Pre-colonial history Origin of the Luba-Lunda-Kazembe 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. 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. 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. 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." (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:
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.”) Dan Crawford and Alfred Sharpe had been involved in a similar situation in 1890–91 with
Msiri (see that article). At that time Crawford's superior, Charles Swan, had encouraged Msiri to resist Sharpe's British treaty. A year later Msiri was killed by the Belgians, and the region was plunged into chaos. Now, the Andersons responded to Swan differently. While Mr Anderson kept Mwata Kazembe's men at Mambilima, Mrs Anderson took Mwata Kazembe alone to the British officers back at his burnt capital, saying "please be kind to him". They are still there. After the
punitive expedition, Mwata Kazembe X and his successors worked with the BSAC and its successors, the British District Commissioners, and to some extent it rescued his chieftainship. The Mwata Kazembes had some influence in the colonial era because the British colonial administration ruled indirectly through chiefs. Here schools, a church and a hospital were established, and brick makers and builders were trained, resulting in the Luapula valley enjoying a higher standard of sun-dried and burnt brick house construction than elsewhere in the region. Other Protestant and Catholic missions established schools and hospitals in the Luapula Valley and on the lake. The fish and labour economic booms in the forties, fifties and sixties gave way to recessions and stagnation from the mid-seventies onwards as fish catches declined, Copperbelt employment contracted and national problems had an effect. However, the construction in the late sixties of the 'Zambia Way', a road connecting
Mansa to
Nchelenge-
Kashikishi through Mwansabombwe, and its surfacing and linking to Kawambwa,
Samfya and
Serenje over the next two decades, has funnelled trade through Mwansabombwe, the population of which has risen to around 50,000. The Mwata Kazembe chieftainship has endured and though originating in war and being surrounded by countries that have experienced much conflict, it has presided over peace on the eastern shores of the Luapula and Lake Mweru for more than a century. ==Mutomboko Festival==