Stanley, Sir Henry Morton
Stanley, Sir Henry Morton,
1841–1904, Anglo-American journalist, explorer, and empire builder, b. Denbigh, Wales. He grew up in poverty and came to America as a worker on a ship, which he jumped (1858) in New Orleans. Originally named John Rowlands, there he took a new name, which he claimed, apparently falsely, was that of his adoptive father. After fighting on both sides in the American Civil War and deserting, he drifted into journalism. His coverage of Lord NapierNapier, Robert Cornelis, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala, 1810–90, British general. In the engineering service in India, he fought in the Sikh Wars (1845–49) and took part in the relief of Lucknow (1857) during
..... Click the link for more information. 's Ethiopian campaign in 1868 for the New York Herald won him journalistic notice, and he later pursuaded the paper's editor to commission him to go to Africa to find David LivingstoneLivingstone, David
, 1813–73, Scottish missionary and explorer in Africa, the first European to cross the African continent. From 1841 to 1852, while a medical missionary for the London Missionary Society in what is now Botswana, he crossed the Kalahari desert and reached
..... Click the link for more information. . Stanley located the great explorer on Lake Tanganyika on Nov. 10, 1871. He claimed to have addressed him with the famous words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?," but probably did not actually do so. Failing to persuade Livingstone to leave Africa, Stanley returned to England with the news of his discovery. He found a mixed reception in England, where Livingstone's backers criticized Stanley's efforts and methods. Nevertheless, he succeeded in enhancing Livingstone's reputation and soon led a second expedition (1874–77), sponsored by newspapers, to further Livingstone's explorations. He followed the Congo River from its source to the sea, but he found the British uninterested in developing the region.
Stanley then accepted the invitation of Leopold IILeopold II,
1835–1909, king of the Belgians (1865–1909), son and successor of Leopold I. His reign saw great industrial and colonial expansion. In 1876 he organized, with the help of H. M.
..... Click the link for more information. of Belgium to head another expedition. During this third journey (1879–84) he helped to organize the notorious Congo Free State (see under Congo, Democratic Republic of theCongo, Democratic Republic of the,
formerly Zaïre
, republic (2015 est. pop. 76,197,000), c.905,000 sq mi (2,344,000 sq km), central Africa. It borders on Angola in the southwest and west, on the Atlantic Ocean, Cabinda (an Angolan exclave), and the Republic of
..... Click the link for more information. ), largely by persuading local chiefs to grant sovereignty over their land to the Belgian king. At the Berlin Conference (1884–85; see Berlin, Conference ofBerlin, Conference of,
1884–85, international meeting aimed at settling the problems connected with European colonies in Africa. At the invitation of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, representatives of all European nations, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire
..... Click the link for more information. ) he was instrumental in obtaining American support for Leopold's Congo venture. His last African journey (1887–89), to find Emin PashaEmin Pasha
, 1840–92, German explorer, whose original name was Eduard Schnitzer. A physician, he served (1876–78) under Gen. Charles Gordon in Sudan as a district medical officer.
..... Click the link for more information. , helped to put Uganda into the British sphere of influence. A naturalized U.S. citizen, Stanley again became a British subject in 1892, sat in Parliament (1895–1900), and was knighted (1899). His spirited and often self-aggrandizing accounts of his adventures include How I Found Livingstone (1872), Through the Dark Continent (2 vol., 1878), In Darkest Africa (2 vol., 1890), and The Exploration Diaries of H. M. Stanley (ed. by R. Stanley and A. Neame, 1961). A British and American hero for about a century and certainly a man of great accomplishment, Stanley has fared rather poorly in recent histories, which have revealed instances of his lying about events in his life, duplicity in some of his dealings, and many acts of brutality toward Africans.
Bibliography
See his Autobiography (1909, repr. 1969), ed. by his wife, Dorothy Stanley ; biographies by R. Hall (1974), J. Bierman (1990), F. McLynn (2 vol., 1989 and 1991), and T. Jeal (2007); R. Jones, The Rescue of Emin Pasha (1973).