Great Bastards of History

by Juré Fiorillo

  Dandified James Gordon Bennett published America’s most famous and sensationalist newspaper, the New York Herald. He commissioned Stanley to “Find Livingstone!” Library of Congress

  Bennett put him off until Stanley offered a counterproposition. Britain had just declared war on Abyssinia (Ethiopia), whose bizarre King Theodore had kidnapped the British consul and ten English missionaries, imprisoned them, and subjected them to torture, supposedly because Queen Victoria had failed to answer his letter proposing a royal diplomatic meeting. Britain was poised to attack the African kingdom. Stanley proposed to accompany the British invaders, pay his own expenses, and accept whatever payment Bennett chose if his reports were timely and interesting. It was an arrangement few freelance journalists would offer or accept, but Bennett agreed and Stanley set out for Africa, arriving there on January 20, 1868.

  Five years before he was “found” by Stanley, medical missionary and antislavery crusader Dr. David Livingstone sat for this formal portrait.

  The venture made Stanley a journalistic celebrity. The British overwhelmed Theodore’s larger but primitive army. The king was hunted down and executed. Stanley wrote colorful accounts of the fighting and the king’s death, and smuggled them out via the diplomatic pouch to Cairo, where he had bribed a telegrapher to give his messages priority. His articles drew attention not only in America but also in Britain. They were richer in detail than the British newspapers, and beat them into print by five days. Bennett was ecstatic. He directed Stanley to meet him at his hotel in Paris.

  “WHATEVER THE COST, FIND LIVINGSTONE!”

  In his after-the-fact best seller, How I Found Livingstone, Stanley wrote a gripping but possibly embroidered account of that meeting. Going to the publisher’s room in the Grand Hotel well after midnight, he woke a somewhat groggy Bennett, who admitted him and then abruptly asked, “Where do you think Livingstone is?” At that point, October 27, 1869, Livingstone had not been heard from for nearly two years, and international alarm had been growing about the missionary-explorer’s possible fate.

  Livingstone was not revered just for his missionary work and discoveries. He had been an early apostle of stamping out the slave trade, which he declared the greatest deterrent to the development of Africa and “the open sore of the world.” It was a view that Bennett believed would resonate with his readers, whose country had just fought a war over the slavery issue. Livingstone was a great hero in the antislavery pantheon.

  “I really don’t know, sir,” was Stanley’s reply to Bennett’s question.

  “Do you think he is alive?”

  “He may be or he may not be.”

  “Well, I believe he is alive, and that he can be found, and I am going to send you to find him.”

  “What? You mean for me to go to Africa and search? Have you considered seriously the great expense you are likely to incur?”

  “What will it cost?”

  Stanley mentally calculated the costs he knew had been incurred by other explorations, and he estimated at least £2,500. Bennett responded: “Well, draw a thousand pounds now, and when you have gone through that, draw another thousand, and when that is spent draw another thousand, and when you have finished that, draw another thousand, and so on … But, find Livingstone!”

  The two men then sat down and discussed other overseas topics and places to visit before beginning the search—the inauguration of the Suez Canal, a forthcoming British military expedition up the Nile, new archeological findings in Jerusalem, difficulties between the sultan and the khedive in Constantinople, the construction of the Euphrates Valley railway, a tour of the old Crimean War battlefields. They shook hands, and Stanley left by the eleven o’clock train that evening for Marseille on the first leg of this remarkable assignment. On January 6, 1871, fifteen months after the midnight interview, he had completed all of Bennett’s wish list and reached Zanzibar, the island jumping-off place for trips into the interior, today part of Tanzania. The greenhorn explorer was now ready to track down Livingstone, who was still missing.

  INTO THE BUSH

  Not only had Stanley never led nor organized such an ambitious expedition before, but he also had never commanded any expedition. He had not even been an employer building and directing a workforce. But he had given a lot of thought and planning as to how to conduct the venture.

  Explorations by Livingstone and Stanley opened large areas of “the dark continent” of Africa in the nineteenth century. English School / Getty Images

  Stanley lined up a full complement of personnel, including two other adventurous white men who had been ship’s officers, along with Selim, a young Syrian Christian from Palestine, who would serve as interpreter. He recruited six Africans experienced with previous explorations, nearly two hundred natives who were to serve as bearers, and another twenty-three askari, military-trained natives who would be warriors and guards. He commandeered huge supplies of special beads, wire, and cloth that he was told would serve as local currency. He also armed the party with rifles, pistols, muskets, swords, and daggers—just in case—and enough food to last two years. Thoughtfully, he brought a food supply for Livingstone in case he was starving. He also obtained two horses and twenty-four mules.

  Then, informed that large caravans moved slowly and thus invited attack, he split the unwieldy group into six smaller caravans. It took nearly two months to get the whole procession underway. Its immediate destination was Ujiji, a settlement on Lake Tanganyika, 750 miles (1,207 km) away. Ujiji was the last place anyone had definitely seen Livingstone.

  It soon developed that many of Stanley’s preparations were misguided. Instead of dense jungle, the trail led across savannah, rough, rugged terrain covered with impenetrable waist-high brush. The weather was fiercely hot and sticky, temperatures reaching into the upper 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49°C). The party was afflicted by all manner of unfamiliar tropical diseases and insect-borne infections. Elephantiasis, a frightening disease causing enlargement of the lower limbs and scrotum, took the life of one of the white officers. Dysentery, smallpox, malaria, and miscellaneous fevers were recurrent. Stanley himself was repeatedly felled by fever and had to be carried in a litter.

  Pack animals were attacked by tryptopanosomiasis, the dread “sleeping sickness” transmitted by the tsetse fly. Bearers deserted or stole goods, raiding the precious food supply. Stanley followed an old Arab caravan route; chiefs along the way had become accustomed to collecting exorbitant tributes for crossing their lands and insisted Stanley pay up. He spent hours haggling over terms while the caravan came to a standstill.

  Resplendent in glittering tunic, the onetime workhouse waif was ennobled by Britain and served in the House of Commons after finding Livingstone.

  A MEMORABLE MEETING

  The procession was an estimated eight days’ march from Lake Tanganyika when Stanley received electrifying news from a caravan traveling in the opposite direction. The caravan had passed through Ujiji, and had seen a white man there. At first Stanley was alarmed: Had someone else reached his destination ahead of him? He questioned the informant further: Was the white man young? Older? Fat? Did he appear ill? No, the informant insisted, he was an old man with “white hair on his face.” Some wrinkles. Dressed in white. Perhaps a doctor. Livingstone! There could be no doubt. Excited, Stanley offered an extra payment of valuable cloth to any man who would consent to push forward without taking a rest stop.

  Early in November 1871, ten months after leaving Zanzibar and a trek of nearly a thousand miles, the party crested a hill and Stanley saw before him a village nestled by the shimmering blue waters of the lake. He ordered the American flag unfurled and carried at the head of the procession. At the edge of the village, he stopped in surprise. The open clearing was crowded with people. Suddenly Selim the interpreter cried out: “There he is! I see the doctor, sir! Oh, what an old man!” Stanley pushed through what he described as “avenues of natives’” until he confronted the pale, weary-looking white man. Then, doffing his helme
t, which he had polished along with his boots in preparation for the meeting, he spoke the words that were to echo through history:

  “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”

  The other man smiled faintly and lifted his cap. “Yes,” he said.

  The two shook hands and Stanley said, “I thank God, doctor, that I have been permitted to see you.”

  Livingstone answered, “I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you.”

  Stanley had been warned in Zanzibar that Livingstone could be a crotchety old man, imperious in his manner and difficult to deal with. Instead, the two got along famously. Stanley stayed four months and accompanied Livingstone on another exploration around Lake Tanganyika, where they determined that the Rusizi River flowed into the lake, not out of it, as had been believed. Soon, however, it was time for Stanley to return to the United States and report to Bennett. On March 14, 1872, Stanley and Livingstone, whose names would be forever linked, parted for the last time. Stanley tried to persuade Livingstone to leave with him, but the old man was determined to remain where he had spent so much of his life. He died in Africa in 1873.

