Tanzania History

Prehistoric Tanzania

Tanzania's early history is the earliest of any history in the world. This is because Tanzania contains the location where the species called Homo erectus (ancestor of Homo sapiens, humankind) first arose from the blind trends of evolution:

Olduvai Gorge

Several different hominid species (species of Australopithecinus and Homo) lived simultaneously in the Rift Valley until about half a million years ago - at least as long as Homo sapiens have been around.

It's only in the last ten thousand years, however, that the African races have assumed their modern shape and form, and until about 1 000 BC all African humans were hunter-gatherers very similar to the Khoisan of southern Africa.

By 1 000 BC Bantu-speaking humans dominated most of Tanzania, and Cushitic-speakers (who arrived around 1000BC) had spread as far as Ngorongoro.

Up until about 1 500 BC, when it was disturbed by insurgents from the south and from across the sea, an informal system of about 200 largely benevolent chiefdoms, known as ntemi, prevailed in the land.

Olduvai Gorge is a fascinating paleo-archeological site where many of Tanzania's incredible fossils have been found.

Contact

Ngoni refugees from the scattering of southern African tribes, caused by South Africa's Zulu king Shaka's aggressive militarism, invaded southern Tanzania in the early 19th century.

Having both suffered and learned from Shaka's tactics, the invading Ngoni were more organised than the people on whose lands they trespassed, and the people of the former ntemi chiefdoms found themselves having to turn to banditry to survive.

Some clever chieftains observed the tactics of their invaders and responded in kind. But the situation was aggravated by the increasing presence of Arab slave traders.

Tribes began to tax the passage of slave caravans, or extract income by helping to organise raids. Two leaders - Mirambo of the Unwamwezi and Mkwawa of the Uhehe - dominated the Tanzanian interior using these tactics in the late 1800s.

Exchange

Trade between the east African coast and the Persian Gulf was well established by 1 000CE. Followers of Islam had discovered the coast decades previously - mosques have been discovered there that date from the 9th century.

Africans and Arabs traded in ivory, ebony, and spices, but gold was the coast's major export, around which the ancient Great Zimbabwe civilisation was centred.

The Swahili language, a mixture of Bantu and Arabic, arose from this interaction, as did more than thirty Swahili city-states along the east African coast between the 13th and 15th centuries. The rulers claimed descent from the Shiraz region of Persia, so this era is known as the Shirazi era.

Conflict

The Shirazi era came to a fairly abrupt end in 1505 when the Portuguese arrived on the scene. The Portuguese captured Mombasa, which was at that stage the trade centre of the region, and destroyed several other coastal towns, including Kilwa, another prominent trade centre. The gold trade all but collapsed and 'international' trade waned drastically.

Hostilities between Arabia and Portugal for trading rights to the east African coast continued until the 19th century, by which time an uneasy and Arab-dominated peace had reigned for nearly 100 years.

Slavery

Though the slave trade never surpassed the trade in gold or ivory, it was an important if thoroughly deplorable element of the east African economy. By 1839, 40,000 slaves were being deported every year from Zanzibar. They were supplied by two caravan routes: one from Bagamoyo and the Lake Tanzania region, and one between Kilwa Kivinje and

Lake Nyasa.

Around the same time European explorers were venturing into the African interior to supplement the knowledge of their empires. When the famous David Livingstone observed the slave trade first-hand in the 1860s, he condemned it in the strongest possible terms and proposed that the only way to stop it was to encourage Christianity, commerce, and (his very own idea of) civilisation.

It was not until after his death that Livingstone's anti-slavery campaign had any effect.

Christian missions were founded all over southern and eastern Africa, and the British navy blockaded Zanzibar, then the centre of the slave trade, offering its ruler complete immunity against foreign powers if he abolished it. He did, and a church was built over the site of the old slave market.

Scramble

Germany and Britain and their citizens were the major participants in shaping the borders of modern-day Tanzania in the process that has been called the scramble for Africa. This was precipitated by Belgium's colonisation of the Congo Basin, and by German premier Bismarck's sudden enthusiasm to acquire African territory for bargaining power in Europe.

The German Carl Peters arrived in Zanzibar in 1884, subsequently signing treaties with local chiefs on the mainland. Soon afterwards Bismarck announced claims to a large portion of Tanzanian land, setting the cat amongst Britain's parliamentary pigeons. Britain had been planning to expand its territory to the same area, but now its control of Zanzibar's trade turnover (around £2 million a year) was threatened.

After much colonial posturing, taxation, and reactive violence on the mainland, British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury and Bismarck's successor, von Kaprivi, negotiated an agreement that formed the borders of Tanzania. In exchange for the North Sea island of Heligoland, Britain was granted protectorateship of Zanzibar and the German territory north of Witu.

German Tanzania

Carl Peters was appointed governor of German Tanzania. He was an unpleasant character who boasted of enjoying killing Africans. A run of plagues (rinderpest, smallpox, locusts) and droughts in the 1890s caused the population to decline greatly for two decades after 1890.

It took Peters at least a decade to establish tenuous control over the region. In 1891 Mkwawe, chief of the dominant Hehe tribe, attacked a German battalion with great success, incapacitating half the troops and stealing their armoury. This precipitated a strong reprisal: Mkwawe's capital near Iringa was razed in 1894, and when he found himself cornered he shot himself rather than face capture by the Germans.

After a century of mistreatment at the hands of slavers, the people of southwest Tanzania arose in the Maji-Maji rebellion of 1905 after Germany implemented a misguided cotton-farming scheme in the region. This was defeated and harshly punished. German Count Gotzen decided that famine was the most effective deterrent to rebellion and burned crops indiscriminately. At least 250,000 people died of starvation and disease.

World War I resulted in Germany's loss of east Africa to Britain, who seized it in 1916 with a force led by Jan Smuts. After the war, the territory was named Tanganyika and mandated to the British.

British Tanganyika

Britain's rule of Tangayika was much less remarkable, and less lamentable, then that of their German predecessors. Except for a few misconceived agricultural schemes, which cost British taxpayers millions of pounds and Tanganyikans a great deal of hardship, the country was left to govern itself.

World War II benefited Tangayika enormously. The country saw no conflict, but continued to export its agricultural produce as food prices rose meteorically.

About 100,000 Tanganyikans fought for the Allies, non-racism and democracy in World War II, but then returned home where they were the victims of racism and lacked democracy. This situation gave rise to Tanganyika's first independence politics, led by one Julius Nyerere.

His party, TANU, gained massive support countrywide by empathising with rural Africans' grievances and proposing self-government as a stepping stone to the solutions they required.

Independence

Fortunately, by the mid-1950s Britain and the United Nations were already looking to grant Tanganyika greater self-government. British governor, Sir Edward Twining, proposed a racially representative system, and TANU agreed to elections under these terms, although with serious reservations. Twining formed his own party, the UTC.

In the elections of 1958 TANU's candidates won 67% of the popular vote, and the UTC won not a single seat. Twining's successor instituted fully open elections, and in 1960 TANU won every seat bar one. Tanganyika attained full independence from Britain on 9 December 1961 without a single life having been taken.

Zanzibar was granted independence three years later, and the two countries combined to form Tanzania in 1964.

Tanzania

Nyerere was the pre-eminent figure in Tanzanian politics until he retired in 1985. Called Mwalimu (teacher), when he came to power Tanzania was the poorest and least-developed country in Africa. Nyerere's primary concerns were to improve the lot of all Tanzanians and not merely an opportunistic elite.

The government followed broadly socialist economic policies, allying itself with China and other socialist nations. Nyerere was a vocal supporter of disenfranchised Africans in Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. Tanzania harboured the ANC and Frelimo during the 1960s.

Forced collectivism did not work well with Tanzania's scattered rural communities, and by the late 1970s Tanzania's economy was in tatters . It was plagued by drought, errant collectivism, rising fuel prices, lack of foreign aid and state corruption. Nyerere resigned as leader of the CCM in 1985 and his successor, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, began to move away from socialism.

Economic recovery

A three-year economic recovery plan was implemented in 1986, with help from the International Monetary Fund. The exchange rate was freed and private enterprise was encouraged. Since that year, Tanzania has achieved an average annual real GDP growth of 4%, though locals may say they saw little more than greater inflation.

An anti-corruption campaign in 1990 met with surprising success, and Tanzania's first multi-party election in 1995 returned the CCM to power with about 75% of the vote, but with Benjamin Mpaka at the helm. Like the transition to independence, this transition also caused no bloodshed.

Julius Nyerere is considered the champion of Tanzania; he fostered an immense sense of national unity by declaring Swahili the official language and forcing government officials to work away from the area in which they had grown up.

Today Tanzania remains among the world's poorest countries, but its massive ecotourism potential is largely untapped, and things are looking up across the board.

Request a Quote |  Add to my wishlist