The origin of the Mbala Region has been said to have developed from Zombe village which was located on the Lucheche River that runs from Lake Chila through Mutambalika graveyard towards the Moto Moto Museum.
Zombe village and the surrounding areas extending up to Lake Tanganyika in Mpulungu, only became known to the outside world after the 1860s because of the writings of Scottish explorer, David Livingstone, following his visit to this area.
Lusaka National Museum director Victoria Chitungu said Dr Livingstone drew the British attention to the happenings of Mbala, especially on the slave trade that was rampart at the time.
During most of the 19th century, Ms Chitundu said, the Mbala region was one of the worst affected by slave trade in Zambia because the district was one of the main slave routes from the hinterland to the main slave market at Zanzibar and the east coast in Tanzania.
Ms Chitungu said Dr Livingstone’s writings inspired missionaries of the London Missionary Society to come and set up mission stations on major slave routes of the area to curb slave trade.
“This led to the building of mission stations such as Niamukolo on Lake Tanganyika and Kawimbe mission station, 25km from Mbala town,” she said.
Ms Chitundu said Chituta Bay on Lake Tanganyika was the main slave trade harbour using the Stephenson road which was the key slave route connecting Lake Tanganyika to Lake Malawi.
It was in fact the activities of slave trade that made Mbala noticeable to the British South African Company (BSA) through the African Lakes Company that had engaged itself in trying to stop the infamous trade around this area.
According to Ms Chitungu, by 1893, the British acting from their base in Nyasaland decided to create a post in Mbala to help the African Lakes Company in their fight against slave Trade.
Extract From The Daily Mail, Francis Lungu
4 September 2018
https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/mbalas-link-to-world-war-i/#:~:text=According%20to%20documented%20history%20from%20the%20Lusaka%20National,through%20Mutambalika%20graveyard%20towards%20the%20Moto%20Moto%20Museum.
