Bisa

The Bisa country lies on the plateau between Lake Bangweulu and the escarpment above the Luangwa Valley. In the eighteenth century Bisa traders became important intermediaries for the kingdom of Kazembe on the Luapula. They carried copper and ivory eastward, exchanging ivory for cloth with Portuguese traders and, by around 1800, with Yao merchants who carried it towards Zanzibar. Competition over trade and salt accompanied the expansion of the neighbouring Bemba, who conquered plateau lands held by the Bisa in the late 1820s.