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It's very disappointing to see a Plaid Cymru councillor defending the statue of Henry Morton Stanley in Denbigh by saying he loved Africans and wasn't a racist. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53056739#
Stanley did have respect for the so-called "noble savage". But such attitudes were never about equality; the physical strength of Africans was used as justification to shoot those armed only with spears. Even in his own time, he was criticized for his violence towards Africans.
Stanley also fought for the South in the American civil war. Here is how his autobiography recorded efforts to get him to change sides after being captured. He did swap sides but his writing makes clear this was only to get out of prison.
Stanley typifies the racial aggression and sense of superiority that ran through the British Empire. The fact that a statue of him went him as late as 2010 is very odd. Taking it down would be a symbolic rejection of what how he behaved. https://www.change.org/p/denbigh-town-council-remove-the-statue-of-stanley-from-denbigh-town-centre?
And it's not like Stanley was proud of being Welsh either. Here's how he regarded an invitation to speak at an eisteddfod. But such attitudes are trivial compared to his violence in Africa. He is a man to remember but not to celebrate.
