Social website about Dr. David Livingstone

150-year legacy

Legacy of the eminent explorer, abolitionist and missionary,
Dr. David Livingstone

Dr David Livingstone is perhaps the most famous explorer of the Victorian period.
During his three expeditions to uncharted territories of Africa, David Livingstone made outstanding geographical discoveries which have broadened the scientific knowledge of the continent.
His fundamental belief in human equality was a crucial essor for the slavery abolitionist movement. Through centuries David Livingstone remains the well respected man among Africans.

As a whole, the work of his life will surely be held up in ages to come as one of singular nobleness of design and of unflinching energy and self-sacrifice in execution.

— Sir Bartle Frere, president of the Royal Geographical Society

Slavery abolitionist

Despite living for the majority of his life far from centres of power, Dr. D. Livingstone was one of the most influential figures of his times. Throughout his African Explorations Livingstone was persistent in his advocacy against slave-trade which he hoped to eradicate through evangelization and legitimate commerce.
Livingstone wrote broad letters to England to show the British public all the atrocities of slavery. His witnessing 1873 Nyangwe massacre became the point-of-no-return for the abolitionist movement.
In 1873, in the treaty with the Sultan of Zanzibar formally abolished the East African slave trade.

Victoria Falls

Dr. David Livingstone was the first European to see the Victoria Falls. Although it was known to some western geographers even earlier, it was Livingstone who drew the world's attention to this magnificent natural wonder.
The explorer was deliberately moderate in his estimates but even so the figures astonished his contemporaries: the Falls span 1.708 meters and drop up to 108 meters.

"The most wonderful site I had witnessed in Africa", Livingstone referred to the Victoria Falls in 1857.
In 1934 bronze statue of David Livingstone overlooking the western bank of the VIctoria Falls was erected.

African exploration work of Dr. David Livingstone culminated 150 years ago. Myriads of changes and upheavals separate us from this 1873 year. Myriads of things have passed.
But the everlasting legacy of the man who has devoted his life to the Dark Continent to shed light on it and to bring the Light to people who inhabit it continues to live. And to inspire further generations by an unexampled curiosity, resilience and humanism.