Tippu Tip (ca. 1840-1905), or Hamed bin Mohammed bin Juma bin Rajab el Murjebi, was a Zanzibari trader who extended his influence into the Congo region and much of East Africa.

Hamed bin Mohammed el Murjebi was born into a Zanzibar merchant dynasty at a time when trading routes from that East African metropolis were beginning to reach into the area which today forms the Republic of Zaïre. His first expedition around the southern tip of Lake Tanganyika into northern Katanga took place in 1859-1860 and was followed by two more campaigns along the same route (which he preferred to the more commonly traveled route via Tabora and Ujiji) in 1865 and 1867-1869. It was during the course of his third expedition that he gained the nickname of Tippu Tip, an onomatopoeic imitation of his firearms, and befriended the British missionary and explorer David Livingstone.

In 1870, at...