The Fall of the Congo Arabs

Written by one of the commanders of the European-financed force sent to end the thousand-year-old Arab slave trade in Africa, this astonishing book tells of the little known Aran Campaign, or "Congo-Arab War" of 1892 to 1894. European intervention against the Arab slave trade started with the foundation in 1876 of the International African Association which had as its aim the "exploration and opening to civilization of Central Africa" and the "abolition of the trade in blacks." The Arab slave trade in black Africans-which had started soon after the first Muslim incursions into North Africa in 640 AD, and continued until the 1920s-had encroached all the way to Central Africa. From there, Africans were sold into slavery by other Africans-many of them converts to Islam-or by Arab colonists, all directed from the main Islamic slave trading island outpost of Zanzibar on Africa's east coast. In terms of the 1884 Berlin Conference, Central Africa was turned into the "Congo Free State" and was placed under the control of the king of Belgium, Leopold II. That date marked the start of formal preparations to drive the Arab slave traders out. The author, appointed as a captain in the Congo Free State armed forces, took part in the conflict which followed, and became famous in his native Britain and in Europe for his role in defeating the great Arab slave trader Tippu Tip, and his successor, Sefu. This firsthand account tells the course of the war, and Hinde's personal observations of the Congo, its people, and the Arab slave trade.