Mary Kingsley

Travels in Africa

After a preliminary visit to the Canary Islands in 1892, Kingsley decided to travel to the west coast of Africa in August 1893. Generally, the only non-African women who embarked on (often dangerous) journeys to Africa were the wives of missionaries, government officials, or explorers. Exploration had not been seen as a fitting role for English women, though this was changing under the influence of figures such as Isabella Bird and Marianne North. African women were surprised that a woman of Kingsley's age was travelling without a man, and she was frequently asked why her husband was not accompanying her.

Kingsley landed in Sierra Leone on 17 August 1893 and from there travelled to Luanda, Angola. She lived with local people, who taught her necessary survival skills for the wilderness, acted as luggage porters and guides for her travels, and gave her advice. She often went into dangerous areas alone. Her training as a nurse at the Kaiserswerther Diakonie had prepared her for slight injuries and jungle maladies that she would later encounter.

Kingsley returned to England via Liverpool in December 1893. Upon her return, Kingsley secured support and aid from Dr. Albert Günther, a prominent zoologist at the British Museum, as well as a writing agreement with publisher George Macmillan, for she wished to publish her travel accounts.

She sailed to Africa again from 23 December 1894 with more support and supplies from England and in the company of Ethel MacDonald. She longed to study "cannibal" people and their traditional religious practices, commonly referred to as "fetish" during the Victorian era. In April she met Scottish missionary Mary Slessor, another European woman living among native African populations with little company and no husband. It was during her meeting with Slessor that Kingsley first became aware of the custom of twin killing, a custom which Slessor was determined to stop. The native people believed that one of the twins was the offspring of the devil who had secretly mated with the mother and since the innocent child was impossible to distinguish, both were killed and the mother was often killed as well for attracting the devil to impregnate her. Kingsley arrived at Slessor's residence shortly after she had taken in a recent mother of twins and her surviving child.

In May, she traveled to Gabon. There, she canoed up the Ogooué River, where she collected specimens of fish previously unknown to western science, three of which were later named after her. In August she visited Corisco Island. After meeting the Fang people and travelling through uncharted Fang territory, she daringly climbed the 4,040 metres (13,250 ft) Mount Cameroon by a route not previously attempted by any other European. She moored her boat at Donguila.

Return to England

When she returned home on 30 November 1895, Kingsley was greeted by journalists eager to interview her. The reports that were drummed up about her voyage, however, were most upsetting, as the papers portrayed her as a "New Woman", an image which she did not embrace. Kingsley distanced herself from any feminist movement claims, arguing that women's suffrage was "a minor question; while there was a most vital section of men disenfranchised women could wait". Her consistent lack of identification with women's rights movements may be attributed to a number of causes, such as the attempt to ensure that her work would be received more favorably; in fact, some insist this might be a direct reference to her belief in the importance of securing rights for British traders in West Africa.

Over the next three years, she toured England, giving lectures about life in Africa to a wide array of audiences. She was the first woman to address the Liverpool and Manchester chambers of commerce. Kingsley upset the Church of England when she criticised missionaries for attempting to convert the people of Africa and corrupt their religions. In this regard, she discussed many aspects of African life that were shocking to English people, including polygamy, which she argued was practiced out of necessity. After living with the African people, Kingsley became directly aware how their societies functioned and how prohibiting customs such as polygamy would be detrimental to their way of life. She knew that the typical African wives had too many tasks to manage alone. Missionaries in Africa often required converted men to abandon all but one of their wives, leaving the other women and children without the support of a husband – thus creating immense social and economic problems. Kingsley's also criticised teetotal missionaries, suggesting that those who drank small quantities of alcohol had better survival rates.

