Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Sidi Mubarak Bombay About this episode Sidi Mubarak Bombay was sort of a combined guide, translator and nurse, and often the supervisor of the African laborers on expeditions through eastern and equatorial Africa in the 19th century.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Holly Frey? This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argentix. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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1:10 Holly Frey? We've all tumbled down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose, and it leaves us more anxious than informed. Our feeds are full of wellness trends, but how do we know what's real, what's exaggerated, and what's just wrong? Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association breaks it all down. Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends, not to cancel them, but to understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. So listen to Health vs. Hype wherever you get your podcasts.
1:42 Tracy V. Wilson? The Old Gays are back with Silver Linings, their lovable podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
2:10 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.
2:20 Tracy V. Wilson? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson. And I'm Holly Frey. A couple of weeks ago, we had a Saturday classic about Hatshepsut and the voyage to Punt. I always re-listen to our perspective Saturday classics before I put them on the calendar, just so I make sure we haven't messed anything up. And I was pre-listening to this one while taking a walk through the middle of Boston. And at the beginning of that original episode, I mentioned that it had been a bit since we had talked about any African history. And as I was on this little walk, I was like, oh, that's true again right now. So today, we are going to talk
3:01 Tracy V. Wilson? about Sidi Mubarak Banbe, who was sort of a combined guide, translator, and nurse, and often the supervisor of the African porters and other laborers who were part of expeditions through Eastern and Equatorial Africa in the 19th century. He worked for people like Richard Francis Burton and Henry Morton Stanley, people who became really well-known as explorers. And over about 20 years, he traveled more than 9,000 miles around the interior of Africa. In a lot of ways, these explorers really would not have made it without him. One thing that I do want
3:42 Tracy V. Wilson? to note at the beginning is that these expeditions were purportedly about exploration and discovery, but they also lay some of the groundwork for the scramble for Africa and the atrocities that followed that. This largely happened after Sidi Mubarak Banbe's lifetime. When he returned from his last expedition in 1876, only about 10% of the African continent had been claimed by European colonial powers. But by 1914, that had jumped to about 90%.
4:16 Tracy V. Wilson? This is not something he necessarily could have foreseen at all, but some of the people that he worked with on these expeditions, like Henry Morton Stanley, were directly involved with it. We talked more about this in our episode on George Washington Williams from February of 2024. And this episode really isn't about that, but I did want to acknowledge it before we got started.
4:40 Holly Frey? C. D. Mubarak Bombay was born around 1820. He narrated the story of his early years to English explorer and Army Officer John Hannings Speke, who included it in his book, What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. That was published in 1864. And at the time, there was a lot of discourse around the role the knowledge of Africans should play in European geographical writing.
5:07 Tracy V. Wilson? So periodical writers who covered these expeditions for a general audience in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, they usually dismissed the knowledge of local people and of African guides entirely. They would characterize them as just ignorant or lying. Explorers themselves, a lot of the time, were more likely to acknowledge the local people's contributions as essential to their work and even to their survival. But at the same time, their writing was often full of really insulting language and slurs. All of these books you can read on the internet and there is a lot of the N-word in them. There is
5:49 Tracy V. Wilson? also a lot of stereotypes. These accounts sometimes minimized or glossed over the contributions of African people when writing for the European general public. When presenting Bombay's account of his own life, Speke sort of countered this by vouching for it as, quote, "a good characteristic account of the manner in which slave hunts are planned and carried into execution. It must be truthful, for I have witnessed tragedies of a similar nature."
6:22 Holly Frey? Here is how Bombay started this narrative, including a bit of geographical context from Speak. Quote, "I am Miao. My father lived in a village in the country of Uyao, a large district situated between the east coast and the Nyasa Lake in latitude 11 degrees south. Of my mother, I have but the faintest recollection. She died whilst I was in my infancy."
6:48 Tracy V. Wilson? This lake is also called Lake Malawi, and it's along the borders of what's now the nations of Malawi, Tanzania, and Mozambique in Eastern Africa, south of the equator. The Yao people, of which he was a part, are a predominantly Muslim Bantu ethnic group whose homeland is around the southern end of this lake.
