Travel Writing, Experiences, and Silences: What is Left Out of European Travelers Accounts: The Case of Richard Dorsey Mohun

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Periodical article

Title:	Travel Writing, Experiences, and Silences: What is Left Out of European Travelers Accounts: The Case of Richard Dorsey Mohun
Author:	Barrett-Gaines, Kathryn
Year:	1997
Periodical:	History in Africa
Volume:	24
Pages:	53-70
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Subsaharan Africa
Subjects:	travel historical sources History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172018
Abstract:	This article addresses the issue of approaching the project of writing African history by way of evidence left by visitors to Africa. Using Richard Dorsey Mohun's account of his three-year (1898-1901) expedition into Central Africa as a case study, the author demonstrates that sources like Mohun's account can be useful in limited ways to illuminate the experiences of otherwise anonymous and silent African people. Her question is double: the first part concerns the experience of the people from Zanzibar who accompanied, carried, and worked for Mohun on his expedition into Central Africa to lay telegraph wire; the second wonders how and how well the first question can be answered using, primarily, the only sources available right now - those written by Mohun. On the basis of her analysis, the author concludes that the method of milking visitors' writings on Africa is indeed illuminating in some ways, but that on the other hand, more questions are left unanswered than are answered. Notes, ref.