Henry Morton Stanley

From ArticleWorld

Sir Henry Morton Stanley was an American journalist made famous for his expeditions into Africa.

Personal

Stanley was born John Rowlands in 1841 to unmarried parents in Wales. As a young man, Stanley earned his passage to the United States by working on a ship. When he arrived in New Orleans, he befriended a wealthy trader named Stanley, whose named he adopted.

In America, Stanley served on both the confederate and union sides of the Civil War.

In 1867, Stanley joined the staff as the New York Herald as an international journalist. The Herald funded his several trips to Africa.

Stanley returned to England in 1890 and married Welsh artist Dorothy Tennant. He served in Parliament as a Unionist from 1895 to 1900. Stanley died in London in 1904. His body is buried at St. Michael’s Church in Pirbright, Surrey.

Africa

According to Stanley, Herald owner James Gordon Bennett, Jr. gave Stanley unlimited funds to find and report on David Livingstone, a Scottish explorer who had isolated himself in Africa. Stanley went on a lavish expedition to Africa, employing about 2,000 porters along the way. On Nov. 10, 1871, Stanley found Livingston in modern-day Tanzania and asked, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” The famous question was ironic, as Livingstone was the only white man in hundreds of miles.

Stanley toured the Lake Tanganyika region with Livingstone for year before returning to the United States.

Later, Stanley returned to Africa with financing from the Herald and Britain’s Daily Telegraph to trace the Congo River.

Stanley’s expeditions into Africa resulted in many of deaths of local people. Stanley said, “The savage only respects force, power, boldness, and decision.”

Stanley also led the 1886 Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. Emin Pasha was the governor of Equatoria in Southern Sudan being held prisoner by the Mathist revolution.