ISBN 9789996080203
Pages 210
Dimensions 200x148mm
Published 2023
Publisher Luviri Press, Malawi
Format Paperback

Mlozi of Central Africa

Trader, Slaver and Self-Styled Sultan. The End of the Slaver

by David Stuart-Mogg, George Shepperson

For more than a century, historians and writers on Africa have almost invariably associated the name Mlozi with all the cruellest excesses of the central and east African slave trade during the nineteenth century.  That Mlozi bin Kazbadema was a significant slaver who conducted his trade according to all the brutal conventions of his period is beyond dispute. His subsequent botched hanging at the end of a British-sponsored rope, following a drum-head trial of questionable legality, has been generally regarded as well-deserved and a fitting, if muscular, exemplar of Pax Britannica in action.

In  The End of the Slaver, a title taken from recollections of Mlozi’s hanging by the medical missionary Dr. Kerr Cross, author David Stuart-Mogg examines Mlozi’s life and milieu and carefully weighs the often conflicting evidence apparent between official military and government reports and the largely unpublished private letters and diaries written at the time by those who participated in Mlozi’s downfall and elimination. Stuart-Mogg’s carefully evaluated findings call into serious question the altruism and philanthropy that the ultimate, and inevitable, victors of the struggle accorded their actions and their undoubtedly laudable ultimate objective – the eradication of slavery in British Central Africa.

 Referring to this book as ‘an unusually stimulating study, Professor Shepperson recommends that The End of the Slaver deserves to be widely-read, not only by those whose primary interest is in the history of Malawi but also by students of slavery and the anti-slavery movements in the nineteenth century – and, indeed by all who are concerned with man’s inhumanity to man.

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About the Authors

David Stuart-Mogg

David Stuart-Mogg was born in Bath, Somerset and was educated at Clifton College. A keen amateur historian he has spent a major part of his career in the hotel, travel and tourism industries, living and working in the U.K., Middle East and Africa. For four years he was the Chief Executive of the Malawi Hotels Group, now re-named Sunbird, when he was based in Blantyre. He is the author of a best selling Guide to Malawi and of numerous other publications, many concerned with Malawi’s rich history and cultural heritage. He was editor of The Society of Malawi Journal (Historical and Scientific) for 20 years (2001–22), and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

George Shepperson

George Shepperson is Emeritus Professor of Commonwealth and American History at Edinburgh University. During the Second World War he served with Nyasaland battalions of the King’s African Rifles. He is co-author of Independent African, the seminal work on Malawi’s national hero John Chilembwe, and has published a wide body of work on Africa and African Americans on which he is considered a leading authority. He was awarded the C.B.E. for his work with the Commonwealth Institute in Scotland as well as holding honorary doctorates from the universities of Edinburgh, York and Malawi. Professor Shepperson is a Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland.