foreign
Slavery is probably the world's second oldest profession.
It has been experienced by nearly every culture and society in history and the
West African transatlantic slave trade seems to be the only version that is taught or even discussed.
However the East African slave trade conducted by the Muslims lasted much longer and saw more human
beings sold into slavery than any other location in history beginning in the late 8th century.
It has been estimated that during this period at least 18 million Africans were captured and
sold by the Arab Muslims who dominated North and East Africa and the practice still exists today
in the shadows. One man became legendary in this business during the 19th century.
Who was Tippu Tip? What was his claim to fame? How did he become so wealthy? [Music]
Hello I'm Colin Heaton a veteran of the United States Army and Marine Corps former
history professor book author and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History foreign
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East Africa has always been a hotbed of slavery. The coastal
ports of modern day Tanzania Somalia and Kenya supplied the human cargo taken from
the African interior and exported all over the Middle East Arabian Peninsula
Persia which is modern-day Iran the Indian Ocean islands and the Indian subcontinent.
The island of Zanzibar was the largest slave trading post in history eclipsing the West
African slave ports in modern Guinea Sierra Leone Ivory Coast Senegal Gambia Benin and Togo. One man
became the greatest slave trader in the history of the region and the second greatest in all of
history next to Mansa Musa of Mali. His name was Tippu Tip and he was believed to have been born
In 1832 on the island of Zanzibar and his birth name was Hamad bin Muhammad bin Juma bin Rajab
El Murjebi and he was a Swahili Zanzibar slave owner and slave trader to European colonists.
His nickname "Tippu Tib" or "Tip" which in Swahili means "The gatherer together of wealth".
In this way he was much like the 14th century slave trader Mansa Musa the largest Muslim
slave trader in Western and Northern Africa and considered the richest man in history.
Tippu Tip's mother Bint Habib bin Bashir was a Muskat Arab of the ruling
class while his father and paternal grandfather were Coastal Swahilis.
His paternal great grandmother was the wife of Rajab bin Mohammad bin Said al-Murgebi
was the daughter of Juma bin Muhammad el-Nebhani, a member of a respected Muscat Oman family and a
Bantu woman from the village of Mbwa Maji a small village south of what would later
become the German colonial capital of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The family started making
its fortune by leading trading expeditions into central Africa where they traded other goods for
ivory from WaManyema suppliers in Kasongo but also they gathered slaves for the massive slave trade.
He also bought the ivory the capital of the Sultanate Utetera and resold it for a profit
at coastal ports for the global ivory trade. In fact he became the most famous slave and ivory
trader in all of Africa during his lifetime and was responsible for supplying slaves to the Arabs
Ottomans and Europeans especially in the Belgian Congo to supplement their workforce
on the rubber plantations. According to his own autobiography he was given the nickname
Tippu Tip after the tip-tip sound that his guns gave off during Expeditions in Chungu territory.
While a young man Tippu led a group of about 100 men into central Africa seeking slaves and
ivory. After plundering several territories he returned to Zanzibar and brought his
newfound wealth. His reputation and the wealth he accumulated allowed him to recruit more soldiers.
Once he increased his force he returned to mainland Africa and began building a large
trading empire and being business-minded used his wealth to establish clove plantations on Zanzibar.
According to Abdul Sheriff when he left for his 12-year adventure to build his trading
empire on mainland Africa in modern-day Tanzania and Kenya he had no plantations.
After the Berlin Conference from 1884 to 1885 he saw that Africa was about to change.
He claimed the eastern Congo for himself and for the Sultan
of Zanzibar Bargash bin Said el-Busaidi ahead of the Belgians who wanted it all.
In his position as the Sultan's protector of Zanzibar's interests in Congo he was able to
maintain excellent relations with the various British Belgian Portuguese and German colonists.
in August 1886 fighting broke out between the Swahili tribesmen and the soldiers and rubber
plantation owners working under King Leopold II of Belgium at Stanley Falls. Tippu Tip went to
the Belgian Consul at Zanzibar to try and resolve the crisis which was bad for business for everyone
involved. Tippu Tip assured the Belgian government that he had good intentions and could address the
Swahili issue. He was recognized as a strong economic and military force not only in East
Africa but also in Central African politics as the Europeans began moving into the new colonies
he could see by 1886 that the balance of power in the region was shifting. Tippu Tip was not just a
slave owner and seller he was also a businessman with many interests but he was also a diplomat.
He knew that he had to maintain good relations with the Europeans to continue doing business.
By 1895 his businesses had grown into seven plantations and he owned over 10 000 slaves.
He also assisted several white European explorers and led expeditions deeper into Africa including
being the guide for both Scottish missionary David Livingstone and Sir Henry Morton Stanley.
