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The first inhabitants of Malawi are thought to have started settling around Lake Malawi about 10,000BC. During the 16th century there was a vast trading empire established by the Maravi people from whom the country derives its modern name. The first European to make contact with the area now known as Malawi may have been the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Bocarro, whose diary published in 1492 made reference to the great inland lake in central Africa. The slave trade which ravaged most of Africa from 16th Century to the 19th Century also left its imprints on Malawi’s historical development. The Arab slave traders arrived on the shores of Lake Malawi from Zanzibar Island in the Indian Ocean in search of slaves sometime after 1840 and continued until 19th Century. David Livingstone David Livingstone David Livingstone The history of modern Malawi is linked with the life of the Scottish missionary explorer, David Livingstone (1813 to 1873) who reached the lake he named ‘Lake Nyasa’ in

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