Ndola City

This was posted with photographs on FaceBook on 16 April 2015:-

Ndola was founded on July 18 1904, by John Edward "Chiripula" Stephenson just six months after Livingstone, making it the second oldest colonial-era town of Zambia. It was started as a boma and trading post, which laid its foundations as an administrative and trading centre today.

Ndola, the second oldest colonial-era town of Zambia lies just 10Kilometres from the DR Congo border.

The town has a rich history in slave trade and Copper mining, The town derives its name from a small insignificant stream tributary of the Kafubu River called Kandola. In 1930, the town was declared a municipality.

In 1932, the colonial administrative offices were moved to the present-day Civic Centre from their original home where they were housed at what is today's Ndola Golf Club.

Ndola was granted a Coat of Arms from the Royal College of Arms in London in 1952 and city status in 1967.

Here Is A Brief History About John Edward 'Chiripula', AKA Jungle Path Finder.

John Edward Stephenson was born about 1874. Not sure I have the date. The events we hear of cover about 1896-1952. He is another of those remarkable characters in the history of Northern Rhodesia.

He is called Chirupula ('smiter'), from an occasion on which he had some men whipped or Slapped.

We hear first how he worked as a telegraph operator in Kimberley. This was his first job after arriving from Northumberland (he grew up somewhere on the Tyne) in 1896. Due to a failing arm and a forced rest on medical grounds, he decides to seek greener pastures in the north. Rhodes was opening up the country, and this was his chance to seek his fortune outside of dull and dusty Kimberley.

Arriving ahead of the train north, in 1898, he resigned his new post in Bulawayo on the news that his father had died and left him a small legacy. He clearly had an appetite for the freedom of the road, and he was in love with Africa. More fun was to be had in exploring new areas, as yet unopened to the British. Blantyre would do as the starting point to launch this exploration, and that was his next trip.

He fell ill on the way with malaria, badly enough to require carrying in the last stages and to require some recuperation in a village. Here he received some native hospitality - being nurtured back to health in a hut by local women. This seems to have made a great impression on him. Later he wonders if it is this event that has led him down the path he eventually follows, marrying two local women polygamously and settling down for good.

You might wonder why why this should make him "the black sheep" of the family. Well he "went native" taking a total of three African wives (concurrently), including a slave girl he rescued and a princess of the Lamba

royal family, producing a total of nine children. This was something that was not condoned either by the European settlers or apparantly by the family back home.

After some time Stephenson has married his first wife, Loti, an Ngoni girl who had been abducted or rescued (her parents having been killed) by a scheming Yao man of the name Muwandiga, who planned to sell off her virginity. Stephenson's helper Tambo asks if he wouldn't marry the girl to save her from this fate. Thinking that he can do this by bringing Loti into his compound, Stephenson agrees. He is quite shy around women, but his intentions to keep her as a wife in name only do not last long, and so begins a long love affair. They have their first child in Blantyre, almost as black as Loti, who is dark-skinned, and Loti fears the child is cursed.

After about two years working in Blantyre he has the opportunity to join Rhodes and the BSA's march into present day Zambia under Robert Codrington, and grabs the chance. They go to Fort Jameson (present day Chipata in Zambia) and plan to go west from there. Stephenson finds himself lonely without Loti and so Tambo returns for her, making a round trip between Fort Jameson and Blantyre to bring her back.

Codrington becomes Administrator of North Eastern Rhodesia. Stephenson is hankering to head into the bush again, bored with telgraphy in Fort Jameson, and lets it be known he wants to be a collector of taxes! (Well, that's how the colonials worked: tax them, then they need a job to earn their shillings, then they are part of the cash economy. In fairness to them, they also saw this as a civilising thing, or a means of bringing Africans into a modern cash-based society. Interesting that an African in this book says a regular job is no better than slavery.)

Soon enough Stephenson has his chance to head west to the hook of the Kafue River, into Lala land, accompanied by one other white man, Francis Jones. The two of them are to visit chiefs and let them know the British are there and what they want. They come with the "gospel of the BSA", messages that the BSA has defeated their enemies (the Ngoni), that there should be no more war, that there should be no more witchcraft and that slavery must be abolished. (Arab slave traders are still marauding freely at this time.)

At least north of the Zambezi, chiefs are left to rule largely in the manner they have always done, and this has a lot to do with the later stability in the region.

Stephenson and Jones enter the area with a pet baboon in tow, who has picked up the habit of smoking a pipe and sitting around with the men and behaving in an altogether human way, it seems. The Lamba see them coming all the way, and soon the rumour goes out that the three brothers have returned. These men don't behave like strangers; they smile as they go along. Everyone should give them what they ask.

So Stephenson and Jones open up Lamba land without trouble....

Stephenson's relationships with his wives, Chisimongana, Loti, Mwape Chiwali and Mwapi Panjika Muwena Mupashi, and with his starting his own business away from the BSA, after being passed over for promotion. Ultimately it is clear that Stephenson loves Africa, loves where he is, loves his wives and children. His reputation in white circles seems born mainly of a mixture of awe at his standing in the African community and distaste at his 'going native'. Amongst his African people he is a Lala god-chief. There are many quite amazing tales... but you'll have to read the book for the rest of them.

Stephenson has nine children: 3 by Mwape, and 5 by Loti. Alpha and Omega were twins.

He died in 1957.

Re-posted here on 2nd Mat 2022 by Namushanawa Nyambe.