David Livingstone biography

Synopsis

Early Life and Training

David Livingstone was born on March 19, 1813, in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, and grew up with several siblings in a single tenement room. He started working at a cotton mill company as a child and would follow his long work schedule with schooling during evenings and weekends. He eventually studied medicine in Glasgow before going on to train with the London Missionary Society for a year. He completed his medical studies at various institutions in 1840 in London, England.

Explorations of Africa

In the official role of a "medical missionary," he set forth to Africa, arriving in Cape Town, South Africa in March of 1841. A few years later, he married Mary Moffat; the couple would have several children.

Livingstone eventually made his way north and set out to trek across the Kalahari Desert. In 1849, he came upon Lake Ngami and, in 1851, the Zambezi River. Over the years, Livingstone continued his explorations, reaching the western coastal region of Luanda in 1853. In 1855, he came across another famous body of water, the Zambezi falls, called by native populations "Smoke That Thunders" and which Livingstone dubbed Victoria Falls, after Queen Victoria.

By 1856, Livingstone had gone across the continent from west to east, arriving at the coastal region of Quelimane in what is present-day Mozambique.

Celebrated in Europe

Upon his return to England, Livingstone received accolades and, in 1857, published Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. The following year, Livingstone was appointed by British authorities to lead an expedition that would navigate the Zambezi. The expedition did not fare well, with squabbling among the crew and the original boat having to be abandoned. Other bodies of water were discovered, though Livingstone's wife, Mary, would perish from fever upon returning to Africa in 1862.

Livingstone returned to England again in 1864, speaking out against slavery, and the following year, published Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries. In this book, Livingstone also wrote about his use of quinine as a malarial remedy and theorized about the connection between malaria and mosquitoes.

Livingstone undertook another expedition to Africa, landing at Zanzibar in early 1866 and going on to find more bodies of water, with the hope of locating the source of the Nile River. He eventually ended up in the village of Nyangwe, where he witnessed a devastating massacre where Arabic slave traders killed hundreds of people.