Short answer: Mungo Park’s travels illustrate how European exploration and knowledge gathering in West Africa were entangled with imperialist aims, especially in terms of expanding trade, asserting economic influence, and laying groundwork for later colonial control. Background on Park

• Mungo Park (1769–1806) was a Scottish explorer funded by British interests to map and understand West Africa, particularly the Niger River, with an eye toward trade opportunities and strategic knowledge that could underpin British influence in the region. This dual motive—scientific exploration and commercial/political advantage—frames his missions rather than a purely humanitarian or purely scientific purpose.

How exploration connects to imperialism

• Knowledge as a tool of power: Detailed geographic and ethnographic information about river systems, trade networks, and political landscapes could be used to establish routes, negotiate with local rulers, and justify further intervention or occupation. Park’s narratives often foreground trade potential and political stability as prerequisites for commerce, signaling an imperial mindset that equates mapping with control.

• Economic objectives: Park’s own writings and contemporaries’ analyses show a strong emphasis on commercial aims—seeking to open and secure trade routes, secure trading posts, and prove the viability of transporting goods inland. This aligns with mercantile imperialism, where economic interests drive expansion and state backing for expeditions.

• Military and political leverage: On later journeys Park received government funding and gifts for African rulers to cement British influence, reflecting how exploration could function as a prelude to state-backed imperial presence, including potential military or coercive leverage in the region.

• Moral and ethical tensions: While Park contributed to geographical knowledge, his expeditions operated within a slave-trade and mercantile economy shaped by European powers. His actions and fortunes reveal the complicity of exploration within broader imperial economic systems, even as individual motives varied.

Key takeaways

• The connection is methodological and strategic: exploration served imperial aims by generating usable knowledge, establishing trade interests, and providing a pretext for broader political and economic engagement.
• Park’s career exemplifies the transitional phase between scientific curiosity and organized imperial expansion in the early 19th century, where exploration often preceded formal colonial control or intensified economic exploitation.

If you’d like, I can pull more detailed scholarly perspectives or compare Park’s case with other explorers to show how these patterns repeated across different contexts.