other · Central and Southern Africa
Jumbe State of Nkhotakota
Origins
Around 1845 Salim bin Abdallah, a Swahili-Arab trader from the coast connected with Zanzibar, settled at Nkhotakota on the western shore of Lake Malawi. Taking the title Jumbe, he made himself ruler over the local Chewa and built the town into a trading base.
Rule and society
Successive Jumbes ran a commercial state that shipped ivory and enslaved people by dhow across the lake towards Kilwa and the coast; David Livingstone, who visited in 1863, described the trade. Mosques and Koranic schools made Nkhotakota a centre of Islam among the Chewa.
Decline and legacy
The Jumbe signed a treaty with Britain in 1889 and cooperated with Harry Johnston for a time, but in the mid-1890s the British removed the last Jumbe and absorbed Nkhotakota into the British Central Africa Protectorate.
Lineage
On the connections map
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- Jumbe State of Nkhotakota was a vassal of Sultanate of Zanzibar1845 CE – 1894 CE
More states of Central and Southern Africa →
Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Jumbe State of Nkhotakota. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/jumbe-state-of-nkhotakota
- MLA
- “Jumbe State of Nkhotakota.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/jumbe-state-of-nkhotakota. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Jumbe State of Nkhotakota.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/jumbe-state-of-nkhotakota.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Jumbe State of Nkhotakota’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/jumbe-state-of-nkhotakota (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