David Livingstone

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David Livingstone (1864)

David Livingstone (born March 19, 1813 in Blantyre near Glasgow , † May 1, 1873 in Chitambo on Lake Bangweulus ) was a Scottish missionary and an African explorer .

Life

The congregationalist Livingstone was first a cotton spinner , but also occupied himself with medicine and theology . In 1840 Livingstone went to South Africa as a missionary in the service of the London Mission Society . On January 2, 1845, he married Mary Moffat, a daughter of the missionary Robert Moffat .

Research trips

David Livingstone

In 1849 he wandered from the mission station Kolobeng in Bechuanaland from the desert Kalahari to Lake Ngami . Around 1850 he lived in Sangwali in what is now the Zambezi region in Namibia . On a new trip in 1851 he reached the upper reaches of the Zambezi . He brought his wife and children to Cape Town, from where they left for England on April 23, 1852 on a sailing ship. From 1853 to 1856 he crossed all of South Africa from the Zambezi to Loanda (Luanda) and back to Quelimane . In November 1855 he discovered the Victoria Falls of the Zambezi for Europe . When he returned home, he published Missionary travels and researches in South Africa (London 1857, 2 volumes; new edition 1875; German, Leipzig 1859, 2 volumes).

In March 1858, on behalf of the British government, he went to Quelimane and the Zambezi region with his brother Charles Livingstone and five other Europeans (including John Kirk and the painter Thomas Baines ) . He traced the Shire , a tributary on the lower reaches of the Zambezi, to its origin in Lake Malawi (formerly: Lake Nyassasee), where he arrived on September 16, 1859, and discovered Lake Chilwa ( Lake Shiraz) nearby. He also followed the Rovuma twice a long way up. His wife Mary came to him at the mouth of the Zambezi, but soon fell ill of malaria and died on April 27, 1862. Livingstone was unable to achieve his actual goal of counteracting the slave trade and, in particular , winning over the local population to farming and cotton cultivation to reach. Therefore he returned to Great Britain in 1864 and published here together with his brother the narrative of an expedition to the Zambesi and its tributaries (Lond. 1865; German, Jena 1865–1866, 2 volumes).

He embarked again in the fall of 1865 and landed in Zanzibar in January 1866 . On March 24, 1866, he began his last research trip from Mikindani . A short time later it was rumored that he had been slain; an expedition that was sent to him was soon convinced of the groundlessness of this rumor. Livingstone was the Rovuma up to the Malawi traveled skirted the southern shore, crossed the heard of the Portuguese discovered Chambeshi , one of the sources of the Congo , arrived in April 1867, the southern end of Lake Tanganyika , reaching in April 1868 the Moerosee, having previously its discharge had discovered the Lualaba. In May 1868 he came to the Cazembe, then traveled south through its area and discovered Lake Bangweolo on July 18. From there he turned north and got sick on March 14, 1869 to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika, where he stayed until July 1869.

Contemporary illustration of the Stanley and Livingstone meeting

In 1871, Livingstone saw around 1,500 people on the market square of Njangwe as Arab slave traders dashed into the middle of the crowd. They had previously surrounded the village. Many locals were led away by the Arabs, 400 people died and 27 villages were burned down. Livingstone was outraged and parted with the Arabs.

He then explored the Manyemaland west of it, from where he returned to Ujiji on October 23, 1871, emaciated and exhausted. Henry Morton Stanley , that of James Bennett in New York was the sent to the discovery since 1869 as lost applicable travelers, met on 10 November 1871 Livingstone in Ujiji sick and greeted him with the legendary words " Dr. Livingstone, I presume? ”(“ Doctor Livingstone, I suppose? ”). Livingstone explored the north end of Tanganyika with Stanley in December 1871 and accompanied Stanley to Unyanjembe.

death

Despite his poor health, Livingstone wanted to stay in the interior of Africa and continue to search for the sources of the Nile . After Livingstone had waited six months in Unyanjembe until the end of August 1872 for new funds, he set out for the area where he suspected the sources of the Nile. Livingstone went down the east bank of Tanganyika, then around its southern end into the land of Cazembe, and walked around the eastern half of Lake Bangweulu. He got sick and physically weaker. Finally, he had to be carried in a hammock on the march. On May 1, 1873, he died of dysentery in Ilala on the south bank of the Bangweulu .

The expedition under Veney Cameron sent by the British to support Livingstone came too late. But it was then the occasion for the first crossing of Africa from east to west.

In order to clarify Livingstone's saying “My heart is in Africa”, his loyal companions Susi and Chuma, a slave freed from Livingstone, took the heart from his body and buried it under a tree. The tree is described in various sources as a Mvula tree (Milicia excelsia) or an African baobab tree . Today there is a memorial there. Susi and Chuma embalmed his corpse and carried it with great danger and labor to the east coast; from there she was embarked for Great Britain , where she was buried on April 18, 1874 in Westminster Abbey in London .

