The travelling apologist: May French Sheldon in the Congo Free State (1903–04)

Abstract

May French Sheldon was one of a handful of travellers to the Congo Free State who denied the accuracy of other travellers’ reports of widespread atrocities in the colony. This article analyses how these travelling apologists wrote about themselves and their journeys in their pro-Congo reportage, and it considers the reception of that reportage among anti-Congo agitators in Britain. It finds that, to undermine the travelling apologists’ claims, British Congo reformers accentuated differences in the methods of travel used by pro- and anti-Congo travellers. They claimed that while the critics had undertaken rigorous, ‘authentic’ journeys, making close contact with peoples of the Congo River basin, the apologists had travelled in the superficial manner of tourists. This article thus reveals how the long-standing tourist/traveller dichotomy made its appearance in the debate on Congo atrocities, and discusses the broader significance of this for the understanding of travel writing from this context.