By the eighteenth century, European explorers had traversed vast swathes of the Earth’s oceans and travelled extensively in America and Asia. By comparison, Africa was less well known to Europeans. In 1788, the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, also known as the African Association, was founded to promote and outfit expeditions to explore the interior of West Africa.

The avowed goal of the African Association’s expeditions was to discover the exact location of Timbuktu and to chart the course of the river Niger, as well as to research and better understand the flora and fauna of this vast continent.