History of Tanzania to the Recent Past LECTURE 1
GEOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND
INTRODUCTION
In this lecture/Topic, we shall discuss the geographical setting or environment in which Tanzania historical development has been taking place from time immemorial to the present. This background knowledge will help us to decipher and understand the role which environmental and climatic factors have played in shaping the life style of different communities in Tanzania through time.
At the end this lecture, you should be able:-
- Explain clearly the main physical features of Tanzania and their effects on people’s lives,
- Describe the climate of Tanzanian terms of seasons, temperature, rainfall and prevailing winds and their historical significance,
- Explain why the population is distributed the way it is.
- 1. LOCATION AND EVOLUATION
The country known as Tanzania today is situated in the middle Africa of East just below the Equator. It extends from latitude 1⁰ to 11⁰45’ south and longitude29⁰21’ to 40⁰25’east. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the east, by the countries of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda in the west, by Uganda and Kenya in the north and by Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique in the south.
Tanzania has a land of 886223 square kilometers (342,171 square miles) and 53484 square kilometers (20,650 square miles) of inland water.
The first steps to create Mainland Tanzania as a colony were taken when the British and German governments reached an agreement in October 1886(generally known as the Anglo-German Agreement of 1886) to divide the East African mainland into a German zone extending from a boundary line running from the Umba River to the eastern shore of Lake Victoria in the northeast to the Ruvuma River in the south, and British zone extending from the German border to the Juba River in the north. This is how the boundaries with Kenya in the northeast and with Mozambique in the south were fixed. Then through the Anglo-German Agreement of July 1890, latitude one degree south was fixed as the boundary with Uganda in the north, hence during this period, mainland Tanzania was part of a big German colony known as German East Africa which included Rwanda and Burundi.
- Mainland Tanzania as Tanganyika
After the First World War (1914-1918), however, Mainland Tanzania was separated from Rwanda and Burundi when it became a British colony under the League of Nations mandate, while the former became Belgian colonies under the same arrangement. This was when it was named Tanganyika by the British. Zanzibar, on other hand, was established as separate British Protectorate (colony) by the Anglo-German Agreement of July 1890.
- Establishment of Tanzania
The country known as Tanzania today came into being on 26 April 1964 when the two former British colonies of Tanganyika and Zanzibar united to form one political entity. Its name was coined by combining the letters of the names of each of two countries and by adding “ia” at the end to make it sound well. That is to say who coined it took TAN from the name Tanganyika and ZAN from the name Zanzibar, and combined the two to get TANZAN and then added ” IA” to it in order to make it sound well(Tanzania)
2. PHYSICAL FEATURES
Geographically, Tanzania consists of four main regions. These are
-the Coastal Plain
-the Low Plateau
-the Northeastern, Central and Southwestern Highlands
-the Central Plateau
3. RELATIONS BETWEEN ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN ACTIVITY
There is no doubt that the nature of environment and climate set limits to human efforts in the utilization of natural resources to satisfy human needs. In Tanzania for example areas with fertile soils and reliable rainfall of more than 750mm a year such as the northeastern highlands than the Victoria Basin have always attracted larger number of people than the arid areas in the lowland central plateau. It has always been easier to get food and other necessities of life in the better-watered and fertile areas than in the arid areas.
The former were more capable of supporting dependable agriculture and livestock keeping as well as fishing in the coastal lowlands, the offshore islands of Zanzibar and Pemba and the lake Victoria Basin.
The only economic activities which could be carried out in the areas with poor soils and marginal rainfall such as many parts of Dodoma, Singida, Shinyanga and Tabora regions were hunting, gathering, pastoralism and precarious agriculture.
Another example which shows clearly how environmental and climatic factors have helped to shape the life style of communities in Tanzania is the monsoon or trade winds. These winds, the northeast and southwest monsoons, led to the establishment of trade between Asian countries and East African coast before the birth of Christ by enabling traders to come and go as they changed direction.
This trade in turn led to the rise of the coastal towns or Swahili city states and to introduction of Islamic culture and religion. The monsoon winds have also been important in the history of the region because they bring a lot of rain to both the coast and offshore islands.
However, experts believe that it is not environmental and climate factors alone which influence or determine the nature of human activities and historical development. The nature of the tools or technology used is also an important factor in historical development.
In semi-arid areas of the low and central plateau, for example, it was not only the environment and climate which limited the number of people which the areas concerned could support and the amount of surplus products they could produce but also the level of technology used.
In fact even areas with a favourable environment and good climatic conditions like the southern highlands, the density of population remained low and no large centralized kingdoms arose before the Ngoni invasion of that part of Tanzania in the 19th century. The most likely explanation for this situation was the lack of iron ore in most societies of the area, since only Ukinga and Ufipa are said to have been producers of iron tools in the southern highlands.
