|
Dromo's Den
|
|
[Up] [Dromo's Den] Henry Stanley Biography STANLEY, Sir Henry Morton (1841–1904). A British African explorer. He was born at Denbigh, Wales, the son of John Rowlands, who died when the boy was two years old. After spending nine years in a workhouse and then living with various relatives, he shipped at 18 as a cabin boy on a sailing vessel to New Orleans. There he found employment through the help of a merchant named Stanley, whose name he took. While living in Arkansas he enlisted in the Confederate army. In the battle of Shiloh (1862) he was captured, but after two months in prison he enlisted in the Federal artillery (his sympathies had really been with the North). Discharged after severe illness, he returned to his Welsh relatives, but was not received. In 1864 he enlisted in the United States navy and became a ship's writer. A swim of 500 yards under fire to fix a line to a Confederate steamer was an exploit for which he became noted. After the war he left the navy and wrote for newspapers, had various adventures in Asia Minor (1866), and in 1867 acted as newspaper correspondent in one of the Indian campaigns in the West. By this time he had gained a reputation for enterprise and for vivid and able journalistic writing. In 1868 he was sent by the New York Herald to Abyssinia with the British expedition under Sir Robert Napier. In 1869 James Gordon Bennett (q.v.) of the Herald dispatched Stanley to find David Livingstone (q.v.) in Central Africa, but because of certain other commissions given him, Stanley did not reach Zanzibar until Jan. 6, 1871. He left for the interior March 21, with about 200 men, and on November 10 met the feeble and almost helpless Livingstone at Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika (see Tanganyika), nursed him back to better health, and, since Livingstone declined to return to Europe, gave him the supplies needed to continue his explorations. After taking part with Livingstone in an exploration of the northern end of Lake Tanganyika, Stanley returned to Europe in 1872, and in 1873 was sent by the Herald to west Africa to report the British campaign against the Ashantis. In 1874 Stanley determined to take up the exploration of Africa where Livingstone, dying, had left it. The New York Herald and the London Daily Telegraph shared the expense of fitting out this expedition. On Nov. 11, 1874, Stanley left Zanzibar, with 356 native followers, two white companions, and a white servant. Stanley's first great work was a boat survey of the coasts of the Victoria Nyanza (q.v.), to the west of which he discovered Lake Edward (q.v.), or Edward Nyanza, one of the head reservoirs of the Nile. He found that the Kagera or Alexandra Nile, rising near Lake Tanganyika, was the most important feeder of the Victoria Nyanza. Arriving at Tanganyika (1876), he sought in vain for its outlet, the fact being that the level of the .lake was then so low that no water was passing through the Lukuga into the Congo (q.v.). His expedition had been greatly enfeebled by fever and smallpox, but he pushed westward to Nyangwe, on the Lualaba, which Livingstone and Cameron had visited. Stanley determined to make his way down the great river, and in November, 1876, embarked on the perilous journey. He was frequently attacked by cannibals, thousands of whom sometimes pursued him in canoes, and if it had not been for his guns his expedition would undoubtedly have perished. After a voyage of over 1500 miles, in the course of which he twice crossed the equator, he emerged on the Atlantic coast, having lifted the veil that had hitherto hung over the Congo, which was thus shown to be the same river as the Lualaba. On Aug. 9, 1877, the party marched into Boma, on the lower Congo, having traveled more than 7000 miles. Besides his three white companions, Stanley lost 170 of his porters. In the spring of 1879 he sailed again for Africa, under the auspices of the African International Association (q.v.), which King Leopold II (q.v.) of Belgium had been instrumental in founding. (This organization developed into the International Association of the Congo.) Stanley now began five years of incessant toil, founding stations from Vivi, on the lower Congo, to Stanley Falls, about 1300 miles up the river, acquiring treaty rights from more than 400 native chiefs, building a road through the cataract country, and having all his supplies and even steamboats (in sections) carried 235 miles around the rapids of the lower Congo. The years 1885 and 1886 were a period of comparative rest for the explorer, who had now been the recipient of honors from learned societies all over the world and was the most distinguished of living explorers. In 1886 Stanley was placed at the head of an expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha (q.v.), Governor of the Equatorial Province of the Egyptian Sudan. In March, 1887, he reached the mouth of the Congo, ascended it to the Aruwimi, pushed on to the head of navigation on this tributary, and then struck out through the equatorial wilderness in the direction of the Albert Nyanza. (See Lake Albert.) The party for months had to hew their way through seemingly interminable tropical forests, and did not reach the Albert Nyanza until Dec. 13, 1887. In April, 1888, the intrepid Emin Pasha made his appearance on the shores of the lake. Stanley now retraced his steps to the Aruwimi in order to bring up a detachment of men which he had left there. For the third time he crossed the vast forest, and in January, 1889, with the remnant of his men, only one-third of the original number, he rejoined Emin, with whom he proceeded to the coast. On this journey Stanley made his second crossing of Africa, emerging at Zanzibar, Dec. 6, 1889, after learning the extent of the great forest, and discovering the water connection of Lake Albert with Lake Edward, the snowcapped Ruwenzori mountain chain between the two lakes, and the southwestern prolongation of the Victoria Nyanza. This expedition ended his active career in Africa, about which continent he had given to the world more knowledge than any other man. The successful founding of the Congo Free State (see Congo, Belgian) was largely due to the confidence he inspired and the friendships he won. At the same time he did not hesitate to fight the Africans with every resource at his command if their hostility threatened the destruction of his expeditions or imperiled his enterprises. Stanley was married to Miss Dorothy Tennant, an artist, in 1890. The next year he became again a subject of Great Britain, and in July, 1895, he entered Parliament for North Lambeth, as a Liberal Unionist, but did not seek reëlection in 1900. He paid a last visit to Africa in 1897. In 1899 he was made G.C.B. He died in London, May 10, 1904, and after a funeral in Westminster Abbey was buried at Pirbright, Surrey. The dean of Westminster refused to have him buried in the abbey because of a belief that Stanley had been inhuman to the African natives, but this belief has since been discredited by authoritative writers. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 449-450.
|