Biography

Austro-Hungarian trader and diplomat who spent 14 years in Africa. Franz Binder came from a German settlement in Transylvania. He trained in pharmacy in Hermannstadt, but bad economic times prompted him to move in 1849 to Alexandria (via Turkey, Cyprus, Iraq, and Syria) where he waited in vain for a promised opening as a pharmacist. Instead he became a trader. He was hired in 1852 by Landauer & Co, which sent him several times to Khartoum on their behalf. During the next six years he travelled widely in the Sudan between Kurdufan and Abyssinia, trading mostly in ivory and rubber. He married a woman of the Beni Shaqui tribe in 1855 and he accompanied the Austrian expeditions led by Ignaz Knoblecher (1853) and Franz Morlang (1855). Then in 1860, he acquired a property in Rumbek, west of the White Nile, after the death of its previous owner, his friend the French slave trader, Alphonse de Malzac. Before taking possession, he spent some time exploring the region. As soon as he settled, however, he found himself embroiled in tribal wars, but, after supporting his allies to victory, he managed to make two profitable trade and hunting excursions to Jur, a region previously unknown to Europeans, which yielded 100 tons of ivory from the first trip alone. His trading activities came swiftly to an end by the end of 1861 when fire destroyed half his stores and he fell ill with dysentery. After returning from his cure in Vienna, he had a short period as vice-consul of the Austrian Hungarian Empire in Khartoum before illness forced him to sell up and leave Africa for good in October 1863. He donated his African objects, mainly from the Nilotic tribes, to Siebenbuergische Veriein für Naturwissenschaftenn. They were moved to The Franz Binder World Ethnography Museum, Sibiu, Romania, when it opened in 1993. His African plant collections were later described by Theodore Kotschy.

Biography

Austro-Hungarian trader and diplomat who spent 14 years in Africa. Franz Binder came from a German settlement in Transylvania. He trained in pharmacy in Hermannstadt, but bad economic times prompted him to move in 1849 to Alexandria (via Turkey, Cyprus, Iraq, and Syria) where he waited in vain for a promised opening as a pharmacist. Instead he became a trader. He was hired in 1852 by Landauer & Co, which sent him several times to Khartoum on their behalf. During the next six years he travelled widely in the Sudan between Kurdufan and Abyssinia, trading mostly in ivory and rubber. He married a woman of the Beni Shaqui tribe in 1855 and he accompanied the Austrian expeditions led by Ignaz Knoblecher (1853) and Franz Morlang (1855). Then in 1860, he acquired a property in Rumbek, west of the White Nile, after the death of its previous owner, his friend the French slave trader, Alphonse de Malzac. Before taking possession, he spent some time exploring the region. As soon as he settled, however, he found himself embroiled in tribal wars, but, after supporting his allies to victory, he managed to make two profitable trade and hunting excursions to Jur, a region previously unknown to Europeans, which yielded 100 tons of ivory from the first trip alone. His trading activities came swiftly to an end by the end of 1861 when fire destroyed half his stores and he fell ill with dysentery. After returning from his cure in Vienna, he had a short period as vice-consul of the Austrian Hungarian Empire in Khartoum before illness forced him to sell up and leave Africa for good in October 1863. He donated his African objects, mainly from the Nilotic tribes, to Siebenbuergische Veriein für Naturwissenschaftenn. They were moved to The Franz Binder World Ethnography Museum, Sibiu, Romania, when it opened in 1993. His African plant collections were later described by Theodore Kotschy.

Biography

Austro-Hungarian trader and diplomat who spent 14 years in Africa. Franz Binder came from a German settlement in Transylvania. He trained in pharmacy in Hermannstadt, but bad economic times prompted him to move in 1849 to Alexandria (via Turkey, Cyprus, Iraq, and Syria) where he waited in vain for a promised opening as a pharmacist. Instead he became a trader. He was hired in 1852 by Landauer & Co, which sent him several times to Khartoum on their behalf. During the next six years he travelled widely in the Sudan between Kurdufan and Abyssinia, trading mostly in ivory and rubber. He married a woman of the Beni Shaqui tribe in 1855 and he accompanied the Austrian expeditions led by Ignaz Knoblecher (1853) and Franz Morlang (1855). Then in 1860, he acquired a property in Rumbek, west of the White Nile, after the death of its previous owner, his friend the French slave trader, Alphonse de Malzac. Before taking possession, he spent some time exploring the region. As soon as he settled, however, he found himself embroiled in tribal wars, but, after supporting his allies to victory, he managed to make two profitable trade and hunting excursions to Jur, a region previously unknown to Europeans, which yielded 100 tons of ivory from the first trip alone. His trading activities came swiftly to an end by the end of 1861 when fire destroyed half his stores and he fell ill with dysentery. After returning from his cure in Vienna, he had a short period as vice-consul of the Austrian Hungarian Empire in Khartoum before illness forced him to sell up and leave Africa for good in October 1863. He donated his African objects, mainly from the Nilotic tribes, to Siebenbuergische Veriein für Naturwissenschaftenn. They were moved to The Franz Binder World Ethnography Museum, Sibiu, Romania, when it opened in 1993. His African plant collections were later described by Theodore Kotschy.