This is a history of Katanga Province and the former independent State of Katanga, as well as the history of the region prior to colonization.
Earliest residents
Prior to Bantu migration around 500 BCE, the area was probably the site of dwellings by much more widespread Khoisan and Pygmy hunter-gatherer peoples; the Katanga area is one of the few areas in the continent where concurrent settlements of both peoples have been identified. They were assimilated or driven out by the expansion of the Bantu peoples into the area.
Luba settlement
The earliest permanent settlements in the Katanga region are, supposedly, those of the Luba people's ancestors, who settled in the Upemba Depression near Lake Upemba. In the marshes of the Upemba Depression, large scale cooperation was necessary to build and maintain dikes and drainage ditches. This kind of communal cooperation also made possible the construction of dams to stock fish during the long dry season. By the 8th century the Luba were working in iron and trading in salt, palm oil, and dried fish. They used these products to trade for copper, charcoal (for iron smelting), glass beads, iron and cowrie shells from the Indian Ocean.
Several distinct societies developed out of the Upemba culture prior to the genesis of the Luba. Each of these societies based the foundation of their society on that of the one which preceded it (much in the way that many aspects of Roman culture were borrowed from the Greeks). The 5th century saw this societal evolution develop in the area around present day Kamilamba at the Kabambasee, which was followed and replaced by a number of other cultures which were based around the cities of Sanga and Katango.
The region in which these cultures appeared is particularly rich in ores and the civilization began to develop and implement iron and copper technology, in addition to trading in ivory and other goods. The Upemba established a strong commercial demand for their metal technologies and were able to institute a primitive but long-range commercial net (the business connections extended over 1500 km, all the way to the Indian Ocean). Additionally, the region was endowed with favorable agricultural conditions and a wealth of fish and game.
From 1500s to the 1800s
Beginning in the late 16th century, the province was controlled by the Luba Empire and Lunda Kingdom, which spawned a migration of warriors and tribes into neighbouring regions. The Bemba, Kazembe-Lunda, Kanongesha-Lunda and Lozi in Zambia are just some of the people who trace their origins to Katanga.
Msiri's Yeke kingdom
In the mid-19th century, a Nyamwezi trader from Tabora in modern-day Tanzania called Msiri founded the powerful but short-lived Yeke Kingdom. Msiri's home district was called Garanganza, a name which came to be used for the Yeke Kingdom as well. Msiri married the daughter of Chief Katanga, who protected him against the xenophobia of Chief Mpanda of Basanga. The name 'Katanga' is derived from Msiri's father-in-law. Msiri's power was based on copper, ivory and slaves, which he traded to both the west coast (Angola) and east coast (Zanzibar) for firearms and gunpowder, enabling him to transform himself within a few years into a warrior-king, conquering the territory between the Kasai River and Luapula River, the Zambezi-Congo watershed and Lake Upemba, taking over land and subject tribes from the Luba and Lunda peoples.
In the 1880s King Leopold II of Belgium, with the assistance of British explorer Henry Morton Stanley, established the Congo Free State (CFS) north of Katanga. His attention was drawn by reports of Katanga's copper wealth and the possibility of gold. Msiri tried to stall and play off Leopold's expeditions against those of the latter's European rival, Cecil Rhodes. Leopold sent the Stairs Expedition to raise the Congo Free State's flag by force if necessary. It was. Msiri was uncooperative, and was shot by one of the expedition's European officers on 28 December 1891.
Colonial history under Belgian rule
Leopold took possession of Katanga and on 15 April 1891 its administration on behalf of the CFS was entrusted to another of Leopold's companies, the Compagnie du Katanga. No effective administration was set up until 19 June 1900, when it was renamed the Comité Spécial du Katanga, an administrative entity separate from the CFS. The Luba resisted, most notably in a major rebellion in 1895, after which many Luba were sent to work as forced labor in the copper mines of Katanga. led another rebellion of the Luba that was not suppressed by the Belgians until 1917.