7:10 Holly Frey? As documented by Speak, Bombay's account continues, quote, "Our village was living in happy contentment until the faded year when I was about the age of 12. At that period, a large body of Waswili merchants and their slaves, all equipped with sword and gun, came suddenly and surrounding our village, demanded of the inhabitants instant liquidation of their debts, cloths and beads, advanced in former times of pinching dearth or else to stand the consequences of refusal. As all the residents had at different times contracted debts to different members of the body present, there was no appeal against the equity of this sudden demand, but no one had the means of payment.
7:54 Holly Frey? They knew fighting against firearms would be hopeless. So after a few stratagems, looking for a good opportunity to bolt, the whole village took to precipitate flight. Most of the villagers were captured, like myself, but of my father or any other relatives, I never more gained any intelligence. He was either shot in endeavoring to defend himself or still more probably gave leg bail and so escaped."
8:22 Tracy V. Wilson? After being captured by Swahili people, Bombay was sold into slavery. Again, quoting from his account in Speaks work, quote, "As soon as this foray was over, all the captives were grouped together and tethered with chains or ropes and marched off to Kila on the east coast. Arrived there, the whole party embarked in dows, which setting sail soon arrived in Zanzibar. We were then driven to the slave market, where I was bought by an Arab merchant and taken off to India. I served with this master for several years, till by his death I obtained my liberation.
9:02 Tracy V. Wilson? My next destination was Zanzibar, where I took service in the late Imam's army and passed my days in half-starved inactivity."
9:12 Holly Frey? Although this isn't spelled out in his account to John Hanningspeak, Sidi Mubarak Bombay's name, or at least the name he is known by today, comes from this experience of abduction and enslavement. Sidi was a term coined in India for Africans and people of African descent. Today, the Sidi or Shidi are an ethnic group in both India and Pakistan, descended from Bantu peoples who were enslaved and taken to India, as well as from Africans who made their way to the Indian subcontinent as migrants or traders. Mubarak is most likely a name given to him by his Arab enslaver. It's an Arabic name, meaning blessed or fortunate.
9:55 Tracy V. Wilson? There are a couple of different ideas around where the name Bombay came from. In his book, Zanzibar: City, Island, and Coast, Sir Richard Burton describes this as a name Mubarak took for himself. According to historian Sarah Longair, in a chapter she contributed to the book Being a Slave: Histories and Legacies of European Slavery in the Indian Ocean, the name Bombay indicates that after his emancipation, he was educated in the Bombay Presidency. That's the western portion of the Indian subcontinent that had come under British control in 1843.
10:34 Holly Frey? Another possibility is that after slavery was abolished in India, people who had been trafficked there from Africa and their descendants became known as Bombay Africans. This name was also used for people the British Navy liberated after capturing slave ships that were operating in the waters between Eastern Africa and Western India. After the abolition of slavery in India, many of these people returned to Africa aboard British ships, and a number of British explorers intentionally recruited Bombay Africans for their expeditions. Because of their time in parts of India that were under British control, they often spoke English, Hindi, or both, and some had been educated by British missionaries,
11:18 Holly Frey? while still having language and cultural connections to parts of Africa. Over the mid to late 19th century, hundreds of Bombay Africans were part of expeditions led by explorers from the UK. So it's also possible that this Bombay moniker was a reference to his having been enslaved in India. This is just conjecture, though, since he was by no means the only person on these expeditions that this moniker could have been applied to.
11:48 Tracy V. Wilson? There doesn't seem to be a record of Sidi Mubarak Bombay's name from before all of this, but he's mentioned repeatedly in the accounts of all the explorers that we're talking about today, and they generally all call him some version of that name, like Sidi Bombay, or Mubarak Bombay, or just Bombay. Henry Morton Stanley calls him Sidi Mubarak Mombe, spelling "Sidi" with a Y, like seeds in the ground, "Mubarak" without the U, and "Mombe" with an M, but then he says that he's known as Bombay. Verne Lovett Cameron included the name Mubarak Mombe in parentheses in his book Across Africa,
12:32 Tracy V. Wilson? but it does seem like the name Bombay was what he chose to use during his lifetime, so that is what we will go with today.
