David Livingstone (March 19, 1813-May 1, 1873) was a Scottish missionary and African explorer. He discovered: Lake Ngami and the Zuga River in 1849; the Zambezi River in 1851; Victoria Falls in 1855; and Lake Nyasa and Lake Shirwa in 1858-62. His wife, Mary Moffat Livingstone, died in 1862 and was buried at Shupanga. In 1866-73 he ventured forth searching for the source of the Nile, and was met by Henry M. Stanley, a correspondent of the New York Herald, at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika in late 1871.
David Livingstone worked tirelessly to end the Muslim slave trade, as did other Christian leaders such as William Wilberforce, John Newton, William Carey, Lord Shaftsbury and General Charles Gordon. In October of 1857, David Livingstone published in London his "Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa," in which he wrote:
<Mpepe had given full permission to the Mambari slave-dealers to trade in all the Batoka and Bashukulompo villages to the east of this. He had given them cattle, ivory, and children, and had received in return a large blunderbuss to be mounted as a cannon...It was proposed to attack them and drive them out of the country at once; but, dreading a commencement of hostilities, I urged the difficulties of that course...As the chief sufferers in case of such an attack would have been the poor slaves chained in gangs, I interceded for them, and the result of an intercession of which they were ignorant was that they were allowed to depart in peace...
A party of Arabs from Zanzibar were in the country at this time...When sleeping at a village in the same latitude as Naliele town, two of the Arabs mentioned made their appearance. They were quite as dark as the Makololo...They professed the greatest detestation of the Portuguese, "because they eat pigs;" and disliked the English, "because they thrash them for selling slaves."..I ventured to tell them that I agreed with the English, that it was better to let the children grow up and comfort their mothers when they became old, than to carry them away and sell them across the sea....
We met a party of fugitive Barotse returning to their homes, and, as the circumstance illustrates the social status of these subjects of the Makololo, I introduce it here. The villagers in question were the children, or serfs, if we may use the term, of a young man of the same age and tribe as Sekeletu, who, being of an irritable temper, went by the nickname of Sekobinyane-a little slavish thing. His treatment of his servants was so bad that most of them had fled; and when the Mambari came, and, contrary to the orders of Sekeletu, purchased slaves, Sekobinyane sold one or two of the Barotse children of his village...
The two native Portuguese traders...had a gang of young female slaves in a chain, hoeing the ground in front of their encampment to clear it of weeds and grass; these were purchased recently in Lobale, whence the traders had now come...It was the first time most of my men had seen slaves in chains. "They are not men," they exclaimed (meaning they are beasts), "who treat their children so."..
A young man of Lobale had fled into the country of Shinte, and located himself without showing himself to the chief. This was considered an offense sufficient to warrant his being seized and offered for sale while we were there. He had not reported himself, so they did not know the reason of his running away from his own chief, and that chief might accuse them of receiving a criminal. It was curious to notice the effect of the slave-trade in blunting the moral susceptibility...
The frequent kidnapping from outlying hamlets explains the stockades we saw around them; the parents have no redress, for even Shinte himself seems fond of working in the dark. One night he sent for me, though I always stated I liked all my dealings to be aboveboard. When I came he presented me with a slave girl about ten years old; he said he had always been in the habit of presenting his visitors with a child.
On my thanking him, and saying that I thought it wrong to take away children from their parents, that I wished him to give up this system altogether, and trade in cattle, ivory, and bees'-wax, he urged that she was "to be a child" to bring me water, and that a great man ought to have a child for the purpose, yet I had none.
As I replied that I had four children, and should be very sorry if my chief were to take my little girl and give her away, and that I would prefer this child to remain and carry water for her own mother, he thought I was dissatisfied with her size, and sent for one a head taller; after many explanations of our abhorrence of slavery, and how displeasing it must be to God to see his children selling one another, and giving each other so much grief as this child's mother must feel, I declined her also.
If I could have taken her into my family for the purpose of instruction, and then returned her as a free woman, according to a promise I should have made to the parents, I might have done so; but to take her away, and probably never be able to secure her return, would have produced no good effect on the minds of the Balonda; they would not then have seen evidence of our hatred to slavery, and the kind attentions of my friends would, as it almost always does in similar cases, have turned the poor thing's head.
The difference in position between them and us is as great as between the lowest and highest in England, and we know the effects of sudden elevation on wiser heads than hers, whose owners had not been born to it...