  After Livingstone’s death, Stanley returned to “the dark continent” and became an explorer in his own right. He began a search for the source of the Nile, then stumbled onto the headwaters of the Congo and followed the great river across the continent to its mouth in the Atlantic. He circumnavigated Lake Victoria and showed it to be the second-largest freshwater lake in the world.

  He advised King Leopold of Belgium on his ruthless one-man colonization of the Congo in what became known as “the rubber atrocities.” Leopold’s brutalization of native labor and Stanley’s role as Leopold’s advisor brought sharp worldwide criticism. The Belgian parliament overturned Leopold’s personal rule. The episode severely blackened Stanley’s reputation. In the United States, Stanley was befriended by Mark Twain, who organized lecture tours and a flurry of book contracts for him. In 1895 he restored his British citizenship, returned to Britain, sat in Parliament, and in 1899 received a knighthood. As Sir Henry, the boy who had been dumped at the workhouse as an unwanted bastard had reached the pinnacle of honor and fame.

  CHAPTER 11

  JACK LONDON

  REBELLIOUS MOTHER, REBELLIOUS SON

  1876–1916

  JACK LONDON DIDN’T FIND OUT HE WAS ILLEGITIMATE UNTIL HE WAS TWENTY-ONE YEARS OLD. THE DISCOVERY LAUNCHED HIM ON A FRENZIED LIFE OF ADVENTURE AND A LITERARY CAREER THAT PRODUCED FIFTY-THREE BOOKS.

  THE YOUNG MAN WAS STARTLED AT FIRST. THEN HE BECAME ANGRY, THEN outraged. He balled up his fists and pounded the table where he sat.

  Twenty-one-year-old Jack London had been slowly leafing through yellowing newspapers in the Oakland, California, public library that day in 1897 when a brief item brought him up short. The young aspiring writer often browsed the library’s back issues, seeking some small news item that might contain the kernel of a potential short story, or even a novel. Sometimes that search paid off.

  Today the few paragraphs that caught his eye were a twenty-one-year-old sensationalized police report. On June 4, 1875, a pregnant young woman named Flora Wellman of Oakland, California, had attempted suicide after her “husband,” one William Chaney, had deserted her because of the pregnancy. Flora Wellman was the name of Jack London’s mother. Jack had been born January 12, 1876, six months after the suicide attempt. But William Chaney was not his father. In fact, Jack London had never heard of anyone named William Chaney. As far as he knew, his father was the man whose house he shared, the disabled Civil War veteran he called “Dad.” That man’s name was John London.

  Could it be that Jack had been born illegitimate? That he was, in fact, a bastard?

  Jack London poses for an outdoor portrait in 1912. London found out he was illegitimate at age twenty-one, while leafing through old newspaper clippings. akg-images

  Jack slapped the newspaper shut, hurried out of the library, and rushed home. He accosted his mother fiercely, demanding to know the truth. Who was this man Chaney? Was he really Jack’s father? If so, why had Jack never seen him? Why had Chaney never visited? Why, why, had Jack never been told?

  After several tearful, explosive, hand-wringing sessions, Flora confided her story in dribs and drabs. Even though Chaney was listed as the child’s father, and they lived together as husband and wife, she and Chaney had never been married. Just as the newspaper stated, he had left Flora when she was three months pregnant. She had not been in contact with him since. He had never contributed to the boy’s support. She had no idea of his whereabouts. She supposed he might still be somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area. End of information.

  IN TIME, LONDON ACCEPTED THE FACT OF HIS ILLEGITIMACY, BUT HE NEVER SPOKE OPENLY OR WROTE ABOUT IT, THOUGH HE SOON BECAME RECONCILED WITH HIS MOTHER. HE NEVER COMPLETELY FORGAVE HER, HOWEVER, FOR KEEPING FROM HIM THE TRUE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS BIRTH.

  As skilled and indefatigable a researcher as a cub reporter himself, Jack set out to track down his putative father and in due time located him—in Chicago. He wrote the man a letter and eventually received a weaselly worded, oily, ambiguous response. Chaney might possibly be his father, he admitted. But so, he wrote, might any number of others. Flora was promiscuous, he alleged. She had had several lovers. He left when he made that discovery. He also left because she “slandered” him. She said he had ordered her to have an abortion, which was not only illegal but also against his deeply held religious convictions as a self-ordained minister. Oh yes, Chaney wrote, he was a very sick man, and these false accusations about an event two decades ago had placed great strain on his weakened heart. He pleaded with “Mister London” not to pursue the matter further.

