Staging Exploration: Kalulu, Kadu, and the Lectures of Henry Morton Stanley

Abstract: Henry Morton Stanley's account of his meeting with David Livingstone at Ujiji (in what is now Tanzania) in 1871 helped foster the Eurocentric "myth of the Dark Continent." Stanley's careful management of his image ensured that the meeting became emblematic of Anglo-Saxon imperial endeavor. This essay focuses on the previously overlooked role played by two of Stanley's African servants in constructing the explorer's image of whiteness and modernity. Kalulu and Kadu accompanied the explorer on lecture tours, where their presence was deployed to enhance Stanley's claim as an authority on Africa. Recent scholarship has challenged the tendency to view exploration exclusively through the lens of individual Europeans and highlighted the collective and collaborative nature of expeditionary travel. But Africans also played an instrumental role in shaping the metropolitan image of the celebrity explorer. By attending to the European and North American travels of Kadu and Kalulu, we gain a new perspective on the cult of the explorer.