Some of Tippu's supporters saw the Europeans as a growing threat to be dealt with not a
collective to do business with. In 1886 while Tippu Tip was in Zanzibar on business tensions
exploded between his fort at Stanley Falls and the smaller force led by Captain Walter Dean and
Lieutenant Dubois in the Congo Free State. As the story goes Tippu's men who garrisoned the Stanley
Falls fort alleged that Captain Dean had stolen a slave woman from an Arab officer stationed there.
Dean's defense was that the girl had fled to him after being abused by her master and that he had
only offered her refuge. Without orders Tippu's men attacked the fort and after a four-day siege
the European defenders abandoned the fort after they ran out of ammunition. The situation was not
well received in Leopoldville but it was decided that the Free State would not retaliate. After all
a war would interrupt the harvesting of rubber in what was already a brutal slave labor environment
and the villages needed slaves and Tippu provided them. The Belgians feared that if war broke out
their local slaves already suffering abuse would join the opposing force and revolt against them.
Seeing that the Belgians and the European mercenaries could be a problem Tippu began
to move more of his men into the Congo to reinforce his empire including several Arab
slave captains and some Congolese leaders such as Mwanza Kasongo later known as Ngongo Luteta
also from a large Arab influenced slave trading family. Luteta himself was a Congolese leader
and chieftain during the late 19th century who as a boy was enslaved by the Arabs but
after winning his freedom he became leader of the Batatela and Bakussu tribes in the Congo.
During this period Luteta and Tippu Tip had entered into a business arrangement
and estimated numbers of the slaves they generally captured and sold range from
50,000 to over 100,000. Tippu was recommended by Stanley to be appointed as governor of the
Stanley Falls District and including that into his growing empire within the Congo Free State.
This was due to the start of the Congo Arab War in 1887. This conflict was extremely brutal even
by European standards although the war started aslight skirmishes along the border the heavy
fighting only lasted from 1892 to 1894 and it was fought in the Congo Basin where the Arab
slavers found themselves in competition with the Belgians over the control of ivory and slaves.
Then there was another problem. King Leopold II had made promises to end slavery in this area of
Africa in order to obtain sanction for his Congo Free State regency during the Berlin Conference.
Leopold may have had good intentions but his Force Publique in requiring rubber harvesting quotas
had no intention of halting the use of slaves which were free labor. Tippu Tip supplied these
slaves due to the Belgian's paying top prices cutting the Arab slavers out of the deal. [Music]
Once the world became aware of the terrible activities in the Congo Leopold turned against
his previous allies in what was presented as a "Christian anti-slavery Crusade".
This was only done for public perception because ironically the influx of slaves continued.
However pragmatism being paramount King Leopold and Sultan Bargash bin Said of
Zanzibar agreed to appoint Tippu Tip as the new governor and he accepted the new assignment.
Tippu Tip would still supply slaves to the Belgians as well as a force of soldiers while
Luteta switched sides and joined the Congo Free State [Music] During this time Tippu
Tip agreed to lead the expedition to rescue the German-born Ottoman governor of Equatoria
Emin Pasha which today is known as South Sudan and was part of the Ottoman Empire. Pasha and
his delegation had been stranded in the Bahr el Ghazal area due to the Mahdi Uprising in Sudan.
Tip decided to take his relief expedition along with Stanley taking the fastest route as they
traveled back to the Upper Congo. Their route was by boats along the Atlantic coast and then
up the Congo River. The relief expedition was a disaster as attacks and disease wiped out many of
his force. Most of the losses were due to tribal attacks and Stanley who was in de facto command
put the blame for the failure on to Tippu Tip. Due to the weak Belgian military presence and
their reliance upon other European mercenaries as well as other blacks recruited from outside
the region to maintain order Tippu's son Sefu bin Hamid and a trader known as "Rumaliza" routed the
Belgians and took total control of the ports and trade routes in the area around Lake Tanganyika.
However Rumaliza considered Tippu's deal with the Congo Free State somewhat treasonous and he
abandoned his deal with the Congo Free State as swore loyalty to the Zanzibar Sultan Barghash bin
Said who still supplied Arabs with slaves and Ivory. Many of the black soldiers in the Force
Publique were in fact men who Tippu Tip supplied from his own forces and they were considered
reliable skilled and ruthless which served the Belgians well. They also gathered slaves.
Tippu Tip returned to Zanzibar in 1890 and retired in ill health so his son Sefu carried on the war
to expand their holdings. While in retirement Tippu Tip wrote his autobiography becoming the
first example of this type of literary genre in the Bantu Swahili language. Dr. Heinrich Broda who
knew him in Zanzibar transcribed the manuscript into Roman script and into German. It was later
translated into English and published in Britain in 1907. The slave trader Ivory trader governor
and mercenary leader died on June 13, 1905 of malaria in his home in Stone Town, Zanzibar
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