Colonization of the Congo of Hell. It was not until 1867 that the Congo was explored by Europeans, and even then it was not from the sea, but from the other side of the African continent. Setting out from Zanzibar, Henry Morton Stanley, a British-born American journalist and explorer aimed to find the famous Dr. Livingstone. Livingstone had not been heard from in several years and was, in fact, exploring the upper reaches of a great navigable inland river called the Lualaba, which Livingstone hoped was connected to the Nile, but which turned out to be the upper Congo. After leaving Livingstone, Stanley sailed
Henry Morton Stanley sovereignty [reference?] in exchange for bolts of cloth and trinkets; playing one tribe off another or even shooting [evidence that he did this on the Congo?] an obstructive chief and negotiating with his cowed successor instead. [citation?] 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 Zanzibar's slave traders of the 19th century, was well known to Stanley, as