Several other ethnic groups in the northern and Luapula regions of Zambia speak languages which are similar to Bemba, but have different origins.

The Bemba people are not indigenous to Copperbelt Province; they arrived there during the 1930s due to employment opportunities in copper mining.

The Bemba are one of the larger ethnic groups in Zambia, and their history illustrates the development of chieftainship in a large and culturally-homogeneous region of Central Africa.

These clans stopped the northward march of the Nguni and Sotho-Tswana-descended Ngoni people through Chief Chileshe Chitapankwa Muluba.

Their documented history begins with the 1484-1485 Portuguese expedition led by Diego Cam (also known as Diogo Cão), when Europeans first contacted the Kingdom of Kongo at the mouth of the Congo River.

It includes Bemba oral traditions,[2] historical texts on early imperial and colonial ventures and post-Berlin Conference European exploration in the region,[3] inferences from mentions of Bemba individuals,[4] associations with historical writings on other Central African kingdoms,[5] and Bemba-focussed historiography of the past century.

[7] He explored the river and came into contact with the Bantu Kongo Kingdom, which covered large portions of present-day Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Congo-Brazzaville.

In the royal archives (babenye) at the palace of the Chitimukulu are four Christian statues obtained 600 years ago from early Catholic missionaries in the Kongo Kingdom.

When he forced the Lungu to move west and settle on the western side of the Luombe River, the Bemba Kingdom had become too large to manage from UluBemba.

Bemba kings continued the conquests, with Chileshe Chepela (1810-1860) and Mutale Chitapankwa (1866-1887) bringing nearby tribes under their rule.

By the time the first European presence began to make itself known in Zambia at the end of the 1800s, the Bemba had pushed out many earlier immigrants (including the Tabwa, Bisa, Lungu, and Mambwe) to the Tanganyika plateau.

Richards (1939) writes that the political influence of the Chitimukulu covered much of the area marked by four African Great Lakes (Mweru, Bangweulu, Tanganyika, and Nyasa) and extended south into the Lala country in present-day Central Province, Zambia.

Since the establishment of the protectorate in the early 20th century, during the reign of Mutale Chikwanda (1911-1916), the Chitimukulu throne is now more cultural and ceremonial than executive and administrative.

[14] Traditional Bemba society is matrilineal, and close bonds between women or a mother and daughter are considered essential.

29–30) says that the Bemba... are obsessed with problems of status and constantly on the look-out for their dignity, as is perhaps natural in a society in which so much depends on rank.

All their human relations are dominated by rules of respect to age and position… Probably this universal acceptance of the rights of rank makes the Bemba appear so submissive and almost servile to the European… Arrogant towards other tribes, and touchy towards their fellows, they seem to endure in silence any treatment from a chief (sic, should read "monarch") or a European.To my mind, their most attractive characteristics are quick sympathy and adaptability in human relationships, an elaborate courtesy and sense of etiquette, and great polish of speech.

A day spent at the Paramount's (sic, should read "King") court is apt to make a European observer's manners seem crude and boorish by contrast (pp.

139–140), writes thatWith the introduction of the English polity in the (Northern Rhodesia) colony, the long-established Bemba civilization and its intrinsic psychological realities were disrupted.

Insaka and ifibwanse, the long-established centers for educating Bemba boys and girls, respectively, lost their power to Western schools that promised successful learners the social status next to that of the "white" colonisers.