Kingsley's beliefs about cultural and economic imperialism are complex and widely debated by scholars today. Though, on the one hand, she regarded African people and cultures as those who needed protection and preservation, she also believed in the necessity of indirect rule and the adoption of European culture and technology by indigenous populations, insisting that there was some work in West Africa that had to be completed by white men. Yet in Studies in West Africa she writes: "Although a Darwinian to the core, I doubt if evolution in a neat and tidy perpendicular line, with Fetish at the bottom and Christianity at the top, represents the true state of affairs." Other, more acceptable, beliefs were variously perceived and used in Western European society – by traders, colonists, women's rights activists and others – and, articulated as they were in great style, helped shape popular perception of "the African" and "his" land.

Writing and publications

Kingsley wrote two books based on her travels in West Africa: Travels in West Africa (1897) and West African Studies (1899). Travels in West Africa was an immediate commercial success and brought her wide public attention, while both works established her reputation among scholars and commentators interested in African societies and colonial policy.

Some newspapers declined to review her work. The Times, under its pro-imperialist editor Flora Shaw, refused to publish a review of Travels in West Africa. Scholars have sometimes attributed this reception to Kingsley's criticism of aspects of missionary activity and colonial policy. However, Kingsley supported the activities of European traders in West Africa and advocated systems of indirect rule, positions that complicate simple interpretations of her views as anti-imperialist.

Travels in West Africa was widely noted for its humour, detailed observation, and lively narrative style. Although often presented as an adventure narrative, Kingsley describes her purpose in more scholarly terms, "My motive for going to West Africa was study; this study was that of native ideas and practices in religion and law." She explains that the project was also intended to complete research begun by her father, whose work had been left unfinished at his death. Kingsley later wrote that her father’s work had seemed to promise "a career of great brilliancy and distinction – a promise which, unfortunately, was never entirely fulfilled".

Reflecting on her approach to writing about the people she encountered, Kingsley emphasises the importance of portraying individuals sympathetically. "It is merely that I have the power of bringing out in my fellow-creatures, white or black, their virtues, in a way honourable to them and fortunate for me."

Kingsley's books combine travel narrative with ethnographic observation and commentary on West African societies, religion, and colonial administration. Through these works she became one of the most widely read European writers on West Africa at the end of the 19th century.

Death

After the outbreak of the Second Boer War, Kingsley travelled to Cape Town on the SS Moor in March 1900 and volunteered as a nurse. She was stationed at Simon's Town hospital, where she treated Boer prisoners of war. After contributing her services to the ill for about two months, she developed symptoms of typhoid and died on 3 June 1900. An eyewitness reported: "She rallied for a short time but realised she was going. She asked to be left to die alone, saying she did not wish anyone to see her in her weakness. Animals she said, went away to die alone."

In accordance with her wishes, she was buried at sea. "This was, I believe, the only favour and distinction that she ever asked for herself; and it was accorded with every circumstance and honour ... A party of West Yorkshires, with band before them, drew the coffin from the hospital on a gun carriage to the pier … Torpedo Boat No. 29 put to sea and, rounding Cape Point, committed her to the element in which she had chosen to be laid." "A touch of comedy, which would 'have amused' Kingsley herself, was added when the coffin refused to sink and had to be hauled back on board then thrown over again weighed down this time with an anchor."

Legacy

Kingsley's tales and opinions of life in Africa helped draw attention to British imperial agendas abroad and the native customs of African people that were previously little discussed but misunderstood by people in Europe. The Fair Commerce Party formed soon after her death, pressuring for improved conditions for the natives of British colonies. The Royal African Society was founded in her memory in 1901. Various reform associations were formed in her honour and helped facilitate governmental change. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine founded an honorary medal in her name. In Sierra Leone, the Mary Kingsley Auditorium at the Institute of African Studies, Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone), was named after her. A BBC radio documentary broadcast on 31 October 1933, presented by Clifford Collinson, commemorates her voyages.

Published works

Books

• Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons, London: Macmillan & Co., 1897
• West African Studies, London: Macmillan & Co., 1899
• The Story of West Africa, London: Horace Marshall & Son, 1899 (The Story of the Empire Series)

Articles

• Travels on the western coast of equatorial Africa. Scottish Geographical Magazine. 12 (3): 113–124. 1896.