Henry Morton Stanley), real name - John Rowlands (January 28 ( 18410128 ) - May 10) - British journalist, famous traveler, explorer of Africa. Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.

Biography

Henry Morton Stanley was born in the town of Denbigh in Wales. He was the illegitimate child of the 18-year-old daughter of a poor farmer, Betsy Parry, and John Rowlands, the son of a wealthy farmer who lived next door. To go to work, Henry's mother had to give her son to be raised by the family of a neighboring farmer Price, where little John lived for several years. As a child he was given the name John Bach. He later changed his surname to Rowlands.

When Betsy could no longer pay for the education of her son, John was sent to a workhouse in St. Asaph, where the child remained in public care. Prison discipline reigned here. The freedom-loving Henry found himself in conflict situations more than once. John stayed in the workhouse until he was fifteen years old. In 1856, his aunt took him in and entrusted him with tending her sheep. But John was already dreaming of America, where he could make a career, get rich and escape poverty.

At age 17, Henry joined a ship as a cabin boy and ended up in New Orleans. In New Orleans, the young man found a place in one of the trading enterprises of Henry Stanley, a merchant with a “soft heart and a hard skull,” who treated him like a son. The merchant liked John's handwriting, and he accepted him into his shop. John served with Stanley for three years. During this time, the owner liked him so much for his efficiency, intelligence and hard work that he promoted him from “boys” to senior clerk, and then adopted him, thanks to which John turned into Henry Morton Stanley. During the American Civil War, he volunteered for the Southern Army, ending his dreams of freedom and dignity. Henry M. Stanley participated in all of the campaigns of General Edward Johnson's army. At the Battle of Gettysburg (1863) he was captured, but managed to escape.

After his captivity, Stanley joined one of the ships that was then operating against the South as a simple sailor. Stanley spent three years in naval service, from 1866 to 1866. Henry Stanley became a staff correspondent in 1867, while carrying out his first big assignment - a series of reports on the “pacification” of the Indians on the western prairies - he received lessons in dealing with “primitive” peoples. Stanley concluded that "the extermination of the Indians was not primarily the fault of the whites, but was mainly a consequence of the indomitable savagery of the red tribes themselves." In his essays, Stanley demonstrated restrained sympathy for the courageous enemy, depicting events in an exciting, sentimental and at the same time superficial way - like a true war journalist. Stanley traveled to European Turkey and Asia Minor as a newspaper correspondent. In 1868, Henry Morton Stanley entered the employ of James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald newspaper, which had the largest circulation in America. As a correspondent for this newspaper, he first came to Africa - as a witness to the colonial war.

The arena of action was Ethiopia, which, unlike Egypt and Sudan, was still defending its independence. And with the upcoming opening of the Suez Canal, the country acquired special significance. Britain sent an expeditionary force to Ethiopia in 1867, which within a year had grown to 40,000 soldiers. The Ethiopian adventure cost at least nine million pounds and ended with the Ethiopian emperor committing suicide in the fortress of Makdela. Seven hundred Ethiopians were killed and one thousand five hundred wounded; on the British side there were two killed and several wounded. Stanley reported about this victorious campaign, so excitingly that it excited American readers. He provided such prompt information that a message about the capture of Magdala appeared in the Herald when the British government still knew nothing about it. A clever journalist bribed a telegraph operator in Suez to convey his telegram first. In 1871, Stanley went on behalf of the publisher of the New York Herald to look for Livingston in Central Africa, from whom there had been no news since 1869.

Explorer and colonizer of Africa

In 1887, Stanley, funded by the Egyptian government, undertook a journey to free Emin Pasha. On April 30, 1887, accompanied by a detachment of Zanzibaris, Sudanese, Somalis, seven officers, a doctor and servants, totaling 800 people, he set out from Stanleypool along the Congo River to where the Aruvimi flows into it, and from there first along the latter, then through the primeval forest; After a dangerous journey he reached Cavalli, on the shores of Lake Albert. Only on April 29, 1888, Stanley met with Emin Pasha. Since his detachment was greatly reduced, Stanley decided to return back to Banalya on the Aruvimi River, where he left a rearguard; but in his absence the commander of the rearguard, Major Barthlot, was killed by the mutinous natives, and Stanley found the remnants of the detachment in very distress. Then he headed again to Lake Albert Nyanza, from there to Lake Albert Edward and finally, through Karagwe and Unyamwezi, he reached Bagamoyo (December 5, 1889), where he was met by Major Wisman. Stanley described this third journey in the book “In darkest Afrika” (translated into Russian).

At the end of November 1897 in Durban, at the Royal Hotel, Henry Stanley, who had just returned from Pretoria, met with the famous sea traveler Joshua Slocum, who first circumnavigated the world alone on the sloop Spray. This meeting of two outstanding travelers is described by Joshua Slocum himself in his book “Sailing Alone Around the World.”

Death

Henry Stanley died on May 10, 1904 in London. The rector of Westminster Abbey, Armitage Robinson, refused Stanley's request to be buried in Westminster next to Livingston. As a result, the traveler was buried in Pirbright, Surrey.

The main results of Stanley's three voyages

The main results of Stanley's three trips to Central Africa are as follows:

  • on his first trip he established that Lake Tanganyika does not belong to the Nile system;
  • on the second trip, the outlines of Lake Ukerewe were determined, Lake Albert Edward and the upper reaches of the Congo River were discovered, which for the first time gave a true idea of ​​the geographical character of this part of Central Africa;
  • on the third trip, the course of the Aruvimi River was explored and a connection was established between lakes Albert Nyanza and Albert Edward through the Zemlyka River.

Essays

  • How I found Livingstone (L., 1872)
  • Through the Dark Continent (1878)
  • The Congo and the founding of its free state (1885)
  • In darkest Africa (1890)
  • My dark companions and their strange stones (L., 1893)
  • My early travels and adventures in America and Asia (L., 1895)

See also

  • Stanley - the highest mountain in the Rwenzori massif

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Literature

  • Abramov V. Ya. G. M. Stanley, his life, travels and geographical discoveries: Biographical sketch. - St. Petersburg. : Printing house and lithography A. Transchel, 1891.
  • Karpov G. V. Henry Stanley. - M.: Geographgiz, 1958. - 56, p. - (Wonderful geographers and travelers). - 30,000 copies.(region)
  • Molyavko G. I., Franchuk V. P., Kulichenko V. G. Geologists. Geographers: Biographical reference book / Rep. ed.: I. A. Fedoseev, E. F. Shnyukov; Reviewers: R. A. Zaezdny, E. K. Lazarenko. - Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 1985. - P. 257-258. - 352 s. - 20,000 copies.(in translation)
  • In the kingdom of the blacks (scenes from the life and nature of Central Africa). St. Petersburg, September 12, 1905 Translation from English by M. Granstrem

Links

  • // Encyclopedia “Around the World”..
  • . On the Chronos website..

Excerpt characterizing Stanley, Henry Morton

Natasha raised her head, kissed her friend on the lips, and pressed her wet face to hers.
– I can’t say, I don’t know. “No one is to blame,” said Natasha, “I am to blame.” But all this is painfully terrible. Oh, he’s not coming!…
She went out to dinner with red eyes. Marya Dmitrievna, who knew how the prince received the Rostovs, pretended that she did not notice Natasha’s upset face and firmly and loudly joked at the table with the count and other guests.

