Barth was born in
Hamburg and educated at
Berlin University, where he graduated in
1844. He had already visited
Italy and
Sicily and had formed a plan to journey through the
Mediterranean countries. After studying
Arabic in
London he set out on his travels in
1845. He acted for the British Foreign Office in 1850, is one of the greatest of the European explorers of Africa - not necessarily because of the length of his travels (1850-1855) or the time he spent alone without European company in Africa, but because of his singular character.
From
Tangier Barth made his way overland throughout the length of
North Africa. He also travelled through
Egypt, ascending the
Nile to
Wadi Halfa and crossing the desert to
Berenice; While in Egypt he was attacked and wounded by robbers. Crossing the
Sinai peninsula he traversed
Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Turkey and
Greece, everywhere examining the remains of antiquity; and returned to
Berlin in
1847. For a time he was engaged there as
Privatdozent, and in preparing for publication the narrative of his
Wanderungen durch die Küstenländer des Mittelmeeres, which appeared in
1849.
At the instance of Bunsen, the
Prussian ambassador to Westminster, and other scientists like
Alexander von Humboldt, Barth, and
Adolf Overweg, a Prussian astronomer, were appointed colleagues of
James Richardson, an explorer of the
Sahara who had been selected by the British government to open up commercial relations with the states of the central and western
Sudan. The party left
Tripoli early in
1850, but the deaths of Richardson (March
1851) and Overweg (September
1852) left Barth to carry on the mission alone. Dr. Barth was the first
European to visit
Adamawa in
1851. He returned to
Europe in September
1855.
In addition to journeys across the Sahara, Barth traversed the country from
Lake Chad and
Bagirmi on the east to
Timbuktu on the west and
Cameroon on the south. He studied minutely the
topography, history, civilizations, languages and resources of the countries he visited.
Barth entered
Timbuktu in September 1853. His success as an explorer and historian of Africa was based both on his patient character and his scholarly education. He studied in the early 1840s at the University of Berlin under the guidance of scholars such as
Alexander von Humboldt, Leopold von Ranke, Friedrich von Schelling and
Jakob Grimm, who all laid the foundations of the human geography and historical research in the modern sense.
Barth was different from the explorers of the colonial age, because he was interested in the history and culture of the Africans peoples, rather than the possibilities to exploit them. He meticulously documented his observations and his own journal has becomes as much as an invaluable source for the circumstances of the 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 usability for historical research. Barth was the first truly scholarly traveler in West Africa. Earlier ones such as
Caillié, Denham and
Clapperton had no academic knowledge. Barth could read Arabic, and was able to investigate history of some regions, particularly the Songhay empire. He also seems to have learned some
African languages. He established close relations with a number of African scholars and rulers, from
Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi in
Bornu, through the
Katsina and
Sokoto regions to Timbuktu, where his friendship with
Ahmad al-Bakkay al-Kunti led to his staying in his house and being protection from an attempt to seize him.
The story of Barth's travels was written and published simultaneously in
English and
German, under the title
Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (1857-1858, 5 vols., aprr. 3,500 pages), which was considered one of the finest works of its kind at the time, appearing in Bibliographies by
Darwin and still cited by African historians, as it remains the most scientific work on African cultures of the age and a source for historians of West Africa.
Except a title "CB" (Companion) from the
Order of the Bath, Barth himself received no formal recognition of his services from the British government. He returned to
Germany, where he prepared a collection of Central African vocabularies (Gotha, 1862-1866). In
1858 he undertook another journey in Asia Minor, and in
1862 visited the Turkish provinces in Europe. In the following year he was appointed extraordinary professor of geography (without regular pay) at
Berlin University and president of the
Geographical Society. His admission to the Berlin Academy of Science was denied, as it was claimed that he had achieved nothing for historiography and linguistics. Barth died in Berlin.
rss feed