America.

The British colonization of Africa proceeded in a much more hesitant manner than that of Asia. While Asia was essentially colonized by trading companies, which had but one objective in mind, Britons with imperial interests in Africa included missionaries and humanitarians, as well as traders; but even among the humanitarians there was little consensus about what could or should be done about such native practices as domestic slavery, witchcraft, inter-tribal warfare, and human sacrifice. Because of the difficulties with native populations, an unhealthy climate and uncertain commercial opportunities, there was much reluctance and controversy regarding what Britain’s objectives should be in the region, beyond preventing other countries from colonizing the region. Control of the British government changed parties rather frequently and no grand or consistent colonial policy regarding Africa was pursued from above. For this reason, committed individuals who were willing to work over the long term, were often very influential in determining British "African policy". Some examples of this were Charles Gordon in the Sudan, George Goldie in Nigeria, Cecil Rhodes in South Africa, and David Livingstone.

Certainly, by the 1880’s when the discovery of both gold and diamonds had caused hundreds of fortune seekers to flock to the region, there was a great deal of greed and exploitation involved in the development of Africa, but it is false to characterize British influence in Africa as purely exploitive in nature. Serious colonization of Africa by Britain did not begin until after the slave trade was outlawed, and much of the wrath directed against Britain by the natives, was because of its policy of opposing slavery and witchcraft, which were thoroughly ingrained into native African culture. Millions of dollars were spent on humanitarian relief for the natives; hundreds of missionaries risked their lives to bring the best aspects of civilization to the African tribes. The problems of Africa have always been serious and difficult of redress, before, during, and after colonization, but it is certain that many of the most committed of British colonizers, were motivated to alleviate the suffering of the native populations, and not entirely driven by greed.

The geography of the African interior was almost completely unknown well into the 19th century, but when exploration was finally undertaken most of the adventurers were British Scots. One of the earliest explorers of Africa was James Bruce who discovered the source of the Blue Nile in 1770. Soon after Mungo Park discovered the Niger river by traveling across land, but never determined its source or mouth. Several other British explorers, including Hugh Clapperton and the Landers brothers continued to explore this region over the next few decades. They determined the course and the outlet of the Niger, but not much was done to follow up their efforts because of the extreme danger of traveling inland in this region. The source of the White Nile and Lake Victoria, were not discovered until 1856 by John Hanning Speke and Richard Burton, and David Livingstone, the most famous of African Explorers, did not undertake his first expedition to cross the southern horn of the continent until 1852, and by his death in 1873, much of the interior of the continent was still unknown. It was left to H. M. Stanley, yet another Scotsman, to cross the continent east to west, and in 1874 discover the route of the Congo river. Even after these discoveries were made further development was proceeded very slowly, and large swaths of the continent lay unexplored.