Luba-Lunda States

Centralized state systems have existed among the Luba and Lunda peoples of present-day southern Democratic Republic of Congo since at least 1700. Over the course of the 18th century, both polities took on an imperial character, as the political, economic, and cultural networks that revolved around them came to overlay large expanses of the central African savannah. Luba and Lunda elites, however, proved ill-equipped to deal with the growth of the trade in slaves and ivory in the closing decades of the 19th century. The collapse of the Luba and Lunda spheres of imperial control on the eve of European colonialism ushered in an era of widespread political turmoil and social violence.