This means that people like Nyakusa continued to use mainly wooden tools for agriculture and other economic activities until the early of 19th century hence with such a low level of technology it was not possible to produce enough food for supporting population. More ever, the relative abundance of land appears to have influenced the pattern of social and political organization of the Nyakusa.
There was little basis for economic specialization and social differentiation in the community. It is therefore, evident that changes which occur in the environment or ecology, climate and the level of technology influence changes in human economic activities and social organization.
People in Tanzania have utilized natural resources in different ways, they have affected the environment and climate sometimes negatively, for instance where they have kept large herds of cattle than the areas concerned could carry and have destroyed wood or trees cover as they have done in most of Usukuma, Unyamwezi, Iramba, Unyaturu and Kondoa, for example, the soil has been badly eroded and these areas are fast becoming semi-arid for lack of a windbreak. So unless serious steps are to be taken to plant trees and to conserve the soil, many parts of Tanzania will be turned to be arid or semi-arid desert.
In this lecture, we have discussed the geographical background of Tanzania. We have emphasized that the nature of the environment affects people’s lives and development. People everywhere affect the environment too by how they use natural resources to satisfy their needs.
ACTIVIVITIES
1. Explain the nature of vegetation in the Central Plateaux or the coastal zone today. How different was about 100 years ago?
2. Why have the coastal lowlands and the offshore islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, the northeast highlands, and the Lake Victoria Basin attracted larger numbers of people than other geographical regions.
3. How have the people affected their environment in Tanzania
LECTURE 2
INTRODUCTION
In this lecture/Topic, we shall first explain how the peoples of Tanzania are groped or classified into different language families and groups. Secondary, we shall discuss the peopling of Tanzania by its different modern inhabitants. This peopling is a long historical process stretching back thousands of years.
I t is a process which led to intermingling of peoples of different historical, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds who settled in this country at different times and in different places. We shall also try to show how these peoples developed economically, socially and politically from the stone Age to the first millennium A.D.
At the end of this lecture, you should be able to:-
1. Identify the different peoples of Tanzania and explain their cultural backgrounds and origins;
2. Explain the settlement of the ancestors of the peoples of Tanzania in different parts of the country and their interaction;
3. Explain the extent to which migration theories are valid;
4. Explain the main socio-economic groups which appeared in Tanzania after the establishment of the different language groups.
1. CLASSIFICATION OF THE PEOPLES OF TANZANIA
1.1 Classification According to Physical Features
The modern inhabitants of Tanzania are very diverse in terms of ethnic division, culture and language. During the colonial period, they were as the people in the rest of Africa were, classified by the anthropologists such as F. Stuhlmann (1894), C.G Seligman (1930), G.W. Huntingford (1963) and G.P. Murdock (1959) on the basis of physical features like skin, colour, and height, the kind of head-hair, the shape of nose and the size of lips
These anthropologists claimed that the original population of Africa was made up of up short peoples whom they called Bushmen, Pygmies and other names. The short peoples were hunters and gathers and had virtually no elements of culture.
They are said to have been joined later by light-skinned peoples of southwest Asia known as Hamites who settled in North Africa and by tall dark-skinned peoples from Southeast Asia known as Negroes who settled in West Africa and in the Sudanic zone.
The former are said to have been the ancestors of Fulbe or Fulani, Hausa, Tuareg, Berbers, Ancient Egyptians, Oromo, Somali and other peoples of the Horn of Africa who were economically pastoral, while the later are said to have been the ancestors of many communities in West Africa like the Yoruba, the Ashanti, the Mande, and the Malinke who are economically agricultural.
Colonial anthropologists tried to show how the present or modern population situation in the continent has been the results of racial mixing. Some suggested that the Bushmen hunter and gatherers, that they were Symbiotic and Pygmies were followed by successive waves of Hamites (North Africa) and Negroes migrating from West Africa.
As the results of this coming of Hamites and Negroes to East Africa several things happened. First of all, most of the Bushmen and Pygmies were assimilated by the supposedly superior racial groups; the rest were pushed out of the region or confined a few unattractive places.
Secondary, the mixture which resulted from intermarriage between Negroes and Hamites which produced people who became known as Bantu (where the blood of Negroes was predominant); the mixture in which Hamitic blood and characteristics predominated produced people who became known as Nilotes; and the mixture of Nilotes and Hamites produced the so-called Nilo-Hamites.
This means that the peopling of Tanzania and the rest of East Africa was explained by these scholars in terms of migration of the main racial or ethnic groups from outside
Qn. Is it possible to classify the peoples of Tanzania and rest of the East Africa satisfactory by on the basis of physical features?
What emerges from this explanation of the peopling of Tanzania and the rest of East Africa by colonial anthropologists is that the factor of race was very much emphasized and then it was supported by cultural factors.
These scholars studied African people at the height of colonialism in the first half of the twentieth century, since this was the period during which the factors of race and cultural achievements were used as an ideology to justify colonial domination by Europeans. Because of their technological superiority over other people of the world at that time, the Europeans claimed that their race, the Caucasian race, was superior to all other races of mankind.
European scholars like Seligman assumed that Europe and Middle East were centres of diffusion of a superior culture or civilization. They claimed that even the achievement of Africans elsewhere in the continent were attributed to the Hamites (Hamitic hypothesis or myth)
It is a hypothesis which portrayed the so-called Hamites as the branch of Europeans and attributed to them all cultural and technological achievements in East Africa and in Africa as a whole while the same time portraying the so-called Bushmen and the other dark-skinned African peoples as inferior both racially and culturally.
1.2 Classification according to Language Families and Groups
After political independence being achieved by the peoples of Tanzania and the rest of East Africa in the early of 1960s, historians found both the classification and theories of migration based on racial and cultural superiority unsatisfactory.
They found such classification and theories unsatisfactory party because they were racist and therefore irrational, and partly because some of the names used for designating racial groups were vague and confusing. The names like Hamites and Nilotes, which actually did not exist.
In other words like Hamites and Nilotes which should have been used for designating language groups, were non-existent because of the obsession with racial factors at that time. Similarly terms like Bushmen and Symbiotic hunters were used as names of racial groups when in fact they were referring to cultural or socio-economic groups.
Thus it was felt that people of East Africa could only be classified more satisfactory on the basis of language families and groups, hence historians and linguistics in the post colonial period have been talking about the migration of language groups such as Cushites, Bantu and Nilotes in the region.
John E. G. Sutton, David W. Cohen and Chris Ehret, used this approach in their chapters on the subject in the book edited by B.A. Ogot under the title Zamani. They based their classification of East Africa Joseph Greenberg’s classification of Africa languages and then explained the migration and settlement of members of some of the language groups in East Africa.
According to this classification, the peoples of Tanzania and the rest of East Africa belong to five language groups, namely Bantu, Nilotes, Moru-madi, Cushites and Khoisan.
2. The Stone Age hunters and Gatherers
As in other countries of Arica and elsewhere in the world, the first or early inhabitants of Tanzania were hunters and food-gatherers. This means that the peopling of Tanzania and rest of East Africa started taking place 40,000 years ago. They lived on wild fruits, insets and birds. They painted o rocks and lived in caves or forests. Ogot has correctly said, did not require any tools more sophisticated than the stone knives and digging-sticks.
Thomas Spear and Derek Nurse have accepted the theory that the Stone Age people hunters and gatherers of Tazania and the rest of East Africa were Khoisan-speakers. They have used three types of evidence to support their argument. First of all they point out that skeletons of Bushmanoid type have been discovered in several Late Stone Age sites in East Africa.
Secondly, camping sites and rock-shelter of a Stone Age people have been found in Kondoa District, in north-central Tanzania, which contain rock-paintings are similar to those found in southern Africa.
Thirdly, most of the rock-paintings in Tanzania are found in or next to the territory of the Sandawe people whose click language is apparently related to those of the Khoi and San of Southern Africa. These Sandawe were until recently living by hunting and gathering.
Other surviving hunter and food-gatherers in north-central Tanzania who might have been Khoisan-speaking before being heavily influenced or linguistically absorbed by their Cushitic neighbours are the Hadzabe, Qwadza, As and Aramanik. I t is the presence of clicks in their languages, especially in Hadza and in the language of the Dahalo hunters and gatherers of eastern Kenya, which shows that they were once Khoisan-speakers.
3. The First Food Producers-THE CUSHITES
Most of post-colonial historians and Linguists are agreed that the first food producers in Tanzania and the rest of East Africa were Cushitic speaking people of the southern branch. They expanded into the highlands bordering the Rift valley in western Kenya and northeastern Tanzania from Ethiopia during the second millennium B.C.
There are several types of evidence which support the evidence which support the argument that these food producers were Cushites and that they expanded along the eastern arm of the Rift Valley of East Africa more than one millennium before Christ.
First of all there are many burial sites and cairns (stone mounds) in the Rift Valley area of Kenya and Tanzania which do not exist elsewhere in East Africa. Such burial sites and cairns, ancient and modern are also found in Ethiopia, the homeland of Cushitic language. Secondary, skeletons dug out from a number of burial sites in East Africa suggest that the people living there were of semi-Caucasoid physical type just like remnants’ of Cushitic speakers in the region are today.
Most of them have been absorbed by their Bantu and Nilotic neighbours. Their remnants in Tanzania today are the Iraqw or Wambulu, Gorowa, Alawa (Alagwa), Burungi, Ngomvia and Qwadza of Mbulu, Babati, Kondoa and Dododoma Districts’, the Asa anda Aramanik of Maasailand, and the Mbugu or Vam’a who live in the Shambaa Mountains.
4. BANTU
The Bantu are the largest and most extensive language group in Tanzania and other East African countries. Through different scholars such as Harry H. Jonhston (1919-22), G.P. Murdock (1959), Joseph H. Greenberg (1962), Malcom Guthrie (1971), Roland Oliver (1966) and other have written and formulated different theories about their origin and expansion, most of them are agreed that their ancestors as a language group in the savanna region of Eastern Nigeria and Cameroon in the pre-Christian era.
When the Bantu-speakers first entered Tanzania and other East African countries at the beginning of first millennium A.D they probably adopted grains such as sorghum and millet which had been introduced there by the Southern Cushites and Moru-Madi almost a thousand years ago.
It has been suggested the Bantu spread into East Africa , Central and Southern Africa from their West African homeland between 500 B.C. and 1000 A.D. They probably entered Tanzania through Rwanda and Burundi in the northwest and through what are now Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia and in the south and southwest.
When the Bantu arrived Tanzania, they settled in different places, some of these places were still unoccupied while others were already inhabitated by small numbers of hunters and gatherers and by Cushitic and Moru-Madi.
It was probably their possession of iron technology which enabled the Bantu to be better farmers than their Cushitic and Moru-Madi predecessors. It also enabled them to expand into almost all parts of Tanzania and rest of East Africa.
As they spread, they interacted and intermingled with different hunters and food gatherers and with Cushites, Moru-Madi and Nilotes wherever and whenever they encountered them. The Bantu who interacted with these foreigners along the East African coast became known as Waswahili and spoke a common language known as Kiswahili.
In many centuries of continuous interethnic and cultural contact, they absorbed many Persian and Arabs immigrants. Among the Waswahili there emerged an elite group known as Washiraz. Both the Waswahili in geral and the Shirazi in particular, trace their origin a locality known as Shungwaya in the Southern Somali coast.
It appears, therefore, that of all the language groups which settled in Tanzania and the rest of East Africa since the Stone Age, it was the Bantu-speaking peoples who were the most successful in spreading and preserving their linguistic identity.
5. THE NILOTES
Another group of people who entered in Tanzania almost at the same time as the Bantu-speaking peoples were Nilotic-speaking pastoralists of the Highland or Southern branch, namely the Tatoga or Taturu. These Nilotic-speaking peoples or Nilotes are said to have come to Tanzania through western Kenya from what are now Southern east Sudan and Southwestern Ethiopia.
It was in this region of Southeastern Sudan and Southern western Ethiopia that the early Nilotic community emerged and became divided into three branches. These were:-
-The Highland or Southern Nilotes(Tatoga- Mang’ati and Wataturu)
-The Plain or Eastern Nilotes( Masai)
The River-Lake or Western Nilotes( Luo)
All these Nilotic branches are said to have acquired iron technology and agricultural techniques before their expansion to Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Economically, they were all mixed farmers but tended to emphasize livestock-keeping more than agriculture. They are also said to have acquired cultural elements such as initiation by circumcision, the age-set system, the milking and bleeding of cattle.
6. SOCIO ECONMOMIC ORGANISATION TO ABOUT 1000 A.D.
From our discussion of the peopling of Tanzania during the Stone Age and the Iron Age, it is evident that the country had become a multi-linguistic, multi cultural and multi-ethnic one by the middle of the second millennium A.D. Linguistically, it was already inhabited by Khoisan-,Cushitic-, and Bantu-speaking peoples. Socially and economically, these people belonged to four main socio-economic groups.
These were the hunters and food-gatherers (Sandawe and Hazdabe, Asa, Qwadza, Sonjo, Ogiek or Ndorobo), the pastoralists (Tatoga and Maasai groups- in Arusha, Dodoma, Singida, Shinyanga and Mara regions) the cultivators or agriculturalists (Bantu-speaking peoples) and mixed farmers ( Wasukuma, Wanyamwezi, Wagogo,Wanyaturu and Wakuria, Waarusha, and the Parakuyo)
SUMMARY
In this lecture, we have discussed the classification, origins and migration of the ancestors of different peoples to Tanzania by colonial and post-colonial scholars. This process of migration and settlement, which lasted many centuries, brought peoples of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds together.
It was a process of intermingling and exchanging cultural elements, especially on the coastal belt and the offshore islands of Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia and around the Rift Valley in the northeastern Tanzania.
ACTIVITY
Account for the difference between Cushites and Bantu-speakin
CHANGE FROM SIMPLE TO COMPLEX COMMUNITIES, 1000-1800
INTRODUCTION
In this, we shall explain how different peoples which inhabitated Tanzania during the Stone Age and Iron Age changed from small to simply organized communities to relatively large and complex communities from about 1000 to 1800 A.D. The factors which brought about this change will be discussed, especially those which led to the formation of kingdoms or states.
OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lecture, you should be able to:-
-explain how the simple kin-based social-organisation changed to other forms of social organization in some Tanzania communities since the beginning of the eleventh century,
-distinguish state societies from stateless ones.
1. THE PRE-1000 SOCIAL STRUCTURE
We have seen in different lecture that different parts of Tanzania were populated by peoples belonging to different language groups and origins during the Stone Age and the Iron Age. These people were at different levels of social and economic development.
Despite their differences in terms of social and economic organization, all four types of communities (the hunters and food gatherers, pastoralists, the cultivators and the mixed farmers) had the following characteristics in common:-
- The essential means of production, that is the land, forests, river, and lakes and so on were collectively owned in all of them.
- The production of the means of production of the means of subsistence was carried out either on group or individual family basis.
- The product of labour was distributed equally among the members of the production unit be it a hunting group or an agricultural or a pastoral family unit
- Commodity production and exchange were absent in all of them; what they had was a subsistence economy in which the purpose of production was local consumption and not sale
- Classes and exploitation of some people by others were still absent in all these communities
- All early Tanzania communities were still simply organized either as hunting or gathering bands or as kin-based cultivators or animal herders
Another general point which must be stressed regarding pre-1000 Tanzania communities is that they were probably not yet divided into ethnic groups as we know them today. In other words, were probably so no such communities as Wamakonde, Wanyamwezi, Wanyakusa, Wafipa, Wahehe, Wazaramo, Waha, Wahaya, Wagogo, Wachaga, Wasambaa or Wapare as we know today.
This means that there were two types of socio-political organization in the different communities up to about 1000 A.D. These were kinship groups and social groups. The largest kinship group was clan, while the social were age-grades and age-sets.
That is how Tanzanian communities were socially, economically and politically organized up to about 1000 A.D. They were still generally small and simple in organization.
2. DEVELOPMENT OF COMPLEX COMMUNITIES AFTER 1000 AD
Great social, economic and political changes appear to have started taking place throughout Tanzania after 1000 A.D. These changes were greater in some agricultural and mixed farming communities than in pastoral communities. One factor which caused change during this period was the increase in contact or coming together of peoples of different languages, culture and origins. These peoples came into contact or met as a result of migration from outside Tanzania and population movements within the country which were still taking place.
Another factor which caused these changes was the possession of iron technology by Bantu, Nilotic and other Tanzanian peoples during the first millennium A.D which in turn promoted agricultural and animal production. The communities with greater social and economic differentiation had centralized political leadership and institutions. These differentiated communities with centralized social and political institutions are generally known as kingdoms or states.
Simply explained, a state is a political unit which has a centralized government headed by a king or another kind of ruler and which has power to collect tribute or taxes, to draft people for public which has powers to collect tribute or taxes, to draft people for public works for war, and to make laws and enforce them in its territory.
In order to show how these communities or societies with centralized social and political institutions emerged and developed between 1000 and 1800, we shall use some parts of Tanzania as examples. These are:-
-Northwestern Tanzania
-The Ntemi Region
-Northeastern Tanzania
-The Southern Highlands
-The Swahili Coast
Northwestern Tanzania
Northwestern Tanzania is made up of what are now Kagera and Kigoma administrative regions. These regions form part of the interlacustrine region (the great lakes region) of East Africa which includes all areas lying between lakes Victoria, Kioga or Kyoga, Albert, Edward, Kivu and the northern part of lake Tanganyika and due to its fertile soils and a lot of rain in every year, this area was o0f the earliest part of Tanzania to be settled by iron-using Bantu-speaking cultivators and pastoralists.
Before the formation of kingdoms, this area was thinly populated by small groups of cultivators. These groups of cultivators were organized on kinship basis. It was then the rise of some clans to dominance which probably led to the formation of the kingdoms of Karagwe, Kyamutwara, Ihangiro and Buzinza. Then by about the sixteenth century, these kingdoms are said to have been taken over by a Hima pastoral groups known as Bahinda.
The most notable social and political features in the kingdoms of northwestern Tanzania were the patron-client relationship. This relationship is sometimes simply referred to as patronage or clientage. In this relationship the giver of the favours is known as patron or master, while the receiver of favours is known as a client. In the Lake Victoria zone of this area, where less numerous and less important, this relationship was based on land.
In the grassland of Kargwe and Kigoma region, on the other hand, the basis of patron-client relationship was cattle. This relationship was known as ubugabire in the Ha kingdoms. At first was based on land when Bateko or clan leaders acquired clients by giving plots of land to individuals in exchange for goods and labour services. After the rise of the Batutsi pastoralists to power, however cattle became the basis of patronage. Under this system, the umwami (king) in each Ha kingdom gave cattle to his senior regional administrative officials known as abatware in order to make them serve him well and faithfully or loyally.
