David Livingstone

David Livingstone

David Livingstone, (March 19, 1813 -May 1, 1873) a Scottish medical missionary and explorer of the Victorian era, traveled 29,000 miles across one-third of the continent of Africa for more than thirty years. Livingstone's own conversion came when he realized that faith and science were compatible. He believed the best way to share his faith with the Africans was to teach them about the world. Livingston respected Africans and learned their languages and customs. He was appalled by the way the Dutch and Portuguese colonists treated the African people and his writings told the world about the slave trade. Livingstone supported his work by writing books about his travels. His geographical, botanical, medical, and social discoveries were extensive.

Early life

David Livingstone was born in the village of Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. His father, Neil Livingstone, journeyed from place to place as a tea merchant and was a member of a missionary society. His family of nine lived in a humble single room in a cotton mill tenement. At the young age of ten, David Livingston started working in a cotton factory. He had such an intense desire for knowledge that he used part of his first week's earnings to buy a Latin grammar. He set up his book at the factory in such a way where he could study as he worked.

As he worked fourteen hours a day and studied at night school, Livingston saved up enough money so that in 1836, he could begin to study medicine and theology at the University of Glasgow. In 1838, he decided to become a medical missionary with the London Missionary Society (LMS), which he chose because of its nonsectarian character. While in London, Livingstone completed his internship and met South African missionary Robert Moffat, who inspired him to go to Africa. Dr Moffat spoke of the vast, untouched regions of Central Africa, and the 'smoke of a thousand villages' where the gospel had never been preached.

In 1840, after receiving his medical license and being ordained, Livingston sailed to Cape Town for a mission station (just north of the Moffat’s) called Buchuanaland (now Botswana). He decided not to settle in one place but to travel around the interior. Livingston stayed with the local people while learning their languages, preaching, and studying the botany and natural history of the area. When he wasn’t traveling he built a chapel, set up a printing press, and tended to the sick.

In 1845, he married Mary Moffat, Robert’s eldest daughter, and began a family while moving around setting up new missions, eventually having six children.

One time, Livingstone fired on an attacking male lion and the lion bit into his shoulder and shook him until the lion finally fell over dead. This injury limited the use of his left arm but did not affect his adventurous spirit.

The Royal Geographical Society awarded him a prize and a gold medal for his discovery of Lake Ngami in the Kalahari Desert in 1849.

Victoria Falls

David Livingstone memorial at Victoria Falls

In the period between November 1852 and September 1856, Livingston explored the African interior, and was the first European to witness the magnificence the Mosi-oa-Tunya waterfall (which he renamed Victoria Falls after his monarch, Queen Victoria). He was one of the first Westerners to make the 4,300 mile transcontinental journey across Africa. The purpose of his journey was to open the routes, while accumulating useful information about the African continent. In particular, Livingstone was a proponent of trade and missions to be established in central Africa. His motto, inscribed in the base of the statue to him at Victoria Falls, was "Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization." At this time he believed the key to achieving these goals was the navigation of the Zambezi River. He hoped to find a route to the Atlantic Ocean that would open up legitimate commerce and weaken the slave trade since local chiefs would no longer have to cooperate with slave traders to get trade goods. He returned to Britain to try to garner support for his ideas, and to publish a book on his travels.

In 1856, Livingstone returned to England as a national hero and started a six-month speaking tour while preparing his book, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (1857). This sold widely and made him financially independent, allowing him to provide for his family and resign from the London Missionary Society. One speech, at Cambridge University, inspired the Universities Mission for Christian Work in Africa (UMCA, eventually founded in 1860). Livingstone left for Africa again in March 1858, with his wife and one son. This time he went with an official appointment as Her Majesty’s Consul for the East Coast of Africa.

