In order to understand Tanzania’s political, social, and economic situation before colonization, it is important to understand the history behind the two regions that make up modern-day Tanzania.
The United Republic of Tanzania was established in 1964 as a result of the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, both of which had recently gained their independence from British colonial rule. Zanzibar, an island port just off the coast of Tanganyika, had been under British control since 1890. The British had been given the “trusteeship” of Tanganyika by the League of Nations in 1920 after Germany was defeated in World War I. Before the war, from 1894 to 1914, Tanganyika, along with two smaller regions, was controlled by Germany and known as German East Africa.
Zanzibar and the coast of what is now called Tanzania had been in contact with traders from the Persian Gulf since about the 10th century. Persian settlers had intermingled and intermarried with Bantu-speaking Africans, resulting in the Swahili culture and language that still exists in coastal Tanzania. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the coast was controlled intermittently by the Portuguese, who established trading posts, including at Kilwa. At the end of the 17th century, Africans, with the help of Persians from Oman, expelled the Portuguese from most of the Tanzanian coast.2 At first the Omanis exercised mainly “nominal overlordship” in the area, but in about 1800 they took control of Kilwa and then Zanzibar and began administering the area more tightly.3 Zanzibar became an international trading center and the Sultan established diplomatic relations with the US, England and France.4 However, the Omanis’ control was limited to Zanzibar and the coast and focused on making sure trade was directed to them in Zanzibar.5
During the period that the Omanis ruled Zanzibar and the coast, new caravan routes were established, moving goods between the various coastal towns and the East African interior.6 Initially, slave trade dominated, but by about 1850, as slave trading slowed down in response to decreasing demand and anti-slavery activity, trading in other products became more important. These products included ivory for piano keys, billiard balls, jewelry and furniture, and palm oil for making soap, candles, and lubricating oil for machinery. In exchange, Africans acquired cloth, salt and guns.7 The Omanis also established plantations on Zanzibar, using large numbers of slaves to produce cloves for the world market.8
For the most part, the Omanis did not venture into the interior of East Africa. The trade routes from the coast to the interior were controlled by African tribes.9 Therefore, although the coastal area of East Africa was open to overseas travelers, subject to Islamic influence, and controlled by the Omanis until the late 1800s, the interior was almost entirely separate and cut off from outside forces.10 Essentially all of the tribes in the Tanzanian interior were descendents of the Bantus who had moved into the area, with traditional economies based on hunting, farming, and animal herding.11 The tribes formed a variety of different types of communities. There were many small communities which maintained order without rulers, laws or military forces, and instead used customs and family relationships to keep order.12 In the fertile highland areas bordering Lake Nyasa , Lake Tanganyika and the other great lakes, large organized states developed that were ruled by kings but also included other important figures such as queen mothers, heads of clans, and lower-level chiefs who balanced the power of the kings.13
Unlike the coast , which had been introduced to writing by the Persians, the people of the Tanzanian interior did not have a system of writing.14 Therefore, much of the information known about the interior was reported and often misinterpreted by early European explorers such as James Hanning Speke. Speke had traveled to the Lake Nyasa region and met with an important king, King Mutesa of the Buganda. Speke later wrote a book about his travels in which he was very critical of Mutesa and complained about the formalities of Mutesa’s court: “The farce continued, and how to manage these haughty, capricious blacks puzzled my brains considerably.”15 A later explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, also met Mutesa and disagreed with Speke’s criticisms. Stanley wrote that Mutesa was “intelligent in questions and remarks beyond anything I expected to meet in Africa…[T]hat he should have obtained supremacy over a great region into which moneyed soldiers from Cairo and Zanzibar flocked…[was] sufficient to win my favorable judgment.”16 As Stanley’s description made clear, great societies were in existence in the interior of East Africa in the 1800s, most Europeans just didn’t know about them.
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1. “Tanzania.” Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara. 4 vols. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1997. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/History/2. “Law: Anglophone Eastern Africa.” Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara. 4 vols. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1997. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/History/3. Iliffe, John. Africans: The History of a Continent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print. 181.
4. “Law: Anglophone Eastern Africa.” Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara. 4 vols. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1997. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/History/5. Iliffe, John. Africans: The History of a Continent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print. 181.
6. "Tanazina." The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. Columbia University Press, 2004. Questia Online Library. Web. 27 Feb. 2010.
http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/tanzania.jsp7. “Africa in the Nineteenth Century, 1780-1914.” DISCovering World History. Online Edition. Gale, 2003. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.
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8. Iliffe, John. Africans: The History of a Continent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print. 181.
9. Iliffe. Africans The History of a Continent. 181.
10. Wesseling, H L. Divide and Rule: The Partition of Africa, 1880-1914. Trans. Arnold J Pomerans. Westport: H.L. Wesseling, 1996. Print. 133.
11. "East Africa - An Overview." Africa.Upenn.edu. National Endowment for the Humanities, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/NEH/overview.html12. “Law: Anglophone Eastern Africa.” Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara. 4 vols. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1997. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/History/13. “Law: Anglophone Eastern Africa.”
14. Griffiths, Ieuan LL. The African Inheritance. New York: Routledge, 1995. Print. 15.
15. Hanning, John Speke. Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 1996. Print. 310.
16. Hugon, Anne. The Exploration of Africa From Cairo to the Cape. New York: Hary N. Abrams, Inc., 1993. Print. 139.
