Zambezi & Central African Exploration

From the late 1850s British explorers, missionaries and commercial parties travelled along the Zambezi and into the interior of south-central Africa. Their stated aims included geographical knowledge, Christianity, trade and the suppression of slavery.

Expeditions depended upon African guides, porters, rulers and trading networks and were shaped by disease, river conditions and conflict. Their reports also encouraged later imperial intervention and commercial claims.

This context supports fiction set around Zambezi exploration, missionary journeys and anti-slavery expeditions between the late 1850s and early 1870s.