David Livingstone

David Livingstone (1813-1873), Scottish doctor and missionary, considered one of the most important explorers of Africa.

Livingstone was born on March 19, 1813, in Blantyre, Scotland. In 1823 he began work in a cotton-textile factory. Later, during his medical studies in Glasgow, he also attended classes in theology, and in 1838 he offered his services to the London Missionary Society. At the completion of his medical course in 1840, Livingstone was ordained and was sent as a medical missionary to South Africa. In 1841 he reached Kuruman, a settlement founded in Bechuanaland (now Botswana) by the Scottish missionary Robert Moffat.

Livingstone began his work among the black Africans of Bechuanaland, trying to make his way northward, despite active hostility by the Boers, who were white settlers of mostly Dutch background. He married Mary Moffat, daughter of Robert, in 1845, and, working together, the Livingstones travelled into regions where no European had ever been. In 1849 he crossed the Kalahari and saw Lake Ngami. In 1851, accompanied by his wife and children, he first saw the Zambezi River. On another expedition (1852-1856), while looking for a route to the interior from the east or west coast, he travelled north from Cape Town to the Zambezi, and then west to Luanda on the Atlantic coast. Then, retracing his journey to the Zambezi, Livingstone followed the river to its mouth in the Indian Ocean, thereby becoming (in 1855) the first European to see the great Victoria Falls of the Zambezi.

Livingstone's explorations resulted in a revision of all contemporary maps. He was welcomed as a great explorer in Great Britain upon his return in 1856, and his book Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (1857) made him famous. He resigned from the London Missionary Society, and in 1858 the British government appointed him British consul at Quelimane (now in Mozambique) for the east coast of Africa and commander of an expedition to explore east and central Africa.

After his return to Africa in 1858, he led an expedition up the Shire River, a tributary of the Zambezi, and became the first European to see Lake Malawi. In 1861 he also explored the Ruvuma River, finding Lake Chilwa. During his exploration of the country around Lake Malawi, Livingstone became greatly concerned over the depredations on the indigenous Africans by Arab and Portuguese slave traders. In 1865, on a visit to England, he wrote Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi and Its Tributaries, which included a condemnation of slave traders and an exposition of the commercial possibilities of the region (now mostly part of Malawi and Mozambique). In 1866, financed mostly by the liberal contributions of his friends and admirers, Livingstone led an expedition to discover the sources of the Nile and explore the watershed of central Africa separating the Nile and Congo drainage basins. Travelling along the Ruvuma River, the explorer made his way towards Lake Tanganyika, reaching its shore in 1869, after having seen lakes Mweru and Bangweulu (the first European to do so).

During this period, little was heard from Livingstone, and his welfare became a matter of international concern. In 1869 the explorer began a journey from Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, into the region lying west of the lake, becoming the first European to visit the Lualaba River, in the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. After great privations he returned to Ujiji and was met, in October 1871, by a rescue party led by Henry Morton Stanley, an Anglo-American journalist, who is said to have greeted the explorer with the now-famous remark, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Stanley and Livingstone explored the country north of Lake Tanganyika together. Later, Livingstone set out alone to continue his search for the source of the Nile. He died in Chitambo (in modern Zambia) probably on April 30, 1873; he was found dead on May 1. His followers buried his heart at the foot of the tree beneath which he died and carried his body to Zanzibar on the east coast. In April 1874 his remains were buried in Westminster Abbey. Livingstone is considered one of the greatest modern African explorers and a pioneer in the abolition of the slave trade.