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Mark Pullicino: James Martin, the Maltese adventurer. MPI Publishing, 2013. 221pp.

This book should attract a good many Maltese readers who will, like me, discover in it an interesting figure – practically unknown in Malta, his native land – who played a minor, but not insignificant role in the development of Kenya and Uganda in the late 19th century.

Author Mark Pullicino, building on research carried out by his late father Philip, has written a biography that concentrates very largely on James Martin’s 36 years in East Africa, years which saw this large region develop from a natural state to one served by important railway lines and seeing the early development of what is now East Africa’s largest city, Nairobi in Kenya, and Entebbe and Kampala in Uganda.

Martin was born Antonio Martini in 1857 in Malta, probably in Marsa, of a working-class family. He became known as James Martin after becoming a seaman. It was the sinking of the ship on which he was serving off the coast of East Africa that was to determine much of the rest of his life.

Martin was lucky to be saved by a British naval vessel after having spent a night clinging to a spar and, after a few other voyages found himself in Zanzibar. It was here that he started his career helping British colonisers with their exploration of Kenya. His first experience was in Mombasa, Kenya’s main port, where he began to gather what was to become a huge mass of knowledge about the tribes of the region, such as the Luhya and the Kikuyu, and to learn a number of languages spoken by the people there, such as Swahili.

Martin, however, was probably dyslexic and had received no schooling; he remained illiterate all his life.

One, therefore, wonders how such a man would eventually become a District Officer in Kenya, having important administrative and judicial powers. The author must, I imagine, be right in thinking that British administrators put such trust in him because of his great knowledge of the people of Kenya, who often saw him as much more understanding than many of the British administrators and officials.

In the early 1880s, East Africa had not been yet colonised, but both Britain and Germany were exploring it before they could try to take it over. In Mombasa, Martin was asked to accompany geologist and explorer Joseph Thomson on a long safari through the land of the Maasai people. The aim was to open a direct route from Mombasa to Uganda.

The author gives interesting descriptions of the way in which Martin tried to cover up his illiteracy

He proved himself so well during this 16-month long safari, that he made a name for himself, especially for his successful dealings with the tribes they met. This led to his being appointed safari leader on a number of occasions, including hunting safaris by British game hunters.

His trips, made on foot between Mombasa and Kampala or back, totalled 23. He was canny enough to see that he could make good money for himself by trading in a number of goods, ivory tusks above all, and he did make it.

The scramble for Africa by Britain and Germany led to an agreement between the two countries in 1886 to partition East Africa between them. The British protectorate over much of Kenya and part of Uganda became official in 1895. The year before, Martin joined the government of Uganda, serving as transport officer and even district officer for several years, but he still stuck to his dubious trading activities even at this time.

The author gives interesting descriptions of the way in which Martin tried to cover up his illiteracy. At one time, he had a clerical assistant who did all the writing for him, and who read out his judgements in the legal cases that came before him for decision. Inevitably, educated people realised his shortcomings and let him see that they knew. Martin, however, kept them in good humour with his generous parties and receptions in his house at Eldama Ravine, where he was then established.

In any case, for a long time he seems to have been regarded as a very useful man who needed to be kept on despite his shortcomings. The author says nothing about Martin’s sexual activities, but we learn that in 1896 he married the Portuguese daughter of a doctor in Mombasa; she later bore him a daughter.

The new century brought a new style of colonial administration to East Africa, one in which Martin found himself uncomfortable and out of place. In 1907 he left – or perhaps was forced to leave – for work with a rubber company in Mabira, Uganda.

After the end of The Great War, British policy-makers saw East Africa as a place in which it had sunk much money and wanted to make a handsome profit. White settlers had purchased much of the best farming land and this, together with the devastations caused by the war, undid all the good work others (Martin included) had done in the past to keep relations with the people of the country healthy.

Martin now saw he could not remain in his beloved Africa any longer, and soon after the war he and his wife left not for his native Malta, but for Lisbon, where he died in 1923.

Nothing is said about his last years and here, the author does not use a novelist’s technique, as he does in the opening chapters, to imagine what those last years were like.

Pullicino’s account of Martin’s boyhood and early teens in Malta is very largely conjectural. There is much padding, as in the author’s account of one of his ancestors, the important educationalist Paolo Pullicino (1815-1890).

On the other hand, I found his accounts of East African tribes and British colonial policy very useful and pertinent. Some readers will also find his introduction about dyslexia interesting.

The illustrations are few, and not quite arresting. I could hardly make out the facial features of Martin and of his wife in the only portrait included in the book. The book could also have done with a few more maps. Good maps would have made Martin’s travels much more comprehensible.

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