“Gonne maduo a boleo ke loso; mme neo ya mpho fela ya Modimo ke botshelo jo bo sa khutleng, mo go Keresete Jesu Morena wa rona.”
BaRoma 6:23
From The Tswana Bible Translated By Robert Moffat
Robert and Mary Moffat
Robert Moffat (1795-1883) was a Scottish pioneer missionary to South Africa who arrived in Cape Town in 1817. He opened mission stations in the interior, translated the Bible into the language of the Bechuanas (Tswana), and wrote two missionary books on South Africa: Labors and Scenes in South Africa and Rivers of Water in a Dry Place. His oldest daughter Mary, married David Livingstone.
Mary Smith Moffat (1795-1871) was missionary wife of Robert Moffat, and mother of Mary, the wife of David Livingstone. Born in New Windsor, England, she married Robert Moffat in December, 1819 at Cape Town, South Africa. They settled at Kuruman in Bechuanaland and established a mission there. They had ten children: Mary (who married David Livingstone), Ann, Robert (died as an infant), Robert, Helen, Elizabeth (died as an infant), James, John, Elizabeth, and Jean. The Moffats returned to England in 1839 for their only furlough. In 1870, the aged missionaries returned to England to stay. Mary died shortly thereafter.
Robert Moffat
The Man by Fred Barlow
When I think of Robert Moffat, I am rightly reminded of the Scripture in Zechariah 4:10, which witnesses, "For who hath despised the day of small things?"
It seemed a small thing to some godly men in a southern Scotland church when a boy about four years old, from a home of poor but pious parents, knelt at an altar to pray. His decision was despised by the elders as one who was too young to understand. Thank God, one unnamed, unknown-to-us brother bothered to kneel in prayer with "Robbie."
Moffat may well have been converted to Christ then -- if not, it was the commencement of a chain of events that led to his conversion and to the opening of doors of evangelism to the uncharted depths of the dark continent of Africa.
Call To Missions
In his mid-teens he left home for High Leigh, near Liverpool, England, to begin work as an undergardner. It was there that Moffat's spiritual convictions were confirmed and he became a member of the Methodists. And it was on a walk from High Leigh to Warrenton that another event occurred which would engineer him into evangelism in Africa. He saw a sign announcing a missionary meeting. On such a small thing as a poster, God prompted the heart of the youth to purpose to become a missionary. Moffat attended the meeting and there is every evidence he got the message for shortly afterward he contacted Rev. William Roby, the Methodist preacher in Manchester, and was soon recommended to the London Missionary Society. At the age of twenty-one, Moffat reached South Africa.
His earliest ministries were treks taken into the interior. There were few railroads or roads and oftentimes those were washed away by rains. Travel was difficult, dangerous and often death-bringing. Rivers, rocks, swamps, and forests had to be avoided or mastered somehow. Intense heat by day and chill cold by night complicated travel. Always there were the wild beasts: lions, jackals, hyenas, crocodiles, snakes, monkeys and, worst of all, warlike and untrustworthy native bushmen. Such journeys were not often undertaken by those who knew the country well, and to a newcomer like Moffat such treks were deadly dangerous! But Moffat, motivated by his missionary call, meant to master all such obstacles. He gradually became physically acclimated to Africa's extreme climates. He learned the country and became proficient in its customs and its languages, and he developed the great power of leadership that was to be his badge and make him a blessing to multitudes.
Conversion
In 1817 he set out for the kraal, or village, of the Namaquas where the chief, Afrikaner, a blood-thirsty butcherer, was converted. That conversion has been considered one of the great accounts of the grace of God on the mission fields. On that trip he saw for the first time the KurumonRiver and the Bechuanas, the peoples with whom he would spend most of his long missionary ministry.
The Bechuanas' reception of Moffat's ministry ranged from stony indifference -- to steeled intolerance -- to incorrigible rejection. Moffat, who had now married an English sweetheart, "saw no reward for untiring work." That work, by the way, consisted of being a builder, a carpenter, a smith and a farmer all in one; while at the same time preaching.
