David Livingstone: the original abolitionist...oh & "discovered" Africa etc.

David Livingstone was a pioneering medical missionary who some say discovered the Nile, Zambezi Rivers, Victoria Falls, Lake Tanganyika and oh the Congo River. I learnt about him when I was little in Zimbabwe and Kenya as an African, knowing how long we as Africans have been in Africa, from mostly white British, Scottish and Welsh teachers. Even though it didn't make sense that he discovered what was already there - for the sake of curriculum and getting through classes it was what it was at that point. I attended British schools in these former British colonies so that's what I got. The statues that were erected in his honor IN African countries were not erected by Africans themselves and where he was buried in Westminster Abbey, the tablet reads,

"For thirty years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, and abolish the desolating slave trade of Central Africa."

At the David Livingstone Memorial Statue erected in 1954 on the Zimbabwean side of the falls -  the west bank of the river. 

At the entrance to the trail along the Falls on the Zimbabwean side - Mosi-oa-tunya means "the mist that thunders" in Tonga.

The message here is just pure bamboozlement! I will give it a pass though because it was clearly dedicated during colonialism so within a very different Zimbabwean context.

It's highly amusing to me that David Livingstone was doing his mission work and pursuing his "discoveries" to build a case against slavery, but not colonialism. A lot of what he did as far as the things and places he reported back on are what encouraged further exploitation through exploration of the Continent. Rumor has it, a la Abraham Lincoln, that he dibbled and dabbled in relations with the locals. The kinds of relations that were very unbecoming of a man of the cloth and of his skin color.

What did you learn about David Livingstone growing up if at all?

(I am not feeling well readers so please bear with me and send get well vibes my way (: )

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*@afropolitaine*