That evening the Rostovs went to the opera, for which Marya Dmitrievna got a ticket.
Natasha did not want to go, but it was impossible to refuse Marya Dmitrievna’s affectionateness, exclusively intended for her. When she, dressed, went out into the hall, waiting for her father and looking in the large mirror, saw that she was good, very good, she became even more sad; but sad, sweet and loving.
“My God, if only he were here; Then I wouldn’t be like before, with some kind of stupid timidity in front of something, but in a new, simple way, I would hug him, cling to him, force him to look at me with those searching, curious eyes with which he so often looked at me and then would make him laugh, as he laughed then, and his eyes - how I see those eyes! thought Natasha. - And what do I care about his father and sister: I love him alone, him, him, with this face and eyes, with his smile, masculine and at the same time childish... No, it’s better not to think about him, not to think, to forget, completely forget for this time. I can’t stand this waiting, I’m going to start crying,” and she moved away from the mirror, making an effort not to cry. - “And how can Sonya love Nikolinka so smoothly, so calmly, and wait so long and patiently”! she thought, looking at Sonya entering, also dressed, with a fan in her hands.
“No, she’s completely different. I can't"!
Natasha felt at that moment so softened and tender that it was not enough for her to love and know that she was loved: she needed now, now she needed to hug her loved one and speak and hear from him the words of love with which her heart was full. While she was riding in the carriage, sitting next to her father, and thoughtfully looking at the lights of the lanterns flashing in the frozen window, she felt even more in love and sadder and forgot with whom and where she was going. Having fallen into a line of carriages, the Rostovs' carriage slowly squealed in the snow and drove up to the theater. Natasha and Sonya hastily jumped out, picking up dresses; The count came out, supported by footmen, and between the ladies and men entering and those selling posters, all three went into the corridor of the benoir. The sounds of music could already be heard from behind the closed doors.
“Nathalie, vos cheveux, [Natalie, your hair,” Sonya whispered. The steward politely and hastily slipped in front of the ladies and opened the door of the box. The music began to be heard brighter through the door, the illuminated rows of boxes with the ladies' bare shoulders and arms flashed, and the stalls were noisy and shiny with their uniforms. The lady who was entering the adjacent benoir looked at Natasha with a feminine, envious gaze. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was playing. Natasha, straightening her dress, walked along with Sonya and sat down, looking around at the illuminated rows of opposite boxes. The feeling that she had not experienced for a long time that hundreds of eyes were looking at her bare arms and neck suddenly seized her both pleasantly and unpleasantly, evoking a whole swarm of memories, desires and worries corresponding to this feeling.
Two remarkably pretty girls, Natasha and Sonya, with Count Ilya Andreich, who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted everyone’s attention. In addition, everyone vaguely knew about Natasha’s conspiracy with Prince Andrei, they knew that since then the Rostovs had lived in the village, and they looked with curiosity at the bride of one of the best grooms in Russia.
Natasha became prettier in the village, as everyone told her, and that evening, thanks to her excited state, she was especially beautiful. She amazed with the fullness of life and beauty, combined with indifference to everything around her. Her black eyes looked at the crowd, not looking for anyone, and her thin arm, bare above the elbow, leaned on the velvet ramp, apparently unconsciously, in time with the overture, clenched and unclenched, crumpling the poster.
“Look, here’s Alenina,” said Sonya, “it seems like she’s with her mother!”
- Fathers! Mikhail Kirilych has grown even fatter,” said the old count.
- Look! Our Anna Mikhailovna is in a state of flux!
- Karagin, Julie and Boris are with them. The bride and groom are now visible. – Drubetskoy proposed!
“Why, I found out today,” said Shinshin, who entered the Rostovs’ box.
Natasha looked in the direction in which her father was looking and saw Julie, who, with pearls on her thick red neck (Natasha knew, sprinkled with powder) was sitting with a happy look, next to her mother.
Behind them, Boris’s smoothly combed, beautiful head could be seen with a smile, his ear tilted towards Julie’s mouth. He looked at the Rostovs from under his brows and, smiling, said something to his bride.
“They talk about us, about me and him!” thought Natasha. “And he truly calms his bride’s jealousy of me: there is no need to worry! If only they knew how much I don’t care about any of them.”
Anna Mikhailovna sat behind her in a green current, with a devoted will of God and a happy, festive face. In their box there was that atmosphere - the bride and groom that Natasha knew and loved so much. She turned away and suddenly everything that was humiliating in her morning visit came back to her.
“What right does he have to not want to accept me into his kinship? Oh, it’s better not to think about it, not to think about it until he arrives!” She said to herself and began to look around at the familiar and unfamiliar faces in the stalls. In front of the stalls, in the very middle, leaning his back to the ramp, stood Dolokhov with a huge, combed-up shock of curly hair, in a Persian suit. He stood in full view of the theater, knowing that he was attracting the attention of the entire audience, as freely as if he were standing in his room. The most brilliant youth of Moscow stood crowded around him, and he apparently took precedence among them.
Count Ilya Andreich, laughing, nudged the blushing Sonya, pointing her to her former admirer.
- Did you recognize it? he asked. “And where did he come from,” the count turned to Shinshin, “after all, he disappeared somewhere?”
“Disappeared,” answered Shinshin. - He was in the Caucasus, and there he escaped, and, they say, he was a minister for some sovereign prince in Persia, he killed the Shah’s brother there: well, everyone is going crazy and the Moscow ladies are going crazy! Dolochoff le Persan, [The Persian Dolokhov,] and that’s it. Now we have no word without Dolokhov: they swear by him, they call him like a sterlet,” said Shinshin. - Dolokhov, and Anatol Kuragin - they drove all our ladies crazy.
A tall, beautiful lady with a huge braid and very bare, white, full shoulders and neck, on which there was a double string of large pearls, entered the adjacent benoir, and sat down for a long time, making a noise with her thick silk dress.
Natasha involuntarily looked at this neck, shoulders, pearls, hairstyle and admired the beauty of the shoulders and pearls. While Natasha was peering at her for the second time, the lady looked back and, meeting her eyes with Count Ilya Andreich, nodded her head and smiled at him. It was Countess Bezukhova, Pierre's wife. Ilya Andreich, who knew everyone in the world, leaned over and spoke to her.
- How long have you been here, Countess? - he spoke. “I’ll come, I’ll come, I’ll kiss your hand.” But I came here on business and brought my girls with me. They say Semenova’s performance is incomparable,” said Ilya Andreich. – Count Pyotr Kirillovich never forgot us. Is he here?
“Yes, he wanted to come in,” Helen said and looked at Natasha carefully.
Count Ilya Andreich again sat down in his place.
- She’s good, isn’t she? – he said in a whisper to Natasha.
- Miracle! - said Natasha, - you can fall in love! At this time, the last chords of the overture sounded and the conductor’s baton began to tap. In the stalls, belated men filed into their seats and the curtain rose.
As soon as the curtain rose, everything in the boxes and stalls fell silent, and all the men, old and young, in uniforms and tails, all the women wearing precious stones on their naked bodies, turned all their attention to the stage with greedy curiosity. Natasha also began to look.

