Juan Maria Schuver

At the age of 21 he worked as a private correspondent for the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Handelsblad, covering events that took place in the Third Carlist War in Spain.

In southern Sudan, he had a keen interest in the political and social aspects of the area, and made important historical and ethnographic observations concerning the various tribes he encountered.

His detailed descriptions of the Sudanese-Ethiopian border region in the early 1880s constitute an extremely valuable and exciting new contribution to the travel literature of late nineteenth-century Africa.

In August 1883, he was fatally wounded by a spear during a skirmish with Dinka tribesmen in Tek, a village that was a two-day journey from the garrison at Meshra-el-Rek.

Schuver maintained extensive notebooks during the expedition, and items he collected during his stay in Sudan are now housed at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden.