page_title: Congo Free State
section_title: War with Arab slavers
hierarchical_section_title: Congo Free State / Leopold's rule / War with Arab slavers
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Muhammad bin Khalfan bin Khamis al-Barwani alias Rumaliza
context_page_description: The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo, was a large state in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by Leopold II. Leopold was able to procure the region by convincing other Eurasian states at the Berlin Conference on Africa that he was involved in humanitarian and philanthropic work and would not tax trade. Via the International Association of the Congo, he was able to lay claim to most of the Congo basin. On 29 May 1885, after the closure of the Berlin Conference, the king announced that he planned to name his possessions "the Congo Free State", an appellation which was not yet used at the Berlin Conference and which officially replaced "International Association of the Congo" on 1 August 1885. The Congo Free State operated as a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II, although he never personally visited the state.
  The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the government of Belgium reluctantly annexed the state after international pressure.
context_section_description: In the short term, the third problem, that of the African and Arab slavers like Zanzibari/Swahili strongman Tippu Tip (nom de guerre)—his real name was Hamad bin Muhammad bin Juma bin Rajab el Murjebi—was temporarily solved. Initially the authority of the Congo Free State was relatively weak in the eastern regions of the Congo.
  In early 1887, Henry Morton Stanley arrived in Zanzibar and proposed that Tippu Tip be made governor (wali) of the Stanley Falls District. Both Leopold II and Barghash bin Said agreed and on February 24, 1887, Tippu Tip accepted.
  In the longer term this alliance was indefensible at home and abroad. Leopold II was heavily criticized by the European public opinion for his dealings with Tippu Tip. In Belgium, the Belgian Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1888, mainly by Catholic intellectuals led by Count Hippolyte d'Ursel, aimed at abolishing the Arab slave trade. Furthermore, Tippu Tip and Leopold were commercial rivals. Every person that Tippu Tip hunted down and put into chattel slavery and every pound of ivory he exported to Zanzibar was a loss to Leopold II. This, and Leopold's humanitarian pledges to the Berlin Conference to end slavery, meant war was inevitable.
  Open warfare broke out in late November 1892. Both sides fought by proxy, arming and leading the populations of the upper Congo forests in conflict. By early 1894 the Zanzibari/Swahili slavers were defeated in the eastern Congo region and the Congo Arab war came to an end.
caption: Slave trader Rumaliza, 1900