Eastern Lunda offshoot on the Luapula, controlling copper and ivory trade to both coasts.
The Kingdom of Kazembe lost effective sovereignty when it signed a cession treaty with Britain in 1891; in 1899 British officers with Sikh and Nyasaland troops burned the capital to the ground (though Mwata Kazembe escaped), after which the Luapula valley was incorporated into British North-Eastern Rhodesia while the western bank passed to the Belgian Congo.
Vansina reconstructs the deep history and political traditions of the West Central African savanna out of which the Luba, Lunda and Loango kingdoms arose.
Sets Kazembe within the trans-continental trade networks of south-central Africa (regional context).