Chiengi or is a historic

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 a ...

boma of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading post ...

central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, E ...

and today is a settlement in the Luapula Province of

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are ...

, and headquarters of Chiengi District. Chiengi is in the north-east corner of

Lake Mweru Lake Mweru (also spelled ''Mwelu'', ''Mwero'') 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 of the total length of the ...

, and at the foot of wooded hills dividing that lake from Lake Mweru Wantipa, and overlooking a dambo (marshy plain) stretching northwards from the lake, where the Chiengi rivulet (the origin of the name) flows down from the hills.Mr Justice J B Thomson
"Memories of Abandoned Bomas No. 8: Chiengi"
'' Northern Rhodesia Journal'', Vol II, No. 6, pp67−77 (1954).

History

Pre-colonial history

Chiengi and the area just to its north were ravaged by the

slave trade Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

and related

ivory trade The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants. Ivory has been traded for hundreds of years by people in Africa and ...

in the 18th Century. Numerous Arab and

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...

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 () is an African Great Lake. It is the second-oldest freshwater lake in the world, the second-largest by volume, and the second-deepest, in all cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. It is the world's longest freshwater lake. T ...

Colonial history

Chiengi boma was established during the race between Belgian King Leopold II's

Congo Free State ''(Work and Progress) , national_anthem = Vers l'avenir , capital = Vivi Boma , currency = Congo Free State franc , religion = Catholicism (''de facto'') , leader1 = Leop ...

and the

British South Africa Company The British South Africa Company (BSAC or BSACo) was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expect ...

(BSAC) of

Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his B ...

to seize Katanga from its king,

Msiri Msiri (c. 1830 – December 20, 1891) founded and ruled the Yeke Kingdom (also called the Garanganze or Garenganze kingdom) in south-east Katanga (now in DR Congo) from about 1856 to 1891. His name is sometimes spelled 'M'Siri' in articles in F ...

, in 1890-91.

Alfred Sharpe Sir Alfred Sharpe (19 May 1853 – 10 December 1935) was Commissioner and Consul-General for the British Central Africa Protectorate and first Governor of Nyasaland. He trained as a solicitor but was in turn a planter and a professional hunt ...

was sent to obtain a treaty from Msiri by the BSAC from the British Commissioner's office at Zomba in

Nyasaland Nyasaland () was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasal ...

in 1890, but he failed. On his way back to Nyasaland in early 1891 he passed the Chiengi rivulet and, since Chief Puta Chipalabwe who reigned as a Chief of the Bwile people between 1879-1909. Bwile people, 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 (it was still referred to as part of ' Zambezia' 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, 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. Chiengi Boma was finally closed in 1933 and superseded by Kawambwa and then Nchelenge 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 District of independent Zambia in the 1970s and as a full administrative District in the 1990s. The area has been affected by conflict in the Congo several times, most recently in the

Second Congo War The Second Congo War,, group=lower-alpha also known as the Great War of Africa or the Great African War and sometimes referred to as the African World War, began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August 1998, little more than a year a ...

, when tens of thousands of

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s arrived and were settled in

UNHCR The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...

camps in Kawambwa and Mporokoso Districts. Most of these have been repatriated since the end of that war.Times of Zambia online.
Website accessed 22 April 2007. Reports have also been made of Congolese soldiers harassing Zambians at the border and inside Zambian territory.''The Times of Zambia'' online: "Chienge district still lagging behind" by Austin Kalumba
. Website accessed 22 April 2007. Quote: "The major hindrance has been the bad road which can only be likened to the notorious 1970’s Hell Run."

Roads

Chiengi is reached by a gravel road, frequently impassable in the rainy season, from Nchelenge and

Kashikishi 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 Nch ...

{{convert, 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 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.Google Earth
/ref>

References