GUSTAV NACHTIGAL
(23 February 1834 – 20 April 1885)
Gustav Nachtigal was a surgeon, a Lutheran pastor and a German explorer of
Central and West Africa. He was further known as the German Empire's
consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His mission as
commissioner resulted in Togoland and Kamerun becoming the first colonies of a
German colonial empire. The Gustav-Nachtigal-Medal, awarded by the Berlin
Geographical Society, is named after him.
Gustav Nachtigal, the son of a Lutheran pastor, was born at Eichstedt in the
Prussian province of Saxony-Anhalt. After medical studies at the universities of
Halle, Würzburg and Greifswald, he practiced for several years as a military
surgeon. Finding the climate of his native country increasingly detrimental to
his health, he went to Algiers and Tunis in North Africa and took part, as a
surgeon, in several expeditions into Central Africa.
Commissioned by King Wilhelm I of Prussia to carry gifts to Umar of Borno,
sheik of the Bornu Empire, in acknowledgment of kindness shown to German
travelers, he set out in 1869 from Ottoman Tripoli and succeeded after a two
years journey in accomplishing his mission. During this period he visited
Tibesti and Borku, regions of the central Sahara not previously known to
Europeans.
From Bornu he traveled to Baguirmi, an independent state to the southeast of
Bornu. From there he proceeded to Wadai (a powerful Muslim kingdom to the
northeast of Baguirmi) and to Kordofan (a former province of central
Sudan).
Nachtigal emerged from darkest Africa at Khartoum (then an Egyptian outpost,
today the capital of Sudan) in the winter of 1874, after having been given up
for lost. His journey, graphically described in his Sahara and Sudan, placed him
in the top ranking of discoverers.
After the establishment by France of a protectorate over Tunisia, Nachtigal
was sent as consul-general for the German Empire and remained there until 1884.
Thereafter he was appointed by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck as special
commissioner for West Africa.
Local German business interests in that region began advocating for
protection by the German Empire after they had acquired huge properties in West
Africa.
Nachtigal's task was thus to accept that real estate on behalf of Germany
before the British could advance their own interests — Togoland and Kamerun
became Germany's first colonial possessions.
On his return voyage he died at sea aboard the gunboat SMS Möwe off Cape
Palmas on 20 April 1885 and was initially interred at Grand Bassam.
In 1888 Nachtigal's remains were exhumed and reburied in a ceremonial grave
at Duala in front of the Kamerun colonial government building.
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