Tippu Tip

Tippu Tip, also spelled Tippu Tib or Tippoo Tib (c. 1832 – June 14, 1905), real name Ḥamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Jumʿah ibn Rajab ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al Murjabī (Arabic: حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي), was an Arab-Omani ivory and slave owner and trader, explorer, governor and plantation owner. He worked for a succession of sultans of Zanzibar, trading in slaves for Zanzibar's clove plantations. As part of the large and lucrative trade, he led many trading expeditions into Central Africa, constructing profitable trading posts deep into the Congo Basin region and thus becoming the best-known slave and ivory trader in Africa, supplying much of the world with ivory from enslaved Africans. While still loyal to the Sultan of Zanzibar, he came to rule a large territory in the eastern Congo, centered on the town of Kasongo in the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, in his own right.