  After a final confrontation with his mother, Jack stormed out of the house and set off on an adventurous life that was to bring him fame and recognition as one of America’s greatest writers. In time, he accepted the fact of his illegitimacy, but he never spoke openly or wrote about it, though he soon became reconciled with his mother. He never completely forgave her, however, for keeping from him the true circumstances of his birth.

  JUST A LITTLE GIRL FROM OHIO

  Flora Wellman, not unlike her son, seemed born with a rebellious streak. The fourth of five daughters of a wealthy Massillon, Ohio, contractor and canal builder, she was her father’s favorite, the one chosen for piano lessons, private tutors, riding instruction on her own pony, and specially tailored frocks from New York. When she contracted typhoid fever, which stunted her growth so that she never reached 5 feet (1.5 m) tall, she had round-the-clock private-duty nurses. Her mother died when Flora was four years old. When her father eventually remarried, the favorite child dug in her heels and refused to speak to her stepmother.

  Acknowledged father, the drifter William Chaney, preached that astrology was a legitimate science. He was married six times but never to London’s mother. He never met his son.

  At age twelve, Flora ran away from home. Brought back by her frantic father, she ran away again. When she was seventeen, she left home for good; she only visited and corresponded with her family in Massillon episodically thereafter. When the Civil War broke out, she volunteered for the Sanitary Commission, which tended sick and wounded soldiers and was a kind of forerunner of the American Red Cross. Afterward, she wound up in Seattle, then a raw frontier town. There she met William Chaney. Chaney, an astrologer and sometime preacher, was moving to wide-open San Francisco and suggested she accompany him. That appealed to Flora’s sense of adventure, and off they went.

  In California, Chaney lectured on horoscopes and preached on the falsehood of organized religion, while Flora taught music and worked at a feminist publication. She embraced spiritualism, held séances, and convinced herself that she could communicate with the dead. And then she became pregnant.

  The crumbling San Francisco Chronicle article that caught young Jack’s attention was headlined “A Discarded Wife.” A despondent Flora Wellman, the article melodramatically reported, had shot herself in the fo
rehead, causing a superficial, grazing wound, after Chaney, described as her husband, had insisted she “destroy her unborn child.” Chaney then stalked off and disappeared. Flora moved in with friends and gave birth to a son on January 12, 1876. She placed the child in care of a wet nurse, Virginia Prentiss, a former slave who had just given birth to a stillborn child. “Jennie” Prentiss was to become an influential figure in Jack’s life. She was to remain at his side until his death, applauding, praising, disciplining, insisting on his education, and supporting his dreams and ambitions. He referred to her as “Mammie Jennie.”

  Jack London’s mother, the diminutive Flora Wellman, was short, moody, and an indifferent parent. The Huntingdon Library

  Neat in striped shirt and bowtie, ten-year-old Jack London posed with his dog Rollo for this schoolboy photo in 1886. Two years later, he was working 12 hours a day in a fish cannery. The Huntingdon Library

  Subsequent biographers (including London’s second wife, Charmian) have disagreed about Flora’s role in Jack’s upbringing. In later memoirs, London pictured his childhood as troubled, abusive, and love-deprived, as well as poverty-stricken. Others say he exaggerated the hardships for dramatic effect. He was a fiction writer, after all, and would naturally want his story to read more grippingly.

  Certainly his was a mixed-up childhood. Flora was an inattentive mother, to say the least. She left much of the actual mothering to Jennie Prentiss while she pursued her interest in spiritualism and the suffrage movement. Ten months after Jack’s birth, she married John London, a carpenter and disabled Civil War veteran. War injuries limited London’s employment, and Flora supported the family—barely—by giving piano lessons and taking part-time jobs. The family moved repeatedly, from San Francisco to Oakland to Berkeley and back again. The boy, who now called himself Jack, spent scarcely a few months in one school before he was transferred to another.