From Heroic Exploration to Careful Control: Mobility, Health, and Medicine in the British African Empire

Abstract

Nineteenth-century explorers epitomised, in their public image, heroic, energetic, and enduring Victorian masculinity. The demands of mobility in challenging conditions and facing high risks to health were central to this image. This was particularly the case in tropical Africa. Among many mid- to late Victorians there was a common idea that keeping active and on the move in tropical conditions was healthy and that conversely immobility or slowness could be perilous. However, as the exploration of the African interior gave way to conquest and colonisation, ideas advocated for controlled, disciplined, and careful mobility gained ground. Although the image of the enduring, risk-taking mobile explorer persisted, it gradually gave way to depictions of more careful, controlled colonisers. Markku Hokkanen’s chapter analyses the changing relations between mobility, health and medicine in the contexts of British exploration and early settlement in tropical Africa in images, theories, and practices. Authors studied include David Livingstone, Horace Waller, and John Buchanan on South-Central Africa, and Mary Kingsley on West Africa.