Emin Pasha
Mehmet Emin Pasha (
March 28,
1840 –
October 23,
1892), born
Isaak Eduard Schnitzer, baptized (c. 1847)
Eduard Carl Oscar Theodor Schnitzer, was a
physician,
naturalist and governor of the
Egyptian province of
Equatoria on the upper
Nile. (Although "Pasha" was a title conferred on him only in 1886, he also was invariably referred to as "Emin Pasha".)
 |
Eduard Schnitzer aka Emin Pasha |
He was born in
Oppeln (now
Opole),
Silesia into a middle-class
Germano-
Jewish family, which moved to
Neisse (now
Nysa) when he was two years of age. After the death of his father in 1845 his mother married a Gentile; she and her offspring were baptized Lutherans. He studied at the universities at
Breslau (now
Wrocław),
Königsberg, and
Berlin, qualifying as a doctor in
1864. However, he was disqualified from practice, and left Germany for
Constantinople, with the intention of entering
Ottoman service.
Travelling via
Vienna and
Trieste, he stopped at
Antivari in
Albania, found himself welcomed by the European community there and was soon in medical practice. He put his linguistic talent to good use as well, adding
Turkish,
Albanian, and
Greek to his repertoire of European languages. He became the
quarantine officer of the port, leaving only in
1870 to join the staff of
Ismail Hakki Pasha, governor of northern Albania, in the service he travelled throughout the
Ottoman Empire, although the details are little-known.
When Hakki Pasha died in
1873, Emin went back to Neisse with the pasha's widow and children, where he passed them off as his own family, but left suddenly in September
1875, reappearing in
Cairo and then departing for
Khartoum, where he arrived in December. At this point he took the name "Mehemet Emin" (Arabic
Muhammad al-Amin), started a medical practice, and began collecting
plants,
animals, and
birds, many of which he sent to
museums in Europe. Although some regarded him as a
Muslim, it is not clear if he ever actually converted.
Charles George Gordon, then governor of Equatoria, heard of Emin's presence and invited him to be the chief medical officer of the province; Emin assented and arrived there in May
1876. Gordon immediately sent Emin on diplomatic missions to
Buganda and
Bunyoro to the south, where Emin's modest style and fluency in
Luganda were quite popular.
After 1876, Emin made
Lado his base for collecting expeditions throughout the region. In
1878, the
Khedive of
Egypt appointed Emin as Gordon's successor to govern the province, giving him the title of
Bey. Despite the grand title, there was little for Emin to do; his military force consisted of a few thousand soldiers who controlled no more than a mile's radius around each of their outposts, and the government in Khartoum was indifferent to his proposals for development.
The revolt of
Muhammad Ahmad that began in
1881 had cut Equatoria off from the outside world by
1883, and the following year
Karam Allah marched south to capture Equatoria and Emin. In
1885 Emin and most of his forces withdrew further south, to
Wadelai near
Lake Albert. Cut off from communications to the north, he was still able to exchange mail with
Zanzibar through Buganda. Determined to remain in Equatoria, his communiques, carried by his friend
Wilhelm Junker, aroused considerable sentiment in Europe in
1886, particularly acute after the death of Gordon the previous year.
The
Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, led by
Henry Morton Stanley, undertook to rescue Emin by going up the
Congo River and then through the
Ituri Forest, an extraordinarily difficult route that resulted in the loss of two-thirds of the expedition. Precise details of this trek are recorded in the published diaries of the expedition's non-African "officers" (e.g. Major
Edmund Musgrave Barttelot, Captain
William Stairs, Mr.
A.J. Mounteney Jephson, or
Thomas Heazle Parke, surgeon of the expedition). Stanley met Emin in April
1888, and after a year spent in argument and indecision, during which Emin and Jephson were imprisoned at
Dufile by troops who mutinied from August to November 1888, Emin was convinced to leave for the coast. They arrived in
Bagamoyo in
1890. During celebrations Emin was injured in a fall from a balcony and Stanley left Africa without him.
Emin then entered the service of the
German East Africa Company and accompanied
Dr. Stuhlmann on an expedition to the lakes in the interior, but was killed by two Arabs, likely
slave traders, at
Kinene.
*
Buchta,
Der Sudan unter ägyptischer Herrschaft (Leipzig, 1888)
*
Stanley,
In Darkest Africa (New York, 1890)
*
Schynse,
Mit Stanley und Emin Pascha durch Deutsch-Ost-Africa (Cologne, 1890)
* Schweitzer,
Emin Pascha (Berlin, 1898)
* P. Reichard,
Emin Pascha (Leipzig, 1891)
* Vita Hassan,
Die Wahreit über Emin Pascha (Berlin, 1895)
*
G. Casati,
Ten Years in Equatoria and the Return with Emin Pasha (London, 1898)
*
F. Stuhlmann,
Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Africa (Berlin, 1894)
*
C. Peters,
Die deutsche Emin Pascha Expedition (München, 1891)
* Emin Pasha,
Eine Sammlung von Reisebriefen u.s.w., edited by G. Scheinfurth and
F. Ratzel (Leipzig, 1888)
*
Emin Pasha in East Africa (London,1898)
*
George Schweitzer,
Emin Pasha: His Life and Work (London, 1898)
*
A.J. Mounteney Jephson, "Diary" Edited by Dorothy Middleton, Hakluyt Society 1969
