Introduction
In continuation of our treatise on historical figures and events. Today, we shall continue our discourse on Mungo Park, the Scottish Surgeon and Explorer who was said to have “discovered” the River Niger at Kainji, New Bussa. I always wonder, till date, how an explorer can “discover” a river he met the natives drinking, taking their bath in and farming with. Anyway, so much for “oyinbo” man’s narrative that suits them. It is high time we begin to interrogate history, question the answers and answer the questions. We shall also x-ray Hugh Clapperton, his voyage, challenges, achievements, elevation after voyage and his eventual death.
Still on Mungo Park
We saw how Mungo Park “discovered” the River Niger at New Bussa, Kainji. My argument is that having met the Natives living by the bank of the River Niger, bathing and drinking from it, it is wrong to say he discovered it. He saw it, yes, the first white man to do so. Yes. But, when he fell ill, it was the natives that came to his aid.
However, this is not to play down or underestimate his tortuous journey, sufferings, illnesses, attacks, etc. the story is that in June, 1788, nine of the twelve members of the Saturday Club, a gentlemen’s dining club, formed themselves into an ‘Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa,’ as they deemed it unworthy of their ‘present age’ that only so little was known about ‘so large a portion of the globe’ as the African continent.
When in May, 1795, the twenty-three year old Scottish surgeon Mungo Park (1771-1806), left on his expedition to ‘ascertain the course and if possible, the rise and termination of [the river Niger]… [and] to visit the principal towns or cities in its neighbourhood, particularly Tombuctooo and Houssa,’ he was already the fourth explorer to be sent out by the African Association, as it was commonly known. Two of his predecessors, John Ledyard (1751-89) and Daniel Houghton (1740-91) had died in the attempt. The third, Simon Lucas (ca.1766-99), had not penetrated far into the interior, due to political upheaval in the region.
Park arrived in the Gambia in June. From there he travelled on with only a small amount of luggage, accompanied by his interpreter Johnson, a freed slave, and Demba, his servant. At first all went well but then Park was captured by Moors and badly treated. He eventually managed to escape and after being repeatedly robbed, suffering from fever, starvation and thirst, he finally reached the banks of the river Niger in July, 1796.
He then declared famously:
“I saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission; the long sought for, majestic Niger, glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly to the eastward.”
Mungo Park was an instant success, and the first edition of his book Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa sold out rapidly. His £1000 royalties allowed him to settle in Selkirk and set up medical practice (marrying Alice Anderson, the daughter of the surgeon to whom he had been apprenticed). Settled life soon bored him, however, and he looked for a new adventure-but only under the right conditions. Banks was offended when Park demanded a large sum to explore Australia for the Royal Society.
Eventually in 1805, Banks and Mungo Park came to an arrangement-Park was to lead an expedition to follow the Niger to its end. His part consisted of 30 soldiers from the Royal Africa Corps garrisoned at Goree (they were offered extra pay and the promise of a discharge on return), plus officers including his brother-in-law Alexander Anderson, who agreed to join the trip) and four boat builders from Portsmouth who would construct a forty-foot boat when they reached the river.
Against logic and advice, Mungo Park set off from the Gambia in the rainy season – within ten days his men were falling to dysentery. After five weeks one man was dead, seven mules lost and the expedition’s baggage mostly destroyed by fire.Mungo Park’s letters back to London made no mention of his problems. By the time the expedition reached Sand sanding on the Niger, only eleven of the original 40 Europeans were still alive. The party rested for two months but the deaths continued.
By November 19, only five of them remained alive (even Alexander Anderson was dead). Sending the native guide, Isaaco, back to Laidley with his journals, Park was determined to continue. Park, Lieutenant Martyn (who had become an alcoholic on native beer) and three soldiers set off downstream from Segu in a converted canoe, christened the HMS Joliba. Each man had fifteen muskets but little in the way of other supplies.
When Isaaco reached Laidley in the Gambia news had already reached the coast of Mungo Park’s death – coming under fire at the Bussa Rapids, after a journey of over 1 000 miles on the river, Mungo Park and his small party were drowned. Isaaco was sent back to discover the truth, but the only remains to be discovered was Mungo Park’s munitions belt. The irony was that having avoided contact with local Muslim’s by keeping to the center of the river, they were in turn mistaken for Muslim raiders and shot at.
Hugh clapperton
Clapperton was born in Annan, Dumfriesshire, where his father, George Clapperton, was a surgeon. He gained some knowledge of practical mathematics and navigation, and at thirteen years was apprenticed on board a vessel which traded between Liverpool and North America. After having made several voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, he was impressed for the navy, in which he soon rose to the rank of midshipman. During the Napoleonic Wars, Clapperton saw a good deal of active service, and at the storming of Port Louis, Mauritius, in November 1810, he was first in the breach and hauled down the French flag.
In 1814, Clapperton went to Canada, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and to the command of a schooner on the Canadian lakes. In 1817, when the flotilla on the lakes was dismantled, he returned home on half-pay. In 1820 Clapperton removed to Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of Walter Oudney, who aroused his interest in African travel.
