>
HM STANLEY WHO CAME TO LOOK FOR DAVID LIVINGSTONE IN 1871
Henry Morton Stanley was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Stanley is often remembered for the words uttered to Livingstone upon finding him: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" The paragraph below includes some statements he made about the warlike Angoni. These so maintained the war-like reputation of their breed, that even Stanley could not cross the continent, as far away as the equator, without becoming nervously cognisant of the fact. 'No traveller,' he says, 'has yet become acquainted with a wilder race in Equatorial Africa than are the Mafitte or Watuta (as he calls the abaNgoni wanderers). They are the only true African Bedawi; and surely some African Ishmael must have fathered them, for their hands are against every man, and every man's hand appears to be raised against them. To slay a solitary Mtuta is considered by an Arab as meritorious, and far more necessary than killing a snake. To guard against these sable freebooters, the traveller, while passing near their haunts,has need of all his skill, coolness and prudence. The settler in their neighbourhood has need to defend his village with impregnable fences, and to have look-outs night and day; his women and children require to be guarded, and fuel can only be procured by strong parties, while the ground has to be cultivated spear in hand, so constant is the fear of the restless and daring tribe of bandits.'2
Harry Johnston was instrumental in having Nyasaland (today’s Malawi) declared the British Central Africa Protectorate after negotiations with the Portuguese in Mozambique who were also interested in having this land as theirs, and he was made its first commissioner in 1891.
The following quotation is taken from his article entitled, ‘Livingstone as an Explorer.’
Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 41, No. 5 (May, 1913), pp. 423-446
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
“The evidence of Livingstone and other travellers of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, brings home to us the widespread devastation caused by bands of Angoni-Zulus. These Zulu raids over East-Central Africa during the nineteenth century were one of the greatest disasters of its history. They had their origin in the convulsions caused in Natal and Zululand by the conquests of Chaka the Destroyer, and their effects long remained written on the surface of Nyasaland, Northeast Rhodesia and German East Africa. ‘It was wearisome to see the skulls and bones scattered about everywhere; one would fain not notice, but they are so striking that they cannot be avoided,” is an extract from Livingstone’s journal as he comes in contact with the Angoni raids in South-west Nyasaland.”
Inkosi M’mbelwa II
Chidiaonga allegedly pronounced the Maseko Ngoni chieftainship shortly before his death around 1876.
“Now I leave this country in the hands of the owner, because I was only appointed to keep it for him. This is your leader”. He sent for Cikusi and gave him his father’s spear, saying to him. “This country is yours”. He said to Cifisi his own son, “You, my son, do not struggle with Cikusi. He is the only paramount here”.’
Ng’onomo is reported to have said the following in 1901 about the influence of the white colonisers and missionaries:-
‘You have just come from Marambo. The people there were once mine. There at Kasungu you see the people running to “the Consol” with tusks which should have been brought to me as of old. You have caused me and my country to die.’