History of Tanzania to the Recent Past

Lecture 13

THE COLONIAL SOCIO-POLITICAL SET UP.

INTRODUCTION

In this lecture we are going to expound on the political and social classes that were created by colonial government.

OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lecture you should be able:-

-To explain political and social classes that was created by colonial government.

The colonial socio-political setup during German era

All resistance to the Germans in the interior ceased and they could now set out to organize German East Africa. They continued brutally to exercise their authority with disregard and contempt for existing local structures and traditions. While the German colonial administration brought cash crops, railroads, and roads to Tanganyika, European rule provoked African resistance. Between 1891 and 1894, the Hehe—led by Chief Mkwawa—resisted German expansion, but were eventually defeated. After a period of guerrilla warfare, Mkwawa was cornered and committed suicide in 1898.

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Widespread discontent re-emerged, and in 1902 a movement against forced labour for a cotton scheme rejected by the local population started along the Rufiji River. The tension reached a breaking point in July 1905 when the Matumbi of Nandete led by Kinjikitile Ngwale revolted against the local administrators (akida) and suddenly the revolt grew wider from Dar Es Salaam to the Uluguru Mountains, the Kilombero Valley, the Mahenge and Makonde Plateaux, the Ruvuma in the southernmost part and Kilwa, Songea, Masasi, and from Kilosa to Iringa down to the eastern shores of Lake Nyasa. The resistance culminated in the Maji Maji Resistance of 1905–1907. The resistance, which temporarily united a number of southern tribes ended only after an estimated 120,000 Africans had died from fighting or starvation. Research has shown that traditional hostilities played a large part in the resistance.

Germans had occupied the area since 1897 and totally altered many aspects of everyday life. They were actively supported by the missionaries who tried to destroy all signs of indigenous beliefs, notably by razing the ‘mahoka’ huts where the local population worshiped their ancestors’ spirits and by ridiculing their rites, dances and other ceremonies. This would not be forgotten or forgiven; the first battle which broke out at Uwereka in September 1905 under the Governorship of Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen turned instantly into an all-out war with indiscriminate murders and massacres perpetrated by all sides against farmers, settlers, missionaries, planters, villages, indigenous people and peasants. Known as the Maji-Maji war with the main brunt borne by the Ngoni people, this was a merciless rebellion and by far the bloodiest in Tanganyika. Von Lettow’s scorched earth policy and the requisition of buildings meant a complete collapse of the Government’s education system, though some mission schools managed to retain a semblance of instruction. Unlike the Belgian, British, French and Portuguese colonial masters in central Africa, Germany had developed an educational program for her Africans that involved elementary, secondary and vocational schools. “Instructor qualifications, curricula, textbooks, teaching materials, all met standards unmatched anywhere in tropical Africa.

The colonial socio-setup during British era

The first British civilian administrator after the end of World War I was Sir Horace Archer Byatt CMG, appointed by Royal Commission on 31 January 1919.^[17]:The colony was renamed the “The Tanganyika Territory” in January 1920.^{[13]:page 247[17]:} In September 1920 by the Tanganyika Order in Council, 1920, the initial boundaries of the territory, the Executive Council, and the offices of governor and commander-in-chief were established.^[17] The governor legislated by proclamation or ordinance until 1926.^[17]:

Britain and Belgium signed an agreement regarding the border between Tanganyika and Ruanda-Urundi in 1924.^[18]

The administration of the Territory continued to be carried out under the terms of the mandate until its transfer to the Trusteeship System under the Charter of the United Nations by the Trusteeship Agreement of 13 December 1946.

British rule through indigenous authorities

Governor Byatt took measures to revive African institutions by encouraging limited local rule. He authorized the formation in 1922 of political clubs such as the Tanganyika Territory African Civil Service Association, which in 1929 became the Tanganyika African Association and later constituted the core of the nationalist movement. Under the Native Authority Ordinances of 1923, limited powers were granted to certain recognized chiefs who could also exercise powers granted by local customary law.^[17]:

Sir Donald Cameron became the governor of Tanganyika in 1925.^[17]: “His work … was of great significance in the development of colonial administrative policy, being associated especially with the vigorous attempt to establish a system of ‘Indirect Rule’ through the traditional indigenous authorities.”^[17] He was a major critic of Governor Byatt’s policies about indirect rule, as evidenced by his Native Administration Memorandum No. 1, Principles of Native Administration and their Application.^[17]

