Stairs Expedition

The Stairs Expedition to Katanga of 1891−92 led by Captain William Stairs was the winner in a race between two imperial powers to claim Katanga, a vast mineral-rich territory in Central Africa for colonization, during which a local chief, (Mwenda Msiri) was killed. It is notable for the fact that Stairs, the leader of one side, actually held a commission in the army of the other.

This "scramble for Katanga" was a prime example of the colonial Scramble for Africa, and one of the most dramatic incidents of that period.

On one side of the race was the Congo Free State, Belgian King Leopold II's instrument for private colonisation in Central Africa. On the other was the company chartered by the British government to make treaties with African chiefs, the British South Africa Company (BSAC) of Cecil Rhodes, who mixed a determined approach to gaining mineral concessions with a vision for British imperial development spanning the continent.

Caught between them, and attempting to play one off against the other, was Msiri, the big chief of Garanganze or Katanga, a tribal land not yet claimed by a European power, and larger than many European countries in acreage. Msiri, like many African chiefs, had started as a slave trader, and had used superior weapons obtained by trading ivory, copper and slaves, to conquer and subjugate neighbouring tribes, taking many of them as slaves for resale. By the time of the Stairs Expedition, Msiri was the unchallenged despot of the area. Like the newcomers, he had plenty of cunning and strategic sense, but this time he was the one with the inferior military technology (as well as being totally opposed to the British concept of abolitionism).

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