Researchers from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania who scanned Livingstone's diary suggest that in putting his fragmentary notes about the massacre into the narrative of his journal, he left out his concerns about some of his followers, slaves owned by Banyan merchants who had been hired by John Kirk, acting consul at Zanzibar, and sent to get Livingstone to safety. These slaves had been liberated and added to his party, but had shown violent conduct against local people contrary to his instructions, and he feared they might have been involved in starting the massacre. His diary noted "Dugumbe's men murdering Kimburu and another for slaves" and implied that the slave Manilla played a leading part, but looking back at the events, he says Dugumbé's people bore responsibility, and started it to make an example of Manilla. In the diary he described his sending his men with protection of a flag to assist Manilla's brother. In his journal version it was to assist villagers. The version edited by Waller in the "Last Journals", published in 1874, left out the context of Livingstone's earlier comments about Kirk and bad behaviour of the hired Banyan men, and omitted the villagers' earlier violent resistance to Arab slavers, so it portrayed the villagers as passive victims. The section on the massacre itself had only minor grammatical corrections. Further research into diary notes continues.
Researchers from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania who scanned Livingstone's diary suggest that in putting his fragmentary notes about the massacre into the narrative of his journal, he left out his concerns about some of his followers, slaves owned by Banyan merchants who had been hired by John Kirk, acting consul at Zanzibar and sent to get Livingstone to safety. These slaves had been liberated and added to his party, but had shown violent conduct against local people contrary to his instructions, and he feared they might have been involved in starting the massacre. His diary noted "Dugumbe's men murdering Kimburu and another for slaves" and implied that the slave Manilla played a leading part, but looking back at the events, he says Dugumbé's people bore responsibility, and started it to make an example of Manilla. In the diary he described his sending his men with protection of a flag to assist Manilla's brother. In his journal version it was to assist villagers. The version edited by Waller in the "Last Journals", published in 1874, left out the context of Livingstone's earlier comments about Kirk and bad behaviour of the hired Banyan men, and omitted the villagers' earlier violent resistance to Arab slavers, so it portrayed the villagers as passive victims. The section on the massacre itself had only minor grammatical corrections. Further research into diary notes continues.