The Ntemi Region
The ntemi region includes almost the whole of western and central Tanzania where the ruler of each political unit was known as ntemi or mutemi. It is a region made up of areas known as Usukuma, Nyamwezi, Iramba, Ugogo and Ukimbu. This is another region of Tanzania where complex communities with kingdoms emerged between 1000 and 1800.
Before the formation of the kingdoms or states, the ntemi region was inhabited mainly by simple Bantu-speaking farmers who lived in small separate clan communities. The formation of large political units known as mabutemi (butemi) by uniting a number of neighbouring clan communities may have started taking place in the sixteenth. Each butemi was headed by a ntemi who was assisted by a gruoup of state elders known as banang’oma or banikulu at the central level and by headmen known as banangwa(sin.ng’wanangwa) at the local level.
Among of the most characteristics of the ntemi states were their big number and their smallness. In Usukuma alone, for example, there were about thirty small states just before the introduction of European rule in the late nineteenth century. There was about the same number of states in Unyamwezi and many more in Ugogo.
Economically, people n the ntemi region was forced by environmental and climatic conditions to do different activities in order to survive. Besides cultivating grain and crops and raising livestock, they fished, hunted, collected honey and engaged in commodity exchange or trading. By 1800, the Sukuma and Nyamwezi and Sukuma had developed caravan trading among themselves and between them and distant areas such as northwestern Tanzania, northern Zambia, and the Shaba of Katanga region in the southern Congo (Zaire)
Northeastern Tanzania
Northeastern Tanzania refers to the highlands region which includes the Usambara and Pare Mountains, Mounts Kilimanjaro and Meru, the Maasai steppe or plains and areas bordering the eastern arm of the Rift Valley.
State societies appeared after 1000 A.D. As K.Stahl (1964), I.N Kimambo(1969) and S Feirerman (1974) have shown their writings, the Chagga, Pare and Shambaa states which arose there between the 15th and 16th centuries were not the product of conquest or diffusion of political ideas from elsewhere as claimed by colonial anthropologists and historians. According to existing oral traditions in the region, iron-working clans were the groups of people responsible for establishing these states. In Upare, for example, the Shana iron-making clan is said to have established the Gweno state just before the 16th century.
In the semi-arid areas bordering the northeastern highlands such as the Maasai plains, Handeni, Kondoa, the Tatoga area and Unyaturu, both unfavourable environmental conditions and the low level of technology combined to limit the number of people which these areas could support. As aresult, the people living in these areas namely the Maasai, Zigua, Tatoga and Nyaturu did not undergo social differentiation and establish states as the neighbours in the highlands did.
The Southern Highlands
The southern highlands consist of the highlands of Iringa, Mbeya, Rukwa and Ruvuma administrative regions. With the exception of the Fipa plateau, this part of Tanzania is a strange reigion because depite having favourable environment, its population remained small and no centralized kingdoms or states arose before the Ngoni invasion of southern Tanzania in the 19th century. It is difficult, as Abdul Sheriff has highly observed to explain this apparent contradiction. One possible explanation is the shotage of metals in the region. It seems that only Ufipa and Ukinga had iron ore. The Nyakusa, for example obtained some iron from Ukinga.
Because of low population hence land was fairly plentiful between 1000 and 1800 in the southern highland, land was not owned by individuals but by village communities. This abudance of land appears to have influenced the pattern of social and political organization of Nyakusa and others.
The only people who established states in the southern highlands before 19th century were Fipa of Rukwa region. It was by about 1700 when the Mlansi kingdom was established by Milansi iron smelters.
The Swahili Coast
The Swahili coast in Tanzania was a part of larger East African coast. It was known as the Mrima coast co north of the Rufiji and as Mwera or Kilwa coast of Rufiji to Ruvuma River. Very little is known about it in pre-Islamic period., when the Bantu-speaking peoples occupied it in the first millennium A.D, it was already known to traders in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean sea regions as a source of ivory, rhino-horns, tortoise-shells and coconut oil.
A s another part of Tanzania and the rest of East Africa, greater social,economic and political changes started taking place along the coast from around 1000 A.D. According to the contemporary Arab witers such as Al-Masudi, A-Idris and Ibn Batuta, the East African coast started receiving Muslim settlers and more traders from Arabia and Persia (now Iran) since the 10th century.
Kilwa became the most important of Shirazi who dominated towns in the Tanzanian coast by 1200 A.D. It was the port which handled most of the gold and ivory trade with Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Its ruler was known as Sultan while those of the smaller towns were known as diwani. He was advised and assisted by members of the most important families in the community called waungwana.
The economies of these towns and offshore islands depended on agriculture, fishing and on trade with the interior on the other hand and with outside the world on the other. These economies were badly affected by Portuguese interference during 16th and 17th centuries. As a result, they declined economically and politically. In Zanzibar Island, on other hand, a state of the ntemi type emerged between 1000 and 18000. This state was headed by a ruler known as Mwinyi Mkuu, who was assisted at the district or local level by minor mamwinyi and masheha.
SUMMARY
In this lecture, we have discussed the factors which led to the rise of communities with kingdoms or states in different parts of Tanzania. These factors were social and economic differentiation, increase in social contact between groups, good climatic and environmental conditions, the possession of iron technology, and conquest of some groups by others and the control of land or trade by some social groups. Different factors were applicable in different places.
ACTIVITIES
1. Explain briefly what kingdoms or states are.
2. Compare the nyarubanja system of land ownership in Buhaya with the patronage system known as ubugabire in Buha.
3. Discuss the factors which led to the formation of town-states in the Swahili coast between 1000 and 1800.
LECTURE 4
COMMODITY PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE TO 1800
INTRODUCTION
In the previous lecture, we discussed the factors which led to the development of complex social and political relations in different parts of Tanzania between 1000 and 1800. In this lecture we shall discuss the factors which led to the development of complex economic relations within communities and between communities during the same period. We shall pay more attention to the development of simple commodity production and exchange and to the exchange of surpluses of ordinary consumer.
OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lecture, you should be able to:
-distinguish commodity production from the production of ordinary products;
-explain how local and regional trade developed in different parts of Tanzania before 1800;
-explain why iron and salt became so important in the exchange relations which developed in different parts of the interior;
-discuss the nature of trade in different parts of Tanzania before 1800.
A commodity is a product which is produced primarily for sale. It differs from an ordinary product which is usually produced for local consumption or use. Food crops such as millet, sorghum, bananas, beans and sweet potatoes, for example, are usually produced for use by agricultural families. Cash crops like cotton, sisal and coffee, on other hand, are commodities since they are produced for sale. Such products were produced in different parts of Tanzania long before 1800.
There were several factors which led to the development of commodity production. Among them were unequal distribution of resources, scarcity of vital metals and minerals in human life such as iron and salt and regional specialization. We will use different regions of the following:-
– The Interlacustrine Region
– Western and Central Tanzania
– Northern Tanzania
– The Southern interior
– The Swahili coast
Commodity production and exchange in the interlacustrine region.
Some areas or parts of this region had already specialized in the production of a certain products when kingdoms emerged there after 1000 A.D. Livestock production, for example, was carried out by the Bahima in certain areas of western Uganda, Karagwe, Buhaya and Buzinza and by the Batutsi in some areas of Rwanda. Since all people needed both animal and agricultural products, it became necessary for them to exchange these products.
Unequal distribution of resources was another factor which led to the development of local trade and eventually to commodity production and regional exchange. People throughout the region could normally produce their own food, however most of them could not produce their own high quality salt or iron goods because these goods were only found in a few particular places, hence they could get it through exchange with those produced it or who obtained it from its source, for instance high quality from Uvinza on the Malagarasi River.
Iron ore was also unevenly distributed in the interlacustrine region. Bunyoro had the richest deposits. There were also rich iron ore deposits in Karagwe, Buhaya, Buzinza and Buha. For this reason northwestern Tanzania was one of the main suppliers of iron tools to the other parts of the interlacustrine region and to western Tanzania
It is evident, therefore that simple commodity production and exchange developed in the interlacustrine region. It did so long before the region was reached by coastal traders in th19th century. It was mixed production and exchange of both commodities and surpluses of ordinary products.
Commodity Production and Exchange in Western and Central Tanzania
In this region, as elsewhere in East Africa, the development of simple commodity production and exchange was caused by uneven distribution of resources and by regional and group specialization in the production of goods. People in western Unyamwezi, for example, became fishermen and port-makers. These people used to exchange dried fish and pots for grain and other things with their northeastern neighbours.
Similarly, forest products such as bark-cloth, bark boxes, honey and wooden crafts produced in southern Unyamwezi and Ukimbu were exchanged for grain and other products. More ever, livestock, especially cattle, from northeastern Unyamwezi and Usukuma was exported to southern Unyamwezi and Ukimbu in exchange for food crops, iron goods and salt.
