Zambia: Migrations and state formation (1480-1890)

Updated December 2005

The Chewa people, also known as the Maravi, were migrants from the Congo region who established small states which came to dominate northeastern Zambia and Malawi. What is variously called the Maravi Confederacy or Maravi Empire emerged in about 1480CE and expanded rapidly. The Confederacy dominated the eastern parts of Zambia as well as the south and central areas of Malawi. The decentralized nature of the state facilitated expansion, but the absence of a strong centre led to unstable and shifting alliances within the Confederacy and an inability to respond effectively to military challenges presented from without by the Portuguese, Swahilis, Yao and the Ngoni (University of California Undated, Mandiza 2002).

The Lozi were an off-shoot of the prolific Luba-Lunda people who migrated in a small group by stages from the north of the Congo-Zambezi watershed to the upper-Zambezi basin where they settled sometime after 1600. In the floodplain the Luyi, as they were then known, adopted cattle husbandry and adapted to the cycle of annual floods. Internal conflicts within the early kingdom were resolved by the sending off of potential challengers for the throne to establish new branches of the kingdom which quickly absorbed conquered peoples into their political order (Swanson undated, Barotseland.com undated).

The Lunda kingdom, founded by a member of the Luba royal house in the early 17th century, expanded rapidly and came to dominate the trade networks that traversed the northeast of Angola and the northwest of Zambia. The rapid growth of the kingdom was made possible by the adoption of indirect rule which eased the incorporation of subjugated peoples into the political framework of the emerging empire. The trade they sought to control was primarily in copper and salt initially, but trade in ivory and tropical products, and later slaves, with the Portuguese became more important. By the end of the 1600s they straddled routes to both the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean along which new crops introduced by the Portuguese from the New World were diffused into the interior (Library of Congress 1993, Bortolot undated, Lambert Undated).

A further polity was founded by a group of Luba, the Bemba, from the southern DRC who settled in the northeast of Zambia in the mid 1600s. The kingdom expanded rapidly in the 18th century subjugating and absorbing the indigenous people so that by the close of the century they had come to dominate much of the northeast. Around 1850 the Bemba made contact with Swahili traders who were expanding their trade in slaves and ivory from the Indian Ocean into the interior and acted as their agents in procuring these items. The Kingdom continued to expand partly as the result of the firepower acquired through trading and partly as a result of the quest for trade goods (Spitulnik & Kashoki 1996, Beck 2004).

By the time the early Portuguese explorers penetrated the interior in the 18th century, what was to become Zambia was a patchwork of three large and extensive states and several small ones. The wealth of these states was founded on trade with, both the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean coasts, in products such as wax, copper and, increasingly, slaves. The Portuguese were followed by other peoples such as the Arabs and the Swahili in pursuit of ivory and slaves. In the east the increasingly aggressive and predatory activities of the Yao slave takers/traders placed strain on the Maravi Confederacy and contributed to its eventual disintegration (Holmes 2004, Columbia Encyclopedia 2005a). Increasingly, from east and west the peoples settled in what is now Zambia suffered from the terror and destruction wrought by slave raiders.

The early 19th century was marked by invasions from the south. Somewhere between 1820 and 1830 a rag-tag band with a Sotho core, and others absorbed in their migration, called the Kololo, wielded into a composite by conquest and absorption, crossed from what is now Botswana into Zambia. Under the leadership of Sebitwane (also spelled Sibituane), they subjugated the Luyi who were weakened by a succession war. They were overthrown under the leadership of Sipopa in 1864 and the Luyi polity, now known as the Lozi Kingdom, was restored. Despite the shortness of the period of Sotho domination the cultural impact was immense, for the Lozi adopted their language and many of their usages. During their reign, in 1851, Dr Livingston, the forerunner of British colonialism in the Southern African interior, arrived and spent brief periods with them in between his wanderings to the north and east (Holmes 2004, Swanson undated).

A group of Nguni, now called Ngoni, fleeing from the expanding Zulu kingdom in the 1820s, crossed the Zambezi River in November 1835 and cut a conquering swath as far north as Lake Tanganika. With their superior military tactics and organization their progress was bloody and disruptive. They threw the Maravi Confederacy into turmoil and, although they were warded off by the Bemba who had acquired guns from the Swahili, greatly weakened the Bemba state. The Ngoni settled in the east to the south of the Bemba where they formed an aristocracy, ruling over the peoples they had conquered, while assimilating the language and culture of their subjects. Their raids were only brought to an end by the actions of the British South African Company at the end of the century (Holmes 2004, Beck 2004).

References

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BORTOLOT, AI Undated "Kingdoms of the Savannah: The Luba and Lunda Empires", The Metropolitan Museum of Art, [www] http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/luba/hd_luba.htm [opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).

COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2005a, "Zambia", Sixth Edition, [www] http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Zambia.html [opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).

COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2005b, "Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland", Sixth Edition, [www] http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0841738.html [opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).

HOLMES, T 2004 "The History of Zambia", The Zambian, [www] http://www.thezambian.com/history/ [opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).

LAMBERT, T UNDATED "A Short History of Zambia", IN Local Histories, [www] http://www.localhistories.org/zambia.html [opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1993 "Rulers and Ruled" IN Country Study: Zaire [www] http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-14977.html [opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).

MANDIZA, EI 2002 "Civil-military relations in Malawi: An historical perspective" IN Williams, R, Cawthra, G & Abrahams, D (eds), Ourselves to Know: Civil-Military Relations and Defence Transformation in Southern Africa, Institute of Security Studies [www] http://www.iss.org.za/pubs/Books/OurselvesToKnow/Mandiza.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).

SPITULNIK, D & KASHOKI, ME 1996 "Bemba: A Brief Linguistic Profile", [www] http://www.anthropology.emory.edu/FACULTY/ANTDS/Bemba/profile.html [opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).

SWANSON, EC UNDATED "Society-LOZI" IN Ethnographic Atlas, Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing, [www] http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/EthnoAtlas/Hmar/Cult_dir/Culture.7859 [opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UNDATED "Chichewa: Background and History", IN Aflang Directory, [www] http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/aflang/chichewa/background.html [opens new window] (accessed 26 Oct 2007).