Stanley wrote a detailed account of his explorations in this region under the title "Across the Dark Continent." The book was eagerly read, and had a great influence upon the civilized world at the time of its publication.
The most noticeable result was the establishment of missions, not only along the Congo, but around Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika, and even in West, East, and Central Africa.
Travelers from France, Portugal, and Germany, fired with enthusiasm, set out to explore these vast regions; and, as a result, most of the European nations became interested in making as many annexations as they could to their possessions in Africa.
As a direct result of all this great interest, the savage tribes that infest the region of the Upper Congo were brought into a state of semi-civilization, and to the point where they would show, if not a friendly, at least a reasonably tolerant spirit towards the white man.
The aim of the missionaries was to bring the minds of these poor savages from the darkness, of ignorance, superstition, and idolatry into the light of Christianity, to show them the benefits of peace, the advantages of trade, and the results of an intercourse with the world of civilization.
Above all other objects that the hearts of the missionaries held sacred was the abolition of the slave trade, which, with all its attendant horrors, was the destruction of the people.
The enormity of the African slave trade was not over-estimated. The Arabs made it their special occupation to deal in what was known as the "ebony trade." Under the pretext of searching for ivory, they perpetrated the most cruel and heartless deeds.
Without a thought of the poor savages, they kept up a system of slaughter that knew no mercy, and drained the very life blood of the people of Central Africa.
Even from a selfish point of view, the white man saw it was for his advantage to destroy the slave trade. How could he be expected to advance into the heart of Africa without the aid of the strong, able-bodied natives? With the depopulation of the country, too, the well-worn, beaten tracks, the shady groves of banana trees, the broad fields of waving grain would disappear, and only devastation and ruin remain, as distressing pictures in this now fertile section.
The white man saw only too plainly that the slave trade did not affect the negro alone, but that it affected the loss or the profit of the whole civilized world. What availed it that the riches of Central Africa were apparently inexhaustible, if the native tribes were not left to help gather them?