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African Members of the Zambezi Expedition, 1861–1864 A Prosopographical Foray1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

G. W. Clendennen  and
D.H. Simpson
D.H. Simpson
Affiliation:
Royal Commonwealth Society
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Extract

Throughout the entire period of the Zambezi expedition, the European members were accompanied and supported by Africans, either individually or in groups, and this essay is an attempt to list most of those who were with David Livingstone during his final three years in the Zambezi-Shire region. While the positive contributions made by Africans to the venture have been frequently overlooked, so has been the magnitude of Livingstone's problem training various African groups to carry out the tasks for which he hired them, with an end toward integrating them into the Expedition. The mere fact that circumstances caused him to turn to so many different groups of Africans in such a comparatively short period of time attests to the scope of Livingstone's difficulty. On the other hand, the problems faced by Africans in attempting to master new skills, many of which were “European” in nature, under the usually chaotic conditions in which the Expedition was immersed, can hardly be imagined. As will be indicated below, however, the African people usually served Livingstone and his men very well indeed.

Five groups of Africans will be considered: Krumen, Kololo, Sena men, “Johanna” men, and Shupanga men. In addition to delineating briefly their respective periods of service and mentioning in general terms the contributions each people made, an attempt will be made to list their personal names.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 12 , 1985 , pp. 29 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1985

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Footnotes

1.

We are very grateful to Elias Mandala for permission to cite freely his unpublished M.A. thesis, “The Kololo Interlude in Southern Malawi, 1861–1895” (Chancellor College, University of Malawi, (1977) [EMKI]; to T. Price of Glasgow for sharing his unpublished essay entitled “Livingstone's Faithful Makololo;” to I.C. Cunningham, National Library of Scotland, for checking many manuscripts in searching for elusive details; and to William Cunningham, Warden, Scottish National Memorial to David Livingstone, Blantyre, for permission to quote freely from materials kept in that archive.

References

NOTES

2. Cf. Wallis, J.P.R., ed., The Zambezi Expedition of David Livingstone (2 vols.: London, 1956) 106Google Scholar; [WZEL]; Simpson, Donald, Dark Companions: The African Contribution to the European Exploration of East Africa (London, 1975), 40 [DSDC].Google Scholar

3. Livingstone to John Washington, 22 Feb. 1863, in Clendennen, Gary W., ed., “David Livingstone on the Zambezi: Letters to John Washington, 1861–1863,” Munger Africana Library Notes, 6/32 (01, 1976), 61Google Scholar [DLJW]. The road was to provide access to Lake Malawi via the upper Shire river.

4. WZEL, 1:133n1; also see entry of 5 October 1858 (unpublished) in Livingstone's journal LI 1/4/3 [1/4/3], National Archives of Zimbabwe, Harare (NAZH): the men would thus have shared with the Europeans an unfamiliarity with the African languages of the Zambezi-Shire region.

5. A fine waterfolor by Thomas Baines of the Krumen engaged in this activity may be found opposite p. 302 in WZEL 2. Not only was this work strenuous, it was very dangerous: in late September, 1858, the Krumen were frightened by a leopard who had taken refuge under a pile of wood which the men were dismantling. This incident was recorded in the unpublished journal of Mervyn B. Medlycott, Mate, H.M.S. Lynx, today in private hands.

6. From an undated entry in Livingstone's journal 1/4/3 (probably written on 5 Oct. 1858), unpublished; Coffee had worked in the ship's engine room since the earliest days, of the Expedition: Foskett, Reginald, ed., The Zambesi Journal and Letters of Dr. John Kirk, 1858–1863 (2 vols.: Edinburgh, 1965), 1:23Google Scholar [FZJK].

7. WZEL, 1:47.

8. Wallis, J.P.R., ed., The Zambesi Journal of James Stewart, 1862–1863 (London, 1952), 44, 48Google Scholar [WZJS]. Charles Livingstone, David's younger brother, was attached to the Expedition as the Commander's Assistant, with a number of personal and scientific duties.

9. Tabler, Edward C., ed., The Zambezi Papers of Richard Thornton (2 vols.: London, 1963), 1;27nlGoogle Scholar [TZPT]. In spite of this and the previous note, we have seen no evidence indicating that there was any connection between or problem with Charles Livingstone and the Krumen.

10. The men had been recruited by Bedingfeld, Naval Officer and Second-in-Command during its first year (WZEL, 2:274–75); were referred to as “your Kroomen” in Livingstone's original written orders to Bedingfield (ibid., 415); and were placed under the supervision of John Walker, Quartermaster, a short time after Bedingfeld left the Expedition (Livingstone to Lord Malmesbury, 10 Sept. 1858, Public Record Office, Kew (PROK) FO 63/843, part two, ff. 96-107: the pertinent information appears in the postscript of 2 October, which does not appear in the published version, WZEL, 2:289–90; see also WZEL, 1:47. For further information on this problem see WZEL, 1:25-27, 105-06, 135; 2:274-75, 277, 279.

11. WZEL, 1:73; 2:298, 314, 356. This was the first clue in a series which led Livingstone and Kirk to report substantial differences between the natures of west African and east African malaria. This report was enclosed with a regular dispatch to Lord Malmesbury dated 26 July 1859, was published in Monk, William, ed., Dr. Livingstone's Cambridge Lectures (2d. ed., London, 1860), 370–75Google Scholar, and again in WZEL, 2:309–14.

12. WZEL, 1:105-06.

13. WZEL, 2:325.

14. See an undated entry (probably 5 October 1858) in Livingstone's journal 1/4/3, unpublished, f. 320.

15. FZJK, 2:455-56.

16. Livingstone listed these names on f. 322 of his journal for 1858 (NAZH, 1/4/3). Wallis chose not to publish this and many similar entries in WZEL.

17. Livingstone to Lord John Russell, 6 Sept. 1860, WZEL, 2: 392. It should be made clear from the outset that only two (or less likely, three) of these men were “real” Kololo, or, to borrow Mandala's phrase, “Sotho-Kololo” (EMKI). The others were subject peoples such as Batoka, Barotse, Bashubea, and others who had been conquered by the Kololo and were assigned inferior status within the Kololo polity.

18. Livingstone to John Washington, 18 April 1861, DLJW, 15. It is difficult to determine whether or not these were the same sixteen men who accompanied Livingstone to Tete. While this is a possibility, it is also true that Livingstone had experienced some turnover among his Kololo supporters in previous years, and a few changes made from among the Kololo community in Tete would not have been unusual.

19. Mwita, Zimbula, Sekongwani, Siseu, and Mwingaratania remained with the ship, and made their way up to the mission, Norman R. Bennett and Ylvisaker, Marguerite, eds., The Central African Journal of Lovell J. Procter, 1860–1864 (Boston, 1971), 103, 120Google Scholar [BLJP]. Livingstone's subsequent implication that all sixteen accompanied him to the lake is not correct: DLJW, 6 December 1861, 25.

20. The Kololo may also have directly questioned Livingstone's authority over their operations: WZJS, 67, 92.

21. Fragment of an undated letter (May-December 1862) to an unidentified recipient, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh [NLSE], Acc. 6903.

22. WZEL, 2:241. It is less possible that Livingstone was paying for certain services in advance.

23. The five names Livingstone recorded in his journal on 3 July were Mwita, Masega, Siseu, Zomba, and Masiku. Only Masega, Siseu, and Masiku seem to appear in the two notebooks Livingstone kept during his subsequent trip to the lake. Mwita apparently did not make the trip: “Mobita, in difficulty with his companions, fled to Mohoka.” (WZEL, 2:242, 11 July 1863). Four days later the party started north. Charlie did accompany Livingstone at this time: his name appears in Livingstone's field diary from 22 September 1863 to 25 March 1864, where Livingstone also refers to “the four Makololo” with him, implying that Zomba was left behind. Nevertheless, when writing of this in his Narrative almost two years later, Livingstone recalled that he was accompanied by five Makololo.

24. See EMKI, from which the spellings of the individual Kololo names here are adopted. Of the sixteen men with Livingstone nine eventually became chiefs. See also Schoffeleers, J.M., “Livingstone and the Mang'anja Chiefs” in Pachai, Bridglal, ed., Livingstone: Man of Africa; Memorial Essays, 1873–1973 (London, 1973)Google Scholar [PLMA].

25. BLJP. Livingstone appears to have mentioned only seven of these men in his Narrative: Mobita, Moloka, and Ramakukane (304); Ranyeu (321) ; Charlie (386); Masiko and Masego (447, 484, 566). David, and Livingstone, Charles, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries (London, 1865)Google Scholar [NEZT].

26. Faulkner, Henry, Elephant Hunts (London, 1868).Google Scholar Faulkner accompanied E.D. Young up the Shire River on the Livingstone Search Expedition of 1867.

27. Rangeley, W.H.J., “The Makololo of Dr. Livingstone,” The Nyasaland Journal, 12 (1959), 91Google Scholar [RMDL]. Mandala's information is from Central Africa, a Monthly Record of the Work of the Universities' Mission, 6 (1888), 129.Google Scholar All mortality dates of Kololo in this section are found in EMKI.

28. RMDL, 88; EMKI, 204n40; from the West Shire District Book, 1 (1907), 8, 11.Google Scholar

29. Rowley, Henry, The Story of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (London, 1866), 198–200Google Scholar [RSUM].

30. Private conversation with G.W. Clendennen, 13 April 1982.

31. Pachai, Bridglal, “The Zambezi Expedition, 1858–1864: New Highways for Old” in PLMA, 53.Google Scholar

32. In addition to the men who travelled with Livingstone, some Kololo made their way from Bulozi to Tete on their own in early 1862, and it may be their names which appear in later years; Livingstone to J.S. Moffat, 29 May 1862, in Wallis, J.P.R., ed., The Matabele Mission (London, 1945), 178.Google Scholar

33. We wish to express thanks to I.C. Cunningham of the National Library of Scotland for examining a microfilm copy of the passage in question and venturing the opinion that the published version of the passage is a correct rendering. See WZEL, 1:205.

34. Some men of Sena had served with Livingstone's Expedition at an earlier date: cf. WZEL, 1:88, 122, 125.

35. NEZT, 49. Livingstone referred to Chibanti as “our pilot.” Most frequently throughout these years this post was filled by João Tizora, a man of the lower Zambezi whom the Europkans usually called “John” or “Jerry Scissors.” See DSDC, 41.

36. Letter, 21 May 1862, DLJW, 45. This is difficult to accept at face value, and may have been written solely for Washington's benefit. It was a sensitive issue in London, and four years later William Sunley, H.M. Consul in the Comoro Islands, was forced to resign his post for employing such domestic slaves (who belonged to a local leader) on his plantation.

37. FZJK, 2:342; DLJW, 45; RSUM, 66, however gives a figure of thirteen.

38. FZJK, 2:410. In addition to being anxious to reach the sea, Livingstone may have been unwilling to discuss with Ferrao and Pereira his taking action against the slave train, which was operated by Portuguese men from Tete; hence he did not take the Sena men to their village.

39. FZJK, 2:351-52, 358. Kirk did not witness the latter engagement, and thus wrote from hearsay, as did Procter: BLJP, 92-93.

40. FZJK, 2:378, 381.

41. FZJK, 2:393.

42. Procter speculated that on their arrival in Sena the men would receive a rude reception owing to their cooperation with Livingstone in the action against tbe slave train: BLJP, 217.

43. BLJP, 148.

44. WZEL, 1:205.

45. Ibid., 1:209. Mosiri was with Livingstone earlier and his name is among those listed in an unpublished entry in Livingstone's field diary between the dates 24 and 29 August 1859 (cf. WZEL, 2:245) as having been recruited for Livingstone's first trip to Lake Malawi. Following the name of one of Ferrao's men (Zeka), Mosiri is listed simply as “a volunteer”--whether from Sena or not is not known. He may have become a slave of Ferrao's during the following two years.

46. BLJP, 48.

47. Livingstone's Zambezi Expedition Account Book [ZEAB] on display in the Socttish National Memorial to David Livingstone, Blantyre, Scotland [SMDL], photocopy, NLSE, MS. 10714; p. 13.

48. Letter, 18 April 1861, DLJW, 15.

49. Devereux, William C., A Cruise in the Gorgon (Longon, 1869) [WDCG], 232Google Scholar; WZJS, 20. No other names survive.

50. FZJK, 2:455.

51. Ibid., 470.

52. Livingstone to John Washington, 4 September 1862, DLJW, 52.

53. FZJK, 2:486. The name of this man is not known.

54. Shepperson, George, ed., David Livingstone and the Rovuma, A Notebook (Edinburgh, 1965) [SDLR], 108.Google Scholar

55. In a letter to Washington, Livingstone had commented approvingly that with the Johanna men Young was a “thorough disciplinarian.” DLJW, 15 May 1862, 42.

56. FZJK, 2:489.

57. DLJW, 1 November 1862, 54.

58. Letter to Capt. Alan Gardiner, 15 October 1862, Government Archives, Cape Town, Maclear Papers, Acc. 515.

59. WDCG, 338.

60. A copy of the agreement with these men, witnessed by William Sunley, is in NLSE MS. 10777(9).

61. ZEAB, 24. This may have been the headman of the previous group, but it seems more likely it was another man similarly named. There can be no doubt that the second group consisted of eleven men, for an undated entry in Livingstone's account book reads: “Advance to 11 Johanna [men] for two months 30.16.” Ibid. This undated entry follows one dated 5 September 1862.

62. DLJW, 1 November 1862, 54.

63. ZEAB, 26. This was probably written in the final days of October. SDLR, 113.

64. An entry in this same field diary indicates that this may have been the case: “Oct Advance 2-16 to ten & 4 to headman.” This entry was made in a section Livingstone kept at the end of the notebook for that very purpose. See SDLR, 153, where ellipsis is substituted for what appears to be the word “ten.”

65. Gelfand, Michael, Livingstone the Doctor (Oxford, 1957), 323.Google ScholarPubMed [MGLD].

66. WZEL, 2:229; Livingstone's journal, 9 November 1861-1 May 1863, (SMDL), (photocopy in NLSE MS. 10715), entry for 28 March 1863 [DLSJ].

67. Livingstone to Washington, 23 Feb. 1863, DLJW, 61.

68. FZJK, 464.

69. Livingstone to Washington, 15 December 1862, DLJW, 57.

70. DSDC, 48.

71. FZJK, 2:413. Men of Shupanga and its environs had served Livingstone since the earliest days of the Expedition, both singly and in small groups. Twelve helped as early as 4 August 1858: WZEL, 1:30.

72. FZJK, 2:416. Sixty were Europeans and Johanna men.

73. DLJW, 22 July 1862, 47.

74. FZJK, 2:486.

75. DSDC, 49.

76. DLJW, 61.

77. Chiko may have been a diminutive form of Francisco: see Bontinck, Francois, “David Abdallah Susi,” Zaire-Afrique, no. 162 (02, 1982), 106Google Scholar [BDAS]. For Chiko see NEZT, 438 and DSDC, 49.

78. The names in brackets are suggested in BDAS, 106n31. We hesitate to accept Bontinctk's view that Susi joined Livingstone in 1861, as direct evidence seems not to be available. Both Susi and Amoda (see n. 98 below) played important roles in Livingstone's later explorations, but references to their being with Livingstone before 1864 seem little more than speculation.

79. SDLR, 149. Kirk, however, implied that eleven Zambezi men were employed as of 15 January 1863; FZJK, 2:498.

80. Bisenti, or Besente, for example, was still in Shupanga on 24 January 1863 (WZJS, 188-89), a discrepancy not easily explained.

81. Livingstone to Washington, 23 Feb. 1863, DLJW, 61.

82. MGLD, 323.

83. WZEL, 2:235. Two other Zambezi men left the Expedition on 28 April 1863: DLSJ.

84. LD11.

85. Ibid. Livingstone's spellings in each source are maintained.

86. Ibid.

87. WZEL, 2:239.

88. NEZT, 477.

89. Foskett, R., ed., The Zambezi Doctors: David Livingstone's Letters to John Kirk, 1858–1872 (Edinburgh, 1964), 72Google Scholar [DLJK]. This may be the same person as “Mandia,” whose name appears in LD12. Livingstone to Lord John Russell, 12 December 1863 (DLSJ), mentioned there were five “Shupanga” men, but gave no names.

90. FD12.

91. Ibid.; see also DLSJ.

92. FD12.

93. The Kololo are identified in n. 23 above. Since some of the Yao people joined the Kololo village in 1862, it is remotely possible that they rendered service to Livingstone during 1863.

94. Waller, Horace, ed., The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa (2 vols.: London, 1882), 2:74Google Scholar; LD13.

95. Seven Zambezians accompanied Livingstone to Bombay: Chiko, Bizenti, Nyampinga, Susi, Amoda, Safuri, and Bachoro, (DSDC, 52). The names of the last four seem not to appear in the pre-1864 documents.

96. On 12 April Livingstone wrote Jose Nunes from Mozambique, informing him that he planned to leave for Johanna on the 14th (letter copy, NAZH, LI 1/1/1, 1856–59). His departure may have been delayed owing to the bad weather then prevalent in the Mozambique Channel, and on the 16th of the month Livingstone left for Zanzibar, apparently bypassing Johanna.

97. DSDC, 39-52.