Leopold Janikowski

Leopold Janikowski (14 November 1855 - 8 December 1942) was a Polish explorer and ethnographer.

Biography Leopold Ludwik Janikowski was born on 14 November 1855 in Dąbrówka, now part of Warsaw (Białołęka) in Poland, son of Jan (born about 1817) and Franciszka (née Wolkewicz born about 1827). He died on 8 December 1942 in Zielonka, near Warsaw and is buried in Powązki Cemetery, Warsaw.

He attended high school in Kalisz.

Voyage to Cameroon (1882–1886) In 1881, he responded to a notice posted in the magazine Wanderer (Polish: Wedrowiec) Stefan Szolc-Rogoziński a 20-year-old naval officer of the Russian Navy, looking for companions to accompany him on a planned trip. The Polish expedition was organised to establish a geographical station in Ambas Bay, whose purpose was “to explore the Cameroon Mountains and to penetrate the interior in search of Lake Liba or Riba”.

This first documented Polish research expedition to Africa took place between 1882 and 1885, and was conducted by Stefan Szolc-Rogozinski, Leopold Janikowski and Klemens Tomczek. They visited Madeira, the Canary Islands, Liberia, and the island of Fernando Po.

After visiting Madeira, Liberia and Assini they entered on 16 April 1883 the port of Santa Isabel on the Spanish island Fernando Po in the Gulf of Guinea.

Their journey to Cameroon took them four months, but soon after arriving on Fernando Po on 16 April 1883 the three companions acquired the island of Mondoleh near Cameroon for their scientific station. Possibly this was among land 'bought' from the Wovca people for £55 (see Ardener, S.G. 1968: 69).

Leopold Janikowski was concerned at this time mainly with the construction of the camp for the expedition on the Isle de Mondoleh. He met local Bubi people on Fernando Po, studied and later wrote about their habits, law and history and lived in the vicinity of the tribe. as one who provided the most precise information on the political chiefdoms and on Bubi military organization at that moment. The 1920 Peace handbooks issued by the historical section of the Foreign office XX, Spanish and Italian possessions, H.M. Majesty's Stationery Office, 1920 referred to Janikowski's article on Fernando Po.

In the Scramble for Africa, against the German interest in Kamerun (Cameroon), the British were assisted by the two Polish nationals, Stefan Szolc Rogozinski and Leopold Janikowski, who signed more than thirty-five treaties with local leaders.

Rogoziński and Janikowski made a short three-week trip to Gabon, collecting anthropological and ethnographic material, returning on 14 July 1884 to find German naval vessels had arrived in Cameroon waters and that, to their dismay, a German protectorate had been declared over the Cameroon river area and Bimbia. This resulted on 12 February in the German corvette Bismarck wounding and arresting Janikowski on the open sea, travelling by canoe from Batoki to Victoria, in the belief that they had got hold of Rogoziński. At about this time the Swedes Knutson and Waldau were officially authorized by Captain Karcher to arrest 'S.S. Rogozinski and hand him over to the German Authorities'.

Janikowski, together with Rogoziński and the German reporter Zöller, climbed to the peak of the Mount Cameroon in December 1884. They were the first Poles and only the third European expedition to the top (after Burton in 1860 and Comber in 1878). Hence Rogoziński served in the Russian Navy. Rogoziński's diary, according to Baginsky, confirms “his real intention … to create a second Free Fatherland for emigrants from his oppressed country”.

From 1900 to 1932 Janikowski was deputy director, later Director and finally administrative director of the Museum.

Zielonka

In the war years, Janikowski and his wife lived in Zielonka where they hid Jews in a cellar under the kitchen. He died in Zielonka on 8 December 1942 and is buried in Powązki Cemetery, Warsaw.

Family Leopold Janikowski had one child, Stanisław Leopold Janikowski, who became a diplomat.