Stanley : The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer, by Tim Jeal
In Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer, Tim Jeal affirms through judicious scholarship what many have long suspected: Henry Morton Stanley, of "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" fame, was both a great explorer and human being. Stanley's reputation as a brutal imperialist is, according to Jeal, wholly undeserved. Jeal's portrait of the pugnacious but tender-hearted Welshman—born "John Rowlands," illegitimate son of l8 year old Elizabeth Parry—is at odds with the portrait of Stanley as masochist and sadist in Frank McLynn's 2 volume Stanley, and the bloody-minded vengeful Stanley portrayed by liberal historians like Adam Hochschild ( King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa, 1998) and Daniel Liebowitz and Charles Pearson ( The Last Expedition: Stanley’s Mad Journey through the Congo, 2005). Stanley 's life has the aura of a fairy tale. He spent ten years, ages 5 through 15, in the St. Asaph workhouse before making his way, as cabin boy on an American ship, to New Orleans. In New Orleans he went to work for a grocer, the first in a series of merchandising jobs that brought him to Little Rock, Arkansas. Along the way, "John Rowlands" became "Henry Stanley" ("Morton" added later), the latter being the name of a rich New Orleans cotton broker whom, according to Jeal, John Rowlands never met. At outbreak of the Civil War Stanley joined the 6th Arkansas Infantry and was captured during the battle of Shiloh. Sent to a prison camp, Stanley was released upon agreeing to join the Union Army (which he did, then deserted). After the war he became a journalist, working for the Missouri Democrat then the New York Herald. The Herald financed his 1871 expedition to find Livingstone. In 1874 Stanley, now devoted to African exploration, followed the Lualaba River to the Congo and Atlantic, an unprecedented feat of African exploration. He remained in the Congo working for the Mephistophelean King of the Belgians, Leopold, who, in the 1890's (post-Stanley) turned the Congo into a Hell for the natives. After a final great expedition—a nightmare journey through the Ituri Forest in relief of Emin Pasha—Stanley returned to England and married the affluent Dorothy Tennant. He was 49, she 35. Determined to prevent Stanley from returning to Africa, Dorothy convinced him to stand for Parliament and Stanley became a bored and somewhat indifferent MP from East Lambeth. Association with Leopold tarnished Stanley's reputation. Jeal makes clear that Stanley's desires and hopes for the Congo were opposite Leopold's. Unlike the King's flunkies, Stanley worked at making fair treaties with native chiefs, was concerned about the welfare of the natives, and determinedly adverse to slavery. Leopold masked an avaricious nature beneath a guise of philanthropy, and his plunder of the Congo undermined Stanley's work and hopes for the area. Like many others, Stanley was duped by the royal arch dissembler. Stanley also undermined his own reputation through journalistic hyperbole—feeding exaggerated tales (contradicted by his diaries) to readers of the Herald; tales that would be taken at face value by his critics (as well as future historians). Unlike previous biographers, Jeal was given access to the Stanley archives housed in Belgium. He has performed a singular service in resurrecting Stanley's reputation, producing a masterful history that marches at the fervent pace of a Stanley-led caravan.
Visit Yale University Press on the web. Wayne F. Burke is a critic and fiction writer. His book reviews and essays have appeared in BIBLIOPHILOS, The Caribbean Writer, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Burlington Free Press Newspaper (Burlington, Vermont), and elsewhere. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont. © 2008 prickofthespindle.com |
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