Long-Distance Trade and the Mangbetu

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Periodical article

Title:	Long-Distance Trade and the Mangbetu
Author:	Keim, Curtis A.
Year:	1983
Periodical:	The Journal of African History
Volume:	24
Issue:	1
Pages:	1-22
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Congo (Democratic Republic of)
Subjects:	Mangbetu long-distance trade history traditional polities Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/181855
Abstract:	Between 1866 and 1886 Arabized traders from the Nile trafficked in slaves and ivory in the Mangbetu region (north-eastern Zaire). Accounts by European travellers, present in that region during that period, gave the impression that these long-distance traders did extensive damage to several small, well-developed Mangbetu kingdoms. The picture furnished was not accurate. At that time Mangbetu rule was less developed than the travellers supposed. Moreover, the traders' influence was also weaker than supposed as the intruders operated at a great distance from the Khartoum market. Only from 1881 to 1885 did the Egyptian government have some success in regularizing the trade and subduing rebellious rulers. In early 1886 all northeners 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. Maps, notes, tab.