Chiengi
Encyclopedia
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
boma
Boma (enclosure)
A boma is a livestock enclosure, a stockade or kind of fort, or a district government office. The term is used in many parts of eastern, central and southern Africa and is incorporated into many African languages as well as colonial varieties of English, French and German.As a livestock enclosure,...
of the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
in central Africa
Central Africa
Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....
and today is a settlement in the Luapula Province
Luapula Province
Luapula Province is one of Zambia's nine provinces, and is located in the north of the country. The provincial capital is Mansa. Luapula Province was named after the Luapula River....
of Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
, and headquarters of Chiengi District
Chiengi District
Chiengi District with headquarters at Chiengi is the smallest and most northerly district in the Luapula Province of Zambia and was carved out of Nchelenge District after Zambia's independence...
. Chiengi is in the north-east corner of Lake Mweru
Lake Mweru
Lake Mweru is a freshwater lake on the longest arm of Africa's second-longest river, the Congo. Located on the border between Zambia and Democratic Republic of the Congo, it makes up 110 km of the total length of the Congo, lying between its Luapula River and Luvua River segments.Mweru...
, and at the foot of wooded hills dividing that lake from Lake Mweru Wantipa
Lake Mweru Wantipa
Lake Mweru Wantipa is a lake and swamp system in the Northern Province of Zambia. It has been regarded in the past as something of mystery, displaying fluctuations in water level and salinity which were not entirely explained by variation in rainfall levels; it has been known to dry out almost...
, and overlooking a dambo
Dambo
Dambo is a word used for a class of complex shallow wetlands in central, southern and eastern Africa, particularly in Zambia and Zimbabwe. They are generally found in higher rainfall flat plateau areas, and have river-like branching forms which may be nowhere very large, but common enough to add up...
(marshy plain) stretching northwards from the lake, where the Chiengi rivulet (the origin of the name) flows down from the hills.
Pre-colonial history
Chiengi and the area just to its north were ravaged by the slave trade and related ivory tradeIvory trade
The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and most commonly, Asian and African elephants....
in the 18th Century. Numerous Arab and Swahili
Swahili people
The Swahili people are a Bantu ethnic group and culture found in East Africa, mainly in the coastal regions and the islands of Kenya, Tanzania and north Mozambique. According to JoshuaProject, the Swahili number in at around 1,328,000. The name Swahili is derived from the Arabic word Sawahil,...
slave traders such as Tippu Tib operated around the north end of Lake Mweru, around Lake Mweru Wantipa and over to Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika is an African Great Lake. It is estimated to be the second largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, and the second deepest, after Lake Baikal in Siberia; it is also the world's longest freshwater lake...
.
Colonial history
Chiengi boma was established during the race between Belgian King Leopold IILeopold II of Belgium
Leopold II was the second king of the Belgians. Born in Brussels the second son of Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orléans, he succeeded his father to the throne on 17 December 1865 and remained king until his death.Leopold is chiefly remembered as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free...
's Congo Free State
Congo Free State
The Congo Free State was a large area in Central Africa which was privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians. Its origins lay in Leopold's attracting scientific, and humanitarian backing for a non-governmental organization, the Association internationale africaine...
and the British South Africa Company
British South Africa Company
The British South Africa Company was established by Cecil Rhodes through the amalgamation of the Central Search Association and the Exploring Company Ltd., receiving a royal charter in 1889...
(BSAC) of Cecil Rhodes to seize Katanga
Katanga Province
Katanga Province is one of the provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between 1971 and 1997, its official name was Shaba Province. Under the new constitution, the province was to be replaced by four smaller provinces by February 2009; this did not actually take place.Katanga's regional...
from its king, Msiri, in 1890-91. Alfred Sharpe
Alfred Sharpe
Sir Alfred Sharpe was a professional hunter who became a British colonial administrator and Commissioner of the British Central Africa Protectorate from 1896 until 1910...
was sent to obtain a treaty from Msiri by the BSAC from the British Commissioner
British Central Africa
The British Central Africa Protectorate existed in the area of present-day Malawi between 1893 and 1907.-History:The Shire Highlands south of Lake Nyasa and the lands west of the lake had been of interest to the British since they were first explored by David Livingstone in the 1850s, and...
's office at Zomba in Nyasaland
Nyasaland
Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....
in 1890, but he failed. On his way back to Nyasaland in early 1891 he passed the Chiengi rivulet and, since Chief Puta of the Bwile people
Bwile people
The Bwile people are an ethnic group that live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia around the northern part of Lake Mweru....
, five kilometres to the south, was amenable to a treaty, Sharpe decided to set up a boma there to secure the territory east of Mweru for the BSAC, and to act as a forward base for another attempt to wring a treaty out of Msiri. He left his second-in-command, Captain Crayshaw, with some African troops to build and staff the boma.
However, Leopold sent the Stairs Expedition to secure Katanga which they achieved in December 1891 after killing Msiri. On the way back to the east coast of Africa, the Stairs Expedition passed close to Chiengi and exchanged messages with Crayshaw regarding the position of the border dividing CFS and BSAC territory between Lake Mweru and Lake Tanganyika.
Chiengi Boma was probably the first colonial post in what was to be called North-Eastern Rhodesia
North-Eastern Rhodesia
North-Eastern Rhodesia in south central Africa was formed by and administered by the British South Africa Company as the other half, with North-Western Rhodesia, of the huge territory lying mainly north of the Zambezi River into which it expanded its charter in 1891...
(it was still referred to as part of 'Zambezia
Rhodesia (disambiguation)
Rhodesia refers primarily to a country formed by two land-locked territories in southern Africa, which are today Zambia and Zimbabwe. British colonisers named this territory after Cecil Rhodes and it was separated by a natural border provided by the Zambezi River. Occasionally they are informally...
' at the time), and was one of the most remote outposts of the British Empire, a lonely posting which sent more than one colonial officer mad. For a number of years the boma was removed to the Kalungwishi River, and during this period the Belgian colonial authorities in Pweto
Pweto
Pweto is a town in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo . It is the administrative center of the Pweto Territory. The town was the scene of a decisive battle in December 2000 during the Second Congo War which resulted in both sides making more active efforts to achieve...
, just across the border in DR Congo, controlled the northern end of the lake including the western extremity of Chiengi District, the so-called Lunchinda enclave west of the Lunchinda River. The British then re-established the boma at Chiengi but the eventual outcome of de facto Belgian control of the Lunchinda enclave led to it eventually being ceded to DR Congo by Zambia — see the article on the Luapula Province border dispute
Luapula Province border dispute
This article deals with the disputed area on the borders of the Belgian Congo and Zambia, in Luapula Province.-Origins in the 1894 treaty:Zambia's formal northern frontier boundary was legally signed in the Anglo-Belgian Treaty of 1894, long after the 1884 Berlin Conference...
.
Chiengi Boma was finally closed in 1933 and superseded by Kawambwa
Kawambwa
Kawambwa is a town in the Zambian province of Luapula located on the edge of the northern Zambian plateau above the Luapula valley at an altitude of 1300 m...
and then Nchelenge
Nchelenge
Nchelenge is a town in the Luapula Province of northern Zambia, lying on the south eastern shore of Lake Mweru. It is contiguous with Kashikishi, and they are sometimes referred to as Nchelenge-Kashikishi...
bomas.
In addition to fishing in the lake, the chief trade of Chiengi in colonial times was in salt, which had been deposited in the dambo by streams running out of the hills, and there was a thriving trade.
History since
Chiengi was restored as a sub-administrative administrative centre under Nchelenge DistrictNchelenge District
Nchelenge District is a district of Zambia, located in Luapula Province. The capital lies at Nchelenge. As of the 2000 Zambian Census, the district had a population of 111,119 people.-References:...
of independent Zambia in the 1970s and as a full administrative District
Chiengi District
Chiengi District with headquarters at Chiengi is the smallest and most northerly district in the Luapula Province of Zambia and was carved out of Nchelenge District after Zambia's independence...
in the 1990s. The area has been affected by conflict in the Congo several times, most recently in the Second Congo War
Second Congo War
The Second Congo War, also known as Coltan War and the Great War of Africa, began in August 1998 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo , and officially ended in July 2003 when the Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took power; however, hostilities continue to this...
, when tens of thousands of refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
s arrived and were settled in UNHCR camps in Kawambwa and Mporokoso
Mporokoso
Mporokoso is a town in the Northern Province of Zambia, lying at an elevation of nearly 1500 m on the flat plateau about 75 km south east of Lake Mweru Wantipa and 100 km south-west of Lake Tanganyika...
Districts. Most of these have been repatriated since the end of that war. Reports have also been made of Congolese soldiers harassing Zambians at the border and inside Zambian territory.
Roads
Chiengi is reached by a gravel road, frequently impassable in the rainy season, from Nchelenge and KashikishiKashikishi
Kashikishi is a town on the south-eastern shore of Lake Mweru in the Luapula Province of Zambia. It lies just north of the district headquarters Nchelenge, and close enough for them to be considered twin towns; they are sometimes referred to as Nchelenge-Kashikishi.While Nchelenge is the seat of...
100 km south (the same journey can be done by boat). From Chiengi a dirt track runs along the flat northern lake shore to Pweto
Pweto
Pweto is a town in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo . It is the administrative center of the Pweto Territory. The town was the scene of a decisive battle in December 2000 during the Second Congo War which resulted in both sides making more active efforts to achieve...
in DR Congo. A new gravel road has been constructed north-east to the border, around the Chipani Swamp and east to Kasongola from where (in the dry season) tracks connect to Kaputa in Zambia's Northern Province
Northern Province, Zambia
Northern Province is one of Zambia's nine provinces. It covers approximately one fifth of Zambia in land area. The provincial capital is Kasama. The province is made up of 12 districts, namely Kasama , Chilubi, Isoka, Chinsali, Kaputa, Luwingu, Mbala, Mporokoso, Mpika, Mpulungu, Mungwi and Nakonde...
.