page_title: Heinrich Barth
section_title: Expedition to the Sudan, the Sahara and Western Africa
hierarchical_section_title: Heinrich Barth / Expedition to the Sudan, the Sahara and Western Africa
caption_attribution_description: “Timbuktu, das Haus in dem Heinrich Barth wohnte, vor dem Einsturz” - from Expeditionsbericht der Zweiten Deutschen Inner-Afrika-Expedition (1907-09) Auf dem Wege nach Atlantis. between p. 208 and 209
context_page_description: Johann Heinrich Barth was a German explorer of Africa and scholar.
  Barth is thought to be one of the greatest of the European explorers of Africa, as his scholarly preparation, ability to speak and write Arabic, learning African languages, and character meant that he carefully documented the details of the cultures he visited. He was among the first to comprehend the uses of oral history of peoples, and collected many. He established friendships with African rulers and scholars during his five years of travel. After the deaths of two European companions, he completed his travels with the aid of Africans. Afterwards, he wrote and published a five-volume account of his travels in both English and German. It has been invaluable for scholars of his time and since.
context_section_description: Christian Bunsen, the Prussian ambassador to Westminster, encouraged the appointment of scholars, including Barth and Adolf Overweg, a Prussian astronomer, to the expedition of James Richardson, an explorer of the Sahara.  He had been selected by the British government to open up commercial relations with the states of the central and western Sudan. The party left Marseilles in late 1849, and departed from Tripoli early in 1850.  They crossed the Sahara Desert with great difficulty. He arrived in the city of Agadez in October 1850 where he stayed for several days.  Today a memorial tablet honours him as the first European to have ever entered the city. 
  The deaths of Richardson (March 1851) and Overweg (September 1852), who died of unknown diseases, left Barth to carry on the scientific mission alone. Barth was the first European to visit Adamawa in 1851. When he returned to Tripoli in September 1855, his journey had extended over 24° of latitude and 20° of longitude, from Tripoli in the north to Adamawa and Cameroon in the south, and from Lake Chad and Bagirmi in the east to Timbuktu (September 1853) in the west — upward of 12,000 miles (19,000 km). He studied minutely the topography, history, civilizations, languages, and resources of the countries he visited.  His success as an explorer and historian of Africa was based both on his patient character and his scholarly education.
  Barth was interested in the history and culture of the African peoples, rather than the possibilities of commercial exploitation.  Due to his level of documentation, his journal has become an invaluable source for the study of 19th-century Sudanic Africa. Although Barth was not the first European visitor who paid attention to the local oral traditions, he was the first who seriously considered its methodology and use for historical research. Barth was the first true scholar to travel and study in West Africa. Earlier explorers such as René Caillié, Dixon Denham and Hugh Clapperton had no academic knowledge.
  Barth was fluent in Arabic and several African languages (Fulani, Hausa and Kanuri) and was able to investigate the history of some regions, particularly the Songhay Empire. He established close relations with a number of African scholars and rulers, from Umar I ibn Muhammad al-Amin in Bornu, through the Katsina and Sokoto regions to Timbuktu.  There his friendship with Ahmad al-Bakkai al-Kunti led to his staying in his house; he also received protection from al-Kunti against an attempt to seize him.
  After his return to London Barth wrote and published accounts of his travels simultaneously in English and German, under the title Reisen und Entdeckungen in Nord- und Centralafrika (Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa; 1857–1858, 5 volumes., approx. 3,500 pages). The volumes included coloured plates of pictures produced by Martin Bernatz based on Barth's original sketches. The work was considered one of the finest of its kind, being cited by Darwin. It is still used by historians of Africa, and remains an important scientific work on African cultures of the age.  It also provided the first evidence by a European that the Sahara had once been a savanna.
caption: Heinrich Barth's house in Timbuktu (in 1908 before its collapse)
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