DIXON DENHAM,

HUGH CLAPPERTON,

AND DR. WALTER OUDNEY

Henry Thoreau said he “traveled far in Concord.” Here we witnesshim traveling into the white spaces on the map of Africa andviewing there some of the original sources of black enslavement.

DR. WALTER OUDNEY

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January 1: A petition for a canal from the head of the New Meadows River into Merrymeeting Bay was signed by 98 citizens of Brunswick and Bath, Maine.

Dixon Denham was born in London. He would be educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and articled to a solicitor, but would then enlist in the British army.

May 18: Hugh Clapperton was born at Annan, Dumfriesshire, son of a surgeon.

Walter Oudney was born.

When he reached the age of thirteen, Hugh Clapperton became an apprentice aboard a vessel which traded between Liverpool and the ports of North America. After several Atlantic voyages he was impressed into the British Navy. This being the period of the Napoleonic wars, he would soon become a midshipman.

November: At the storming of Port Louis, Mauritius, Midshipman Hugh Clapperton was 1st in the breach, and was seen to seize and haul down the French flag.

Dixon Denham joined the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Later he would serve in the 54th Foot. He would participate in campaigns in Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium and be a recipient of the Waterloo medal.

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Midshipman Hugh Clapperton was sent to Canada, where he was promoted to Lieutenant and put in command of a schooner on the Canadian lakes.

With the cessation of hostilities and the dismantlement of the British flotilla on the Canadian lakes, Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton was sent home on half-pay.

Walter Oudney was awarded a medical doctorate at Edinburgh, Scotland. After a few years he would be appointed by the British government as consul for promotion of trade to the Kingdom of Bornu in sub-Saharan Africa.

Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton moved to Edinburgh, and there met Dr. Walter Oudney.

Dixon Denham volunteered to accompany Dr. Walter Oudney and Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton on a government expedition via Tripoli to the central Sudan, joining the group while it was at Murzuk in Fezzan. When an escort force promised by the pasha of Tripoli did not appear, Denham headed back toward England to make a report of this. He was intercepted at Marseilles by messengers from the pasha, who pledged that the promises would be kept and persuaded him to return.

An expedition led by Lieutenant G.F. Lyon having failed to reach Bornu from Tripoli, the Colonial Secretary, Lord Bathurst, determined to make a 2d attempt, selected Dr. Walter Oudney to proceed to Bornu as consul and detailed Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton and Dixon Denham to travel with him. The Bey of Tripoli had offered to provide an escort for any British traveler, anywhere in his dominions. This was to be a journey from Tripoli through the Fezzan territory and across the Sahara to the kingdom of Bornu west of Lake Chad. Its instructions were to seek to ascertain the course of the Niger River and if possible reach Timbuktu.1

Early in the year this expedition set out southward from Tripoli to Murzuk (Murzuq).

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1. Its instructions definitely were not “Seek out the sources of African enslavement.”

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April: Arriving at Murzuk (Murzuq), Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton and Dr. Walter Oudney were able to visit the Ghat oasis but were generally delayed for months by the local ruler.

November: The government expedition of Dr. Walter Oudney, Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton, and Dixon Denham was finally permitted to set out from Murzuk (Murzuq) in Fezzan, across the Sahara toward Bornu.

February 4: Lake Chad was for the first time sighted by Europeans, Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton and Dr. Walter Oudney.

February 17: The British government expedition of Dr. Walter Oudney, Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton, and Dixon Denham completed its desert journey by arriving at Kuka (Kouka), the capital of Bornu. This made them the 1st Europeans to accomplish a north/south crossing of the Sahara. The sultan at their destination granted them an audience and welcomed them. Subsequently, Denham would abandon Oudney and Clapperton in order to participate in a slave-raiding expedition into the Mandara highlands south of Bornu, but in the defeat of this expedition he would come close to losing his life.

December 14: Dr. Walter Oudney and Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton set out in a westerly direction for the Hausa states, to explore the course of the Niger River. Dixon Denham would explore the vicinity of Lake Chad and the lower courses of the Waube, Logone, and Shari rivers and participated in several Bornuese military raids on neighboring tribes.

1823

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January: Walter Oudney fell victim to a tropical fever and died in the village of Murmur near Katagum on the road to Kano (in his memory a botanical genus of the family Brassicaceae would be designated “Oudneya”).

Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton continued his journey alone through Kano to the capital of the Fula Empire, Sokoto (Sackatoo), where Sultan Bello, wary of British attempts to interfere with his slave trade, decreed that he stop despite the fact that he could have reached the Niger River in only five more days travel to the west. He would return by way of Zaria and Katsina and again join up with the wayward Dixon Denham, at Kuka (Kouka).

1824

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August: Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton and Dixon Denham began their return journey from a region of internal Africa in which fresh slaves were constantly being captured in raids into surrounding territories by the local governments, to Tripoli and England to make their report.

A negrero flying the Spanish flag (as shown below), the Feliciana, master Anlet, J., on its one and only known Middle Passage, arrived at its destination, Havana, Cuba.

January 26: Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton and Dixon Denham reached Tripoli on their way home toward England.

1825

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

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June: Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton and Dixon Denham arrived back in London by way of Florence and the Alps. Altogether they had been able to make clear from their travels merely that the Niger River neither flowed into Lake Chad nor contributed to the Nile River.

Things had reached such a pretty pass in England, that the House of Commons was debating whether a citizen could legitimately refuse to accept the government’s paper banknotes with pretty printed images on them in full payment for an obligation at face value, and demand instead to be paid in gold coins with pretty embossed images on them.

It is clear in this history that the British people actually were vastly more intrigued by their local concerns, than they would be with such firsthand reports of conditions at the “far” or “beginning” end of the international slave trade. Fancy that!

A negrero flying the Spanish flag (as shown below), the Dorotea, master Gardullo, J., on its one and only known Middle Passage, delivering a cargo of 352 enslaved Africans, arrived at a port of Cuba.

December 7: On a 2d expedition into Africa after being promoted, Commander Hugh Clapperton landed at Badagry in the Bight of Benin and started overland for the Niger River. With him were a servant, Richard Lemon Lander, a Captain Pearce, and a navy surgeon and naturalist, Dr. Morrison. Before the month was out both Pearce and Morrison would succumb to fever. Clapperton and his servant would continue.

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With the preparation of the 2-volume NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS AND DISCOVERIES IN NORTHERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA, IN THE YEARS 1822, 1823, AND 1824, BY MAJOR DENHAM, F.R.S., CAPTAIN CLAPPERTON, AND THE LATE DOCTOR OUDNEY, EXTENDED ACROSS THE GREAT DESERT TO THE TENTH DEGREE OF NORTHERN LATITUDE, AND FROM KOUKA IN BORNOU, TO SACKATOO, THE CAPITAL OF THE FELATAH EMPIRE describing the African exploits of Dr. Walter Oudney, Captain Hugh Clapperton, and Major Dixon Denham, Captain Clapperton was promoted to the rank of Commander. Because Sultan Bello of Sokoto had professed to be eager to open up trade with the west coast of Africa, he was sent on another expedition to Africa.

Major Denham sat for a portrait (on a following screen).

January: Passing through the Yoruba country, Commander Hugh Clapperton and the servant Richard Lemon Lander crossed the Niger River at Bussa (the point at which, some two decades earlier, Mungo Park had drowned).

July: Commander Hugh Clapperton and Richard Lemon Lander arrived at Kano. From there they would go to Sokoto, intending to go on to Bornu. The sultan would not permit this and Clapperton would die near Sokoto of dysentery without getting any farther (the servant would carry out his journal, for later publication).

1826

WALDEN: What does Africa, –what does the West stand for? Is not our owninterior white on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast,when discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or theMississippi, or a North-West Passage around this continent, that we wouldfind? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin theonly man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? DoesMr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewisand Clarke and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore yourown higher latitudes, –with shiploads of preserved meats to support you,if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Werepreserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be a Columbus towhole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not oftrade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which theearthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by theice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrificethe greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, buthave no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay.Patriotism is a maggot in their heads. What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirectrecognition of the fact, that there are continents and seas in the moralworld, to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored byhim, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold andstorm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boysto assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic andPacific Ocean of one’s being alone.–

“Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos.Plus habet hic vitæ, plus habet ille viæ.”Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians.I have more of God, they more of the road.

