Henry Morton Stanley Sir Henry Morton Stanley , GCB , born John Rowlands , Kongo byname Bula Matari ( “ Breaker of Rocks ” ) ( 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904 ) , was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of central Africa and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone . Upon finding Livingstone , Stanley allegedly uttered the now - famous greeting , " Dr . Livingstone , I presume ? " Stanley is also known for his discoveries in and development of the Congo region . He was knight ed in 1899 . Early life . Stanley was born in Denbigh , Denbighshire , Wales , when his mother , Elizabeth Parry , was 19 years old . He never knew his father , who died within a few weeks of his birth ; there is some doubt as to his true parentage . His parents were unmarried , so his birth certificate describes him as a bastard and the stigma of illegitimacy weighed heavily upon him all his life . Originally taking his father ' s name of Rowlands , Stanley was brought up by his grandfather until the age of five . When his guardian died , Stanley stayed at first with cousins and nieces for a short time , but was eventually sent to St . Asaph Union Workhouse for the poor , where overcrowding and lack of supervision resulted in frequent abuse by the older boys . It has also been postulated that he was raped by the headmaster of the workhouse in 1847 . When he was ten , his mother and two siblings stayed for a short while in this workhouse , but Stanley did not recognize them until told by the master about their identities . He stayed until the age of 15 . After completing an elementary education , he was employed as a pupil teacher in a National School . Stanley ' s childhood is described in a very romanticized way by the Dutch author Klaas van der Geest ( 1903 – 1964 ) in his boys book De reis rond Kaap Hoorn ( the voyage around Cape Horn ) in 1940 . The story ends before John Rowlands is adopted by Mr Stanley ; the name Stanley does not occur in the book . New country , new name . In 1859 , at the age of 18 , he made his passage to the United States in search of a new life . He embarked in New Orleans and , according to his own declarations , became friendly with a wealthy trader named Henry Hope Stanley , by accident : he saw Stanley sitting on a chair outside his store and asked him if he had any job opening for a person such as himself . He did so in the British style : " Do you want a boy , sir ? " As it happened , the childless man had indeed been wishing he had a boy of his own , and the inquiry led not only to a job , but to a close relationship . The youth ended up taking Stanley ' s name . Later , he would write that his adoptive parent had died only two years after their meeting , but in fact the elder Stanley did not die until much later , in 1878 . In any case , young Stanley assumed a local accent and began to deny being a foreigner . Stanley participated reluctantly in the American Civil War , first joining the Confederate Army and fighting in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 . After being taken prisoner he was recruited at Camp Douglas , Illinois by its commander , Col . James A . Mulligan , as a " Galvanized Yankee " and joined the Union Army on 4 June 1862 , but was discharged 18 days later due to severe illness . Recovering , he served on several merchant ships before joining the Navy in July 1864 . On board the " Minnesota " he became a record keeper , which led to freelance journalism . Stanley and a junior colleague jumped ship on 10 February 1865 in New Hampshire , in search of greater adventures . Stanley thus became possibly the only man to serve in the Confederate Army , the Union Army , and the Union Navy . Journalist . Following the Civil War , Stanley began a career as a journalist . As part of this new career , Stanley organised an expedition to the Ottoman Empire that ended catastrophically when Stanley was imprisoned . He eventually talked his way out of jail and even received restitution for damaged expedition equipment . In 1867 , Stanley was recruited by Colonel Samuel Forster Tappan ( a one - time journalist ) of the Indian Peace Commission , to serve as a correspondent to cover the work of the Commission for several newspapers . Stanley was soon retained exclusively by James Gordon Bennett ( 1795 – 1872 ) , founder of the " New York Herald " , who was impressed by Stanley ' s exploits and by his direct style of writing . He describes this early period of his professional life in Volume I of his book " My Early Travels and Adventures in America and Asia " ( 1895 ) . He became one of the " Herald " ' s overseas correspondents . Finding Livingstone . In 1869 , Stanley was instructed by Bennett ' s son to find the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone , who was known to be in Africa but had not been heard from for some time . According to Stanley ' s account , he asked James Gordon Bennett , Jr . ( 1841 – 1918 ) , who had succeeded to the paper ' s management after his father ' s retirement in 1867 , how much he could spend . The reply was " " Draw £1 , 000 now , and when you have gone through that , draw another £1 , 000 , and when that is spent , draw another £1 , 000 , and when you have finished that , draw another £1 , 000 , and so on — BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE ! " " In actuality , Stanley had lobbied his employer for several years to mount this expedition which presumably would lead to fame and fortune . Stanley travelled to Zanzibar in March 1871 and outfitted an expedition with the best of everything , requiring no fewer than 200 porters . This 700 - mi ( 1100 - km ) expedition through the tropical forest became a nightmare . His thoroughbred stallion died within a few days after a bite from a tsetse fly , many of his carriers deserted , and the rest were decimated by tropical diseases . Some recent authors suggest Stanley ' s treatment of indigenous porters helps to refute his reputation for brutality . However , statements by contemporaries of Stanley , such as Sir Richard Francis Burton , who claimed " Stanley shoots negroes as if they were monkeys " , paint a very different picture . Stanley found Livingstone on 10 November 1871 , in Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika in present - day Tanzania , and may have greeted him with the now - famous , " " This famous phrase may be a fabrication , as Stanley tore out of his diary the pages relating to the encounter . Even Livingstone ' s account of the encounter fails to mention these words . The phrase is quoted in a summary of Stanley ' s letters published by " The New York Times " on 2 July 1872 . However , Tim Jeal argues in his biography that Stanley invented it afterwards because of his " insecurity about his background " . The " Herald " < nowiki > ' < / nowiki > s own first account of the