Transcript
Narrator (John Hopkins) (0:01)
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That's 20% off your first purchase with Code short history at LiquidIV. It's the 10th of November, 1871. On a mountain ridge in Eastern Africa. A group of travel weary porters are trekking up a hillside, slashing their way through the dense bamboo to clear a path. But unlike many European explorers, 30 year old journalist Henry Morton Stanley, who is leading the expedition, is not scouting for trade routes or mineral riches. He's hunting a missing man. 236 days have passed since Stanley landed in East Africa on the most punishing assignment of his career. He survived smallpox, dysentery and cerebral malaria. Most of his oxen and donkeys have been killed by crocodiles or disease spread by tsetse flies. Fewer than 40 of his original 100 porters are still with him, the rest having either died or deserted Stanley because of his violent temper. But as the group climbs the side of a ravine carrying food, tents and weapons, Stanley is in a better mood than usual. He hopes he is finally closing in on his prey. He is grateful for the shade of the palm forest as the route takes them up yet another mountain. As they reach the summit, Stanley pushes through the trees to see what looks like a glittering silver sea below them. But they are 750 miles inland. It's actually the breathtaking Lake Tanganyika, and it means his destination is just minutes away. He speeds up. Finally, he sees the port of Ujiji. Once a mere trading post, it has grown prosperous from sitting on the route slavers use to take their captives towards Zanzibar, from where they'll be transported to the Middle east and Beyond. Stanley thinks it's a strange place for the man he's seeking, whose passionate opposition to slavery has made him famous. Nothing has been heard of the legendary Scottish explorer Dr. David Livingstone. For four years, Stanley's bosses at the New York Herald have told him to either bring Livingstone back alive or return with his bones. If this is the end of Stanley's quest, he wants to make a grand entrance. He's already changed out of his ragged clothes into his one remaining flannel suit and had his servant chalk his helmet and oil his boots. Now he orders his remaining porters to raise the Stars and Stripes and load their guns to signal the caravan's arrival. As they enter the settlement, the noise brings hundreds of people out to see what's happening. Africans and Arab traders flock around the procession calling out questions to Stanley in words he doesn't understand. But then one African man in a white shift and a turban greets him in English. On asking who he is, Stanley gets the reply he's dreamed of. This man is Abdullah Susi, Livingstone's servant. This is the moment he has been waiting for. He struggles through the crowd towards the center of the village. A space opens up and in front of a group of Arab traders he sees an elderly white man with a bushy handlebar mustache. His clothes, a red waistcoat and gray tweed trousers, are faded and a cap shields his tired eyes. His face is sunken and it is clear he's been very sick. But he is alive. Just. Stanley fights the instinct to embrace the man. After all this anticipation, he has no idea what to do. Perhaps formality is what's called for. So Stanley steps towards the stupid figure and pretends he's back in a London gentleman's club. He raises his hat and holds out his hand and says, Dr. Livingstone I presume? The man smiles back. He lifts his own cap and gestures for Stanley to take a seat on the veranda of his mud hut. They have a lot to discuss. The meeting was to be the scoop of the decade for Stanley. Returning to London, he became famous for breaking the news that 58 year old Livingstone was not only alive, but still pursuing his search for the source of the River Nile. Because despite his ill health, Livingstone was defined by his determination. It took him from a childhood working in a Scottish cotton factory to becoming a doctor and Christian missionary in the heart of what Victorians called the Dark Continent. Over 32 years of exploration he traveled more than 30,000 miles and contended with disease, heartbreak and brutal armed conflict. Along the way, his encounters with Africans led him to reject the prejudiced views of many white people, turning him into a fierce campaigner against the slave trade after witnessing its cruelty and injustice firsthand. But despite his celebrated status, Livingstone is a flawed hero. Unsuccessful as a missionary, struggling to lead others, and putting colleagues and his own family in grave danger in pursuit of his goals. So how did Dr. David Livingstone fight his way out of poverty to become one of the world's most famous explorers? Why, over 200 years after his birth, is he still a source of fascination? How important was his work for the abolitionist movement? And what is his legacy? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Network. This is a short history of Dr. David Livingstone. The story starts in March 1813, in the town of Blantyre in Scotland, where David Livingstone is born. The second of seven children, his family live in a single room on the top floor of a whitewashed tenement building housing workers at the local cotton mill. Both his parents are committed Christians, and while his father sells tea door to door, he uses these visits as a chance to hand out religious tracts to his clients. But the rest of the family work in the mill and David joins them when he is 10 years old. Dr. Kate Simpson is the curatorial advisor for the David Livingstone Birthplace Museum in Blantyre and the project scholar for Livingstone Online.