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EN

Copyright ©2009 Austin Meredith

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December: Major Dixon Denham received a promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel and sailed for Sierra Leone as “superintendent of liberated Africans.” –Great move, guy, go direct from participating in an enslaving expedition to participation in an emancipation expedition!

April 13: Hugh Clapperton died near Sokoto of dysentery without having been allowed to get any farther into the interior (the servant Richard Lemon Lander would carry out his journal, for later publication).

Lieutenant-Colonel Dixon Denham was appointed Governor of Sierra Leone.

May 8: Henri Dunant was born.

Dixon Denham died of fever at Freetown in Sierra Leone.

Commander Hugh Clapperton’s JOURNAL OF A SECOND EXPEDITION INTO THE INTERIOR OF AFRICA, &C., with as preface a biographical sketch by a relative, Lieutenant-Colonel S. Clapperton (after his death due to dysentery, this journal had been carried out of Africa by his servant Richard Lemon Lander).

Richard Lemon Lander’s RECORDS OF CAPTAIN CLAPPERTON’S LAST EXPEDITION TO AFRICA ... WITH THE SUBSEQUENT ADVENTURES OF THE AUTHOR (2 volumes, London).

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INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE

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April 23: David Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, the 1st volume of the Reverend Vicesimus Knox’s ELEGANT EXTRACTS: OR, USEFUL AND ENTERTAINING PIECES OF POETRY, SELECTED FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF YOUNG PERSONS: BEING SIMILAR IN DESIGN TO ELEGANT EXTRACTS IN PROSE (London: C. Robinson; Weybridge: S. Hamilton, 1809).2

He also checked out Volume I of Major Dixon Denham’s and Captain Hugh Clapperton’s NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS AND DISCOVERIES IN NORTHERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA, IN THE YEARS 1822, 1823, AND 1824, BY MAJOR DENHAM, F.R.S., CAPTAIN CLAPPERTON, AND THE LATE DOCTOR OUDNEY, EXTENDED ACROSS THE GREAT DESERT TO THE TENTH DEGREE OF NORTHERN LATITUDE, AND FROM KOUKA IN BORNOU, TO SACKATOO, THE CAPITAL OF THE FELATAH EMPIRE (Second Edition, in two volumes. London: John Murray, Albemarle-street. MDCCCXXVI).

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2. As always, a caveat: There were many editions of some of these works which Thoreau consulted, and since I do not presently know which edition it was that he consulted, I have tried to standardize by listing the edition and year in which the material had first become available.

DENHAM/CLAPPERTON, IDENHAM/CLAPPERTON, II

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Heinrich Barth’s TRAVELS AND DISCOVERIES IN NORTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA. FROM THE JOURNAL OF AN EXPEDITION UNDERTAKEN UNDER THE AUSPICES OF H.B.M.’S GOVERNMENT IN THE YEARS 1849-1855 ... AND A SKETCH OF DENHAM AND CLAPPERTON’S EXPEDITION, BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR (3 volumes, Philadelphia: J.W. Bradley). When this edition arrived at Stacy’s Circulating Library in Concord, Thoreau would make notes on it in his Indian Notebook #12.

(Unfortunately, electronic text of this particular edition has not yet been made available, and therefore the text I need to show you is the one issued in 1857/1858 in New-York.)

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HEINRICH BARTH IHEINRICH BARTH IIHEINRICH BARTH III

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright © 2009. Access to these interim materialswill eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoupsome of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at kouroo@brown.edu.

Prepared: November 3, 2009

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

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ARRGH: THE AUTOMATED RESEARCH

REPORT GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, upon someone’s request wehave pulled it out of the hat of a pirate that has grown out ofthe shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (depicted above). Whatthese chronological lists are: they are research reportscompiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of data moduleswhich we term the Kouroo Contexture. This is data mining.To respond to such a request for information, we merely push abutton.

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Commonly, the first output of the program has obviousdeficiencies and so we need to go back into the data modulesstored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, andthen we need to punch that button again and do a recompile ofthe chronology — but there is nothing here that remotelyresembles the ordinary “writerly” process which you know andlove. As the contents of this originating contexture improve,and as the programming improves, and as funding becomesavailable (to date no funding whatever has been needed in thecreation of this facility, the entire operation being run outof pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweakingand recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation ofa generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward andupward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place your requests with kouroo@brown.edu.Arrgh.

Copyright ©2009 Austin Meredith