Stanley, Henry Morton

Stanley, Henry Morton (b. John Rowlands) (1841–1904) journalist, explorer; born in Denbigh, Wales. After an unhappy youth he came to New Orleans (1859) and received his new name from a merchant who informally adopted him. During the Civil War he served in the Confederate army and then the Union army and navy; after the war he covered Gen. W. S. Hancock's expedition against the Indians (1867) as a correspondent. He also went to the Middle East as a journalist. Sent by Bennett of the New York Herald in 1869 to find the "lost" Scottish missionary, David Livingstone, Stanley found him deep in Africa in 1871 and greeted him with the oft-quoted "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" On his return to England, Stanley's claims were not at first believed but he went back to Africa and explored extensively (1874–77) and published Through the Dark Continent (1878). He helped to organize the Congo Free State (1879–84). After several more expeditions, he went to London and, becoming a British citizen again (1892), was elected to Parliament (1895). His last years were spent in further travel and lecturing, and he died in London.