This area bore some of the horrendous of African slavery… When in most parts of the world slavery had been abolished, an era of monstrous bloodshed was about to start here around 1860.
Jumbo, a trader of African-Arabic descent from Zanzibar, established this “business” in Nkhotakota. Over a period of 50 year, villages were raided and about 100.000 people shipped across the lake to the Mozambiquean side, from where they had to walk up to three months to the coast carrying heavy loads of ivory and other precious commodities.
During this time Scottish missionaries arrived at the lake in great numbers. The famous explorer Livingston eventually convinced the aging Jumbo to give up the slave trade.
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