Kalulu: The 12-year-old boy who tragically drowned during slavery

Kalulu, a 12-year-old African slave boy, drowned in Livingstone Falls in the Congo while working as a porter for British explorer, Sir Henry Morton Stanley.

He was sold to Stanley by an Arab merchant in Zanzibar. His real name was Ndugu Mhali, but because Stanley didn’t like the name, he christened him Kalulu.

Between 1872 to 1873, Kalulu accompanied Stanley around Europe and America, and during that time posed for a wax model which was later installed at Madame Tussaud’s museum in London.

Stanley briefly enrolled him at a school in Wandsworth, South West London, where the headmaster later noted that he was “clever and progressing in English.”

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After the death of Dr David Livingstone in Zambia in 1874, Stanley, who was keen to carry on with Livingstone’s exploration work, withdrew Kalulu from school and the two returned to Africa.

In 1877, Stanley, while using Kalulu as his servant, embarked on an expedition in the Congo to find the source of the River Nile.

Unfortunately, during this trip, Kalulu died in a tragic accident after his canoe plunged hundreds of feet down a waterfall on the Congo River. The waterfall was later named ‘Kalulu Falls’ in his honour.

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