David Livingston
David Livingston was born in Scotland in 1813. He was born in a building housing the
families of workers of a cotton mill. He
grew, as expected, to work in that same cotton mill – often working 14 hour shifts
as a child – but found time to study theology and science on weekends and
evenings as he could find the time. A
faithful Congregationalist, he was moved as a young man by an appeal for medical
missionaries. He added medicine to the
list of subjects he was studying.
At first he thought to go to China as a missionary, and
was accepted by the London Missionary Society for this work. The Opium Wars of 1839-1842 put an end to
that dream, and he was persuaded by the great British Missionary Robert Moffatt
to consider Africa as a mission field.
He accepted the call and arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1841 at
age 28 to support Rev Moffatt. Within
four years, David married his mentor’s daughter, Mary Moffatt. They eventually had six children. David grew restless tending mission stations
on the coast, and developed a vision for exploring Africa, desiring to open “God’s
Highway” – a planned 1,500 mile route to the interior of Africa to bring “Christianity
and civilization” to unreached peoples.
During the course of his missions work, he traveled East to West across
Africa, then back again, crossing the Kalahari Desert each way as well. He was the first recorded European to find
Lake Ngami and the beautiful Victoria Falls, which he named for his beloved
Queen.
During his trips into the interior of Africa, Dr
Livingston was exposed to the slave trade at its source, and was greatly
burdened by it. He wrote of the “inefficient”
slave economy, desiring to replace it with the “efficient” economy of capitalism. He hoped that developing a commercial economy
would expose the slave trade to the world and cut off the slave trade at its
source.
Dr Livingston spent the next 15 years exploring Africa,
keeping detailed notes as to the geography, peoples, and landmarks he saw. He was very faithful to report his detailed
notes to his mission board and eventually returned home to a hero’s welcome in England,
finding that the Society publishing the results of his exploration had turned
him into a celebrity. He published a
book detailing his mission exploits, and made enough money from that book to
fund the rest of his missions work.
He returned to Africa under the sponsorship of the Royal
Geographic Society, with the stated desire of solving what was then one of the
great mysteries of the world, finding the source of the Nile River. Practically, he had hoped that this would
inspire other British explorers and businessmen to follow his footsteps and
begin to open up Africa to commercial and missions work and begin the
construction of his “God’s Highway.” It
was during this trip that the extreme hardship resulted in the death of his wife,
among many others in his entourage.
It was during this last journey that Dr Livingstone disappeared
from the public eye. Nothing was heard
from him for two years – and his disappearance added to his mystique. It was later learned that David had fallen
gravely ill during that time. In 1871,
the New York Herald sent journalist Henry Stanley with instructions to
locate Dr Livingstone and tell his story.
Stanley located him in the interior of Africa in October of that year,
uttering the famous line (which he admitted to having rehearsed prior to meeting
him), “Dr Livingston, I presume?”
Stanley brought food, supplies, and medicines, which had the effect of
saving the life of David who was still very ill.
Stanley stayed with David for five months before
returning to New York to publish the stories he had recorded. Livingstone refused Stanley’s pleas to accompany
him, insisting on the missions work yet to be done. It was less than 2 years later, that Dr David
Livingstone was found dead, kneeling by his cot in the posture of prayer. His friends arranged for his body to be
brought back to England, where he was buried in Westminster Abbey after an
arduous nine-month journey, but they first removed his heart and buried them in
Africa, in present-day Zambia.
David Livingstone came to Africa when it was called the “Dark
Continent” or “The White Man’s Graveyard”.
Contemporary maps of Africa had large blank spots marked “unexplored”. He suffered many hardships, including the
death of his wife, desertion by many friends and fellow missionaries, his own
illnesses, opposition from slave traders which sometimes physically threatened
him, and the ever-present dangers of Africa – he was mauled by a lion once,
which permanently damaged his left arm.
Despite this, he redrew the map of Africa, helped to expose the horrors
of the slave trade for what it was in his day, and established many missions
works in the interior of Africa.
His tombstone in Westminster Abbey reads, “Brought by faithful hands over land and
sea, David Livingstone: missionary, traveler, philanthropist. For 30
years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races,
to explore the undiscovered secrets, and to abolish the slave trade.” One present-day author likened him to a
mixture of Mother Teresa, Neil Armstrong, and Abraham Lincoln.
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