X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Stairs Expedition to Katanga


Stairs Expedition to Katanga

Caught between them, and attempting to play one off against the other, was Msiri, the big chief of Garanganze or Katanga, a tribal land not yet claimed by a European power, and larger than many European countries in acreage.

The Stairs Expedition to Katanga of 1891−1892 led by Captain William Stairs was the winner in a race between two imperial powers to claim Katanga, a vast mineral-rich territory in Central Africa for colonization, during which a local chief, (Mwenda Msiri) was killed.

At the 1884–85 Berlin Conference and related bilateral negotiations between Britain and Belgium, the land west and north of the Luapula RiverLake Mweru system (Katanga) was allocated to the CFS while the land to the east and south was allocated to Britain and the BSAC.

Like the newcomers, he had plenty of cunning and strategic sense, but this time he was the one with the inferior military technology (as well as being totally opposed to the British concept of abolitionism).



see also