Sir Henry Morton Stanley - Trivia

Explorer and journalist, born in Denbigh, Denbighshire, NC Wales, UK. Abandoned as a child in a workhouse, in 1859 he went as cabin boy to New Orleans, where he was adopted by a merchant who bestowed his own name on the young man. In 1867 he joined the New York Herald, and as its special correspondent he travelled to Abyssinia and Spain. Instructed to ‘find Livingstone’ in Africa (1869), he left Zanzibar for Tanganyika (1871) and encountered Livingstone at Ujiji. In 1874 Stanley led a second expedition which explored L Tanganyika, and traced the Congo to the sea. On a third expedition (1879), he founded the Congo Free State, and a further expedition went to the aid of Emin Pasha in the Sudan (1887–9). He became a US citizen in 1885, but returned to Britain (1890), re-naturalized in 1892, and became an MP (1895–1900). He was knighted in 1899.

Stanley
Journalist and explorer
Born	January 28, 1841 Denbigh, Wales
Died	May 10, 1904 London, England

Sir Henry Morton Stanley, also known as Bula Matari (Breaker of Rocks) in the Congo, born John Rowlands (January 28, 1841 – May 10, 1904), was a 19th-century Welsh-born journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. His parents were not married, his father died when he was two years old and his mother, a butcher's daughter, refused to look after him, and he was brought up in a workhouse (now HM Stanley Hospital, St Asaph) until the age of 15. In 1859, at the age of 18, he made his passage to the United States on a ship, and upon arriving in New Orleans, he became friendly with a wealthy trader named Stanley, whose name he later assumed.

After military service with both sides in the American Civil War, Stanley was recruited in 1867 by Colonel Samuel Forster Tappan (a one-time journalist) of the Indian Peace Commission to serve as a correspondent to cover the work of the Commission for several newspapers. Stanley was soon retained exclusively by James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872), founder of the New York Herald. According to Stanley's no doubt romanticised account, he asked James Gordon Bennett, Jr. The reply was "Draw £1,000 now, and when you have gone through that, draw another £1,000, and when that is spent, draw another £1,000, and when you have finished that, draw another £1,000, and so on — BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE!""

Stanley traveled to Zanzibar and outfitted an expedition with the best of everything, requiring no fewer than 200 porters. Stanley joined him in exploring the region, establishing for certain that there was no connection between Lake Tanganyika and the river Nile.

Controversy followed Stanley for most of his life. Stanley would eventually be held responsible for a number of deaths and was indirectly responsible for helping establish the rule of Léopold II of Belgium over the Congo Free State.

In 1886, Stanley led the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition to "rescue" Emin Pasha, the governor of Equatoria in the southern Sudan. After immense hardships and great loss of life, Stanley met Emin in 1888, discovered the Ruwenzori Range and Lake Edward, and emerged from the interior with Emin and his surviving followers at the end of 1890.

Trivia

In 1939, a popular film called Stanley and Livingstone was released, with Spencer Tracy as Stanley and Cedric Hardwicke as Livingstone. An NES game based on him was released in 1992 and called "Stanley: The Search for Dr. Livingston" Stanley Electric Co., Ltd - in short: Stanley Electric - located in Tokyo, Japan - obtained the right to use Stanley's family name in honour of his discoveries "that have brought light into many spots of the world undiscovered and hitherto unknown to mankind". Sir Henry Morton Stanley, Confederate ISBN 0-8071-2587-3 reprint with introduction copyright 2000, from original, The Autobiography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1909) Dugard, Martin: Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone, 2003. Pearson, Charles: The Last Expedition: Stanley's Mad Journey Through the Congo, 2005.