Building Colonialism: Archaeology and Urban Space in East Africa 9781472512598, 9781472593139, 9781472519276

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
Theoretical foundations
Identities
Colonial processes
Colonialism
Structure of the book
2 The History of Contact
Nineteenth-century Britain and Africa
Nineteenth-century Germany and Africa
3 The Pre-Colonial Urban Systems
Waterfronts
Management and trade centres
Markets
Residential areas
4 The Colonial Urban System
Waterfronts
Management and trade centres
Bomas
Residential areas
Transportation
Defence
Monuments and remembrance
5 Interpreting Colonial Urban Space
European motivation
British in Mombasa
Impacts today
Heritage protection in Africa
What and whose heritage?
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Building Colonialism

Debates in Archaeology Series editor: Richard Hodges Against Cultural Property, John Carman The Anthropology of Hunter Gatherers, Vicki Cummings Archaeologies of Conflict, John Carman Archaeology: The Conceptual Challenge, Timothy Insoll Archaeology and International Development in Africa, Colin Breen and Daniel Rhodes Archaeology and State Theory, Bruce Routledge Archaeology and Text, John Moreland Archaeology and the Pan-European Romanesque, Tadhg O’Keeffe Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians, Peter S. Wells Combat Archaeology, John Schofield Debating the Archaeological Heritage, Robin Skeates Early European Castles, Oliver H. Creighton Early Islamic Syria, Alan Walmsley Gerasa and the Decapolis, David Kennedy Image and Response in Early Europe, Peter S. Wells Indo-Roman Trade, Roberta Tomber Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership, Colin Renfrew Lost Civilization, James L. Boone The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor, Charles F. W. Higham The Origins of the English, Catherine Hills Rethinking Wetland Archaeology, Robert Van de Noort and Aidan O’Sullivan The Roman Countryside, Stephen Dyson Shaky Ground, Elizabeth Marlowe Shipwreck Archaeology of the Holy Land, Sean Kingsley Social Evolution, Mark Pluciennik State Formation in Early China, Li Liu & Xingcan Chen Towns and Trade in the Age of Charlemagne, Richard Hodges Vessels of Influence: China and the Birth of Porcelain in Medieval and Early Modern Japan, Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere Villa to Village, Riccardo Francovich and Richard Hodges

Building Colonialism Archaeology and Urban Space in East Africa Daniel T. Rhodes

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 Paperback edition first published 2016 © Daniel T. Rhodes 2014 Daniel T. Rhodes has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-47251-259-8 PB: 978-1-47428-880-4 ePDF: 978-1-47251-927-6 ePub: 978-1-47251-926-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rhodes, Daniel T., author. Building colonialism : archaeology and urban space in East Africa / Daniel T. Rhodes. pages cm Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-4725-1259-8 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4725-1926-9 (epub) – ISBN 978-1-4725-1927-6 (epdf) 1. Africa, East–Antiquities. 2. Excavations (Archaeology)–Africa, East. 3. Archaeology and history–Africa, East. 4. Historic buildings–Africa, East. 5. Urban archaeology–Africa, East. 6. Coastal archaeology–Africa, East. 7. Africa, East–History–19th century. I. Title. DT365.3.R49 2014 967.802–dc23 2014012907 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN Printed and bound in Great Britain

For Liz and Marian

Contents List of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgements 1 Introduction Theoretical foundations Identities Colonial processes Colonialism Structure of the book

ix xiii 1 3 7 10 11 13

2 The History of Contact Nineteenth-century Britain and Africa Nineteenth-century Germany and Africa

15

3 The Pre-Colonial Urban Systems Waterfronts Management and trade centres Markets Residential areas

37

4 The Colonial Urban System Waterfronts Management and trade centres Bomas Residential areas Transportation Defence Monuments and remembrance

59

5 Interpreting Colonial Urban Space European motivation

19 26

37 50 54 57

59 83 91 94 97 102 107 111 113

viii Contents

British in Mombasa Impacts today Heritage protection in Africa What and whose heritage? Conclusion Bibliography Index

121 125 127 134 142 145 157

List of Illustrations Figure 1. Map of Africa. Figure 2. Map of Tanzania and Kenya. Figure 3. Post-colonial town plans: a) Tanga; b) Dar es Salaam; c) Bagamoyo. Note the particular waterfront centric urban designs and the survival of the distinctive German colonial triangulated design. Figure 4. Colonial town plans: d) Chole; e) Kilwa Kivinje. Like those examples in Figure 3, colonial waterfronts developed specific forms reflective of European colonial strategies centred upon the control of the movement of goods between the marine and terrestrial zones. Figure 5. Early colonial intervention adopted existing symbols of authority and trade such as at: a) Bagamoyo Caravanserai (1870); and b) Pangani Boma (1810). Later the Europeans began to construct their own centres of commerce and management but adopted styles believed to be reminiscent of the cultures they controlled, such as: c) the Post Office and Customs House at Pangani (1916). Figure 6. Zanzibar waterfront in 1857 by R. F. Burton (1872) Zanzibar: City, Island, and Coast. Figure 7. Generations of abstract memorialization at Pangani: a) commemorates British occupation during World War I and replaced an 1890 monument to German East Africa; b) celebrates Tanzania’s independence in 1961 and has been adorned with a more recent election campaign poster. Figure 8. Map of Zanzibar Stone Town from O. Baumann (1895) Die Insel Zanzibar. By this period Zanzibar’s waterfront at Shangani Point had become a cluster of European merchant stores and consulates. Figure 9. Beit-al-Sahil in 1896, a building in stark contrast to the later Beit-al-Hukm in Figure 10. Although more modest in its external

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design its sheer size sends a clear message of the prosperity that lies inside (National Archives of Zanzibar). Figure 10. Beit-al-Hukm in 1896 during full military display at the Friday review of the troops (National Archives of Zanzibar). Figure 11. Beit-al-Ajaib (House of Wonders) under repair in 2006. Built in 1883, with its clock tower and steel balconies it was the ultimate demonstration of the Sultan’s assimilation into the European colonial management system of Zanzibar. Figure 12. Dar es Salaam waterfront c. 1906. The building to the left with the conical roof is the German Port Authority and the building in the centre with the flagpole is the Old Boma (Tanzania National Archive). Figure 13. The control of trade items was the single most important focus of the colonial enterprise. Whether this was the control of international trade seen here in drawings a) and b) showing the design of Bagamoyo Customs Complex (1888) or at a much smaller scale, as demonstrated by the simple design of Chole Market (1890) Plan and Elevation of Kilwa Customs House and Chole Market. Both are designed to impound and delineate areas of control. Figure 14. This British design for Kilwa Mosoko (which became the regional capital following the British takeover of Kilwa District) demonstrates nicely the central concerns of the colonial urban designer. Note the placement of the European housing along the route way between port and market, the positioning of these houses along the coastal plateau and the concentration of the smaller indigenous housing centred on the market. In this way Europeans could monitor the movement of goods inland and at sea, avail themselves of the coastal breezes and control indigenous exchange systems. Figure 15. Drawing of a typical East African ‘Indian Balcony House’. This example from Mombasa was constructed in the late 1800s and has the distinctive design of shop and residence with an ornately carved timber balcony. Figure 16. As the central colonial administrative buildings Bomas not only provided office space for the Europeans but they also



List of Illustrations

xi

provided a tangible reminder of European dominance over the indigenous population, with the size and design of such structures being in direct contrast to the minority European staff based within them. Drawing a) shows Chole Boma (1890), b) and c) Bagamoyo German Boma (1897) (for a time the capital administrative building of German East Africa) and d) and e) the physical condition of the majority of these historically significant buildings today, in this case Chole Boma and the ancillary buildings of Kilwa Kivinje Boma (c. 1905). Figure 17. Remnants of a typical East African ‘Swahili-Arab’ house. This example from Pangani was constructed in the mid-1800s and has the distinctive internal courtyard and low veranda at ground level. Figure 18. Control and an increase in terrestrial trade were necessary for colonial management to feed the European market. This was achieved by the imposition of European-controlled technology over traditional lines of trade and communication. In this example, the mechanisation of caravan routes. Figure 19. Colonial fortifications took two forms, either as redesigns of existing elite structures, as at Bagamoyo Fort (1860), seen here in drawings a) and b). Or as reactions to specific episodes of aggressive opposition such as Bagamoyo Blockhouse, drawing c); which was built in response to the 1888–9 uprising in German East Africa. Figure 20. The north-east bastion of the fort in Zanzibar Stone Town with typical Omani features in the rounded tower with basal batter, curved crenulations and gun embrasures in the upper parapet. Figure 21. Replaced in 1927, the Wissmann Monument in Dar es Salaam needs little interpretation in its clear positioning of the colonial indigenous population at the foot of their colonial master (Tanzania National Archive). Figure 22. Conceptual model of the spatial distribution of social zones within coastal colonial urban centres. Figure 23. Rava’s Arch in Tripoli from Domus, 1931.

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List of Illustrations

Figure 24. The imposing waterfront façade of Fort Jesus (1593) has served every dominant group through Mombasa’s colonial history, from the Portuguese and the Arab Sultanate between the late sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British Protectorate from the late nineteenth century and in its current role as Museum and National Park. Figure 25. Mombasa District Headquarters with its neo-classical styling was at odds when it was built in 1905 with its geography and indigenous surroundings. It has continued to perform its managerial role both as office space and as symbol in post-colonial Kenya.

Preface and Acknowledgements The idea for the research contained in this book came about when I was working as an intern for the British Institute in Eastern Africa. Whilst travelling around Kenya and Tanzania working on various archaeological projects I became acutely aware of the lack of urbancentred archaeological research and a lack of engagement with the more recent past (an opinion later strengthened when carrying out research in Sudan). Many of the medium- to small-sized towns I visited contained centres of derelict and unused buildings dating from East Africa’s nineteenth-century colonial era. I began to wonder what the social and spatial implications of this was and formulated plans to design a research project that was based on the kind of Urban Landscape Analyses being carried out in the UK and Ireland, and link this with an anthropological social study of current attitudes of the towns’ inhabitants to these buildings and spaces. The relationship between archaeology and history is a much more transparent one within the commercial sector in the UK and Ireland, and I had accordingly brought this attitude to bear on the more academically led research I was witnessing. I saw no reason why the techniques of artefact, building, spatial and historical analyses used every day in the commercial sectors of Europe couldn’t be adopted to highlight the existence of, and accordingly the need to conserve, the urban centres of Africa’s more recent past. The overall aim being to demonstrate to those who viewed Africa’s archaeology as being largely one of a prehistoric nature the value of such historic places both in research and potentially (if not already) to communities. I’m happy to say that this book contains one half of the results of that ambition (the anthropological study of current attitudes requiring more time and greater ongoing research than could be mustered in this first

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Preface and Acknowledgements

instance), and hopefully goes some way to highlighting the need for research and conservation of these important places in East Africa. The research was made possible by Colin Breen and the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Ulster and Paul Lane and Stephanie Wynn-Jones formerly of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. I was also graciously supported in kind by Ted Pollard, Joseph Matua, Mjema Elinaza and Mary Davies. Special thanks go to Stefan Sagrott for reproducing and designing the illustrations throughout the volume. Thematically this book is constructed from a number of strands of research concerning social conflict, international development and theoretical approaches to identity formation at a national level. All of which have coalesced in the colonial encounters described herein. But beyond this, little can be said of my impartiality. Places and buildings were examined that were available to me via various funded and non-funded academic and non-academic routes, and political and theoretical stands have been taken that are purely and simply of my own creation based on my own innate bias. I have, in short, no one to blame but myself.

1

Introduction

This short volume is intended to bring to the attention of the wider archaeological community the potential for the investigation of Africa’s more recent past. Less broadly than this it represents a call for consideration to be paid to some of East Africa’s neglected nineteenth-century urban heritage. It necessarily concentrates upon Tanzania and Kenya, as the towns within these states form not only the bulk of my research experience, but also the key entry points into Africa for many of the nineteenth-century colonial regimes which were to shape the destinies of the people of the continent. These towns include Mombasa (Kenya), Tanga, Pangani, Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam, Kilwa Kivinje, Chole (United Republic of Tanzania) and Zanzibar (a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania under the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar). The work looks at the remains of the physical impact of European interaction with the people and environments of nineteenth-century East Africa and compares these with examples of colonial approaches outside what was the British and German sphere of influence. It does this through the examination of European-built heritage and the ways European powers manipulated space within towns in order to control people and economies. It also looks at the importance of conserving this heritage as a tangible reminder of the impact nineteenth-century colonialism had on forming our contemporary opinion of, and life in, Africa (Figure 1). Within this broad theme there are a number of interconnected aims. The main aim is to examine the role of the built environment as

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Building Colonialism

Figure 1  Map of Africa.

a tool of ideological expression within the colonial environment, and to look at how it may be possible to begin to decipher the intentions and impacts of Europeans in nineteenth-century East Africa from the structures they created. Secondly, I hope to demonstrate the possible ways in which archaeology can be used to address fundamental questions of social and political change in colonial regimes. In other words, how do the physical remains express the social impact that colonial activity had on people in the nineteenth century? The impact of nineteenth-century European colonialism upon world cultures has been, and continues to be, undeniably profound.

Introduction

3

More and more in contemporary archaeology (and heritage studies), this impact is being recognized in the way we formulate our perception of the past. Whether we look at pre-colonial societies or colonial and post-colonial heritages it is all unavoidably (it can be argued) viewed through the lens of the European colonial influence. This recognition raises some interesting questions about the theoretical validity of a piece of work such as this one. As a piece of work which is in essence a study of European colonial activity from an unavoidably European perspective, the remainder of this first chapter is therefore intended to give an indication of the kinds of theoretical questions that underpin the ideas expressed throughout the rest of the book.

Theoretical foundations European activity in nineteenth-century East Africa falls within the broad historical phase of Second Modernity. The term Second Modernity is a theory first developed by philosopher Enrique Dussel in relation to the historic period between the seventeenth century and the second half of the twentieth century (Rhodes 2013). It refers to the idea that people who live under colonial rule are subject not only to Western economic and political forces but are also influenced in the way they see and think of themselves (and others) based upon a change in mindset brought about by Western influence and control. The Second Phase of European Colonialism is the period of world history when global mercantile activities led to the development of European colonies, most notably by Britain, Holland, France and later Germany, and largely focused on Africa and India from the seventeenth century until colonial states began to acquire independence in the second half of the twentieth century. This is sometimes referred to as New Imperialism and follows the earlier period of European colonialism (or First Modernity) that saw Spanish and Portuguese

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Building Colonialism

exploitation in the Americas. The global historical activity that occurred during the Second Phase of European Colonialism resulted in the development of subaltern non-colonialist social theory such as Second Modernity. Developed out of post-colonial studies and specifically Latin American Social Theory, the idea of Second Modernity was a response to Marx’s lack of analyses of class struggle in Latin America and his apparent scepticism in the development of the bourgeoisie in non-European societies. The bourgeoisie were central to Marx’s theory of social change, or ‘Universal History’, as it was the bourgeoisie who represented the first revolutionary class in history and who (through maintaining the ability to control and revolutionize the means of material production), were able for the first time to actively influence and change social relations. This, however, he did not apply to feudal societies. It was the development of international markets through the tool of colonialism that Marx saw as the necessary stage through which a previously feudal society must pass before the creation of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. His assessment was, however, from a purely European perspective and lacked investigation into the development of capitalism outside that of the European model (i.e. where colonial control implanted European structures into non-European geographies). As Castro-Gómez (2008: 262) observes: ‘Latin America was, it seemed to Marx, a grouping of semi-feudal societies governed by large landowners that wielded their despotic power without any organized structure.’ Colonialism is then, for Marx, a tool of capitalism and responsible for the overthrow of feudal societies in the march toward revolution. Colonialism in effect ‘delivers’ capitalism, and by association the revolutionary bourgeoisie. He did not see, as others have subsequently done, that colonialism is more than an economic or political phenomenon. And it was the study of this more expansive and socially pervasive impact of colonialism that led to the growth of late twentieth-century subaltern social theories from former European colonies of which

Introduction

5

Second Modernity and the writing of the Argentinean Enrique Dussel was one. Dussel argues that European modernity was founded on materiality that had been specifically created after Spain’s sixteenth-century territorial expansion (Castro-Gómez 2008: 272). He goes on to argue for the historical existence of two modernities. The first, beginning in the sixteenth century when the Christian Renaissance spread globally via Spain’s colonial domination of the Americas, and the second, was the colonial expansion into Africa and Asia by Britain, Holland, France and later Germany. The impetus for Dussel’s thinking was an attempt to dismantle the Eurocentrism of modern philosophy believing that modern philosophy was another representation of European conquest over the rest of the world. In this way mirroring Said’s ideas of ‘Europe’ and the ‘Other’ (Said 1979) and Wallerstein’s (1980) world-system with its ‘Core’ and ‘Periphery’. In doing this Dussel aimed to liberate non-European social discourse from the ‘Eurocentric myth of modernity’ (1995: 148). Another important figure in the development of the idea of Second Modernity and its intrinsic tie to colonialism is Walter Mignolo. Mignolo developed a critique of Wallerstein’s worldsystems theory based upon Dussel’s ideas of the (non-bourgeois) Hispanic world, arguing that ‘World-systems analyses is indeed a critique of Eurocentrism, but a Eurocentric critique of Eurocentrism’ (Mignolo 2000: 314). World-systems analyses are based upon a neo-Marxist model of economic history formulated primarily by Wallerstein in the 1970s and 1980s (Wallerstein 1980, 2005). It attempts to explain economic globalization, or supra-national economic activity, through the concept of inequitable interrelation between national economic units. The model’s primary supposition being that the economies of ‘the developing world’ are in every way effecet by (and should therefore be analysed in terms of their

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Building Colonialism

relation to) the economies of the wider world. A world which is dominated by the USA, Japan and Europe. Like Marx, Wallerstein argues that the modern capitalist world-system originated in Europe in the sixteenth century via the economic transformation from feudal organization to capitalist. Mignolo bases his criticism of Wallerstein’s world system on the opinion that the theory is simply another example of Western ideas being presented to non-European peoples as the model for critical analyses. In his explanation Mignolo quotes Darcy Ribeiro: In the same way that Europe carried a variety of techniques and inventions to the people included in its network of domination … it also introduced to them its equipment of concepts, preconcepts, and idiosyncrasy that referred at the same time to Europe itself and to the colonial people. The colonial people, deprived of their riches and of the fruit of their labour under colonial regimes, suffered, furthermore, the degradation of assuming as their proper image that was no more than the reflection of the European vision of the world … . (Ribeiro 1968 in Mignolo 2000: 13)

In looking at cultural identity and modernity in Latin America, the Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano also put forward the argument during the 1990s that colonial power cannot be reduced to economic, political and military domination of the world by Europe, but that it also supports and spreads globally European models of the formation of knowledge in modernity (Castro-Gómez 2008: 280). This is what Gómez calls the ‘coloniality of power’ and sees the action of colonization as attempting to replace indigenous forms of knowledge with those more appropriate to the underlying aims of the controlling Western regime. I hope to demonstrate through this book how these forms of colonial power and their attempts to control indigenous activity are visible through the building history of colonial Africa and how archaeology can be used as a technique of analyses.

Introduction

7

Identities Central to this strand of social theory and post-colonial studies is the question of subjectivity. Accordingly there is a long tradition of intellectuals addressing this question. Among them Dussel, Rodolfo Kusch – whose Philosophy of Indigenous Thinking as Equal to European Thought was published in 1970 but not translated into English until 2010 – and earlier still the ‘cannibal’ movement in early twentieth-century Brazil and the ‘Forja’ movement in Argentina in the 1930s. During the 1990s, subjectivity and the ways in which people describe themselves to others also became a significant area of interest within archaeology and cultural studies (see for example Hall 1996; Gosden 1999). The primary questions were related to identity, i.e. the process and manner in which individuals, groups, communities, cultures and institutions define themselves. However, the debate as to the nature of the establishment of identity can be approached in two ways. Firstly, one can argue for fixed categories based upon definable ‘foundational’ differences. Secondly, one can view one’s perception of identity as a more fluid phenomenon based upon reaction/reflexivity and dialogue (both inner and outer) (Meskell and Preucel 2004). This first taxonomical approach can be useful when it becomes necessary to quantify groups of individuals, but can stray into dangerous labels/pigeonholes and meta-identities. The second, more post-structural view, approaches the formation of identity as involving the negotiation of ‘race’, class, religion, sexuality, ethnicity and gender, as well as the environmental and cultural context in which individuals find themselves. Constructivists would even go so far as to argue that identities do not exist but are in reality discursive constructs which are formulated through one’s personal dialogue with one’s socio-cultural, physical and political environment. It is the nature of this dialogue and one’s autonomy within it that has developed into a philosophical debate as to the

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Building Colonialism

role of the self in the formation of identity. In the past the two main protagonists within this debate were Foucault (1972) and Giddens (1991). Both agreed that: … self-identity is negotiated through linked processes of self-exploration and the development of intimacy with the other. (Giddens 1991: 97)

However, the debate rests upon the level of autonomy available to the individual within the multiple and competing discourses within the post-colonial/colonialist world. Foucault (1972) argues that the individual is subservient to the dominant social discourse, which is based upon the power of shared knowledge. Alternatively, Giddens (1991) views the individual within society as less the passive participant and more the creative transformer: The self is not a passive entity, determined by external influences; in forging their self-identities, no matter how local their specific contexts of action, individuals contribute to and directly promote social influences that are global in their consequences and implications. (Giddens 1991: 2)

Giddens’ structuration theory (1991) gives the individual an understanding of the social context in which they exist and allows for reaction against it. This not only allows for one to develop multiple situationist identities but also allows for the idea that individuals have an indelible political and social autonomy. This is a concept central to the post-colonial debate on the role of participants in colonial activity. Furthermore, the search for identity, be it individual or society, requires a meta-narrative in order to formulate a dialogue between life experience (meta-narrative) and perception (the self). This meta-narrative takes the form of culture whilst cultural identity is the extent to which one is representative of a given culture behaviourally, communicatively, psychologically and sociologically.

Introduction

9

All of these theoretical strands exist within the history of the development of post-colonial African identities, or more specifically, the international politicization of identities in the twentieth-century. As Hall (1990) demonstrates in an essay addressing the African diaspora, wrestling control of contextualizing meta-narratives is central to the struggle for equality: Not only, in Said’s ‘Orientalist’ sense, were we constructed as different and other within the categories of knowledge of the West by those regimes. They had the power to make us see and experience ourselves as ‘other’. Every regime of representation is a regime of power formed, as Foucault reminds us, by the fatal couplet, ‘power/knowledge’. (Hall 1990: 225)

As a Western colonial science, archaeology has played a large historical role in Europe’s conquest of people and places with its inception in antiquarian exploration and acquisition. But as Hall demonstrates, archaeologists have begun to embrace deconstructive philosophies and look more deeply to the examination of alternative historical cultural narratives. One way it can be argued to have done this is through the development of Historical Archaeology. One of Historical Archaeology’s earliest proponents defined it as the study of ‘the cultural remains of literate societies that were capable of recording their own history. In this respect it contrasts directly with prehistoric archaeology, which treats all of the cultural history before the advent of writing – millions of years in duration’ (Deetz 1977: 5). More appropriately in view of the earlier discussion on the influence of Marx on contemporary thinkers’ approach to colonialism, Charles Orser suggests that historical archaeology ‘investigates complex, socially stratified societies, with people living in literate, pre-industrial, or industrial civilizations. Social stratification means that a society is divided into two or more groups that are ranked relative to one another in terms of economic, social, or other criteria.’

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Building Colonialism

(Orser 2004: 240). By recognizing this stratification within the archaeological record it can be argued that alternative, non-dominant cultures can be defined and subaltern identities can be recognized.

Colonial processes Our current understanding of colonial processes is largely based upon the development of Western anthropologists. More recent studies have begun to question traditional colonial ethnographies and their close link to colonial powers (for example, Barker et al. 1994; Benjamin 2002; Comaroff and Comaroff 1992; Gasco 2005; Mignolo 1995). What these studies have in common is their rejection of binary oppositions in colonial discourse. By rejecting the traditional historical view of the ‘colonizer’ and the ‘colonized’ new ideas of socio-cultural hybridity have developed in response to the recognition of new societies created through the colonial process. The re-analyses of these traditional discourses has developed into what we now term post-colonial theory: Colonialism broadly conceived, or ‘coloniality’, when seen as a process including territorial expansion and imperialism, labour regulation processes, and epistemological and discursive ‘reorganization’, is not therefore only current because of territories which are still formally colonial, but because the relations of difference that mark the ‘colonial’ period are still very much in operation throughout the world, particularly in the West and wherever ‘the West’ and its epistemology asserts itself, i.e. globally. (Benjamin 2002: 15)

I would argue, and hope to demonstrate in this book, the way in which the archaeology of buildings within nineteenth-century East Africa demonstrates the manner in which their architects (in this case the European colonial authorities) viewed the colonial process as one of binary opposites, European and Non-European. This does

Introduction

11

not deny the influence of indigenous people on the colonial decisionmaking processes but simply recognizes that the colonial process was one of extraction and the consolidation of authority and Europeanbuilt heritage within East Africa reflects this most strongly.

Colonialism In its plainest form colonialism is the control of people and territories outside one’s own state, with the aim of increasing the wealth and welfare of the colonizing power. The primary driver being the extraction of resource, material or labour from the colony at a lower expenditure than would normally be attainable. For obvious reasons, the study of historic European colonial activity has traditionally separated along national lines with the belief that the underlying ethos was the establishment of managerial order, with the support of military intervention where necessary, and that different nations adopted different styles of intervention. For example, the British approach has been broadly categorized as ‘Indirect Rule’, where perceived traditional local hierarchies were preserved in order that social order could be maintained and set to tasks dictated by the British authority. Such an approach did not require the cooperation of the top of the local hierarchy, the aim being the maintenance of the social structure below. This way allowed for either control through coercion of existing figures of authority, or the militaristic imposition of more favourable local rulers to act as the conduit through which British command could pass to all social strata. This system was applied in Northern Nigeria, Tanganyika (Tanzania), Nyasaland (Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Basutoland (Lesotho), Bechuanaland (Botswana) and Swaziland. By contrast, ‘the French regarded their colonies as part of France, “Overseas France”, with the aim of assimilating the colonies and their people into France and the

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Building Colonialism

French way of life’ (Potter et al. 2008: 68). Accordingly, hierarchical bureaucratic European state systems were built within their overseas territories. For example, France’s west African colonies were amalgamated in 1904 into a single federation with a Governor General based in Dakar (Senegal) overseeing a network of governors, provincial commissioners, and commandants de cercle on behalf of the Colonial Ministry in Paris. Belgium’s approach to its African possessions was based on the ambition of its head of state King Leopold. As will become clear in the next chapter, Leopold was keen to draw his country into the ‘Scramble for Africa’. It was his authority and ideology that led to one of the most exploitative systems in the nineteenth and early twentieth century with a huge impact on both local people and resources. It was achieved by creating a number of concessionary trading companies with exclusive rights over defined geographies and in which Leopold held a 50 per cent stake. This ‘Congo-System’ of private companies was backed by the state army and resulted in the brutal abuse and exploitation of Africans. Until the ‘Scramble’ began in earnest and activities in Africa began to impact on the balance of power in Europe, Germany was satisfied with the development of trade agreements by chartered companies with local groups. It wasn’t until state unification in 1871 that Germany began to consider the safeguarding of these agreements through colonial acquisition. In this way Germany was to control German East Africa (Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and parts of Kenya), German South West Africa (Namibia and Botswana) and German West Africa (Cameroon and Togo). Portugal, like France, adopted a system of assimilation based on a long relationship with the continent which had by the end of the fifteenth century established trading posts along the West African coast and spread to the East, following the first voyage around the southern cape of Africa to India in 1497 by Vasco da Gama. By the turn of the twentieth century

Introduction

13

Portugal’s territories consisted of Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau), Angola and Mozambique. But like Belgium, it was a system underpinned by brutality through forced labour.

Structure of the book Having outlined the origin and the context in which this research occurred, Chapter 2 will next turn to the historic narrative which has served to form our Western understanding of events and actions in East Africa in the nineteenth century; describe the developments in the regions coastal histories and outline the histories of contact between Europeans and Africans through the development of exploration and trade. Chapter 3 discusses the kinds of material heritage that have survived in relation to the pre-European colonial intervention and looks at the urban spaces that Europeans encountered on arrival. It also introduces the basic urban units that separate areas within towns in this study: waterfronts, management and trade centres, markets and residential areas. Chapter 4 then describes and discusses the physical material impacts of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European urban design, and using the units described in the previous chapter, examines the types or architecture and design adopted and their role as a means of control and contribution to underlying colonial aims. Finally, Chapter 5 broadens the material discussion by turning to other forms of European colonial activity in Africa; it compares the impetus for this activity and how Italian and French colonies engaged with earlier ruling orders and constructed their urban spaces. The book concludes with a discussion of the conservation of colonial-built heritage and the difficulties faced in ensuring valid participatory protection of the urban heritage resource.

2

The History of Contact

The East African Coast of the western Indian Ocean is characterized in both historic and archaeological narratives as the Swahili Coast (Figure 2). But although having never formed any overarching internal autonomous polity (Horton and Middleton 2001: 5) the peoples of the Swahili coast have in traditional studies been grouped into one relatively homogenous social unit. Historically this is the result of a number of historiographic traditions and prevailing political environments. The word Swahili is Bantu and derived from the Arabic sahil, meaning margin or coast. It was first applied specifically to the East African coast as Sawahil (‘lands of the coast’) in the thirteenth century by the geographer Ibn Sa’id, and became a formalized regional designation under the Omani rulers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. From the eighth century the use of stone within distinctive architectural forms began to differentiate a number of areas upon the coast from their surrounding hinterlands, a building technique which has come to define ‘Swahili’ within the archaeological record. Evidence for this can be seen at excavated sites such as Shanga and Pate (for Shanga see Horton 1996; for Pate see Wilson and Omar 1997). From that time, until c. 1100, trade upon the East African coast was dominated by merchants from the Persian Gulf. The socio-cultural interaction between the merchants and the indigenous populations formed what has become referred to culturally as Swahili (Breen and Lane 2003: 476). Between c. 1100 and 1300 a shift of mercantile dominance occurred whereby trade with this Swahili coast became more closely linked with

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merchants from the Red Sea area, the result of which was the growing Islamization of the western Indian Ocean region. The period c. 1300 to 1500 represented the height of the development of the stone-built Swahili town, and during this period Kilwa Kisiwani and Pate thrived as independent city states (Chittick 1977: 205). The arrival of the Portuguese c. 1500 introduced a completely new social dynamic into the Swahili world as well as new forms of monumental architecture, and consequently the construction of a number of Portuguese forts (Chittick 1974; Kirkman 1974; Pradines 2001). From c. 1700, until the dominance of English and German colonialism in the nineteenth century, trade within the western Indian Ocean was largely under the authority of the Sultans of Oman, the court of which was eventually moved to Zanzibar under Sayyid Said bin Sultan al-Busaid in 1840.

Figure 2  Map of Tanzania and Kenya.



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By the late eighteenth and nineteenth century interior-coastal trade had become a large-scale, highly disciplined enterprise resulting in the development of a number of coastal entrepôts. The most significant being Tanga, Pangani, Sadaani, Winde, Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam and Mbwamaji. South of the Rufiji Delta were Kilwa Kivinje, Lindi, Mgao Mwanya (Mongalo) and Mikindani (Alpers 1967: 6). In the north was Brava and Mogadishu (Abir 1968: 105). These coastal towns were the eastern most terrestrial limits of six established routeways. In the south, the caravans linked Kilwa Kivinje with southern Lake Malawi. From Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo caravans travelled to and from the land of the Nyamwezi (contemporary Tabora), and either branched northwest around Lake Nyanza into Uganda, southwest around Lake Tanganyika, or terminated on the shores of the lake at Ujiji. Pangani was again linked to the Nyamwezi, but also to a northern route favoured by Mombasa merchants to the north of Lake Nyanza on the so-called Maasai routes through the regions of Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Highland Kenya. To the north still further Somali merchants, the Safara, adopted routes from Brava to Lake Turkana, and from Mogadishu northwest into what is today Ethiopia. One further important trading system was that of Khartoum merchants who began moving south along the Bhar al Ghazal in the mid-nineteenth century; linking the Red-Sea with the northern rift valleys through contact with the routes of the eastern Bilad al-Sudan. These ran on two axes, one from south to north, linking Sennar and Egypt, and one roughly east to west linking Darfur and Suakin (Abir 1968; Curtin et al. 1978; Glassman 1995, 56; Holt and Daly 2000). The establishment of Sultan Seyyid Said’s seat of rule in Zanzibar from Oman in 1832 is an important historical signifier as to the integration of the East African coast, and through trade the interior, with the wider Indian Ocean. Trade was based largely upon the three main export commodities of ivory, slaves and cloves. For much of the European colonial period the export of ivory was to be the most

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profitable. This was a result firstly of a rise in Portuguese duties in Mozambique (previously the majority supplier to the Asian market), leading to a steady growth in value in the East African market between 1800 and 1820. Secondly, due to a growth in demand from Europe and America, with American merchants exchanging ivory for cotton grown in southern slave plantations (Curtin et al. 1978: 396). The overall trend in the mid-nineteenth century was for urban merchants to take control of the caravan routes, thanks largely to their ability to acquire credit from the coastal towns in advancement of trade. This resulted in the bypassing of the smaller village tradesystem and the exclusion of the rural peasant classes (Glassman 1995: 57). The organization of the caravans also created a new class of wage earners no longer reliant upon subsistent pastoral life-ways, but who could earn money acting as porters. In 1872 Burton described a caravan leaving from Tanga: These caravans are seldom short of 400 to 500 men, Arabs and Waswahilli, Pagazi or free porters who carry 50lbs each, and slaves. The imports are chiefly cotton-stuffs, iron wires (Senyenge), brass wires (Másángo), and beads, of which some 400 varieties are current in these countries. The usual return consists chiefly of ivory, per annum about 70,000lbs, we were told – a quantity hardly credible …[T]hey bring also a few slaves, some small mangy camels, and half-wild asses. (Burton 1872, 2: 117)

The impact of this new wage-earning class within east Africa’s cultures must have been profound. Both an outpouring of labour and an influx of wage-earned commodities impacted local subsistence economies. Villages on caravan routes became service centres and fed the passing trade in exchange for further tradable items, thus percolating goods and influence not simply from two geographic locations, one on the coast and one in the interior, but on all points throughout the route-way. The employment of porters added to the already destabilizing practice of slavery by necessitating the use of



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slaves in villages where many members were away for long periods earning a porter’s wage. According to Cummings (1973: 8) both the Akamba and the Wanika were using slaves for both domestic and agricultural purposes in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and the Wanyamwezi purchased slaves to offset the agricultural losses incurred by spending nearly half a year working away from home. Prior to the construction of railways in East Africa caravan porterage was the only viable means of transporting a large amount of goods over a great distance. The use of pack animals on such a scale was impossible due to the presence of the tsetse fly. It became clear that in order to effectively extract the maximum economic benefit from East Africa the European colonialists needed to standardize the activities of the caravans (Iliffe 1979). With this in mind the British-dominated authority in Zanzibar began to introduce regulations to be observed by caravan leaders. These regulations essentially placed porters under a restrictive martial law answerable firstly to the caravan leaders, who in turn were ultimately answerable to the British First Minister and Consul on Zanzibar (Alpers 1967). The analysis of this type of economic exploitation has led a number of historians to view events as ‘progress towards an inevitable dead end’ (Roberts 1969: 73; see also Gray and Birmingham 1969). Such Raubwirtschaft, or ‘plunder economy’ increased regional specialization in raw materials at the expense of the indigenous manufacturing capacity, spread disease through contact and inevitably had a detrimental demographic impact because of the removal of people by slavery (Austen 1987: 67).

Nineteenth-century Britain and Africa The Victorian era in England was a time of ideological change. Not only were new class relationships being established in new industrial towns, but also debates upon social reform and welfare were taking

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Building Colonialism

place in light of the new industrial underclass and suffering rural societies. Government was still very much a place of the aristocratic elite, staunch in their belief in traditional class hierarchies. However, new liberal ideas were beginning to take shape. Probably the major transformation which occurred across the Victorian period in Britain was the change from natural philosophy and natural history to science; the shift from gentlemen and clerical naturalists to, for the first time, professional scientists. It was this changing ideological dynamic which was to inform the nature of the exploration, settlement and colonization of Africa. Although exploration was newly imbued with a sense of scientific analysis, be it in the natural sciences or geographical discovery, it was a discovery spurred by individuals with a certain contradictory religious zeal. This is to say that, exploration was spearheaded by missionaries who saw the glory of a creationist god in the structures of nature as highlighted by science. Thus, the geographical movement of the nineteenth century began in earnest in Africa in the north and west, under the auspices of the Association for the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, a small collective of wealthy English men spurred by humanitarian and scientific interest. Early expeditions financed by the Association included that of Mungo Parks to the upper Niger in 1795–7, and thanks to the persuasion of the Association it was with British Government funding that Parks was able to return to Africa and sail down most of the Niger in 1805–6. Such funding also facilitated Denham and Clapperton’s exploration of Bornu and Hausaland after crossing the Sahara from Tripoli between 1823–5, while the Lander brothers traced the course of the lower Niger to the sea in 1830 and the German Heinrich Barth explored central and western Sudan between 1850–5. Earlier, in 1763 James Bruce had been appointed British Consul in Algiers and in 1768 undertook an expedition south as the first of many to attempt to discover the source of the Nile.



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Later in the middle of the nineteenth century the London Missionary Society sent Livingstone to a station in Bechuanaland, South Africa. It is from here that he was to begin his life of exploration, the first being a journey north in search of new locations for trade and mission stations, making him, in 1851, the first European to cross the Zambezi River. Between 1853 and 1856 Livingstone was also to be the first to cross the continent from west to east after continuing his Zambezi expedition onto Luanda and returning east all the way to the Indian Ocean at Quiliamane – a journey that resulted in the mapping of the ‘Victoria Falls’. In 1858 Livingstone again undertook a journey up the Zambezi River. This time as part of a British Government-sponsored expedition with the intention of further establishing mission and trade stations in the African interior. It, however, proved a disastrous journey, culminating in the death of his wife Mary Livingstone, and the expedition ended in 1863. The driving force behind Livingstone’s exploration was the belief that legitimate trade and Christianity could put an end to the African slave trade. It was a practice that Livingstone himself referred to as: ‘this open sore of the world’ (in Cameron 1980: 101). In December 1857 Livingstone made an appeal in Cambridge for support, resulting in the creation of the Universities Mission of Central Africa. The Society’s aim was the setting up of centres of Christianity in Central Africa in which the teaching of agricultural techniques and trade would go hand in hand with the teachings of Christian belief (Ingham 1965: 104), thereby Christianizing and ‘civilizing’ indigenous peoples. Between 1866 and 1873 Livingstone was to spend the remainder of his life in Africa in search of the source of the Nile, as well as gaining knowledge of, and actively opposing, the slave trade. The prize of discovering the source of the Nile was sought by a number of adventurers. Samuel Baker set out from Khartoum in 1861 with the intention of following the Nile to its origin, only to encounter Speke at Gondokoro and to learn that the main source

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of the Nile had been discovered. As an alternative Baker turned his attention to the south of Gondokoro and discovered Lake Albert Nyanza and established its place in the wider Nile system. Baker was to later play a larger role in African affairs as the governor to Khedive Ismail of Egypt, under which he tried to gain control of the northern ivory trade by expanding Egypt’s southern frontier from Gondokoro to what is today Northern Uganda (Oliver and Fage 1973: 180). Gordon, as Governor of Egypt, was also to attempt to gain control of this same trade network later in the nineteenth century. The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) played a major role in the European exploration of Africa, sponsoring or assisting in some way a number of explorers. The Society was in fact founded by members of the African Association, a group dedicated to the training and equipping of explorers to Africa, an endeavour supported by the British Government: ‘For the government knew that, where exploration led, trade would follow; to the governments of Europe, nineteenth-century Africa was territory ripe for exploitation, and it was therefore always easier for the Society to get financial backing to explore in Africa than in, say, the Arctic or Antarctica’ (Cameron 1980: 76). Of the nineteenth-century British explorers, probably of most use to archaeologists and historians is Richard Burton. Not only did Burton thoroughly record his observations but also travelled widely along the East Africa coast with an egalitarian approach to interaction with indigenous peoples not seen in any other European at this time. Prior to his exploratory activities, in the first half of the nineteenth century, Burton had been a serving military officer in the Bombay Army, and had travelled widely throughout Muslim India. This was to set him in good stead for his interaction with Arab traders in Africa. Not only did Burton possess a keen interest in Muslim culture (in his career he published a translation of The Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night (1885), Karma Sutra (1883)



The History of Contact

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and Aranga Ranga: Stages of the Bodiless One or The Hindu Art of Love (1885) having made the hajj in 1853, but he was also able to communicate with those best placed to aid in the practicalities of his expedition. Burton’s first endeavour was an attempt to penetrate Somaliland in 1854. This failed following a battle with local peoples suspecting that the British officer was attempting to disrupt the slave trade. After a stint in Crimea, Burton and his travelling companion Speke, were sent by the RGS in 1857 to East Africa on an expedition intended to corroborate the findings of Johan Krapf in the interior. Burton and Speke travelled from Zanzibar to Kaole, on the mainland coast south of Bagamoyo to Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. From here Speke travelled north and came upon the southern shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza. Following a return visit by Speke in 1863 and his meeting with Baker north of Victoria Nyanza, the location of the source of the Nile was established (Carrington 1950: 644; Lovell 1999). As Zanzibar in the second half of the nineteenth century increasingly became Britain’s entrance into the trade of the East African mainland, so too did it become the hub of the missionary activity in East Africa. First to arrive was the German Johann Krapf of the Church Missionary Society in 1844. His aim was to begin the spread of Christianity in Africa first among the Galla peoples in the Kingdom of Shoa, but having been denied passage to these through Ethiopia his intention was to gain access by way of a route north from Mombasa (Gray 1963: 242). Described by Sultan Said of Zanzibar as intending to ‘convert the world to God’, Krapf also had the intention of creating a mission-chain linking East and West Africa. He eventually established a mission just inland from Mombasa at Rabai with Johann Rebmann. These two Europeans were to be the first, while making attempts to convert Africans further inland, to see Mounts Kenya and Kilimanjaro. However, their missionary activity was to be confined to Rabai, which by 1873 had attracted only about

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Building Colonialism

half a dozen converts (Gray 1963: 242). Other missions, centred largely on the East African coast, included the Filles de Marie (from French-controlled Réunion) who set up a mission on Zanzibar in 1860. In the same year the Universities Mission for Central Africa established a station in Usambara, the United Free Methodists at Ribe near Mombasa in 1862, the United Mission to Central Africa (under Bishop Tozer) at Magila in Usumbara in 1868, and a mission of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost and the Sacred Heart at Bagamoyo was established as an agricultural colony for liberated slaves. The Church Missionary Society, led by Sir Bartle Frir, established another mission in the vicinity of Mombasa in 1874. These coastal missions were soon exploited as launch pads for incursions into the interior to spread the Christian faith. In 1877 the United Mission to Central Africa had established another mission at Masasi (160km inland from Lindi) and another approximately 80km south of Masasi. The same year the Filles de Marie also trekked west and established their second East African station 160km inland at Morogoro (Gray 1963: 242). It was beyond the power of the Missionary societies to persuade their home countries to officially annexe African regions for the good of Christianity. They did however have the ability to involve themselves in political decision making through the influence of public spirit. As was the case in the inclusion of Buganda in the Ugandan protectorate in 1893–4, when the British Government opposed the military’s desire to control the area in opposition to other European powers and effectively control the source of the Nile. This was viewed as economically unviable as the area to the north of Lake Nyanza was over 800km from the coastal protectorate and as yet not linked to any adequate infrastructure, i.e. railway. However, with the intervention of the British missionary movement, and the threat of the martyrdom of the Anglican Bishop in Buganda along with hundreds of African converts (should the area fall from British



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control), the home government reluctantly sanctioned the inclusion of Buganda into its Protectorate (Curtin et al. 1978: 456). Following the placement of a British Consul, Atkins Hamilton on Zanzibar in 1841 (who was both answerable to the Foreign Office in London and to the Government of Bombay as agent of the East India Company), interest in the East African mainland developed. At this time Zanzibar’s growing slave industry had also expanded into a major focus of trade under the reign of Sultan Seyyid Said (following the relocation of his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar). This was further stimulated by the sultan’s encouragement of the cultivation of cloves in return for the import of small arms, hardware and cloth (Oliver 1952: 1), not only with the African interior, but also with the wider networks leading to the Persian Gulf and Bombay. The posting of a British Consul on Zanzibar was indicative of an important change in direction and policy on the part of the British government in relation to East Africa. Up to this point (following the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars, 1803–15) Britain had felt no pressure to engage economically with Africa on the scale of that of India, and it was the possibility of threats upon Indian trade which became the impetus for action in the Western Indian Ocean during the nineteenth century. Although Britain had as good as established oceanic domination in the Indian Ocean and thus felt no threat upon her sea trade or communications, it was, according to Coupland (1938: 460), a growing threat from land in the north into India that drove new developments. Firstly, in 1839 Britain had undertaken an apparently disastrous invasion of Afghanistan following an alliance between Russia and emir Dost Muhammad. Thus, not only was the hinterland of the Persian Gulf sitting outside the British sphere of influence, but the threat of Russia moving toward Persia would also have serious repercussions upon the balance of internal European diplomacy and power. Secondly, the actions of Egypt’s ruler Mahamet Ali (Egyptian Wali between 1805 and 1848) who, by the end of 1839

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Building Colonialism

was in effective control of the whole of Arabia except its southern and eastern coast, caused a flurry of political interest in Britain. Britain’s fear was as a result of the number of Frenchmen within Mahamet Ali’s War Staff and as the British Lord Palmerston expressed; ‘… the mistress of India cannot permit France to be mistress directly or indirectly of the road to her Indian dominions’ (in Coupland 1938: 462). When in 1830 the vessel Hugh Lindsay steamed from Bombay to Suez via the newly opened canal in just 33 days, it became clear that the Cape Route to India was more than likely facing decline and Britain’s attention turned to ensuring that no other nation would threaten this Red Sea route. The maintenance of the status quo and the establishment of a British coaling depot at Aden in 1838 therefore, precipitated the Anglo-Omani relationship which was to result in the placing of a British consul on Zanzibar in 1841. By supporting the Sultan of Oman against a number of internal oppositions as well as externally from the aforementioned spread of Egypt under Mahamet Ali, Britain safeguarded her steam route to India and became irreversibly linked to East Africa once the Sultan transferred his seat there. This involvement was to increase dramatically with the introduction of Germany, and would see, between 1874 and 1902, Britain adding approximately 12,300,000sq km and nearly 90million people (Cunningham 2001: 181) to its overseas ‘possessions’.

Nineteenth-century Germany and Africa Prior to the nineteenth century Germany’s maritime activity had concentrated upon internal European trade under the Hanseatic League. Preoccupation with the politics of unification also separated it from the kind of long-distance overseas trade enjoyed by other European rivals. During the nineteenth century Germany’s foreign



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policy was controlled by the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Like the involvement of the other principal players in the ‘Scramble for Africa’, movement into the African continent was instigated in equal parts by the desire to increase the nation’s economic production in light of burgeoning industry, and by association the need to maintain economic growth. It was also an attempt to balance internal European political and economic stability. By this note, Africa was for both Great Britain and Germany a tool by which to maintain a European equilibrium. This equilibrium was such a consuming matter that Bismarck himself later told a German explorer: ‘Here is Russia and here is France, … with Germany in the middle. That is my map of Africa’ (translated in Packenham 1991: 203). Bismarck had previously turned down an offer by the then Sultan of Zanzibar in 1874 for his country to be placed under German ‘protection’ in reaction to the pressing British opposition to the slave trade. But by 1884 Bismarck had abandoned his policy of colonial avoidance and embarked upon a speedy land grab. The first was in south-west Africa, when on the 27 April 1884 Bismarck wired the German consul in Capetown to inform him officially that the south-west Africa holdings of the Bremen merchant, Franz A. E. Lüderitz (lying north of the Orange River) were henceforth under the protection of the Reich (Wirz 1982). Then came Togo and Cameroon in West Africa, north-eastern New Guinea (‘Kaiser Wilhelmland’) and the archipelago to the north, then, finally, East Africa (Koponen 1994; Marks 1985). Not only did this move effectively hem in the British in West Africa on the Niger, but it was the acquisition of Cameroon from under the noses of the British (by the acclaimed German explorer Dr Gustav Nachtigal), who had been in negotiation with Kings Acqua, which really fired the starting pistol of that ‘unseemly and dangerous race’ (Packenham 1991). Further to this, the activities of Carl Peters and subsequently the DOAG (Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft, German East Africa

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Company) in the 1880s precipitated a greater involvement by the British authorities in the events of mainland East Africa. Official policy of simply supporting the Sultan on Zanzibar was no longer enough in light of Germany’s territorial claims and the importance of securing control of the Nile and the East African interior. As a result in 1886 Britain and Germany signed an agreement that carved up East Africa. Britain and Germany controlled lands separated by a border drawn between the Umba River and Lake Victoria. The Sultan’s mainland possessions were to be limited to a coastal belt stretching from Tunghi Bay in the south to Kipini at the mouth of the Tana River in the north and extending inland for a distance of ten nautical miles (18.5km) from the high water mark. In addition the Sultan’s authority was recognized over the more northerly towns of Kismayu, Brava, Merka and Mogadishu (Ingham 1965: 137). Although the British government had taken steps to ensure Germany did not hold complete control of the territories of East Africa they still remained reluctant to engage fully with the practicality of running their new ‘sphere of influence’. Much the same as Bismarck allowed the DOAG the running of German East Africa, British East Africa fell to the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) under the Chairmanship of Sir William Mackinnon. The economic value of the respective spheres soon became clear and in 1887 Mackinnon obtained a concession to the Sultan’s coastal territories between the River Umbu and Kipini for a period of 50 years. The agreement secured the Sultan the same custom dues as were paid to him at the date of concession, plus 50 per cent of any additional net revenue (Ingham 1965: 139). Similarly Germany had undertaken control of the Sultan’s coastal lands adjoining their sphere, but they, unlike the British, had purchased the area outright. When the IBEAC eventually collapsed in 1894 the British Government bought it out, and the British Protectorate over Buganda was declared. In order to sustain this new protectorate the Uganda Railway from Mombasa



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was begun and in 1895 the Protectorate of British East Africa was established. Before Bismarck’s sudden policy change and the eventual partition of the region, Dr Karl Peters had spearheaded Germany’s drive for expansion. Towards the end of 1884 Peters travelled to East Africa to obtain treaties with local chiefs. Although unsanctioned by the German government, Peters felt confident that his endeavours would lead to a new German colony in Africa. Landing on the coast at Bagamoyo on the Tanzanian mainland opposite Zanzibar on 4 November 1884, Peters and his colleagues travelled for just six weeks persuading both Arab and African chiefs to sign away exclusive rights to land and trade routes. One typical agreement, the ‘Treaty of Eternal Friendship’, had Sultan Mangungu of Msovero, Usagara, offering his ‘territory with all its civil and public privileges’ to Dr Karl Peters as the representative of the Society for German Colonization for ‘the exclusive and universal utilization of German colonization’. (Boddy-Evans 2008). By the time Peters arrived back at Bagamoyo in December 1884 he had negotiated 12 treaties covering some 140,000sq km (Henderson 1965; Iliffe 1979). The Society for German Colonization (Gesellschaft für deutsche kolonisation or GDK), had been established by Peters and his supporters in 1884 and although not a large society, along with the less radical German Colonial Association (Deutsche Kolonialverein), it demonstrated to the government a rising national penchant for a territorially proactive foreign policy. The society defined its objectives as the founding of German plantation and commercial colonies, the acquisition of capital for the purpose of colonization, the discovery and securing of regions suitable for colonization and the promotion of German emigration to colonized regions (Henderson 1962). On returning to Berlin, Peters found himself in the middle of the Congo Conference (sometimes referred to as the Berlin Conference)

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of 1885, designed to establish agreed European borders in West Africa. Unbeknown to the rest of the conference, Bismarck advised Peters to extend his territorial claims in East Africa and also establish a chartered company to ensure financial security for his ventures and treaties (Iliffe 1979). Up to now working under the GDK banner, by all accounts Peters’ first foray into East Africa had been on a financial shoestring and conducted with resultant haste. In this way Germany had its first colonially motivated chartered trading company in the form of the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft (German East Africa Company, DOAG). In 1887–8 five directors were appointed to supervise the territories taken by the GDK. These included: The North Coast of Somaliland in Autumn 1886, the country north and south of Sabaki River, in January 1886, Usumbara, Pare and Chagga in May 1885, Usaramo in September 1885, Kutu in June 1885 and Uhehe, Mahenge, Ubena and the country of the Wagindo between the Rufiji and Rovuma Rivers in November 1885 (Dundas 1923: 3). Bismarck’s intentions were now clear: The German Empire cannot carry on a system of colonisation like France’s. It cannot send out warships to conquer overseas lands, that is, it will not take the initiative; but it will protect the German merchant even in the land which he acquires. Germany will do what England has always done – establish chartered companies, so that the responsibility rests with them. (Bismarck, trans. Townsend 1921: 180)

This gave the DOAG the sovereign rights to all the East African territory claimed, as well as actual ownership of land and the authority to dispense justice. No provision was made as to the nature of organization of the DOAG and no obligation was established to refrain from creating a trade monopoly in East Africa or the prohibition of slavery. The only condition being that the DOAG remained a German organization (Henderson 1965). Again Bismarck’s intentions seem clear:



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Let the Company take what it feels confident to take without our encouragement and intervention; later we shall then see what we can officially endorse. (Bismarck 11 July 1885, trans. Koponen 1994: 72)

Thus, following Peters’ apparent success in winning government support at home, a second rash of land grabbing was organized with the order: ‘schnelles, kühnes, rucksichtloses’ (‘fast, daring and ruthless’). Provocation which inspired Peters’ teams in the DOAG to extend the German-‘owned’ frontiers in East Africa beyond their initial cache to now stretch north as far as Witu on the coast near Lamu, and south to the Rufiji river (Packenham 1991). Not only did Germany face diplomatic opposition from Zanzibar, but also actual physical hostility on the East African mainland. Between 1884 and 1886 the DOAG despatched 18 expeditions to East Africa to form treaties with indigenous peoples. It had also by April 1888 established 18 small trading and experimental stations on the mainland (Iliffe 1979). These did not go unopposed and opposition was largely a result of the activities and attitude of the DOAG. A rift within the Germans in East Africa had developed for the same reasons, with those older-established independent German merchants on Zanzibar despairing at the disruption caused by the ‘Scramble’ to older proven trade links: ‘DOAG representatives have behaved from the first in a truly unbelievable way’, reported a representative of the O’Swalds Company in 1888. ‘Not only have Dr Peters … and other chosen representatives of the German people destroyed the respect felt by natives for white men by drunkenness, floggings and other excesses, but they have deliberately done their best to confuse existing relations. (Albrecht O’Swald 22 October 1888 to Headquarters (Stammhaus), trans. Koponen 1994: 77)

However, Bismarck and the Reich were to stand behind the more popularist Dr Peters and the DOAG. Relations in East Africa reached an early stage of conflict when in 1888 Sultan Khalifa leased the

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DOAG lands on the mainland coastal strip under his authority. Again though it was individual actions on the part of the DOAG representatives which caused immediate local unrest: The Company officials took dogs into our mosques, they insulted women, they caused two dollars to be paid for every grave that was dug for burial … They seized all ground that was not registered … They spat on our flag … The wild people then were angry and rose and killed. (Khalifa to Bismarck 3 October 1888, trans. Koponen 1994: 80)

The Germans went so far as to engage militarily with local populations in what became known as the ‘Arab Revolt’. Although more recent historians and archaeologists have begun to recognize that the opposition to German occupation came from a relatively wide and mixed sector of the coastal society, and was simply spearheaded by the families of Muslim and Arab. The first attacks upon German customs officials took place in August 1888 and by the end of the year the DOAG was no longer able to collect customs duties or carry out administrative functions on the East African coast (Henderson 1962). In the same month a German warship off Tanga opened fire on the town after purportedly being fired upon, and on 21 August the Germans were given two days to leave the southern coastal towns of Lindi, Mikindani and Kilwa Kivinje (Iliffe 1979). By November 1888 Germany and Britain entered into a joint naval blockade of the coast and at the same time the German Reichstag voted 2,000,000 marks to be used to put an end to slave trading on the coast and protect German trading interests (Henderson 1962). The previous month the commander of a German cruiser had transmitted this message: Especially around Bagamoyo murder and plunder are rife. Mission stations are in danger. Trade has been destroyed for a long time … Germans and in particular Indians are suffering enormous damage. (Rohlfs 30 September 1888, translated in Koponen 1994: 81)



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Captain Hermann von Wissmann was appointed Reich Commissioner and recruited a force of 600 Sudanese in Cairo, 350 Zulus in Mozambique, and 50 Somalis in Aden, as well as a number of askari from Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo to quell the ‘revolt’ (Henderson 1965). Having defeated one of the two major opposition leaders, Abushiri (the other leader Bwana Heri had reached peaceful terms), after he was betrayed to the Germans at Mpwapwa in December 1889, Wissmann turned his attention to the southern coast. By May 1890 Wissmann had recaptured Kilwa Kisiwani, Kilwa Kivinje, Lindi and Mikindani and by early 1891 reported to Berlin that the rebellion was completely suppressed (Reichstagsakten 1890/91). Viewed as an inability on the part of the DOAG to manage the lands it had taken, November 1890 saw the company lose its sovereign rights in East Africa, but its privileges regarding mining monopoly, the ownership of unoccupied land and the right to establish a bank of issue, were confirmed. In essence the DOAG had failed as a successful colonial trading company, and Bismarck had failed to create a colonial empire on the back of commerce alone and found the German Reich in a much deeper overseas position than had been intended. Germany’s resignation became clear in 1890–1 when Leo von Caprivi, Bismarck’s successor, declared ‘… the way things are today, we cannot retreat without loss of honour, and also money; our only course, therefore, is to get on with it’ (Leo von Caprivi, translated in Wirz 1982: 391). Those rights to land and trade previously agreed upon by the Sultan of Zanzibar to the DOAG were officially passed on to the German government and in June and July of 1890 new AngloGerman treaties were signed, which established the borders of the overseas possessions of both Britain and Germany in East Africa. Germany accepted the establishment of a British Protectorate over Zanzibar and Pemba and secured a common frontier with the Congo Free State, quashing Cecil Rhodes’ plan of a Cape-to-Cairo land route entirely within British lands, but also accepted a northern frontier,

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which excluded it from the Upper Nile. Once the borders were established the German government set about a strategy to manage their possession. The resultant organization led directly to large-scale dissatisfaction amongst the indigenous peoples, and ultimately the bloody Maji Maji Rebellion. The rebellion began in July 1905 among the peoples of the south-east and spread to the newly created states of the Southern Highlands, specifically the district of Kilwa (Curtin et al. 1978). Two months after its start the Maji Maji Rebellion was at its most widespread, covering some 150,000sq km and including the greater part of all the peoples south of the central caravan route from Dar es Salaam to Kilosa and east of the line Kilosa-Lake Nyasa (Koponen 1994). In response the German administration firstly attempted to control its share of East Africa with relatively few German officials. At the outbreak of the rebellion barely 2,000 German troops were stationed in the whole of East Africa; this shortfall was due largely to the lack of interest by the German public in emigration to East Africa. Figures given by Henderson (1962: 35) suggest that of the total 1,085,125 emigrants from Germany to its overseas possessions between 1887 and 1906, 1,007,574 went to the United States of America. Thus, German rule relied heavily upon the delegation of authority to Arab or Swahili akida or jumbes, who during the particularly economically depressed year of 1903 had been charged with implementing the establishment of compulsory cotton cultivation in the village shambas of those southern areas that were to eventually take part in the rebellion. Compulsory labour disrupted the local population’s ability to cultivate their own fields and coupled with the implementation of a new hut tax, simmering dissatisfaction with foreign rule seemed inevitable. Once the rebellion had begun it spread to areas that had not employed this system of forced communal cultivation, demonstrating a deeper more widespread opposition to colonial rule. Casualty estimates for the rebellion offer varying but shocking testament to the sheer scale of the bloodshed



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between 1905 and 1907. According to Koponen (1994) a total of 15 Europeans, 73 askari and 316 soldiers were killed. By comparison the official German estimate for rebel deaths is more in the region of 75,000. Later figures have placed the number of dead as high as between 250,000 and 300,000. As shocking as these estimates may appear the real legacy of the uprising was post hostility, famine and disease caused by the depopulation of rural areas and the policies of both rebels and governments alike in destroying crops and settlements. It was a problem recognized immediately by the German authorities, as this report to the German Governor Graf von Götzen dated 1907 attests: A great many of the natives who survived the fighting and the famine succumbed to various diseases because the physical condition had deteriorated so much. There was an epidemic of worm diseases which were carried by native labourers to districts formerly free from these illnesses. Badly nourished mothers had no milk for their babies so that in some districts the infant mortality reached alarming heights. (trans. Henderson 1965: 142)

Following the rebellion a change of attitude occurred in Germany’s legislative approach to its East African territory. After the creation of the Ministry of Colonies, a number of reforms were put into practice including, the reduction of corporal punishment, health regulations for the benefit of wage-earners, encouraged school attendance, and a policy to increase agricultural production over that of commercial extraction (Cornevin 1969: 413). The development of plantations was designed to attract a greater number of permanent German settlers and by creating a labour class within the colony raise the import of German manufactured goods. As a result by 1913 the white population amounted to 5,336, of which 4,107 were German and 882 planters (Henderson 1965). The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 saw the end of Germany’s economic development in East Africa. The conflict was to last

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some four years and include 3,000 German Officers and 12,000 askari (Cornevin 1969). As a result German settlers were forced to abandon their plantations and join the Defence Forces, with those who survived becoming prisoners and eventually being expelled from East Africa. The conscription of Africans by both English and German forces resulted in the disruption of local crop production and overseas trade came to an end. As a result, at the cessation of hostilities the British Government was to adopt, first under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and then as the UN-mandated protectorate Tanganyika in 1922, an East African territory riddled with famine, declining birth rates, increased venereal disease and abandoned and neglected plantations.

3

The Pre-Colonial Urban Systems

Although European colonial activity served to massively re-design the urban spaces on Africa’s east coast (Figures 3 and 4), there existed prior to this, thriving centres of exchange. As we have seen in the previous chapter, mercantile activity and urban development, along the Swahili coast, is a well-known aspect of the area’s historical narrative. But what of the physical manifestation of pre-colonial coastal societies? If the colonial process was one of acculturation and control, what did the Europeans encounter on first experiencing the harbour towns of the Western Indian Ocean? What kind of buildings did they contain, and what can we deduce from this evidence about their workings as centres of trade and transport? With this in mind what follows is a discussion of the early written descriptions and current archaeological knowledge pertaining to these centres of trade and settlement; starting with brief descriptions of the geographies that have facilitated these developments, namely the coastal morphology of East Africa’s historic harbours.

Waterfronts Prior to the development of Dar es Salaam as Tanzania’s mainland harbour, Bagamoyo played a short but important role in the later part of the nineteenth century as a staging post into the African interior. The earliest European account of Bagamoyo appears to be that of H. M. Stanley in 1869:

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Figure 3  Post-colonial town plans: a) Tanga; b) Dar es Salaam; c) Bagamoyo. Note the particular waterfront centric urban designs and the survival of the distinctive German colonial triangulated design. The distance across from Zanzibar to Bagamoyo may be about twentyfive miles [40km], yet it took the dull and lazy dhows ten hours before they dropped anchor on the top of the coral reef plainly visible a few feet below the surface of the water, within a hundred yards of the beach. (Stanley 1904: 39)



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Figure 4  Colonial town plans: d) Chole; e) Kilwa Kivinje. Like those examples in Figure 3, colonial waterfronts developed specific forms reflective of European colonial strategies centred upon the control of the movement of goods between the marine and terrestrial zones.

In Burton and Speke’s account of their earlier 1857 East African expedition no mention of an anchorage or the waterfront at Bagamoyo is made. Even during Stanley’s visit it was the Customs Officer of Kaole (5km to the south) that carried out the official greeting, not a representative of Bagamoyo itself. This suggests a dominance of Kaole over Bagamoyo even as late as 1886. Certainly archaeologically

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Bagamoyo seems to possess little evidence to counter this argument, with only limited earlier material having been identified in the form of two burial tombs dating to 1794/5 and 1813, along with surface finds of Chinese Ming Dynasty blue and white ceramics (fourteenth to the seventeenth century). More recent investigations carried out in the town’s caravanserai (the role and function of caravanserai will be discussed later in the chapter) uncovered what has been broadly termed Post Swahili Ware and believed to date to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Earlier Triangular Incised Ware (600 to 900ce) was located within the wider settlement area (Chami et al. 2004). Such a paucity of material is dwarfed by the artefactual and architectural remains to be found at Kaole. The site consists of at least two mosques, 56 graves and an unknown number of building/dwellings (Chami 2002). The site itself is located upon a raised beach platform c. 2.00m above the high watermark upon a spit that, prior to sea-level change afforded its inhabitants direct access to the Indian Ocean upon its northern edge and a protection from a creek to the south. The date range for the occupation of the site is believed to be 1200 to 1800ce (ARDA 1958; Kwekason 2002). Its eventual demise and the subsequent domination of Bagamoyo has been attributed to the lowering of sea-level, the development of mangrove swamps around the settlement spit and the siltation of the southern creek (Pollard 2007). However, wider political implications are also considered by Chami et al. (2004) to have resulted in the dominance of Bagamoyo over Kaole, the main catalyst being the combination of Omani relocation to Zanzibar and the arrival of the dominant Shomvi clan in Bagamoyo. Subsequently, by trading predominantly with Bagamoyo’s more open harbour, Zanzibar effectively drew control away from Kaole’s struggling port. This development of more open marine roadsteads is paralleled further south at Kilwa Kivinje, where prior to European involvement from 1886, the dominant port was transferred from the well-known



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island of Kilwa Kisiwani to the mainland coast. Like Bagamoyo, Kilwa Kivinje played an important role in the southern caravan route to the interior and was therefore significant in the wider region. The town is fronted by a sandy, gradually sloping seabed that (like Bagamoyo) prevented European vessels from landing directly adjacent to the settlement, lacking as they did the ability to safely ground at low tide. Subsequently the Africa Pilot of 1865 and 1878 describes the landing as shallow and bad except at high water and advises sites for anchorage for European vessels 2.41km offshore (de Horsey 1865; 1878). Historically, the movement in focus from Kilwa Kisiwani to Kilwa Kivinje was, again like Bagamoyo, attributed to the influence of Zanzibar’s economic and political control when in 1843 the Sultan abolished the authority of Kilwa Kisiwani and established a Liwali (governor) and garrison at Kilwa Kivinje (Bowen 1984). Although oral tradition supports the claim of the existence of a settlement on the site of present-day Kilwa Kivinje prior to the establishment of the Sultan’s Liwali, no written description exists. However, Burton offers some indication of the nature of the harbour in 1857: On February 20 we proceeded to inspect the ruins of ancient Kilwa Kisimá-ni. A fine crisp breeze carried us out of the fetid harbour [of Kilwa Kivinje], through the floating carcases, and the larger craft that lay about a mile and a half from the land. (Burton 1872: 356)

In this description we’re offered an indication of one of the defining features of this type of mainland coastal harbour. Larger vessels are bound by environmental morphology to remain within open offshore roadsteads and subsequently dependent upon lighter traffic to transport goods to and from the waterfront. In turn such smaller vessels require less heavy infrastructure in order to carry out this porterage and consequently environmental and material impact upon the coast is minimal. The archaeological evidence from the Kilwa coast pertaining to the pre-European development of Kilwa

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Kivinje supports the historical narrative of it being largely contiguous with the demise of Kilwa Kisiwani, and having a distinct artefactual development within the coastal region (Pollard 2007; Rhodes 2010). The chronology begins with the ceramic Narosura tradition at Kilwa Kisiwani, dating from c. 1000bce to 300ce. These are followed by examples of worked quartz and Triangular Incised Wares, dating from approximately the sixth to eighth century. Finally, excavations at the waterfront of Kilwa Kivinje uncovered layers containing carinated arch-designed ceramic sherds demonstrating the continuation of an East African ceramic tradition; in the case of carinated wares, as far back as the sixteenth century, and in the case of the arched decorative motif, a tradition redolent of other nineteenth-century East African settlements, at Mombasa, Zanzibar and Bagamoyo (Kirkman 1974; Chami et al. 2004; Croucher 2006). Unlike Bagamoyo and Kilwa Kivinje, Dar es Salaam harbour is formed by a break in the coral reefs leading to an inner estuary accessed by passing between two promontories and was described in 1916 as ‘torturous’ (Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division 1916). The embayment is formed by a large estuary with two distinct systems – one to the north and one to the south. The location of today’s city is the result of direct planning by Sultan Seyyid Majid in 1862, largely as an attempt to counter the English attempts to deconstruct East Africa’s slave trade (Sutton 1970). By at least 1867, what was described as ‘a new palace’ was built on the site, and a grid system of allotments was laid out ready for the construction of the settlement. It was intended that Dar es Salaam was to supersede Kilwa Kivinje as the main caravan entrepôt from the interior and thereby directly benefit the Sultan by added proximity to Zanzibar. Archaeological surveys within the wider landscape offer evidence of former coastal settlements, specifically Mzizima, on the southern harbour promontory. Evidence for this was in the form of an unspecified number of graves believed to date from the



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eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries on the northern site, and a fourteenth or fifteenth-century pillar tomb and finds of thirteenth to fourteenth-century burnished red-ware ceramic in the south (ARDA 1958; Chittick 1970). This represents a fundamental change in the location of the settlement’s maritime perspective from an open roadstead to an estuarine harbour and the creation of planned waterfront facilities. Remnants of this re-organization remain in the form of the ‘Old Boma’ (for a description of the use and form of Bomas see Chapter 4), the ‘Sayyid Barghash’ building on the corner of Mkwepu Street and a single commercial building to the south of the current City Hall. As well as these, there is also likely to have been other structures now destroyed, one of which is believed to have been adjacent to the Old Boma and functioned as the ‘Official Hotel’ c. 1869 and the residence of the Wali in the 1880s (Casson 1970). Following this initial flush of construction and the death of Sayyid Majid, the development of Dar es Salaam was subsequently neglected by his heir and brother Sayyid Bargesh. The result being that by the end of 1873 Dar es Salaam was in a considerable state of disrepair: The Sultan’s residence is built at the inland extremity of the basin, and from it a line of stone houses should form a crescent facing the anchorage, with a broad road and flights of steps communicating with the sandy beach … But time, neglect, and weather are rapidly destroying the steps, terraces and wells; only two of the houses are habitable, and the others have stopped short at the first storey; a low thatched barn does duty for the Custom House in the broad overgrown field which marks the site allotted by Sayyid Majid for the erection of a more pretentious structure; the boldly designed main streets are choked up with rank, grasses and brushwood; the houses for the most part deserted and locked up, or giving way to decay, except at one enterprising corner, where a few Indians industriously strive to revive a falling trade with the interior. (Elton 1879, reprinted in Sutton 1970: 205)

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Following the establishment of the German East Africa Company station upon this same waterfront in 1887, the suppression of the so-called ‘Arab Revolt’ (see Chapter 2), and the establishment of German colonial administration in the 1890s, Dar es Salaam was subject to further large-scale waterfront development. At that time the point of administrative focus shifted from the western end of the waterfront (which was to be dedicated to the harbour and commercial facilities) to the eastern and the construction of the German Government Offices. This second phase of physical re-organization is discussed in Chapter 4. By sea, Zanzibar’s Stone Town is approached from the west through a system of fringing reefs. Access to the port is gained via a number of marine passes that exist between this complex system of reefs. The town’s pre-European harbour was made up of two distinct areas. Upon the north-western edge of the promontory upon which the town sits was a sandy shore suitable for dhow traffic and lighter porterage, and to the north of this within what was a creek sat a natural harbour. Indeed, Richard Burton was suitably struck by its utility upon his visit in 1856: There is a front harbour and a back bay. The latter enables ship’s cargo to avoid the heavy swell of the N.E. monsoon. The two are separated by Ras Changáni – Sandy Point. The name, corrupted to Shangany, has attached itself in our charts to the whole city … . Within the line of break-waters is the anchorage, which may be pronounced excellent; ships ride close to shore in 7 to 8 fathoms [12.8 to 14.6m], and the area between the islets and the island may be set down at 3.8 square miles [6km²]. (Burton 1872: 66)

The town that developed upon Cape Shangani, now known as Stone Town, began as a small indigenous fishing village (Sheriff 1987) with the earliest-known archaeological evidence, in the form of ceramic artefacts excavated from the Gereza (Old Fort), dating from between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries (Horton and Clark 1985). By the mid-nineteenth century it had evolved into a sizable town separable



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into four distinct zones (mitaa). The first was the largely Omanidominated stone-built waterfront upon the north-west shore, the second being the wattle and daub settlement situated upon the northern peninsula adjacent to The Creek, and the remaining two being similar indigenous settlements to the east and the south of Stone Town (Burton 1872). The dominant commercial and administrative quarter was Stone Town which was described upon approach by Burton in 1872 as dominated by the ‘artless fort’ and ‘contemptible battery’, which was flanked by the ‘Imam’s palace’, ‘various Consulates’ and ‘the large parallelogram buildings of the great’. All of which served to mask any approaching vessel’s view of the ‘dingy matted hovels of the inner town’. Earlier still, the Stone Town waterfront façade of 1846 consisted in entirety of, from east to west: the Palace of the Son of the Sultan, two buildings owned by the Sultan the use of which is unspecified, the Palace of the Sultan, the former Palace of the Sultan, in front of which sat an open garden and tower, the Gereza, fronted by a 20-piece battery, the British Consulate and the American Consulate. At this time however, Zanzibar’s waterfront did not possess either quay wall or breakwater, resulting in occasional flooding, compounded by the landscape’s seaward slope. As a result it was deemed necessary, Burton later records, for protective piles and rubble to be placed upon the foreshore in front of the British Consulate. The harbour at Chole is situated upon the western shore of Chole Island in Chole Bay, 1km south-east of Mafia Island. Similar to both Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar (albeit on a much smaller scale), this nineteenth-century settlement developed out of the relocation of people from previously active coastal settlements, as part of the process of urbanization and possessed a specifically designed waterfront façade. The bay is protected from the open ocean upon its eastern side by the island of Juani which sits upon the same coral reef as Chole (at low water the reef between Juani and Chole is completely dry). The northern marine pass to Chole was described in 1889 as

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‘so choked with rocks, and the tide runs with such extreme velocity through it, that unless well buoyed it would be unsafe for a vessel to use it’ (de Horsey 1889: 316) and the southern pass was deemed unfit in 1878 for vessels with a draught of greater than 3.5m (de Horsey 1878). We know from an account given by Krapf (1860) following a visit in 1850 that the island was regarded as an important centre in the trade of cowry shells. This commodity was purchased by merchants from Zanzibar and re-sold to Europeans for transportation to West Africa where they formed part of the traditional exchange currency. Prior to this, before c. 1820, the predominant settlements of the Mafia island group had been Kua and Kisimani Mafia (Revington 1936). However, according to local tradition, attacks by the WaEsclavi from Madagascar led to the relocation of Omani trade to Chole (Saadi 1941). Of three mosques upon Chole the earliest is reported to date from the eighteenth century and at least two Muslim burials upon the island are dated to 1777 and 1785 respectively (ARDA 1958). The earliest description of Chole waterfront dates from 1896, following the German occupation, but nonetheless gives an indication of the early morphology and its development: On the North side, there is a thick cluster of huts, near to the Customs house, a fine building, in which lives a solitary European official, the only officer there, who leads a lonely and unenviable existence. In the town there are mud huts, with an occasional stone building … . The Arab Akida … has made wide streets set at right angles, on which the tropical sun beats mercilessly, parallel to which are the dingy clay stalls, otherwise so picturesque. The depressive atmosphere is increased by the Banana trees, planted at regular intervals by the reformer’s orders … . Particularly pretty are those partly preserved mosques with their wells, … There are also pyramid-shaped graves, shaded by Banyan trees. (Baumann 1896: 21)

At Tanga the large industrial harbour and railway upon the town’s immediate foreshore on the southern edge of Tanga Bay has drastically



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altered the natural waterfront, and created a large debris field filled with rusting steel hulks and the accoutrements of Europeanized industrial transportation. Likewise, German colonial redevelopment of the town upon the edge of the high coastal cliff (following the town’s bombardment on 8 September 1888 during the Arab Revolt) relocated the indigenous population from the waterfront inland to Ngamiani (the Place of Camels), and completely redesigned the space previously occupied by a mixed population into a predominantly immigrant merchant and government zone. Pre-colonial Tanga was first visited by Krapf in 1844 and his description suggests that, although sizably populated, the town was not substantially stone built. A description by Burton in 1857 likewise suggests a pre-stonebuilt settlement, but nonetheless one of considerable size: Tanga, like all settlements in this part of the coast, is a patch of thatched, pent-shaped huts, built in a straggling grove of cocoas and calabashes. It numbers between 4000 and 5000 souls; 20 Banyans and a garrison of 15 Baloch, with the customary Jemadar. (Burton 1858: 198)

Interestingly, like Bagamoyo, evidence suggests that two earlier stone-built settlements existed nearby prior to Tanga’s dominance. The first, Tongoni, 20km to the south upon the coast at Mtangata Bay and with an account given by Vasco da Gama dates to at least the end of the fifteenth century (Freeman-Grenville 1962). This appears to have been a sizable settlement containing the largest collection of Shirazi tombs (over 40) now known in East Africa, with an associated settlement now enveloped by bush. The second of these earlier settlements is situated upon Toten Island within Tanga Bay. Upon this small coral outcrop are the remains of two mosques, believed to date from the late seventeenth to the eighteenth century, with associated graves dating up to and including the early nineteenth century (ARDA 1958). Ceramic sherds collected from the island have

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been dated to the fifteenth century as well as a number of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain pieces from the sixteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Industrial development and war in Tanga has removed all trace of the town’s pre-colonial waterfront, and taking into account this wider coastal context it would certainly seem that the trend was one of re-focusing during the late pre-European phase, and intensification of activity away from the geographically smaller Tongoni Bay and the island settlement on Toten to the southern arc of Tanga Bay. Had Tongoni, at the time of Burton’s and Krapf ’s visits, been of the size recorded by Vasco da Gama and suggested by the high number of burials visible today, it would have been likely that the explorers would have also recorded it. As they did not, it’s possible to assume that by the mid-nineteenth century Tanga had overtaken Tongoni as the regionally dominant port. Pangani harbour is situated just inside the mouth of the Pangani River where it enters Pangani Bay. A large sand bar lies just off the Pangani River mouth within the bay and in 1916 the harbour was described as ‘dangerous to approach’, with only vessels up to 3.5m draught being able to cross the bar and those in excess of this having to anchor up to 6.4km out to sea (Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division 1916). Burton described the harbour and its approach in 1857: Pangani, ‘in the hole,’ and its neighbour, Kumba, hug the left or northern bank of the river; the position is a strip of flat shore, bounded by the sea and a hill range 10 or 11 miles [16 or 17km] distant. Opposite are Bweni and Mzimo Mpia, small villages built under high cliffs of yellow sandstone, precipitous, and impenetrably covered with wild trees. The river which separates these rival couples of settlements may be here 200 yards broad; the channel at the mouth is from 7 to 8 feet deep; none therefore but country craft, as some of our enterprising compatriots have discovered to their cost, can enter it … Small vessels lie snugly in the river opposite the town. (Burton 1858: 202)



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It is possible that the current site of the settlement of Pangani was pre-dated by an earlier one situated c. 2.6km to the north upon the ocean coast. This suggestion is based upon the discovery of over 500 ceramic sherds on the site of Muhembo, including sgraffiato earthenware, Chinese stoneware, celadon and local wares which Gramley (1977) likened to those found at Kilwa Kisiwani. In all, the finds from the site were dated as early as the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries. As described by Burton, the waterfront at Pangani prior to 1886 was separated, as is the town today, into two zones by the Pangani River. Today the dominant waterfront is that of the northern bank, where the administrative, trade and larger of the two settlement centres reside. However, the southern bank still contains a number of private residences, and may well have been at one time the more dominant of the two as in 1850 Krapf found himself meeting the ‘governor’ of Buyeni (Burton’s Bweni) to the south of the river, with no mention of the north. Of the existing waterfront, both north and south of the river, the only surviving building which pre-dates the German period appears to be that which was latterly used as the TANU (now Chama cha Mapinduzi or CCM political party) district office, and dates from sometime around 1850. Typical of the so-called ‘Arab Style’ housing of the nineteenth-century Western Indian Ocean (examples of which can be seen at Zanzibar, Lamu and Mombasa) the rooms within the building are positioned lining the outer wall creating a central courtyard. Internally it’s also possible to discern a number of wall niches, also redolent of this type of Omani-influenced residential building. Of the two settlements either side of the river only the northern settlement appears to have had a specifically designed waterfront façade. The southern settlement possessed a structural focus concentrated inward away from the maritime environment and no two-storey structures, like that of the north bank, associated with this period of maritime trade and activity. Again, suggesting the dominance of the northern settlement.

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Management and trade centres By far the most overt physical representation of mercantile activities within nineteenth-century East Africa are those structures which were subsequently to be known as Bomas (European centres of management), caravanserai (staging and trading posts for the inland caravan traffic), forts (centres of military authority and accommodation), and Customs Houses (centres of distribution and control of imported and exported materials) (Figure 5). Not all of these methods of commercial organization are represented in every town, or in every period. But, in all circumstances some form of building exists, or existed, with the sole aim of organizing and controlling the material commodities which passed through the harbours and waterfront settlements in question. Richard Burton offers a vivid description of such a centre in Zanzibar’s Stone Town in 1857 (Figure 6): In the Furzani quarter, eastward of and close to the salt bazaar, stands the Custom House. This is an Arab bourse, where millions of dollars annually change hands under the foulest of sheds, a long, low mat-roof, supported by two dozen rough tree-stems. From the sea it is conspicuous as the centre of circulation, the heart from and to which twin streams of blacks are ever ebbing and flowing, whilst the beach and the waters opposite it are crowded with shore-boats, big and small. Inland, it is backed by sacks and bales, baskets and packages, hillocks of hides, old ship’s-tanks, piles of valuable woods, heaps of ivories, and a heterogeneous mass of waifs and strays; there is also a rude lock-up, for ware-housing the more valuable goods. A small adjacent square shows an unfinished and dilapidated row of arches, the fragments of a new Custom House. It was begun 26 or 27 years ago (1857), but Jayaram, the benevolent and superstitious Hindu who farmed the customs it is said for $150,000 per annum, had waxed fat under the matting, and was not sure that he would thrive as much within stone and lime. (Burton 1872: 93)



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Figure 5  Early colonial intervention adopted existing symbols of authority and trade such as at: a) Bagamoyo Caravanserai (1870); and b) Pangani Boma (1810). Later the Europeans began to construct their own centres of commerce and management but adopted styles believed to be reminiscent of the cultures they controlled, such as: c) the Post Office and Customs House at Pangani (1916).

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Figure 6  Zanzibar waterfront in 1857 by R. F. Burton (1872) Zanzibar: City, Island, and Coast.

Burton’s description of Zanzibar’s customs area describes the busy activities of a functional space designed to facilitate the exchange of goods between both the terrestrial and marine environment and as a trans-shipment point between vessels. To date, no physical standing remains for pre-colonial customs facilities have been identified. It seems likely, however, that the area Burton refers to as ‘Furzani’ is the area today known as Forodhani, and the customs area largely consisted of the space between the Geraza and the intertidal zone, and spread north-east in front of the palaces and consulates. This area was by the mid-nineteenth century to be the location of a large stone Customs House, which in turn was superseded by the development of the deep-water harbour to the north. However, even during its role as the established customs zone, this northern side of Shangani Point was part of a more seasonal cycle of indigenous harbour and foreshore usage:



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Zanzibar has thus … two harbours, the one being safe to shipping during the north-east monsoon, and the other during the south-west monsoon. The two harbours are separated by the heel or angle [of the peninsula] … but both are filled with native craft during the respective seasons. (Christie 1875, in Gilbert 2004: 29)

Moving further away from the waterfront, but still ideologically associated with commerce and the exchange of materials in an East African context, we encounter in a number of early towns the caravanserai. Caravanserai in the wider Arab world can be described as depots, trading places and lodgings for those involved in the caravan traffic. Bagamoyo’s caravanserai (located on the inland western boundary of the town some 400m from the Boma), is a typically large single-storey rectangular structure made of coral block and lime mortar, forming a large open courtyard with a single gated entrance. Excavation carried out in 2001 by Chami et al. (2004: 61) concluded that the caravanserai had undergone five major phases of activity, beginning with its construction in 1870 and its use throughout the ‘heyday’ of Bagamoyo’s role as an East African slave entrepôt. Its second phase of use from 1880 to 1891 was characterized in the excavation by the arrival of ‘Deutch Oest Africa’ coinage and refurbishment of the building. The final two phases from 1905 to 1950, and 1950 to the present day, seem to have been a period of low economic activity, although this is the phase in which the central courtyard building was constructed, suggesting at least some utilitarian activity (possibly a short-lived resurgence of its original function as storage and accommodation, associated with World War I and II). The central political material focus at Pangani was a private residence which was to later become the German Boma. It was situated in an open garden to the west of the main town centre. It is a two-storey building and square in plan with an east-facing frontal façade, calumnated upon its front and its northern and southern

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sides supporting a second-storey balcony. The building is thought to have been constructed in 1810 by Mohamed Salim Breki, originally with a flat roof that was later crenulated and gabled in the 1880s under German rule. It is unknown as to what extent the building was modified during German occupation, however, in plan you can begin to see the possible central open yard surrounded by smaller rooms on the outer walls and characteristic of the traditional Omani house. It is also of note that the Boma is located, not in a central position within the town, but separate and within a complex of later European buildings, as well as within an open designed garden space. This is representative of the manner in which the early phase of colonialism sought to acculturate elite spaces (i.e. merchant houses), as a means of infiltrating the mercantile systems as a precursor for out and out control later in the century.

Markets A simple definition of a market is the regular gathering of individuals in a pre-designated space, at neither the place of manufacture or production of the goods for sale. This distinction is made here in order to separate the market from other areas in towns used for the sale of either artisan skills and associated products, or permanent shops. Standardization of such market places occurred under the colonial regimes throughout nineteenth-century Africa. For this reason a description of the market places in pre-colonial centres is difficult, as either the indigenous infrastructure has been replaced, or the location of the physical traces of such activity is problematic due to the lack of necessity for physical structures, i.e. a market is a social and economic agreement to gather and in essence requires nothing more than space. However, a number of examples exist, all of which are located at some distance from both the administrative and



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harbour zones. For instance, it would seem from a description given by Burton from a visit in 1857 that although Tanga acted as the main port to the area the market was some 8km to the north at Amboni: The people of Tanga hold at Amboni, every 5 days, a ‘Golio’ or market with the savage of the interior. On the 29th January I went in an Arab dress to inspect the scene. Having followed the coast for two miles [3.2km], we crossed some muddy creeks, waded over an inlet, and forded the small stream Utofu. Another mile brought us to the river Mvoni, here called Zigi – two names in 3 miles [4.8km], after a truly African fashion! … Crossing by a ferry, and passing through coco plantations, we ascended a steep hill and found the market ‘warm’ as orientals say, upon its seaward slope. All Tanga was here. The wild people, Washenzi, Wasumbara, Wadigo and Wasegeju. (Burton 1858: 199)

Archaeological survey along the foreshore area between Tanga and Amboni revealed surprisingly little material when one considers the size of the market described by Burton. Features included two pottery scatters and midden deposits, the latter containing glass stamped with a maker’s mark from Dar es Salaam, placing it well after the establishment of Dar es Salaam as a manufacturing and trade centre, and the former having no marks or distinguishing features to allow for provenance. However, the route used from Tanga to Amboni has today been redeveloped to accommodate a two-lane tarmac highway, and consequently a lack of earlier historical material is not an unexpected phenomenon. Amboni is also within an area of later intensive colonial plantation activity, as well as a more recent recipient of villagization and industrialization under the newly independent United Republic of Tanzania’s post-colonial political regime. It’s therefore been subject to intense physical disturbance resulting in a paucity of pre-colonial material. By contrast, Zanzibar with its developed urban environment possessed, by the mid-1800s, a number of specialist markets catering

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for various needs. The town boasted five markets, each developing a role as supplier of specific commodities. One at the landward side of the Fort supplied salt; the Suk Muhogo to the south of the city supplied, amongst other things, bread, grain, vegetables, cloth and cotton; beside this sat the Fish Market; the Suk Melindi in the east of the town was home to the butchers; finally, after a number of changes in location (from firstly near the western point of the Shangani Quarter, to an out of town location at a plantation called Kirungani [Burton 1872: 351]), the slave market was located by 1856 at the eastern border of Stone Town by what is now Creek Road in Kibokoni. It’s important, in relation to the markets described here at Amboni and Zanzibar, to note the relative differences in their form and role. Zanzibar markets at this time possessed a specificity based upon commodity and by association related to the distribution of the merchants themselves within the townscape. By contrast the market at Amboni, although specific to time and place, fulfilled the role of supply hub between town and hinterland. In the way that Zanzibar’s markets included internal as well as external exchange, one would assume that Tanga town possessed some form of internal exchange network that filled the gap created by a five-day market cycle and eight-kilometre journey to Amboni. The instances described above, therefore, describe markets specific to activities within formal space. They do not account for informal daily exchanges and its associated social divisions. Such divisions manifested themselves in the economic and racial development of the merchant class, as well as gender-based labour division within kinship units. Put simply, exchange networks existed outside the market place (e.g. daily catches of fish landed upon the town’s foreshore were, as today, no doubt sold upon the foreshore). It was this realization that led the later European colonial authorities to exert effort in imposing upon indigenous people the type of formalized economic legislation and spatial delineation described in Chapter 4.



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Residential areas As we have seen from descriptions by both Burton (1858, 1872) and Krapf (1860) in relation to Zanzibar and Tanga, as well as physical remains of early standing buildings, there existed in the nineteenth century in East Africa two distinct methods of construction (a phenomenon which persists today). One being the utilization of coral-rag and lime mortar and the other being the older tradition of wattle and daub (makuti). It is largely held within East African archaeology and history that the construction of stone (that is to say, coral-rag) buildings is closely linked with the creation of status, elite groups and patrician identities within the Swahili world (Horton and Middleton 2001; LaViolette and Fleisher 2005; Pollard 2007; Wynne-Jones 2005). Expressing and perpetuating a differentiation between the upper and lower class through the distinction of material manipulation; stone construction being upper and wattle and daub lower. By far the largest body of work regarding the Swahili coast has concentrated upon the excavation of stone-built structures. This is, for obvious reasons, the result of the relative ease of identification and longevity of stone over that of wattle and daub, which appears rarely in the archaeological record. Those wattle and daub structures that have been identified have largely been the result of excavation at the aforementioned stone-built sites and are therefore identified in association with them. But nonetheless, it may be possible to infer areas of indigenous nineteenth-century residential activity outside colonial stone-built towns through the identification of other materials. For example, at Pangani, pottery scatters located at various locations, associated with shell middens and worked stone deposits, suggest some form of activity but without further defining typologies of undecorated ceramic based on excavation, any conclusion remains speculative. Likewise at Tanga, archaeological survey has uncovered two areas of activity to the north and south. Both are located in the

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intertidal zone and are made up of pottery scatters and shell middens. Again, it’s unknown if these findings represent sites of independent habitation, but they do nonetheless represent a definite geographical distinction in the nineteenth-century distribution of domestic ceramic material when compared to the urban-centric distribution of imported wares. The paucity of evidence for pre-colonial residential activity within the geography of the urban environments that sprang up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is in itself a result of development and the lack of investigation into pre-stone built activities in towns and cities. The absence of planning controls and archaeological investigation ahead of development in places both large, like Dar es Salaam and small like Pangani, have historically denied the possibility of truly developing a clear view of urban displacement. What is clear from historical accounts and the archaeology of these urban centres is that their success as established centres of commerce was in the most part the reason for Europe’s intervention. It’s the form that this intervention takes that is the focus of the following chapter.

4

The Colonial Urban System

The early nineteenth century was a time when European-led colonial activity in the Western Indian Ocean was developing from an enterprise driven by chartered companies and individual adventurism, to one dictated by European national economic policies. All of this process was part of accelerating global capitalism. As part of this the Western Indian Ocean began to develop specific urban material forms in accordance with the implementation of colonial policies. The result, by the end of the nineteenth century, was the creation of central and peripheral coastal zones within a system of newly defined colonial ‘properties’ stretching from Africa’s north-eastern Red Sea coast to its south-eastern Indian Ocean littoral. This material change was manifest in the waterfront zones of the European-controlled harbour towns and, in many, changed little through the twentieth century.

Waterfronts The year 1888 saw the ratification of a treaty between Sultan Khalifa bin Said of Zanzibar and the German East Africa Company (Deutsch Oest-Africa Gesellschaft or DOAG) that awarded the Company administrative duties over the Sultan’s mainland dominions. Shortly after this Pangani gained its first DOAG representative, Emil von Zelewski. On 18 August of the same year, a small force of German soldiers reportedly bullied the local Omani Arab governor Abdulgawi

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bin Abdallah into turning over the Sultan’s flag to them and hoisted it above the Company station house. By doing so they symbolically wrested control of Pangani for Germany in the name of the Sultan. This was also symbolic of the material transformation of Pangani from this period onwards, where an early system of colonial acquisition was later replaced by one of material creation and infrastructure development designed to increase the mercantile production for the benefit of European trade. Although the town Pangani is separated into two areas by the river that runs through the settlement, the administrative and commercial centre resides upon the northern bank. This northern waterfront has been the historical focus of development throughout Pangani’s colonial and post-colonial period and is indicative of this changing system of colonial control and infrastructure. Of 13 pre-modern structures upon the waterfront only two are believed to pre-date the colonial period and ten to date from after 1888. If this is widened to include those buildings within the town used during the colonial period for management purposes the total number of pre-colonial structures is seven out of 21, with two major earlier elite structures (the Boma and Said Hemed’s House) adopted and redesigned to conform to a colonial aesthetic. The natural waterfront at Pangani was consolidated between 1895 and 1898 with the construction of a sea wall that runs east to west on both the northern and southern side of the river. Upon the north side of the river sit two piers and a slipway. The northern pier was constructed to serve the Residence of the District Commissioner and the residential houses to the west of the town, and the southern pier to service the German Post office and Customs House. This northern waterfront also shows evidence of not only utilitarian engineering but of what might, in a European context, be called ‘gentrification’. The waterfront was planted during the colonial period with a line of decorative trees, not only to visually alter the appearance of this



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waterfront zone in line with more European tastes (as can also be seen at Tanga and Chole), but also as an effective set of barriers preventing the utilization of the waterfront outside those points officially sanctioned for loading and unloading, i.e. the piers and access points at the Customs Building and Boma. It was a technique that utilized European boulevard architecture; an urban motif that we’ll see repeated throughout Africa to physically corral people in such a way as to allow for the management of large numbers of indigenous individuals by a small number of Europeans. At Pangani, a railway line once ran at the eastern end of the town from the waterfront to the coconut plantations at the north of the town. Remnants also suggest that a railway ran from the southern side of the river south in the direction of Saadani, connecting two trade centres and the termini of the nineteenth-century central caravan route. This is significant as an example of the redesign of existing indigenous trade activity by the European colonial management. Formerly, the dominant modes of transport had consisted of northsouth, shore-parallel maritime transport and east-west terrestrial caravan transport. However, the developing colonial infrastructure reorganized these traditional modes to include shore-parallel roads and rail routes, thereby, attempting to further control trade networks with the introduction of European-designed and controlled technologies. The most distinctive European building upon Pangani’s waterfront is the German colonial Post Office and Customs House (a function it still fulfils today), constructed in 1916. This coral and lime mortar building can be separated into two sections, the front southern two-storey elevation and the rear northern single-storey warehouse. The southern elevation has a single wide double door within a central pointed arch, flanked by two two-storey wings designed to resemble towers or bastions. The two elements of the building represent dual functions, with the frontal two-storey section housing offices for

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management purposes and the large rear open single storey space for storage. In order to access this storage or work space individuals were required to pass through either the front or the rear main doors and subsequently through the colonial office space, again reinforcing the control of people and goods by the minority European management. The design of the frontal façade of the building is even reminiscent of Kitchener’s Gate (1886) at Suakin in Sudan (Rhodes 2011) (see front cover image). It is interesting to note the shared European mindset which equates Africa with medieval romanticism and the way the architects have attempted to empower European authority in a foreign land by controlling what is envisioned as a traditional non-European aesthetic. Just as mapping the continent played an enormous role in this empowerment of Europeans, the action of mimesis within architectural design was also a key element in aiding the European to conceive of the nature of the environment they attempted to control. Along this waterfront at Pangani nothing more remains of the pre-1960s townscape. However, adjacent to today’s ferry point stand two memorials worthy of note (Figure 7). One is an obelisk constructed to commemorate Tanzania Independence in 1961 and the other is a large block of whitewashed coral with a plaque – reading ‘GR July 23rd 1916’ – commemorating the British Occupation during World War I. Locals attest to this being a replacement for a previous monument erected in 1890 celebrating the establishment of German East Africa. True or not, these monuments are understandably located at a point of greatest prominence on the town’s main thoroughfare and are representations of one political regime’s replacement of another, designed as they are to reinforce within the minds of Pangani society either the knowledge of external authority (nineteenth-century German colonialism and twentieth-century British colonialism), or national independence (the new Tanganyikan government of 1961).



The Colonial Urban System

a)

b)

Figure 7  Generations of abstract memorialization at Pangani: a) commemorates British occupation during World War I and replaced an 1890 monument to German East Africa; b) celebrates Tanzania’s independence in 1961 and has been adorned with a more recent election campaign poster.

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Following the 1888–9 armed resistance (the so-called Arab Revolt) on the Tanzanian coast and the establishment of colonial administration by the German Government, Bagamoyo was abandoned as the capital of German East Africa in favour of Dar es Salaam 70km to the south. This, like Kilwa Kivinje, meant that much of the archaeological material available for discussion was deposited over a short period of time and at an early stage of state-led colonialism, prior to the development of larger industrial colonial centres and capitals such as Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Therefore, spatially Bagamoyo’s urban landscape has a great deal in common with Kilwa Kivinje. They both have a characteristic triangular street design with the mercantile and administrative zones dominating the waterfront. Within this design the indigenous commercial and residential zones were located inland toward the apex of the triangle, which also acted as the main route to and from the hinterland. To the north of the Customs House at the opposite side of what became known as Customs Road stand a group of concrete footings. Upon these sit vertical iron pillars, the remains of a timber structure that has in various local publications been referred to as either the German Store House, or the Usagara House and is believed to have been first erected in 1888. This structure pre-dates the Customs House and represents the earliest phase of German construction upon the foreshore and an early attempt to dominate the Bagamoyo waterfront. It demonstrates the development of German construction techniques in East Africa and displays an early reliance upon timber-framed buildings which soon developed into an adoption of the indigenous technique of coral construction (as demonstrated in the Customs House constructed six years later). Like Tanga, Bagamoyo also possessed a hospital positioned upon the town’s waterfront. It was originally constructed by the Indian Merchant Sewa Haji in 1870. A key feature of the colonial urban landscapes, Bagamoyo’s waterfront demonstrated a material association between the centralization of governmental



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authority and the accessibility of medical facilities. The construction of hospitals (specifically for the use of white Europeans and later the middle class Indian civil service) created a direct physical linkage between healthcare and elite status; a link strengthened by the association between elite waterfront zones and colonial control within nineteenth- and early twentieth-century coastal towns. Hospitals were almost without exception located upon the waterfront façade, firstly in line with the European belief in the health benefits of an ocean breeze and sea air, but importantly in direct association with the colonial regime and its waterfront domination. Where this wasn’t the case, i.e. at Pangani, then the simple proximity of the medical facility to the Boma, within the European governmental zone, accomplished the same symbolic association, thus, maintaining within the colonial landscape a basic social inequality based upon physical wellbeing and health. Not directly associated with the legislative management of colonial Bagamoyo, but still intrinsically part of the colonial process both here and within the wider Western Indian Ocean, was the Catholic Mission to the north-west of town. French Missionaries of the Holy Ghost Fathers first arrived in Bagamoyo in 1868 with the intention of establishing a mission station and by 1872 had established a freedslave settlement of up to 50 houses containing some 300 individuals. By 1879 it was recorded that the: Freedom-village comprises at the amount 60 houses [sic], all constructed on the same model … and the villagers earn their living as farmers, gardeners, carpenters, cabinet-makers, tailors, bricklayers and even printers … [The village] has its own burgomaster, elected by the people; and the missionary, on principle, interferes as little as possible in its internal affairs. (Stanley 1880: 50)

In relation to the town’s waterfront, the mission is of note due to its possession of a formal landing place marked by a standing cross

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first erected in 1868. This cross also marked the seaward end of a linear tree-lined processual avenue leading from the landing place to the Mission grounds. It not only formally separated the Mission’s access to the maritime world from the town’s landing place, but also removed the mission from the colonial management centre, while at the same time removing it from the indigenous waterfront by creating clear delineated space. The mission’s landing place and approach stood as a symbol of the mission itself. It is neither part of the colonial government’s central authority or the indigenous community, but instead part of the wider colonial phenomenon and its non-indigenous material otherness. By creating a tree-lined boulevard the mission created a processual way that informed an individual that they were entering a geographical area under different control from the surrounding lands. Further strengthened by the construction of a boundary fence around the mission; physically and symbolically removing people from a heathen environment into a zone of salvation within a microcosmic Christianized Africa. The dominant commercial waterfront at Zanzibar during the nineteenth century was the northern zone of Shangani Point. As with much of Zanzibar’s Stone Town a large part of this waterfront façade has survived to the present, and like Dar es Salaam and Tanga a clear urban zonation developed in the later nineteenth century, separating European authority from indigenous activity and the central mercantile area. However, unlike Tanga and Dar es Salaam this did not develop at the urban periphery, but within the confines of an already densely occupied town, resulting in the adoption and utilization of already existing buildings. The zones can be separated into: port structures, colonial occupied buildings and palaces and areas associated with the Sultanate. Contemporary Stone Town boasts a large open space at Forodhani Gardens directly in front of Beit-al-Ajaib and the Old Fort. This area has in the past been home to a Defensive Battery, a Lighthouse, a



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Customs Quay and a Railway Depot. This evolution of Forodhani Gardens is important in that it represents a microcosm of the overall colonial process within Zanzibar Stone Town. It has developed over time from a mercantile zone to a defensive zone, and finally, to a gentrified aesthetic space representing the Westernization of the town and its control by Western elites. This is a process indicative of the colonial experience, the key stages being acquisition, consolidation and domination; acquisition of economic control, the consolidation of this control through military force and finally, the economic and political domination of society through the imposition of Western traditions of spatial management. By about 1890, Zanzibar’s foreshore had changed from an open space of exchange to a closed and delineated Customs House adjacent to the O’Swald Merchant House and the British Consulate. It was a low single-storey building stretching parallel to the shore for a considerable distance with a seaward elevation consisting of approximately 21 arches supported by pillars. Baumann’s map from 1895 also demonstrates the European dominance of this area which was by this time occupied by Smith McKenzie and Co., agents of the British India Steam Company, the Deutsch East Africa Line, the National Bank of India and the English Club (Figure 8). The tip of Shangani Point was a largely European-dominated Consular zone and characterized by large three-storey buildings constructed either directly upon the foreshore or upon the seawall that ran from the tip of Shangani Point in a south-easterly direction. The area included the second British Consulate, a Telegraph Office, the Austro-Hungarian Consulate and a French Hospital and Mission. The movement of the British Consulate from a position upon the foreshore with direct access to the sea to one upon a raised seawall without direct access is indicative of the changing role of the British authorities between 1846 and 1895. As British authority increased it became important for the Consulate to be in a position from which

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Figure 8  Map of Zanzibar Stone Town from O. Baumann (1895) Die Insel Zanzibar. By this period Zanzibar’s waterfront at Shangani Point had become a cluster of European merchant stores and consulates.

it could physically monitor the mercantile activity first-hand. This was a result of the strengthening of the European-led bureaucratic organization of Zanzibar at this time, itself a result of the importation of an Indian management class and individually patronized Arab merchants (including the Sultan). The north-eastern section of Zanzibar’s waterfront was dominated by large monumental buildings designed for use by the Sultan, his family and retinue. During the nineteenth century, Sultans Said (1804–56), Majid (1856–70) and Barghash (1870–88)



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built seven major palaces including: Marhubi, Mtoni, Chukwani, Beit-al-Ras, Beit-al-Ajaib, Beit-al-Sahil and the Beit-al-Hukm. These buildings functioned as not only residences, but were also used for leisure and business negotiations. The Beit al-Sahil (Figure 9) maintained its early form with small rectangular windows designed to maintain internal temperature and privacy but the Beit-al-Hukm developed from just such a design into an elaborate balconied and decorated expression of pomp designed to function as part of a European military tradition (e.g. the Friday review of the troops) (Figure 10). The ultimate conclusion of this change being the construction in 1883 of the Beit-al-Ajaib or House of Wonders (Figure 11). This type of monumental expression was not the only manifestation of Zanzibar’s historic elite reacting to new global intrusions. According to Myers (1995: 41) Sultan Barghash (1870–88) differed

Figure 9  Beit-al-Sahil in 1896, a building in stark contrast to the later Beit-al-Hukm in Figure 10. Although more modest in its external design its sheer size sends a clear message of the prosperity that lies inside (National Archives of Zanzibar).

