Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party is Martin Robison Delany’s account of his expedition to West Africa in 1859 and 1860. Delany, a pioneering African American physician, abolitionist, and advocate of black emigration, led the party to explore the Niger valley and assess its prospects for settlement by people of African descent from the Americas.
The report describes the lands, peoples, and resources of the region, and records his negotiations with local rulers concerning a possible colony. Reflecting Delany’s emigrationist vision and his belief in African American self-determination, the work is an important document of nineteenth-century black nationalism and exploration. As a rare first-hand African American account of West Africa from this period, it holds significant historical value for the study of the African diaspora.