As regards the uneven distribution of resources, iron and high quality salt provide the best examples in western and central Tanzania. Most of the region lacked these vital goods. Iron ore deposits for example were found mainly in neighbouring areas (Buzinza in north, the Buyungu kingdom of Buha in the northwest, and Ukimbu and Ufipa in the South)
It appears, therefore that the need to obtain iron tools and high quality salt from their centres of production made the peoples of this region, particularly Wanyamwezi and the Wasukuma, to develop the habit of organizing caravans and participating in them. This habit enabled them to be the most active participants in the long- distance trade between the coast and East Africa interior during the 19th century( exchanging basic goods like iron goods, salts, foodstuffs, livestock and crafts)
Northeastern Tanzania as a Region of Local and Regional Exchange
As an economic region, northeastern Tanzania consisted of the Muheza and Handeni plateau, the highlands of Usambara, Pare, Kilimanjaro and Meru and the Masasi steppe. This region is known as the Pangani Valley because it is drained by the Pangani River.
Economically all the peoples of the region established networks of local and regional exchange before 1800. The peoples involved in this regional exchange included the pastoral Maasai, the agricultural Maasai (Arusha and Parakuyo), Meru, Chagga, Pare, Shambaa, Bondei, Digo and Zigua. Most of the exchange carried out was in ordinary consumer goods such as foodstuffs, crafts, pots, animal skins, medicine and tobacco.
Unlike iron goods, which were exchanged throughout northeastern Tanzania, the exchange for salt was less important in this region. This was because there was no major source of high quality salt in this part of the country. Most of the salt which was exchanged in this region was produced by the Zigua on the plains near Mombo. The Zigua also brought iron goods and game meat to markets on the border with Usambara which they exchanged for banana, tobacco and other things.
It is evident; therefore, that the peoples of the Pangani Valley created network of local and regional trade which by 1800 had extended to the ports of Tanga, Mtang’ata, and Pangani.
The Southern Interior as a Region of Local and Regional Exchange
The southern interior is varied region which extends from the Makonde plateau in the east to Fipa plateau in the west, and from the highlands of Iringa and Mbeya in the north to the Ruvuma River and Lake Nyasa in the south.
Among the peoples found in the region were the Makonde, Makua, Yao, Kisi, Nyakusa, Bena, Sangu, Hehe, Nyiha and Fipa. As expected, a large variety of goods were produced and exchanged in this part of Tanzania. Apart from foodstuffs and livestock, the main items of exchange were:-
-Iron tools
-Salt
– Cotton-cloth
-Pots
The Fipa were famous for their iron industry, which was probably the biggest in the region. Their iron goods were traded in many parts of the southern highlands, western Tanzania, northeastern Zambia and northwestern Malawi. They were also well known for their cotton-cloth and their smoked fish.
Other important iron tools producers in the region were the Nyiha, Kinga and Yao. The Nyiha and Kinga, like the Fipa, supplied their iron goods to the people in the highlands, while the Yao supplied their iron goods to people in the highlands, while the Yao supplied theirs to people living southeast of the highlands.
Commodity Production and Exchange in the Swahili Coast to 1800
We have already seen that the East African coast or Swahili was an integral part of the Indian Ocean commercial world since antiquity. This Indian Ocean trade led to the formation of towns between the seventh and eleventh centuries in the Somali and Kenyan part of the coast, and from about the eleventh century in the Tanzanian part of it.
It has been suggested by Derek Nurse and Thomas Spear that the Swahili-speaking peoples who emerged along the East African coast during the first millennium A.D.(Nurse and Spear, 1985:1-31) were iron-using agriculturalists. They also fished and traded their goods with foreign merchants who seasonally visited coast.
The Swahili established settlements and villages some of which gradually united to form small and big towns. The Swahili towns were initially small farming and fishing communities, since they produced sorghum, millet, rice, coconut, fish, and iron implements, salt and various fruits and vegetables for consumption and exchange.
As trade with Southern Arabia, Oman, Persia and India grew and expanded from about the eleventh century, settlements and villages united to form town such as Mtang’ata, Utondwe, Kaole, Kunduchi, Kisiju and Kilwa Kisiwani. When that happened, greater wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few leading families known as Waungwana or mamwinyi.
SUMMARY
In this lecture we have discussed the development of local and regional trade in the different parts of Tanzania from about 1000 to 1800 A.D. The economic regions which we have discussed were not demarcated. Rather they were general areas in which people exchanged both surpluses of ordinary consumer goods and goods produced by specialist which are generally known as commodities.
These commodities included iron-tools, salt, pots, tobacco, cotton-cloth, bark-cloth and medicines. We have also seen that the exchange system which developed in the different regions was not trade in the ordinary sense.
It was the bartering of goods because no money or anything else was used as a means of exchange. Moreover, we have seen that there were no professional traders or established markets in most of Tanzania. Professional traders or merchants were found only in the coastal towns
ACTIVITIES
- Discuss the importance of iron and salt in the regional trade of western and central Tanzania.
- Explain why there was little contact between the Tanzania coast and the interior before the 19th century.
- Explain the nature of regional trade which developed in any part of Tanzania.
Last modified: Monday, 9 October 2017, 8:30 AM
