Rabih

More widely known as Rabih, Rabih al Zabayr ibn Fadl Allah is a multidimensional and controversial figure in African history. Born along the Nile River in Sudan, Rabih quickly became involved in the military, and a warlord who ravaged a vast area from Sudan to Bornu capturing thousands of slaves through raids and destroying kingdoms until his death on April 22, 1900, in Kousséri, in the far north of modern-day Cameroon. In his wake, he left a trail of depravities suffered by African societies in the 19th century in a region comprising Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the Ubangi, and the area around Lake Chad. His career involves the violence of the slave trade, the role of war in the process of state creation, and the way in which resistance to imperialist invasion was criminalized. He had a role as a slave raider and trader in central Africa during the period that saw the end of the Atlantic system, the progression of Western abolition, and the triumph of colonialism in the heart of the continent. As an African slave trader, it is instructive to move beyond his better-known reputation as a resistance fighter and an anti-imperialist nationalist.