Explorer, born in Rio de Janeiro, SE Brazil. He became a French citizen in 1874, and entered the French navy, serving in Gabon, where he explored the Ogowe (18768). In 1878 he explored the country N of the Congo, where he secured vast grants of land for France, and founded stations, including that of Brazzaville.
Pietro Paolo Savorgnan di Brazzà, best known as Pierre Paul François Camille Savorgnan de Brazza (January 26, 1852 - September 14, 1905) was a Franco-Italian explorer, born in Italy and later naturalized French. He single-handedly opened up for France entry along the right bank of the Congo that eventually led to French colonies in West Africa.
Biography
Born in Rome, Pietro Paolo di Brazzà he was the seventh son of Count Ascanio Savorgnan di Brazzà, a nobleman of Udine with many French connections. Pietro won entry to the French naval school at Brest, graduated as an ensign, and went on the Jeanne d'Arc to Algeria, where he was horrified to see French troops shooting down Kabyle insurgents.
His next ship was the Venus, which stopped at Gabon regularly, and in 1874 de Brazza made two trips, up the Gabon and Ogoue rivers. He also became a naturalized French citizen at this time, adopting the French spelling of his name.
The French authorized a second mission, 1879-1882. Reaching the Congo River in 1880, Brazza proposed to King Makoko of the Batekes that he place his kingdom under the protection of the French flag. Makoko also arranged for the establishment of a French settlement at Ncuna on the Congo's Malebo Pool, a place later known as Brazzaville.
In 1886 he was named governor-general of the French Congo. Journalists' reports of the contrast between the decent wages and humane conditions there contrasted with the personal regime of Belgian King Léopold on the opposite bank, in the Congo Free State, made him some important enemies, and a mounting smear campaign in the French press led to his dismissal in 1898.
The epitaph for his burial site in Algiers reads "une mémoire pure de sang humain" ('a memory untainted by human blood').
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