Mungo Park

Scottish explorer

• Born: September 10, 1771
• Birthplace: Foulshiels, near Selkirk, Selkirkshire, Scotland
• Died: c. January, 1806
• Place of death: Bussa Rapids on the Niger River (now under the Kainji Reservoir, Nigeria)

Combining great ambition with tremendous courage and stamina, Park explored the Niger River in Western Africa, ultimately dying in his efforts to traverse the great river.

Early Life

Mungo Park was born on the estate of the duke of Buccleuch near Selkirk, Scotland. He was the seventh child of a well-to-do farmer, also called Mungo. Park received his early education at home and in the Selkirk grammar school. In 1786, he was placed as an apprentice to the Selkirk surgeon Dr. Thomas Anderson. This was a disappointment to his father, who wanted him to enter the ministry. With the help of Anderson, Park entered the medical school at Edinburgh University. He passed three sessions of medical studies and earned distinction in botanical studies. In 1791, after completing his medical studies, Park moved to London to seek employment.

Park’s brother-in-law, James Dickson, a London botanist, introduced him to Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, who secured for him an appointment as assistant medical officer on the British East India Company ship Worcester. He sailed to the island of Sumatra in February, 1792, where he collected rare plants. Park’s relationship with Banks continued to develop when he returned in 1793 with his specimens and data. After presenting several papers, Park, acting on the advice of Banks, offered his services to the African Association, an organization formed in 1788 to further geographical studies of Africa.

Banks was the most influential member of the association, and he favored Park as the successor to Major Daniel Houghton, who had disappeared on an association expedition in 1790 trying to locate the course of the Niger River. The association was impressed by Park’s medical, botanical, and geographic skills, as well as his physical condition for such a demanding journey. Tall and handsome in a well-chiseled way, Park possessed remarkable stamina that permitted him to perform feats of physical endurance and survive illnesses that would prove fatal to most others. Women found him very attractive, which proved to be important because their kindness helped him several times on his expeditions. Park’s reserved personality, religious fatalism, and driving desire for eminence made him the perfect explorer, capable of pursuing success with a single-minded ambition and a certain cold-bloodedness. Park’s instructions from the association were to explore the Niger River and to gather information about the nations that inhabited its banks. He received fifteen shillings for each day he spent in Africa and œ200 for expenses.

Life’s Work

Park sailed from Portsmouth on May 22, 1795, aboard the Endeavor, a brig bound for the Gambia River looking for ivory. He arrived at the British factory of Pisania on the Gambia River on July 5 and resided at the home of Dr. John Laidley for five months, while he studied the Mandingo language and recovered from his first bout with fever. Unable to travel with a caravan, Park set out on December 2 with an English-speaking Mandingo former slave, a young servant, and his equipment. He followed Houghton’s earlier route and was forced to trade off most of his trafficable goods to gain the friendship of the petty chiefs.

Danger arose when Park entered the Islamic African kingdoms. He reached Jarra in the Moorish kingdom of Ludamar before Christmas and discovered that it was the village where Major Houghton had been murdered. As he crossed Ludamar, Park was constantly abused by the people he encountered, until he was seized by Moors and taken to the residence of King Ali of Ludamar. He was held prisoner for three months while suffering the humiliating treatment of his captors. In July, 1796, Park escaped through the assistance of some Ludamar women who befriended him. With only his pocket compass and a horse, he endured incredible hardships before reaching Ségou on the Niger River on July 20. He described the Niger as being as broad as the Thames River at Westminster. From Ségou, he journeyed downriver to Silla, thus proving that the Niger flowed eastward; he was forced to turn back, though, because he could no longer obtain food.

Park started back from Silla on August 3 by another route farther south, where he was again ostracized or mistreated by the Africans he encountered until, nearly dead, he reached Kamalia on foot on September 16. He spent seven months during the rainy season with a Kamali slave-trader who took him on to Pisania in June, 1797. Park sailed from Gambia on June 15 as ship surgeon on the Charleston, an American slave ship bound for the Carolinas. Switching ships at Antigua, Park arrived at Falmouth, England, on December 22.

Unannounced, Park arrived in London on Christmas morning and was warmly welcomed by Banks and the Africa Association. He had been gone for more than three years and was believed dead. His return was sensational in itself, but the news of his journey to the Niger created national excitement. Supported by a salary extension from the association, Park wrote Travels in the Interior of Africa (1799), which rapidly sold out several editions. The book was written in a dramatic and excellent literary style that made Park’s name a household word and produced royalties in excess of œ1,000. He returned home to the Scottish countryside and soon married Alice Anderson, daughter of his old master, Dr. Anderson of Selkirk. After living at Foulshiels for nearly two years, Park established a medical practice in the village of Peebles in 1801. He refused an offer from Banks to lead an expedition to Australia because the salary was too small. In the end, however, Park’s restlessness at Peebles, as well as Banks’s persistence, led him to consider a new offer to return to Africa to lead an officially sponsored government expedition.

This new expedition was originally part of a larger plan by the British government to expel the French from Senegambia and to establish a permanent British presence in that area. There were to be three wings to the operation—commercial, military, and naval—for the purpose of destroying French factories in Senegambia and replacing them with British factories at Wulli and Bondu. Park, as leader of the commercial wing, was to establish the new factories and negotiate trade agreements with the tribes he encountered during his exploration of the Niger. The plan was drastically altered by a change in the British government in 1804. Lord Hobart, who had approved the original plan, was replaced by Lord Camden as colonial secretary. The expeditionary force, including Park’s command, was whittled down by Lord Camden.

