The search for Livingstone, undertaken by Stanley (1841–1904), had a profound impact on the journalist who, having remained at the Scotsman’s side along the northern part of Lake Tanganyika, chose to dedicate the rest of his life to the exploration of Africa. Backed by new financing from the New York Herald, as well as from the Daily Telegraph, he departed in 1874 for a three-year expedition that saw him cross Equatorial Africa from east to west and become the first European to follow the course of the River Congo to its mouth. Stanley told the story of this exploit in the book Through the Dark Continent (1878), which included this map of the western part of Equatorial Africa. It was the first to detail the course of the Congo with great precision, a considerable achievement considering its creator’s limited cartographic training.
There is a second map, of which the one presented here is the ideal continuation and which represents the eastern part of Equatorial Africa, the first explored by Stanley. The routes taken by Stanley are shown in red, as in Livingstone’s map, whose style this one reproduces in every respect: the publishers of both were in fact business partners, and Sampson Low of London, which published this map, was the UK publisher of materials from Harper of New York, which was responsible for the first edition of the Livingstone map. Thus the maps give an account of journeys, but they also tell the story of the mobile relations between international publishers that made it possible to circulate styles as well as editions of maps from one side of the ocean to the other.
The map also invites us to reflect on another form of mobility, which is typical of maps produced in cultural contexts of colonisation: that relating to the naming of places. On the one hand, Stanley pays great attention to local toponymy, often even listing the multiple names attributed by different tribes to the same localities, yet, on the other hand, he does not shy away from the colonial practice of renaming: among the most striking examples on the map is the River Djoué, a tributary of the Congo, which is labelled the “Gordon Bennett River”, in honour of the director of the New York Herald who financed his travels. And even more sensational is the dual name given to the Congo itself, for which Stanley proposed the alternative “Livingstone River”.
Browse the gallery and discover the details of the map:
