Qualla: Mpala https://qualla.com/mpala en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/v/1/mpala-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Mpala https://qualla.com/mpala Mpala: Introduction https://qualla.com/mpala/ Photo credit Kengitau254, CC BY-SA 4.0. Father Isaac Moinet had a sense of humour about his new title. Writing to the departing Captain Emile Storms, the man who had ruled this stretch of Lake Tanganyika's western shore for two and a half years, Moinet signed himself "I, Moinet, Acting King of Mpala." The joke concealed a serious ambition. Cardinal Charles Lavigerie, founder of the White Fathers missionary society, dreamed of establishing a Christian kingdom in equatorial Africa -- a theocratic state that would halt the slave trade and anchor the Catholic faith in the continent's heart. Mpala, a small station at the mouth of the Lufuku River, was to be its capital. The kingdom lasted barely a decade before being absorbed into Leopold's Congo Free State. But what happened at Mpala between 1883 and 1893 -- the violence, the idealism, the betrayals, and the unlikely survival -- left marks that are still visible in the old fortified buildings standing on the lakeshore.

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Image: Kengitau254 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/v/1/mpala-wp/kwv1-mpala-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Mpala: A Fort Built of Five Thousand Trees https://qualla.com/mpala/ Photo credit Giraud, Public domain. Captain Emile Storms of the International African Association laid the foundations of Mpala on 4 May 1883, on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika opposite the existing post at Karema. He named the station after the local chief who, on his deathbed, had told his people to obey th...

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Image: Giraud | Public domain

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/v/1/mpala-wp/kwv1-mpala-a-fort-built-of-five-thousand-trees.mp3 0:06 2 full Mpala: The Soldier Who Married into Mpala https://qualla.com/mpala/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The priests inherited territory extending a hundred kilometres along the lakeshore and twenty kilometres inland, along with the responsibility for defending it. They were not suited to the task. After leading a military expedition in which villages were burned and enslaved people...

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]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/v/1/mpala-wp/kwv1-mpala-the-soldier-who-married-into-mpala.mp3 0:06 3 full Mpala: Besieged by Slavers, Abandoned by Allies https://qualla.com/mpala/ Photo credit Giraud, Victor (1858-1898). Auteur de la conférence. Photographe de l'oeuvre reproduite. Chef de la mission Molteni. Photographe, Public domain. By 1889, the mission was cut off from the outside world. The Abushiri Revolt against the Germans in Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam severed communications, and the slavers Rajabu and Rumaliza controlled nearly the entire western shore of the lake. Only Mpala and the Mrumbi plain held ...

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Image: Giraud, Victor (1858-1898). Auteur de la conférence. Photographe de l'oeuvre reproduite. Chef de la mission Molteni. Photographe | Public domain

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/v/1/mpala-wp/kwv1-mpala-besieged-by-slavers-abandoned-by-allies.mp3 0:06 4 full Mpala: Latin Grammar and Catfish https://qualla.com/mpala/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. What endured at Mpala was not the kingdom but the school. Father Auguste Huys arrived in 1897 and founded the first junior seminary in the Congo, officially inaugurated on 3 January 1899 with six candidates. Father Joseph Weghsteen created a Latin-Swahili grammar and printed it o...

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]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/v/1/mpala-wp/kwv1-mpala-latin-grammar-and-catfish.mp3 0:06 5 full Mpala: What the Buildings Remember https://qualla.com/mpala/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Sleeping sickness struck Mpala in 1904. Seven of twenty-one missionaries died. The seminary was evacuated to a mission sixty kilometres inland. The missionaries built lazarets where the White Sisters tended the sick, and a sanctuary to the Blessed Virgin on a hill overlooking the...

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]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/v/1/mpala-wp/kwv1-mpala-what-the-buildings-remember.mp3 0:06 6 full