01/14/2024
THE KING OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE… Tippu Tip/Tib: Tippu Tip traded in African slaves for Zanzibar’s clove plantations. As part of the large and lucrative trade, he led many trading expeditions into Central Africa, constructing profitable trading posts deep into the Congo Basin region and thus becoming the most well-known slave trader in Africa, supplying much of the world with black slaves.
He worked for a succession of the sultans of Zanzibar and was the Sultan of Uterera, a short-lived state in Kasongo, Maniema ruled by himself and his son Sefu who was an Emir with local WaManyema.
Tippu Tip’s mother, Bint Habib bin Bushir, was a Muscat Arab (Capital of Oman/South Arabia) of the ruling class. His father and paternal grandfather were coastal Arabs of the Swahili Coast who had taken part in the earliest slave-trading expeditions to the interior.
According to him, he was given the nickname Tippu Tip after the “tiptip” sound that his guns gave off during expeditions in Chungu territory.
Tippu Tip built a slave trading empire in African slaves, and is considered the second wealthiest Muslim slave trader in history, using the proceeds to establish clove plantations on Zanzibar.
By 1895, he had acquired “seven ‘shambas’ [plantations] and 10,000 slaves”.
He met and helped several western explorers of the African continent, including David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley (Agents of King Leopold II of Belgium).
In early 1887, Stanley arrived in Zanzibar and proposed that Tippu Tip be made governor of the Stanley Falls District in the Congo Free State. Both Leopold and Sultan Barghash bin Said of Zanzibar agreed and on February 24, 1887, Tippu Tip accepted.
In spite of his position as protector of Zanzibar’s interests in Congo, he managed to maintain good relations with the Europeans.