When Park left for Africa aboard the Crescent on January 30, 1805, he held the rank and pay of captain and the privileges of a British envoy. He was to make treaties establishing British trading stations along the Niger while trying to discover the course of the Niger and ascertain if it were navigable from the sea. Park was accompanied by his brother-in-law, Alexander Anderson, as second-in-command, and George Scott, a Selkirk friend, as draftsman. In addition, œ5,000 was placed at his disposal by the treasury, and his wife and four children were guaranteed œ100 a year if he failed to return.

Park’s entourage, which included four carpenters and two sailors, arrived at Gorée on March 28, 1805, where they were joined by Lieutenant John Martyn and thirty-five volunteers from the Royal Africa Corps. The carpenters were to build a 40-foot (12-meter) boat for the expedition when they reached the Niger. This expedition seemed to be efficiently organized, but it had been Park’s single-minded determination and endurance that made his previous expedition a success. His second expedition would become a hindrance and could not maintain the grueling pace that Park set.

So began Park’s second and fatal expedition. He became impatient and against all advice led his columns into the West African bush during the rainy season. Sailing up the Gambia, Park reached Kayee, where he engaged a Mandingo guide named Isaaco. The overland march to Pisania taught Park that an expedition produced many different problems from those encountered while traveling alone. The first rain fell on June 10, and the soldiers began to contract fevers. When possible, Park left them in villages, but occasionally they were abandoned where they fell. On August 19, when the expedition arrived at Bamako on the Niger, only eleven British members remained.

Park and the remnants of his expedition hired canoes, which took them downstream to Sansanding, a little eastward of Ségou, where they remained for two months in preparation for the passage downriver. Scott had died during the march, and Anderson died on October 28. The expedition’s survivors constructed a flat-bottomed boat from two native canoes that Park named HMS Joliba, the indigenous name for the Niger River. Only five of the British remained alive: Park, Lieutenant Martyn, and three soldiers. Isaaco was sent back with Park’s final dispatches while the rest of the expedition sailed down the Niger with many muskets and ample supplies.

In 1806, rumors about Park’s death began to reach the coast. Isaaco was dispatched to the interior to find the truth, but all he produced was Park’s belt and a questionable account from Amadi Fatouma, who had guided Park downriver from Sansanding. Isaaco reported that Park had uncharacteristically shunned contact with the local peoples, offended the chiefs by refusing to pay their river customs, and fired upon anyone approaching the Joliba. Park sailed down the Niger past Timbuktu to the village of Bussa (located in what would become Nigeria), where the indigenous attempted to stop his progress. During efforts to escape, the Joliba had capsized in the narrow Bussa Rapids, and Park and his companions had drowned. Although doubts about Park’s death remained, later expeditions confirmed that he did die at the Bussa Rapids, but the manner of his death has always been subject to debate.

Significance

Mungo Park’s second expedition was a tragic failure. Every European in his expedition perished, and despite the loss of life and the distance traversed, no new light had been cast on the termination of the Niger River. Because of the uncertainty of distances, neither the coastward direction of the Niger River nor the magnitude of Park’s journey was immediately recognized. Park had commenced his last expedition erroneously believing that the Niger River was the Congo River, and it is possible that he died holding that belief, despite having traveled more than three-fourths of the 2,600-mile (4,200-kilometer) length of the river.

The supreme tragedy in the history of early African exploration was the death of Park, one of the most respected explorers, in an expedition that added very little to geographical knowledge. His death was basically a result of two tragic errors in judgment, first, the decision to enter the bush country during the rainy season, and second, his avoidance of contact with local peoples and his policy of firing on them. Park felt comfortable with the black Africans, but, by contrast, he feared the Moors. It must be remembered that Park left Sansanding a sick, desperate man who possibly lacked his normal clarity of judgment. Park created his own fame, and his achievements are remembered for the manner of his survival and for the death that made him and the Niger River a single historical entity and inspired another generation of explorers.

Bibliography

Boahen, A. Adu. Britain, the Sahara, and the Western Sudan, 1788-1861. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1964. General work on British exploration and trade in Africa. Boahen discusses Park’s explorations in the context of British policy in Africa.

Brent, Peter. Black Nile: Mungo Park and the Search for the Niger. London: Gordon and Cremonesi, 1977. An excellent biography, well researched and handsomely illustrated.

Burns, Alan. History of Nigeria. London: Allen & Unwin, 1964. An excellent history of Nigeria with an emphasis on British influence. Includes a brief but valuable account of Park’s explorations.

Duffill, Mark. Mungo Park. Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland, 1999. A brief overview of Park’s life, including his experiences as a surgeon in Scotland and his explorations in Africa.

Gramont, Sandre de. The Strong Brown God: The Story of the Niger River. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. The best book on the European expeditions to the Niger River. Park’s role and adventures are covered extensively and accurately.

Gwynn, Stephen L. Mungo Park. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1935. This is perhaps the best biography of Park, but it is somewhat dated.

Langley, Michael. “The Last Journey of Mungo Park.” History Today 21 (June, 1971): 426-432. A popular, well-written article on Park’s fatal expedition of 1805-1806. Excellent illustrations and evaluation of Park’s accomplishments.

Park, Mungo. Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. Reprint. Edited with an introduction by Kate Ferguson Marsters. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000. A reprint of Park’s account of his first expedition to the Niger River and Timbuktu. Originally published in 1799.

Severin, Timothy. The African Adventure. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1973. A brilliant survey of precolonial expeditions in Africa. Contains new material and excellent illustrations. Good coverage of Park’s life.