12:40 Holly Frey? And we'll get to his time doing expeditions after we pause for a sponsor break.
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14:26 Tracy V. Wilson? to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed to help solve hiring challenges and find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
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16:42 Tracy V. Wilson? As he mentioned in the passage that we read from before the break, after about 20 years of enslavement in India, Sudhir Mubarak Bombay was liberated on the death of his enslaver, and he returned to Zanzibar off the eastern coast of Africa. That is where he met Richard Francis Burton and John Hanningspeak in February of 1857.
17:05 Tracy V. Wilson? They were on an expedition funded by the Royal Geographical Society and Burton was trying to find the source of the White Nile.
17:13 Holly Frey? The source of the Nile was a huge source of fascination in Europe at this point. The Nile is the longest river in the world and its two main tributaries are the White and Blue Nile. Europeans already knew the source of the Blue Nile, but not the White. The search for the source of the Nile was interconnected with a fascination for the ancient Egyptian cultures that lived along the northern portion of the river and the perception of the interior of Africa, where the source had to be located, as a nearly impenetrable mystery.
17:46 Tracy V. Wilson? Burton and Speak were returning to Africa after a failed attempt at an expedition in 1855. On this earlier expedition, they'd been attacked in Somaliland and seriously injured, and one of the British officers with them had been killed. After they had recovered from their injuries and then served in the Crimean War, they had regrouped to try again, once again with Burton leading the expedition and Speak his second-in-command. Burton had already undertaken numerous expeditions, including disguising himself to enter Mecca during the Hajj, and he had published several books.
18:27 Tracy V. Wilson? Speak had not published any books yet, but he was an avid hunter and had also traveled, including into the Himalayan Mountains and Tibet.
18:36 Holly Frey? Burton and Speak both described Sidi Mubarak Bombay as someone they immediately recognized as necessary to have on their expedition. Burton called him, quote, "the gem of the party," and his description of him went on to say, quote, "He works on principle and he works like a horse," candidly declaring that "not love of us, but his duty to his belly made him work." With a sprained ankle and a load quite disproportioned to his shatif body, he insists upon carrying two guns, and after a 30 miles' walk, he is as fresh as before it began. "He attends us everywhere, manages our purchases, carries all our messages, and when not employed by us, he is at every man's beck and call."
19:22 Tracy V. Wilson? Speek's account of him was pretty similar. At one point, Speek also described a misunderstanding between the two of them in which Bombay asked for some cloth, which was part of his pay, but he had already been given cloth. Speek originally thought this was Bombay's, quote, "seedy nature" coming through, but in Speek's words, quote, "Had Bombay only opened his heart, this matter would have been settled at once, for his motives were of a superior order. He had bought to be his adopted brother, a slave of the Waha tribe, a tall, athletic, fine-looking man, whose figure was of such excellent proportions that he would have been remarkable in any society.
20:06 Tracy V. Wilson? And it was for this youth and not himself that he had made such a fuss and used so many devices to obtain the cloth. Indeed, he is a very singular character, not caring one bit about himself, how he dressed or what he ate, ever contented and doing everybody's work in preference to his own, and of such exemplary honesty, he stands a solitary marvel in the land. He would do no wrong to benefit himself. To please anybody else, there is nothing he would stick at."
20:38 Holly Frey? Over time, Bombay became a servant and interpreter to John Hannings Speek. Both of them spoke Hindi, and that was the language they conversed in. Burton spoke Hindi as well, but he also spoke a number of other languages, and he was prone to having conversations in languages that Speek did not know. Later on, David Livingstone described Bombay as having, quote, "lifted Speek out of the disagreeable position of being a silent onlooker in all of Burton's conversations." Over time, Bombay also learned to speak English, Arabic, and Kishwahili.
21:15 Tracy V. Wilson? I'm not sure if Burton was doing this on purpose. To exclude Speak, they had some, uh, personality conflicts and other conflicts. This expedition was arduous and many of the people who were part of it became injured and ill along the way. Bombay, Burton, and Speak all developed malaria, although not all at the same time. At one point Bombay was well, but Burton and Speak were both almost too sick to walk. The party only had one donkey to spare, so Speak would ride it and Burton would just kind of struggle along until he had to stop.
