Albrecht Roscher (August 27, 1836 – March 19, 1860) was a German explorer of Africa. He was murdered near Lake Malawi in 1860.

Life

Roscher was born in Ottensen on August 27, 1836. He attended grammar school at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg and then went on to study geography, science and medicine at the University of Leipzig. In his 1857 dissertation, "Ptolemy and the trade routes in Central Africa", Roscher, with goal of pinpointing the source of the Nile, used information gleaned from Ptolemy's map of the world to reconstruct the geography of Central Africa. This achievement attracted the interest of eminent geographers such as Heinrich Barth, Alexander Humboldt, Carl Ritter and

August Petermann Augustus Heinrich Petermann (18 April 182225 September 1878) was a German cartographer. Early years Petermann was born in Bleicherode, Germany. When he was 14 years old he started grammar school in the nearby town of Nordhausen. His mother wan ...

. Roscher soon embarked on a multi-year scientific expedition to Africa, arriving in Zanzibar in 1858, where he conducted botanical investigations and learned

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...

. In early 1859, he traveled down the coastline of what is now mainland Tanzania, exploring the waters around modern-day

Dar es Salaam Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...

and charting the

Rufiji delta Rufiji may refer to: * Rufiji Delta, a region in Tanzania * Rufiji District, in the Pwani Region of Tanzania * Rufiji River The Rufiji River lies entirely within Tanzania. It is also the largest and longest river in the country. The river is fo ...

. In June he landed at Kilwa. He remained there for two months while ill. He then joined an Arab slave caravan heading inland, arriving at Lake Malawi in October 1859, two months after the famed British explorer David Livingstone. On departing the shores of Lake Malawi in March 1860, Roscher was attacked and killed. There is speculation that his death resulted from Arab slave traders' fears that he would expose the practices of the Arab slave trade. His journals along with his geographical and anthropological observations were lost.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roscher, Albrecht 1836 births 1860 deaths 19th-century German people 19th-century explorers 19th-century geographers Explorers of Africa German explorers German geographers German people murdered abroad Male murder victims Assassinated explorers People educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums 1860 murders in Africa