Long-Distance Trade and the Mangbetu

Abstract

Between 1866 and 1886 Arabized traders from the Nile River trafficked in slaves and ivory in the Mangbetu region of what is today north-eastern Zaire. These Nile traders opened the first direct long-distance trading contacts in the area. European travellers present during the period wrote accounts giving the impression to some modern historians that the traders did extensive damage to several small, welldeveloped Mangbetu kingdoms. These accounts do not furnish an accurate picture of the trader impact on the Mangbetu. The Mangbetu system of rule was less developed than the travellers supposed. At that time Mangbetu rule was still based largely on personality and kinship and not on bureaucracy, tribute, commercial monopoly, divine kingship, or any other institution often associated with strong African kingdoms. Moreover, the trader influence was weaker than the travellers supposed because the intruders were newcomers, operating at a great distance from the Khartoum market, who remained only a short time. Only from 1881 to 1885 did the Egyptian government have some success in regularizing the trade and subduing rebellious rulers. In early 1886 all northerners withdrew from the Mangbetu area as a result of the Mahdist crisis in the Sudan. At that point the Mangbetu kingdoms, and kingdoms built on the Mangbetu model, re-emerged relatively unchanged by the trader experience.