Zambia Adoption

Zambian History

Pre 20th Century History

Zambia's history goes back to the debut of Homo sapiens: evidence of human habitation going back 100,000 years has been found at Kabwe, north of Lusaka. Beginning around 1000 AD, Swahili-Arab slave-traders gradually penetrated the region from their city-states on the eastern coast of Africa. Between the 14th and 16th centuries a Bantu-speaking group known as the Maravi migrated from present-day Congo (Zaïre) and established kingdoms in eastern and southeastern Zambia.

In the 18th century, Portuguese explorers following the routes of Swahili-Arab slavers from the coast into the interior became the first known European visitors. After the Zulu nation to the south began scattering its neighbours, victims of the Difaqane (forced migration) began arriving in Zambia in the early 19th century. Squeezed out of Zimbabwe, the Makalolo people moved into southern Zambia, pushing the Tonga out of the way and grabbing Lozi territory on the upper Zambezi River.

The celebrated British explorer David Livingstone travelled up the Zambezi in the 1850s, searching for a route into the interior of southern Africa, hoping to introduce Christianity and European civilisation to combat the horrors of the slave trade. Livingstone's efforts attracted missionaries, who in turn brought hunters and prospectors in their wake. In the 1890s much of Zambia came under the control of the British South Africa Company (BSAC), which sought to prevent further Portuguese expansion in the area.