by Tim Jeal
The Barttelot and Jameson families were able to show, with little difficulty, that Stanley had been unreasonable to expect their kinsmen to march out of Yambuya before Tippu Tip had produced his carriers. Since Stanley and his 389 men had sustained very heavy losses in the Ituri Forest on their way to Lake Albert, carrying fewer loads than the Rear Column had been expected to transport, what chance would these inexperienced travellers have had when trying to follow their leader across such deadly terrain? Stanley countered by pointing out that Barttelot should have known, when Tippu Tip broke his first promise to bring men by a given date, that it was most unlikely he would help them at all, and that he and his officers and his 270 men should therefore have shifted for themselves as soon as possible. Many great journeys had been performed with fewer men than they had, including Stanley's Livingstone search mission. Barttelot and his officers had been given `instructions' that, claimed Stanley, had not had the status of military orders, and could have been treated flexibly in the light of changed circumstances.4
Barttelot recorded that on the day Stanley left him at Yambuya forty-eight of his men were sick.' His family would make much of the fact that Stanley had taken the fittest men with his Advance Column. According to Stanley, some sick men had indeed been left behind in order to have a period of rest in which to regain their strength - and if they had been fed properly they would have recovered. After all, no whites starved at Yambuya. The moment it had become apparent to Barttelot that more men were falling sick than were recovering, he ought, argued Stanley, to have marched at once in order to save the majority. But instead the major had shuttled back and forth a humiliating six times to plead with Tippu Tip at Stanley Falls.' Indeed, there was much sense in what Stanley said. But the question about whether he ought to have split his expedition in the first place, and should ever have left a large part of it in the hands of a young man without experience of Africa, were in the end more damaging than arguments about whether Barttelot should have marched or stayed.
It should be understood that it was not Stanley's book, or his letter, but the publication of The Life of Edmund Musgrave Barttelot (edited by his brother Walter) that sent sky-high the public reputation of the whole expedition and its members. The appearance of Jameson's diary soon afterwards merely compounded the damage. Claims made by Walter Barttelot in his introduction that Stanley had abandoned the Rear Column to the tender mercies of a notorious slave trader, whose followers had made it impossible for the officers at Yambuya to buy food from local villagers, were difficult to refute. Articles soon appeared in the press in which it was suggested that Stanley, by placing unstable men like Barttelot and Jameson in command of the Rear Column, `had caused all these calamities'. Stanley declared that he was being found guilty by association, rather than by actual involvement. But though this was true, it did not help him.
The EPRE committee managed to divert some public attention away from Barttelot's and Jameson's crimes to Tippu Tip as the sole architect of the Rear Column's misfortunes.7 This was sensible, since if mud was flung at the dead men, some was sure to stick to Stanley. Yet quotations from Barttelot's and Jameson's diaries (taken from their memoirs) soon appeared in the press, making it very plain that John Henry, a mission-educated African, had been flogged to death in very brutal circumstances, and that Burgari Mohammad, whose original crime was nothing worse than stealing some meat, had been shot in even more disturbing circumstances. Worse than that, the diaries proved that Jameson had indeed purchased a child for the price of six handkerchiefs. He claimed she had been stabbed too quickly for him to save her, but most journalists condemned him for failing to make ,the slightest effort to save the child's life after he discovered his mistake'. The girl - it was now established - had only been offered to him because of his eager questions about cannibalism, which had led a chief at Riba Riba to tell him, if he wanted to find out if people were really eaten: `Give to me a piece of cloth and see.' Having handed over the handkerchiefs, Jameson ought to have been ready to act instanta- neously.9
In Bonny's opinion, Barttelot had become insane by May 118 8 8, and Troup, though he disliked Stanley for vetoing publication of his book, held Barttelot responsible for all the Rear Column's crimes." But Herbert Ward - who was smarting because Stanley had publicly accused him of mislaying his personal boxes - damaged Henry by claiming that he had observed nothing in Barttelot's behaviour `derogatory to his position as an officer'." However, Edward Glave, who had served on the Congo with Stanley in the early 1188os and was a friend of Ward, had been told by him, in a private conversation, that he thought Barttelot's treatment of the Wangwana had been `harsh and inhuman' and that the major had been `insane'. Glave earned Stanley's lifelong gratitude by swearing an affidavit revealing what Ward really thought. This was published in The Times on 115 November 118go, and Ward never issued a contradiction.12