On the stage there were even boards in the middle, painted paintings depicting trees stood on the sides, and a canvas on boards was stretched behind. In the middle of the stage sat girls in red bodices and white skirts. One, very fat, in a white silk dress, sat separately on a low bench, to which green cardboard was glued to the back. They were all singing something. When they finished their song, the girl in white approached the prompter's booth, and a man in tight-fitting silk trousers on thick legs, with a feather and a dagger, approached her and began to sing and spread his arms.
The man in tight trousers sang alone, then she sang. Then both fell silent, the music began to play, and the man began to finger the hand of the girl in a white dress, apparently again waiting for the beat to begin his part with her. They sang together, and everyone in the theater began to clap and shout, and the man and woman on stage, who were portraying lovers, began to bow, smiling and spreading their arms.
After the village and in the serious mood in which Natasha was, all this was wild and surprising to her. She could not follow the progress of the opera, could not even hear the music: she saw only painted cardboard and strangely dressed men and women, moving, speaking and singing strangely in the bright light; she knew what all this was supposed to represent, but it was all so pretentiously false and unnatural that she felt either ashamed of the actors or funny at them. She looked around her, at the faces of the spectators, looking for in them the same feeling of ridicule and bewilderment that was in her; but all the faces were attentive to what was happening on the stage and expressed feigned, as it seemed to Natasha, admiration. “This must be so necessary!” thought Natasha. She alternately looked back at those rows of pomaded heads in the stalls, then at the naked women in the boxes, especially at her neighbor Helen, who, completely undressed, with a quiet and calm smile, without taking her eyes off, looked at the stage, feeling the bright light poured throughout the hall and warm, crowd-warmed air. Natasha little by little began to reach a state of intoxication that she had not experienced for a long time. She didn’t remember what she was, where she was, or what was happening in front of her. She looked and thought, and the strangest thoughts suddenly, without connection, flashed through her head. Either the thought came to her to jump onto the ramp and sing the aria that the actress sang, then she wanted to hook the old man sitting not far from her with her fan, then she wanted to lean over to Helen and tickle her.
One minute, when everything was quiet on the stage, waiting for the start of the aria, the entrance door of the stalls creaked, on the side where the Rostovs’ box was, and the steps of a belated man sounded. “Here he is Kuragin!” Shinshin whispered. Countess Bezukhova turned to the newcomer, smiling. Natasha looked in the direction of Countess Bezukhova’s eyes and saw an unusually handsome adjutant, with a self-confident and at the same time courteous appearance approaching their bed. It was Anatol Kuragin, whom she had seen for a long time and noticed at the St. Petersburg ball. He was now in an adjutant uniform with one epaulette and a bracelet. He walked with a restrained, dashing gait, which would have been funny if he had not been so handsome and if there had not been such an expression of good-natured contentment and joy on his beautiful face. Despite the fact that the action was going on, he, slowly, slightly rattling his spurs and saber, smoothly and high holding his perfumed beautiful head, walked along the carpet of the corridor. Looking at Natasha, he walked up to his sister, put his gloved hand on the edge of her box, shook her head and leaned over and asked something, pointing at Natasha.
- Mais charmante! [Very sweet!] - he said, obviously about Natasha, as she not so much heard as understood from the movement of his lips. Then he walked to the front row and sat down next to Dolokhov, giving a friendly and casual elbow to Dolokhov, whom the others were treating so ingratiatingly. He smiled at him with a cheerful wink and rested his foot on the ramp.
– How similar brother and sister are! - said the count. - And how good they are both!
Shinshin began to tell the count in a low voice some story of Kuragin's intrigue in Moscow, to which Natasha listened precisely because he said charmante about her.
The first act ended, everyone in the stalls stood up, got confused and began to walk in and out.
Boris came to the Rostovs' box, very simply accepted congratulations and, raising his eyebrows, with an absent-minded smile, conveyed to Natasha and Sonya his bride's request that they be at her wedding, and left. Natasha talked to him with a cheerful and flirtatious smile and congratulated the same Boris with whom she had been in love before on his marriage. In the state of intoxication in which she was, everything seemed simple and natural.

Born in Denbigh (Wales) on January 28, 1841. Abandoned by his mother, he was given to relatives who took care of him until he was six years old, and then sent to a workhouse school. At the age of 15, he beat up a teacher and ran away from school. Having become a sailor, he reached New Orleans, where he deserted the ship.

When the American Civil War broke out, Stanley was working as a clerk in a country store in Arkansas. He joined the Confederate army, was captured during the Battle of Shiloh, and was imprisoned in Chicago. He enlisted in the army of the northerners, and was soon released from military service for health reasons. Having entered the merchant navy as a sailor, he was shipwrecked off the coast of Spain. Then he ended up on a northern warship, but shortly before the end of the war he deserted and moved to the West, where he wrote reports on campaigns against the Indians for various newspapers.

In 1867–1868, Stanley, as a correspondent for the New York Herald, covered the events of the war unleashed by the British in Abyssinia. Then he received the task of finding the missing missionary and explorer of Africa David Livingston. The path to Africa ran through the countries of the East, and at the beginning of 1871 Stanley crossed from the island of Zanzibar to the mainland to begin searching for Livingston. Having discovered a sick traveler on November 3 in the village of Ujiji on the shore of Lake. Tanganyika, looked after him until he recovered. Then Stanley, together with Livingston, began exploring Lake Tanganyika.

As a correspondent, Stanley participated in the campaign of the British army against the Ashanti state (Ghana). In August 1874, he set off from England on the second African expedition, sailed along the shores of Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika and, having climbed deep into the mainland, set off on a voyage down the Congo River to the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition lasted 999 days.

In 1879–1884, Stanley was engaged in the development of the lands he discovered. He accepted the proposal of the Belgian King Leopold II for an expedition to the Congo Basin and actively participated in the creation of the Congo Free State (later the Belgian Congo).

In 1887 Stanley went on his last trip to Africa. The expedition was tasked with helping Emin Pasha, the governor of the Equateur Province of Egyptian Sudan, who was cut off from the outside world due to the Mahdi's uprising. Of the 708 participants in this expedition, only 196 survived. Ironically, Emin Pasha himself did not want to be rescued in the end.

Returning to his homeland as a British subject in 1892, Stanley unsuccessfully stood for election to Parliament that same year, but in 1895 he nevertheless became a member of the House of Commons. In 1899 he was knighted and awarded the Order of the Bath. Stanley died in London on May 10, 1904.

Henry Morton Stanley - British journalist, famous traveler on the African continent, explorer of the Congo River, the Rwenzori mountain range, found the source of the Nile.

Childhood

Henry was born on January 28, 1841 in the town of Denbigh (Wales) into a low-income family. His father was John Rowland. The mother abandoned her son, so until the age of five, Henry was raised by his grandfather.