Probably one of the most momentous events in Moffat's ministry was not preaching but attempting to defend his Bechuanas from the warring Zuluas. He did not avert a war, but procured firearms and equipped his people. The Bechuanas conquered the Zuluas and, realizing Moffat's bravery and compassion in their behalf, they began to respect him as a friend.
Changed Lives
It was twelve more years before his message bore the fruit of revival. Suddenly the meeting house was crowded. Heathen songs were not sung in the village and dancing stopped. Prayers came to the lips of the Bechuanas, and the songs of Zion were sung. They began to give up their dirty habits. Converts were recorded, then time-tested, then baptized. Other tribes, hearing the news, sent representatives to learn of the white man's teaching. Moffat often would return with them and thus the revival message and results spread.
One convert of Robert Moffat's Gospel message was Christian Afrikaner. You can read his story at:
It was then that Moffat realized he must concentrate on translating the New Testament into the language of the people if they were to learn God's Word and live God's way! And, customarily, he not only translated the text, he procured a press and printed it.
Moffat returned to England only one time before returning to die. On that visit he persuaded Livingstone to go to Africa instead of China. Livingstone built mightily upon the foundation that Moffat had so ably laid, yet, incredibly, Moffat outlived Livingstone ten more years.
He had opened jungle villages to the Gospel, he had braved the dangers, the deadlines of African jungles, he had withstood medicine men like Elijah had withstood the prophets of Baal at Carmel. He had preached, he had translated, he had instructed Africans to read, write, sing and farm. He had exalted Christ and magnified the ministry of a missionary. August 9, 1883, he wound his watch with a trembling hand. "For the last time," he said. And it was so. The next morning the 88-year-old soldier of the Cross was dead, with eighty-four years of life for his Lord since that night as a four-year-old bairn (boy) he had come to Christ.
"For who hath despised the day of small things?"
Robert Moffat
The Missionary
Robert Moffat (1795-1883), missionary was born at Ormiston, East Lothian, [Scotland] on 21 Dec. 1795. His father was a customhouse officer; the family of his mother, Ann Gardiner, had lived for several generations at Ormiston.
In 1797 the Moffats moved to Portsay, near Banff, and in 1806 to Carronshore, near Falkirk. Robert went at an early age to the parish school, and when he was eleven was sent, with an elder brother, to Mr. Paton's school at Falkirk. In 1809 he was apprenticed to a gardener, John Robertson of Parkhill, Polmont. During his apprenticeship he attended evening classes, learned to play a little on the violin, and took some lessons at the anvil.
In 1811 his father was transferred to Inverkeithing, and the following year, on the expiration of his apprenticeship, Robert obtained a situation at Donibristle, Lord Moray's seat near Aberdour, Fifeshire. At the end of 1813 he was engaged as under-gardener by Mr. Leigh of High Leigh, Cheshire. He had received much religious training at home, and while in Leigh's service he came under the influence of some earnest Wesleyan Methodists, which determined him to devote his life to religious work. After attending a missionary meeting at Warrington, held by William Roby of Manchester, he decided, if possible, to be a missionary.
On 23 Dec. 1815 he left Leigh's service for the nursery garden of James Smith, a pious nonconformist Scotsman from Perthshire, who had settled at Dukinfield, near Manchester. There Moffat contrived to study under the guidance of Roby, who interested himself on his behalf with the directors of the London Missionary Society. His master had married in 1792 Mary Gray of York, a member of the church of England, and two of their sons became missionaries. During his stay at Dukinfield Moffat became engaged to their only daughter, Mary, who, born in 1795 at New Windsor, now part of Salford, had been educated at the Moravian school at Fairfield, and had formed strong religious convictions. But her parents at this time objected to the match.
Call To Missions
In the summer of 1816 Moffat was accepted by the society as a missionary, and on 30 Sept. was set apart for the ministry in the Surrey Chapel, London. On 18 Oct. he embarked in the ship Alacrity, Captain Findlay, for South Africa, and arrived at Cape Town on 13 Jan. 1817. Moffat was destined for Namaqualand, beyond the border of the colony, but permission to go thither was temporarily refused by the governor for political reasons, and Moffat went to Stellenbooch to learn Dutch.
Into Africa
On 22 Sept. permission to cross the frontier was given, and Moffat started for the interior with some other missionaries. Moffat went to the chief Afrikaner's kraal at Vredeburg. He stayed in Namaqualand a little over a year, living like a native. A long expedition with Afrikaner to the north convinced Moffat that there was no hope of forming a missionary settlement in that quarter. He also made a journey to the eastward, across the great Kalahari Desert, as far as Griquatown and Lattakoo. On his return he found himself the only European in Namaqualand, as Mr. Ebner, a missionary who had accompanied him to Vredeburg from Cape Town, and was the only other European north of the Orange River, was leaving the country.
At the beginning of 1819 Moffat determined to take Afrikaner, who had become a true convert, to Cape Town. A few years before a price had been set by the government on Afrikaner's head; his conversion brought home to the authorities that the mission had solved a political difficulty, and did something to enlist their sympathy. In December 1819 Mary Smith, who had overcome her parents' objection to her marriage with Moffat, arrived at Cape Town and married him on 27 Dec. 1819 in St. George's church, Cape Town. For fifty years Mary Moffat shared all her husband's hardships and trials, and her name must be associated with his among the pioneers of South African mission work.
A deputation from the London Missionary Society, consisting of Dr. Philip and John Campbell, arrived at Cape Town at the close of 1819. They appointed Moffat superintendent at Lattakoo, and he set out early in 1820 with his wife, arriving at Lattakoo, about one hundred miles from Griquatown, at the end of March. Shortly after their arrival they made an expedition to the westward, along the bed of the KurumanRiver, among the villages of the Botswanas. On their return to Lattakoo they were informed by letter from Cape Town that permission had not been granted for them to remain there, and they went to Griquatown, then inhabited by a mixed multitude of Griquas, Korannas, Hottentots, Bakwanas, and Bushmen, to assist Mr. Helm in organizing the mission there. On permission arriving from Cape Town the Moffats returned to Lattakoo 17 May 1821, and devoted themselves to mission work and to acquiring a knowledge of the language.
Mission Troubles
Troubles, however, soon began. The warlike Matabele tribe, under Mosilikatse, climbed the Kwathlamba range and drove out many of the Bapedi and Bakwana tribes, the fugitives pouring down on the western Bakwanas. Moffat, who had heard only vague rumors of what was going on, made a reconnaissance to the north-east. On arriving at Mosite, after some days of travel, he learnt that the Mantatees, as the fugitive tribes were called, were in actual possession of the Baralong towns close to the eastward of the mission, and were on their way to Lattakoo. Moffat hurried home, warned his own people, and hastened to Griquatown to seek the aid of the Griquas. By the time the government commissioner, Mr. Melville, and the Griqua chief Waterboer, with one hundred men, reached the station, the Mantatees had occupied Letakong, only thirty-six miles away.
The two Europeans, Moffat and Melville, with Waterboer and his men, met them halfway at the MatlwaringRiver, and after vain attempts to get speech with them were driven back, and obliged in self-defense to fight. About five hundred Mantatees were killed, and some thousands put to flight. The mission was saved, the invaders retiring never to return. Moffat had distinguished himself by his devotion to the wounded and the women and children, and he gained a personal ascendancy which he never lost over the tribes that he had protected.
Circumstances, however, still appeared so threatening that Moffat sent his wife and children for a time to Griquatown, and towards the end of the year (1823) he took them a two months' journey to Cape Town, where he obtained supplies, and conferred with Dr. Philip about the removal of the mission from Lattakoo to Kuruman. They returned to their station in May (1824). Moffat went on 1 July on a long-promised visit to Makaba, the chief of the Bangwaketsi, at Kwakwe.
