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Mungo Park (10 September 1771 – 1806) was a Scottish explorer of West Africa. After an exploration of the upper Niger River around 1796, he wrote a popular and influential travel book titled Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa in which he theorized the Niger and Congo merged to become the same river, though it was later proven that they are different rivers. He was killed during a second expedition, having successfully travelled about two-thirds of the way down the Niger.
If the African Association was the "beginning of the age of African exploration" by Europeans, then Mungo Park was its first successful explorer; he set a standard for all who followed. Park was the first Westerner to have recorded travels in the central portion of the Niger, and through his popular book introduced the European public to a vast unexplored continent which influenced future European explorers and colonial ambitions in Africa.
Early life
Mungo Park was born 10 September 1771 in Selkirkshire, Scotland, at Foulshiels on the Yarrow Water, near Selkirk, on a tenant farm which his father, Mungo Park (1714–1793), rented from the Duke of Buccleuch. He was the seventh in a family of thirteen. Although tenant farmers, the Parks were relatively well-off. They were able to pay for Park to receive a good education, and Park's father died leaving property valued at £3,000 (). His parents had originally intended him for a ministry in the Church of Scotland.
He was educated at home before attending Selkirk grammar school. At the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to Thomas Anderson, a surgeon in Selkirk. During his apprenticeship, Park became friends with Anderson's son Alexander and was introduced to Anderson's daughter Allison, who would later become his wife.
In October 1788, Park enrolled at the University of Edinburgh, attending for four sessions studying medicine and botany. Notably, during his time at university, he spent a year in the natural history course taught by Professor John Walker. After completing his studies, he spent a summer in the Scottish Highlands, engaged in botanical fieldwork with his brother-in-law, James Dickson, a gardener and seed merchant in Covent Garden. In 1788 Dickson along with Sir James Edward Smith and six other fellows founded the Linnean Society of London.
In 1792, Park completed his medical studies at University of Edinburgh. Through a recommendation by Joseph Banks he obtained the post of surgeon's mate on board the East India Company's ship . In February 1793 the Worcester sailed to Benkulen in Sumatra. Before departing, Park wrote to his friend Alexander Anderson in terms that reflect his Calvinist upbringing:
On his return in 1794, Park gave a lecture to the Linnaean Society, describing eight new Sumatran fish. The paper was not published until three years later. He also presented Banks with various rare Sumatran plants.
Travels into the interior of Africa
First journey
thumb|right|300px|View of Kamalia in [[Mandinka people|Mandingo country, Africa, from: Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa]]
thumb|right|300px|Park was one of the first European explorers of Central Africa, and was one of the first explorers mentioned in Reisen in Central-Afrika – von Mungo Park bis auf [[Heinrich Barth|Dr. Barth u. Dr. Vogel (1859) (Travels in Central-Africa – from Mungo Park to Dr. Barth and Dr. Vogel)]]
On 26 September 1794, Mungo Park offered his services to the African Association, then looking for a successor to Major Daniel Houghton, who had been sent in 1790 to discover the course of the Niger River and had died in the Sahara. Supported by Sir Joseph Banks, Park was selected.
On 22 May 1795, Park left Portsmouth, England, on the brig Endeavour, a vessel travelling to Gambia to trade for beeswax and ivory.
On 21 June 1795, he reached the Gambia River and ascended it to a British trading station named Pisania. On 2 December, accompanied by two local guides, he started for the unknown interior. He chose the route crossing the upper Senegal basin and through the semi-desert region of Kaarta. The journey was full of difficulties, and at Ludamar he was imprisoned by a Moorish chief for four months. On 1 July 1796, he escaped, alone and with nothing but his horse and a pocket compass, and on the 21st reached the long-sought Niger River at Ségou, being the first European to do so. He followed the river downstream to Silla, where he was obliged to turn back, lacking the resources to go further. Moreover, while traveling within Niger, many local inhabitants of the region would consistently think that he was himself a Moor, rather than European.
On his return journey, begun on 29 July, he took a route more to the south than that originally followed, keeping close to the Niger River as far as Bamako, thus tracing its course for some . At Kamalia he fell ill, and owed his life to the kindness of a man in whose house he lived for seven months. Eventually he reached Pisania again on 10 June 1797. Unable to book passage directly to England from Bathurst, he boarded a slave ship bound for Charleston. Having learned the Mandinka language during his travels, he served as doctor to the slaves, many of whom died en route. The ship was eventually forced to dock in Antigua, from which he returned to Scotland on 22 December. He had been thought dead, and his return home with news of his exploration of the Niger River evoked great public enthusiasm. An account of his journey was drawn up for the African Association by Bryan Edwards, and his own detailed narrative appeared in 1799 (Travels in the Interior of Africa).
Park was convinced that:
Park encountered a group of slaves when travelling through Mandinka country in or near modern-day Mali:
His book Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa became a best-seller because it detailed what he observed, what he survived, and the people he encountered. His dispassionate — if not scientific or objective — descriptions set a standard for future travel writers and gave Europeans a glimpse of Africa's humanity and complexity. Park introduced them to a vast continent unexplored by Europeans. If the African Association was the "beginning of the age of African exploration" then Mungo Park, its first successful explorer, set a standard for all who followed. After his death, European public and political interest in Africa grew. Perhaps the most lasting effect of Park's travels, though, was the influence on European colonial ambitions during the 19th century.
Mountains of Kong
Mungo Park is credited with the original report of the Mountains of Kong, a mountain range rumoured to be located in West Africa, beginning near the source of the Niger River and spanning the African continent from east to west. Geographer and cartographer James Rennell later published maps portraying the supposed mountain range. After decades of debate over range's existence, French officer and explorer Louis-Gustave Binger officially reported after his 1887-88 expedition that the Mountains of Kong did not exist.
Memorial
A life-size statue was erected to Park on the High Street in Selkirk in 1859. The monument was sculpted by Andrew Currie. In 1905 the monument had bronze figures added on the corners and two bas-relief panels, all by Thomas J. Clapperton.
In media
Circa 1836, Richard Adams Locke (author of the Great Moon Hoax) composed a fictional Lost Manuscript of Mungo Park, in which Park explores the interior of the hollow Earth.
Mungo Park is mentioned in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick (Chapter 5: Breakfast), and several times, parodically, in Ernest Hemingway's short story "A Natural History of the Dead".
The protagonist of the 1966 children's book Chike and the River by Chinua Achebe states that he feels "as proud as Mungo Park" at the sight of the Niger River.
Mungo Park appears as one of the two protagonists in T. C. Boyle's 1981 historical novel Water Music.
Tom Fremantle's 2005 travelogue The Road to Timbuktu: Down the Niger on the Trail of Mungo Park details Mungo Park's biography and retraces his travels.
English singer Ben Onono mentions Mungo Park in his song "Badagry Beach".
Nigerian singer Burna Boy mentions Park in his song "Monsters You Made" on the 2020 album Twice as Tall.
Works
Taxon described by him
- See :Category:Taxa named by Mungo Park
See also
- Physician writer
Notes
References
Sources
- The Annals notes that Isaaco's account was "written originally in Arabic, from which it was translated into Joliffe [?], thence to French, and from French into English". The footnote ends: It appears to have been very badly translated, and is in many parts scarcely intelligible".