Stanley and Livingstone Stanley and Livingstone Stanley and Livingstone is a 1939 film directed by Henry King and Otto Brower. It is loosely based on the true story of Welsh reporter Sir Henry M. Stanley's quest to find Dr. David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary presumed lost in Africa, who finally met on November 10, 1871. Spencer Tracy plays Stanley, while Cedric Hardwicke portrays Livingstone. Other cast members include Nancy Kelly, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Charles Coburn and Henry Hull. Henry Stanley is a fearless newspaper reporter ready to do whatever it takes to get a story, regardless of any danger to his life.
Colonization of the Congo buying sovereignty in exchange for bolts of cloth and trinkets; playing one tribe off another; and if need be, simply shooting an obstructive chief and negotiating with his cowed successor instead. However, as he approached Stanley Falls at the junction between the Congo proper and the Lualaba (close to the general vicinity of Central Africa where he had found Livingstone six years before), it soon became clear that Stanley's men were not the only intruders. Tippu Tip, the most powerful of the Zanzibari slave traders of the 19th century, was well-known to Stanley, as was the social chaos and devastation