During his absence his wife was in a position of great anxiety. A horde of evil characters, marauding runaways of mixed blood, from the CapeColony, with Korannas, Bushmen, and Namaquas, had established themselves in the mountains to the westward of Griquatown, and had been joined by renegade Griquas, mounted and armed with guns, who resented the discipline of Waterboer and the other Griqua chiefs. So great was the disquiet and the fear of an attack on Lattakoo that a second time Moffat and his family took refuge at Griquatown.
Building Kuruman Mission Station
Early in 1825, the western banditti having retired, the Moffats commenced to lay out the new station at Kuruman, to which they had been ordered to remove from Lattakoo. They raised three temporary dwellings, when again a band of armed and mounted marauders made their appearance. The natives at the old station gave way before them, losing nearly all their cattle, and could not be persuaded to return, but drifted away eastward to the Hart or Kolong river.
With a dwindled population the work of the missionaries was less onerous, and Moffat commenced his first regular effort to lay the foundation of a Sechuana literature. A spelling-book was prepared and sent to Cape Town to be printed. In 1826 steady progress was made in the erection of the mission buildings, and Moffat devoted all his spare time to manual labor.
In 1827 the station at Kuruman was sufficiently advanced to permit Moffat to perfect himself in the Sechuana language, by spending a couple of months in the encampment of Bogacho, a chief of the Baralongs, on the border of the Kalahari desert. On his return the marauders again appeared, and the missionaries had a third time to retire temporarily to Griquatown.
New Testament Translation Work Begins (1829)
From the commencement stolid indifference to the work had reigned among the natives. But the missionaries worked on, mainly encouraged by the sanguine temper of Mary Moffat. In 1829 the desired awakening came. The services were crowded, the schools flourished, and gradually and with much caution some of the natives were admitted to baptism, and a permanent church and a schoolhouse were erected by the natives without cost to the society. Moffat at length enjoyed sufficient leisure to translate into Sechuana the Gospel of St. Luke and a selection of other scriptures.
The same year Mosilikatse, chief of the Matabele, sent messengers to inquire into the manners and teaching of the white men at Kuruman. Moffat showed them every attention, and when difficulties arose as to their return through a country occupied by tribes who both feared and hated Mosilikatse, he escorted them home to the banks of the Oori, a long journey through a country which, although it had once contained a dense population, had been so ravaged that it had become the home of wild beasts and venomous reptiles. Moffat stayed eight days with Mosilikatse, by whom he was received with many tokens of friendship; he returned to Kuruman after an absence of two months.
In June 1830 the Moffats visited Grahamstown to put their elder children to school, and, leaving his wife to follow by sea, Moffat hurried to Cape Town, riding some four hundred miles in nine days, to start the printing of such parts of the New Testament as had been translated. At Cape Town he could find no printing office able to undertake the work. But the government put at their disposal their own printing office, although unable to supply workmen, and Moffat and another missionary, Mr. Edwards, with such guidance as the man in charge could give them, performed the work themselves. The exertion, however, brought on an illness, and Moffat had to be carried on board ship on his return journey to AlgoaBay. He and his wife reached Kuruman at the end of June 1831, taking with them a printing press.
Early in 1835 a scientific expedition, headed by Dr. Andrew Smith, arrived from CapeColony, and Moffat accompanied them in May to Mosilikatse's headquarters, to open a way for mission work among the chief's people, and to obtain timber to roof in the church at Kuruman. In 1836 Moffat, after seeing his wife across the Vaal river on her way to pay a visit in Cape Town, made a detour on his return to Kuruman to visit Mothibi, the old chief of the Batlaping. His journey was well timed, and he was cheered by the interest taken in his teaching. Some American missionaries arrived, who were sent to Mosilikatse, and a volume of 443 pages of translation of scripture lessons into Sechuana was completed before his wife's return in July.
In 1837 the emigration of Dutch farmers disaffected to British rule commenced, and a party of them came into collision with Mosilikatse and the Matabele. The American mission station was destroyed, and a great booty in cattle swept away. Mosilikatse and his people disappeared the following year into the unknown region south of the Zambesi, and missionary work was greatly retarded.