21:56 Tracy V. Wilson? And then eventually Bombay would loop back with the donkey to pick him up. Burton wrote about the huge relief that he felt when he saw, quote, "seedy Bombay" coming back with the donkey and some scones and hard-boiled eggs for him.
22:11 Holly Frey? Bombay was knowledgeable about local plants and medicines, and he helped care for the sick and injured during these expeditions. He also became a messenger and negotiator, the person who would be sent ahead to arrange passage with the chieftains and kings whose territory they were trying to pass through. On top of all of that, he increasingly managed the large crews of African porters, rowers, and other laborers that the expedition relied on to get where they were going.
22:41 Tracy V. Wilson? This party eventually arrived at Kaze in the Tabora region of what's now Tanzania on November 7th, 1857, and they stayed there for more than a month while Burton and Speak and some of the others in their party recovered. They left on December 15th, looking for a large lake that had been described in the accounts of local people and missionaries. This turned out to be Lake Tanganyika, which they first sighted on February 13th, 1858. They thought this lake might be the source of the Nile, but it turned out that there was a large river that was flowing into it, not out of it.
23:21 Tracy V. Wilson? Uh, also, it wasn't completely clear until later, but that large river was not connected to the White Nile. It was a different river.
23:30 Holly Frey? After the expedition returned to Kazé, Burton stayed behind because he was ill, so sick that he had become partially paralyzed. But Bombay and Speek went out again, hoping to press on while Burton recovered. To be clear, Speek was also sick. Among other things, he had an eye inflammation that had seriously impacted his vision. Speek also had another mishap on this leg of the journey in which he was swarmed by beetles in the night, and one of them crawled into his ear and he permanently injured himself while trying to kill it. This gave me both the heebies and the jeebies.
24:08 Tracy V. Wilson? That's way more graphic in the accounts of the trip than what I put in here.
24:14 Holly Frey? Somehow, though, his blindness largely resolved after this.
24:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Speek, Bombay and company eventually reached a lake known in Swahili as Lake Ukurewe. That was on July 28th. Speek dubbed this lake "Lake Victoria", after Queen Victoria. This is one of the largest lakes in the world, and they arrived at the southern part of it where they could not possibly see the other ends or any other waterway that was connected to it. Based on what they had heard from local people, though, Speek concluded that the White Nile emerged from the northern end of this lake.
24:54 Holly Frey? When Speek and Bombay reconnected with Burton and told him what they'd found, he was not happy about it at all. He concluded that Speek just had to be mistaken and that Bombay was part of that mistake. He wrote, quote, "Bombay, after misunderstanding his master's ill-expressed Hindustani, probably mistranslated the words into Kishwaili to some traveled African, who in turn passed on the question in a wilder dialect to the barbarian or barbarians under examination. During such a journey to and fro, words must be liable to severe accidents."
25:34 Tracy V. Wilson? It was pretty dismissive and insulting with the words barbarian, but it didn't come completely out of nowhere. When first approaching Lake Tanganyika and talking to the locals about it, Bombay apparently really had flipped some things around in his translations of what an Arab trader told him about the river that was connected to the lake. But beyond that, Burton was furious that Speak was claiming credit for this discovery and that Speak had gotten to this immense lake without him. This added to some lingering discomfort between the two of them that traced all the
26:14 Tracy V. Wilson? way back to that very first failed expedition, when Speak thought Burton was calling him a coward for how he behaved when they were attacked. There was just an increasing sense of resentment between these two men after this point.
26:30 Holly Frey? The party returned to Zanzibar, and from there, Burton and Speak returned to England, where their dispute over the source of the Nile became public and quite ugly. Among other things, Speak got back to London before Burton did, and he told the Royal Geographic Society all about the expedition and his conclusions about the source of the Nile, before Burton had a chance to tell them that he thought Speak was wrong. Burton was also less complimentary of Bombay than he had been in some of his earlier descriptions. In his book, The Lake Regions of Central Africa, for example, he describes Bombay this way, quote, "Though he did nothing well, rarely did anything very badly."
27:14 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1860, the Royal Geographic Society sent Speak back to Africa to confirm that he really had found the source of the White Nile. He and Scottish explorer James Augustus Grant arrived in Zanzibar that August. Speke and Grant already knew each other. They were friends from their military service in India. Bombay was waiting for them at the dock, and once again, they hired him.
27:42 Holly Frey? Grant's account of this expedition is called "A Walk Across Africa," or "Domestic Scenes From My Nile Journal." And in it, he describes Bombay as their factotum and interpreter. When they set out, it was with a party of British officers and soldiers, local interpreters and guides. 64 seedy boys, or Bombay Africans, 115 locally hired porters, 11 mules, and perhaps not wanting a repeat of that situation where Bombay was having to ferry one available donkey between two sick men, five donkeys to carry the sick.
28:22 Tracy V. Wilson? On July 21, 1862, Speke reached the place where the Nile River actually exists, the lake that he had named Lake Victoria. He named this Ripon Falls after George Robinson, first Marquess of Ripon, who had served as president of the Royal Geographic Society. Grant was not with Speke when this happened. Grant had a leg injury and had stayed behind, along with most of their company. There's also some speculation that maybe he stayed behind because Speke was kind of arrogant and did not want anybody else claiming credit for this.
29:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Bombay, though, was with Speke when he was there. He had led about a dozen Bombay Africans who supported Speke on this part of the journey. To Speke, this was conclusive confirmation that this lake was the source of the Nile.
29:21 Holly Frey? By this point, Bombay had been promoted to command the expedition's African porters, and he had been entrusted with a series of independent missions to do things like hire more porters when an expected group of reinforcements didn't arrive. He had also served as the expedition's envoy to two different Bantu kingdoms they needed to pass through, Karagwe and Buganda.
29:44 Tracy V. Wilson? After they were finished at Lake Victoria, Speke and Grant wanted to continue westward, which would take them through the Kingdom of Benuro. King Karamasi of Ben Yoroh refused their passage, though, and Bombay was the one who negotiated a different route that took them northward through Sudan instead. They ultimately ended this expedition in Cairo.
30:08 Holly Frey? That was thousands of miles away from where they had started. Speek talked about what happened to the Africans he had hired after this in his book, The Discovery of the Source of the Nile. He described them as his, quote, "faithful children," and they became known as Speek's Faithfuls. Quote, "I next appointed Bombay captain of the faithfuls and gave him three photographs of all the 18 men and three more of the four women, to give one of each to our consuls at Suez, Aiden, and Zanzibar, by which they might be recognized. I also gave them increased wages, equal to three years' pay each, by orders on Zanzibar, which was one in addition to their time of service,
30:52 Holly Frey? and an order for a grand Freeman's garden to be purchased for them at Zanzibar, and an order that each one should receive $10 dowry money as soon as he could find a wife." With these letters in their hands, I made arrangements with our consul, Mr. Drummond Hay, to frank them through Suez, Aiden, and the Seychelles to Zanzibar.
31:14 Tracy V. Wilson? John Hanningspeak described Bombay as, quote, "the life and success of the expedition." In a letter to Christopher Palmer Rigby, British consul in Zanzibar, he praised both Bombay and the African porters who had made the trip possible. Quote, "It is to these singular Negroes acting as hired servants that I have been chiefly indebted for opening this large section of Africa. Would that I had listened to Bombay when at Zanzibar and had engaged double the number of his free men, for they do all the work and do it as an enlightened and disciplined people."
31:51 Holly Frey? After returning to Zanzibar, Bombay settled on the island of Pemba. He was married by this point. He had multiple wives, some of whom traveled with the expedition and worked as cooks or laundresses. At least two of his children had been born during this expedition, although both of them had died.
32:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Speek and Grant returned to England in 1893, and sadly, Speek did not live for very long after that. Richard Burton had continued to challenge his findings about the source of the Nile, and the two men were supposed to have a public debate about it. But on September 15, 1864, the day before that debate was supposed to happen, Speek was killed by a shot from his own gun while out hunting. The coroner ruled this death to be accidental, but some people, including Burton, believed that it was suicide. And there were also people who put the blame on Burton for reportedly driving Speek to it.
