AN EXPLORER IS TAKEN FOR A MESSIANIC LEADER

BARTH UNWITTINGLY BEHAVES AS AN AGITATOR AND AUTHORITIES ARREST HIM 

Bagirmi officials think he will "upset the kingdom" should he arrive in the absence of the sultan, who is on a slaving expedition.

Adapted from a Google map

He is arrested for 18 days, four of them in irons. The sultan eventually lets him leave but not explore Bagirmi, a polite way of saying, "Get out of here and don't come back."

His trouble comes from how on his way from Logone to Bagirmi, he seems to want to attract followers: He...

• Gives away so much wealth (in needles) that he is called "the needle prince:" Hand-outs are meant to gain partisans.

• Shares provisions of the Logone ruler with a caravan leader, not realizing that  he is acting like a king. 

• Sits on a carpet until he learns it a prerogative of kings.   

• Appears to have supernatural powers. 

• That is partly due to bad luck: When thunderclouds disperse as he leaves his hut, he is called "king of the high regions." Then he stays in his hut as much as possible, inaccessibility probably adding to his aura.

• Distributing medicines sparks belief in his magic: On his expulsion, crowds follow him "all the way from Bagirmi" to obtain them.

As well, no one has seen a white person. That physical oddity makes him distinct.  

 

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The crowds themselves, which seem to spring up out of nowhere, reveal the destabilization the economic growth brings. The Logone ruler does not have the power to control it.  

In medieval Europe millenniel movements begin at the end of the 11th century in places where commerce expands (the Rhine valley, parts of northern France and Belgium and later, large parts of Europe). There are no records of such turmoil in regions where there is little economic growth. 

                                                                    -- The Pursuit of the Millenium by Herman Cohn, Oxford, 1957, p. 22 and on.

It is a classic study of European revolutionary messianism.

Those crowds foreshadow the mass movements that will soon sweep the savannah.

Kanembu warriors, "Le Tour du monde," ed. Elysée Reclus, 1885

(The Kanembu: a Bornu population)

A messianic leader? Vigorous and unencumbered, riding a white steed, whom a disciplined infantry follows (please read on)...

When lands are lost,
the old ways are irretrievably gone,

social ties dissolved
 and ancestral beliefs no longer reassure,
people may flock to leaders who are outside the norm —
including a European explorer of Africa. 

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Next,

 "Everywhere the humble show the masters their teeth"