Building Congo, Writing Empire: The Literary Labours of Henry Morton Stanley

Abstract

The Welsh-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley was one of the most important figures in the foundation and early development of the Congo Free State. But he was also the most consistently popular European travel writer of the late nineteenth century, and his bestselling accounts of African expeditions did much to foster the ‘myth of the Dark Continent’. These adventures were characterized by dramatic and violent encounters with ‘natives’ and fleeting impressions of the flora and fauna of Central Africa. Stanley’s preferred formula was a sensational quest towards an ostensible goal: the ‘finding’ of Livingstone or the search for the sources of the Nile. His Congo and the Founding of its Free State (1885) offered something ostensibly more prosaic: a ‘story of work and exploration’. While Stanley’s book was received with enthusiasm by many, the markedly ‘European’ nature of the project also presented problems. His famous search for Livingstone and his subsequent ‘Anglo-American’ expedition across equatorial Africa had been funded by the British and American press and both missions hailed as the exclusive achievements of the ‘Anglo-Saxon race’. But now Stanley was exploring and working for the Francophone King of the Belgians. This article argues that Stanley explicitly presents his literary productions (journalism, travel writing, and lectures) as an important part of the work of exploration and empire building.