10 Facts About Tippu Tip

Tippu Tip worked for a succession of sultans of Zanzibar and was the Sultan of Uterera, a short-lived state in Kasongo, Maniema ruled by himself and his son Sefu.

Tippu Tip's mother, Bint Habib bin Bushir, was a Muscat Arab of the ruling class.

At a relatively young age, Tippu Tip led a group of about 100 men into Central Africa seeking slaves and ivory.

Tippu Tip built a slave-trading empire, and is considered the second wealthiest Muslim slave trader in history, using the proceeds to establish clove plantations on Zanzibar.

Tippu Tip met and helped several Western explorers of the African continent, including David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley.

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.

Tippu Tip travelled back to the Upper Congo in the company of Stanley, but this time by way of the Atlantic coast and up the Congo River.

When Tippu Tip left the Congo, the authority of King Leopold's Free State was still very weak in the Eastern parts of the territory and the power lay largely with local Arabic or Swahili strongmen.

Tippu Tip set out to write an account of his life, which is the first example of the literary genre of autobiography in the Bantu Swahili language.

Tippu Tip died June 13,1905, of malaria in his home in Stone Town, the main town on the island of Zanzibar.