David livingstone smith biography

Livingstone believed that the source was farther south and assembled a team to find it consisting of freed slaves, Comoros Islanders, twelve Sepoysand two servants from his previous expedition, Chuma and Susi. Livingstone set out from the mouth of the Ruvuma river, but his assistants gradually began deserting him. The Comoros Islanders had returned to Zanzibar and falsely informed authorities that Livingstone had died.

He reached Lake Malawi on 6 August, by which time most of his supplies had been stolen, including all his medicines. Livingstone then travelled through swamps in the direction of Lake Tanganyika, with his health declining. He sent a message to Zanzibar requesting that supplies be sent to Ujiji and he then headed west, forced by ill health to travel with slave traders.

He arrived at Lake Mweru on 8 November and continued on, travelling south to become the first European to see Lake Bangweulu. Upon finding the Lualaba RiverLivingstone theorised that it could have been the high part of the Nile ; but realised that it in fact flowed into the River Congo at Upper Congo Lake. The year began with Livingstone finding himself extremely ill while in the jungle.

He was saved by Arab traders who gave him medicines and carried him to an Arab outpost. He was coming down with cholera and had tropical ulcers on his feet, so he was again forced to rely on slave traders to get him as far as Bambara—where he was caught by the wet season. With no supplies, Livingstone had to eat his meals in a roped-off enclosure for the entertainment of the locals in return for food.

On 15 July[ 58 ] Livingstone recorded in his field diary his immediate impressions as he witnessed around Africans being massacred by Arab slavers at the Nyangwe market on the banks of the Lualaba Riverwhile he was watching next to the leading Arab trader Dugumbe who had given him assistance. The cause behind this attack is stated to be retaliation for actions of Manilla, the head slave who had sacked villages of Mohombo people at the instigation of the Wagenya chieftain Kimburu.

The Arabs attacked the shoppers and Kimburu's people. Researchers from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania who scanned Livingstone's diary suggest that in putting his fragmentary notes about the massacre into the narrative of his journal, he left out his concerns about some of his followers, slaves owned by Banyan merchants who had been hired by John Kirkacting consul at Zanzibar, and sent to get Livingstone to safety.

These slaves had been liberated and added to his party, but had shown violent conduct against local people contrary to his instructions, and he feared they might have been involved in starting the massacre. In the diary he described his sending his men with protection of a flag to assist Manilla's brother. In his journal version it was to assist villagers.

The version edited by Waller in the "Last Journals", published indavid livingstone smith biography out the context of Livingstone's earlier comments about Kirk and bad behaviour of the hired Banyan men, and omitted the villagers' earlier violent resistance to Arab slavers, so it portrayed the villagers as passive victims.

The section on the massacre itself had only minor grammatical corrections. Further research into diary notes continues. The massacre horrified Livingstone, leaving him too shattered to continue his mission to find the source of the Nile. Livingstone was wrong about the Nile, but he identified numerous geographical features for Western science, such as Lake NgamiLake Malawiand Lake Bangweuluin addition to Victoria Falls mentioned above.

Even so, the farthest north he reached was the north end of Lake Tanganyika—still south of the Equator —and he did not penetrate the rainforest of the River Congo any farther downstream than Ntangwe near Misisi. Livingstone was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London and was made a Fellow of the society, with which he had a strong association for the david livingstone smith biography of his life.

Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years and was ill for most of the last four years of his life. Only one of his 44 letter dispatches made it to Zanzibar. One surviving letter to Horace Waller was made available to the public in by its owner Peter Beard. It reads: "I am terribly knocked up but this is for your own eye only Doubtful if I live to see you again He found Livingstone in the town of Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika on 10 November[ 66 ] apparently greeting him with the now famous words "Dr.

Livingstone, I presume? The words are famous because of their perceived humour, Livingstone being the only other white person for hundreds of miles, along with Stanley's clumsy attempt at appearing dignified in the bush of Africa by making a formal greeting one might expect to hear in the confines of an upper-class London club. However, readers of the Herald immediately saw through Stanley's pretensions.

Despite Stanley's urgings, Livingstone was determined not to leave Africa until his mission was complete. His illness made him confused and he had judgment difficulties at the end of his life. He explored the Lualaba and, failing to find connections to the Nile, returned to Lake Bangweulu and its swamps to explore possible rivers flowing out northwards.

Livingstone is known as "Africa's greatest missionary," yet he is recorded as having converted only one African: Sechelewho was the chief of the Kwena people of Botswana Kwena are one of the main Sotho-Tswana clans, found in South Africa, Lesotho, and Botswana [ 68 ] in all three Sotho-Tswana language groupings. Sechele was born in His father died when Sechele was 10, and two of his uncles divided the tribe, which forced Sechele to leave his home for nine years.

When Sechele returned, he took over one of his uncle's tribes; at that point, he met Livingstone. Being a quick learner, Sechele learned the alphabet in two days and soon called English a second language. After teaching his wives the skill, he wrote the Bible in his native tongue. Livingstone was known through a large part of Africa for treating the natives with respect, and the tribes that he visited returned his respect with faith and loyalty.

He could never permanently convert the tribesmen to Christianity, however. Among other reasons, Sechele, by then the leader of the African tribe, did not like the way that Livingstone could not demand rain of his God like his rainmakers, who said that they could. After long hesitation from Livingstone, he baptised Sechele and had the church completely embrace him.

Sechele was now a part of the church, but he continued to act according to his African culture, which went against Livingstone's teachings. Sechele was no different from any other man of his tribe in believing in polygamy. He had five wives, including MmaKgari SeTswana for "mother of Kgari"Mokgokong [ 72 ] and Masebele [ 73 ] When Livingstone told him to get rid of four of them, it shook the foundations of the Kwena tribe.

After he finally divorced the women, Livingstone baptised them all and everything went well. However, one year later one of his ex-wives became pregnant and Sechele was the father. Sechele begged Livingstone not to give up on him because his faith was still strong, but Livingstone left the country and went north to continue his Christianizing attempts.

After Livingstone left the Kwena tribe, Sechele remained faithful to Christianity and led missionaries to surrounding tribes as well as converting nearly his entire Kwena people. In the estimation of Neil Parsons of the University of Botswana, Sechele "did more to propagate Christianity in 19th-century southern Africa than virtually any single European missionary".

Although Sechele was a self-proclaimed Christian, many European missionaries disagreed. The Kwena tribe leader kept rainmaking a part of his life as well as polygamy. Livingstone died on 1 May at the age of 60 in Chief Chitambo's village at Chipundusoutheast of Lake Bangweuluin present-day Zambiafrom malaria and internal bleeding due to dysentery.

Led by his loyal attendants Chuma and Susihis expedition arranged funeral ceremonies. They removed his heart and buried it under a tree near the spot where he died, which has been identified variously as a mvula tree or a baobab tree but is more likely to be a mpundu treeas baobabs are found at lower altitudes and in more arid regions.

The expedition led by Chuma and Susi then carried the rest of his remains, together with his last journal and belongings, on a journey that took 63 days to the coastal town of Bagamoyoa distance exceeding 1, miles 1, km. The caravan encountered the expedition of English explorer Verney Lovett Cameronwho continued his march and reached Ujiji in Februarywhere he found and sent to England Livingstone's papers.

In London, his body lay in repose at No. And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together. To overdraw its evil is a simple impossibility. Livingstone wrote about a group of slaves forced to march by Arab slave traders in the African Great Lakes region when he was travelling there in We passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path: a group of men stood about a hundred yards off on one side, and another of the women on the other side, looking on; they said an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in david livingstone smith biography at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer.

One of our men wandered and found many slaves with slave-sticks on, abandoned by their masters from want of food; they were too weak to be able to speak or say where they had come from; some were quite young. He also described:. The strangest disease I have seen in this country seems really to be broken-heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been captured and made slaves Twenty one were unchained, as now safe; however all ran away at once; but eight with many others still in chains, died in three days after the crossing.

They described their only pain in the heart, and placed the hand correctly on the spot, though many think the organ stands high up in the breast-bone. Often cited is Livingstone's estimate of the number of slaves that made it to market versus those who died because of the slave trade:. Flight, starvation, and death ensue; and we must again record our conviction that the mortality after these slave wars, in addition to the losses on the journey to the Coast and during the middle passage, makes it certain that not more than one in five ever reach the "kind masters" in Cuba and elsewhere, whom, according to slave-owners' interpretation of Scripture, Providence intended for them.

Livingstone's letters, books, and journals [ 57 ] did stir up public support for the abolition of slavery; [ 1 ] however, he became dependent for assistance on the very slave-traders whom he wished to put out of business. He was a poor leader of his peers, and he ended up on his last expedition as an individualist explorer with servants and porters but no expert support around him.

