VI.

Evaluation

If Stanley was among the most ruthless and driven of Europe’s African explorers, he also was among the most accomplished. Much of what the Western world came to know about Central Africa, including the drainage of its lakes and rivers, was derived from Stanley’s explorations. Moreover, he was one of the central figures in events leading to the Scramble for Africa. His call for the Christianizing of Africans and for the development of commerce with the interior echoed the call Livingstone had made a decade earlier and spurred on Europeans to settle African territory. When Stanley died in 1904 virtually all of Africa was in European hands.