Henry Morton Stanley and the exploration of Uganda

Updated 19 October 2026

Henry Morton Stanley, the Welsh-American journalist and explorer, visited Uganda on two major expeditions. In 1875 he reached the court of Kabaka Mutesa I of Buganda and wrote the letter that brought the first Christian missionaries in 1877. On the 1887 to 1889 Emin Pasha Relief Expedition he became the first European to report the Rwenzori Mountains and mapped Lake Edward, which he named.

The 1875 visit to Buganda

During his crossing of Africa from 1874 to 1877, Stanley circumnavigated Lake Victoria by boat and spent months in Buganda as a guest of Mutesa I. Impressed by the kingdom’s organisation, he wrote a letter published in the Daily Telegraph in November 1875 appealing for missionaries. The Church Missionary Society responded, and its first missionaries reached Buganda in 1877, followed by Catholic White Fathers in 1879, changing the kingdom’s politics for decades.

The Rwenzori and Lake Edward

On the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, sent to rescue the governor of Equatoria, Stanley’s party crossed from the Congo forest into western Uganda. In 1888 he saw the snow-capped Rwenzori range and identified it with Ptolemy’s Mountains of the Moon. He also mapped Lake Edward, naming it after the Prince of Wales. Read about the Rwenzori Mountains.

A controversial figure

Stanley’s expeditions were violent, with many porters and local people killed, and his later work for King Leopold II helped create the brutal Congo Free State. In Uganda, his legacy is mixed: he opened Buganda to missionaries and European attention, which led to religious wars and, eventually, colonial rule. See our guides to how explorers mapped Uganda and Frederick Lugard.

Visitors trekking gorillas in Bwindi often pass close to places Stanley described, from Lake Edward in Queen Elizabeth National Park to the Rwenzoris on clear days. The gorilla permit costs US$800, or US$600 in April, May and November. See our guide to Queen Elizabeth.

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