In 1926, the Legislative Council was established with seven unofficial (including two Indians) and thirteen official members, whose function was to advice and consent to ordinances issued by the governor.^[17]: In 1945, the first Africans were appointed to the council.^[17] The council was reconstituted in 1948 under Governor Edward Twining, with 15 unofficial members (7 Europeans, 4 Africans, and 4 Indians) and 14 official members.^[17] Julius Nyerere became one of the unofficial members in 1954.^[17] The council was again reconstituted in 1955 with 44 unofficial members (10 Europeans, 10 Africans, 10 Indians, and 14 government representatives) and 17 official members.^[17]:

Governor Cameron in 1929 enacted the Native Courts Ordinance No. 5, which removed those courts from the jurisdiction of the colonial courts and provided for a system of appeals with final resort to the governor himself.^[17]

Railway development

In 1928, the Tabora to Mwanza railway line was opened to traffic. The line from Moshi to Arusha opened in 1930.^[13]:

1931 census

In 1931 a census established the population of Tanganyika at 5,022,640 natives, in addition to 32,398 Asians and 8,228 Europeans.

Health and education initiatives

Under British rule, efforts were undertaken to fight the Tsetse fly (a carrier of sleeping sickness), and to fight malaria and bilharziasis; more hospitals were built.

In 1926, the colonial administration provided subsidies to schools run by missionaries, and at the same time established its authority to exercise supervision and to establish guidelines. Yet in 1935, the education budget for the entire country of Tanganyika amounted to only US $290,000, although it is unclear how much this represented at the time in terms of purchasing power parity.

SUMMARY

In this lecture we have surveyed the colonial political and social classes that were created by colonial government since German era and thereafter British era in Tanzania.

ACTIVITIES

Discuss the socio-political setup during German era and how Africans reacted.
Examine British colonial socio-political setup in Tanzania.

Lecture 14

COLONIAL IMPACT

INTRODUCTION

In this lecture we will examine the impacts of colonial rule on Tanzanian societies, economy and the environment.

OBJECTIVE

At the end of this lecture you should be able to:-

Examine the impact of colonialism on Tanzania societies in different aspect of life.

ECONOMIC IMPACTS

Colonial rule in Tanzania turned African economic production to be export-oriented economy, since all cash crops and minerals did not remain in the colony rather than they were exported to Europe (colonial master) to be turned into manufactured goods which were imported to Africa to be purchased by people. This situation always produced what they did not consume and consumed what they did not produce at that particular period.

Colonial rule in Tanganyika introduced migrant labour system; hence people began to move from their communities to work in the white farms and mines that existed very far from their home. Most of them were energetic men who worked for number of days in order to get cash (money) for their families and payment of tax to the white government.

Destruction of industrialization happened during the era of colonial economy, since colonial governments did not allow Africans to develop local handcraft industries because any African success in industry meant competition against imported European manufactured goods in most of the colonies and sources of labour could not be available in the colonies. Colonial rule put strict measures that prevented people to work in their own industries.

Colonial economy led to the construction of new means of transport and communication system such as railways, roads, harbours, waterways and telegraphs, which in turn facilitated exploitation of African wealth because they normally transported cash crops and minerals to the coastal areas to be exported abroad. Telegraphs helped the exchange of information during the supervision of different sectors of colonial economy.

POLITICAL IMPACTS

Colonial bureaucracy created racial discrimination whereby there was no equal treatment between the whites, Asians and Africans, since few white men occupied high ranks and salaries followed by Asians (Indians) while the Africans were received lower salaries and poor social services.

Colonial rule made out of few ruling families especially the sons of chiefs during the British government. These were the people who were able to pay school fee which prepared those few Africans become future bureaucrats. While most people from poor peasant families who could not easily afford the payment of school fees missed chances to be absorbed as bureaucrats.

Colonial bureaucracy was made by colonial state functionaries who assisted colonialists in the exploitation and oppression of African people. The police force frequently used coercive force such as whipping when the Africans were arrested and proved guilty of breaching colonial law.

SOCIAL IMPACTS

Colonial education which was offered by colonial government in Tanzania divided people into two classes’ namely elite and uneducated people. The elite considered themselves to be superior over those who never went to school. They thought to be civilized like their masters and most of them became arrogant towards their fellow Africans who never had education.

