Julian Monroe Fisher

Anthropologist and modern day African explorer Julian Monroe Fisher announces a five year - nine expeditions - Ethnographical research project deep in the heart of Africa. Entitled, ‘The Great African Expedition’, Fisher will conduct a 21st century Ethnographical documentation of specific regions of Africa related to the 19th century Victorian age of exploration. The project will follow the African expeditionary routes of the famed Victorian explorers to include Baker, Baumann, Speke, Grant, Burton, de Brazza, Wissman, Park, Cameron, Stanley and Livingstone. For the journeys Fisher will implore the use of dugout canoes, camels, donkeys, horses, feluccas, ferry boats and on foot.

The objective of ‘The Great African Expedition’ will be to compare the 19th century Ethnographical research documentation of the African tribal kingdoms along the rivers and lakes gathered during the expeditions of the Victorian age explorers with the realities of 21st century Africa. Phase one and two of the project will begin in March, 2012, with Fisher travelling alone on an overland journey up the Nile River from Cairo, Egypt to Khartoum, Sudan. He will then cross the world’s newest nation of South Sudan to Lake Albert in Uganda.

Julian Monroe Fisher is a Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society in London and an International Fellow of The Explorers Club in New York City. Between 2007 and 2011 Fisher had the honour of carrying the Explorers Club Flag on five consecutive research expeditions to the African continent. In 2008 he and his team were accredited by The Ugandan Wildlife Authority for establishing a new route in the Rwenzori Mountains. In 2011 the explorer walked large portions of the African continent between the Indian Ocean coast of Mozambique and the Atlantic Coast of Angola.

The Scramble for Africa

The Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa (commonly known as the African Association), founded in London on June 9, 1788, was a British club dedicated to the exploration of West Africa, with the mission of discovering the origin and course of the Niger River and the location of Timbuktu, the "lost city" of gold. The formation of this group was effectively the "beginning of the age of African exploration".

Organized by a dozen titled members of London’s upper-class establishment and led by the zeal of Sir Joseph Banks, the original aim of the Association was discovery, although halting of the slave trade and commerce later became equally important. Political and religious themes were discouraged.

The African Association also felt that it was the great failing of the Age of Enlightenment that, in a time when men could sail around the world, the geography of the Dark Continent remained almost entirely uncharted. The Ancient Greeks and Romans knew more about the interior of Africa than did the English of the 18th century.

Motivated by sincere desires for scientific knowledge and the abolition of the slave trade, yet not averse to gaining opportunities for British commerce, the wealthy members each pledged to contribute five guineas per year to recruiting and funding expeditions from England to Africa. Along with British government, the French and Germans later became involved in exploration, but generally with less elevating ideals. In 1830 the Royal Geographic Society (RGS) was founded, a short time later it absorbed the Africa Association.

The London Missionary Society's star was rising also, desiring to 'bring god to the heathen' and were actively sending missionaries to Africa and elsewhere. Those missionaries that did arrive in Africa, some found exploring either a natural adjunct to their mission or an accidental by product of their search for converts. Livingstone, Krapt and Rebmann, to name but three.

During the Victorian age of exploration from 1844-88 the likes of John Hanning Speke, James Augustus Grant, Richard Francis Burton, Oscar Baumann, Oskar Lenz, Karl Peters, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, Hermann von Wissmann, Verney Lovett Cameron, John Rowlands (aka Sir Henry Morton Stanley), Dr. David Livingstone, Sir Samuel White Baker and his wife Florence crisscrossed the African continent in an age unparrelled in geographic exploration. What followed their collectiive expeditions became known as the Scramble for Africa, also known as the Race for Africa or Partition of Africa. Because of these great explorers and what followed forever changed the great African kingdoms and the peoples of the continent.