The Death of Mungo Park

The doubt and controversy which still surround the manner of Mungo Park's death at Bussa in 1806 spring largely from the wide division in contemporary African opinion. Confusion of thought was inevitable from the start. But the con? tinued persistence of conflicting theories of what happened in those terrible rapids springs chiefly from historians studying the tragedy as an isolated incident unrelated to the rest of the story of Park's voyage down the Niger. If the established circum? stances of his death be studied in the wider context of how he behaved, and how the people of the country reacted to his behaviour, all the way down stream from Sansanding, the field of doubt becomes much narrower and at least one popular theory becomes untenable

Geography · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories