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Text File | 1994-05-02 | 14KB | 284 lines

<text> <title> Tanzania: History </title> <article> <hdr> Background Notes: Tanzania History </hdr> <body> Tanganyika Northern Tanganyika's famed Olduvai Gorge has provided rich evidence of the area's prehistory, including fossil remains of some of humanity's earliest ancestors. The discoveries made by Dr. and Mrs. L.S.B. Leakey and others suggest that East Africa rather than Asia may have been the site of human origin. Little is known of the history of Tanganyika's interior during the early centuries of the Christian era. The area is believed to have been inhabited originally by ethnic groups using a click-tongue language similar to that of southern Africa's Bushmen and Hottentots. Although remnants of these early tribes still exist, most were gradually displaced by Bantu farmers migrating from the west and south and by Nilotes and related northern peoples. Some of these groups had well-organized societies and controlled extensive areas by the time the Arab slavers and European explorers and missionaries penetrated the interior in the first half of the 19th century. The coastal area, in contrast, first felt the impact of foreign influence as early as the eighth century, when monsoon winds brought the ships of Arab traders. By the 12th century, traders and immigrants came from as far away as Persia (now Iran) and India. They built a series of highly developed city and trading states along the coast, the principal one being Kilwa, a settlement of Persian origin that held ascendancy until the Portuguese destroyed it in the early 1500s. The Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama, touched the East African coast in 1498 on his voyage to India. By 1506, the Portuguese claimed control over the entire coast. This control was nominal, however, for the Portuguese did not attempt to colonize the area or explore the interior. By the early 18th century, Arabs from Oman had assisted the indigenous coastal dwellers in driving out the Portuguese from the area north of the Ruvuma River. They established their own garrisons at Zanzibar, Pemba, and Kilwa and carried on a lucrative trade in slaves and ivory. European exploration of Tanganyika's interior began in the mid-19th century. Two German missionaries reached Mt. Kilimanjaro in the 1840s. The British explorers, Richard Burton and John Speke, crossed the interior to Lake Tanganyika in 1857. David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary-explorer who crusaded against the slave trade, established his last mission at Ujiji, where he was "found" by Henry Morton Stanley, and Anglo-American journalist-explorer, who had been commissioned by the New York Herald to locate him. German colonial interests were first advanced in 1884. Karl Peters, who formed the Society for German Colonization, concluded a series of treaties by which tribal chiefs in the interior accepted German protection. Prince Otto von Bismarck's government backed Peters in the subsequent establishment of the German East Africa Company. In 1886 and 1890, Anglo-German agreements were negotiated that delineated the British and German spheres of influence in the interior of East Africa and along the coastal strip previously claimed by the Omani sultan of Zanzibar. In 1891, the German government took over direct administration of the territory from the German East African Company and appointed a governor with headquarters at Dar es Salaam. Although the German colonial administration brought cash crops, railroads, and roads to Tanganyika, its harsh actions provoked African resistance, culminating in the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905-07. The rebellion, which temporarily united a number of southern tribes and ended only after an estimated 120,000 Africans had died from fighting or starvation, is considered by Tanzanians today to have been one of the first stirrings of nationalism. German colonial domination of Tanganyika ended with World War I. Control of most of the territory passed to the United Kingdom, under a League of Nations mandate. After World War II, Tanganyika became a UN trust territory also administered by the United Kingdom. In the following years, Tanganyika moved gradually towards self-government and independence. In 1954, Julius K. Nyerere, a school teacher who was then one of two Tanganyikans educated abroad at the university level, organized a political party, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). TANU-supported candidates were victorious in the Legislative Council elections of September 1958 and February 1959. In December 1959, the United Kingdom agreed to the establishment of internal self-government following general elections to be held in August 1960. Nyerere was named chief minister of the subsequent government. In May 1961, Tanganyika became autonomous, and Nyerere became prime minister under a new constitution. Full independence was achieved on December 9, 1961. Mr. Nyerere was elected president when Tanganyika became a republic within the Commonwealth on the Nations 1 year after independence. On April 26, 1964, Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to formed the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, renamed the United Republic of Tanzania on October 29. TANU and the Afro-Shirazi Party of Zanzibar were merged into a signal party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) (Revolutionary Party), on February 5, 1977. On April 26, 1977, the union of the two parties was ratified in a new constitution. The merger was reinforced by principles enunciated in the 1982 union constitution and reaffirmed in the constitution of 1984. Zanzibar An early Arab/Persian trading center, Zanzibar fell under Portuguese domination in the 16th and early 17th centuries but was retaken by Omani Arabs in the early 18th century. The height of Arab rule came during the reign of Sultan Seyyid Said (1804-56). He encouraged the development of clove plantations, using the forced labor of the island's African population. Zanzibar also became the base for the Arab slavers whose raids depopulated much of the Tanganyikan interior. By 1840, Said had transferred his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar and established a ruling Arab elite. The island's commerce fell increasingly into the hands of traders from the Indian subcontinent whom Said encouraged to settle on the island. Zanzibar's spices attracted ships from as far away as the United States. A U.S. consulate was established on the island in 1837. The United Kingdom's early interest in Zanzibar was motivated by commerce and British 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. In carrying out its policies, the United Kingdom gained a supremacy that was formally recognized in the Anglo-German agreement of 1890, making Zanzibar and Pemba a British protectorate. British rule through the Sultan remained largely unchanged from the late 19th century until after World War II. Zanzibar's political development began in earnest after 1956, when provision was first made for the election of six nongovernment members to the Legislative Council. Two parties were formed: the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), representing the dominant Arab and Arabized minority, and the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), led by Abeid Karume and representing the Shirazis and the African majority. The first elections were held in July 1957, and the ASP won three of the six elected seats, with the remainder going to independents. The ZNP polled only a small percentage of the total votes. Four Arabs and two Asians were appointed to the government seats on the Legislative Council. Following the election the ASP split; some of its Shirazi supporters left to form the Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party (ZPPP). The January 1961 election resulted in a deadlock between the ASP and a ZNP-ZPPP coalition.