A White Explorer in Black Africa

HENRY MORTON STANLEY, Autobiography (1909)

In 1871, while working as a journalist for the New York Herald, Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) led an expedition to locate Dr. David Livingstone, a popular explorer and missionary who had gone missing in central Africa. Upon reading about Stanley’s exploration of the Congo basin, Leopold II, king of the Belgians, became interested in acquiring an empire in Africa and hired Stanley to carry out a series of expeditions on his behalf. In time, Leopold would establish a personal empire in the Congo that was notorious, even among Europeans, for the unspeakably brutal exploitation of the native population. Stanley’s autobiography, however, paints a very different picture of the interactions between whites and blacks in central Africa. As you read this excerpt, pay particular attention to Stanley’s assumptions about white racial superiority. How did racial thinking shape his understanding of his experiences in the Congo?

Ngalyema, chief of Stanley Pool district, had demanded and received four thousand five hundred dollars’ worth of cotton, silk, and velvet goods for granting me the privilege of establishing a station in a wilderness of a place at the commencement of up-river navigation. Owing to this, I had advanced with my wagons to within ten miles of the Pool. I had toiled at this work the best part of two years, and whenever I cast a retrospective glance at what the task had cost me, I felt that it was no joke, and such that no money would bribe me to do over again. Such a long time had elapsed since Ngalyema had received his supplies, that he affected to forget that he had received any; and, as I still continued to advance towards him after the warnings of his messengers, he collected a band of doughty warriors, painted their bodies with diagonal stripes of ochre, soot, chalk, and yellow, and issued fiercely to meet me.

Meantime, the true owners of the soil had enlightened me respecting Ngalyema’s antecedents. He was only an enterprising native trader in ivory and slaves, who had fled from the north bank; but, though he had obtained so much money from me by pretences, I was not so indignant at this as at the audacity with which he chose to forget the transaction, and the impudent demand for another supply which underlay this. Ngalyema, having failed to draw any promise by sending messengers, thought he could extort it by appearing with a warlike company. Meantime, duly warned, I had prepared a surprise for him.

I had hung a great Chinese Gong conspicuously near the principal tent. Ngalyema’s curiosity would be roused. All my men were hidden, some in the steamboat on top of the wagon, and in its shadow was a cool place where the warriors would gladly rest after a ten-mile march; other of my men lay still as death under tarpaulins, under bundles of grass, and in the bush round about the camp. By the time the drum-taps and horns announced Ngalyema’s arrival, the camp seemed abandoned except by myself and a few small boys. I was indolently seated in a chair, reading a book, and appeared too lazy to notice anyone; but suddenly looking up and seeing my ’brother Ngalyema’ and his warriors scowlingly regarding me, I sprang up, and seized his hands, and affectionately bade him welcome, in the name of sacred fraternity, and offered him my own chair.

He was strangely cold, and apparently disgruntled, and said: —

“Has not my brother forgotten his road? What does he mean by coming to this country?”

“Nay, it is Ngalyema who has forgotten the blood-bond which exists between us. It is Ngalyema who has forgotten the mountains of goods which I paid him. What words are these of my brother?”

“Be warned, Rock-Breaker. Go back before it is too late. My elders and people all cry out against allowing the white man to come into our country. Therefore, go back before it be too late. Go back, I say, the way you came.”

Speech and counter-speech followed. Ngalyema had exhausted his arguments; but it was not easy to break faith and be uncivil, without plausible excuse. His eyes were reaching round seeking to discover an excuse to fight, when they rested on the round, burnished face of the Chinese gong.

“What is that?” he said.

“Ah, that—that is a fetish.”

“A fetish! A fetish for what?”

“It is a war-fetish, Ngalyema. The slightest sound of that would fill this empty camp with hundreds of angry warriors; they would drop from above, they would spring up from the ground, from the forest about, from everywhere.”

“Sho! Tell that story to the old women, and not to a chief like Ngalyema. My boy tells me it is a kind of a bell. Strike it and let me hear it.”

“Oh, Ngalyema, my brother, the consequences would be too dreadful! Do not think of such a thing!”

“Strike it, I say.”

“Well, to oblige my dear brother Ngalyema, I will.”

