It achieved this control through natural resources and force of arms—Msiri traded Katanga's copper principally, but also slaves and ivory, for gunpowder and firearms—and by alliances through marriage.

From its capital at Bunkeya, the Yeke Kingdom took over the western territory of Mwata Kazembe, stopped the southwards expansion of the Luba Empire and subjugated tribes in the southwest, on the trading route to Angola.

Cecil Rhodes also sent expeditions to sign up the kingdom to his British South Africa Company's chartered territories.

The 'scramble for Katanga' was won by Leopold's Stairs Expedition, which ended the kingdom by killing Msiri, and took over the territory for the CFS, but with its own administration until it was more closely incorporated into the Belgian Congo.

[1] Captain Stairs, the expedition's leader, installed one of Msiri's adopted sons, Mukanda-Bantu, as his successor but of a vastly reduced area with a radius of only 20 km from Bunkeya, and with the status of a chief.