James Richardson (Africa explorer)

James Richardson

James Richardson (born November 3, 1809 in Boston , Lincolnshire , † March 4, 1851 in Ngurutua near Kuka , Bornu ) was a British missionary , abolitionist and Africa explorer .

Life

Richardson was an opponent of the slave trade , which was still practiced on a large scale around the middle of the 19th century between Lake Chad and Tunis or Tripoli . He hoped that by introducing what is known as "legitimate trade," i. H. the trade in non-human goods to be able to bring the slave trade to a standstill. Based on reports from previous travelers, he had chosen the Tuareg , who controlled the Trans-Saharan trade, as allies. The African traders should increasingly import European - mainly British - finished products to Inner Africa and only exchange them for local products, but never for slaves.

Act

A picture published in 1848 shows Richardson in Ghadamese clothing.

In 1843 Richardson dared to attempt to invade Morocco , which is forbidden for Christians , and to proselytize among the Jews living there and oppressed by the Muslim majority. After he was expelled from the country, he undertook a research trip on his own in 1845 via Tunis and Tripoli in Libya through the middle of the Sahara to Ghadames and Ghat . Here he collected information about the Tuareg , from whom he hoped for support, made valuable contacts with the leaders of this people and after a nine-month, sometimes very arduous, hike via Fessan, he returned to Tripoli.

After he published a description of this expedition in his Travels in the great desert of Sahara in 1849 , he succeeded in persuading the British government to equip an expedition to Sudan and Lake Chad. His main argument to the government agencies was to increase the export of machine-made cloths. At the same time, the production of cotton in Africa should be increased, and Great Britain should have sole access to these growing areas. As the Ghanaian historian Adu Boahen has shown in an extensive study of the political and economic background to British research on Africa , Richardson was personally primarily concerned with combating the slave trade, and the economic arguments mainly served to make the skeptics in the British Foreign Office for his controversial issue Bait project.

Since no suitable scientists could be recruited in England, the geographer and historian Heinrich Barth and the geologist Adolf Overweg from Berlin were recruited through the Prussian ambassador . In March 1850, Richardson set out from Tripoli and went to Ghat for the second time. He was the first European to cross the stony plateau of the Hammada . From there he continued his way to Aïr (Asben) and Bornu. In the course of the expedition there was a falling out between Richardson and Barth, as the German saw his task less in promoting British foreign trade, but in researching the cultures and history of Africa. In Taghelel in Damergou they parted ways.

James Richardson died on this trip on March 4, 1851 in Ngurutua, six days' journey from Kuka. After his death Heinrich Barth took over the management of the expedition. The treaties that Richardson and Barth had concluded with African leaders were never ratified by the British government, as the route across the Niger Delta had been explored during the absence of the expedition and thus a more convenient route to inner Africa had been found.

Works

• Travels in the great desert of Sahara. 2 vols. London 1849
• Narrative of a mission to Central Africa . 2 vols. London 1853 - His travel notes and diaries were published posthumously by Bayle Saint-John :
• Report of a broadcast to Central Africa in 1850 and 1851, on the orders and at the expense of Her Majesty's Government of Great Britain . Leipzig 1853.
• Travels in Morocco . 2 vols. London 1859.

Web links

• Richardson's works (1853) a. (1859) at "Project Gutenberg"

literature

• Albert Adu Boahen , Britain, the Sahara and the Western Sudan . Oxford 1964 (with an academic appreciation of Richardson's role in research history and in the fight against the slave trade by one of the most prominent black African historians)

Heinrich Barth's travelogue also contains numerous details and statements about Richardson, which should, however, be treated with caution in view of the rivalry between the two travelers:

• Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa from 1849 to 1855. Gotha 1857–58 (5 vols.)