Bain Hugh Clapperton (18 May 1788 – 13 April 1827) was a British naval officer and explorer of West and Central Africa.
Early career
Clapperton was born in Annan, Dumfriesshire, where his father, George Clapperton, was a surgeon. He gained some knowledge of practical mathematics and navigation, and at thirteen was apprenticed on board a vessel which traded between
Liverpool and
North America. After having made several voyages across the
Atlantic Ocean, he was impressed for the navy, in which he soon rose to the rank of
midshipman. During the
Napoleonic Wars he saw a good deal of active service, and at the storming of Port Louis, Mauritius, in November 1810, he was first in the breach and hauled down the
France flag.
In 1814 Clapperton went to Canada, where he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and to the command of a schooner on the Canadian lakes. In 1817, when the flotilla on the lakes was dismantled, he returned home on half-pay. In 1820 Clapperton transferred to Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of Walter Oudney, who aroused his interest in African exploration.
African exploration
After lieutenant G. F. Lyon had returned from an unsuccessful attempt to reach
Bornu Empire from Tripoli, the British government determined on a second expedition to that country. Walter Oudney was appointed by Lord Bathurst, then colonial secretary, to proceed to Bornu as consul, accompanied by Hugh Clapperton.
From Tripoli, early in 1822, they set out southwards to
Murzuk, where they were later joined by Major
Dixon Denham, who found both men in a wretched condition. They eventually proceeded south from Murzuk on 29 November 1822. By this time, a deep antipathy had developed between Clapperton and Denham, Denham secretly sending home malicious reports about Clapperton having
homosexual relations with one of the Arab servants. The accusation, based on a rumour spread by a disgruntled servant dismissed by Clapperton for theft, was almost certainly unfounded, and Denham later withdrew it but without telling Clapperton he had done so, leading the historian Bovill to observe that 'it remains difficult to recall in all the checkered (sic) history of geographic discovery.... a more odious man than Dixon Denham'.
[Bovill, E. W. (ed.) (1966). Missions to the Niger. Vols. II – IV. The Bornu Mission, 1822–25. Cambridge University Press.]
On 17 February 1823, the party eventually reached Kuka (now Kukawa in Nigeria), capital of the Bornu Empire, where they were well received by the sultan Sheikh al-Kaneimi, having earlier become the first white men to see Lake Chad. While they were at Kuka, Clapperton and Oudney parted company with Denham on 14 December to explore the course of the Niger River. Denham remained behind to explore and survey the western, south and south-eastern shores of Lake Chad, and the lower courses of the rivers Waube, Logone River and Chari River. However, only a few weeks later, Oudney died at the village of Murmur, located near the town of Katagum on the road to Kano.
Immediately after his return to England, Clapperton was raised to the rank of commander, and sent out with another expedition to Africa, the sultan Bello of Sokoto having professed his eagerness to open up trade with the west coast. Clapperton came out on HMS Brazen, which was joining the West Africa Squadron for the suppression of the slave trade. He landed at Badagry in the Bight of Benin, and started overland for the Niger on 7 December 1825, having with him his servant Richard Lemon Lander, Captain Pearce, and Dr. Morrison, navy surgeon and naturalist. Before the month was out Pearce and Morrison were dead of fever. Clapperton continued his journey, and, passing through the Yoruba people country, in January 1826 he crossed the Niger at Bussa, the spot where Mungo Park had died twenty years before.
Death
In July, Clapperton arrived at Kano and thence the
Fulani capital Sokoto, intending to continue to Bornu and renew his acquaintance with the Kanuri leader Sheikh al-Kaneimi. However, the
Fulani were now at war with al-Kaneimi, and Sultan Bello refused him permission to leave. After many months' detention, afflicted by malaria, depression, and
dysentery, Clapperton died, leaving his servant Lander the only survivor of the expedition. Lander returned to the coast, and at
Bioko by extraordinary coincidence met Clapperton's old antagonist, Dixon Denham, who duly relayed the news of Clapperton's demise to London.
[Kryza, F. T. (2007). The Race for Timbuktu. HarperCollins, New York. .]
Legacy
Clapperton was the first European to make known from personal observation the Hausa states, which he visited soon after the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate by the Fula. In 1829, the
Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa, &c., by Clapperton appeared posthumously, with a biographical sketch of the explorer by his uncle, Lieutenant-Colonel S. Clapperton, as a preface.
Richard Lander, who had brought back the journal of his master, also published
Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa ... with the subsequent Adventures of the Author (2 volumes, London, 1830).
Paintings and Engravings
Hugh Clapperton was painted in 1817 by Sir
Henry Raeburn, the painting now residing in the United States.
[ ] A later oil painting by Gildon Manton is held by the National Gallery of Scotland.
The frontispiece to Clapperton's
Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa features an engraving by Thomas Goff Lupton.
[The London Literary Gazette
and Journal of Belles Lettres, page 778, 1828)]
Works
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Clapperton, H. (1826). Difficult and Dangerous Roads – Travels in Sahara and Fezzan, 1822–1825. Eds. Bruce-Lockhart, J. & Wright, J. Sickle Moon Books, London.
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Scans: Volume 1, Volume 2
Notes
Further reading
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James R. Bruce-Lockhart, Clapperton in Borno: Journals of the Travels in Borno of Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton RN, from January 1823 to September 1824 (Cologne, 1996)
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James R. Bruce-Lockhart, John Wright, Difficult and Dangerous Roads: Hugh Clapperton's Travels in Sahara and Fezzan 1822–1825 (London: Sickle Moon Books, 2000)
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