32:55 Tracy V. Wilson? Bombay was really heartbroken when he learned about Speek's death, and he talked about wanting to go to England to visit his grave.
33:03 Holly Frey? We're going to get to more expeditions after we pause for a sponsor break.
33:11 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for sponsored jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed to help solve hiring challenges and
33:55 Tracy V. Wilson? find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
34:21 Tracy V. Wilson? Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments. You give so much to everyone else. Isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
34:52 Holly Frey? We've all done it. Tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends.
35:34 Holly Frey? Not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
35:55 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life. Love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So, listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you.
36:35 Tracy V. Wilson? All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
37:00 Tracy V. Wilson? Although John Hannings Speke believed that he had found the source of the White Nile, after his death, the matter was still not considered fully settled among British geographers. Today, it's considered to be kind of a little more complicated than that. The White Nile does flow out of that lake, and the lake gets a lot of its water from rainfall, but it is also fed by some other waterways. Burton felt like he had never been able to publicly lay out his arguments against Speke's findings the way that he wanted to. But then after Speke's death, he mostly moved on to other things. One of the people who embarked on an expedition to try to conclusively determine the source
37:44 Tracy V. Wilson? of the Nile was Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who was also an abolitionist whose work was connected to both spreading Christianity and trying to abolish slavery in Africa. Livingstone had already undertaken several expeditions when he set off in search of the source of the Nile in 1866. He eventually reached Lake Tanganyika, but he became seriously ill. People back in the UK didn't know where he was or what had happened to him. And by 1871, multiple search parties had been sent to look for him. One of these was led by Henry Morton Stanley, who arrived in Zanzibar on January 6, 1871,
38:28 Tracy V. Wilson? and he hired Sidi Mubarak Bombay as his chief of caravan.
38:34 Tracy V. Wilson? Stanley wanted to hire some of the so-called Speaks Faithfuls, and specifically to hire Bombay. He wrote, quote, "The idea had struck me before that if I could obtain the services of a few men acquainted with the ways of white men, and who could induce other good men to join the expedition I was organizing, I might consider myself fortunate. More especially, I had thought of Sidi Mubarak Bombay, commonly called Bombay, who, though his head was wooden-y and his hands clumsy, was considered to be the faithfullest of the Faithfuls."
39:09 Holly Frey? They followed a similar route to the one that Bombay had followed with Burton and Speak. And just like on that expedition, Stanley's convoy had its share of challenges, including all kinds of illnesses and injuries and delays. Initially, Stanley described Bombay as honest and trustworthy, but sometimes slow to act. But over the course of the expedition, Stanley became frustrated with him. At one point, they stopped at a village for almost a month because Stanley was ill, and Bombay met a woman while they were there and didn't want to leave. So Stanley flogged him with his cane. Later on, Stanley had Bombay put in chains
39:51 Holly Frey? for failing to keep discipline among the porters after a mutiny.
39:55 Tracy V. Wilson? But in spite of all of this, on November 10, 1871, the party reached Lake Tanganyika, and they met up with David Livingstone. There is an episode on this reunion from previous hosts of the show, which we ran as a Saturday classic on September 23, 2017.
40:14 Holly Frey? The expedition returned to Zanzibar on May 7, 1872, and had some issues on this leg of the route as well, including one in which Bombay and one of the rowers got drunk and fell asleep. And while they were out cold, someone stole the gear from a canoe that they were supposed to be guarding.
40:33 Tracy V. Wilson? So they had gone out there to try to find Livingstone, but Livingstone did not come back with them. He wanted to stay in Africa and continue his work. So a couple of years later, Vernie Lovett Cameron embarked on an expedition to try to bring Livingstone back. Like all the other people we've been talking about, Cameron thought Sidi Mubarak Bombay would be necessary to the expedition's success because of his previous experience and his status as chief among speaks faithfulls.
41:06 Holly Frey? But Cameron did not retain that opinion over the course of the expedition. Bombay was about 53 years old when they left and Cameron wrote in his book Across Africa, quote, "He rather presumed on our ignorance and we soon learned that however useful he might have been in days gone by, he was not the best man to consult in fitting out an expedition, not having sufficient readiness and knowledge to advise us as to the most serviceable things with which to supply ourselves. He had, besides, lost much of the energy he displayed in his journeys with our predecessors in African travel and was much inclined to trade upon his previous reputation. But the high opinion we had formed
41:49 Holly Frey? of him at first blinded us to his many failings."