As the last proof of friendship, Shinte came into my tent, though it could scarcely contain more than one person, looked at all the curiosities, the quicksilver, the looking-glass, books, hair-brushes, comb, watch, etc., etc., with the greatest interest; then closing the tent, so that none of his own people might see the extravagance of which he was about to be guilty, he drew out from his clothing a string of beads, and the end of a conical shell, which is considered, in regions far from the sea, of as great value as the Lord Mayor's badge is in London. He hung it round my neck, and said, "There, now you HAVE a proof of my friendship."..My men informed me that these shells are so highly valued in this quarter, as evidences of distinction, that for two of them a slave might be bought...
If the late Matiamvo took a fancy to any thing...he would order a whole village to be brought up to buy it from a stranger. When a slave-trader visited him, he took possession of all his goods; then, after ten days or a fortnight, he would send out a party of men to pounce upon some considerable village, and, having killed the head man, would pay for all the goods by selling the inhabitants.
This has frequently been the case, and nearly all the visitants he ever had were men of color. On asking if Matiamvo did not know he was a man, and would be judged, in company with those he destroyed, by a Lord who is no respector of persons, the ambassador replied, "We do not go up to God, as you do; we are put into the ground." I could not ascertain that even those who have such a distinct perception of the continued existence of departed spirits had any notion of heaven...
In reference to a man being given, I declared that we were all ready to die rather than give up one of our number to be a slave; that my men might as well give me as I give one of them, for we were all free men...
After being wearied by talking all day to different parties sent by Sansawe, we were honored by a visit from himself...Sansawe asked me to show him my hair, on the ground that, though he had heard of it, and some white men had even passed through his country, he had never seen straight hair before...The difference between their wool and our hair caused him to burst into a laugh, and the contrast between the exposed and unexposed parts of my skin, when exhibited in evidence of our all being made of one stock originally, and the children of one Maker, seemed to strike him with wonder....
He asked leave to go, and when his party moved off a little way, he sent for my spokesman, and told him that, "if we did not add a red jacket and a man to our gift of a few copper rings and a few pounds of meat, we must return by the way we had come." I said in reply "that we should certainly go forward next day...It expressed a determination, which we had often repeated to each other, to die rather than yield one of our party to be a slave...> 1813DL001
So loved was Dr. Livingstone by his African followers, that when he died on the shore of Lake Bangweulu in 1873, they buried his heart in Africa, and sent his body, packed in salt, back to England to be buried in Westminster Abbey. David Livingstone once declared:
<All that I am I owe to Jesus Christ, revealed to me in His divine Book.> 1813DL002
In his work, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, David Livingstone wrote:
<Great pains had been taken by my parents to instill the doctrines of Christianity into my mind, and I had no difficulty in understanding the theory of free salvation by the atonement of our Savior; but it was only about this time that I really began to feel the necessity and value of a personal application of the provisions of the atonement to my own case. The change was like that of "colorblindness."
The perfect fullness with which the pardon of all our guilt is offered in God's Book drew forth feelings of affectionate love to Him who bought us with His blood, and a sense of deep obligation to Him for His mercy has influenced, in some small measure, my conduct ever since. This book will speak, not so much of what has been done, as of what remains to be performed before the Gospel can be said to be preached to all nations.
In the glow of love which Christianity inspires I soon resolved to devote my life to the alleviation of human misery.> 1813DL003
David Livingstone expressed:
<God had an only Son, and he was a missionary and a physician.> 1813DL004
In 1872, Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904), the English correspondent for the New York Herald, found David Livingstone at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika in the heart of Africa. He greeted him with the now-classic salutation, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
Henry M. Stanley described the famous old missionary:
<Here is a man who is manifestly sustained as well as guided by influences from Heaven. The Holy Spirit dwells in him. God speaks through him. The heroism, the nobility, the pure and stainless enthusiasm as the root of his life come, beyond question, from Christ.
There must, therefore, be a Christ;-and it is worth while to have such a Helper and Redeemer as this Christ undoubtedly is, and as He here reveals Himself to this wonderful disciple.> 1813DL005
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1813DL001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). David Livingstone, October of 1857, published in London his "Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa."
1813DL002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). David Livingstone. Tryon Edwards, D.D., The New Dictionary of Thoughts-A Cyclopedia of Quotations (Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1852; revised and enlarged by C.H. Catrevas, Ralph Emerson Browns and Jonathan Edwards [descendent, along with Tryon, of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), president of Princeton], 1891; The Standard Book Company, 1955, 1963), p. 47.
1813DL003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, Oregon: American Heritage Ministries, 1987; Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas), p. 287.
1813DL004. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). David Livingstone. Carroll E. Simcox, 3000 Quotations on Christian Themes (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House 1989), p. 145.
1813DL005. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). David Livingstone. As described by Henry Morton Stanley. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, OR: American Heritage Ministries, 1987; Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas), p. 287.