29 Murdered explorers

Father António de Andrade was a Jesuit priest and explorer from Portugal. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1596. From 1600 until his death in 1634 he was engaged in missionary activity in India. Andrade was the first known European to have crossed the Himalayas and reached Tibet, establishing the first Catholic mission on Tibetan soil.

Rodrigo de Bastidas was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who mapped the northern coast of South America, discovered Panama, and founded the city of Santa Marta.

John Merin Bozeman was a pioneer and frontiersman in the American West who helped establish the Bozeman Trail through Wyoming Territory into the gold fields of southwestern Montana Territory in the early 1860s. He helped found the city of Bozeman, Montana in 1864, which is named for him.

Alexander Ksaverievich Bulatovich tonsured Father Antony was a Russian military officer, explorer of Africa, writer, hieromonk and the leader of the imiaslavie movement in Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Hermann Burchardt was a German explorer and photographer of Jewish descent, who is renowned for his black and white pictorial essays of scenes in Arabia in the early 20th century.

Francis William Cadell was a European explorer of Australia, most remembered for opening the Murray River up for transport by steamship and for his activities as a slave trader.

Louis Choris (1795-1828) was a German-Russian painter and explorer. He was one of the first sketch artists for expedition research.

Captain James Cook was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy. He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

Paul Crampel was a French explorer who explored Africa in the areas of present-day Gabon and Chad. He was killed while on an expedition to Lake Chad.

John Davis was one of the chief navigators of Queen Elizabeth I of England. He led several voyages to discover the Northwest Passage and served as pilot and captain on both Dutch and English voyages to the East Indies. He discovered the Falkland Islands in August 1592.

Baron Karl Klaus von der Decken was a German explorer of eastern Africa and the first European to attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Jean Baptiste Douville (1794–1837), French traveller, was born at Hambye, in the department of Manche. Having at an early age inherited a fortune, he decided to gratify his taste for foreign travel. According to his own profession he visited India, Kashmir, Khorasan, Persia, Asia Minor and many parts of Europe. In 1826 he went to South America, and in 1827 left Brazil for the Portuguese possessions on the West Coast of Africa, where his presence in March 1828 is proved by the mention made of him in letters of Castello Branco, the governor-general of Luanda.

Francisco Hermenegildo Tomás Garcés, O.F.M., was a Spanish Franciscan friar who served as a missionary and explorer in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. He explored much of the southwestern region of North America, including present day Sonora and Baja California in Mexico, and the U.S. states of Arizona and California. He was killed along with his companion friars during an uprising by the Native American population, and they have been declared martyrs for the faith by the Catholic Church. The cause for his canonization was opened by the Church.

Captain William John Gill (10 September 1843 – 11 August 1882) was an English explorer and British army officer. He was born in Bangalore, India, the second child and elder son of the army officer, artist and photographer Major Robert Gill and his wife Frances Flowerdew Gill.

Hugh Glass was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, trader, hunter, and explorer. He is best known for his story of survival and forgiveness after being left for dead by companions when he was mauled by a grizzly bear.

John Williams Gunnison was an American military officer and explorer.

Knud Valdemar Gylding Holmboe was a Danish journalist, author and explorer who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism in 1921, and, after a sojourn in North Africa, ultimately converted to Islam in 1929. Six years later, he published a book of his experiences on a journey through Libya, that later became famous. The book exposed the maltreatment of the population the author had witnessed on his journey and the atrocities committed by the Italian colonial power. This account is especially valuable for its description of the concentration camps into which Italian colonial powers forced bedouin Arabs and where "torture, humiliation, and famine" were rife. Holmboe was murdered on his way to Makkah in Aqaba in October 1931. Some suspect that Italian intelligence officials, connected to the regime of Benito Mussolini, conspired in his death.

Edmund Besley Court Kennedy J. P. was an explorer in Australia in the mid nineteenth century. He was the Assistant-Surveyor of New South Wales, working with Sir Thomas Mitchell. Kennedy explored the interior of Queensland and northern New South Wales, including the Thomson River, the Barcoo River, Cooper Creek, and Cape York Peninsula. He died in December 1848 after being speared by Aboriginal Australians in far north Queensland near Cape York.

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle was a 17th-century French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico. He is best known for an early 1682 expedition in which he canoed the lower Mississippi River from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico and claimed the entire Mississippi River basin for France.

Major Alexander Gordon Laing was a Scottish explorer and the first European to reach Timbuktu, arriving there via the north-to-south route in August 1826. He was killed shortly after he departed Timbuktu, some five weeks later.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gerard Evelyn Leachman, CIE, DSO was an English soldier and intelligence officer who travelled extensively in Arabia.

Henry Treise Morshead was an English surveyor, explorer and mountaineer. He is remembered for several achievements – with Frederick Bailey he explored the Tsangpo Gorge and finally confirmed that the Yarlung Tsangpo flows into the Brahmaputra River after cascading through Himalaya; also he was a member of the 1921 and 1922 British Mount Everest expeditions and in 1922 he climbed to a height of over 25,000 feet (7,600 m). His death was due to murder and the circumstances remain mysterious.

Edward Henry Palmer, known as E. H. Palmer, was an English orientalist and explorer.

Yakov Permyakov was a Russian seafarer, explorer, merchant, and Cossack.

Francisco Pizarro González was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of Peru.

Albrecht Roscher was a German explorer of Africa. He was murdered near Lake Malawi in 1860.

Ulrich Jasper Seetzen was a German explorer of Arabia and Palestine from Jever, German Frisia. An alternate spelling of his name, Ulrich Iospar Sentzen, is sometimes seen in scientific publications.

Alexandrine Petronella Francina Tinné was a Dutch explorer in Africa who was the first European woman to attempt to cross the Sahara.

Merkury Vagin was a Russian Arctic explorer.