As soon as the grandfather died, the mother placed her son with a neighboring farmer. But he sent the boy to a workhouse, where the future traveler received a good school of life. Stanley will later say: “After what I experienced in the shelter, nothing can scare me anymore.”

Youth

Driven to despair, a fifteen-year-old boy brutally beat the orphanage teacher and ran away from the terrible institution. A little later, the boy got a job as a cabin boy on a ship that was leaving for America. The boatswain's bullying led to Henry being forced to leave the ship and stay in New Orleans. Here on his life's path he met the trade intermediary Stanley. This man adopted Henry and helped him get an education.

When Henry's new father died, the guy enlisted in the ranks of soldiers from the southern states. During the Battle of Shiloh, Henry was captured and sent to a Chicago prison. Later he went over to the side of the northerners, but was written off from service due to health reasons.


Flto: Henry Morton Stanley in his youth

After the end of the Civil War, Stanley worked on cotton plantations, walked along the rivers of North America and made sea voyages. One of the trips by sea ended in a shipwreck off the coast of Spain. G. Stanley carefully records all his observations and sends them to various periodicals. Henry was noticed and invited to work for the New York Herald. Working as a permanent correspondent for a popular publishing house gave Henry the opportunity to travel around the West of America, visit Spain and Asia. In 1867, he took part in a campaign against Ethiopia, and 2 years later he was present at the opening of the Suez Canal.

First trip to Africa

In March 1871, Henry Stanley (then 30 years old) receives a task from the owner of the publication, Gordon Bunnet, to find the explorer David Livingstone, who disappeared in Africa. As part of a detachment of 200 people, Stanley moved towards Lake Tanganyika.

While exploring the boundaries of the lake, the expedition learned about the country of Ujiji, in which a European was allegedly seen. In October 1871, Stanley and Livingston met.

David was very sick, so Henry had to treat him. After recovering, Stanley and Livingston decided to continue exploring the outskirts. The journey ended in Tabora, the largest settlement in Central Africa at that time. This expedition brought Stanley worldwide fame.

Second expedition to Africa

G. Stanley’s acquaintance with Africa did not end there. He decides to go look for the sources of the Nile. The expedition was financed by the New York Herald (USA) and the Daily Telegraph (London). The trek started from the town of Bagamayo to Lake Victoria. The source of the Nile was the Kagera River, flowing from Lake Victoria. Further, Stanley discovered the Rwenzori Mountains, Lake Edward and clarified the boundaries of Lake Tanganyika.

Henry Stanley explored the Congo River along its entire length, Africa was passed along the equator, and the path to the central parts of the continent was also opened. Stanley's detachment withstood about 30 military skirmishes, overcame many rapids and waterfalls, and reached the Atlantic Ocean by land. The expedition lasted 999 days. The detachment consisted of 369 people, of whom 109 survived. Among them was Henry Stanley. He was lucky to survive 23 bouts of fever, most likely caused by malaria.

Third expedition to the African continent

In 1879, the ruler of Belgium, Leopold II, assigned Stanley to lead a new expedition. Officially, this campaign was supposed to promote the development of trade. In fact, the talk was about the creation of the state of the Congo under the protection of Belgium. Henry completed this task brilliantly, creating a large colony in the Congo River basin. To top it all off, Stanley discovered the lake and named it Fr. Leopold.

Return to England

Stanley returned to England in 1884 and was chosen as director of the African Society, since his research activities on this continent were large-scale. In 1887, the traveler married journalist Dorothy Tenent, but he did not have time to celebrate the wedding, since his help was needed to save Mehmed Emin Pasha.

Third expedition to Africa

In 1887, Henry Stanley visited Africa for the last time. The mission of this expedition was to assist the governor of Sudan, Emin Pasha, who was isolated due to the Mahdi's rebellion. Of the 708 members of the expedition, only 196 remained alive. Emin Pasha himself refused to be saved.

Last years of life

Triumph awaited Stanley's return to England. He received the title of nobility from Queen Victoria of Great Britain. A little later, Henry became a member of the English Parliament. While in Australia from 1895 to 1902, Stanley served as a representative in the House of Commons. In 1899 he was awarded a knighthood and the Order of the Bath. Finally, the great explorer celebrated his wedding with Dorothy, but he was not destined to enjoy family life for long. Henry Stanley died in London on May 10, 1904.

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(1841-1904)