The voyages
Lieutenant G. F. Lyon having returned from an unsuccessful attempt to reach Bornu from Tripoli, the British government determined on a second expedition to that country. Walter Oudney was appointed by Lord Bathurst, then colonial secretary, to proceed to Bornu as consul, accompanied by Hugh Clapperton. From Tripoli, early in 1822, they set out southward to Murzuk, where they were later joined by Major Dixon Denham, who found both men in a wretched condition.
They eventually proceeded south from Murzuk on 29 November 1822. By this time, a deep antipathy had developed between Clapperton and Denham, Denham secretly sending home malicious reports about Clapperton having homosexual relations with one of the Arab servants. The accusation, based on a rumour spread by a disgruntled servant dismissed by Clapperton for theft, was almost certainly unfounded, and Denham later withdrew it but without telling Clapperton he had done so, leading the historian Bovill to observe that ‘it remains difficult to recall in all the checkered history of geographic discovery.
Challenges
On 17th February, 1823, the party eventually reached Kuka (now Kukawa in Nigeria), capital of the Bornu Empire, where they were well received by the sultan Sheikh Al-Kaneimi, having earlier become the first white men to see Lake Chad. Whilst at Kuka, Clapperton and Oudney parted company with Denham on 14th December, to explore the course of the Niger River. Denham remained behind to explore and survey the western, South and South-Eastern shores of Lake Chad, and the lower courses of the Rivers Waube, Logone and Shari. However, only a few weeks later, Oudney died at the village of Murmur, located near the town of Katagum on the road to Kano.
Undeterred, Clapperton continued his journey alone through Kano to Sokoto, the capital of the Fulani Empire, where by order of Sultan Muhammed Bello, he was obliged to stop, though the Niger was only a five-day journey to the west. Exhausted by his travels, he returned by way of Zaria and Katsina to Kuka, where Denham found him barely recognizable after his privations. Clapperton and Denham departed Kuka for Tripoli in August, 1824, reaching Tripoli on 26th January, 1825. Their mutual antipathy unabated, they exchanged not a word during the 133-day journey. The pair continued their journey to England, arriving home to a heroes’ welcome on 1st June, 1825. An account of their travels was published in 1826, under the title Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the years 1822–1823 and 1824.
Elevation and further voyages
Immediately after his return to England, Clapperton was raised to the rank of Commander, and sent out with another expedition to Africa, the Sultan Bello of Sokoto having professed his eagerness to open up trade with the west coast. Clapperton came out on HMS Brazen, which was joining the West Africa Squadron for the suppression of the slave trade.
He landed at Badagry in the Bight of Benin, and started overland for the Niger on 7th December, 1825, having with him his servant Richard Lemon Lander, Captain Pearce, and Dr. Morrison, navy surgeon and naturalist. Before the month was out Pearce and Morrison were dead of fever. Clapperton continued his journey, and, passing through the Yoruba country, in January, 1826, he crossed the Niger at Bussa, the spot where Mungo Park had died twenty years before.
His achievements
Clapperton was the first European to make known from personal observation the Hausa states, which he visited soon after the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate by the Fula. In 1829, the “Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa”, by Clapperton appeared posthumously, with a biographical sketch of the explorer by his uncle, Lieutenant-Colonel S. Clapperton, as a preface. Richard Lander, who had brought back the journal of his master, also published “Records of Captain Clapperton’s Last Expedition to Africa … with the subsequent Adventures of the Author (2 volumes, London, 1830).”
Hugh Clapperton was painted in 1817, by Sir Henry Raeburn. The painting now resides in the United States. A later oil painting by Gildon Manton is held by The National Gallery of Scotland. The frontispiece to Clapperton’s “Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa” features an engraving by Thomas Goff Lupton. Clapperton was renowned for the following works:
Clapperton, H. (1826). Difficult and Dangerous Roads – Travels in Sahara and Fezzan, 1822–1825. Eds. Bruce-Lockhart, J. & Wright, J. Sickle Moon Books, London.
Clapperton, Hugh; Lander, Richard (1829). Journal of a second expedition into the interior of Africa, from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo by the late Commander Clapperton of the Royal Navy to which is added The Journal of Richard Lander from Kano to the Sea-Coast Partly by a More Easterly Route. London: John Murray.
Denham, Dixon; Clapperton, Hugh; Oudney, Walter (1826). Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa: In the Years 1822, 1823, and 1824 (2 volumes). London: John Murray. Scans: Volume 1, Volume 2.
CLAPPERTON’S DEATH
In July, Clapperton arrived at Kano and thence the Fulani capital Sokoto, intending to continue to Bornu and renew his acquaintance with the Kanuri leader Sheikh al-Kaneimi. However, the Fulani were now at war with Al-Kaneimi, and Sultan Bello refused him permission to leave. After many months’ detention, afflicted by malaria, depression, and dysentery, Clapperton died, leaving his servant Lander the only survivor of the expedition. Lander returned to the coast, and at Fernando Po. By extraordinary coincidence, he met Clapperton’s old antagonist, Dixon Denham, who duly relayed the news of Clapperton’s demise to London. (To be continued.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).