Zambezi expedition

Livingstone returned to Africa as head of the "Zambezi Expedition", which was a government-funded project to examine the natural resources of southeastern Africa. The Zambezi river turned out to be completely unnavigable past the Cabora basa rapids, a series of cataracts and rapids that Livingstone had failed to explore on his earlier travels. The expedition lasted from March 1858 until the middle of 1864. Livingstone was an inexperienced leader and had trouble managing a large-scale project. At Sesheke, Livingstone first observed the great Zambesi River and began the hazardous hike northward.

From the beginning this journey was riddled with difficulties. For the first time, Livingstone contracted malaria as did most of his companions. Livingstone's wife Mary died on April 29, 1863 of dysentery, but Livingstone continued to explore, eventually returning home in 1864 after the government ordered the recall of the Expedition. The Zambezi Expedition was castigated as a failure in many newspapers of the time, and Livingstone experienced great difficulty in raising funds to further explore Africa. Nevertheless, the scientists appointed to work under Livingstone, John Kirk (Explorer), Charles Meller, and Richard Thornton, did contribute large collections of botanicological, geological and ethnographic material to scientific institutions in the UK.

Source of the Nile

Livingstone maintained exceptional popularity with the Royal Geographical Society and the British public. While in England, he gave speeches about the need to take action against the slave trade. His newest publication, a book called Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi and Its Tributaries (1865), brought private support to explore the watersheds (divides between river drainage basins) of central Africa.

In March, 1866, Livingstone returned to Africa, this time to Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania), where he set out to seek the source of the Nile. Livingstone never lost the dream that “civilizing influences” could restrain the slave trade, which he called “that enormous evil.”

Along with his loyal African companions, Sisu and Chuma, he explored Lakes Tanganyika, Mweru and Bangweulu. The map of Africa was slowly being charted. The the source of the Nile, seemed so close and even though Livingstone often thought he was on the verge of success, he continued to be puzzled for seven years. In 1871, Livingston found the Lualaba River, which feeds the Congo River, and mistakingly thought this river was the "real" Nile.

Livingstone saw Arab slave traders massacre between 300 to 400 Africans. Devastated in heart and in body, he returned to Ujiji. Since the rest of the world had heard nothing about Livingstone’s progress for months, the “New York Herald” sent Henry Stanley, the flamboyant journalist, to find him. Little did he know that a few years after his death, for the most part attributed to his influence, the slave traffic would be abolished and a beautiful church would be erected on the very site of the Zanzibar slave market.

Meeting Henry Stanley and Death

Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years. Only one of his 44 later dispatches made it to Zanzibar. Henry Morton Stanley, sent by the New York Herald newspaper in 1869, lead an expedition of about 2,000 men to find Livingstone. The search team started into the interior from the eastern shore of Africa on March 21, 1871. It wasn’t until nearly eight months later that Stanley found Livingstone in Ujiji, a small village on the shore of Lake Tanganyika on November 10, 1871. When Livingstone came out to meet him, Stanley responded with what has become one of history's most famous greetings: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

Together, Livingstone and Stanley continued exploring the north end of the Tanganyika (part of the present Tanzania) until Stanley left him in March. Even though Stanley urged him to return, Livingstone was determined not to leave Africa until his mission was complete. Stocked up with supplies, Livingstone set off again toward Lake Bangweulu, and continued his efforts to find the source of the Nile. He became so weak with dysentery that he had to be carried on a stretcher and finally couldn’t travel at all.

He was a frail and weak figure and in the morning of May 1, 1873, his companions found him kneeling by his bedside having died in prayer in Chitambo (now Zambia). His body, carried over a thousand miles by his loyal attendants Chuma and Susi, was returned to Britain. He was entombed in Westminster Abbey where his epitaph reads:

’Brought by faithful hands over land and sea, here rests David Livingstone, missionary, traveler, philanthropist, born March 19, 1813, at Blantyre, Lanarkshire, died May 1, 1873, at Chitambo’s village, Ulala. For 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, to abolish the desolating slave trade of Central Africa. Where with his last words he wrote, “All I can add in my solitude is may Heaven’s rich blessings come down to everyone, American, English, or Turk, who will help heal the open sore of the world.”'