New Testament Work Completed (1839)
Towards the end of 1838 Moffat went to Cape Town with his family, taking with him the complete translation of the New Testament into the Sechuana language, and, sailing for England, arrived in London in June 1839. While the translation was in the press, Moffat commenced a translation of the Psalms, and stayed in England to complete it. It was printed and bound up with the New Testament. He also revised the scripture lessons, of which an edition of six thousand was printed, and wrote "Labours and Scenes in South Africa," which was published in the spring of 1842, and met with a very favorable reception.
In addition to his literary labors, Moffat was much engaged in preaching and lecturing all over the country on behalf of the London Missionary Society. In 1840 Moffat met David Livingstone in London, and was the means of securing his services for the Bakwana mission. On 30 Jan. 1843, after valedictory services, addresses, and presentations, the Moffats sailed again for South Africa. While waiting at Bethelsdorp in April for their heavy baggage, Moffat made a journey on horseback to Kaffraria, and visited all the eastern stations of the Missionary Society. The Moffats and their party were met by Livingstone at the Vaal river, and reached Kuruman in December.
The mission staff having been increased, the younger missionaries were sent some two or three hundred miles further inland, to various tribes of the Bakwanas. Livingstone, who went to Mabotsa, returned to Kuruman after an accident, was nursed by the Moffats, and married their eldest daughter Mary in 1844. The Livingstones then went to Chonwane, and to this and the other distant stations Kuruman was a centre of administration from which supplies and assistance were drawn.
Old Testament Work Begins (1840s)
For several years subsequent to 1845 Moffat was hard at work translating into Sechuana the book of Isaiah, and other parts of the Old Testament, and the "Pilgrim's Progress," which were published in the colony. He also visited some of the Bakwana tribes.
In May 1854, accompanied by two young Englishmen -- James Chapman and Samuel Edwards -- Moffat crossed the edge of the Kalahari desert, found Sechele and his people among the precipices of Lethubaruba, passed over 120 miles of desert to Shoshong, the residence of Sekhomi, chief of the Bamangwato tribe, then by compass over an unknown and uninhabited country in a northeasterly direction for eighteen days, until he reached Mosilikatse and the Matabele. The chief was almost helpless with dropsy, but accompanied Moffat in a further journey to the outposts of the tribe, in the hope of hearing news of Livingstone. The obstacles at last proved insuperable, and Moffat had to content himself with an undertaking from the chief, which he kept, that he would take charge of the supplies for Livingstone, and deliver them to the Makololo. Moffat made his return journey of seven hundred miles to Kuruman without incident.
Old Testament Translation Work is Finished (1857)
In 1857 the translation of the Old Testament was finished, and the whole bible in the Sechuana language was printed and distributed. In the same year, by order of the home authorities of the mission, Moffat returned to the Matabeles and obtained the chief's consent to establish a station among them. There followed a meeting with Livingstone at the Cape to define their spheres of labor, and after some delay at Kuruman, owing to quarrels between the Boers and the natives, during which Moffat printed a new hymn-book, he, with three companions, including his younger son, reached the headquarters of the Matabele chief Mosilikatse at the end of October 1859.
The chief was at first far from cordial, having heard of the doings of the Transvaal Boers, who so often followed in the wake of the missionaries. Eventually, however, in December a station was formed at Inyati, and Moffat worked hard at the forge and the bench to help forward the necessary buildings, until in June the mission was sufficiently established for him to leave it to itself.
Leaving Africa
Failing health and domestic troubles led Moffat to finally leave Africa for England on 10 June 1870. He was most warmly received. His wife died at Brixton in January 1871, and Moffat subsequently until his death traveled about the United Kingdom preaching and advocating the cause of missions. He also revised the Sechuana translation of the Old Testament. In 1872 he was made a D.D. of Edinburgh.
In 1873 he settled in Knowle Road, Brixton, South London, and was presented with upwards of 5,000£ by his friends. In 1874 he went to Southampton to meet and identify the remains of Livingstone, and was present at the funeral in Westminster Abbey. In August 1876 he was present at the unveiling of the statue of Livingstone in Edinburgh, when the queen, who was at Holyrood, sent for him and gave him a short interview. In April 1877, at the invitation of the French Missionary Society, he visited Paris, and through Theodore Monod addressed four thousand French children. In November 1879 he removed to Leigh, near Tunbridge.
He was deeply interested in the Transvaal war, and, believing in the advantages of British rule for the natives, he was greatly shocked at the triumph of the Boers and the acquiescence of the English government in defeat. On 7 May 1881 he was entertained at the Mansion House, London, at a dinner given by the lord mayor in his honor, which the Archbishop of Canterbury, representatives of both houses of parliament, and all the leading men of the religious and philanthropic world attended. In 1882 he visited the Zulu chief Ketchwayo, then in England, and was able to converse with one of his attendants in the Sechuana language. Moffat died peacefully at Leigh on 8 Aug. 1883, and was buried at Norwood cemetery beside the remains of his wife. A monument was erected to his memory at Ormiston, his birthplace in East Lothian.
Moffat Dies
Moffat's eldest son Robert, and his daughter, Mrs. Livingstone, both died in 1862. Another daughter Bessie married in October 1861 the African missionary, Roger Price. His second daughter married Jean Fredoux, a French missionary, who was killed in 1866, leaving his widow and seven children unprovided for.
Tall and manly, with shaggy hair and beard, clear cut features and piercing eyes, Moffat's exterior was one to impress native races, while his childlike spirit and modest and unselfish nature insured a commanding influence. He was the father and pioneer of South African mission work, and will be remembered as a staunch friend of the natives, an industrious translator, a persevering teacher, and a skilful organizer.
Moffat was the author of: 1. "Translation of the Gospel of St. Luke into Sechuana," 1830. 2. "Translation into Sechuana of parts of the Old Testament," 1831. 3. "A Book of Hymns in Sechuana, Schlapi dialect, 80 pages," Mission Press, Kuruman, 2nd edition, 1838.
4. "Africa, or Gospel Light shining in the midst of Heathen Darkness, a Sermon on Isaiah ix. 2, preached before the Directors of the London Missionary Society, &c., with Notes," London, 1840. 5. "Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa," 4th edition, London, 1842; 11th thousand, with portrait, London, 1846. 6. "Mr. Moffat and the Bechwanas," 1842. 7. "Visit to the Children of Manchester," 1842. 8. "Hymns in the Sechuana Language," Religious Tract Society, London, 1843. 9. "Rivers of Waters in Dry Places; an Account of the Introduction of Christianity into South Africa, and of Mr. Moffat's Missionary Labours," 1863 ; new edition, 1867; Philadelphia, 1869. 10. "New Testament translated into Sechuana," 1872. 11. "The Bible translated into Sechuana," 1872.
Kuruman
The Oasis of the Kalahari
Kuruman is just over the border between North-WestProvince and Northern Cape. This is dry country, and the mealie fields of the Transvaal highveld give way to sheep and ostriches. Kuruman is the main town in the Kalahari region, and is known as the 'Oasis of the Kalahari'. The town is blessed with a permanent source of water. Gasegonyane ("little water calabash"), commonly known as "Die Oog" (The Eye) delivers 20 million liters of crystal clear water daily. It may be clear, but the water is extremely 'hard' - (Like the water in Los Angeles, piped through the desert from the Colorado river, one has to chew one's way through every glass.) Die Oog was the reason why Kuruman was settled in the first place, and finds itself in the middle of town, a few feet off the main road. A small dam has been created, and contains some very large carp which swim lazily around in the crystal clear water.
Robert Moffat, the famous missionary, lived here for 50 years (1820-1870), and it was here that he translated the Bible into Sechuana. Kuruman formed one link in what was known as the 'missionary route', stretching from Port Elizabeth right up into Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Angola and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Dr David Livingstone arrived as an LMS missionary in 1841, and took a shine to Moffat's eldest daughter, Mary Jr. They were married on 2 January 1845, and Mary accompanied him on many of his journeys. Her health and the family's needs for security and education forced him to send her and their four children back to Britain in 1852. Mary insisted on joining Livingstone on his Zambezi expedition and sadly died at Shupanga on the Zambezi in 1862.