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Figure 10  Beit-al-Hukm in 1896 during full military display at the Friday review of the troops (National Archives of Zanzibar).

from his predecessors in his internal management of Zanzibar through  the creation of a system of local government (previously internal management had been organized within local mtaa). Barghash also established a public works department and a programme of civic improvement including the introduction of street lighting, street cleaning and the inauguration of a public water supply. It was, however, his construction of public buildings and outward expressions of ‘modernism’ (e.g. Beit-al-Ajaib) that were to set him apart from previous Sultans. This was less an expression of a new public awareness and more a reaction to European economic and political pressure. By altering the infrastructure of Stone Town in order to accommodate the expectations or demands of Europeans the Sultan was ensuring the ongoing involvement of Western merchants and specifically the British Government.



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Figure 11  Beit-al-Ajaib (House of Wonders) under repair in 2006. Built in 1883, with its clock tower and steel balconies it was the ultimate demonstration of the Sultan’s assimilation into the European colonial management system of Zanzibar.

This increase in the architectural use of stone, external balconies and frontal verandas raises another interesting issue in the interaction of social participants and control groups on Zanzibar in the nineteenth century. A survey as part of the Stone Town Conservation and Planning Project carried out in 1992 placed the number of buildings within the Stone Town at 1,713 (1,435 of which were classified as residential or residential/commercial). The largest class – 35 per cent of the total buildings, was defined as veranda and balconied shop-fronts derived from Indian precedents and the second largest were ‘Arab models’ at 25 per cent (Siravo 1995: 134). This Indian influence is physically apparent at almost every strata of Zanzibar’s built environment. This propensity for balconies proliferated the monumental architecture in the second half of the

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nineteenth century, both in colonial buildings and elite Muslim buildings. Balconies were first introduced along with the British influence during the last quarter of the nineteenth century as a result of British control of Indian colonies and the importation of Gujarati merchants, and later civil servants. Along with these came traditional architectural styles such as the balcony and veranda. From a practical point of view, the balconies were designed to capture coastal breezes and offer cool spaces within buildings, but from a more sociological perspective they also offered places from which towns and waterfronts could be viewed, therefore, in both instances becoming tools of the colonial regime and indicative of European and Europeaninfluenced zones. The predominance of balconies upon buildings of status is therefore, also an indication of the role of families of Indian origin upon Zanzibar who by this time had become some of the most economically powerful groups (physically manifest in the example of the Old Dispensary constructed by Tharia Topan, himself a political and economic advisor to the Sultan). The economic and political importance of these powerful Indians is highlighted further in the British reaction to colonial management. Individuals from India were by colonial definition under British rule and therefore liable to all the economic authority of the British colonial government. This was not only as a means of controlling the most economically lucrative activities but also a tool to control the Sultan through the very individuals whom he adopted as advisors (e.g. Tharia Topan and the like). Dar es Salaam differs from other East African coastal towns because of its relatively late establishment by Sultan Seyyid Majid in 1862, in a previously unoccupied area. This meant that unlike densely occupied spaces such as Zanzibar or Mombasa, or even to a smaller extent Bagamoyo and Kilwa, the availability of space upon which to imprint the kind of colonial zoning as developed in these other areas through systems of both expansion and acquisition could, in Dar es Salaam, develop unhindered by population density or earlier building



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traditions. From 1874 to 1891 the number of structures on this waterfront more than doubled, from 11 to 27, with all the new buildings being constructed for European usage. This increase in European domination was directly related to the adoption of power by the German Government in 1891. In Dar es Salaam the 1888–9 Revolt had resulted in the destruction of the Berlin (Lutheran) Mission as well as the Benedictine Station at Pugu (Sutton 1970: 7); events which highlighted to the German domestic government the importance of a need for improved management in the region, resulting in legislative intervention. Of 27 waterfront structures in 1891, 14 were located upon the previously unpopulated eastern foreshore away from the original commercial and residential waterfront established by Sultan Majid. As well as all of these buildings being for European usage, at least nine were directly utilized for Government activities. Thus, at this time an east-west differentiation began to occur categorized by a separation of activities upon the waterfront, with the colonial administration established upon the east of the harbour. The west was, and continues to be, the commercial port and warehouse zone. This distinction was to become even more materially exaggerated with the construction of the Dar es Salaam Railway in 1905 and the subsequent industrialization of the port. This commodification of lands by the German colonial administration and its control of open space and parklands in the eastern zone is reminiscent of the gentrification of Tanga, Pangani and Chole, and their wide tree-lined streets. Furthermore, by containing all the port facilities to the west of the harbour, it’s also the force behind the morphological development of Dar es Salaam’s inner city urban zones. Subsequently, the main commercial zone grew to the north and north-west of the Old Port facilities (today Uhindini, also the dominant Indian residency zone) and the main European residency zone occupied the area directly to the north-west of Ras Chokir. Later changes included the industrial zones along Pugu Road south-west from the train station

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toward Chang’ombe and the easily recognizable formal grid layout (as at Tanga’s Ngamiani district), of the indigenous Kariakoo area to the west of Uhindini. Remnants of the Old Port facilities can still be seen today in a number of access steps from the upper terraces (upon which the sheds and warehouses would have been placed) to the lower beach terraces (upon which sat the lighterage wharfs and piers). A photograph from 1906 clearly shows the similarity between the port installations at Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo (Figure 12). Both appear to be multi-storey tower structures with a central singlestorey covered courtyard directly facing the harbour area. However, they’re both stylistically at odds with the more traditional Omani Arab buildings which surround them through the use of timber cross beams and pointed, almost conical roofs. A subsequent change in style occurred as the colonial town developed in an easterly direction, with the construction of the High Court and Government Offices on Azania Front. The more Europeanized balconies and verandas began to appear as features of the elite townscape. Interestingly Dar es Salaam’s colonial waterfront was also bounded on its north and south sides by space reserved for hospitals and cemeteries. The government Hospital is located 2km to the north of the town, and 250m to the south of the Customs House, Sewa Haji Hospital. As mentioned earlier, the placement of hospitals on the waterfront periphery of urban landscapes was a key feature of colonial planning, based on the European medical opinion of the day by which tropical diseases were either spread from Africans or brought on by foul air (‘miasma’), or by ‘emanation’ from the soil. This also resulted in the placement of cemeteries to outer locations and the separation of indigenous and non-indigenous housing. Following the treaty of 1890 between Germany, England and the Sultan of Zanzibar, Mafia (including Chole) was placed under the authority of Germany in exchange for Stephenstrasse on Lake Nyasa.



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Figure 12  Dar es Salaam waterfront c. 1906. The building to the left with the conical roof is the German Port Authority and the building in the centre with the flagpole is the Old Boma (Tanzania National Archive).

Chole was then the seat of government for the islands until 1912 at which time it was moved to the present site of Kilindini due to its deeper and more easily accessible harbour. A move reflective of the change from small-scale mercantile activities to trade in larger bulk commodities and the use of European deep draught vessels. A phenomenon also apparent at Bagamoyo and Kilwa Kivinje (as seen in their decline as European entrepôts in favour of Dar es Salaam), and the north-eastward movement of Zanzibar’s harbour to its current location. According to Baumann (1896) the street layout at Chole was instigated by the local Akida (the indigenous trade manager employed by the Germans), and was designed to conform to a right angle grid pattern. The town’s main street was situated upon the island’s north-western shore and ran in an east-west direction, parallel with the shore. The remains of this street are today flanked by a number of standing building remains, however, only those directly adjacent to it have survived with possible further remains having

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been either demolished for building material or engulfed by impenetrable tree coverage. At the northern side of this main street sits a low coral and lime mortar wall. This is less a sea wall and more a demarcation of town and foreshore. Unlike Kilwa Kivinje or Pangani (both of which have contemporary sea walls), Chole’s foreshore is located within a sheltered bay and not open to the full force of the Indian Ocean. The wall at Chole is therefore designed, not to protect against erosion, but designed to demarcate loading and unloading slipways in order that the colonial authorities could more easily monitor trade. Adjacent to one of these slipways are three artillery positions constructed contemporaneously with the town’s Boma around 1890 by the new German colonial management as a direct expression of military authority. Due to its size and vertical dominance of the skyline, the most prominent building upon the waterfront of Chole is the Boma. The remainder of this two-storey building is made up of a large open yard enclosed by a wall with two entrances. The Boma was used to house the management offices, military ordnance and trade items (the large open rear yard functioning as both a drill ground and storage area). The physical dominance of the building was designed to express the colonial domination of the surrounding area, most distinctly when approached by sea. In line with this outward expression, directly to the east of the Boma stands the former military barracks. In a report prepared by Baumann in 1896 it’s possible to get a sense of the colonial reliance on military authority and strict management structure, a necessity in view of the European minority: The soldiers of that place, who had been stationed there a long time, under a coloured Under Officer, resigned and created trouble. Thus the beginning of German rule in Chole has unfortunate recollections. After this Sudanese, a Hindu Customs clerk was sent to Chole, where he dealt leniently with the inhabitants, and one day absconded with the Customs cash. A second Hindu took his place, who was replaced



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in 1892 by a German officer named Vinstein … At present Chole is controlled by the Customs officer. (Baumann 1896: 4)

Archaeological evidence at Chole also demonstrates the continuation of Arab mercantile activity through the German colonial period. After the Boma, the only two-storey building on Chole was a large prestigious residence. Not only was it of an imposing size when compared to those other single-storey structures around it, but internally architectural features attest to the status of the occupant. Moulded decorative masonry identifiable within the interior rubble is a good example of a well-known decorative motif within the East African Islamic community of the nineteenth century. Moulding such as this originally held examples of imported porcelain, the display of which was designed to express wealth and prestige (a feature also used as part of the mortuary ritual on elite graves). This Arab tradition could also be seen as evidence of an economic equality within Chole’s nineteenth-century society. This building, representing as it does wealth and prestige (and along with the town’s mosque), suggests the existence of a socially and economically successful Islamic community co-existing with Christian colonial management authorities. Further evidence of the early phase of European colonial activity and the approach whereby positions of authority were developed through the utilization of more established trade networks (i.e. Arab); only later to be fully controlled through the development of new, larger European-designed ports and harbours (in the case of Chole, this being the move to the deep water harbour at Kilindini). Upon the northern side of Chole’s nineteenth-century main street stood a building, the ruins of which are known locally as the ‘Indian Temple’. The building further enhances our picture of the late nineteenth-century town as a racially inclusive society. If this building was used as an Indian (Hindu) temple then we see further

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religious acceptance (or tolerance) by the German authorities, as well as further physical expression of non-indigenous, non-European activity. As will be discussed later, the role of Indian traders and civil servants formed a large element of later colonial management, following the establishment of government centres such as Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. However, to be presented with such an expression of early (pre-1900) established Indian activity would suggest that a substantial group (the temple is a large permanent stone-built structure) from the Eastern Indian Ocean played a not inconsiderable role in the mercantile activities of nineteenth-century Chole and, by association, wider colonial East Africa. These were, significantly, activities that existed alongside those of Germans, Arabs and indigenous Africans, and so deepened the cultural hybridism of the region. Although a number of European travellers visited Kilwa Kivinje prior to the 1880s none give any great insight into the morphology of the town. Atkins Hamerton, the first British Consul at Zanzibar described it as ‘the chief depot on the coast, whence slaves from the interior were shipped overseas’; Krapf visited in 1850 and estimated that the inhabitants numbered some 12,000–15,000 and that ‘from ten to twelve thousand slaves are said to pass yearly through Kilwa on their way to the various ports of the Swahili coast and to Arabia’; and Bartle Frere in 1873 described it as ‘a very large town even more thriving than Zanzibar’ (Gray 1958: 177). Like Bagamoyo its change after 1888, prior to which it was the major southern port of German East Africa, was severely curtailed by the development of Dar es Salaam to the north and its eventual industrialized port. It did nonetheless maintain its status as the seat of the region’s colonial headquarters after 1922 and the adoption of British Rule, until 1956 when this was transferred south to Kilwa Mosoko. Again, like Bagamoyo and Chole, this change was for reasons of harbour suitability in relation to non-indigenous vessels. Kilwa Kivinje was not



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suitable for deep draught European vessels used in the development of bulk exchange and by relocating the trade centre to a geographically more European suitable location, regional control could be maintained. According to Bowen (1984: 10) the waterfront at Kilwa Kivinje during the period of German rule consisted of a number of buildings constructed by the German authorities between 1900 and 1910. These included a Boma Complex (of which only one ancillary building survives), a hospital complex, postal building, barracks, two large houses, the Central Market, the Fish Market and a clock tower. During this time a large quay and sea-wall was also constructed much of which can still be seen. Bowen (1984) offers some indication of the morphology of the extant Boma. It was apparently a large three-storey building with four corner bastions. It survived until the late 1940s, but with the management move to Kilwa Mosoko the Boma, hospital complex and decorative clock tower were dismantled and re-used in the construction of the new town. The Customs House at Kilwa Kivinje is very similar in design to that of Bagamoyo. Both consist of two, two-storey wings flanking a large ground floor single-storey warehouse. Both possess a frontal colonnade facing the ocean and a slipway and both house secondstorey offices with sloping corrugated iron roofs. Access to both the central ground-floor warehouse and offices is from the main northern façade only. The major differences between these two buildings being stylistic differences between the pillars and arches of the flanking wings. At Bagamoyo the Custom complex has a stylized Moorish or Saracenic arch design (Figure 13) and at Kilwa Kivinje the building has plain concrete pillars. The pair’s physical similarity would suggest the use of the same building plans, in the same way that the overall town layout (a triangular street plan) of both conforms to the same physical principles. This is indicative of the use of pre-designed, non-location specific town planning throughout Africa. The urban management strategy of nineteenth-century German colonialism

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was based heavily upon this uniformity, in order that the same set of management structures could be used throughout the colony regardless of indigenous peoples and settlements. This allowed for the movement of European staff from trade centre to trade centre without the necessity of local knowledge or understanding, and in this way made it possible for a minority of Europeans to control the wider population. As European governments became more entrenched in the management of African towns and cities through the twentieth century such universal applications and limited understanding of urban populations was to further marginalize social and economic groups and lead to a legacy of poorly designed urban Master Plans; more of which will be discussed in Chapter 5. To the east of the remains of Kilwa Kivinje’s Boma complex sat the Fish Market. The Fish Market was intentionally separated from the main body of the town into such a place as to make it both more accessible by those landing the fish directly upon the foreshore and as a means of maintaining the principles of the cordon sanitaire and demonstrating an example of the formalization of indigenous activities by the colonial elite. As discussed earlier, indigenous trade did not utilize the same type of permanent structure desired by colonial authorities, even though a number of written accounts attest to market activity within nineteenth-century East Africa (e.g. Burton’s description of markets at Amboni and Zanzibar [Burton 1858, 1872]). Local markets did not require infrastructure but were based upon a social agreement to gather for the purpose of exchange. However, if trade was to be closely monitored and controlled by colonial authorities strict delineation of space was necessary. At Chole this took the form of a simple enclosed space where goods in and goods out could be easily dictated, but later developed into more elaborate and strictly legislated designs for trade centres. The colonial restructuring of Kilwa Kivinje and Kilwa Mosoko did not, however, result in the dominance of Kilwa Mosoko’s harbour and Kilwa Kivinje



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Figure 13  The control of trade items was the single most important focus of the colonial enterprise. Whether this was the control of international trade seen here in drawings a) and b) showing the design of Bagamoyo Customs Complex (1888) or at a much smaller scale as demonstrated by the simple design of Chole Market (1890) Plan and Elevation of Kilwa Customs House and Chole Market. Both are designed to impound and delineate areas of control.

remains today the more active dhow harbour. This demonstrates how even though larger industrialized ports such as Dar es Salaam were to eventually dominate international trade, smaller more localized commercial enterprises continued to use the older less Europeanized

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harbours. This process was recognized in a survey carried out by the Captain of HMS Cairo in 1924, who concluded that ‘if all the goods shipped were carried in steam vessels there is no question as to the superiority of Kilwa Kisiwani [the new Kilwa Mosoko harbour] over Kilwa Kivinje. But Kilwa Kisiwani is by no means easily entered or left by sailing craft with contrary winds; and so long as the majority of trade is carried on by means of dhows it is considered Kilwa Kivinje is a more suitable port … From a purely naval point of view Kilwa Kisiwani is the only one of the two harbours worth consideration and it is considered it would make a very satisfactory base for naval purposes’ (Captain, HMS Cairo 1924). The subsequent transfer of the district headquarters to Kilwa Mosoko in 1956 is an example of the morphology of later Europeandesigned ‘townships’ under the British Protectorate. As discussed earlier, waterfronts became the dominant European domains and occupied a position of authority between the major transport nodes and the densely occupied indigenous zones. The design of Kilwa Mosoko’s township goes so far as to include a ‘Neutral Zone’ guaranteeing a separation of European elite residences (with specifically allocated recreation space) from indigenous life-ways and activities. European plots also measure approximately 4,046.9m², while indigenous residences are allocated only 290m² (Figure 14). This town plan encapsulates the trend in colonial planning at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. It is strictly orientated in a grid design centred upon the commercial market and gives clear preference to the European elite by not only allocating larger more spacious house plots (including partitioned recreation space), but also places these plots upon the waterfront where they can benefit from the cooler ocean breezes. This form of physical urban control is central to the colonial process in Africa. Towns were designed to specifically segregate Europeans from Africans and give Europeans authoritarian advantages through the



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location of their offices and residences, both in terms of comfort and physical domination of points of international exchange (i.e. harbours and ports). Towns were designed in order that trade items had to pass by areas of European authority before they could transfer either inward into Africa or outward to the international market. The indigenous zone (or ‘Native House Plots’) centred upon the market, thereby placing the community focus upon economic exchange as dictated by Western ideologies of capitalism. This is indicative of the colonial process as being based solely upon economic activity, further expressed in the design of a European sports ground and the lack of recreation space designed for indigenous peoples. This demonstrates a European mindset that viewed indigenous peoples as economically utilitarian. In essence, the designers of such urban spaces used Africans to form the market structure, both literally and figuratively. A type of inorganic development that was specifically designed to service the colonial process through social and economic control.

Management and trade centres Methods of commercial organization existed within all of the Europeanoccupied towns during the colonial period in Africa. These often took the form of specific spaces designed to accommodate the exchange of material objects or developed through more socially organic processes, e.g. informal foreshore markets or street trading. Regardless of whether they were by design or social agreement, such spaces became more materially formalized through the increasing colonial reorganization and Westernization of social space as the nineteenth century progressed. Both formal and informal systems contributed to the development of specific geographical areas within the urban landscape. The organization and management of the mode of subsistence exchange in Africa was a key process of control within colonial activity of the

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Figure 14  This British design for Kilwa Mosoko (which became the regional capital following the British takeover of Kilwa District) demonstrates nicely the central concerns of the colonial urban designer. Note the placement of the European housing along the route way between port and market, the positioning of these houses along the coastal plateau and the concentration of the smaller indigenous housing centred on the market. In this way Europeans could monitor the movement of goods inland and at sea, avail themselves of the coastal breezes and control indigenous exchange systems.



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later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of course, formalized systems of exchange existed within pre-colonial Africa and possessed specific temporal and spatial frameworks. However, archaeological and historical research has generally concentrated upon the exchange of non-subsistence materials. For example in north-eastern Tanzania, the British mariners Smee and Hardy reported that in 1811 the ‘Uzigua supplied livestock, ivory, and slaves to the Swahili ports of Pangani, Kipumbwe, and Sadani in return for cloth, beads, copper wire, and iron goods. Indeed, trade was so conspicuous in Uzigua, where, as in Usambara, social solidarity [was] created through exchange, that the Europeans who developed notions of Tanganyikan “tribes” and “tribal” proclivities would speak of an inherent Zigua propensity for commerce’ (Giblin 1992: 22). Here Giblin gives an excellent example of how the European focus on commerce served to shape the colonial attitude and understanding of African society. According to local historical tradition collected by Feierman (2002: 13) in his study of the Shambaa peoples (of the West Usambara in north-eastern Tanzania) markets have indeed existed ‘since the beginning of time’ (i.e. as long as oral tradition or shared cultural tradition has maintained), but existed within specific geographical zones. The large nineteenth-century market at Makuyuni was located between the two ecological zones of Shambaai and Nyika (the mountains and the plains), between the Shambaa and the Zingula. Furthermore, the organizing of pre-colonial markets also conformed to local belief systems as well as geography. For example, on the coast, market days tended to be calculated using the Muslim week whereas in Shambaai, markets repeated themselves every fifth day. The placement of markets at the intersection of two ecological zones is well emphasized in coastal urban centres. At a macro scale the coastal littoral represents the interface between terrestrial and maritime environments as well as the African domestic and international global capitalist environments. At a micro urban scale during the colonial period this form of organic placement became corrupted by European

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re-development which established markets within the very centres of the urban landscapes. By contrast to indigenous social organization this kind of re-organization was part of a wider system of centralization based on a Western urban model of medieval town development. This model was further enhanced by the introduction of tax-systems. By 1922 the British Government had introduced 36 new taxes into their East African colonies which altered indigenous exchange dynamics and introduced greater emphasis upon surplus production. Urban re-modelling and legislation thus reduced the number of points of exchange and centralized those which remained while at the same time increasing the need for surplus production. In this way it became physically easier for fewer management representatives to control the greater number of individuals and the materials they exchanged. This form of centralization also relates to the growth of the African wage labour class during the colonial period and the development of capitalist monoculture plantation economies. The spatial centralization of the market and its physical construction within colonial Africa is therefore symbolic of the economic central­ization of the new European capitalist economy and the resultant re-negotiations of socio-political relationships. Market spaces became the physical embodiment of nineteenth-century systems of economic control. A form of control, in this instance, of the individual and their material exchange, but in the wider colonial world a form of control of large-scale exchange and extraction for the benefit of Europeans. Just as the global-colonial capitalist system functioned on a mixed network of core nation-states and peripheral colonial-empires, so did nineteenth-century Africa, with a system of core market towns and peripheral geographies of production/extraction (hinterland and inland zones). The contemporary impact of this being what Shaw (1975) called the ‘inheritance of extroversion’. Meaning that in many places Africa has an economic tradition oriented toward external exchange within the contemporary world system; a direct legacy of the continent’s nineteenth-century role



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as an exporter of raw materials and market place for manufactured goods; a role within the global system that inevitably led to a deficit of response to domestic needs and global marginalization (as is demonstrated through the experience of poverty of many Africans today), and perpetuated by what Dussel (1995) labelled the ‘Eurocentric myth of modernity’. This capitalist advance on Africa included not only individuals from the West, but also merchants from India. As discussed in earlier chapters, contact between the east and west Indian Ocean dates significantly before the nineteenth century, and by the time German and British colonialists arrived in Tanzania it had long been a business tactic of the Sultanate of Zanzibar to contract Indian merchants to undertake administrative duties in his mainland dominions. Indian merchants who were then acting as a mid-level managerial class between elite capitalist and African producers (i.e. bourgeoisie) and as a result, during the second half of the nineteenth century in East Africa, much of the international commercial activity involved immigrants from the Indian sub-continent. The largest concentration in 1873–4 being in Zanzibar (314), with one Indian resident recorded in Tanga, 22 in Bagamoyo, 15 in Dar es Salaam, four in Kilwa and three in Chole (Prideaux 1874: 94). Burton (1872) writes of an Indian managing the Customs House at Bagamoyo and according to Brown (1970), Indian Muslims (mostly Bohora, Ithnasheri and Ismaili) probably began to arrive as permanent residents on the East African coast as early as the 1840s. Similarly, on visiting Dar es Salaam in 1873 (in order to report to all British subjects the outlawing of slave ownership) Frederic Elton notes the mix of Indian residents: Here I was received with every attention and civility by the Sultan’s Akhida, Rashk Allah, and as soon as possible convened a meeting of all Indians under British jurisdiction …, which was attended by fifteen Banyans, three Bhoras and three Khojas, in all twenty-one people; one Bhora being reported absent in Zanzibar. (Elton 1879, 72–6)

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This presence was represented in the urban landscape through the construction of ‘balcony houses’ (Figure 15). Such architecture was already an established urban form throughout Muslim India by the 1880s, notably in western India in towns such as Bukanir, Jodhpur, Lashkar (Gwalior) and Ajmir and typically owned by the mercantile middle class (Sabini 1993). These architecturally distinctive houses developed as mixed-use residencies and commercial buildings because the Western Indian region, like that of pre-colonial East Africa, lacked the tradition of purpose-built market structures. As a result a number of universally shared characteristics are identifiable in the building morphology of both Gujarati and some colonial African town houses. The otlo or front verandah, was the semi-private space facing the street and defined by the columns supporting the second-storey balcony. The khadki, or business-room, was the part of the interior shop-front open to customers. In the centre of the house an open courtyard or chowk separated the servant space (including the kitchen and water storage) from the private residential areas. Externally though, it was the wide and continuous balcony that characterized such buildings and Indian districts. Carved brackets and ornamental balustrade with screened windows reminiscent of the North-African roshan often supported the balconies and have become part of the iconic heritage of many places in Africa. However, during colonial rule attitudes toward Indian merchants seem to have varied between European nations. For example, Gustav Meinecke’s description of the Indian street in Pangani was representative of German ambivalence towards the economic, social and material impact of the Indian population in the region: In general they [the Indians] belong to the poorest classes and are only the deputies of wealthy Indians in Zanzibar and Bombay. But an apparent affluence is visible, as the home of a successful Indian shows, which in contrast to Arab houses has a veranda on the exterior. (Meinecke 1897: 432)



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a)

b)

Figure 15  Drawing of a typical East African ‘Indian Balcony House’. This example from Mombasa was constructed in the late 1800s and has the distinctive design of shop and residence with an ornately carved timber balcony.

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By contrast the later British authorities seem to have encouraged the establishment of distinct ‘Indian’ or ‘Asian’ districts. Like the earlier Arab merchants the Indian immigrants quickly established themselves as the merchant middle-class within the British colonial capitalist system with close internal community and social relations creating specific occupation centres. Geographically distinct zones were created within the wider urban landscapes and still retain predominantly Indian communities today, with the name India Street common in the urban centres of almost all colonial towns. These streets were invariably located between the elite European waterfront and the wider indigenous communities. For example, at Tanga, India Street runs in an east-west direction through the commercial centre of town and occupies a location equidistant between the railway station and the port. All goods must pass this street moving to and from the harbour and of the 11 historic buildings on India Street, eight still exhibit details of Indian-influenced architectural motifs. The most common feature being second-storey balconies with carved timber balustrades and panelling or lattice-work overlooking the main street, under which sit calumnated ground-floor shop fronts. In Dar es Salaam, the Indian quarter has developed into the densely populated Uhindini district directly to the west of the old waterfront. Although completely rebuilt from the 1930s onward, the building morphologies have maintained familiar façades, with shop fronts at ground level and residential apartments above. Many of the buildings have inscriptions upon their main elevations attesting to the date of construction and the individuals or groups responsible. In this way it’s possible to see represented within the district different religious denominations such as Shia, Ismaili, Ithnasheri and Bohora. Also within this district there is a dense proliferation of mosques (with Mosque Street running at a right angle off India Street), with many of the joint commercial and residential buildings also having small internal shrines. Although no building examples survive from



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the nineteenth century the continuity of occupation by families of Indian heritage within this district is indicative of the historically significant economic and social role of Indian immigrants in Dar es Salaam and wider East Africa. As merchants they were economically tied to the activities of the East African colonial authorities and as British subjects in India were viewed by the British as a desirable import into East Africa, having already experienced British rule. As such they developed an especially strong relationship with the later British colonial government in Kenya and the British Tanganyikan Protectorate as merchants dealing between two British colonies and as an English-educated East African civil service.

Bomas The Boma was the nineteenth-century European managerial centre from which commercial, legislative and political activities of the towns and wider districts were organized (Figure 16). From a purely utilitarian perspective, Bomas were office space from which the colonial management operated, thus containing employees, written records and communication to and from Europe and the wider colony. From a more ontological point of view they were physical representations of European law and authority, as this description from 1903 attests: The road led to a place called Arusha, and as we approached it we came to our astonishment in sight of a truly marvellous building, erected in European Style and surrounded by a moat … The boma was a one-storey building of stone and mortar, with a huge tower in the centre, and the whole glistened bright in the sunlight, like an Aladdin’s Palace transported from some fairy-land and dropped down in the heart of the tropics. Emblazoned on the front of the tower were the Royal Arms of Germany, which could be seen nearly a mile off

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a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

Figure 16  As the central colonial administrative buildings Bomas not only provided office space for the Europeans but they also provided a tangible reminder of European dominance over the indigenous population, with the size and design of such structures being in direct contrast to the minority European staff based within them. Drawing a) shows Chole Boma (1890), b) and c) Bagamoyo German Boma (1897) (for a time the capital administrative building of German East Africa) and d) and e) the physical condition of the majority of these historically significant buildings today, in this case Chole Boma and the ancillary buildings of Kilwa Kivinje Boma (c. 1905).



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… The station was walled off and, being furnished with a Maxim and machine gun, made a formidable stronghold. (John Boyes, in Anderson and Rathbone 2000: 113)

The Boma at Bagamoyo was a similarly imposing creation. Constructed by the German Administration in 1897 on a site that, although some way from the port (0.5km) and not directly upon the waterfront, commanded views of the harbour area, the remains of which are reminiscent of the Administration Offices at Tanga (also constructed away from the waterfront, but in such a location as to enable a view of the harbour). The building is rectangular in plan with three wings constructed around an open courtyard. This grand two-storey building with its three-storey flanking towers lost its symmetry during the British Protectorate (1919–61) with the addition of two smaller exterior two-storey wings and a staircase. The construction of such a building at Bagamoyo, Kilwa Kivinje, Tanga and Chole by the German authorities demonstrated an intention, through the investment of creating management infrastructure, of a prolonged involvement in the town. The occupation of Bagamoyo by the Germans was the direct result of the trade in ivory, animal hides and skins, ambergris, copra, hardwoods, ebony, mangrove etc., which was being transported from this harbour by the coastal peoples and traders from Zanzibar. It was Germany’s aim therefore, to control the point of export and only later, once fully committed to the colonial system in Tanzania, did the shortcomings of Bagamoyo become evident (i.e. the unsuitability of the open harbour as European shipping became larger and more industrialized). Thus development moved to Tanga and Dar es Salaam with their more suitable harbours, while at the same time the social dialogue between indigenous and non-indigenous moved from one of control reliant on physical domination (e.g. Bomas and town design) and became, through the development of wage labour, one of social control based upon economic power. With this development to capitalist

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relationships, the old Arab and Indian mercantile elites became a new African bourgeoisie. However, in so doing the system of indigenous African economic and social disenfranchisement was perpetuated and strengthened. Bomas within the East African context therefore represent the inception of this management strategy and the introduction of direct European government-controlled capitalism into the continent. But as with so much of the activity described in this study, the Boma is a further example of the adoption of already established models of capitalist control. As the German colonial commentator Gustav Meinecke explained in his 1897 description of the early years of German settlement in Dar es Salaam: ‘one had to rely on the Arab model proven by hundreds of years [of use], in order to accomplish something dignified’ (Meinecke 1897, trans. Osayimwese 2008: 66). The German building plan in East Africa differed in this way from that of the later British in its use of hybrid forms of Arab architecture. By contrast (and as we shall see in the following chapter) later colonial building programmes tended to emphasize the predominantly European and strived to dominate the earlier Arab traditions and the indigenous vernacular styles.

Residential areas Urban landscape development under both the German and British colonial regimes in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century transformed urban spaces from small commercial centres dominated by a palimpsest of a minority of stone-built merchant houses and wattle and daub structures, into stone-built townscapes laid out in strict forms. The basis of these urban designs was the control and separation of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. For example, at Pangani a strictly European zone was clearly distinguishable upon the western extent of the town, and was defined by the style adopted



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in the construction of European residences. This zone was fronted by the Boma and located behind the residence of the Bezirksamtmann or District Officer. These early twentieth-century houses are still present today and have verandas upon one or two sides and face south-east over the river and ferry crossing. All three are raised upon foundation plinths with stairs leading up to the verandas. Although these three buildings were constructed to house the British colonial management after 1919, it is interesting to note the change through time in the use of two- or more storey dwellings in comparison to that of singlestorey. Traditional stone-built Swahili-Arab houses have in the past been viewed as metaphors of, and influences upon social interaction and conduct within, Swahili society (Donley 1982, 1987; Fleisher and LaViolette 2007) (Figure 17). People considered to be of lower standing in society lived downstairs and those of a higher status lived upstairs. This often manifested itself in the use of ground floors as storage areas or as rented accommodation. This is a trend which seems to have been largely continued through the European colonial period of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, partly as a result of the exploitation on the part of the Europeans of previously occupied Arab elite buildings. However, as the twentieth century continued managerial/elite European accommodation became predominantly single-storey bungalows in accordance with the European urban trend for increased personal space. Another aspect of traditional Swahili-Arab house morphology is the inclusion of the ndani. This was the innermost ‘sacred’ room within a house and was symbolically raised above the internal level of the surrounding rooms. By replacing the notions of ‘sacred’ with ‘private’ in the context of the later colonial buildings it’s possible to reinterpret the role of these European residential structures. Although the buildings were less dominant within the landscape than those obvious metaphors of authority (for example the Boma), they were without exception both physically removed from the town’s geographical and social centre

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Figure 17  Remnants of a typical East African ‘Swahili-Arab’ house. This example from Pangani was constructed in the mid-1800s and has the distinctive internal courtyard and low veranda at ground level.

and raised above the surrounding landscape. Subsequently, any group or individual approaching these houses would be required to remove themselves from the main body of the town and its population and be subject to a degree of enforced subservience in addressing those upon the raised foundation. This not only emphasizes social elitism but also maintains an established pre-colonial tradition of sacred (or special) space through a Westernized medium. At Tanga much of this kind of change occurred in the more recent past under the British protectorate (post-1919) with the spread of elite European zones to the east and west of the town’s core, radiating out along the available coast from the town’s political, economic and welfare utilities. These areas are characterized by their single-storey tiled roof and stone-built cottages set within bounded gardens. By contrast, the blocks of houses designed by Europeans in order to



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house Africans occupy a densely packed inland area constructed in a tight street grid, with the added derision of the name Ngamiani (place of the camels) being given to this indigenous housing development. This trend in high-density indigenous housing is also evident in the earlier township design for Kilwa Mosoko and (as discussed earlier), all based upon predesigned township blueprints which disregarded any thoughts of indigenous social space or existing social geographies. Such a lack of colonial understanding of existing social space and the European desire to simplify or eradicate the organic development or design of such spaces has had a profound impact on our perceptions of African urban heritage and its conservation; a topic that will be discussed more fully in Chapter 5.

Transportation Large-scale transportation in nineteenth-century Africa took two forms – terrestrial and marine. The traditional historical model is one of single long-distance terrestrial caravans travelling enormous distances from the coast to the interior and back again, from whence the goods are separated and distributed globally via a worldwide maritime network. It was this very system, which the European capitalist governments began to dominate at the end of the nineteenth century through the introduction of previously unavailable technologies (Figure 18). This is not to say that these new systems replaced more traditional small-scale modes of communication and transport, but that by dominating bulk transportation along what were previously traditional routes, intangible systems of social interaction that previously underpinned material exchange were replaced by issues of cost-effectiveness and Western-centric ideas of value. In this way, through the development of railways, Europeans took control and commodified existing trade routes. Caravan trade required navigable

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Figure 18  Control and an increase in terrestrial trade were necessary for colonial management to feed the European market. This was achieved by the imposition of European-controlled technology over traditional lines of trade and communication. In this example, the mechanization of caravan routes.

routes through the landscape and it was these routes that were first of interest to Europeans because they supplied the trade items desired by the Western markets. Eventual European control of these became a necessary step in the development of the capitalist system in Africa because they represented the means of production (i.e. the supply of raw material), and new African markets. This process first



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took the form of economic engagement with already established caravan traders and then developed into total European control through the introduction and enforcement of legislation governing the organization of long-distance trade activity. Finally, the absolute phase of control was the centralization of the coastal port system and arrogation of the actual means of transportation through the introduction of railways. This resulted in a rail system geographically superimposed upon the older caravan routes, and the construction of a series of unconnected lines ran from the coast into the interior. The creation of colonial railways was based upon a desire for greater commercial productivity in terms of African export to Europe. The Usumbara Railway was constructed in 1891 along the route of the northern caravan trail, eventually running from Tanga to Moshi. It was intended as a means of accessing the areas inland from the coast designated for inclusion in the German Government’s policy for plantation agriculture, a policy mirroring that of Sultan Sayyid Said of Zanzibar (along with other Omani merchants, he had established plantations on Zanzibar and within his mainland dominions as an alternate ‘legitimate trade’ in response to the British opposition to the slave trade). As well as facilitating this European aim, the construction of such railway links created a new means of social communication between the coast and the interior and further altered the urban environment into which Africans and materials from the interior were now travelling at greatly increased rates. In the case of Tanga the railway physically and socially dissected the town, effectively separating it into European and indigenous zones, between Tanga’s historical commercial centre and Ngamiani. A number of small-gauge urban railways were also key to the European urban model in Africa. With Tanga having 7.49km of line for the use of passengers and goods constructed in 1907 by the Westdeutsche Handels und Plantagen Gesellschaft (West German Trade and Plantations Company). It serviced the government in

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town, with lines running between the port authority, railway and east to the hospital. Cargo included small-scale items in use by the public works, health and railway departments and the movement of Europeans to and from the town’s district and port offices, residences, hospitals and schools. Even as late as 1922 the line was in operation running members of the British colonial staff to and from the town’s offices and port as part of their daily management routine. Indigenous Africans powered the trolleys which were designed to service the European colonial elite and their physical geographical zones within Tanga. Other small-gauge urban lines existed in Pangani and Zanzibar (constructed in 1905–6). But unusually, following its construction by an American merchant company and its subsequent sale to the Zanzibar government, the Bububu line serviced the indigenous population and ran an average of 1,300 passengers daily into the heart of urban Stone Town until its decommissioning in 1928 (Sheriff 1991). The railway at Dar es Salaam was Germany’s last major infrastructural development programme in Africa before World War I. The line was completed in 1914, running from Dar es Salaam through Tabora to Kigoma half way up Lake Tanganyika for a distance of 1,252km (Metcalfe 1916). The southernmost spur of this inner-city section of the line ran parallel with the foreshore to what was the colonial harbour front and became the British Government’s lighterage wharf. It was this relationship with the port that was to ensure the ongoing survival of the line. Indeed, the controlling organization was to become the joint Tanganyika Ports and Railways Authority under British rule. The symbiotic relationship between port and railway was further strengthened in the 1920s with the construction of a spur line off the Central Railway from Tabora northward to Lake Victoria Nyanza, thus effectively increasing the port’s hinterland and increasing the traffic through it. The role of Dar es Salaam in the development of international trade was, however, in no way guaranteed following Britain’s adoption of a Mandate over Tanganyika in 1919. This meant



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that Dar es Salaam was no longer a principal colonial port as it had been under German control following World War I, but now had to compete with Britain’s East Africa colonial entrepôt of Mombasa. As with the railway system of East Africa, route-ways leading from the coastal towns were closely tied to the caravan routes of the pre-colonial period. The conveyance of wheeled traffic upon these roads was a very minor part of the early colonial system. For example, in Kenya by 1908 there were only 821km of motorable earthen roads and these were primarily feeders for the rail system and predominantly in the European settled areas (Soja 1968). The relative lack of coast-parallel roads was also testament to the dominance of maritime traffic during the colonial period and the technical difficulties of maintaining roads within the East African environment. Whilst the monsoon powers maritime traffic, it inhibits terrestrial transport by seasonally altering watercourses and washing away landscapes. As well as this environmental factor, prior to the extension of the British East Africa protectorate when ports within German and British East Africa were in direct competition, the desirability of cross-border terrestrial activity was limited. As a result of this it was not until 1925 that Tanga and Mombasa were connected by what was even then described as only a fair-weather motor road. Further south archaeological investigation by Pollard (2007) uncovered the remnants of what’s believed to be a coastal road constructed by the German authorities connecting Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam. And similarly Kilwa Kivinje had a nineteenth-century coastal road with two bridges, one north and one south of the town and constructed roughly contemporaneously with the town’s sea-wall c. 1900. However, according to the 1925 Annual District Report: ‘during the War practically every part of the district could be reached by motor road. Owing to the want of funds [under the British Protectorate] these roads have not been kept up.’ Further testament to the development and dominance of the large industrialized centres of Tanga and Dar es Salaam.

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Defence The geographical position of nineteenth-century colonial towns influenced the form and nature of the defences considered necessary by the authorities. Fortifications were reactions to, and therefore remain as expressions of, largely specific episodes of indigenous opposition. On a basic level all coastal towns possessed natural defensible seafronts. This is most obvious on islands such as Zanzibar and Chole, where the maritime environment created a natural barrier (augmented at Zanzibar where Stone Town was also physically separated from the larger rural part of the island by The Creek). At Tanga and Dar es Salaam the coastal defensibility was augmented by high coralline-cliffs and limited points of access to the upper landward platforms. However, at Bagamoyo a series of defences were constructed during the 1888–9 uprising under Major Hermann von Wissmann. The remnants of this system can be seen in the form of a solitary single-storey hexagonal Blockhouse positioned at the crossroads of the town’s western approach and apex of the town’s landward boundary (Figure 19). As it was constructed to counter a specific aggressive action and not part of an overall colonial policy of landward defence, it suggests that such trenchant defence was either not previously needed in view of the success of ideological control exerted over the indigenous peoples through economic and political activities, or that relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples were in fact one of mutual assent as long as traditional trade relations remained the dominant modes of contact. Aggressive opposition occurred most prominently as a direct result of the European increase in methods of material trade and extraction and the subsequent move to the Europeanization of trade from the late 1800s onwards (i.e. the 1888–9 revolt and the 1905–6 Maji Maji uprising). Bagamoyo’s Blockhouse can therefore be



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a)

b)

c)

Figure 19  Colonial fortifications took two forms, either as redesigns of existing elite structures, as at Bagamoyo Fort (1860); seen here in drawings a) and b). Or as reactions to specific episodes of aggressive opposition such as Bagamoyo Blockhouse, drawing c); which was built in response to the 1888–9 uprising in German East Africa.

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read as an expression of economic control in that it was positioned in such a way as to command dominance, in lieu of a gateway, of the town’s major road to and from the hinterland along which all traffic to the harbour and caravanserai had to pass. Like all effective colonial gateways it was there to ideologically dominate trade-traffic by symbolically marking the interior and exterior of the Europeancontrolled town. Colonial towns also invariably possessed artillery placements of cannon and mortar in and around either the central colonial management buildings or forts. Often with the weapons trained on the towns themselves, again strengthening the sense of authority and zoning with these centralized buildings following the European tradition of medieval castle keeps; safe havens in times of threat and symbolic of a strength and authority over the surrounding population during peace. Good examples of long-term fortification can be seen in the forts of Zanzibar and Bagamoyo. Zanzibar’s Gereza or Old Fort is located to the north-east of Shangani Point overlooking Zanzibar’s Old Harbour area (Figure 20). It was originally directly upon the foreshore, but this was subsequently remodelled with the construction of waterfront sea defences, extending the area to the size of what is today Forodhani gardens, and which previously held the customs yard and associated railway. Following the removal of the customs facilities to the new port this site became the home of heavy artillery positions thus, at least symbolically, claiming the area back as a military zone. The fort itself was constructed around 1710, during Zanzibar’s early Omani occupation upon the site of an older Portuguese church. This construction can be seen in the surviving fabric of the building, with the fort’s opposing corner towers having been built c. 1750 and a gatehouse added in 1832 when it was used as a Barracks for Said bin Sultan’s troops (Horton 1985: 171). More recently the Fort’s entrance block was reconstructed in 1946 (following its



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Figure 20  The north-east bastion of the fort in Zanzibar Stone Town with typical Omani features in the rounded tower with basal batter, curved crenulations and gun embrasures in the upper parapet.

demolition some time prior to 1893) for use as a ‘Ladies’ Club’ and currently houses a tourist craft market and theatre. Such rehabilitation and re-imagining of this military installation can be seen throughout colonial Africa. For example, the less-well-documented fort at Bagamoyo was constructed in 1860 by an Arab trader named Seleman Abdalah Malhab and (aside from the obvious renovation

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funded by the EU in 1991), conforms stylistically to other types of ‘Arab’ housing found along Africa’s Western Indian Ocean in this period. The structure’s curtain wall was constructed when purchased by Sultan Sayyed Said in 1877. It was later occupied by the German military in 1885 at which point the upper third-storey was added along with its current sloping roof (other additions include artillery footings upon the roof/parapet at the building’s south-west corner). During the British administration the fort, like Fort Jesus at Mombasa, was utilized as a prison. Tanzania’s independent government maintained the prison until 1982, when it was remodelled to function as the District Police Headquarters following which in 1992 it, again like Fort Jesus, was taken into care by the National Antiquities Department and opened to the public as a museum. Both of these physically dominant structures have therefore fulfilled a number of roles over time and always at the control of the dominant social group; be it military, merchant or tourist. The re-use of these structures demonstrates how political authority in East Africa has been historically subsumed by subsequent regimes through the re-imagining of historical landscapes, be this a colonial adoption of former economic power-centres or indigenous re-engagement with physical expressions of prior oppression. The more recent life-cycles (i.e. as a preserved heritage site) also illustrates a legislative bias within national (antiquities authorities) and supra-national (UNESCO) heritage organizations, leading as it can to the propagation of elitist narratives through the unchallenged promotion of past hegemonies and their material cultures. In dedicating resource and management to such a building it is possible to argue that it has been afforded unequal significance over other diverse human experiences and intangible manifestations of nineteenth-century society, thereby maintaining an implicit role of social domination.



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Monuments and remembrance Within colonial Africa expressions of remembrance took on specific ideological forms. By highlighting the endeavours of Europeans in Africa, the new regimes attempted to historically legitimize their actions and position in contemporary society. From a spatial perspective, monuments acted as a marker claiming a geographical location, again legitimizing occupation through the demonstration of an invested heritage. For example, a number of German military monuments exist or existed within Tanzania’s urban landscape. At Bagamoyo there stood from 1894 until its demolition by British Authorities in 1946 a large ornamented obelisk known as the Wissmann Monument (Hermann von Wissmann was Reichskommissar of German East Africa from 1889 to 1891, and Commissioner of the western region of German East Africa until 1895 when he was made Governor until 1896). The monument was in remembrance of the Germans who had died in fighting during Germany’s early occupation of East Africa. The monument stood on a bastion directly in front of the Boma overlooking the sea. This monument was subsequently replaced by a small hand-painted sign which reads: ON 27TH JUNE 1857 BURTON AND SPEKE SET OFF FROM KAOLE NEAR THIS SITE ON THEIR EXPEDITION TO LAKE TANGANYIKA

This arguably being the remembrance of one colonial conquest (in this case exploration) replacing another. Similarly in Dar es Salaam, there stood another Wissmann memorial (Figure 21), the current Askari Monument replacing this in 1927 (and remembering a British nationalist endeavour). It was erected as a blatant reminder of Germany’s colonial authority over East Africa, as embodied in

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the subservient figure of an African Askari at the feet of the ruling German Wissmann. At Kilwa a plain rectangular obelisk still stands at the north-east side of the town’s main square. Upon it the German inscription reads: On the 24th of September 1888 our employees Gustav Krieger, Born 10th February 1851 at Rittergut Faulen Kreis Osterode Ostpreussen and Heinrich Hessel, Born 2nd January 1855 in Kreuznach Rheinprovinz died heroically while defending our home against a revolt. Honour to their memory, German East African Trading Company

The monument is bounded at its four corners by four upturned and buried cannon, and stands as a memorial to two Germans killed

Figure 21  Replaced in 1927, the Wissmann Monument in Dar es Salaam needs little interpretation in its clear positioning of the colonial indigenous population at the foot of their colonial master (Tanzania National Archive).



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during the Arab Revolt. As well as the questionable claim that the defenders of the trading company were ‘defending our home’, its positioning at the base of a large baobab tree in the town square is an attempt to claim authority or legitimacy over indigenous people through the physical monumental occupation of social space. It also highlights the important role of memorialization in the colonial context. Culturally this clearly expresses the colonial memory of domination born of struggle, confrontation and victory. However, it can also be read as an epitaph to a failed colonial regime which had attempted to support its political ambitions by stressing its national identity and represents more realistically African opposition to colonialism.

5

Interpreting Colonial Urban Space

The aim of Chapter 4 was to discuss the material expression of colonial rule in Eastern Africa and demonstrate that the political constructedness of urban societies was reflected in the built heritage of urban centres. Specifically those coastal harbour towns that underwent phenomenally rapid transformation from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s as the result of the development of a new Western-led capitalist system of economic and social control. This new Western design served to re-define the earlier systems of capitalist exchange within the formerly Omani-dominated Swahili coast. The various systems of appropriation and reorganization were represented in the urban landscape and resulted in the development of distinct building and town designs with a focus on division and social control (Figure 22). But what of other models of colonial control in Africa? The intention of this chapter is to compare briefly the activities of the French, Italian, British and German colonial powers and demonstrate the way that the theoretical approach to colonial rule of these nations was reflected in the building regimes of the urban authorities, and therefore analytically definable from an archaeological perspective. The urban landscape of nineteenth-century East Africa was manipulated to reflect European belief and ideology, as evident in the physical centralization of European hierarchies within the wider social landscape. The types and number of market places that a single port serviced also influenced the nature and depth of these new relationships, and the primary influence in the development of any port town during the nineteenth century was the surrounding

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Figure 22  Conceptual model of the spatial distribution of social zones within coastal colonial urban centres.

hinterland on whose economy it relied to function. As a result of this function, and their individual morphology, different port towns developed physical forms that reflected their intercontinental and interregional functions. Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar developed through the colonial period and into the present as international industrial harbours due to their deep-water morphology and the centralization of international trade by Europeans (and in the case of Zanzibar, by Omani traders before them). By contrast, smaller, more regionally linked harbours have continued to service traditional dhow traffic and maintain their role within local supply systems. This is testament to the important role they play within East African society often regardless of colonial interference. Ultimately, all the material developments that occurred under the auspices of the European colonialists were designed specifically for the economic benefit of Europeans, and expressed materially in the creation of a spatially segregated society and the restriction of the movement of peoples within clearly defined economic boundaries. These boundaries and physical delineations reflected the racial differentiations within the



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social hierarchical structure of nineteenth-century colonial Africa. However, in a postcolonial society what role might the remains of this colonial material culture perform? With this in mind, the final part of this book briefly considers issues surrounding the identification and conservation of the archaeology of the recent past and the current mechanisms in place to protect, conserve and learn from it.

