There is an increasing critical awareness around continued structural racial inequalities in contemporary society, heritage interpretation and historical representation. This awareness is not to be seen as something inhibiting our use of historical archives - instead, it can energise studies and suggest different ways of reading the record of exploration that challenge and inspire. Most particularly, white Europeans cannot claim sole ownership of the narratives of British travellers and missionaries to Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth century given how vital African people were to their journeys.
To deny these other voices in the narratives of exploration is to deny the richness of the stories held in the archive. For it was not just David Livingstone who forged a boiling river in the shadow of Lakosa Mountain in his quest for geographical knowledge but also James Chuma, Abdullah Susi and Halima, his cook and her husband, David’s expedition leader, Amoda. Our critical geographical knowledge has been produced by black lives.
This online exhibition draws on the images and illustrations held in the Society’s archives. It asks that we look at the representations of African lives that were collected, and see what Booker T. Washington called the “power in the story of individual people”. The names of many of these people were never recorded or have been lost to time. But, that within itself is reason enough to explore what we can do with what we have. The anecdote, the photograph, the lost word, the sketch, and oral histories are all vital parts of a reimagined understanding of our past. We cannot change history but we can give contemporary people an opportunity to “feel the human touch” and “to meet the individual” intrinsic to so many British journeys in Central and Southern Africa.
We do not wish to ventriloquise African peoples or their histories. The creators of this exhibition will never be able to experience the subjective power dichotomy from the side of the colonised. The exhibition's aim is to acknowledge the work of countless African caravan workers, cooks, stokers, assistants and porters upon whose backs these journeys were made; the mute pathfinders with loud voices.
Note: The images used reflect the cultural beliefs, distortions, and prejudices of their time and may contain language or material that will upset or distress some viewers.
On his travels H. M. Stanley repeatedly asked, and relied on, local people for geographical knowledge and supplies.
“At Muwanda we again trusted our fortunes with the natives, and were this time not deceived, so that we were enabled to lay in quite a stock of vegetables and provisions at a cheap rate. They gave us all the information we desired. Baringo, they said, is the name applied by the people of Ugana to Nduru, a district of Ugeyeya, and the bay on which our boat rode, the extreme end of the lake; nor did they know nor had they heard of any lake, large or small, other than the Niyanza.”
Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London (1875-1876), Vol. 20, No. 2, p.157
A well-known image pencil and watercolour sketch which names people who worked with H. M. Stanley on his trans-African Expedition of 1874-1877. It is unusual to find most of the people named although three of the figures remain nameless. The named figures are: 1. Robert, 2. Mnyasanee, 3. Ooladie, 4. Najuara, 5. Amayshay, 6. Hassina, 7. Badazeakce, 8. Baetameesie, 9. Hamiawuzee, 10. Bintilamazanee, 11. Mamiamisie, 12. Iyaiya, 13. Mamijuma, 14. Mamihassan.
Thomas Baines, artist of Livingstone’s Second Zambezi Expedition, wrote on the day this scene was drawn:
“On the 9th we commenced our preparations for inspanning, Dokkie having arrived with oxen and a report of the capsizing of the corn wagon (without damage, as he said) on the way to camp. Leshulátēbē again brought forward the ivory for the horses, and after trying two or three races, one of which was decided in his favour, and the others in Chapman’s, and being fairly warned of all the faults of the horses (which his suspicious mind set down to the account of a desire to keep them from him), he concluded a bargain for two of them, besides the saddles, which he had returned a night or two ago.”
Baines, T. (1864). Explorations in South-West Africa, being an account of a journey from Walvisch Bay to Lake Ngami and the Victoria Falls. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, p. 445, rgs301896
Leshulátēbē (or Letsholathebe) was the father of Moremi who was involved in the Lake Ngami Mission.
If travellers such as H. M. Stanley, Thomas Baines and David Livingstone could note the individuality of Africans, why are we still ignoring the lived, visible, and sometimes recorded experiences of these people? To see the people in these representations is to begin to actively work through issues around agency, permission and power, to extend the scope of the archival dialogue.
Image: ‘Four Unnamed Women’. Detail from ‘Our wagon at Leshu Kabebis town preparing to leave’. By Thomas Baines, S0021513
On the Second Zambezi Expedition of 1858 to 1864, while sleeping at a village David Livingstone was woken by a woman grinding corn at 2am in the morning. He overheard her child ask, “Ma why grind in the dark?”
“I grind meal to buy a cloth from the strangers, which will make you look a little lady.”