Originally from Wales. Real name and surname John Rowlands. One of Africa's greatest explorers. He crossed Africa in the equatorial zone, explored the two great lakes Victoria and Tanganyika, as well as the course of the Lualaba-Congo River from its headwaters to its mouth. Along the Lualaba and then along the Congo, Stanley descended to the Atlantic Ocean. G. Stanley crossed the African continent twice: in 1874-1877. from east to west, in 1877-1869. -from west to east. The book Through the Unknown Continent (1878) has been translated into many European languages. Henry Morton Stanley was born in Denbeagh, Wales. He was the illegitimate child of the daughter of a poor farmer, Betsy Parry, and John Rowlands, the son of a wealthy farmer who lived next door. As a child, the future great traveler's name was John Batch, then he arbitrarily took the name John Rowlands. He never knew his father, and his eighteen-year-old mother was too poor to be able to raise a child. In addition, she feared for her reputation in society, since the shame of an extramarital affair was too heavy a burden. To go to work, Betsy had to give her son to be raised by the family of a neighboring farmer Price, where little John lived for several years. When Betsy could no longer afford to pay for her son's upbringing, John was sent to a workhouse in St. Asaph, where the child remained in public care. Prison discipline reigned here. Children could play only when the weather did not allow work. Many could not stand the brutal beatings. One day, John, unable to bear the abuse, threw his broken glasses in the face of his hated tormentor and ran away. John stayed in the workhouse until he was fifteen years old. The boy discovered such outstanding abilities at the orphanage school that he interested his teachers. In 1856, his aunt took him in and entrusted him with tending her sheep. But John was already dreaming of America, where he could make a career, get rich and escape the darkness of poverty. Like many Europeans, the boy saw the United States as the first step towards dignity and freedom. In New Orleans, a 17-year-old boy found a place in one of the trading enterprises of Henry Stanley, a merchant with a soft heart and a hard skull, who treated him like a son. The merchant liked John's handwriting and accepted him into his shop. John served with Stanley for three years. During this time, the owner liked him so much for his efficiency, intelligence and hard work that he promoted him from boys to senior clerks, and then adopted him, thanks to which John turned into Henry Morton Stanley. When he was twenty years old, the American Civil War (1861-1865) began in the United States, but Stanley considered himself more of a shrewd businessman than a patriot.

The issue of slavery never particularly worried him. It was only when he was sent a petticoat that his wounded pride forced him to join the Southern Army, which put an end to his dreams of freedom and dignity. He participated in all the campaigns of General Johnston's army. In the battle of Gitsburg he was captured, but managed to escape. After his captivity, Stanley joined one of the ships that was then operating against the South as a simple sailor. Stanley spent three years in naval service, from 1863 to 1866. After the end of the war, his life was similar to that which Jack London later led. The beginning of his journalistic activity is shrouded in darkness. He became a staff correspondent in 1867. While on the first big assignment of a series of reports on the pacification of the Indians on the western prairies, he received lessons in how to deal with primitive peoples. Stanley came to the conclusion that the extermination of the Indians was not primarily the fault of the whites, but mainly a consequence of the indomitable savagery of the red tribes themselves. In his essays, Stanley showed restrained sympathy for the courageous enemy, depicting events in an exciting, sentimental and at the same time superficial way, like a true war journalist. It was as such that he introduced himself in 1868 to James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald newspaper, which had the largest circulation in America. As a correspondent for this newspaper, he first came to Africa as a witness to the colonial war. The scene of action was Ethiopia, which, unlike Egypt and Sudan, still defended its independence. And with the upcoming opening of the Suez Canal, the country acquired special significance. Britain sent an expeditionary force to Ethiopia in 1867, which within a year had grown to 40,000 soldiers. The Ethiopian adventure cost at least nine million pounds and ended with the Ethiopian emperor committing suicide in the Magdala fortress. Seven hundred Ethiopians were killed and one thousand five hundred wounded; on the British side there were two killed and several wounded. Stanley reported about this victorious campaign, so excitingly that it excited American readers. He provided such prompt information that the report of the capture of Magdala appeared in the Herald when the British government still knew nothing about it. A clever journalist bribed a telegraph operator in Suez to convey his telegram first. In 1869, Bennett entrusted Stanley with the search for the missing famous explorer David Livingston. It is likely that the newspaper magnate, in making this decision, which cost him £9,000, was counting on future readers in the UK.

After all, Herald has already proven that it is more agile than the British government. Bennett did not skimp on expenses. In this, as well as Stanley’s subsequent African travels, his character was fully revealed. Stormy energy, enterprise, determination, desperate courage, unyielding will, and excellent organizational skills were combined with harshness, rudeness, and even cruelty in dealing with his companions and especially with the natives, to whom he treated with arrogance and condescension. Stanley did not consider it a sin to make his way through the wilds of Africa by force of arms. At the beginning of 1871, Stanley collected information in Zanzibar about the possible whereabouts of Livingstone. Setting out from Bagamoyo on March 21, 1871, at the head of a large, well-equipped expedition, Stanley moved west to the Usagara Mountains; Along the way, he explored the Mkondoa valley and established that this river was not a tributary of the Kingani, as Burton and Speke believed, but the upper reaches of the Wami. Stanley's route through Usagara and Ugogo to Tabora passed close to the route of Burton and Speke, but beyond Tabora the direct road to Tanganyika was cut off by the Wanyamwezi uprising against Arab slave traders, so the expedition had to make a long detour to the south; this resulted in familiarization with the southern part of the Malagarasi basin and, in particular, the discovery of its main left tributary, the Ugalla. On November 10, 1871, Stanley's caravan entered Ujiji, where Livingstone had recently arrived from the shores of Lualaba. There the meeting of two travelers to Africa took place. Stanley supplied Livingston with various essentials, including medicines that he especially needed, and the old traveler perked up again. In November-December 1871, they traveled together by boat to the northern part of Tanganyika and visited the mouth of the Ruzizi, finally establishing that this river flows into the lake and does not flow out of it. One of the local chiefs informed them that the Ruzizi originates in Lake Kiwo (i.e. Kipu), which is much smaller in size than Tanganyika; he had heard nothing about the huge body of water that Baker placed on his map directly north of Tanganyika, from which Stanley correctly concluded that Sir Samuel Baker would have to reduce Alberta Nyanza by one, if not two degrees of latitude. At the very end of December 1871, both travelers left Ujiji and in February 1872 arrived in Tabora, where Livingstone was finally able to receive the property that had long been sent to his address from Zanzibar. Stanley's smartly written book How I Found Livingstone (1872) was a resounding success.

