Nyangwe
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Nyangwe was a town in Maniema, on the right bank of the Lualaba in the Democratic Republic of Congo (territory of Kasongo). It was one of the main esclavagist states in the region active at the end of the 19th century.
The town was founded around 1860, and a first sultan named Dougombi established in 1868. Munia Muhara was the sultan of the town by the time of the campaigns of the Congo Free State against the Swahili-Arabs.
David Livingstone was the first european to visit the town in 1871. On July 15, 1871 Livingstone witnessed approximately 600 africans massacred by Arab esclavagists.¹ It was the last known town for people coming from the East, and Livingstone thought that the Lualaba was the high part of the Nile River. Henry Morton Stanley followed the river in 1877 with Tippu Tip, and as he arrived in Boma, he established that this was the Congo River. Verney Lovett Cameron visited the town in 1874 and Hermann von Wissmann in 1883.
¹ Livingstone by Tim Jeal (New Haven, Yale University Press,1973, p. 331-335.)
- Tim Butcher: Blood River - A Journey To Africa's Broken Heart, 2007. ISBN 0-701-17981-3