Kazembe is a traditional kingdom in modern-day Zambia, and southeastern Congo. For more than 250 years, Kazembe has been an influential kingdom of the Kiluba-Chibemba, speaking the language of the Eastern Luba-Lunda people of south-central Africa (also known as the Luba, Luunda, Eastern Luba-Lunda, and Luba-Lunda-Kazembe). Its position on trade routes in a well-watered, relatively fertile and well-populated area of forestry, fishery and agricultural resources drew expeditions by traders and explorers (such as Scottish missionary David LivingstoneDavid Livingstone and Horace Waller (ed.) (1874) The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa from 1865 to his Death. Two volumes, John Murray.) who called it variously Kasembe, Cazembe and Casembe.
Known by the title Mwata Yav now equivalent to 'Paramount Chief'or King, the monarchy with its annual Mutomboko festival stands out in the Luapula Valley and Lake Mweru in present-day Zambia, though its history in colonial times is an example of how Europeans divided traditional kingdoms and tribes without regard to the consequences.
History
Pre-colonial history
Origin of the Luba-Lunda-Kazembe List of Mwata Kazembe ChiefsItalics indicate approx dates1740–5I Ng'anga Bilonda 1745–60II Kanyembo MpembaContinued below in the sectionto which their rule relates Around 1740 the first Mwata, Ng'anga Bilonda of the Luba-Lunda Kingdom headed by Mwata Yamvo (or 'Mwaant Yav') 300 km west of the Luapula in the DR Congo, left with a group of followers in pursuit eastwards of one Mutanda who had murdered his father Chinyanta and uncle by drowning them in the Mukelweji River. 'Mwata' was originally a title equivalent to 'General', the first of the Mwata Kazembe line were warriors.
After Mutanda had been dealt with, the group continued the eastward migration under Mwata Kazembe II Kanyembo Mpemba, crossing the Luapula River at Matanda, conquering the indigenous people known as the Shila in the Luapula Valley, and setting up Luba or Lunda aristocrats as chiefs over them.THE MUTOMBOKO CEREMONY. Chiefs of Zambia. Though bringing Lunda and Luba customs and culture (such as the Luba style of ceremonial chieftainship), they adopted the language of the Bemba, a tribe that had also migrated from the Congo and to which they were allied.
The kingdom prospered from the fisheries of Lake Mweru and the Mofwe Lagoon, and natural resources, including copper ore in Katanga, west of the Luapula.David Gordon (2000) “Decentralized Despots or Contingent Chiefs: Comparing Colonial Chiefs in Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo.” KwaZulu-Natal History and African Studies Seminar, University of Natal, Durban. Mwata Kazembe was said by the Portuguese to be able to raise a force of 20,000 men, and his lands stretched west to the Lualaba River (the border with Mwata Yamvo's western Luba-Lunda kingdom and with the other Luba's kingdoms north of that) and east to the Luba-Bemba country. (See the map below.)
Portuguese expeditions 1760–1805III Lukwesa Ilunga1805–1850IV Kanyembo Keleka Mayi1850–1854V Kapumba Mwongo Mfwama
In addition to trading with the interior, the Portuguese hoped to establish a route through it connecting their territories of Angola in the west and Mozambique in the east.
The expeditions were: 1796 Manuel Caetano Pereira, a merchant. 1798 Francisco José de Lacerda e Almeida who came via Tete and died within a few weeks of arriving at Kazembe's, still waiting for trade negotiations to start. He left a valuable journal which was carried back to Tete by his chaplain, Father Pinto, and which was later translated into English by the explorer Sir Richard Burton. 1802 Pedro João Baptista and Amaro José, pombeiros (slave traders). 1831 Major José Monteiro and António Gamito, with 20 soldiers and 120 slaves as porters, sent from Sena by the Portuguese governor of that district. Gamito also wrote a journal and said, "We certainly never expected to find so much ceremonial, pomp, and ostentation in the potentate of a region so remote from the sea coast."
As trade missions, though, they were all failures. Mwata Kazembe III Lukwesa Ilunga and IV Kanyembo Keleka Mayi rebuffed Portuguese attempts to set up the alliance which would control the Atlantic-Indian Ocean trade route from beginning to end. (The Sultan of Zanzibar and Msiri later took control of that route, with Msiri rather than Kazembe as the linchpin.)
