Was it a good decision for Stanley to explore with men who had no experience as travelers? Why or why not?

The decision of Stanley to explore Africa with an inexperienced crew was a poor decision because the journey through Africa was very treacherous and demanding, and through the extremely dangerous voyage, many travelers that were with Stanley lost their lives due to multiple causes. Stanley’s journey through Africa consisted of them traveling through the “entire African continent, from east to west. But unlike Verney Lovett Cameron, the only European to do this before him, [Stanley] had emerged at the Congo’s mouth. He must therefore have followed the river itself, becoming the first white man to chart its course and to solve the mystery of where it came from” (48). This journey was a difficult journey for anyone to travel, especially if the crewmembers were inexperienced, such as the travelers on Stanley’s brigade. Their difficult journey across Africa consisted of destroying multiple villages and towns, but came at the price of losing many hundreds of his crewmembers (49). With experienced men, Stanley would not have lost as many men while in combat with the other villages because experienced travelers would have known how to fight correctly with the correct weapons. During his journey, his crew also had to travel down rapids that Stanley called the “Stanley Rapids.” This could have led to many more deaths in his crew because the travelers were not experienced enough with canoeing in fast rapids with rocks (54, 55). After they concluded canoeing, many people died from starvation, and one member ran in the woods because he grew insane (56). With experienced canoe travelers, Stanley could have reduced the death toll when he passed through the deadly rapids because the experienced canoe travelers would have known how to correctly handle the fast rapids and maneuver between the deadly rocks. Throughout Stanley’s journey, many of his men died do to “festering wounds, dysentery, smallpox, or typhus” (56). In order to minimize the death toll due to these diseases, Stanley should have brought with him doctors because they would have been able to treat these diseases and could have decreased the death toll. Through the death toll reaching hundreds of deaths in Stanley’s brigade, he should have reconsidered bringing more experienced travelers as they explored Africa because it could have decreased the death toll.