Having failed to gain support from his son's colleagues, Barttelot's father declared that Stanley had broken his contract with Tippu and had never expected the Rear Column to leave camp. Instead, its members had been cynically left to rot. Yet this was contradicted by the major's stated belief that he would be leaving the camp soon after the Stanley steamship returned to Yambuya. And Stanley himself had written to Mackinnon at this time (June 118 87) predicting that Tippu Tip would definitely produce `a fair number of men' for Barttelot.ii A day earlier he had noted in his diary: `I have always regarded Tippu as more high-minded than the average Arab.114
The reason why Stanley has been said to have `known' that Tippu would break his contract and arrive too late, if at all, was because (as Stanley well knew) there was not enough gunpowder at Yambuya to honour his agreement to provide each of the promised carriers with a personal supply.'' But since Barttelot had told Tippu Tip, very clearly, on 17 June that the promised gunpowder would be arriving on the Stanley from Leopoldville within weeks, why would Tippu have minded a short wait? After all, he was having to collect carriers from ,all the villages around', and would not be able to bring them to Yambuya any earlier than the Stanley's arrival.'6 So what would he lose by waiting until then? Stanley could not reasonably have been expected to send powder and ammunition to Tippu at Stanley Falls before he had produced the carriers. So if Barttelot was right, and Tippu really thought that Stanley had broken faith with him by leaving his powder for the second steamer trip, the slave trader's logic was seriously at fault.'' Eventually, when Tippu brought 400 carriers almost a year late, Barttelot had no difficulty paying him in gunpowder and honouring the contract. In Barttelot's own words, he paid Tippu: `An advance in cloth and powder; this I gave him to the value of £836' - a very substantial sum.i8 At no point in Barttelot's negotiations did Tippu Tip mention having been short-changed on gunpowder." That he might later have lied about this seems not to have occurred to Stanley's critics. Sergeant Bonny's description of that cruel and deceitful man, who had brought so much suffering to so wide a region, should act as a corrective. `His eyes are restless & turn often. When talking he often shifts about on his seat ... Very polite in manner towards you, if you were a trouble to him, he would cut your throat, as he has many thousands before.'z0
But Stanley could not repair his former reputation, even though he demonstrated in the press that Barttelot had destroyed the Rear Column by neglecting the health of his men, and by alienating his officers. The more convincing the case he made against Barttelot, the more he was blamed for employing him. Stanley also made a serious mistake in suggesting in New York that Barttelot had been killed rather than murdered, since this seemed to imply that the man who had shot him had thought the British officer's relationship with his wife and other African women had been improper. In fact the most that Stanley had said was that Barttelot had kicked the woman to the ground and had threatened her with his revolver, thus provoking Sanga, the husband to shoot him. The public's desire not to believe that British gentlemen could behave as Barttelot and Jameson had done was very powerful. Only if they could be excused could the slur on the n
ation be lifted. Yet when Bonny began speaking to journalists in November 1189o, it became clear that Barttelot had been guilty of many acts of violence in addition to `judicial' killings and fatal floggings. After Bonny's statements, there was no hope that the officers could be exonerated.Z" It would be believed that the `American' Stanley had unnecessarily dragged the British nation through the mud.
The whole expedition became tainted by its association with the misdeeds of those two men - though, mercifully for Stanley, their possession of sex slaves at Yambuya had not emerged. Dr Parke blamed the public scandal on the major's father, Sir William Barttelot, Bart. `He played the fool by publishing his book ... I will certainly speak up for Stanley." Colonel Grant also felt that Stanley had got the better of his adversaries, `and quite right too ... they [the Barttelots] look upon natives as only fit to be kicked and shot'.23
The public row about the Rear Column went far beyond attempts to find out who was most to blame for the loss of life. For a time, it led many people to condemn exploration per se. Because of the scandal, articles appeared for the first time in newspapers and periodicals questioning whether it was possible, in present circumstances, to mount any African expeditions that would be conducted in a humane fashion. The best article on this theme appeared in the Forum in February 1881, and was entitled: `Was the Emin Pasha Expedition Piratical?' The writer began with a genuine tribute:
The expedition for the rescue of Emin Pasha must always remain, so far as Mr Stanley is concerned, one of the greatest feats of courage and endurance in the annals of adventure ... Mr Stanley crossed Africa on foot at the head of a column of unwilling, uncivilized followers, for whom he had to supply all the necessary food and clothing and arms and ammunition and health ... Whether in the presence of pestilence, or famine, or savage enemies, he had to maintain his sang froid many a time within what seemed a hair's breadth of ruin.
