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A Rare Missionary Map of Central Africa, Published in Vineland, New Jersey
Rare map of Central Africa, published by George May Powell.
The two focal points of the map are Central Africa (centered on Leopoldeville (Kinshasa) and Kimpoke on the Congo River, location of Stanley Pool and Liberia.
The inset map of Liberia named the towns which are stations for Bishop Taylor's Mission.
Leopoldville (Kinshasa) was established as a trading post by Henry Morton Stanley in 1881. It was named Léopoldville in honor of King Leopold II of the Belgians, who controlled the Congo Free State, the vast territory that is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, not as a colony but as a private property. Stanley Pool is Pool Malebo. In the late 19th century, British colonists named this natural feature Stanley Pool, after British explorer and journalist Henry Morton Stanley, who had mapped and reported on this region.
The Full title on the cover reads:
African News Map of Central Africa with Powell's Radial Key Showing Distances and Directions from Leopoldville & Kimpoko, on Stanley Pool," this color map was published by The African News in Vineland, New Jersey, in 1889.
The map has seven insets showing other regions in Africa and a view of the Pyramids at the bottom left corner. A twelve-page index is laid in.
There may have been a connection between Powell and William Taylor. Between 1856 and 1883 Taylor traveled in many parts of the world as an evangelist. His vast missionary travels included Australia and South Africa (1863-1866); England, the West Indies, British Guiana, and Ceylon (1866-1870); India (1870-1875); South America (1875-1884); and Liberia, Angola, Congo, and Mozambique (1885-1896). He was elected Missionary Bishop of Africa on May 22, 1884, and retired in 1896. As stated in his book "The Flaming Torch in Darkest Africa," the title of the work was adopted by the bishop according to the nickname given to him by the local community. In the introduction, written by Henry M. Stanley, it states, "The natives everywhere on the territories where his missionary work called him knew him as 'The Flaming Torch,' or 'Fire Stick,' as some might translate the Zulu word Isikunisivutayp.
George May Powell
George May Powell was a philanthropist and public speaker on progressive and religious issues of the late 19th Century. Powell's public career started in his 20's as a noted statisician in the U.S. Treasury Department during the Civil War.
Powell was a Lincoln supporter and served as a statistician in the Treasury Department during the Civil War. He was an inventor, social reformer, evangelical, entrepreneur, pacifist, and archaeologist. His philosophy and life combined social Christianity and capitalist enterprise. The Republican Party in the 1864 election used Powell's 1863 article, favorably comparing American wartime excise taxes with those of other countries at peace.
Powell's photographic montage of supporters of the Thirteenth Amendment was very popular. Active in religious work as a young man, he was the secretary and manager of the Evangelistic Press Association and led a topographical corps through Egypt and North Africa to create Sunday School maps of Palestine and the Holy Land.
Powell invented many devices both during and after the Civil War, and pursued economic ventures in enterprises such as the Cordell Life Limb company, providing prosthetics for Civil War veterans. After the war he founded the Evangelical Press Association in 1868, led the Oriental Topographical Corps in an archaeological expedition to Egypt and Palestine in 1873 (publishing colored maps and lecturing widely after his return), and ran unsuccessfully for Congress on the Prohibition Ticket.
Powell worked to promote fireproof structures and participated in the American Forestry Commission, the Grange and Patrons of Husbandry, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the National Geographic Society. He was active in Sabbath reform work.
Powell was a noted public speaker, writer and cartographer. He also delved into photography as well as design and promotion of his inventions of an improved rifle and army cot.