Despite some shortcomings (for example, the maps were made from measurements taken using only a compass), this book is a brilliantly written, classic work of research on Africa. It was published four weeks after Stanley returned to the United States, and this circumstance alone characterizes the energy of the author. True, at first English newspapers and individual readers called Stanley an American upstart, claiming that he was shaking with fear and sat in the jungle until Livingston eventually found him. And only a reception from Queen Victoria made the attackers calm down. For Henry Morton Stanley, this reception seems to have been the most powerful impression of his life. What struck me most was the expression of power that radiated from her eyes; her calm, friendly, but not ambiguous condescension. The Queen wrote to her daughter in Berlin: This is a determined, ugly, small man with a strong American accent. From the point of view of geographical science, Livingstone's search brought the discovery of the Ruzizi River, which flows from Lake Kiivu to Lake Tanganyika. In September 1874, Henry Morton Stanley showed up in Zanzibar. This time he set himself the task of completing the discoveries of Speke, Burton and Livingstone: to eliminate the remaining ambiguities regarding the source of the Nile (especially regarding the integrity of Lake Victoria) and to finally solve the Lualaba problem. Stanley's research enterprise was funded by two major newspapers: the English Daily Telegraph and the American New York Herald. As in his previous East African journey, he was not short of funds and was able to organize a large, superbly equipped expedition. His caravan, which set out from Bagamoyo on November 17, 1874, consisted of 356 people, including 270 porters who carried, among other expedition equipment, the large collapsible sailing boat Lady Alice. Of the Europeans, in addition to Stanley himself, three young Englishmen took part in the expedition: Frederick Barker and the Pocock brothers Francis-John and Edward. Before Utogo, Stanley followed the road he was already familiar with, but then deviated from it to the north and northwest, so that, without going into Tabora, he went straight to Lake Victoria. This path, which passed through areas still completely unknown to Europeans, turned out to be extremely difficult. The caravan stretched for more than a kilometer. Copper wire, calico, bags full of beads, cowrie shells and provisions, boxes with equipment, as well as a disassembled, twelve-meter-long cedar boat, Lady Alice, were all carried on their shoulders by the porters.

Stanley Henry Morton (real name John Rowlands, Rowlands) (1841-1904), journalist, explorer of Africa. In 1871-72, as a correspondent for the New York Herald newspaper, he participated in the search for D. Livingston; explored the lake with him. Tanganyika. He crossed Africa twice: in 1874-77 from east to west, he traced almost the entire course of the river. Congo (Zaire), explored the lake. Victoria, opened the lake. Edward, Rwenzori massif, upper reaches of the river. Nile and river basin Congo; in 1887-89 from west to east. While in the service of the Belgian king (1879-84), he participated in the capture of the river basin. Congo.

Stanley Henry Morton. Real name and surname - John Rowlands. One of Africa's greatest explorers. He crossed Africa in the equatorial zone, explored two great lakes - Victoria and Tanganyika, as well as the course of the Lualaba-Congo River from its headwaters to its mouth. The book "Across the Unknown Continent" (1878) has been translated into many European languages.

Henry Morton Stanley was born in Denbeagh, Wales. He was illegitimate and from an early age dreamed of America, where, regardless of origin, you could make a career and get rich. In New Orleans, a 17-year-old boy found a place in one of Henry Stanley's trading enterprises and the owner liked him so much for his efficiency, intelligence and hard work that he adopted him, thanks to which John turned into Henry Morton Stanley.

When he was twenty years old, the Civil War began in the United States (1861-1865), Stanley joined the army of the Southern States and participated in the campaigns of General Johnston's army. In the battle of Gitsburg he was captured, but managed to escape.

After the end of the war, his life was similar to that which Jack London later led. As a correspondent for the New York Herald newspaper, which had the largest circulation in America, in 1867 he first came to Africa.

In 1869, Stanley was entrusted with the search for the missing Livingston. At the beginning of 1871, Stanley collected information in Zanzibar about the possible whereabouts of Livingstone. Stanley's route through Usagara and Ugogo to Tabora passed close to the route of Burton and Speke, but beyond Tabora the direct road to Tanganyika was cut off by the Wanyamwezi uprising against Arab slave traders, so the expedition had to make a detour to the south; this resulted in familiarization with the southern part of the Malagarasi basin and, in particular, the discovery of its main left tributary, the Ugalla. On November 10, 1871, Stanley's caravan entered Ujiji, where Livingstone had recently arrived from the shores of Lualaba. There a meeting of two travelers took place.

They traveled together by boat around the northern part of Tanganyika and visited the mouth of the Ruzizi. Stanley's smartly written book How I Found Livingstone (1872) was a resounding success. Despite its shortcomings (for example, maps were made based only on compass measurements), this book was a "classic" work of research on Africa. From a geographical point of view, Livingstone's search brought the discovery of the Ruzizi, a river that flows from Lake Kivu to Lake Tanganyika.

In September 1874, Henry Morton Stanley set out to "complete the discoveries of Speke, Burton and Livingstone": to eliminate the remaining ambiguities regarding the source of the Nile (especially regarding the integrity of Lake Victoria) and finally solve the Lualaba problem.