Then the author described Stanley's predicament when he arrived near Lake Albert, and the local tribes refused to negotiate or give him passage, but instead attacked him, despite his efforts to make peace. Facing death and disaster, what else could he have done but kill some of them to stop the mass coming close enough to overwhelm his column with their vastly superior numbers? `There was no other mode of selfpreservation,' conceded the article's author. Indeed all exploring expeditions had to employ `soldiers' to protect the vital trade goods needed to purchase food, and to defend the porters carrying the bulky equivalent of money. And if carriers or soldiers deserted in significant numbers, with their loads or their rifles, as had happened to Stanley, the whole expedition was placed in mortal danger. `He had to flog or hang his own men to maintain discipline,' agreed the Forum's journalist. `He had to shoot ... in order to protect himself against treachery and to supply himself with provisions.'
And then the author put his finger on the central, insoluble problem.
From whom did he get authority to begin the series of military operations that ended in depositing Emin Pasha at Zanzibar? Under whose orders did he enlist troops and exercise among Africans the power of a general in the field? ... Neither the British nor the Egyptian government would pay to send Stanley to do what the British public wanted - rescue Emin Pasha. But a committee and the loose loan of Stanley by the King of the Belgians could not confer authority ... Every lawful military enterprise has a government behind it, to which its officers are accountable, to which they are obliged to make careful reports ... No judicial machinery now exists for the investigation of the charges which Mr Stanley brings against his officers of the rear-guard.
The support of a philanthropic committee was not nearly good enough, argued the article's author. Lacking government sanction and authority, the expedition had indeed been piratical.14
The Aborigines' Protection Society felt that the expedition had actually been mounted `with the approval of Her Majesty's ministers, and that half its expenses were provided under instructions tantamount to commands from our Foreign Office to the Egyptian authorities'. In the Society's eyes, this made the British government as guilty as Stanley. When Henry heard that it had been proposed, at a meeting of the Aborigines' Protection Society in January 118911, that the Society should initiate criminal proceedings against him under the Slave Trading Acts or under acts relating to murder or manslaughter, he told the Society's secretary that if members were to raise the money he would begin libel proceedings against the Barttelots and certain newspapers. `That is the best way to get at the truth,' he declared.z5 The Society backed off. And when their secretary, H. R. Fox Bourne, reviewed Dr Parke's book, he stated:
The Society is not condemning Mr Stanley or his subordinates so much, but the mounting of an expedition with aims and methods which almost necessitated the cruelties and slaughters that were incident to it ... It seems better to remain in armchairs and pass resolutions than wantonly to embark on perilous enterprises which can only be carried out by means that degrade Englishmen ...
The Society's members were also shocked that many of Stanley's Wangwana on this expedition had been slaves - though he had never intended this, having trusted the firm of Smith, Mackenzie & Co. to recruit free men.z6
Another brickbat flung at Stanley and his humanitarian backers was the claim that, when men like Mackinnon were involved in African business enterprises, their philanthropic aims merely masked their greed. The idea that profits could be guaranteed to anyone running an African chartered company in the late nineteenth century began early, and was mistaken from the start. Areas lacking gold, diamonds or rubber - and that was most of Africa - were never going to create instant fortunes for anyone. But this did not stop critics of imperialism condemning Stanley for confusing civilization with `the extension of a shoddy commercialism' under the barrels of `the Martini-Henry rifle and the Gatling gun'. Such critics seemed unaware that men like Stanley and Mackinnon sincerely believed that unless the slave traders were driven out by European traders and settlers, the bloodshed would go on indefinitely.'