Colonial education was not mainly practical oriented as the tradition education before colonial intrusion, hence African local industries such as salt, iron, gold, weaving did not grow due negation of informal education which was offered during pre-colonial era.

Decline of African culture since colonial rule in Tanzania was embedded with western civilization which brought Christianity religion which was imposed to African. The new religion despised African religions and traditions practices by regarding them as barbaric actions hence Africans were transformed into new ways of life which in turn created sense of hostility and conflicts to those who were still engrossed themselves in African religions and practices.

Colonial health services expanded the market of western capitalist industries since Africans in Tanzania consumed various medicines from Europe hence drain and decline of African initiatives in inverting African herbs since they were almost replaced by the consumption of western medication.

SUMMARY

In this lecture we have examined the impact of colonial rule in Tanzania, and how it impacted African societies in different arena such as political, economic, and social wise.

ACTIVITIES

Discuss the economic impacts of colonial rule in Tanzania.
Examine socio-political impacts of colonial bureaucracy in Tanzania Lecture 15

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COLONIAL ZANZIBAR

INTRODUCTION

In this lecture, we will examine Arab and British rule in Zanzibar, plantation economy, slavery and slave emancipation and racial factor in Zanzibar’s colonial politics.

OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lecture you should able to:-

-To examine Arab and British rule

-Explain colonial economy in Zanzibar

Early Iranian and Arab rule

Ancient pottery demonstrates existing trade routes with Zanzibar as far back as the ancient Sumer and Assyria. An ancient pendant discovered near Eshnunna dated ca. 2500-2400 BC, has been traced to copal imported from the Zanzibar region

Traders from Arabia (mostly Yemen), the Persian Gulf region of Iran (especially Shiraz), and west India probably visited Zanzibar as early as the 1st century AD. They used the monsoon winds to sail across the Indian Ocean and landed at the sheltered harbor located on the site of present-day Zanzibar Town.

Although the islands had few resources of interest to the traders, they offered a good location from which to make contact and trade with the towns of the Swahili Coast. A phase of urban development associated with the introduction of stone material to the construction industry of the African Great Lakes littoral began from the 10th century AD.

Traders began to settle in small numbers on Zanzibar in the late 11th or 12th century, intermarrying with the indigenous Africans. Eventually a hereditary ruler (known as the Mwenyi Mkuu or Jumbe), emerged among the Hadimu, and a similar ruler, called the Sheha, was set up among the Tumbatu. Neither had much power, but they helped solidify the ethnic identity of their respective peoples.

The Yemenis built the earliest mosque in the southern hemisphere in Kizimkazi, the southernmost village in Unguja. A kufic inscription on its mihrab bears the date AH 500, i.e. 1107 AD.Villages were also present in which lineage groups were common.

Portuguese rule

Vasco da Gama‘s visit in 1499 marked the beginning of European influence. In 1503 or 1504, Zanzibar became part of the Portuguese Empire when Captain Ruy Lourenço Ravasco Marques landed and demanded and received tribute from the sultan in exchange for peace. Zanzibar remained a possession of Portugal for almost two centuries.

Later Arab domination

Zanzibar Sultanate

The Old Fort of Zanzibar built in the late 17th century by the Omanis to defend the island from the Portuguese.

In 1698, Zanzibar became part of the overseas holdings of Oman, falling under the control of the Sultan of Oman. The Portuguese were expelled and a lucrative trade in slaves and ivory thrived, along with an expanding plantation economy centering on cloves. With an excellent harbor and no shortage of fresh water, Stone

Town (capital of Zanzibar) became one of the largest and wealthiest cities in East Africa. With the coming of Omani rule, there occurred forced land redistribution as all of the most fertile land was handed over to Omani aristocrats who enslaved the African farmers who worked the land.

Every year, hundreds of dhows would sail across the Indian Ocean from Arabia, Persia and India with the monsoon winds blowing in from the northeast, bringing iron, cloth, sugar and dates. When the monsoon winds shifted to the southwest in March or April, the traders would leave, with their ships packed full of tortoiseshell, copal, cloves, coir, coconuts, rice, ivory and slaves

The Arabs established garrisons at Zanzibar, Pemba, and Kilwa. The height of Arab rule came during the reign of Sultan Seyyid Said (more fully, Sayyid Said bin Sultan al-Busaid), who in 1840 moved his capital from Muscat in Oman to Stone Town. He established ruling Arab elite and encouraged the development of clove plantations, using the island’s slave labour.

Zanzibar’s commerce fell increasingly into the hands of traders from the Indian subcontinent, whom Said encouraged to settle on the island. After his death in 1856, his sons struggled over the succession. On April 6, 1861, Zanzibar and Oman were divided into two separate principalities. Sayyid Majid bin Said Al-Busaid (1834/5–1870), his sixth son, became the Sultan of Zanzibar, while the third son, Sayyid Thuwaini bin Said al-Said, became the Sultan of Oman.

Accounts by visitors to Zanzibar often emphasize the outward beauty of the place. The British explorer Richard Francis Burton described Zanzibar in 1856 as: “Earth, sea and sky, all seemed wrapped in a soft and sensuous repose…

The sea of purist sapphire, which had not parted with its blue rays to the atmosphere…lay looking…under a blaze of sunshine which touched every object with a dull burnish of gold”. Adding to the beauty were the gleaming white minarets of mosques and the sultan’s palaces in Stone Town, making the city appear from the distance to Westerners as an “Orientalist” fantasy brought to life.

Those who got closer described Stone Town as an extremely foul-smelling city that reeked of human and animal excrement, garbage and rotting corpses as garbage, sewage and bodies of animals and slaves were all left out in the open to rot.^[11] The British explorer Dr. David Livingstone when living in Stone Town in 1866 wrote in his diary:

The stench arising from a mile and a half or two square miles of exposed sea beach, which is the general depository of the filth of the town is quite horrible…It might be called Stinkabar rather than Zanzibar. Besides for the pervasive foul odor of Stone Town, accounts by visitors described a city full of slaves on the brink of starvation and a place where cholera, malaria and venereal diseases all flourished.

Of all the forms of economic activity on Zanzibar, slavery was the most profitable and the vast majority of the blacks living on the island were either slaves taken from East Africa or the descendants of slaves from East Africa.

The slaves were brought to Zanzibar in dhows, where many as possible were packed in with no regard for comfort or safety ^.Many did not survive the journey to Zanzibar. Upon reaching Zanzibar, the slaves were stripped completely naked, cleaned, had their bodies covered with coconut oil, and forced to wear gold and silver bracelets bearing the name of the slave trader.

At that point, the slaves were forced to march nude in a line down the streets of Stone Town guarded by loyal slaves of the slavers carrying swords or spears until someone would show interest in the possession. A captain from a ship owned by the East India Company who visited Zanzibar in 1811 and witnessed these marches wrote about how a buyer examined the slaves:

“The mouth and teeth are inspected, and afterwards every part of the body in succession, not even excepting the breasts, etc, of the girls, many of whom I have seen examined in the most indecent manner in the public market by the purchasers…The slave is then made to walk or run a little way to show that there is no defect about the feet; after which, if the price is agreed to, they are stripped of their finery and delivered over to their future master.

I have frequently counted twenty or thirty of these files in the market at one time…Women with children newly born hanging at their breasts and others so old they can scarcely walk, are sometimes seen dragged about in this manner. They had in general a very dejected look; some groups appeared so ill fed that their bones seemed as if ready to penetrate the skin”.

Every year, about 40, 000-50, 000 slaves were taken to Zanzibar. About a third went to work on clove and coconut plantations of Zanzibar and Pemba while the rest were exported to Persia, Arabia, the Ottoman Empire and Egypt.

Conditions on the plantations were so harsh that about 30% of the male slaves died every year, thus necessitating the need to import another batch of slaves. The Omani Arabs who ruled Zanzibar had in the words of the American diplomat Donald Petterson a “culture of violence” where brute force was the preferred solution to problems and outlandish cruelty was a virtue.

The ruling al-Busaid family was characterized by fratricidal quarrels as it was common for brother to murder brother, and this was typical of the Arab aristocracy, where it was acceptable for family members to murder one another to gain land, wealth, titles and slaves.

Visitors to Zanzibar often mentioned the “shocking brutality” which the Arab masters treated their African slaves, who were so cowed into submission that there was never a slave revolt attempted on Zanzibar. The cruelty which the Arab masters treated their black slaves left behind a legacy of hate, which exploded in the revolution of 1964.

The Sultan of Zanzibar controlled a large portion of the African Great Lakes Coast, known as Zanj, as well as trading routes extending much further across the continent, as far as Kindu on the Congo River. In November 1886, a German-British border commission established the Zanj as a ten-nautical mile (19 km) wide strip along most of the coast of the African Great Lakes, stretching from Cape Delgado (now in Mozambique) to Kipini (now in Kenya), including Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, and several offshore Indian Ocean islands. However, from 1887 to 1892, all of these mainland possessions were lost to the colonial powers of the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy, with Britain gaining control of Mombasa in 1963.

In the late 1800s, the Omani Sultan of Zanzibar also briefly acquired nominal control over parts of Mogadishu in the Horn region to the north. However, power on the ground remained in the hands of the Somali Geledi Sultanate (which, also holding sway over the Shebelle region in Somalia‘s interior was at its zenith). In 1892, Ali bin Said leased the city to Italy. The Italians eventually purchased the executive rights in 1905, and made Mogadishu the capital of the newly established Italian Somaliland.

Zanzibar was famous worldwide for its spices and its slaves. During the 19th century, Zanzibar was known all over the world in the words of Petterson as: “A fabled land of spices, a vile center of slavery, a place of origins of expeditions into the vast, mysterious continent, the island was all these things during its heyday in the last half of the 19th century.

It was the Africa Great Lakes’ main slave-trading port, and in the 19th century as many as 50,000 slaves were passing through the slave markets of Zanzibar each year (David Livingstone estimated that 80,000 Africans died each year before ever reaching the island.) Tippu Tip was the most notorious slaver, under several sultans, and also a trader, plantation owner and governor. Zanzibar’s spices attracted ships from as far away as the United States, which established a consulate in 1837.

The United Kingdom‘s early interest in Zanzibar was motivated by both commerce and the determination to end the slave trade in 1822, the British signed the first of a series of treaties with Sultan Said to curb this trade, but not until 1876 was the sale of slaves finally prohibited. Under strong British pressure, the slave trade was officially abolished in 1876, but slavery itself remained legal in Zanzibar until 1897.

Zanzibar had the distinction of having the first steam locomotive in the African Great Lakes, when Sultan Bargash bin Said ordered a tiny 0-4-0 tank engine to haul his regal carriage from town to his summer palace at Chukwani. One of the most famous palaces built by the Sultans were the House of Wonders, which is today one of Zanzibar’s most popular tourist attractions.

British influence and rule

A Zanzibar marketplace, around 1910. A British colonist can be seen in the middle, wearing a linen suit and a Pith helmet.

The British Empire gradually took over; the relationship was formalized by the 1890 Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, in which Germany pledged, among other things, not to interfere with British interests in Zanzibar. This treaty made Zanzibar and Pemba a British protectorate (not colony), and the Caprivi Strip (in what is now Namibia) part of German South-West Africa. British rule through a sultan (vizier) remained largely unchanged.

The death of Hamad bin Thuwaini on 25 August 1896 saw the Khalid bin Bargash, eldest son of the second sultan, Barghash ibn Sa’id, take over the palace and declare himself the new ruler. This was contrary to the wishes of the British government, which favoured Hamoud bin Mohammed.

This led to a showdown, later called the Anglo-Zanzibar War, on the morning of 27 August, when ships of the Royal Navy destroyed the Beit al Hukum Palace, having given Khalid a one-hour ultimatum to leave. He refused, and at 9 am the ships opened fire. Khalid’s troops returned fire and he fled to the German consulate.

A cease fire was declared 45 minutes after the action had begun, giving the bombardment the title of The Shortest War in History. Hamoud was declared the new ruler and peace was restored once more. Acquiescing to British demands, he brought an end in 1897 to Zanzibar’s role as a centre for the centuries-old eastern slave trade by banning slavery and freeing the slaves, compensating their owners. Hamoud’s son and heir apparent, Ali, was educated in Britain.

From 1913 until independence in 1963, the British appointed their own residents (essentially governors). One of the more appreciated reforms brought in by the British were the establishment of a proper sewer, garbage disposal system and burial system so that the beaches of Zanzibar reeked no more of bodies, excrement and garbage, finally eliminating the foul smell of Stone Town, which had repulsed so many Western visitors.

SUMMARY

In this lecture we have surveyed Arab and British rule in Zanzibar, plantation economy, slavery and slave emancipation and racial factor in Zanzibar’s colonial politics.

ACTIVITIES