ABSTRACT
The different peoples of modern Zambia have long and important, though separate, histories. Zambia was not a "nation" as defined by common language, kinship, political authority, or geographical distinctiveness until it was pieced together by British mercantile interests in the late nineteenth century. This chapter explores the era of British rule, broken into three separate periods extending from 1890 to 1963. Indigenous economic and political structures could not repel the concerted efforts of white adventurers, missionaries, traders, and mercenaries who closed in on central and southern Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. Portuguese explorers had penetrated the region as far back as the late sixteenth century. On the basis of the Rudd Concession, the British Crown gave the newly formed British South Africa Company a charter to develop all the lands "north of the Transvaal and west of the Portuguese possessions." During the company's rule, its officials put an end to formal slavery.
