LibGuides: Africa Primary Sources: Narratives & Travel Logs

Narratives & Travel Logs

If you want to browse the print collection for ideas and find some really great treasures go up to the third floor in Olin and find the section labelled DT which is History of Africa. Each country or region has a section and within those sections you will find local history and description areas which may contain historical travel logs. For example, the DT 530 section covers West Africa.

Colonial narratives - Library of Congress
Livingstone's 1871 Field Diary
The original record of a remarkable and traumatic period in the life of David Livingstone, the celebrated British abolitionist, missionary, and explorer of Africa.
Africa Online Digital Library
AODL provides free universal access to cultural heritage materials from and about African countries and communities. It brings together tens of thousands of digitized photographs, videos, archival documents, maps, interviews and oral histories in numerous African languages, many of which are contained in curated thematic galleries and teaching resources.
Bibliography of African Travel Literature
Emma B Andrews Diary Project
A multi-volume collection of Nile travel journals written by Mrs. Emma B. Andrews. Traveling to Egypt withTheodore M. Davis between 1889 and 1912, she kept detailed journals of these voyages along the Nile, including his important yet under-reported excavations of more than 20 significant tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
African Peoples' Encounters With Others
Primary documents, facsimiles, and secondary sources in a variety of languages and formats that describe sub saharan interactions with peoples from elsewhere.
Travel Literature Africa
Christian missionaries were among the first Europeans to venture into the interior of Africa, and occasionally they had their experiences published.
Moore, Francis. Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa Containing a Description of the Several Nations for the Space of Six Hundred Miles up the River Gambia; T
A voyage to the river Sierra-Leone, on the coast of Africa : containing an account of the trade and productions of the country, and of the civil and religious customs and manners of the people ; in a series of letters to a friend in England.
Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798 Author Browne, William George
The exploration diaries of H.M. Stanley : now first published from the original manuscripts Stanley, Henry M
H.M. Stanley : unpublished letters Stanley, Henry M. (
My Kalulu, prince, king, and slave; a story of Central Africa Stanley, Henry M.
Mungo Park Journals such as: The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805
If you search the catalog for Mungo Park you will find other relevant titles.
Touring in Extremis:Travel and adventure in the Congo
The Liberian exodus; an account of voyage of the first emigrants in the Bark "Azor" and their reception at Monrovia, with a description of Liberia-its customs and civilization, romances and prospects
Six years of a traveller's life in western Africa

John Boyes: King of the Wa-Kikuyu: a true story of travel and adventure in Africa by Boyes, John, 1874-; Bulpett, C. W. L., editor.
Call Number: DT429 .B68 1911a
The diaries of Lord Lugard
Call Number: DT433.L8 A3 1959
A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea (1760) by Ludewig Ferdinand Rømer; Selena Axelrod Winsnes (Edited and Translated by); Ludewig Ferdinand Rømer
This is the first complete English translation of Ludewig Ferdinand Romer's sensitive account of Gold Coast (modern Ghana) in the mid 1700s. A vital resource on the history of West Africa, Romer's work offers rich descriptions of African societies, trading practices with Europe, and religion.