26/09/2026
Katanga, Around 1850
Around 1850, Katanga was a vast plateau rich in copper, where the Luba, Lunda, Sanga, Bemba, Tabwa, Hemba, Lamba, Kahonde, and Ndembo peoples had maintained their own political balances for generations, far from European attention. At the time, no one imagined that within just a few decades this region would become one of the most profoundly transformed territories in Central Africa—drawn into a deadly economic system originating from the Indian Ocean.
But an important question remains: Who were the Arab-Swahili traders who came to exploit the region and abuse its people? And who were the local chiefs who collaborated with them?
I am Félix Kiluya Mumba Mwape, a researcher specializing in the contemporary history of Katanga. By cross-referencing historical sources available in the libraries of Lubumbashi and Kinshasa, we will attempt to understand what truly happened during the Arab-Swahili slave trade in Katanga.
The Expansion from Zanzibar
The story begins in Zanzibar, the commercial hub of an Arab-Swahili trading empire that demanded two valuable commodities: ivory for European and Asian markets and enslaved people to work on plantations.
Between 1859 and 1860, a young Zanzibari trader named Hamed bin Mohammed el Murjebi, better known as Tippu Tip—a nickname inspired by the sound of his fi****ms—led his first expedition into northern Katanga. He returned in 1865, again between 1867 and 1869, and in 1870 established a permanent presence with a caravan of approximately 4,000 men.
Operating from Kasongo, between the Lualaba and Lomami rivers, Tippu Tip built a commercial state that monopolized ivory hunting. Contemporary accounts describe him as so influential that he could make or remove local chiefs at will.
Msiri and the Rise of the Yeke Kingdom
The most decisive figure in the Arab-Swahili pe*******on of Katanga, however, was Msiri.
Originally a Nyamwezi trader from Tabora in present-day Tanzania, Msiri grew up in a family deeply involved in the trade of ivory, copper, and enslaved people through Arab and Swahili networks connected to the Sultan of Zanzibar.
After initially settling among the Katanga people—where he married the chief's daughter before being expelled—he moved to the Sanga territory. Around 1856, he founded the Yeke (Garanganze) Kingdom at Bunkeya.
His strategy was straightforward but ruthless: exchange copper, ivory, and captives for guns and gunpowder, obtained from both Portuguese-Angolan merchants from Bihe and Arab-Swahili traders such as Tippu Tip. Within a few years, Msiri transformed a commercial kingdom into a powerful military state.
Slave Raids
Historical archives and eyewitness testimonies confirm that this military machine relied heavily on slave raids.
Scottish missionary Frederick Stanley Arnot, who lived for an extended period in Bunkeya, recorded in August 1886 that Msiri continually sent military expeditions into neighboring territories. These raids returned with numerous captives, who were primarily sold to Arab traders from Zanzibar and Ovimbundu merchants from Bihe. Strong young men were reportedly exchanged for only a few meters of cloth, while women were often retained locally.
This firsthand testimony has been carefully examined by historian Giacomo Macola.
Local Collaboration
Historical sources also document the collaboration of certain local chiefs with the Arab-Swahili trading networks.
A scholarly study on Bunkeya cites explorer Alexandre Delcommune, who reported that two chiefs near the Lomami River—Kitenge and Kolomoni—submitted to Arab authority and conducted raids against neighboring villages, capturing women and children before delivering both ivory and captives to Tippu Tip.
Other chiefs allied themselves with Swahili caravans in exchange for fi****ms, allowing them to dominate rival communities. According to the same research, this gave rise to a new type of African political power founded primarily on the slave and ivory trade.
Swahili traders also relied on armed Luba and Sanga auxiliaries to hunt elephants, rewarding them with fi****ms and am******on.
Ngongo Lutete
The system also produced extraordinary personal trajectories.
Ngongo Lutete, initially captured and enslaved within Tippu Tip's network, eventually rose through the ranks to become a waungwana—a free and respected member of the caravan elite. He was entrusted with collecting ivory and slave tributes throughout the western bank of the Lomami River.
His story illustrates how fluid the boundaries between slave, merchant, and political leader could become within this rapidly changing world.
Resistance
Katanga did not submit without resistance.
As early as the 1860s, after Msiri and his Swahili allies defeated the Lunda, the Kazembe ruler responded by ordering the extermination of all Swahili traders established within his territory, demonstrating that resistance began almost immediately after their arrival.
Three decades later, during the 1890s, the Sanga and Bena Mitumba peoples rebelled against the Yeke Kingdom, which had become allied with the colonial Force Publique after Msiri's death in 1891.
Several chiefs, supported by a rival known as the "Kazembe of the Lualaba," rejected Yeke domination, attacked their enemies, abandoned their villages, and resisted for years.
The repression was exceptionally brutal. Historian Giacomo Macola recounts that one Yeke commander earned the nickname "The Locust" because he systematically destroyed everything in his path.
The rebellion was finally crushed around 1899.
A Complex History
The history of nineteenth-century Katanga reveals a region transformed within a single generation by the demand for fi****ms, ivory, and enslaved people.
Some kingdoms became increasingly militarized. Some chiefs turned to slave trading in pursuit of survival or political dominance. Others resisted at enormous cost.
Katanga was therefore neither simply a land of passive victims nor a region uniformly complicit. It was a landscape shaped by difficult choices, betrayals, and resistance.
Figures such as Msiri, Tippu Tip, Kazembe, Kitenge, and numerous Sanga chiefs all left documented traces in historical sources that scholars continue to examine and reassess today.
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Contact
For those wishing to invite us to conferences, lectures, television programs, or discussions on the history of Katanga, or for anyone interested in learning more about this research, please feel free to contact us.
We have also published General History of Katanga, available as a PDF, which we are pleased to share with interested readers.
To receive the PDF, contact us via WhatsApp: +243 856 660 418.
Félix Kiluya Mumba Mwape
Researcher in Contemporary History of Katanga Félix Kiluya
