Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi - Finding Dr. Livingstone: A History in Documents From the Henry Morton Stanley Archives

Finding Dr. Livingstone

A HISTORY IN DOCUMENTS FROM THE HENRY MORTON STANLEY ARCHIVES

Ohio University Press

Published in association with RMCA

Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

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Frontispiece: Mr. Stanley, in the dress he wore when he met Dr. Livingstone in Africa. Stereoscopic and Photographic Co. photograph. (S.A. 5155). The Stanley Archives (S.A.), property of the King Baudouin Foundation, are held in trust at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Belgium).

Names: Leduc-Grimaldi, Mathilde, editor. | Newman, James L., editor. | Gryseels, Guido, writer of foreword. | Allard, D. (Dominique), writer of foreword. | Royal Museum for Central Africa, publisher.

Title: Finding Dr. Livingstone : a history in documents from the Henry Morton Stanley Archives / edited by Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi and James L. Newman, forewords by Guido Gryseels and Dominique Allard.

Description: Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, published in association with RMCA, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019032228 | ISBN 9780821423660 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780821446744 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton), 1841-1904--Travel--Africa, Central--Sources. | Livingstone, David, 1813-1873--Sources. | Africa, Central--Discovery and exploration--Sources. | Africa, Central--Description and travel--Sources.

Classification: LCC DT351 .F56 2019 | DDC 916.70423--dcundefined

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032228

Contents

(G. Gryseels, RMCA)

(D. Allard, KBF)

Illustrations

1. Map of Part of Eastern Central Africa, shewing the routes and discoveries of Henry M. Stanley whilst in search of Dr. Livingstone 18711872

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Foreword

RESEARCH AND INFORMATION dissemination on Central Africa, its past and present, have been the core activities of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA, Tervuren, Belgium) for 120 years now. Most of our researchers and curators work is typically anchored in todays Africa. Yet knowledge of the past and the protection and study of collections with considerable historical significance are key factors in understanding, coping with, building upon, and moving on from apparently remote periods to the present, which owes so much to them.

Over the past seventy years, the RMCA, with the support of the King Baudouin Foundation (KBF, Brussels, Belgium), succeeded in acquiring a huge set of Henry M. Stanleys private papers, photographs, and correspondence that still were in the possession of his heirs. Thanks to the care of successive RMCA curators Dr. Marcel Luwel, Dr. Philippe Marechal, and Mr. Maurits Wynants, those materials now comprise a valuable deposit at RMCA of more than seven thousand entries.

The Stanley Archives are an unparalleled source for research, encompassing an important part of the history of Africa and Europe in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This treasure rightly spurs the interest of international scholars. It was essential to emphasize and address this feature of the collection. Both Emeritus Professor James L. Newman (University of Syracuse) and Dr. Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi (RMCA) have been responsible for the complex, ongoing project of publishing the travelers most important diaries and notebooks.

Ohio University Press and the RMCA decided to combine their efforts to achieve that goal. I am happy that this volume materializes this successful collaboration. The content of this volume considers Henry M. Stanleys travel in search of Dr. David Livingstone, the preparation for Stanleys journey, the stop & go instructions from his sponsor, the New York Herald, his meeting with the famous doctor on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, their three months together, and finally Stanleys return to Zanzibar.

This volume offers new data and new perspectives on Central Africas precolonial era to students, scholars, and the general public. I am fully confident that this work provides new information and will encourage other researchers to further explore these archives.

Foreword

WHEN SOCIT GNRALE de Belgique conducted the negotiations in 1982 for the purchase of the archives of Henry M. Stanley, everyone thought they had rescued the memory of this man, who is particularly emblematic of the nineteenth century. The historians at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren were aware that swathes of documents were missing, but these were thought to have been irrevocably lost. Nevertheless, how was it possible that the meticulous work of Dolly Stanley after the death of her heroic husband could have omitted a number of especially important episodes in his life? The documents were not lost; they had only been mislaid. In 1999, during a house move, the unknown archives turned up in a hidden corner of the Stanley home at Furze Hill (Surrey). Acting at Tervurens request, the King Baudouin Foundation deployed its Heritage Fund to purchase the documents and place them at the Museum alongside the other documents that had meanwhile been given to the Foundation by the companies in the Gnrale group. The Museum now had a single interlocutor owning the entire archive, and it was consequently able to make it available for use by historians throughout the world. Twenty years later, the King Baudouin Foundation is delighted to have been involved in this heritage process.

James L. Newman was one of the first to jump at the chance. Assisted by the late Maurits Wynants and then by Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi, he followed Stanleys route from London to Istanbul, from Zanzibar to Matadi, and from Bombay to Brisbane, using the thousands of documents preserved in the Stanley Pavilion at Tervuren.

Today sees the publication of the long-expected book by James L. Newman and Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi on the archives, travel diaries, and correspondence linked to Stanleys journey to Africa in 187072 in search of Livingstone. Everyone remembers from that journey the events of November 10, 1871, the day when the two men met and exchanged their historic words. Today the editors of this volume have given us the opportunity to travel alongside Stanley, hour by hour, on his two-year journey. This is an opportunity to understand the reference points used by Stanley in his own time, and the political and economic context in which he traveled.