David Livingstone's visit In 1867 the explorer and missionary David Livingstone embarked on his last expedition in Africa, one aim of which was to discover the southern extent of the Nile basin (i.e. resolving whether Lake Victoria truly was the source of the Nile or whether some other lake further south was the source). From 'Nyasaland' (Malawi) and past the southern tip of Lake Tanganyika, through country ravaged by the slave trade, he reached the northeastern shore of Lake Mweru. He continued south down the eastern shore. Mwata Kazembe VII had been alerted to his arrival and received him at his capital which was then at Kanyembo near the northeast tip of the Mofwe Lagoon: “The court or compound of Casembe—some would call it a palace—is a square enclosure of 300 yards by 200 yards. It is surrounded by a hedge of high reeds. Inside, where Casembe honoured me with a grand reception, stands a gigantic hut for Casembe, and a score of small huts for domestics. The Queen's hut stands behind that of the chief, with a number of small huts also ... Kasembe sat before his hut on an equate seat placed on lion and leopard skins. He was clothed in a coarse blue and white Manchester print edged with red baize, and arranged in large folds so as to look like a crinoline put on wrong side foremost. His arms, legs and head were covered with sleeves, leggings and cap made of various coloured beads in neat patterns: a crown of yellow feathers surmounted his cap ... He then assured me that I was welcome to his country, to go where I liked, and do what I chose. We then went (two boys carrying his train behind him) to an inner apartment, where the articles of my present were exhibited in detail —extract from The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa from 1865 To His Death. 1854–1862VI Chinyanta Munona1862–70 VII Mwonga Nsemba
Livingstone noted that Mwata Kazembe VII's administration was harsh: A common punishment for court officials was to have the ears cropped by shears. Owing to such tyranny, he would have difficulty raising a thousand men. He observed that the kingdom was not now as prosperous as the Portuguese had reported. The next year he again visited Mwata, who was the first to tell him that the Chambeshi, Lake Bangweulu, the Luapula, Lake Mweru and the Luvua-Lualaba were all one system. This sent Livingstone exploring Bangweulu, then the Lualaba which he thought may flow into the Nile, and Tanganyika, then back to Bangweulu and his death five years later, still trying to discover how its rivers link up and for any evidence that it was part of the Nile rather than the Congo Basin.
Arab and Swahili traders 1870–72 VIII Chinkonkole Kafuti1872–83 & 1885–86IX Lukwesa Mpanga1883–85 & 1886–1904X Kanyembo Ntemena In the 18th and 19th centuries Arab and Swahili traders visited Mwata Kazembe to trade in copper, ivory and slaves. Trade routes such as that from Zanzibar via Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika were well established, and the Sultan of Zanzibar's name carried weight. Livingstone was held up southeast of Lake Tanganyika by a conflict between Tippu Tip (Ahmed bin Mohamed, whom Livingstone called Tipo Tipo) and a local chief. When he reached Mwata Kazembe's he found a trader named Mohamad Bogharib had arrived a few days before seeking ivory, and Mohamad bin Saleh (also known as Mpamari), a trader who had been there for ten years, as Mwata had refused to let him leave. Despite their involvement in the slave trade, Livingstone travelled with and was helped by them; he claimed to have used his influence to get Mohamed bin Saleh released.
In 1856, Msiri travelled through Kazembe with a band of followers and requested permission from King Chinyanta Munona to settle among Kazembe's tributary of Garanganza (Katanga). Throughout the 1860s, Kazembe's copper and ivory trade was usurped by Msiri, growing his power with the help of local traders and their descendents, known as bayeke. With the help of the bayeke, Msiri rebelled against the chief of Garanganza and established the Yeke Kingdom. Utilizing gunpowder weapons, Msiri rapidly expanded through former Kazembe territory, carving a large territory for himself and reducing the Kazembe to a small state along Lake Bangwelu, which he held sway over until his death in 1890.
Colonial history
Division between British and Belgian territories After Msiri's death, the Luapula valley was divided in 1894 between Britain – the eastern shores of the Luapula and Lake Mweru became part of North-Eastern Rhodesia, administered by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) – and King Leopold II of Belgium's misnamed Congo Free State (CFS), or rather its agent, the Compagnie du Katanga, which took over the western shores. The Belgian colonial authorities, having killed Msiri were left with a vacuum. They appointed chiefs – not ones chosen from Msiri's subordinate chiefs (who had previously been subordinate to Mwata Kazembe) – but from what the Luba-Lunda called the 'owners of the land' who had preceded them; there was considerable instability in that part of Katanga as a result. “Belgian administration in Mweru-Luapula was glossed over by a thin veneer of traditional justifications.” This included ‘creating’ a tribe from what was a clan, the Bena Ngoma.
Once Belgian colonial rule was established west of the Luapula, Mwata Kazembe's rule and territory, though not his influence, was confined to the eastern side.
British rule imposed by force Although Mwata Kazembe X had signed a BSAC mineral concession and a British treaty brought to him by Alfred Sharpe in 1890, and allowed visits by British missionary pioneer Dan Crawford, when the BSAC tax collector Blair Watson took up residence on the Kalungwishi River in 1897, Mwata Kazembe refused to let the British flag be flown over his territory or taxes to be collected from his people, and he defeated an armed incursion by Watson's forces.
Sharpe by now was governor of the British Central Africa Protectorate (Nyasaland), 1000 km away. It was he who had failed to secure Msiri's Garanganza kingdom as a British Protectorate by negotiation, and had later seen it taken from under British noses by the rival CFS through force. In 1899, in conjunction with Robert Codrington, acting BSAC Administrator of North-Eastern Rhodesia, Sharpe sent British officers with Sikh and Nyasaland troops who burnt Mwata Kazembe's capital to the ground, killing a number of his people, though Mwata himself had already escaped across the Luapula.
Mwata Kazembe X made his way south and crossed back over the river to take refuge in the Johnston Falls Mission run by a Mr and Mrs Anderson of Dan Crawford's missionary society. (Ironically, two years before, Mwata Kazembe X had tried to have the Andersons' predecessor at Mambilima, H. J. Pomeroy, killed, but failed.J. Keir Howard. "Lammond, William 1876 to 1968." On Dictionary of African Christian Biography website accessed 2 April 2007.)