Europeans and Tippu Tip: Accounts of African Encounters Based on European Memoirs and Swahili Autobiography

Abstract

The article is focused on the clash of two civilizations as a “clash of two colonizations” in East Africa: the centuries-old commercial Arab colonization, which produced a synthesis of cultures and population of mixed origin, and European one that came to the region with the aim of its exploration and further partition. This article analyses accounts of encounters between European explorers and colonial officials of the last third of the 19th century and Hamed bin Mohammed al-Murjabi, better known as Tippu Tip (1837–1905), a representative of the Arab-Swahili elite and the most influential merchant in Central and East Africaof that time. Remarkably, these encounters are reflected both in his Swahili autobiography and in European travelogues and memories. The European views of the Arabs in general and Tippu Tip are of particular interest as they touch upon the racial discourse of that time, the problem of the formation and functioning of group representations and the perception of “the others” as underdeveloped ones: very often this is the view of the “civilizing enlighteners” on the “backward slave traders”. For Tippu Tip, as a bearer of the Arab-Swahili culture, there is no Eurocentric and racial hierarchies. For him, Europeans are strangers, their racial, religious and ethnic identities do not fit into any hierarchy. The article also examines the conflict between Henry M. Stanley and Tippu Tip, which arose during the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, since each of them, as well as the other participants of the Expedition, presents his own version of events.