Gustav Nachtigal
Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Infobox person Gustav Nachtigal ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; born 23 February 1834 – 20 April 1885) was a German military surgeon and explorer of Central and West Africa. He is further known as the German Empire's consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His mission as commissioner resulted in Togoland and Kamerun becoming the first colonies of a German colonial empire.<ref name="38-1884">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Gustav-Nachtigal-Medal, awarded by the Berlin Geographical Society, is named after him.
Life and travelsEdit
Gustav Nachtigal, the son of a Lutheran pastor, was born at Eichstedt in the Prussian province of Saxony-Anhalt.<ref name="WDL">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His father died of Phthisis pulmonum in 1839.<ref>Karl Wüllenweber: Gustav Nachtigal</ref> After medical studies at the universities of Halle, Würzburg and Greifswald, he practised for several years as a military surgeon.Template:Sfn He worked in Cologne, Germany.<ref name="WDL"/> Nachtigal contracted a lung disease and relocated to Annaba in Algeria in October, 1862.<ref name="WDL"/> He travelled to Tunis in 1863, where he studied Arabic, and took part as surgeon in several expeditions into Central Africa<ref name="WDL"/> between 1869 and 1875.<ref name="WDL"/>
He returned to Germany and met Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs. Rohlfs asked him to go to the Bornu Empire.<ref name="WDL"/> He then would be commissioned by King Wilhelm I of Prussia to carry gifts to Umar of Borno, sheik of the Bornu Empire, in acknowledgment of kindness shown to German travellers, such as Heinrich Barth.<ref name="WDL"/> Nachtigal set out in 1869 from Ottoman Tripoli and accomplished his mission after a two years' journey. During this period, he visited Tibesti and Borku, regions of the central Sahara not previously known to Europeans,Template:Sfn and reached the region of the Toubou people.<ref name="scihi"/> He travelled with eight camels and six men.<ref name="WDL"/>
From Bornu he travelled to Baguirmi, an independent state to the southeast of Bornu. From there, he proceeded to Wadai (a powerful Muslim kingdom to the northeast of Baguirmi) and to Kordofan (a former province of central Sudan). Nachtigal finally emerged from his journey through the Sahel at Khartoum (then the centre of Turkish-Egyptian Sudan) in the winter of 1874, after having been given up as lost. His journey, described in his Sahara and Sudan, earned him a reputation as a discoverer.<ref name="Sahara and Sudan">Template:Cite book</ref> In 1882, he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
After the establishment of a French protectorate over Tunisia, Nachtigal was sent as consul-general for the German Empire and remained there until 1884.Template:Sfn Thereafter, he was appointed by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck as special commissioner for West Africa.<ref name="38-1884"/> Local German business interests in that region began advocating for protection by the German Empire, after they had acquired huge properties in West Africa. Nachtigal’s task was to establish a claim for Germany, before the British could advance their own interests — and Togoland and Kamerun became Germany’s first colonial possessions. On his return, he died at sea aboard the gunboat Template:SMS off Cape Palmas on 20 April 1885 and was initially interred at Grand Bassam. In 1888 Nachtigal’s remains were exhumed and reburied in a ceremonial grave in Duala in front of the Kamerun colonial government building.
LegacyEdit
Along with Heinrich Barth, Nachtigal has been regarded as the other important German explorer of Africa.<ref name="WDL"/> Like Barth, Nachtigal was primarily interested in ethnography, and additionally in tropical medicine. His works stand out because of their wealth of details and because of his unbiased views of Africans. In contrast to most contemporary explorers, Nachtigal did not regard Africans as inferior to Europeans, as is reflected in his descriptions and choice of words.<ref name="scihi">Template:Cite news</ref>
He had witnessed slave hunts performed by African rulers and the cruelties inflicted by them upon other Africans.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The horror that he felt about these atrocities made him enter colonial endeavours, because he believed that European domination of the African continent might stop slave-hunting and slave ownership.<ref name="scihi"/>
In 2022, "Nachtigalplatz" (Nachtigal Square) in Berlin was renamed "Manga-Bell-Platz", in honor of Duala king and resistance leader Rudolf Duala Manga Bell.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
WorksEdit
Original Publication
- Saharâ und Sûdân. 2 volumes, Berlin 1879-81, volume 3 published by E. Groddeck, Leipzig 1889.<ref name="Originalbook">Template:Cite book</ref>
English Translation
- Sahara and Sudan. volume I: Fezzan and Tibesti; volume II: Kawar, Bornu, Kanem, Borku, Ennedi; volume III: The Chad Basin and Bagirmi; volume IV: Wadai and Darfur. Translated from the original German with an Introduction and Notes by Allan G. B. Fisher and H. J. Fisher. London — New York — Berkeley - 1971-1987.<ref name="Sahara and Sudan" />
See alsoEdit
- Mimi of Nachtigal, an extinct language of Chad
ReferencesEdit
FootnotesEdit
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SourcesEdit
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- Gustav Nachtigal — ein deutscher Forscher und Afrika (Manuscript of speech held at the Togo Exhibition at Düsseldorf 1986). Peter Kremer. Template:In lang
- Die Forschungsreisenden, Cornelius Trebbin & Peter Kremer, Die Tuareg. Düsseldorf 1985. Template:In lang
External linksEdit
Template:Governors of German South West Africa Template:TogolandGovs Template:Authority control