Alexander Gordon Laing

Alexander Gordon Laing

Alexander Gordon Laing (born December 27, 1793 in Edinburgh , † September 26, 1826 in Araouane , Mali ) was a British explorer of Africa .

biography

Laing was the son of a school principal. He joined the British Army in 1813 as an ensign of the York Light Infantry Volunteers , was promoted to lieutenant in 1815 and transferred to the 2nd West India Regiment in 1817 . In 1822 he moved to the Royal African Colonial Corps as captain . Since then he has been stationed in Sierra Leone and has been active in the geographical exploration of the country. He took part in the First Ashanti War in 1823/24 and was promoted to major in 1824, only for Africa .

In 1824 he returned to England and there prepared an expedition to explore the African hinterland. He left England in February 1825 and married Emma Warrington, daughter of the British consul there , on July 16, 1825 in Tripoli . On August 13, 1826 he reached Timbuktu from Tripoli . He was the first European who verifiably entered the legendary trading metropolis. In the city he enjoyed the protection of the spiritual leader of the Kunta Moors, but on the way back to Morocco he was murdered in Arouane on September 26, 1826, although it could never really be clarified whether it was the act of fanatical Muslims or just plain was an act of mugging.

Laing's papers were long gone. Only letters proving his presence in Timbuktu reached Tripoli. When the Frenchman René Caillié claimed three years later that he had been to Timbuktu disguised as an Arab pilgrim and published an extensive travelogue, the British accused him of never having set foot in Timbuktu. Until the 20th century it was repeatedly assumed that René Caillié had obtained the documents with the help of the French consul in Mogador, Morocco or in Tripoli and cannibalized them for his book.

literature

• Alexander Gordon Laing: Travels in the Tinamee, Kooronko and Sootina Countries in Western Africa. London 1825.
• Albert Adu Boahen : Britain, the Sahara and the Western Sudan 1788-1861. Oxford 1964 (important work on the history of Sahara research, with a detailed chapter on the Laing expedition).
• Anthony Sattin: The Gates of Africa. Death, Discovery, and the Search for Timbuktu. New York 2003 (about the first research trips to Timbuktu, especially Mungo Park , Alexander Gordon Laing and René Caillié, with detailed references) ISBN 0-312-33643-8 .
• EW Bovill: Missions to the Niger. Volume 2, Cambridge 1963 (letters and documents on Alexander Gordon Laing).
• Thomas Stangl : The only place . Graz 2004 and Munich 2006 (novel about René Cailliés and Laing's trips to Timbuktu).

Web links

• Alexander G. Laing. National Geographic Germany