The History and Facts About David Livingstone

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David Livingstone was the Scottish missionary and physician who explored the South and Central Africa. He was born in Blantyre, Scotland, to religious, working-class parents. At the age of ten, he began to work with the local cotton mill while he studied in his spare time. In 1836, he entered Anderson’s College (now the University of Strathclyde) in Glasgow to read theology and medicine. In 1838 the London Missionary Society accepted him as a candidate, and two years later he received a medical degree from the University of Glasgow. He was to go to China as a medical missionary but was interrupted by the Opium War of 1839 – 1842 between Britain and China. When his trip to China failed, the missionary society arranged a new placement for him in southern Africa.

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Livingstone’s explorations added greatly to Europe’s knowledge of the continent of Africa, increased Christian missionary activities and helped to bring about the Scramble for Africa, in which European powers seized virtually all of Africa in the late 19th century and early 20th century. At 27, Livingstone arrived at Cape Town and proceeded to the missionary society’s station in Kuruman, on the southern fringes of the Kalahari Desert, and there he met with fellow Scottish missionary Robert Moffat. His zeal to convert the natives to Christianity took him northwards to Mabotsa on the headwaters of the Limpopo River where he built his first station. He married Mary Moffat, one of Robert Moffat’s daughters whom he had met at Kuruman.

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