European motivation Germany’s motivation for the acquisition of African colonies was based squarely on the European political climate of nineteenthcentury Europe. Bismarck’s Realpolitik necessitated the limitation of geographical gains in Africa by other European powers in order that the acquisition of territory did not affect the balance of industrial power in Europe. With no real desire to take on de facto colonial rule, Germany was satisfied with the development of trade agreements and private enterprise until such time as the balance of power and the potential gains by Britain in East Africa via its relationship with the Sultan of Oman on Zanzibar led to the acceptance of the need for all out colonial authority. By contrast it could be argued that Britain had a much more enthusiastic approach to direct control in Africa due to its history of Indian colonialism and a traditional emphasis on trade and acquisition. The British ‘nation of shopkeepers’ needed a larger and larger market place in order to develop its national capitalist ideal, with a store of raw materials required to underpin its industrial manufacturing economy. As we saw in Chapter 4, the early phases of the development of European infrastructure centred on the acquisition of existing trade systems but it was the British who ultimately spearheaded the post-war industrialization of urban spaces. In a similar way, traditional cultural discourses have viewed France’s nineteenth-century colonial activities in Africa as based on ideas of

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‘national honour and cultural extraversion’ (Robinson 1964 in Njoh 2007, ix). The two can be placed in a simplified theoretical opposition summed up by Njoh (2007) as a British approach emphasizing their superiority of race and a French ideology rooted in a belief in cultural superiority. With the decline of the slave trade from the early to mid-nineteenth century it became clear to some in France that a new international trade was required to fill the vacuum. This led to the development of groundnut plantations in Senegal and France effectively setting the pace of European partition in West Africa through the aggressive ambitions of its colonial army (Hargreaves 1985). By the end of the century, lobbying by the l’Union Coloniale Française, on the grounds of the potential military and economic gains to be had through colonial development, further strengthened the Ministry of Colonies’ 1879 plan of acquisition designed to establish commercial links between Algeria and Senegal. This was later abandoned and a new plan to construct a railway linking the River Senegal and River Niger was adopted. In just the same way as Britain and Germany in East Africa, the railway was believed to be an essential part of the extraction of natural resources for the benefit of the colonizing state. In 1895 France grouped all its West African colonies into the federation of French West Africa. This included Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, present-day Mali (then French Sudan), Niger, present-day Benin (then Dahomey) and Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta). In 1908 the French government carried out an identical unification plan and created the federation of French Equatorial Africa in which it controlled: Chad, Central African Republic (Ubangi Shari), People’s Republic of Congo (Middle Congo) and Gabon. The creation of these federations in turn led to urban development schemes, mainly in the French West Africa capital in Dakar, Senegal and the French Equatorial Africa capital in Brazzaville. ‘In FWA most of the investment in public infrastructure and city building



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was concentrated largely on Senegal and to a lesser, but significant extent on the coastal regions, particularly Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire in which the colonial establishment was making significant gains from plantation agriculture and forestry exploitation’ (Njoh 2006: 20). In Madagascar the French Protectorate government (1891–2) built a residential palace in the French renaissance style with formal gardens accentuated by a broad Avenue de France. The first French Governor-General Joseph-Simon Gallieni took up office in 1896 and adopted authority by not only maintaining the physical authority of the earlier protectorate buildings but also by preserving the historic buildings of the previous indigenous ruling elite. Following the exile of the queen, he designated the palace and royal mausoleum as historic monuments, and the former palaces of the prime minister were converted into museums with artefacts of the monarchy. Other royal buildings served as a barracks for the 13th Infantry Regiment. The smaller Silver Palace (the Tramovola) was converted into the Academie Malgache in 1889. By encouraging the research of Malagasy history, culture and ethnography, and creating historical artefacts of the previous elite spaces, Gallieni was attempting to turn a contemporary political institution into an historical abstraction. He was systematically removing its political relevancy within the urban cultural space and replacing it with a European designation of the past. Local education was also considered essential to colonial management and following the privatization of lands and the allocation of land grants to large French industrial consortiums (with, for example 1.4 million acres of land being made over to just five companies), large numbers of new skilled workers were needed. For this 650 schools were built with the plan to teach (by 1903) 50,000 Malagasy workers the required skills needed to service French industry on the island (Wright 1991). In this way the past was controlled through the creation of heritage sites from the previous

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ruler’s symbols of power and the future was designed to serve the needs of French ambition by tailoring education to suit colonial ends. The colonial regime on Madagascar quickly turned its attention to the capital’s open spaces. In the capital of Antananarivo, Gallieni instigated the re-design of the Andohalo. Under indigenous rule the site was a large irregular clearing and had functioned as a meeting place and assembly point for the monarchs and prime ministers to address the populace. It functioned as a market and a site of religious observance, with a large blue basalt rock in the centre locally considered sacred. The site was renamed the Square Jean Laborde and landscaped in the style of a nineteenth-century French provincial capital with terraced lawns, flower beds, allées of trees and a bandstand used by the military for concerts on Sundays. Such ordering of previously indigenous social and religious space was intended to ‘affirm the organizational spirit and genius of France’. Appropriately enough, the redesigned square was not only a stylish place for social gatherings but also the centre for military parades and manoeuvres (Wright 1991: 255). The French approach to residential space in Madagascar is reflective of some of the conclusions on racial segregation reached in a recent study of town planning in Stone Town, Zanzibar in the late nineteenth–early twentieth century by Bissell (2011). The intention was not to segregate the town along racial lines per se but was based on a deeply engrained European sense of class structure, a structure which was nonetheless defined racially throughout colonial Africa: The segregation of indigenous districts, indispensable in colonial cities, in no way constitutes, at least for the present, a grievous racial discrimination for those to whom it applies. In other words, segregation can be based not on race, but on standard of living … and in Madagascar certain districts will be reserved for inhabitants with ‘a European standard of living’. (Marcel Olivier, 2nd Governor General of Madagascar, trans. Wright 1991: 277)



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Bissell (2011) argues that it is the contemporary academic focus on race that has led to the definition of colonial plans as being based largely on racial segregation and that social power was in practice manifest in the capacity to control resources and the productive capacities of other people. However, I would argue that the creation of racially segregated spaces within European-designed African towns and cities was predicated by a poor understanding of cultural relationships and social elegancies and it was this which in turn led to racial definition. European definitions of social groups may have been imprecise but they led to the creation of (false) racial groupings within Africa and the oppression of subaltern identities because of the bureaucratic need to understand/order the social geographic landscape. It was this projection of identities which sowed the seeds of discontent and in many cases outright revolution. Italy’s African colonial activity began in 1869 with the purchase of rights over a six-kilometre stretch of the Red Sea coast at the port of Aseb. Like all European colonial activity this inauguration began with mercantile intent by the independent Rubattino shipping company hoping to capitalize on the opening of the Suez Canal. It wasn’t until 1882 that the Italian Government became directly embroiled in colonial affairs when they sent forces to occupy the port. Like that of Germany, it was the pressures of other European actions that led to an active overseas policy. With the French occupation of Tunis in 1883, Italy followed up its occupation of Aseb by declaring it a Protectorate. In 1885 the government declared the formerly Egyptian-controlled Red Sea port of Masawa a Protectorate and began plans to gain control along the coast in opposition to the other European powers. This however, was held in check by Emperor Yohannes IV of Ethiopia who defeated the Italian forces at Dogali, pushing Italian expansionism inland and culminating in the Ethiopian/Italian Treaty of 1889, and the creation of Italian-controlled Eritrea in 1890. Further south, the Italian explorer Antonio Cecchi arranged agreement with

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the Sultan of Zanzibar, giving Italian access to the Indian Ocean coastal ports of Brava, Merca, Mogadishu and Warsheik. Along the more northerly part of the Indian Ocean ‘Benadir’ coast the Italian government had brokered deals with the Sultans of Obbia and Mijjertein, and established a military cohort of Eritrean troops in 1891. By 1893 this Benadir region was placed under the control of the merchant Vincenzo Filonardi in return for commercial concessions and a subsidy. This devolved approach to colonial rule was in direct contrast to Italy’s policy in Eritrea where the government actively promoted Italian settlement. Land clearances to make way for Italian settlers led to an indigenous armed uprising that was brutally crushed by the Italian military. At the same time the military made moves further into the Ethiopian Highlands which led to direct conflict and a second heavy defeat in 1896. Italy halted its expansionist aspirations and signed a treaty with Ethiopia in 1896, and a year later Eritrea was assigned its first civilian governor. In 1898 the government signed a new contract of concession for southern Somalia with the Benadir Company (Societa Anonima Commerciale del Benadir) but later in 1905 took control of the Protectorate and unified it with its northern protectorate in the creation of Italian Somalia. Italy conquered Tripoli in 1911, and in 1924 a rearrangement of the northern Kenyan border moved the formerly British-controlled district of Oltregiuba into Italian Somalia. In 1935–6 Italy invaded Ethiopia with a view to again settling Italians in East Africa (under the umbrella of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana), and likewise invaded Albania in 1939. This later phase of Italian fascist colonialism can arguably be separated from earlier expansionist activities because it extended the ideological reach of Italian colonialism beyond simply matching the activities of other European economic powers, to the development of Italy as a colonial power in the world. Nonetheless, Italian colonialism had always maintained a strong sense of its global classical



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history and could turn to its Roman heritage for justification of expansionist policy. For example, shortly after the start of the war in Libya in 1911, a speech by poet Giovanni Pascoli stressed Italy’s right to conquest: We were always there … we left signs that not even the Berbers, the Bedouins and the Turks could erase; signs of our humanity and civilization, signs … that we are not Berbers, Bedouins and Turks. We are returning. (Trans. Fuller 1992: 213)

This attitude was manifest in the architecture which was to develop during the fascist era with the belief that Italy could reinstate its former great status globally through the reinvention of its colonial past by creating ‘a present national self by designing a historical one’ (Fuller 1992: 214). For example, Rava’s arch in Tripoli (constructed 1931) was based on a design which imitated classical architecture with modernist touches (Figure 23). In terms of its broader colonial expression, the arch demonstrates a surprising similarity to the crenulated/castellated designs seen in other parts of colonial Africa; for example, at the Customs House in Pangani (c. 1890) and the Bomas of Tanga (c. 1900) and Bagamoyo (1897), as well as the 1888 Kitchener’s Gate at Suakin (depicted on the front cover of this book). The new Italian cities of Addis Ababa, Gondor, Jimma and Dessye were designed with specific reference to the racial mix of their populations and ‘according to whether the new cities will have a reduced white population and thus an essentially colonial character, or a numerous Italian population and urbanistic traits similar to those of European cities’ (Bosio 1937, trans. Fuller 1992: 230). Central to this was the control of inhabitants and their movement: An important problem is the channel of traffic of caravans away from the national traffic: caravans and the indigenous traffic will end up in the indigenous quarter … It must reach the indigenous market and quarter without going through the [Italian part of the] city. The

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Figure 23  Rava’s Arch in Tripoli from Domus, 1931.

national market will be separate from the indigenous one, although it will have frequent commerce with it … the natives will be conceded commerce in such zones, but in no case will they reside in them. (Bosio 1937, trans. Fuller 1992: 229).

In this way the underlying philosophy of urban design was the development of ordered spaces as instruments of fascist control: It will be possible to plan concentric cities with urban zoning plans centred around a knoll or spur, where, as though it were an acropolis, the buildings of Government, the element of conquest and domination, will constitute the urban hierarchy of the city which should formally make evident the predominance of white over black, and visually admonish that every piazza seeks our supremacy over the infantile, primitive indigenous population. (Bosio 1937, trans. Fuller 1992: 230)



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It was in Tripoli in the 1920s and 1930s that the full force of elite Italian architecture was to be expressed. Similar, both in time and attitude to the large-scale development of Mombasa’s European government and banking district, Tripolitania’s governor Volpi began the redevelopment of his city’s waterfront. This development contained all the neo-classical and pseudo-indigenous traits familiar throughout European Africa. The implementation of such waterfront development was indicative of the changing relationship between Europeans and Africa. Still demonstrative of control, the first half of the twentieth century saw developments more cognizant of European visitors, be they tourist or settler, and Tripoli’s waterfront was turned into a palimpsest of European styles which included the Baroque, the neoclassical and various Italian regional styles (Fuller 2006). However, the habit of including within grand colonial structures elements of perceived indigenous styles was maintained, and thus the Governor’s Palace incorporated the pseudo-Arabic crenulations and domes seen in the German Boma at Tanga and Dar es Salaam; and the Banca d’Italia was adorned with the same ‘Moorish’ arches as the Customs House at Bagamoyo 30 years earlier.

British in Mombasa The first British Protectorate at Mombasa between 1824 and 1826 saw little infrastructure development but concentrated on engaging with the town as an existing hub of Indian Ocean trade; a role the settlement had played as far back as c. 1000 with the development of stone-built structures beginning sometime in the thirteenth century. The earliest upstanding remains of old Mombasa date to the Portuguese period from 1593. Large-scale British redevelopment began with the second Protectorate of British East Africa and the building of the Uganda Railway in 1895.

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Following the same European model described above, the British authorities concentrated their efforts on the redevelopment and control of existing elite structures and spaces, and then as a secondary phase began to build their own elite management and residential areas with distinctive historical references explicit in their design. For example, Fort Jesus was built by the Portuguese at the end of the sixteenth century and designed by the Italian Joao Batista Cairato in the classic Portuguese style with protruding corner bastions creating a roughly star-shaped defence (Figure 24). As the central defensive structure for the island it has historically been the focus of attack, occupation and redevelopment through a number of periods. In 1631 it was controlled by the Arab Sultan of Mombasa, Mohammad Yusif

Figure 24  The imposing waterfront façade of Fort Jesus (1593) has served every dominant group through Mombasa’s colonial history, from the Portuguese and the Arab Sultanate between the late sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British Protectorate from the late nineteenth century and in its current role as Museum and National Park.



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bin Hassan, but was re-occupied by the Portuguese the following year. It then remained in Portuguese hands until 1698 from when it remained in the control of successive Arab governors until further Portuguese success in 1728. This however, lasted only a year and it returned to Arab control until the final governor Seyyid Said bin Sultan of Oman relinquished control to the British Protectorate in 1885. From this short historical narrative it’s easy to see the significance of the fort as emblematic of control. The authorities of the British protectorate were quite aware of its significance as a symbol of rule and thus, under the British the Fort was converted into a prison, the ultimate symbol of societal control. Arguably more subversively and like a great deal of the military architecture described throughout this book, the Fort, declared a national park in 1960, became the property of the National Museums of Kenya in 1969 existing now as a museum and tourist attraction. The conversion of Fort Jesus into a prison required the construction of a new centre of authority and the hub of European management on Mombasa was relocated onto higher ground inland to Treasury Square (previously Hamoudieh Gardens), demonstrative of an increased focus at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century on the Uganda Railway. The square contained such buildings as the Provincial Commissioner’s office, railway station and General Post Office, District Headquarters, Banks of India and Barclays, Treasury and the Grand Hotel. All of these buildings were constructed between 1900 and 1916 and unified in a broadly European neo-classical style. Again, like those examples given above in Frenchand Italian-controlled colonies, this demonstrated a need on the part of the Europeans to create an environment based on a perceived European age of civilization, with columns, architrave and plaster moulded cantons substituting any real sense of identity or cultural longevity in Mombasa. Today Treasury square has undergone some cultural reclamation by the Independent Government. For example,

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the former Headquarters now has the addition of Kenya’s national crest (Figure 25). This kind of national material re-establishment of identity occurred throughout independent Africa. Further examples of material re-imagining of former colonial symbolic space is the adoption by indigenous governments of historic Bomas as well as the preservation of historic forts, such as at Mombasa. Just as nineteenth-century African colonial development began with the adoption by Europeans of extant elite social spaces, so too the new regimes of independent Africa adopted the spaces and material landscapes of former regimes. As with the previous example of Fort Jesus, the role of the structure has not only been one of defence and physical domination, but also ideological domination within the urban landscape of Mombasa. This domination and expression

Figure 25  Mombasa District Headquarters with its neo-classical styling was at odds when it was built in 1905 with its geography and indigenous surroundings. It has continued to perform its managerial role both as office space and as symbol in post-colonial Kenya.



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is now part of a national and state historical narrative within the organization of the National Museums of Kenya, an organization in Mombasa whose offices (the Old Law Courts) were also once a physical material symbol of the colonial system.

Impacts today What the examples above have aimed to demonstrate is not the lack of agency of the indigenous people within colonial Africa, but the aim of the European governments involved in colonial activities. This does not mean to say that the African population was wholly passive in these various historic activities, far from it. The aim of this work is to demonstrate how Europe required an understandable and universal system to order the varied peoples, activities and reaction of Africans during the period. Bissell’s (2011) analyses of the history of town planning and its legacy in Stone Town, Zanzibar demonstrates that such plans are wholly influenced by indigenous peoples. It also demonstrates that the broad generalizations made within them have been historically repeated as subsequent post-colonial urban plans have followed the same bureaucratic model as their predecessors. At worst this leads to a reduction in social provision and urban decline, or more commonly stagnation. Further to this, the development of African cities as tourist destinations has added to the sense of prescribed identity first begun under colonial management. The commercialization and conservation of the historic fabric of urban centres can in turn, also be viewed as a method of reducing the actual political involvement of sections of society, and replacing it with a simple visual expression of their identity. The result in a place such as Stone Town is a fostering of urban dissatisfaction underpinned by a new externally facing social identity; a re-imagined unity or selfconsciousness reflected in the eyes of external observers. Added to

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this in the case of Stone Town’s intense focus on the economic importance of conservation and its maintenance of World Heritage Site status (again, underpinned by the international gaze of UNESCO), a line can be traced from colonial attitudes to African society and culture within town planning initiatives via the 1964 revolution. The revolution occurred soon after Zanzibar was granted independence from Britain in 1963 and was the result of public dissatisfaction in the Sultan-led minority Arab government. Much of the conflict is traditionally classed as being divided along ethnic lines. Indeed, the forces which worked to sweep aside the Sultan’s government and its colonial support were founded upon traditional ethnic divisions. About 23 civil society organizations were formed in the lead up to revolution. For example, the Indian Association formed in 1910, the Arab Association and the African Association formed in 1934, and the Shirazi Association formed in 1940. In 1955 the Arab Association became the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), and in 1957 the African Association merged with the Shirazi Association to form the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), thereby solidifying the two main defined power blocks along the lines of ethnic African or ethnic Arab. This later fractured when in 1959 the ASP split into ASP and Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party (ZPPP), with the latter being a Shirazi-dominated party. Thus the ASP remained as a party dominated by Africans of mainland origin. In 1963 the Umma (The Masses) Party was formed, also as a splinter of the ZNP (Mpangala 1999: 22). By the night of 12 January 1964 a unified ASP and Umma Party (Afro-Shirazi) were able to overthrow the Sultan’s government. Following the adoption of a Marxist government and unification with Tanzania the island – and specifically Stone Town – witnessed a steady current of physical and social conflict, culminating in disputed elections and violence throughout its fraught membership to the United Republic of Tanzania. However, the conflict can arguably be more appropriately divided between land/business-owning elite and



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tenants/squatters/wage labourers. The conflict came about because of the racialization of society (as opposed to the relative peace in contemporary Tanzania due to the political downplaying of ethnic groupings in favour of a socialist nation). These racial identities developed from the British colonial period and the European attitude toward managing the urban space and its peoples. The approach taken was one where Stone Town was the home of wealthy mercantile Arabs (with some colonial officers going so far as to claim it a ‘European quarter’), and the surrounding lands were the mud hut homes of the labouring classes, the indigenous Africans. This simplification of urban society was reflected throughout colonial Africa and in turn manifests itself in the management of cultural heritage. In the same way Europeans in the nineteenth century compartmentalized land use activities into administrative, commercial, industrial and residential. Such mistakes are perpetuated within contemporary conservation initiatives which continue to concentrate on the planning and managerial process of change based on colonial models and lack a focus on the social life of the material heritage they aim to conserve.

Heritage protection in Africa All of the African nations discussed so far have some degree of heritage legislation designed to protect defined cultural material. Some refer solely to designated sites and monuments and others encompass intangible and undesignated heritage (Table 1). As you would expect in such a large and diverse continent as Africa, the degree to which these laws are implemented vary a great deal based on issues of resource availability and priorities. Nonetheless, the appreciation of significance is recognized in legislation and as such is an integral part of postcolonial nationhood. As well as protection

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Table 1  List of some of the legislation in place in the nation states discussed in this volume. Country Legislation Kenya

Definition

Antiquities and Protects any moveable object or structure, Monuments Act rock-painting, earthwork or place other of 1983; National than a book or document older than Museums Act 1895 and any object of archaeological or 1983 paleontological interest older than 1800. Tanzania Antiquities Act of Tool for the protection of the 1964 (amended archaeological resource. The resource is in 1979) defined as any relic or object produced before 1863 and any human, faunal, fossil, painting, carving or monument. All cultural property belongs ultimately to the state and can be registered on an inventory Mali Law No. 85–40/ For the protection of all moveable and AN-RM of 26 immovable cultural property which July 1985 relating for religious or secular reasons are to the protection important for history, art, thought, of the national science and technology cultural heritage Niger Law No 97–022 of For the protection of moveable and 30 June 1997, immoveable objects, monuments, pertaining to groups of sites and buildings the the protection, conservation of which is deemed in conservation the public interest from the point of and presentation view of their importance to the history of the national of art or science, palaeontology or the cultural heritage environment, archaeology, prehistory, history or literature. Burkina Law No 24–2007 To protect cultural, natural, movable, Faso relating to immovable, immaterial, public or cultural heritage private, religious or profane properties protection in whose preservation or conservation Burkina Faso presents a historical, artistic, scientific, 2007 legendary or picturesque interest. Under this act all heritage has the potential Zanzibar Antiquities Act to be protected with the relevant minister dates to 1927 able to declare anything an historical and was later site and the ability to bring land amended a under governmental control. In 2006 number of times a further amendment was added that including 1984, had provision for underwater heritage 2002 and 2006 following the activities of treasure hunters operating on a ‘for profit’ basis.



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Country Legislation Chad

Ethiopia

Algeria

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Definition

Act No 14–60 of 2 For the purpose of the protection of November 1960 natural monuments and sites, sits and monuments of a prehistoric, archaeological, scientific, artistic or picturesque character, the classification of historical and ethnographic objects and the regulation of archaeological excavations. Proclamation Defines an antiquity as any product of no.229, 1966 human historical endeavour. The Government can confiscate any antiquity for its collection Excavation and Puts all cultural property in state Protection ownership and outlaws their of Historic destruction. Monuments are defined as Monuments and movable and immovable and include Sites. Ordinance marine sites and finds. no.67–281, 1967

many have a broad remit of cultural works. For example, the core objectives of the Antiquities and Museum’s Division of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism in Tanzania include the conservation, protection, research and development of the national cultural heritage, allowing that heritage sites constitute tourist attractions and act as centres for education for the population. ‘The organization’s functions include the management of sites giving due cognizance to associated cultural values; developing sustainable programmes of recording and research at sites on a regional and international level; developing sites as centres for education and tourism; and integrating community into the management and protection of these sites’ (Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Tanzania 2013). Others have augmented the implementation of heritage legislation with the adoption of international initiatives designed to support both monetarily and through information exchange. For example, the government of Burkina Faso has adopted an Outline Act on

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Education and a National Cultural Policy, which notably call for the promotion of artistic and cultural education, with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism working to include artistic and cultural modules in school curricula, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. Burkina Faso is also a beneficiary of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF) through an initiative devoted to the design and implementation of a program for the development of cultural industries within French language nations (UNESCO 2013b). There also exist a number of important international agencies designed to protect cultural heritage (Table 2). By far the most influential international initiative designed for the preservation of cultural heritage is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). UNESCO was set up to promote ‘education for all, cultural development, protection of the world’s natural and cultural heritage, international cooperation in science, press freedom and communication’. It works within six specific thematic areas: Education, Natural Sciences, Social and Human Sciences, Culture, Communication and Information and Special Themes. While these are all cross cutting areas it is the theme of culture that has most bearing here. Within this theme there are eight further sub-themes including Cultural Diversity, World Heritage, Intangible Heritage, Movable Heritage and Museums, Creativity, Dialogue, Normative Action and Emergency Situations. The main aims of UNESCO’s World Heritage Mission is designed to encourage countries to sign the World Heritage Convention, and to ensure the protection of their natural and cultural heritage; help safeguard World Heritage properties by providing technical assistance and professional training; provide emergency assistance for World Heritage sites in immediate danger; support public awareness-building activities for World Heritage conservation; encourage participation of the local population in the preservation of their cultural and natural heritage (UNESCO 2013a).



