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Biography of Samuel White Baker, SirName: Samuel White Baker, SirBirth Date: June 8, 1821 Death Date: 30, 1893 Place of Birth: London, England Nationality: English Gender: Male Occupations: explorer, author Samuel White Baker, Sir Sir Samuel White Baker (1821-1893) was an English explorer, author, and administrator who explored the Upper Nile and discovered Lake Albert. He also sought to suppress the slave trade in the southern Sudan.Samuel Baker was born in London on June 8, 1821. He was a large man with prodigious energy and great bravery and determination. A firm believer in the economic potential of the tropics, he went to manage his family's plantations in Mauritius in 1844 and later established his own estates in Ceylon. The plantations in Ceylon prospered, and he returned to England with his family. After his first wife, Henrietta, died in 1855, Baker traveled in the Crimea, Asia Minor, and the Balkans. In 1860 he married Florence Ninian von Sass, a young and beautiful Hungarian, and the following year he arrived in Cairo determined to seek the source of the River Nile.Traveling up the Nile to Berber, Baker spent a year …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…to pacify the people and acquire supplies for his troops and followers. Although these raids alienated important tribes, Baker continued to push south into Bunyoro in 1872, where he was again forced to fight, this time against Kabarega, who had succeeded Kamrasi as ruler. Like most African leaders who had to deal with Baker and his forces, Kabarega refused to trust the intruders, and Baker possessed neither the tact nor the tolerance to allay his fears.Nevertheless, when Baker retired to England and fame and fortune in 1873, he had struck the first blow against the Nilotic slave trade and had laid the foundations for colonial rule in the southern Sudan. He died in Devonshire on Dec. 30, 1893. Further Reading Dorothy Middleton, Baker of the Nile (1949), is a full-length biography. Also useful for information on Baker are Emile Ludwig, The Nile: The Life-Story of a River (1935; trans. 1937), and Alan Moorehead, The White Nile (1961). |