On his tombstone it says:

“Brought by faithful hands over land and sea, here rests David Livingstone, missionary, traveler, philanthropist, born March 19, 1813, at Blantyre, Lanarkshire, died May 1, 1873, at Chitambo's village, Ulala. [...] Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring (John 10:16 KJV ). "

“Bred by faithful hands over land and sea, rests here David Livingstone, missionary, traveler, philanthropist, born March 19, 1813 in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, died May 1, 1873 in Chitambo, Ulala. [...] And I have other sheep that are not from this stable; I must also bring them here (John 10:16 ESV ). "

The diaries and maps that were also saved from the travels in the last eight years of his life were published by Horace Waller under the title: The last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa from 1865 to his death 1874 in London, in German in 1875 in Hamburg.

Memberships

In 1858 Livingstone was elected a member ( Fellow ) of the Royal Society . In 1869 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences .

Afterlife

Namesake

Monument in Victoria Falls , Zimbabwe

After Livingstone were named:

Remembrance day

The Evangelical Church in Germany commemorates David Livingstone with a memorial day on April 30 in the Evangelical Name Calendar . (For evangelical remembrance of witnesses of faith see Confessio Augustana , Article 21.)

music

In addition, the Swedish pop group ABBA honored him in 1974 with the song "What about Livingstone?" On their second album Waterloo .

The group The Moody Blues released the track "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume" in 1968 on the album " In Search of the Lost Chord ".

Movie

  • Stanley and Livingstone (1939) - directed by Henry King, starring: Sir Cedric Hardwicke (Livingstone), Spencer Tracy (Stanley)
  • Forbidden Territory: Stanley's Search for Livingstone (1997) - Director: Simon Langton, Starring: Nigel Hawthorne (Livingstone), Aidan Quinn (Stanley)

Museums

Works

  • David Livingstone: Mission Travel and Research in South Africa. German edition in two volumes Leipzig, Verlag Hermann Costenoble 1858.
    The excerpt from the text The Discovery of the Victoria Falls of the Zambezi was published with a short biography in: Johannes Paul (Ed.): Von Grönland bis Lambarene. Travel descriptions by Christian missionaries from three centuries. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1952, DNB 453715524 , pp. 74–82. = Kreuz-Verlag, Stuttgart 1958, DNB 453715540 , pp. 70-78.
  • David Livingstone: "Opening up the dark continent". Travel diaries 1866–1873 until his death. traveldiary history, SDS Verlag, Hamburg / Norderstedt 2006, ISBN 978-3-935959-00-1 .

literature

Web links

Commons : David Livingstone  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
Wikiquote: David Livingstone  - Quotes
Wikisource: David Livingstone  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Do you know about the Livingstone Museum in Namibia? Gondwana Collection Namibia, Stories & History, November 17, 2017.
  2. ↑ Helmut Ludwig : david livingstone stop lost in africa stop. 3. Edition. Evang. Missionsverlag im Christian Verlagshaus, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-7675-3294-8 , p. 46.
  3. ^ Obituary for Mary Livingstone in: Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862 . New York 1863, p. 687, entry April 27 , accessed November 10, 2016.
  4. ↑ Helmut Ludwig: david livingstone stop lost in africa stop. 3. Edition. Evang. Missionsverlag im Christian Verlagshaus, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-7675-3294-8 , p. 98.
  5. ↑ Helmut Ludwig: david livingstone stop lost in africa stop. 3. Edition. Evang. Missionsverlag im Christian Verlagshaus, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-7675-3294-8 , p. 100.
  6. ^ Henry Morton Stanley: How I found Livingstone. 1872, Retrieved November 10, 2016 .
  7. ↑ To argue for the baobab:
    George Michael Wickens, Pat Lowe: The Baobabs: Pachycauls of Africa, Madagascar and Australia . Springer Verlag, Berlin / New York, NY 2008, ISBN 978-1-4020-6430-2 , pp. 33 . Martin Dugard:     The Explorers: A Story of Fearless Outcasts, Blundering Geniuses, and Impossible Success . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015, ISBN 978-1-4516-7758-4 , pp.
     147 .
  8. ^ Horace Waller: The last journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to his death. J. Murray, London 1874, LCCN  04-016739 .
  9. ↑ New edition The development of the dark continent; 1866-1873 . Translated by Edmund T. Kauer. SDS AG, [Norderstedt], 2006, ISBN 978-3-935959-00-1 .
    See also John S. Roberts: Life and explorations of David Livingstone . John Potter, London 1874. New edition: Nabuj-Press, Charleston, 2010; ISBN 1-149-45423-7 .
    William Garden Blaikie: Livingstone, memoir of his personal life . John Murray, London 1880. German from Denk, Gütersloh 1881.
    Gustav Albert Christlieb Plieninger: David Livingstone . Hallberger, Stuttgart 1885.
  10. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter L. Académie des sciences, accessed on January 15, 2020 (French).
  11. ^ Frieder Schulz, Gerhard Schwinge (ed.): Synaxis: Contributions to the liturgy , Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1997 , ISBN 3-525-60398-3
  12. ^ David Livingstone in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints
personal data
SURNAME Livingstone, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British explorer and missionary
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH Blantyre , Scotland, UK
DATE OF DEATH May 1, 1873
Place of death Chitambo , Zambia