Livingstone’s response was not to see this as arising from his Christianity infused commerce or trade, but to disassociate his influence on the action. He wrote:
“an observer of these primitive races is struck continually with such little trivial touches of genuine human nature.”
To diminish, or in some way belittle, the actions of people historically deprived of agency is to reinforce systematic power imbalances.
Livingstone, D., Livingstone, C. (1865). Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries. London: John Murray, p. 543, rgs322814
Researchers have made great strides in showing how engaged and complex European and Southern and Central African working relationships on expeditions of supposed exploration were. But it is noticeable that even critical thinkers rarely talk about women or their role in such journeys. It is sometimes possible to believe the nineteenth-century western European explorers never met a single woman on their travels, so limited are their mention. These women can be spectral presences in the archive.
African women have always been there in the record but have somehow remained unseen. They were part of events but they are not part of the narrative of the history which is told. Manenko was a Lunda chief, niece of Shinde (the paramount chief of the southern Lunda), daughter of Lunda chief Nyamoana and her husband Samoana. She was critical in facilitating one of Livingstone’s journeys on the Zambezi. Livingstone wrote:
“but she said the men whom she had ordered for the service had not yet come, - They would arrive tomorrow—Being on low and disagreeable diet, I felt annoyed at this further delay, & ordered the packages to be put into the canoes, to, proceed up the river without her people, - But Manen̄ko was not to be circumvented in that way, She came forward, with her people and said her uncle would be angry if she did not carry forward the tusks and goods of Sekeletu, -seized the luggage and added she would carry it in spite of me—My men succumbed to this petticoat government sooner than I did so, leaving me no power, - and being unwilling to encounter her tongue I was moving off to the canoes; - but she gave me a kind explanation, and with her hand on my shoulder put on a motherly look saying, now my little man just do as the rest have done My feelings of annoyance of course vanished, and I went out to try and get some meat.”
Livingstone, D. (1857). Missionary travels and researches in South Africa; including a sketch of sixteen years' residence in the interior of Africa, and a journey from the Cape of Good Hope to Loanda on the West Coast; thence across the continent, down the River Zambesi, to the eastern ocean. London: John Murray, Vol.1, p. 279, rgs322823
There are many other African women involved in European travel who we are still to find out more about. Women such as Kanyata, who fed David Livingstone when he was hungry; Sililuane, who was badly beaten by her husband Mashotuane; Shikandza, a subordinate chief of Shikanda; and Nyango, a Maravi chief who was noted for her excellent governance and how well she looked after her people. All these names suggest to the richness of stories and histories we have yet to fully uncover in the archive.
Image: Detail from Slide 04 of a set of lantern slides made to illustrate the paper ‘The Zambezi-Congo Watershed’. By E. A. Steel, rgs240459
“virgin countries to be commercially exploited”
The Stanley and African Exhibition, Catalogue of the Exhibits. Messrs. Gilbert & Rivington Limited, 1890, HMS/7/1
The representation of people were often not originally recorded to show individuals but instead to confirm the root of colonialism – that difference and pseudo-cultural hierarchies justified imperialism. African people, like their land and belongings, were presented for display.
Gootoo and Inyokwana were two young boys displayed at the 1890 Stanley and African Exhibition. These poor children were used as spectacle. We know little about their life, although they were later sent to Marianhill Industrial School and Orphanage in Natal. The rationale given for how the children ended up in the Exhibition was that they were bought out of slavery, likewise the justification given for the inability to return them to their homeland was that they would again end up in slavery. There seems to have been little awareness that the children were evidently enslaved by being presented as imperial 'romantic history' of the African Continent.
To be othered and made strange is the fate of countless people in the archive. They are not individuals but examples or types. The painful echoes down the decades have shown how much this has inhibited understanding, representation and the interrogation of our histories and heritages. These individuals have the ability to alter our perspective and interpretations and if they cannot speak, they must be seen and acknowledged.
It is particularly challenging to break down the arbitrary divide between European and African peoples in representations of slavery when the European gaze is always presented as outwith the horror. The legacy of the slave trade and the importance of human chattel in Britain’s own imperial wealth is rarely seen in images in the archive. It is not the Black African experience of slavery that is represented but that of the removed European viewer.
“A few minutes after Mbame had spoken to us, the slave party, a long line of manacled men, women, and children, came wending their way round the hill and into the valley.”