meeting , published 4 July 1872 , also includes the phrase : " Preserving a calmness of exterior before the Arabs which was hard to simulate as he reached the group , Mr . Stanley said : – " Doctor Livingstone , I presume ? " A smile lit up the features of the hale white man as he answered : " Yes , and I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you . " Stanley joined Livingstone in exploring the region , establishing for certain that there was no connection between Lake Tanganyika and the River Nile . On his return , he wrote a book about his experiences : " How I Found Livingstone ; travels , adventures , and discoveries in Central Africa " . Researching the Congo River . In 1874 , the " New York Herald , " in partnership with Britain ' s " Daily Telegraph , " financed Stanley on another expedition to the African continent . One of his missions was to solve a last great mystery of African exploration by tracing the course of the Congo River to the sea . The difficulty of this expedition is hard to overstate . Stanley used sectional boats to pass the great cataracts separating the Congo into distinct tracts . After 999 days , on 9 August 1877 , Stanley reached a Portuguese outpost at the mouth of the Congo River . Starting with 356 people , only 114 had survived the expedition , of whom Stanley was the only European . He wrote about his trials in his book " Through the Dark Continent " . Claiming the Congo for the Belgian king . Stanley was approached by the ambitious Belgian king Leopold II , who in 1876 had organised a private holding company disguised as an international scientific and philanthropic association , which he called the International African Society . The king spoke of his intentions to introduce Western civilization and bring religion to that part of Africa , but did not mention he wanted to claim the lands . At the end of his life , he was embittered by the growing perception that his establishment of a Congo Free State was mitigated by its unscrupulous government ; in his defense for having imposed Christian civilization , it was maintained that Stanley had " only been responsible for the death of six or seven hundred negroes . . . and all these negroes fell as the result of attacking Stanley . " In addition , the spread of sleeping sickness across central Africa is attributed to the movements of Stanley ' s enormous baggage train and the Emin Pasha relief expedition . Emin Pasha Relief Expedition . In 1886 , Stanley led the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition to " rescue " Emin Pasha , the governor of Equatoria in the southern Sudan . King Leopold II demanded that Stanley take the longer route , via the Congo River , hoping to acquire more territory and perhaps even Equatoria . After immense hardships and great loss of life , Stanley met Emin in 1888 , charted the Ruwenzori Range and Lake Edward , and emerged from the interior with Emin and his surviving followers at the end of 1890 . But this expedition tarnished Stanley ' s name because of the conduct of the other Europeans : British gentlemen and army officers . An army major was shot by a carrier , after behaving with extreme cruelty . James Jameson , heir to an Irish whiskey manufacturer , bought an 11 - year - old girl and offered her to cannibals to document and sketch how she was cooked and eaten . Stanley only found out when Jameson had died of fever . Later years . On his return to Europe , he married Welsh artist Dorothy Tennant , and they adopted a child , Denzil , who in 1954 , donated some 300 items to the Stanley archives at the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren , Belgium . Denzil died in 1959 . Stanley entered Parliament as Liberal Unionist member for Lambeth North , serving from 1895 to 1900 . He became Sir Henry Morton Stanley when he was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1899 , in recognition of his service to the British Empire in Africa . He died in London on 10 May 1904 ; at his funeral , he was eulogised by Daniel P . Virmar . His grave , in the churchyard of St . Michael ' s Church in Pirbright , Surrey , is marked by a large piece of granite inscribed with the words " Henry Morton Stanley , Bula Matari , 1841 – 1904 , Africa " . Bula Matari , which translates as " Breaker of Rocks " or " Breakstones " in Kongo , was Stanley ' s name among locals in Congo . It can be translated as a term of endearment : for as the leader of Leopold ' s expedition , he commonly worked with the labourers breaking rocks with which they built the first modern road along the Congo River . It can also be translated in far less flattering terms ; Adam Hochschild suggested , while Stanley understood it as an heroic epithet , his Congolese companions understood it in a mocking and pejorative tone . Stanley wrote , in " Through the Dark Continent " , that " the savage only respects force , power , boldness , and decision . " His legacy of death and destruction in the Congo region is considered an inspiration for Joseph Conrad ' s " Heart of Darkness . " Modern culture . In 1939 , a popular film called " Stanley and Livingstone " was released , with Spencer Tracy as Stanley and Cedric Hardwicke as Livingstone . Stanley appears as a character in Simon Gray ' s 1978 play " The Rear Column " , which tells the story of the men left behind to wait for Tippu Tib while Stanley went on to relieve Emin Pasha . An NES game based on his life was released in 1992 called " " . In 1997 , a made - for - television film , " Forbidden Territory : Stanley ' s Search for Livingstone " , was produced by National Geographic . Stanley was portrayed by Aidan Quinn and Livingstone was portrayed by Nigel Hawthorne . Stanley Electric Co . , Ltd . of Japan , uses Stanley ' s family name in honour of his discoveries " that have brought light into many spots of the world undiscovered and hitherto unknown to mankind " . The company produces light - emitting diodes , liquid - crystal displays , and lamps . His great grandson , Richard Stanley , is a South African filmmaker and directs documentaries . A hospital in St . Asaph , north Wales , is named after Stanley in honour of his birth in the area . It was the former workhouse in which he spent much of his early life . Memorials to H M Stanley have recently been erected in St Asaph ( which has caused local controversy for being phallic - shaped ) and in Denbigh ( a statue of H M Stanley with an outstretched hand ) . In 1971 , the BBC produced a six - part dramatised documentary series , " Search for the Nile " . Much of the series was shot on location , with Stanley played by Keith Buckley . The 2009 History Channel series , " Expedition Africa " , documents a group of explorers attempting to traverse the route of Stanley ' s expedition in search of Livingstone . Taxa named in honour . Taxa named in honour of Henry Morton Stanley include :