Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza

Who is Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza?

Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was an Italian-born explorer who became a naturalized French citizen and is remembered as one of the most consequential Europeans in the early colonial history of Gabon and the wider Congo basin. Born Pietro Savorgnan di Brazzà in Rome in 1852 to a noble Friulian family, he trained at the French naval academy and took French citizenship in 1874. Starting in 1875 he led expeditions up the Ogooué River in Gabon, and in 1880 he founded the trading and administrative post of Franceville on the river's upper reaches, still a major Gabonese city today. He pressed on into the Congo basin, negotiating treaties with local rulers, including the Makoko of the Bateke, that gave France a claim to territory on the north bank of the Congo River; the post he established there, Brazzaville, was named in his honor and later became the capital of the Republic of the Congo. Compared with rivals such as Henry Morton Stanley, Brazza was noted for a comparatively conciliatory approach toward the African communities he encountered. He later served as commissioner-general of the French Congo and, near the end of his life, was sent back to investigate reports of colonial abuses; he died in 1905 before completing that inquiry, and his critical findings were largely suppressed by the French government.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Pierre de Brazza" · Wikipedia, "Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza"