Henry Morton Stanley

Nathan C. Thompson EUH1001 Feb 28, 2012 Dr. W. Moody enthalpy Morton Stanley Born rear end Rowlands in Wales, or as those of his time knew him as Henry Morton Stanley was the peaked(predicate)egitimate child son of John Rowlands and Elizabeth Parry. He grew up partly in the weigh down of reluctant relatives, partly in St. Asaph Workhouse. After his interlude of dependence on relatives, he sailed from Liverpool as a cabin boy, landing at impudently siege of Orleans in 1859. There Rowlands was befriended by a merchant, Henry wish Stanley, whose premier and cash in ones chips names the boy adopted in an unornamented effort to make a snotty-nosed start in purport with a new indistinguishability Morton was added later.For some forms Stanley led a roving look a soldier in the American civilian War, a seaman on merchant ships and in the U. S. Navy, a journalist in the early days of frontier expansion. In 1867 Stanley offered his renovations to jam Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald as a special correspondent with the British expeditionary force sent against Tewodros II of Ethiopia, and Stanley was the first to report the occur of Magdala in 1868.An assignment to report the Spanish Civil War followed, and in 1869 he received instructions to undertake a roving steering in the Middle East, which was to include the relief of Dr. David Livingstone, of whom little had been heard since his departure for Africa in 1866 to search for the source of the Nile. On Jan. 6, 1871, Stanley reached Zanzibar, the starting point for expeditions to the interior, and, feeling on a scoop, left on March 21 without disclosing his intentions.His confining conduct caused much offense to the authorities, especi in ally to Sir John Kirk, the British consul, who had been having encumbrance in making contact with Livingstone. Leading a well-equipped caravan and O.K. by American money, Stanley forced his way through country brainsick by fighting and stricken by sickness to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika, Livingstones last known port of call. There he free-base the old gun, ill and short of supplies, and greeted him with the famous words Dr. Livingstone, I presume? A tender friendship sprang up between the two men, and when Stanley returned to the coast he dispatched fresh supplies to enable Livingstone to carry on. The older mans quest ended a year later with his death in the swamps of Lake Bangweulu still vainly seeking the Nile in a region that in fact gives rise to the congo (Zaire) River. When Livingstone died in 1873, Stanley resolved to take up the exploration of Africa where he had left off. The worry of the Nile sources and the nature of the central African lakes had been only partly solved by earlier explorers.Stanley secured financial backing from the New York Herald and the Daily telegraphy of London for an expedition to pursue the quest, and the caravan left Zanzibar on Nov. 12, 1874, pass for Lake Victoria. His visit to King Mutesa I o f Buganda led to the admission of Christian missionaries to the land in 1877 and to the eventual establishment of a British protectorate in Uganda. Circumnavigating Lake Victoria, Stanley confirmed the explorer John H. Spekes estimate of its size and importance.Skirmishes with suspicious tribes mass on the lakeshore, which resulted in a number of casualties, gave rise in England to unfavorable judgment of this new kind of traveler with his journalists outlook and forceful methods. Lake Tanganyika was next explored and found to have no connection with the Nile system. Stanley and his men pressed on tungsten to the Lualaba River (the very river that Livingstone had hoped was the Nile but that proved to be the headstream of the Congo).There they joined forces with the Arab trader Tippu Tib, who come with them for a few laps downriver, then left Stanley to fight his way first to Stanley Pool (now Malebo Pool) and then (partly overland) down to the gigantic cataracts he named Livin gstone Falls. Stanley and his men reached the sea on Aug. 12, 1877. Failing to enlist British interests in the development of the Congo, Stanley took service with the king of Belgium, Leopold II, whose secret ambition it was to annex the region for himself.From August 1879 to June 1884 Stanley was in the Congo basin, where he built a road from the lower Congo up to Stanley Pool and launched steamers on the upper river. (It is from this period, when Stanley persevered in the face of great difficulties, that he earned, from his men, the nickname of Bula Matari Breaker of Rocks). Originally under international auspices, Stanleys exercise was to pave the way for the creation of the Congo Free State, under the reign of King Leopold.Author Laura Benet does not disappoint us with this extensive study one time know John Rowlands in Wales, Stanleys boyhood was harried by poverty, by relatives who treated him as a thorn in the side and by lout years in a workhouse- not the best of conditi ons for growing up. amazingly unembittered by this, John went as a youth to New Orleans and had the good fortune to go to work for Henry Morton Stanley, a Confederate merchant who adopted him and whose name John later took. Still other set back, the Civil War, was not enough to dispirit the new Henry Stanley, who found himself in post war years a reporter for the New York Herald.First assignments sent him to Abyssinia and Spain and then the hunt for Livingstone geared the rest of his life as the reporter explorer who left his mark on the source up of Africa. For an exciting biography, the author dug deep into Stanleys life and make him a full personality in these pages, without ignoring the challenges each journey entailed. I personally found this book to be a very evoke read, it kept me intrigued and involved with an attraction that intensified with each depiction of the stories.I would urge this book to all readers young and old. For the summary I chose stories about Stanley s near memorable adventures like the search for Livingston, the journey through Africa, and King Leopolds implicit purchase of African territory for best locations. Those stories really helped put Stanley into impressiveness due to the impact they made, he saved David Livingston, a Nation hero also help jump start the Race for Africa for King Leopold all this aside from the fact that he was quite the reporter/adventure/identity thief.