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The perception that Africa is a place without a long history and one
which had no political structures before the Europeans formally colonized
the continent is not true. Over many centuries African civilizations
prospered and created strong cultural traditions and government structures
that were maintained from generation to generation, and leader to leader.
Before European colonialism, the Africans had established political
systems and institutions. These were either kingdoms, chiefdoms or tribal
groups. There were migrations of non-African peoples, such as Persians,
Arabs and Indian traders; followed by Portuguese, Belgian, French, Spanish,
German, and British colonization. The history of the peoples of Africa
has been determined by their endurance and ability to assimilate cultural
influences from these many ethnic invasions over the centuries.
Most of the known history of Tanzania revolves around the coastal area,
although the interior has several important ancient sites, including
the Olduvai Gorge, the region just
northwest of Mount Kilimanjaro where the famous Louis Leakey searched
for the origins of the human species.
Around 1000 B.C. people speaking the Cushitic language began to settle
from Ethiopia and Somalia. Trading contacts between Arabia and the East
African coast existed by the 1st century A.D., and there are indications
of connections with India. The coastal trading centers were mainly Arab
settlements, with friendly relations between the Arabs and Africans.
Bantu speaking people began migrating into Tanzania around 500 A.D.,
possibly from West Africa. Later people groups, such as the Maasai, possibly
migrated around the 1100s and 1700s A.D.
When the Portuguese arrived in the late 1400s, the position of the Arabs
was gradually undermined along the coast. However, the first Arab traders
traveled to Lake Tanganyika in the middle of the 1700s and slowly moved
north toward Lake Victoria. The Portuguese  made
little attempt to forge into the African interior and lost their foothold
north of the Ruvuma River (which borders Tanzania and Mozambique) early
in the 1700s as a result of an alliance between the coastal Arabs and
the ruler of Muscat (capital of Oman) on the Arabian Peninsula.
This alliance was tenuous until 1776, when the French became interested
in the slave trade from Kilwa, on the coast of what is now Tanzania.
This also arroused the sultan of Muscat's interest in the economic possibilities
of the East African coast; so a new Omani governor was appointed at Kilwa.
Most slaves came from the Kilwa hinterland until caravan contacts were
established between the coast and the African interior during the 1800s.
In the search for more slaves, Arab traders began to penetrate into
the interior to the south toward Lake Nyasa (also known as Lake Malawi).
In the north, two merchants from India followed the tribal trade routes
to reach the country of Nyamwezi (the western plateau between Lake Victoria
and Lake Rukwa), around 1825. Along this route, ivory was more appealing
than the slave trade. Then Sa'id bin Sultan transferred his capital from
Muscat (a port city in Oman, along the Gulf of Oman) to Zanzibar and
encouraged Arab trading interests.
In the early 1840s, from the Nyamwezi country the Arabs pressed on to
Lake Tanganyika. Tabora (then known as Kaze) and Ujiji (the famous meeting
place of Stanley and Livingstone) became important
trading centers. Caravans started out for Bagamoyo on the mainland coast,
traveling as much as 1000 miles on foot from Lake Tanganyika, buying
slaves from local rulers, or simply capturing them. Slaves were chained
together and used to carry ivory back to Bagamoyo (pronounced "Bwaga-Moyo"
meaning "lay down your heart" or "throw your heart away," possibly in
reference to "take
the load off and rest" from the interior trek, or "give up
all hope" as once you were free, but now a
slave). Slaves surviving
the long march from the interior were crowded into dhows and sailed to
Zanibar for sale in the slave market.
Many Arabs made their homes in the Nyamwezi region from Tabora to Ujiji.
They didn't annex these territories, but occasionally removed hostile
chieftans. Mirambo, an African chief whom Stanley called the "Napoleon
of Central Africa," united numerous Nyamwezi clans into a powerful
kingdom to the west of Tabora in the 1860s and 70s; effectively blocking
the Arab trade routes when they refused to pay him tribute. He is a national
hero with a famous war song honoring his memory: Iron Brakes the Head.
His personal empire collapsed upon his death in 1884.
In the late 1840s, European missionaries from the Church Missionary
Society, Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johannes Rebmann, reached Mount Kilimanjaro.
Fellow missionary Jakob Erhardt made a map showing a vast inland lake,
stimulating the interest of British explorers Richard Burton and John
Hanning Speke. Burton and Speke traveled from Bagamoyo to Lake Tanganyika
in 1857-58, and Speke also saw Lake Victoria. Speke made a second expedition
in 1860 with J. A. Grant, which justified Speke's claim that the Nile
sprang from Lake Victoria. Several missionary societies also became interested
in East Africa after 1860, among them, the English Anglican Church Missionary
Society and the French Catholic Missionaries of Africa.
These geographic expeditions were followed by the famous Doctor
David Livingstone, who made his last journey to Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) in
1866. Livingstone exposed the horrors of the slave trade and attempted
to destroy the slaving industry by opening a legitimate trade with the
African interior. Livingstone's work inspired further expeditions by
H. M. Stanley and V. L. Cameron.
^TOP ZANZIBAR >
http://www.tanzania.go.tz/history.html
http://www.kilimanjaroworld.com/tanzania.htm
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