Sadly, the Rear Column debacle cast a shadow over Stanley's relations with Sir William. In the EPRE committee's report, regret was expressed that `Mr Stanley should have been obliged, at a most important stage in the expedition, to separate himself from a considerable portion of his force, and most valuable part of his relief stores'. It was also stated that if Barttelot had possessed `Mr Stanley's experience, resources, and influence ... the plan [of splitting the expedition in two] would have been the best that could have been adopted' - the implication being that because Barttelot had possessed no such qualities, the plan had not been the best possible. Barttelot's right to have stayed at Yambuya was also upheld, on account of Stanley's warnings to him about the importance of the stores.28 But worst of all, in Stanley's eyes, was the committee's failure to own up to the crimes of the officers of the Rear Column. In response to Barttelot's book, he himself had gone public in naming the officers' offences. So, according to Stanley, Mackinnon had, by failing to support his expedition leader's version of events in his report, published `a condemnation of those who had lived, and a defence of those who died'.29
Perhaps the worst harm done to Stanley personally by the Rear Column scandal was the way in which it reminded newspaper editors of all the old charges of brutality made against him in the years following his attack on Bumbireh. In 11878 the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette had written: `Exploration under these conditions is in fact exploration plus buccaneering, and ... the cause of civilization is not a gainer thereby but a loser.'3° Once again, as in 1878, Stanley was held up as ,the dark shadow to throw up the brightness of Livingstone's fame'. The stage was now set, a few years hence, for the Congo `red rubber' slaughter to complete the destruction of Stanley's reputation with yet more guilt by association. Stanley - the man who had done his utmost to make fair treaties with the chiefs on the Congo - was about to be launched on history's tide as a prototype for Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, and a prime begetter of the new imperialism.
THIRTY
Africa
or a Child
Gertrude Tennant had made it clear to Stanley, when he asked for her daughter's hand, that she would expect Dolly to go on living at Richmond Terrace with her. Stanley had raised no difficulties and agreed to move in too. After a lifetime of hotel rooms and service flats, he felt he had little to lose, and did not renew the lease on his Kensington flat.'
Gertrude was an entertaining but manipulative woman, who charmed her son-in-law but subjected Dolly to some ferocious emotional blackmail.' A journalist on the Chicago Daily News amusingly deduced what might have been said when Henry asked Gertrude to consent to his marrying Dolly: `She is yours, and so am I!'i Being a greenhorn on the subject of maternal affection, Stanley mistook Gertrude's possessiveness for disinterested love. So he allowed Gertrude to come to America with Dolly and himself, and even let her bring her loquacious cousin, Charles Hamilton Aide, a sixty-fouryear-old playwright and novelist, described by Henry James as a 'foolish, faded, fribble [sic] '.4
A large party came on Stanley's American tour, with Jephson and Sall included, as well as Major Pond, Henry's lecture agent, and Pond's wife and her sister. Before Stanley returned to England from Africa, Pond had written anguished letters to Mrs Sheldon, also a client, about how to secure her heroic friend for a replacement tour.' The impresario need not have worried. When, at last, he screwed up his courage and presented himself at Stanley's flat, the explorer welcomed him warmly. The hard-bitten agent's eyes filled with tears to see the change in him. `There was Stanley: not the Stanley of three and a half years ago. His hair was now white. We grasped each other by the hand, and it was some time before Stanley said: "It's all right, major. I am glad to see you."' The lectures were not mentioned, and Pond had almost resigned himself to the idea that Stanley might never have the strength to give them, when a few days later he received a telegram: ON 10 OCTOBER I TAKE A DEGREE AT CAMBRIDGE. THEN I OWE YOU EIGHTY-NINE LECTURES.6 A special Pullman car, named `Henry M. Stanley' was obtained by Pond for the party. It contained a kitchen, a resident chef, a dining car, a dormitory, a drawing room with piano, three state-bedrooms and, rather stingily, one bathroom. Starting on 7 November 1890 in New York, Stanley gave 1 ii o talks, earning a total of £iz,ooo - about £400,000 in today's money. Pond noticed that Henry was happiest in the company of children and journalists, from whom he expected no special treatment.' Though submitting to Pond's extraordinarily arduous schedule, he found a mere seven days' rest per month - all spent travelling - terribly wearing.
