TIPPOO TIB - The Story of his career in Central Africa

Tippu Tip, or Tib (1832 – June 14, 1905), real name Hamad bin Muhammad bin Juma bin Rajab el Murjebi, was a Swahili-Zanzibari slave trader. An ivory trader, explorer, plantation owner and governor, he worked for a succession of the sultans of Zanzibar. Tippu Tip traded in slaves for Zanzibar's clove plantations. As part of the large and lucrative ivory trade, he led many trading expeditions into Central Africa by constructing profitable trading posts that reached deep into the region. He bought the ivory from local suppliers and resold it for a profit at coastal ports.

He met and helped several famous western explorers of the African continent, including David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. Between 1884 and 1887 he claimed the Eastern Congo for himself and for the Sultan of Zanzibar, Bargash bin Said el Busaidi. In spite of his position as protector of Zanzibar's interests in Congo, he managed to maintain good relations with the Europeans. When, in August 1886, fighting broke out between the Swahili and the representatives of King Leopold II of Belgium at Stanley Falls, al-Murjabī went to the Belgian consul at Zanzibar to assure him of his "good intentions." Although he was still a force in Central African politics, he could see by 1886 that power in the region was shifting. In early 1887, Stanley arrived in Zanzibar and proposed that Tippu Tip be made governor of the Stanley Falls District in the Congo Free State. Both Leopold and Sultan Barghash bin Said agreed and on February 24, 1887, Tippu Tip accepted.  At the same time, he also agreed to man the expedition which Stanley had been commissioned to organize for the purpose of rescuing Emin Pasha (E. Schnitzer), a German condottiere in the service of Egypt who had been stranded in the Bahr el Ghazal area as a result of the Mahdist uprising in Sudan. (from Wikipedia)

Narrated from his own accounts by Dr. Heinrich Brode and translated by H. Havelock. With a preface by Sir Charles Eliot. Frontispiece of Tippoo Tib.  254 pages. Uncut paper edges. The map at the rear is incomplete. The marking on lower spine indicates this as an ex-library copy but no indication of this inside. Book has been rebound on the spine with new endpapers.