And I struck hard and fast, and the clangorous roll rang out like thunder in the stillness. Only for a few seconds, however, for a tempest of human voices was heard bursting into frightful discords, and from above, right upon the heads of the astonished warriors, leaped yelling men; and from the tents, the huts, the forest round about, they came by sixes, dozens, and scores, yelling like madmen, and seemingly animated with uncontrollable rage. The painted warriors became panic-stricken; they flung their guns and powder-kegs away, forgot their chief, and all thoughts of loyalty, and fled on the instant, fear lifting their heels high in the air; or, tugging at their eyeballs and kneading the senses confusedly, they saw, heard, and suspected nothing, save that the limbo of fetishes had broken loose!

But Ngalyema and his son did not fly. They caught the tails of my coat, and we began to dance from side to side, a loving triplet, myself being the foremost, to ward off the blow savagely aimed at my “brothers,” and cheerfully crying out, “Hold fast to me, my brothers. I will defend you to the last drop of my blood. Come one, come all,” etc.

Presently the order was given, “Fall in!” and quickly the leaping forms became rigid, and the men stood in two long lines in beautiful order, with eyes front, as though “at attention.” Then Ngalyema relaxed his hold of my coat-tails, and crept from behind, breathing more freely; and, lifting his hand to his mouth, exclaimed, in genuine surprise “Eh, Mamma! Where did all these people come from?”

“Ah, Ngalyema, did I not tell you that thing was a powerful fetish? Let me strike it again, and show you what else it can do.”

“No! No! No!” he shrieked. “I have seen enough!”

The day ended peacefully. I was invited to hasten on to Stanley Pool. The natives engaged themselves by the score to assist me in hauling the wagons. My progress was thenceforward steady and uninterrupted, and in due time the wagons and goods-columns arrived at their destination. . . .

Some of you may, perhaps, wonder at the quiet inoffensiveness of the natives, who, on a former expedition, had worried my soul by their ferocity and wanton attacks, night and day; but a very simple explanation of it may be found in Livingstone’s Last Journals, dated 28th October, 1870. He says: “Muini Mukata, who has travelled further than most Arabs, said to me, ’If a man goes with a good-natured, civil tongue, he may pass through the worst people in Africa unharmed.’ This is true, but time also is required; one must not run through a country, but give the people time to become acquainted with you, and let their worst fears subside.”

Now on the expedition across Africa I had no time to give, either to myself or to them. The river bore my heavy canoes downward; my goods would never have endured the dawdling requirement by the system of teaching every tribe I met who I was. To save myself and my men from certain starvation, I had to rush on and on, right through. But on this expedition, the very necessity of making roads to haul my enormous six-ton wagons gave time for my reputation to travel ahead of me. My name, purpose, and liberal rewards for native help, naturally exaggerated, prepared a welcome for me, and transformed my enemies of the old time into workmen, friendly allies, strong porters, and firm friends. I was greatly forbearing also; but, when a fight was inevitable, through open violence, it was sharp and decisive. Consequently, the natives rapidly learned that though everything was to be gained by friendship with me, wars brought nothing but ruin. . . .

The dark faces light up with friendly gleams, and a budding of good will may perhaps date from this trivial scene. To such an impressionable being as an African native, the self-involved European, with his frigid, imperious manner, pallid white face, and dead, lustreless eyes, is a sealed book.

We had sown seeds of good-will at every place we had touched, and each tribe would spread diffusively the report of the value and beauty of our labors. Pure benevolence contains within itself grateful virtues. Over natural people nothing has greater charm or such expansible power; its influence grows without effort; its subtlety exercises itself on all who come within hearing of it. Coming in such innocent guise, it offends not; there is naught in it to provoke resentment. Provided patience and good temper guides the chief of Stanley Falls station, by the period of the return of the steamers, the influence of the seedling just planted there will have been extended from tribe to tribe far inland, and amid the persecuted fugitives from the slave-traders. . . .

When a young white officer quits England for the first time, to lead blacks, he has got to learn to unlearn a great deal. . . . We must have white men in Africa; but the raw white is a great nuisance there during the first year. In the second year, he begins to mend; during the third year, if his nature permits it, he has developed into a superior man, whose intelligence may be of transcendent utility for directing masses of inferior men.

My officers were possessed with the notion that my manner was “hard,” because I had not many compliments for them. That is the kind of pap which we may offer women and boys. Besides, I thought they were superior natures, and required none of that encouragement, which the more childish blacks almost daily received.

From Henry Morton Stanley, Autobiography, ed. Dorothy Stanley (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1909), pp. 339-344, 384-385.