Between 1871 and 1889, British explorer Henry Morton Stanley travelled to Central Africa four times. Between 1872 and 1891, he visited a total of 22 geographical societies in a total of 13 cities and seven or eight countries, to report on his journeys and geographical discoveries and be honoured for them. Meanwhile, Europe’s “New Imperialism” was colonising Africa. His contemporaries accused him of cruelty towards Africans, and many still regard Stanley as one of the most ruthless agents of that colonisation, particularly in Belgian Congo. Given his image, this chapter examines and compares Stanley’s talks at geographical societies, as published in the latter’s journals. We find that Stanley presented knowledge he had acquired on Central Africa’s topography, hydrology, and ethnology, adapting his talks to the specifics of the different geographical societies. He called for the knowledge to be used first of all economically, particularly when addressing societies in commercial hubs/port cities. He explained that economic opening and development would free Africans from slavery/the local slave trade, and bring them “humanity” and “civilisation”. This belief seems to have been sincere, and most geographical societies hailed him as a champion of that “humanity”. None of them asked him critical questions, and personal papers by Stanley accessed only recently contradict his alleged “cruelty”. However, his craving for recognition rooted in his childhood led Stanley to dramatise his narratives in talks and books, thereby facilitating accusations. Yet at the geographical societies, his focus was not on adventures but on what he saw as the practical benefits of geographical knowledge for both Europeans and Africans.