41:53 Tracy V. Wilson? Bombay was once again the person who recruited and hired all of the expedition's porters, servants, and drivers, and this group Cameron later described as a motley crew. Cameron's account of their expedition describes a range of frustrations with Bombay, including his guiding them through a swamp where they had to stay overnight when a different path would have gotten them back to the camp they'd already established, and opening loads of goods in front of a chieftain who then wanted some expensive cloth from those goods that Cameron did not want to trade with him.
42:31 Holly Frey? Sometimes this seems more like a difference of opinion than Bombay actually doing anything wrong. Cameron had issues with his legs and feet during a lot of this expedition, including boils, abscesses, and swelling. At one point, he was really having trouble walking and Bombay convinced him to stay where they were another day. Cameron wrote, quote, "I could not understand the economy of remaining an extra day in a place doing nothing, simply to save about one-sixth of our ordinary daily expenses." It seems like Bombay might have thought access to cheaper food might make it a good time for Cameron to try to recover a little before they moved on.
43:12 Tracy V. Wilson? Also, while they were on the way to Lake Tanganyika to try to find living stone, they learned that he had died. In spite of that, Cameron decided to press on and to explore the lake. This then turned into a trek all the way across Equatorial Africa, all the way from Zanzibar to Angola. This took two years, and it made them the first party known to have ever done that. While Cameron seemed annoyed by the "motley" crew that Bombay had assembled for this, 49 of the 54 people who got to the Atlantic Ocean with them were people he had recruited and managed that whole way.
43:56 Holly Frey? On February 8, 1876, Bombay and the rest of the retinue were sent back to Zanzibar aboard a schooner. A few months later, Bombay received a visit from the Reverend W. Salter Price, who approached him about an expedition to Uganda to establish a Christian mission for the Church Missionary Society. They embarked on a preliminary trip, but in 1876 Bombay was awarded a silver medal by the Royal Geographic Society. A number of the porters and other laborers who were part of these expeditions were also awarded bronze medals.
44:34 Tracy V. Wilson? Although Bombay was not invited to London to receive this medal, it did come along with a pension. And at this point, it seems like he essentially retired as a guide. It does seem like he continued to travel and work with the Church Missionary Society, but he kind of did it on his own terms. I found the writing about the later years of his life to be kind of vague. Some of the accounts of him describe him as Muslim. It's not clear if he converted to Christianity and was doing Christian missionary work at this point. I tried to get more clarity on exactly what was happening here, and was not successful.
45:14 Holly Frey? C.D. Mubarak Bombay died in Zanzibar on October 12th, 1885, at the age of about 65. Over the course of all these expeditions, he had traveled more than 9,000 miles, most of it on foot. He was probably the most widely traveled person of his era by the time he returned from crossing the continent with Verne Lovett Cameron. And while these more well-known explorers expressed a range of frustrations and foibles, it's pretty clear that they could not have done what they did without him and without the porters, rowers, and soldiers who he hired and managed.
45:51 Tracy V. Wilson? After learning of his death, Henry Morton Stanley wrote a letter to James Augustus Grant in which he said of Bombay, quote, "He had his failings, but he had also virtues. He was brave and manly. He was faithful and was incorruptible, in a sense. He was a fine old gossip delighted to talk of past days and old times. Seen at such a time, Bombay was a dear and even lovable man, and as I recall them, romance leads a charm to them and softens many asperities of my journey. Peace be to his old head. May his failings be forgotten and only his virtues remembered." And that is C.D. Mubarak Bombay.
46:35 Holly Frey? Do you have listener mail?
46:36 Tracy V. Wilson? I do. I have listener mail that I hope I didn't read already. I almost picked one that I definitely did read. I confirmed that I had read it already and went to get a different one. This is from Kathleen. Kathleen wrote to say, "Thank you for the Dorothy Arsner episode." And this email says, "Hi there. Like many listeners, I've thought about writing to you in response to an episode I loved but would never actually commit. However, this time I am sending this from my phone, so I don't chicken out. I just want to say thank you for the Dorothy Arsner episode. I'm always learning about fascinating people that I've never heard of from this podcast, but I wanted to send an email about this
47:19 Tracy V. Wilson? episode specifically because I work in the film industry. I grew up learning what I could about film history and I went to school for film but never heard of Dorothy Arsner, which is a travesty after learning about all of her contributions, filmmaking, directing, and teaching, even though she never received an award." And to learn that she taught Francis Ford Coppola and was such an influence is amazing. I guess my very minuscule connection is that a friend of mine was able to work on his film Megalopolis that came out last year. So, thank you Dorothy Osner for teaching Coppola so my friends could work on his films. I don't want to make this email too long, so I'll go ahead and wrap it up. By paying the pet tax with some pictures of my cats.
48:02 Tracy V. Wilson? I have a black and white tuxedo cat named Dinah and a mixed Siamese cat named Olive. If you can believe it, Dinah is Olive's mom. I don't know enough about genetics to tell you how a black and white cat popped out of a Siamese cat. One day I'll do a genetics test. Again, thank you for all you do. I was able to see you live last year at the Indiana Historical Society and it was such a fun treat for me and my mom. I've been listening for years since college and you've helped me get through work chores and the monotonousness of a long drive. Cheers, Katie. I might have said Kathleen when I kicked off the email, but Katie signed it. Katie at the
48:43 Tracy V. Wilson? bottom. So, thank you so much, Katie. Let's look at, oh my goodness. There's a kitty cat.
48:50 Holly Frey? Cat genetics are super fascinating.
48:53 Tracy V. Wilson? They are. They are very, uh, very fascinating. My cats, who are almost entirely all black, they've got a couple of little white toes, little patches of white on their bodies, had one sibling in their litter who was an orange tabby. It was all black cats and an orange tabby.
49:15 Holly Frey? There's, um, there are so many fascinating, um, things about colors that cats turn out with and how they relate to, um, their behavior in later life. You know how people say like, oh, torties have attitude and you know, blah, blah, blah, um, which sometimes hold true and sometimes don't. But like, there are also interesting things that happen in terms of their position in the womb and how that impacts the receptors that do all of that. Um, I'm talking kind of from memory, so hopefully I don't screw anything up. But you know, we have the example, we just adopted three sisters from the same litter.
49:48 Tracy V. Wilson? Uh huh.
49:49 Holly Frey? They don't look alike.
49:50 Tracy V. Wilson? They don't look anything alike.
49:51 Holly Frey? One is a very puffy black cat. One is a giant tabby who is very, very big and has kind of like, I would have thought she was a male cat if I hadn't been told otherwise because she has kind of the features you associate with male cats. Like her head has kind of that fist shape and she's got very big muscles. And then they have a teeny tiny baby sister who is shaped the same way as Marva the black cat, but like in shrunkulated version. And she's more petite than the other two. And she's kind of got torty color, like the same colorways as the big tabby, but in a more of a torty thing with one white toe on each foot. They, they may all have different
50:35 Holly Frey? dads. So that's part of it.
50:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Possible.
50:39 Holly Frey? The father as a contributor of the genetics is often why litters look real different.
50:43 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, yeah.
50:45 Holly Frey? A litter can have all different dads.
50:47 Tracy V. Wilson? All kinds. So Katie has sent a number of pictures of these adorable cats and there are two different ones in which they are curled up together. And I super would not have guessed these cats were related to each other, not knowing this ahead of time. Incredibly cute. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Katie. I am glad that you liked the episode. Folks can email us anytime to say just hello. That is also totally fine. But I love the idea of sending the email on your phone so that you don't check it out. I have done similar things to make sure that I do a thing immediately. So if you would like to send us a note about
51:32 Tracy V. Wilson? this or any other podcasts, we're at [email protected] . And you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts.
51:48 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
52:02 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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53:14 Tracy V. Wilson? it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five- and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
53:41 Speaker 04 Live Right, publishers of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, The Gales of November, a chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book, writes John J. Miller of The Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Sides proclaims that it's destined to be a classic. The Gales of November, now in paperback.
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