Tippu Tip

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tippu Tip or Tib (1837 - June 14, 1905), real name Ahmed bin Mohamed bin Juma el Marijibi, was a Swahili-Zanzibari trader, notorious slaver, plantation owner and governor. Working for a succession of sultans of Zanzibar, he led many trading expeditions into east-central Africa, sometimes involving slave trade and ivory. He constructed profitable trading posts that reached deep into Central Africa.

Tippu Tip met and helped several famous western explorers of the African continent, including Henry Morton Stanley. between when1884 and 1887 Tip claimed the Eastern Congo. In 1887, he was named governor of Stanley Falls District in the Congo Free State.

Around 1890/91 he returned to Zanzibar where he retired. He wrote his autobiography which is the first example of this kind of literature in the Swahili language.

He died in 1905 in his home in Stone Town, the main town on the island of Zanzibar.

[edit] Source

• Maisha ya Hamed bin Mohammed el Murjebi yaani Tippu Tip kwa maneno yake mwenyewe, kimefasiriwa na W.H. Whitely (toleo la Kiswahili - Kiingereza), East Africa Literature Bureau 1974