David Livingstone: Mission and Empire

I read David Livingstone: Mission and Empire (#880) by Andrew C. Ross in preparation for our upcoming trip to Africa.  We will be visiting Victoria Falls, as he was the first to rename them from the native Mosi-oa-Tunya, and will be hearing a lecture about him there, so I decided to get a head start on the topic.  What an interesting man this Scot was, whose remains are buried in Westminster Abbey, although his heart, fittingly enough, is interred in Africa.

Though from humble beginnings, he felt the call to become a missionary to Africa, but the obstacles in his path were many.  His iron determination pushed him through medical school as the surest way to attain his goal.  Once on African soil, he set about learning the languages and customs of as many of the native peoples as he could, all the while recording his meticulous observations of the flora and fauna as he passed through to the interior of the country.  His attitude towards the indigenous peoples was remarkably enlightened from our twenty-first century perspective, yet it made him an enemy of many of the British settlers and the Boers.  His ability and willingness to communicate with the native tribes won him many friends and followers on his extensive travels throughout central Africa, yet his unwillingness to settle down to one stationary mission post cut off funding from British missionary societies, leaving his wife and children in a precarious financial situation.

I don't think he was the saint so many of his biographers have tried to portray, nor did he seem to be in favor of the rampant European imperialism which followed his demise.  He was most determined to abolish the slave trade which dominated African economics in the nineteenth century.  I believe Andrew Ross strives to present a balanced portrait of this man.  There is much to admire in the man beyond the famous quote "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"  This is a good place to start.