Livingstone, D., Livingstone, C. (1865). Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries. London: John Murray, p. 356, rgs322814
They are not described as people but as representations of horror:
“Slave Market-place, Zanzibar - very difficult to take - slaves and Arabs kept running away leaving only a line of women slaves whose legs and a face or two may be observed - the women's entire dress is a blue cotton sheet or cloth tied tight under arms and extending as far as the knee - their heads are cropped as short as scissors can crop them - very often they have for ornament a hole through the upper lip - at the market they come out very clean - Houses are blocks of coralline partly plastered - an individual wily Arab squats to the right eyeing the women.”
Caption taken from print of ‘Slave Marketplace, Zanzibar’ by J. A. Grant, S0011716
When Southern and Central African women are photographed in European accounts, the women often appear as ethnographic specimens, mute and immobile. These captured images of women describe and map their bodies as sites of otherness, commonly reproducing preconceived exotic or orientalised behaviours and representations.
Not all women are totally mute in the European record but they remain invisible. There is no known image of Halima, David Livingstone’s expeditionary cook, but we do know he called her the “best spoke in the wheel” and paid her the same as his expedition leaders. Livingstone bought Halima as a wife for his expedition leader Amoda from Arab slave traders. Livingstone said of the 30-year-old Halima in 1871:
“She is the oddest, most eccentric woman I have ever seen. She is quite a character, but I must give her due credit for her skill in cooking. She is exceedingly faithful, clean, and deft at all sorts of cooking fit for a toothless old man like myself.”
Stanley, H. M., Grey, G., Stanley, D. ‘Page proofs of pp. 209-528 of H.M. Stanley’s Autobiography as edited by Dorothy Stanley’. HMS/15
James Chuma was one of those paid as much as Halima for his work with Livingstone. He was one of the best known of David Livingstone’s companions. His story was told not for its own end but for what it could do to support the story of benevolent imperialism.
Mr Rowley, a colleague of Livingstone on the Second Zambesi Expedition, wrote to The Cornhill Magazine:
“He was rescued from the slave-traders, either by Livingstone or by myself and friends on the Shire highlands. I adopted him; and for more than two years he slept in my hut. Of his character I need not speak; his conduct while with Livingstone declares him to be the personification of faithfulness.”
Scrapbook of news cuttings regarding David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. DL/8
James Chuma, who was from the waYao people, was born to Chimilengo and Chinjeriapi and lived in Kusogwe before he was sold into slavery. Alongside his colleague Abdullah Susi, Sir James Young paid for him to come to Britain after Livingstone’s death to help Horace Waller edit Livingstone’s final diaries for publication.
Waller wrote:
“Their knowledge of the countries they travelled in is most remarkable, and from constantly aiding their master by putting questions to the natives respecting the course of rivers, etc., I found them actual geographers of no mean attainments.”
Waller, H. (1874). The last journals of David Livingstone in central Africa from 1865 to his death; continued by a narrative of his last moments and sufferings, obtained from his faithful servants, Chuma and Susi. London: John Murray, p.ix, rgs322808
Despite the narrative weight and geographical knowledge supplied by James Chuma and Abdullah Susi to David Livingstone’s legacy there were those that would actively work to deny them. The claiming of a legacy, in this instance the preservation and delivery of Livingstone’s body to Bagamoyo, and the attempt to reframe an African narrative with a European at the centre is a trope often repeated in stories of exploration.
Mr T. S. Livingstone wrote to the Times:
“Mr Markham has fallen into grievous error in supposing that but for meeting Mr Cameron's party, the brave fellows who had carried my father’s body from Ulala to Unyanyembe, together with his instruments, journals, and papers, would not have reached the coast. Far from this being the case, Susi and James Chumah, who led the caravan, tell me there was no difficulty whatever.”
Susi and Chuma are central to this constructed image taken at Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire, England. Everything within the image is designed to feed into the visual legacy of David Livingstone and his time in Africa.
“One morning, I recollect, a photographer arrived, whether by mere accident I know not, and asked to be allowed to take the group at the big table with the journals and other things upon it, with Mr Waller, Agnes, Tom Livingstone, and the two Africans beside it.”
Fraser, A. (1913). Livingstone and Newstead. London: John Murray, p. 216, rgs375637
Abdullah Susi joined Livingstone’s party in 1863. He travelled with Livingstone on his last journeys. With Jacob Wainwright, Chuma, and Hamoydah Amoda, Susi organised and managed a group of approximately 70 people in the transportation of Livingstone’s body from Ilala to Bagamoyo, roughly 1,600km. He created the trade station which would eventually become Kinshasha, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He went on to be a caravan leader for the Universities Mission to Central Africa. Susi was not a companion to Europeans but a successful commercial traveller in his own right.
The main stream came up to Susi’s mouth as he carried Livingstone. But, to be seen to travel alone supported ideas of the proscribed ‘racial’ hierarchies of European and notably Britain’s nineteenth century global outlook.
“Went one hour and three-quarter’s journey to a large stream, through drizzling rain, at least three hundred yards of deep water, among sedges and sponges of one hundred yards. One part was neck-deep for fifty yards, and the water cold.”
The last journals of David Livingstone in central Africa from 1865 to his death; continued by a narrative of his last moments and sufferings, obtained from his faithful servants, Chuma and Susi by Horace Waller. London: Murray, 1874, Vol.2, p.268, rgs322808
Image: Detail of illustration from Waller, H. (1874). The last journals of David Livingstone in central Africa from 1865 to his death; continued by a narrative of his last moments and sufferings, obtained from his faithful servants, Chuma and Susi. London: John Murray, rgs322808
Jacob Wainwright, born Yamuza, was from the waYao people. He was responsible for scribing the death of David Livingstone and carving his memorial.
“a letter reached them from the interior, written by Livingstone’s faithful servant, Jacob Wainwright, to the effect that the great explorer of whom they were in search was beyond any human relief, and soon afterwards his corpse was brought to the camp.”
The Daily Telegraph, Wednesday, March 28, 1894. In: '14 letters and 1 telegram from Cameron to Sec. RGS (H.W. Bates). One letter from Bates to Mr. Ball 6 May 1876, concerning one of expeditions bills. One letter from John Carnegie, Consul, Loanda, enclosing account for goods supplied to Cameron, Jan 1876. Cameron to Mr. Jones 1 Dec 1876’, VLC/6/4.
Jacob Wainwright joined Livingstone’s travels after initially volunteering in February 1872 as part of a relief expedition to find Livingstone. Not only did he record the event of Livingstone’s death, he ordered his possessions and preserved his last diaries. Wainwright was the first to write Livingstone’s legacy, but, like Chuma and Susi, Wainwright’s voice was silenced.
“Now we have it on the authority of Proverbs, that among the four things that the earth cannot bear is ‘a servant when he reigneth,’ and Jacob Wainwright was of this a complete example, for he had evidently grown so much above himself, and was so conceited, that his new manner was painful to witness.”
Alice F. (1913). Livingstone and Newstead. London: John Murray, pp. 223-224, rgs375637
Below, Yonah Matemba from the University of the West of Scotland talks about the importance of Jacob Wainwright to the legacy of Livingstone and asks why Wainwright’s voice is not heard.
A step towards resolving the omissions in geographical exploration is to acknowledge the vital inheritance we have been left by individual Africans.
Livingstone himself said of an old lady he repeatedly met on the Shire river:
“On our first trip we met, at the landing opposite this place, a middle-aged woman of considerable intelligence, and possessing more knowledge of the country than any of the men.”
Livingstone, D., Livingstone, C. (1865). Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries. London: John Murray, p. 294, rgs322814
There are many unknown people in the archive. People who had lived experience of contributing to the intellectual production, geographical exploration and material support of European travel in Central and Southern Africa. We must continue to mine the archive and tell stories of the multiple cultures contained within it. It is no longer right to accept one story predicated on one person’s interpretation, we know these are not singular narratives, but instead we must explode the chronicles.
To tell stories through an image, series of images or moving images is to preference a narrative visualism, separate from previous histories. To represent knowledge out of, and validated in, a medium it is not usually presented and to use texts to support the story of the individual and not to verify or justify European narratives. To explore new ways of engaging with and representing the site of intercultural encounter, and facilitate individual representation. To find the hidden tellers of geographies, the mute pathfinders with loud voices.
For further information on the written, visual and material legacies of David Livingstone (1813-73) and the study of African history, the British Empire, nineteenth-century intercultural encounters, and digital humanities practice visit the online resource Livingstone Online.
Exhibition guest curated by Dr. Kate Simpson, with contributions from Yonah Matemba, Senior Lecturer in Education and Social Science at the University of the West of Scotland.
About the curator
Kate Simpson is a Lecturer in Information Studies in the School of Humanities at the University of Glasgow. She is a Trustee of the David Livingstone Birthplace Trust and an Associate Project Scholar and UK Outreach Director for Livingstone Online. She is a past fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Edinburgh University. Her current research project entitled Boundaries of gender: ‘petticoat governments’ and secondary voices in nineteenth century European expeditions of Africa mines digital content to foreground the many women, both European and African, who assisted and enabled David Livingstone (1813-1873) in his journeys in Africa.
This research was facilitated by Wiley Digital Archive.
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The Society is grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund and Rolex for their support for the Society’s Collections.