David livingstone smith biography: BIOGRAPHY. Professor, Department of

At the same time, he did not use the brutal methods of maverick explorers such as Stanley to keep his retinue of porters in line and his supplies secure. For these reasons, he accepted help and hospitality from onwards from Mohamad Bogharib and Mohamad bin Saleh also known as "Mpamari"traders who kept and traded in slavesas he recounts in his journals.

They, in turn, benefited from Livingstone's influence with local people, which facilitated Mpamari's release from bondage to Mwata Kazembe. Livingstone was furious to discover that some of the replacement porters sent at his request from Ujiji were slaves. Livingstone's figures on slaves have however been criticised as highly exaggerated.

By the late s Livingstone's reputation in Europe had suffered owing to the failure of the missions he set up, and of the Zambezi Expedition; and his ideas about the source of the Nile were not supported. His expeditions were hardly models of order and organisation. His reputation was rehabilitated by Stanley and his newspaper, [ 43 ] and by the loyalty of Livingstone's servants whose long journey with his body inspired wonder.

The publication of his last journal revealed stubborn determination in the face of suffering. Inthe Universities' Mission to Central Africa was founded at his request. Many important missionaries, such as Leader Stirling and Miss Annie Allenwould later work for this group. This group and the medical missionaries it sponsored came to have major, positive impact on the people of Africa.

Livingstone made geographical discoveries for European knowledge. He inspired abolitionists of the slave trade, explorers, and missionaries. He opened up Central Africa to missionaries who initiated the education and healthcare for Africans, and trade by the African Lakes Company. He was held in some esteem by many African chiefs and local people and his name facilitated relations between them and the British.

Partly as a result, within 50 years of his death, colonial rule was established in Africa, and white settlement was encouraged to extend further into the interior. However, what Livingstone envisaged for "colonies" was not what we now know as colonial rule, but rather settlements of dedicated Christian Europeans who would live among the people to help them work out ways of living that did not involve slavery.

The David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre celebrates his life and is based in the house in which he was born, on the site of the mill in which he started his working life. His Christian faith is evident in his journal, in which one entry reads: "I place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests of the kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by giving or keeping it I shall promote the glory of Him to whom I owe all my davids livingstone smith biography in time and eternity.

According to Alvyn Austin in [ 89 ]. During the anti-colonial s, Livingstone was debunked: he made only one certified convert, who later backslid; he explored few areas not already traveled by others; he freed few slaves; he treated his colleagues horribly; he traveled with Arab slave traders; his family life was in shambles—in short, to many he embodied the "White Man's Burden" mentality.

Nonetheless, at a time when countries are being renamed and statues are being toppled, Livingstone has not fallen.

David livingstone smith biography: David Livingstone Smith is professor

Despite modern Africans' animosity toward other Europeans, such as Cecil Rhodes, Livingstone endures as a heroic legend. Rhodesia has long since purged its name, but the cities of Livingstone Zambia and Livingstonia Malawi keep the explorer's appellation with pride. While Livingstone had a great impact on the expansion of the British Empirehe did so at a tremendous cost to his family.

In his absences, his children grew up missing their father, and his david livingstone smith biography Mary daughter of Mary and Robert Moffatwhom he married inendured very poor health, and died of malaria on 27 April On 11 NovemberLivingstone's Field Diary, as well as other original works, was published online for the first time by the David Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project.

Digital archives unifying these and other sources are made publicly available by the Livingstone Online project at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Livingstone—Stanley Monument in Mugere present-day Burundi marks a spot that Livingstone and Stanley visited on their exploration of Lake Tanganyika, mistaken by some as the first meeting place of the two explorers.

He was originally shown surrounded by palm tree leaves with an illustration of African tribesmen on the back. The mineral livingstonite is named in his honor. In the Warner Bros. The Moody Blues single "Dr. Did you stand awhile and stare? Did you meet anyone? Livingstone made 4 great journeys into Africa, three of them starting in Cape Town, South Africa and the last at Zanzibar.

None of the routes traveled on the Nile which lay far to the north. He may have crossed sections of the headwaters of Nile on his final expedition but he would not have known so as these areas were not considered in the Nile watershed until much later. Livingstone where are you, when We need you the most" which is in reference to the famed doctor and his expedition to Africa.

Stanley's search for and discovery of Livingstone is the subject of the Hugh Masekela song "Witch Doctor" that appears on his album, Colonial Man. Stanley within a space of Dr. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chisholm, Hughed. Cambridge University Press. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk.

Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. British colonialist and missionary to Africa — For other people named David Livingstone, see David Livingstone disambiguation. The Reverend. Blantyre, South LanarkshireScotland. Mary Moffat. Early life [ edit ]. Education [ edit ].

David livingstone smith biography: David Livingstone Smith (born 26

Vision for Africa [ edit ]. Mission stations [ edit ]. Exploration of southern and central Africa [ edit ]. Author and campaigner [ edit ]. Zambezi expedition [ edit ]. The Nile [ edit ]. Geographical discoveries [ edit ]. Stanley meeting [ edit ]. Christianity and Sechele [ edit ]. Death [ edit ]. Livingstone and slavery [ edit ]. Legacy [ edit ].

Family life [ edit ]. Archives [ edit ]. Place names and other memorials [ edit ]. Africa [ edit ]. Oceania [ edit ]. Europe [ edit ]. North America [ edit ]. South America [ edit ]. Banknotes [ edit ]. Science [ edit ]. Portrayal in film and books [ edit ]. In popular culture [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. Citations [ edit ].

Retrieved 12 July BBC News. David Livingstone, Africa's greatest explorer : the man, the missionary and the myth. ISBN OCLC In Walker, Graham; Gallagher, Tom eds. Sermons and battle hymns: Protestant popular culture in modern Scotland. Edinburgh University Press. Archived from the original on 12 February The Personal Life of David Livingstone London: John Murray — via Project Gutenberg.

In Lee, Sidney ed. Dictionary of National Biography. Wisnicki, Adrian S. Livingstone Online. Retrieved 15 March University of Glasgow. Archived from the original on 12 July Retrieved 30 October Memorials of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, — Glasgow: MacLehose. Retrieved 17 March Botswana Notes and Records. Botswana Society : 1— 4.

JSTOR Livingstone's Missionary Correspondence, — University of California Press. Retrieved 14 October Wikisource, the free online library. Retrieved 15 October Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Isaac Schapera ed. Livingstone's private journals, — Retrieved 28 September David Livingstone: The Unexplored Story. Lion Books.

Spectrum Guide to Zambia. John Murray — via Wikisource. Kirk or R. David Livingstone Online. Archived from the original on 21 December Retrieved 10 December UCLA Library. Archived from the original on 4 May Retrieved 11 November Retrieved 25 April CBS News. Retrieved 13 June Retrieved 7 February Four-page missive composed at the lowest point in his professional life".

Associated Press. Retrieved 2 July Yale University Press. Silvester David Livingstone: Man of Prayer and Action. Christian Liberty Press. Retrieved 16 March Chapter 6. Chronicles of the London Missionary Society. London: Springer Netherlands. Smith then posits that, as developing humans began to think of other members of their species as just that i.

Thus in order to fuel warfare, humans had to believe that their opponents were somehow less than human. This belief lies at the bottom of racism and stereotyping. According to Smith, these tactics can even be seen in war propaganda from ancient civilizations. Critics found the book to be a fascinating read. Calling the volume "crisp and sobering," a Publishers Weekly contributor found that "from its opening sentence, Smith's book demands the reader's attention.

In response to questions from CA, Smith said that he had always found writing "intrinsically pleasurable," and that his "most important influences" were "probably Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, David Humeand Sigmund Freud. Describing his writing process, Smith commented: "I am not the sort of person who has his ideas sorted out before committing them to paper.

Writing is a david livingstone smith biography of thinking for me: I work things out as I go along. My writing is an intensely private process, and I rarely discuss work in progress with anyone other than my wife, Subrena. The best piece of stylistic advice that I have ever come across is H. I therefore spend a lot of time revising my work, trying to extract maximum content out of minimum word quantity.

Smith went on to describe the intended effect of his books: "Although I am a philosopher, I am not especially interested in the sorts of abstract, conceptual problems that typically preoccupy philosophers. Solving the most pressing problems confronting our species requires us to understand the deep dynamics of human nature, and I hope that my writings will contribute to this understanding in ways that make a practical difference to the amelioration of human suffering.

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Arts Educational magazines Smith, David Livingstone —. Smith, David Livingstone — gale. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia. More From encyclopedia. Smith, David Lee Smith, David L awrence. Smith, David J. Smith, David Eugene — Smith, David Alexander. Smith, David Pontiac. Smith, David Jeddie Smith, Danyel ? Smith, Daniel B.