Stanley's research enterprise was funded by two major newspapers: the English Daily Telegraph and the American New York Herald. His caravan set out from Bagamoyo on November 17, 1874. Before Utogo, Stanley followed the road he was already familiar with, but then deviated from it to the north and northwest, so that, without going into Tabora, he went straight to Lake Victoria. This path, passing through still unknown regions, turned out to be extremely difficult.

Less than half of the expedition reached the lake; the rest died of hunger and disease, died in skirmishes, or simply fled. On February 27, 1875, the caravan arrived in the village of Kageyi on the southern coast of Victoria (a little east of Mwanza - the place where Speke visited in 1858).

As a result of Stanley's circular voyage around Lake Victoria, almost the entire coastline was mapped. Only the southwestern corner of the lake and the northeastern bay of Kavirondo remained unexplored (Stanley mistook the narrow entrance to it for the top of a bay that does not protrude deeply into the land, which appears in this place on his map). Having crossed the lake to Buganda, Stanley spent several months there, preparing for an overland journey to the west, where, according to local residents, the large lake Muta-Nzige was located. Lake Albert, discovered by Baker, was known by similar names (Luta-Nzige, Mvutan-Nzige), and Stanley had no doubt that this was what they were talking about.

The campaign began in November 1875, and in the spring of 1876 Stanley went through the northern and western regions of Unyamwezi to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika. He established its exact contours (34 thousand square kilometers) by going around its shores on a ship. Stanley discovered a bay in the north-west of the lake, separated from its main part by the long and narrow peninsula of Ubvari, and named it after Burton.

On September 4, 1876, Stanley crossed the lake and from Tanganyika moved down the valley of the Lwama River and reached its mouth - it turned out to be a tributary of the Lualaba. The pale gray Lualaba stream, a kilometer and a half wide, curved from south to northwest. “It’s my duty to follow it to the sea, no matter what obstacles stand in my way.”

Below the waterfalls named after him, Stanley found out that the locals no longer call the river Lualaba, but “Ikutu-ya-Kongo”. All doubts that Lualaba and Congo were the same river were dispelled. Stanley established this when he traced the entire course of the Congo below Ruby. Having described a gigantic arc "in the heart of the Black Continent", he entered the Atlantic Ocean on August 8, 1877, 999 days after leaving Zanzibar. In addition to the Ruby River, he discovered and examined the mouths of a number of other tributaries of the Congo, including the large right Aruvimi and two left ones - the Ruki and the Kasai. The total length of the route, according to his calculations, was 11.5 thousand kilometers.

Stanley's trans-African journey immediately put him among the most prominent researchers of the "Dark Continent". Assessing the results of this expedition in 1877 in “Messages”, A. Petermann emphasized as Stanley’s main merit that he connected the disparate links of the study of Africa - the routes of his predecessors, who stormed the “white spot” in the equatorial part of the continent from the north, south, east and the west.

The results of Stanley's research in the Great Lakes region were impressive; an even greater achievement was the solution to the Lualaba problem. The arc-shaped middle course of the Congo appeared on the map for the first time.

In 1879, already in the service of the Belgian King Leopold II, Stanley began to seize the Congo Basin. Trying to get ahead of the French competitor Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza who came from the north, Stanley put together and bargained for Leopold II a personal colony, the likes of which had never been seen in recent history. In 1884, when Stanley left the Congo Basin, this entity was recognized as the "Congo Free State" by most countries in the world and remained virtually the personal domain of the king until 1908. Only an international scandal, which revealed monstrous abuses, forced Leopold to transfer most of his possessions to the Belgian state.

In the second half of the 80s, the attention of the world press was attracted by the fate of Emin (real name Eduard Schnitzer), the governor of the Equateur province of Sudan, who found himself cut off from Egypt by the Mahdist uprising. Stanley, who led an expedition organized specifically for this purpose by a “rescue committee” created in London, managed to rescue Emin. This second trans-African journey for Stanley also turned out to be fruitful for geography. The main scientific result of the first stage associated with the Congo Basin was a complete study of the Aruvimi River (in the upper reaches called Ituri). Stanley's hike along the Aruvimi was also of interest as the first pedestrian crossing of the "great forest of the Congo" in the history of European exploration of Africa.

The second stage of the journey, in the area of ​​the Nile lakes, was marked by even greater achievements. The discovery of the third highest mountain range in Africa, the Rwenzori (5109 meters), was completed, seen by Stanley in 1876 only from afar. The traveler had no doubt that he had discovered the very “Mountains of the Moon” that Ptolemy had once reported about. In June 1889, Lieutenant W. J. Stairs, a member of the Stanley expedition, made the first ascent of Rwenzori, rising, according to his calculations, to an altitude of 3245 meters above sea level and determining the height of the nearest snowy peak (not the highest) at 4445 meters.

An important geographical result of Stanley's expedition was the solution to the Muta-Nzige problem. After Jesse and Mason determined that this lake could not be part of the Albert Nyanza, the question arose of which hydrographic basin it belonged to. Stanley established a connection between Lake Edward and Lake Albert via Semliki.

On 4 May 1904, Stanley's wife buried him in Westminster Abbey. However, the deceased had no doubt that he would be laid to rest next to Livingston.

Reprinted from the site http://100top.ru/encyclopedia/