Population:2,822,000 in South Africa (1995), 7.2% of the population (1995
The Economist).
Bible:1857-1993.
Southern Sotho, Northern Sotho, and Tswana are largely inherently intelligible but have generally been considered separate languages. Standard Tswana uses Kgatla dialect. Used among the educated.
Used more for spoken purposes than written. All ages.
Vigorous use. 90% to 95% of children complete standard 7 in primary school.
National language. Dictionary. Grammar.
Literacy rate in first language: 80% to 90%.
Officially used as language of instruction in grades 1-4 in all government primary schools. Often used for explanations through Standard 7 and first 2 years of secondary. Taught as a required subject in all secondary schools.
Robert & Mary Moffat’s Famous
Son-in-law
David Livingstone
Dr. David Livingstone (1813-1873), Scottish doctor and missionary, considered one of the most important European explorers of Africa, also pioneering the abolition of the slave trade. Livingstone was born in Blantyre. After completing his medical course in 1840, Livingstone was ordained and sent as a medical missionary to South Africa. In 1841 he reached Kuruman, a settlement founded by Scottish missionary Robert Moffat in Bechuanaland (now Botswana). In 1849 Livingstone crossed the Kalahari Desert and became the first European to discover LakeNgami. On another expedition (1852-1856), he followed the ZambeziRiver to its mouth in the Indian Ocean, thereby becoming the first European to discover Victoria Falls.
Few Europeans have contributed as much to the exploration of Africa as a gentle Scottish missionary named David Livingstone. Livingstone was a curious combination of missionary, doctor, explorer, scientist and anti-slavery activist.
He spent 30 years in Africa, exploring almost a third of the continent, from its southern tip almost to the equator. Livingstone received a gold medal from the London Royal Geographical for being the first to cross the entire African Continent from west to east. He was the first white man to see Victoria Falls and though he never discovered the source of the Nile, one of his goals, he eliminated some possibilities and thereby helped direct the efforts of others.
Although popular among native tribes in Africa, Livingstone made enemies of some white settlers there because he learned African languages and had an unusually keen understanding and sympathy for native people and cultures. In 1843, while settling the Mabotsa valley, Livingstone shot a lion. Before it died, however, the lion attacked Livingstone, costing him the use of his left arm.
In 1865, at age 52, Livingstone set out on his last and most famous journey. He soon lost his medicine, animals and porters, but struggled on almost alone.
At a village on the LualabaRiver he witnessed the slaughter of villagers by slave traders. The letter he sent home describing the event so infuriated the public that the English government pressured the Sultan of Zanzibar to stop the slave trade. The pressure was only partially successful. The trans-Atlantic slave trade, organized by the Portuguese, had begun around 1530. In 1562 Sir John Hawkins started the English slave trade, taking cargoes of slaves from West Africa to the newly discovered Americas. Find out more about the discovery of Africa by the Portuguese, and the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus.
On Nov. 10, 1871 in the village of Ujiji, on the east side of Lake Tanganyika, Livingstone encountered Henry Stanley. He greeted him with his (now famous) comically understated words: "Dr Livingstone, I presume?".
Stanley had been sent by the New York Herald Tribune newspaper to help, but it had taken a year to find him.
With Stanley's supplies Livingstone continued his explorations, but he was weak, worn out and suffering from dysentery. Then, on the morning of April 30, 1872, his two African assistants found him dead, still kneeling at his bedside, apparently praying when he died. They dried his body and carried it and his papers on a dangerous 11-month journey to Zanzibar, a trip of 1,000 miles. The natives buried his heart in Africa as he had requested, but his body was returned to England and buried in Westminster Abbey.
Does Obeying A Call To Missions Matter?
From Robert & Mary Moffat's obedience of a call to missions, a Bible was translated and a church was established and many people in Africa were saved. Today that church still exists and is growing and a large number of Tswana people are literate (over 80%).
David Livingstone explored Africa and mapped and surveyed the interior of Africa which opened the interior of Africa up to mission work.