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Table 2  International Organizations and NGOs active in the protection and management of built heritage in Africa. UNESCO

To promote ‘education for all, cultural development, protection of the world’s natural and cultural heritage, international cooperation in science, press freedom and communication’. Works within six specific thematic areas: Education, Natural Sciences, Social and Human Sciences, Culture, Communication and Information and Special Themes. While these are all cross cutting areas it is the theme of culture that has most bearing here. Within this theme there are eight further sub-themes including Cultural Diversity, World Heritage, Intangible Heritage, Movable Heritage and Museums, Creativity, Dialogue, Normative Action and Emergency Situations. ICOM Facilitating an international network for museum (International professionals and institutions as well as campaigning Council of strongly against the illicit trade in cultural property. Museums) Since October 1999, AFRICOM became the International Council of African Museums, an autonomous pan-African organisation for museums, based in Nairobi, Kenya ICMOS Aim is to work for the conservation and protection International of cultural heritage places and operates through Council on an international multidisciplinary expert group Monuments dedicated to best practice and standards for all forms and Sites of built heritage. Blue Shield Mission is to ‘work for the protection of the world’s cultural heritage by coordinating preparations to meet and respond to emergency situations’ (ICBS 2008). The ICBS is currently formed by five NGOs – Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA), the International Council on Archives (ICA), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). Its primary objectives can be summarized as facilitating international responses to threats or emergencies threatening cultural property and ensuring safeguards are in place in the event of risk elevation. World Bank Consists of two institutions, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).

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The Bank perceives cultural resources as being finite and as key assets for economic and social development and constituting a central element for identity and cultural practice. NORAD Defines cultural heritage as ‘the legacy of physical artefacts, buildings, sites and landscapes, and intangible products, customs and practices of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations’. Adopt a rights-based agenda and see culture as important for development and poverty alleviation. USAID A federal agency that provides assistance to so called developing countries. Its work is intrinsically linked to the furtherance of American foreign policy and supports work in the fields of economic growth, agriculture and trade; global health; and democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance. JICA/JBIC Japan International Cooperation Agency Japan Bank for International Cooperation Ford Foundation Core objectives as strengthening democratic values, (NGO) reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation and advancing human achievement. In the context of this study funding is available for a variety of initiatives across the cultural sector including capacity building, education, human rights and involving indigenous peoples in their heritage. Getty Centre Active throughout Africa advising and conducting (NGO) conservation projects include the hominid track way at Laetoli, Tanzania; the Royal Palaces of Abomey, Benin; rock art preservation in Southern Africa and various sites in Egypt and Morocco. Aga Khan Trust The Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) that operates for Culture across the Muslim world examining mechanisms (NGO) to revitalize communities through physical, social, cultural and economic activities. Based on the principles of sustainability, participation and a shared responsibility for positive change. It specifically supports the conservation of built heritage and places that further cultural development and projects that examine the connection between the built environment and culture of past and present Islamic societies.



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Inclusion in the World Heritage List has become a keen tool in the generation of tourist interest and the promotion of regional heritage attractions throughout Africa. The designation of Zanzibar’s Stone Town as a World Heritage Site resulted in the formation of the Stone Town Conservation and Development Authority (STCDA) in 1985. The main task of STCDA is to monitor and advise on conservation and development of Stone Town. Since 2000, the authority is also responsible for the management of the World Heritage site of Zanzibar and responds to three main types of projects: consultant/ restoration projects, cooperation projects and research projects. The authority’s decision making is now based upon the Stone Town Master Plan of 1994 (STCDA 2013). This tradition of master planning underpinned urban development in colonial Africa and continued into the post-colonial period. In Algiers, le Corbusier produced seven plans between 1931 and 1942, and Zanzibar has also been particularly stricken with a history of five plans since 1920 (Bissell 2011: 267), often with little or no implementation of the resulting recommendations. Based on European perceptions of urban make-up and bureaucratic structures, as these plans were even in post-colonial times, the resulting World Heritage site development that underpins Stone Town’s urban economy resulted in the predominant focus on just one ‘type’ of heritage for touristic reasons (i.e. the Arab urban architecture), resulting in the detrimental separation of urban centre and peripheral non-urban cultures with a resulting marginalization of large elements of the population: … mass tourism and a booming property market have served to drive working-class and poorer Zanzibaris from the heart of their ‘culture’ because they can no longer afford to live anywhere near Stone Town or the inner areas of Ng’ambo … The Stone Town has been overplanned, and traditional building areas [outside Stone Town] are being neglected. Wazungu [Europeans] come and focus immediately on Stone Town, they throw a considerable amount of money at it, where the problems are few. (Bissell 2011: 328)

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What and whose heritage? The definition of place within the urban environment can be contentious. For example, the urban environment is viewed by some as a place of individuals which does not necessarily create specific and separable urban politics (Saunders 1981). Alternatively researchers such as Harvey (1989) argued in direct contrast, citing the inequality of urban and regional fluidity with the Marxist theory of capitalist consumption as evidence of a clear urban/rural distinction. This distinction is one which is materially undeniable, and it is this materiality (i.e. the existence and density of built structures) that contributes most strongly to the perceived sense of urban space and which this book has attempted to highlight. The design of an urban structure (be it private or civic), both historical and contemporary, can be reflective of both a society’s cultural background and its future aspirations. Likewise, the conservation or destruction of the historic built environment is in the same way intrinsic to a society’s sense of place. As touched upon earlier in reference to Zanzibar Stone Town and le Corbusier’s Algiers, the act of urban planning has particular heritage significance, ‘for it may imprint historic values of space and scale on structures and movement paths long after all original buildings have disappeared’ (Tunbridge 1984: 235). In the case of the Colonial nineteenth century, planning and urban design was a clear tool of social management, with the retention of a sense of heritage replacing active participation in political decision making and spatial domination (often through exaggerated scale) signifying power. Today the definition of what is heritage (and why) is just as laden with ideological subtext, heavy with a mixture of cultural values and ethnic associations. The everyday experiences of those people who live within the African urban environments described in this book are in continual dialogue with their colonial past. Physical encounters with built heritage contribute toward the formation of



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ideas of self and national and international identities. Again, using the example of Zanzibar Stone Town, a recent museum exhibition (visited by the author in October 2012) at the House of Wonders (formerly the Sultan’s Palace Beit al-Ajaib [1883]) and like so much of the tangible heritage of the elite, preserved as a museum), declared the 1964 revolution the ‘End of an Era’ and its primary impact being: … the return of the Swahili speaking Arabs to Oman, rather than cutting the ancient historical link between these two countries, has revitalised it. It has raised Kiswahili to an unofficial second language in that Arab country, and Arabic songs have become part of the wedding ceremonies in Zanzibar.

This heritage interpretation draws the same social and political lines as the old colonial analyses of a society made up of Arab and indigenous Africans. Not only does it not recognize the origin of Swahili culture as a palimpsest of African and Arab cultures but it also presupposes a lack of integration prior to the revolution. In trying to demonstrate the integration of two groups (arguably inseparable in the context of twentieth-century Zanzibar) this interpretation overlooks the class divisions that triggered the revolution and falls back on cultural distinction as its catalyst for change. Where there are competing ideologies, urban heritage protection becomes a political exercise and what Tunbridge (1984) called divergent plurality is most keenly felt in postcolonial societies. In such circumstances an independent nation might view some heritage structures as reminders of an oppressive past, with this reminder serving as either a spur to development and success or to a desire to eradicate the memory. In this way there is an intrinsic value in this physical colonial legacy. It is Africa’s tangible link to a past which was based on economic, cultural and social inequalities, which led to the desire for self-governance and freedom. As physical representations of this, built heritage of the colonial period has an important role in celebrating

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self-determination and developing social inclusion. As events in post-apartheid South Africa have demonstrated, there is a desire to acknowledge the past in the construction of contemporary society: Contrary to common protestations against revisiting the past, there is an urgency to talk about the past among many of those who have suffered gross violations of human rights. Sometimes telling a story over and over again provides a way of returning to the original pain and hence a reconnection with the lost loved ones. Evoking the pain in the presence of a listening audience means taking a step backwards in order to move forwards. The question is not whether victims will tell their stories, but whether there is an appropriate forum to express their pain. (Gobodo-Madikizela 2001: 27)

However, in some circumstances the decision to either maintain a tangible memory or clear a space for future use are not easily resolved with the very mechanisms of economic development, necessitating the destruction or redevelopment of the old. This results in the loss of built heritage and cultural resources. For example, in 2007 Tanzania’s ‘Antiquities Declaration of Conservation Areas Notice No. 2006’ was revoked, with the minister responsible stating the government decided to revoke the protection of historical buildings and monuments to pave the way for the construction of high-rise structures that would help boost economic growth. The result in 2013 is a number of claims of the demolition of historic buildings in Dar es Salaam and a slow decline in the city’s heritage value. Issues such as this have a clear impact on often the most visible use of historic buildings: tourism. In order to develop income generated through tourism, urban centres are reliant on marketing themselves as distinctive. The impact of such development on built heritage can be seen as positive and negative. In some respects this can mean the conservation of distinctiveness (i.e. specific ethnic spaces), but it can also mean mainstreaming of a place’s material culture within an international heritage canon. In essence a place



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must market itself to external visitors within the context of the externally dominant tourist and heritage industry, leading to criticisms of authenticity. It is unrealistic though, to ignore the potential monetary value of heritage and its conservation; and considering the real life pressures of unemployment, poor healthcare, poverty and famine that affect large parts of Africa, what can the protection of the built heritage of the colonial past contribute? The process of addressing such questions was begun in an earlier publication in this current Duckworth Debates in Archaeology Series: Archaeology and International Development in Africa (Breen and Rhodes 2010). In this the relationship between heritage and monetary value was discussed and is worth quickly highlighting here and reframing in light of the colonial legacy described in the previous chapters. Firstly, there exists within the African heritage focused academic community a reticence to enter into discussions of the monetary value of the built environment, with such an approach being viewed as negatively exploitative and commercial, and not in keeping with the more traditional attitude of guardianship and interpretation. This attitude is clearly at odds with the broader heritage sector in, for example, the UK where government agencies actively seek the expertise of academic institutions and heritage professionals in quantifying the monetary value of heritage in order to assess the levels and relationship between resource management and income. Secondly, in many circumstances built heritage has a proven role in developing a nation or a region’s finance. The most overt example being Egypt whose heritage industry is worth an estimated $3billion. This though must be tempered with an understanding of the potential negative impacts such as damage to the built environment, either through visitor access or unsympathetic conservation, the neglect of the broader heritage environment through a focus on single site attractions and the creation of heritage pastiche in the scramble to attract tourists in an ever more competitive global market.

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Of course the economic value of heritage should not be measured by tourism alone. Value can also be ascribed in different contexts. In Africa 84 per cent of world heritage sites convey additional heritage value to the public through community engagement, accommodating councils of elders, participating cultural events with film, theatre and debate and the production of print media (UNESCO 2003: 45). The educational component of these sites is also utilized with, for example, Great Zimbabwe facilitating over 12,000 school children annually before the onset of current instability linked to the Mugabe regime. Six world heritage sites had also developed environmental education programmes by 2003 with this number rapidly growing in the intervening years. As well as heritage being vitally important to the sustainability of communities through the development of economic growth it can also be a tool in the enhancement of social capital and the fostering of healthy, empowered, responsive communities (Council of Europe 2005; DCMS 2010; Living Places National Partnership Group 2005). Here archaeologists have the opportunity to learn from initiatives within the museum sector and social learning networks that link heritage and community sustainability (Armitage et al. 2008, Blackmore 2007, Muro and Jeffrey 2008; Rodella 2011). Community engaged approaches to heritage and conservation are becoming more common within Europe (see for example ‘Integrating Archaeology and Sustainable Communities’, IASC 2013) with the view that those with the most to contribute to society engage with ‘groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly’ (Wenger 2000). Most successfully with the aim of integrating the expert, lay, academic, policy makers, organizational and place-based communities. This type of approach recognizes common ownership of the heritage resource, and in the case of heritage conservation, a common appreciation of its significance and care. A number of initiatives specifically designed to offer local benefits have



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been developed across Africa. For example, in South Africa, the Living Landscape Project is an educational heritage project designed to create employment opportunities around the local archaeological resource. The project focuses on the utilization of archaeology to develop learning resources, primarily, the development of school curricula that incorporate archaeological materials and exercises. As well as this, the project has a key element designed to create local jobs as a direct result of heritage knowledge gained though research. In the job creation initiative, 20 members of the local community are employed as trainee craftspeople, guides and caterers. Training has included instruction in computer skills, heritage, crafts, life skills, first aid, entrepreneurship, bookkeeping, guiding, expression and customer care, catering and nature conservation (Living Landscape Project 2013). When the balance of interaction between state or international agency, expert and local community is unequal, or non-existent, then the chances of real social benefit and local buy-in beyond the purely superficial is unlikely. Again, we can turn to the example of Zanzibar and Bissell’s analyses of non-community-engaged approaches. His assessment of the 1968 East German plan, the 1982 Chinese master plan, the 1982 UN/Habitat ‘integrated strategy’ for the Stone Town, and the 1992 Aga Khan conservation plan being of: ‘limited material impact on the alleged problems they were supposed to resolve, while consuming millions of dollars; enriching consultants; generating reams of reports, maps, studies, and memorandums; perpetuating elite interests; reshuffling agencies and authorities; enlarging the bureaucracy; and spurred repeated efforts to untangle administrative snafus, overlapping jurisdictions, and legal conflicts.’ (Bissell 2011: 328). Bissell goes on to argue that it is the attitude that looks externally for support which is driving the failure of such strategies. So how can we approach Africa’s urban heritage and its conservation and avoid externally prescriptive definitions of what is heritage and what is conserved? Firstly, it’s important to realize that when adopting an

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approach based on communities of practice (a concept first introduced by Wenger [2000] to define groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better by interacting regularly), some of these communities will inevitably be external, based on perceptions of scale, i.e. external to a town, district or country. Nonetheless, the most effective means of ensuring the conservation of urban heritage is through embracing the interaction within, and between differing communities of practice and engaging with challenges to existing identities, knowledge and practices. Social learning and by extension effective conservation management is facilitated by effective knowledge brokerage and is evidenced by a re-negotiation of identities and roles and the co-production of learning outputs and aims (Lave and Wenger 1991). I would argue that the most effective way to manage the relationships between communities of practice and to create a check of the participatory validity and equality of any project claiming community and social value would be to use Arnstein’s (1969) ‘citizen participation’ model. First developed in 1969 in assessing community participation in public projects, it outlines the different grades of engagement, decision making and by extension social purchase, information sharing and aspiration. Its relevancy lies in appreciating that the most sustainable pieces of heritage conservation (indeed, heritage definition), is in group decision making ensuring understanding and participation (be it practical or emotional). The model summarizes the participation ranging from the most undesirable forms of manipulation through to complete local engagement or ‘citizen control’: MM

MM

Manipulation; the lowest form of participation where engagement is unidirectional and benefit is the result of external contributions only. Therapy; community engagement is sought in order to adjust the attitudes and values of a community in order to fulfil a hierarchical goal.

MM

MM

MM

MM

MM

MM

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Informing; although informing communities of options is an important step in engaging with groups, this must not be seen as the goal or final outcome as is often the case with examples such as producing pamphlets, posters and popular literature which does not stimulate dialogue. Consultation; again, such activity is a step closer to equal participation providing participants are not simply viewed statistically and ideas generated through this process are incorporated into action plans and research agendas. Placation; the inclusion of a minority of ‘worthy’ communities or community members. The more open channels available to groups to outline their aims and influence decisions, the greater equality exists. Partnership; true partnership within a project allows for the redistribution of power through negotiation between heritage professional and community. In this way decision-making responsibilities are shared through the distribution of technical expertise allowing groups to make informed choices and steer agendas. Delegated Power; partnership and empowerment can then lead to communities achieving the dominant decision-making role and choosing at what level they desire engagement with non-local groups. Ultimately leading to: Citizen Control; the final aim of all community engaged heritage projects. At this level the community has both the expertise to carry out its own research and the ability to seek out and attract the necessary funds (Arnstein 1969).

Through the use of Arnstein’s model as a check on the direction of a community-engaged heritage conservation project, ideas and actions can be developed through the creation of successful relationships, with the most successful decision making, learning and action resulting from the points of mutual contact between different

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communities of practice. Put simply, the point at which ideas (and skills) rub together.

Conclusion This book began with two broad questions: 1. What was the role of the built environment as a tool of ideological expression during East Africa’s nineteenth-century colonial period? 2. How do the physical remains express the social impact of colonialism? It’s hoped that the chapters leading up to this have gone some way in answering these. Broadly speaking I would argue that the role of the built environment was one of social ordering and control and as a consequence the social impact was one of racial and class division based upon the control of material resources and their exchange. Not, you might say, a massive leap in critical thinking of the colonial period. Nonetheless, the overarching aim has also been to demonstrate the role that archaeology and the analyses of the material remains of the urban environment can play in contributing to this critical approach and to begin to think about how it can contribute positively to the social and economic wellbeing of the urban spaces described herein. I have also briefly touched upon issues surrounding the importance of conserving buildings from the colonial period in Africa and also tried to highlight some of the ways that this might be achieved effectively. Although I recognize that this is represented in the abstract, it isn’t without the understanding that such issues in the context of Africa can seem paltry in view of the great many problems residents of the continent face.



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Finally, I will turn briefly to the idea of colonialism and its place in global thinking as outlined in Chapter 1 and draw this book to a close with a statement on the underlying importance of the study of the archaeology of colonialism. By critically defining the materiality of colonialism and attempting to unravel its place in our contemporary thinking about Africa we have to understand past monolithic approaches and (to use an archaeological metaphor), the colonial context must be fully excavated and interpreted (and in many cases actively conserved in situ) to properly understand today’s approaches to heritage in Africa. Colonialism has profoundly influenced dominant global ideologies and given Europe a legacy of centrality within the world-system. Therefore, the pursual of a thorough understanding of its history (of which its materiality is a key part) can contribute to positive changes in heritage and conservation practices and the development of new archaeologies of identities not subservient to or simply reflective of this centrality of thought.

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Index Page references in bold denote a chapter or subsection; page references in italics denote an illustration African Askari 108 Association 126 bourgeoisie 94 ceramic 42 cities as tourist destinations 125 civil service 91 coastal zones 59 development 137–9 diaspora 9 disenfranchisement 94 exchange of cowry shells 46 exploitation 12 exploration 20–3 German colonization of 27–34 global marginalization 86–7 housing 96–7 identities 9 independence 124 indigenous construction techniques 57 involvement in World War I 36 see also World War I labour 18, 86 missions 23–4 opposition to colonialism 109 see also African rebellion pre-colonial settlements on east coast 37 rebellion 24–35 maji maji rebellion 34, 102 representation in museum interpretation 135 tax 86 trade 85 tropical diseases 74 Algiers 20, 133, 134

Arab akida 34, 46 architectural style 49, 71, 74, 77, 88, 94–6, 106, 133 Association 126 caravans 18 government on Zanzibar 126 governor of Mombasa 123 governor of Pangani 59 merchants 68, 77, 94, 127 representation in museum interpretation 135 revolt 32, 44, 47, 64, 109 trade 22, 77 arch architectural uses of 50, 61, 67, 79, 119, 120 ceramic design 42 Moorish 121 Rava’s 119, 120 Arnstein, Sherry 140–1 Bagamoyo account of 38 boma 92, 92–3, 119 caravans 17 caravanserai 51, 53 customs house 79, 81, 121 entrepôts 17 German abandonment of 64 hospital 64 Indian inhabitants of 87 Kaole dominance over 39–40 mission 24, 65 obelisk 107 see also von Wissmann, Herman

158 Index revolt in 32–3, 102 see also Arab revolt road 101 Shomvi clan in 40 town plan 38 urban landscape of 64 balcony, architectural uses of 54, 72, 88, 89, 71, 72, 74, 88, 90 bastion, architectural uses of 61, 79, 105, 107, 122 Baumann, Oscar account of Chole 46–77 map of Zanzibar 67, 68 Beit-al-Ajaib (House of Wonders) 69–71, 131 Beit-al-Hukm 69–70 Beit-al-Sahil 69 Belgium 12, 13 approach to colonialism 12 brutality 13 blockhouse, Bagamoyo 102–3, 103 boma 50, 91, 94 Bagamoyo 92, 93, 119 Chole 76, 92 conservation of 124 Dar es Salaam 43, 75, 121 Kilwa Kivinje 79, 92 Pangani 51, 53–4, 60, 61, 65 Tanga 119, 121 bourgeoisie 4, 87, 94 Britain 19 and India 25 and Zanzibar 23 British Afghanistan 25 approach to colonialism 11, 25, 72, 111, 113, 114, 122 blockade 32 coaling station in Aden 26 consul on Zanzibar 25 consuls 19, 20, 25, 45, 67, 67, 78 East Africa Company 28 Egypt 25–6 expansion 5

India Steam Company 67 mandate over Tanganyika 100 Mombasa 121 opposition to slave trade 27, 99 partition of Africa 28 protectorate in East Africa 28–9, 33, 93, 96, 123 taxes 86 Uganda 24 West Africa 27 Burton, Richard account of Bagamoyo 22–3, 39, 87 account of Kilwa 41 account of Pangani 48, 49 account of Stone Town 44, 45, 47, 50, 52, 56, 80 account of Tanga 18, 47, 55, 80 memorial to 107 capitalism global 59 Marx’s approach to 4 in town design 83, 94 caravan 17–19 European domination of 61, 97–9, 104, 119 European regulation of 19 routes 17, 18 Caravanserai 50, 53 Bagamoyo 40, 51, 53 excavation of 40, 51, 53 Castro-Gómez, Santiago 4–6 Chole 1, 74–8 boma 92, 93 and gentrification 73 harbour 45 Indian inhabitants 87 market 80, 81 Muslim inhabitants 46 and Omani trade 46 town plan 39 Christian 5, 24, 77 Christianity 21, 23, 24 Christianized 66

Index citizen participation 141 class and identity formation 7 and its role in the Zanzibar revolution 135 impact of tourism on 133 labour 35, 86 material representation of 57, 116, 142 merchant 56 middle 65, 87, 88, 90 of new wage earners 118 peasant 18 revolutionary 4 struggle 4 in Victorian England 19–20 coast Benadir 118 centres of exchange in east 37 Chole 45 Dar es Salaam 42 east African 15 Indian population on 87 Kilwa Kivinje 41 market days on 85 Pangani 48 pre-colonial society on 37 Sultan’s possessions on 28 Swahili coast 15 Tanga 47 west African 12 coastal breezes 72, 84 Burton’s travels along 22 see also Burton, Richard caravan routes 17–18, 97 entrepôts 17 exploitation 115 littoral 85 missions 24 see also missions morphology 37 Peters’ activity along 29–32 see also Peters, Carl plateau at Kilwa Mosoko 84

159

pre-colonial society on 37 rban model 112 road 101 society and unrest 32 see also Arab revolt trade 17–18 urban development at Tanga 96 zoning 59 commerce bomas as centres of 91 see also boma centres of 51, 58 colonial influence 85, 90 ideology of the German Colonial Association 29 manifested in urban design 83 non-industrialised 81 and railway development 99 see also railways and Zigua 85 commercial buildings 88 concessions on Benadir coast 118 links between Algiers and Senegal 114 organizational methods 50 zones and indigenous segregation 120 see also segregation zones commercial districts Dar es Salaam 44, 73 Pangani 48, 49, 61 Stone Town 45 Tanga 99 Zanzibar 66, 71 commercialization, of heritage 125, 137 communication bomas as centres of 91 British domination of in Indian Ocean 25 and colonial railways 98, 99 impacts of European transport on 97 UNESCO’s promotion of 130, 131

160 Index community academic community 137 Bagamoyo mission’s removal from 66 colonial manipulation of 83 engagement and sustainability 138–40 see also citizen participation Indian 90 and tourism in Tanzania 129 conservation and commercialization 125 and community engagement in 140 see also citizen participation of heritage sites 136–8 law 128–9 and its management 127 NGOs 131–2 and sense of place 134 Stone Town 71, 126, 133, 139 consul Algiers 20 Capetown (German) 27 Zanzibar (American) 45 Zanzibar (Austro-Hungarian) 67 Zanzibar (British) 19, 25, 26, 45, 67, 78 zone on Zanzibar 67, 68 crenulations, architectural uses of 54, 105, 119, 121 culture Burkina Faso ministry of 130 and identity 7–8 impact of colonialism on 2–3 impacts of tourism on 133 NGOs concerned with 131–2 non-dominant forms of 10 non urban 133 theme within UNESCO 130 uses of on Madagascar 115 customs Bagamoyo 64, 81, 87, 121 Chole 46, 76–7

Dar es Salaam 74 German officials 32 houses 50 Kaole 39 Kilwa Kivinje 79, 81 Pangani 51, 60–1, 119 Stone Town 50, 52, 67 da Gama, Vasco 12, 47, 48 Dar es Salaam account of 94 and Arab Revolt 73 askari 33 bom 121 see also boma capital of German East Africa 64, 78 caravans 17 cemeteries in 74 decline of 43, 101–2 defences 102 destruction of historic buildings in 136 development of 44–5, 58, 72–3, 78, 93, 101, 112 glass from 55 harbour 42 hospitals in 74 Indian inhabitants of 87, 90–1 port 74 see also port railway 73, 100 see also railway road to 101 town plan 38 waterfront 75 Wissman memorial in 107 see also Wissmann, Herbert von defence 102 Bagamoyo 102 Mombasa 122 see also Fort Jesus Stone Town 104 Dussel, Enrique 3, 5, 7, 87 elite in British government 20 division in Zanzibar revolution

Index European 82, 87, 90 heritage 135, 139 non-European 94 representation in architecture 57, 69, 72, 74, 77, 80, 82, 95, 103 spaces 54, 122, 124 structures in Pangani 60 zone in Madagascar 115 zone in Stone Town 67 zone in Tanga 96, 100 zone in Tripoli 121 embrasures, architectural uses of 105 Façade see also waterfront Chole waterfront 45 customs house Kilwa Kivinje and Bagamoyo 79 Fort Jesus 122 Indian district in Dar es Salaam 90 Pangani Boma 53 Pangani post office and customs house 62 Pangani waterfront 49 Stone Town 45, 66 feudal 4, 6 fort (fortification) Bagamoyo 103, 105–6 construction by Portuguese 16 Mombasa 106, 122–4 representation of mercantile activity 50 representative of political opposition 102 Stone Town 44, 45, 66, 104, 105 Foucault, Michel 8, 9 French, defeat in Napoleonic wars 25 attitude to colonialism 11, 114 Britain’s attitude to 26 colonial education 116 Germany’s attitude to 27, 30 language 130 in Madagascar 115–16 in Tunis 117

161 west African colonies 12, 114

Gereza (Zanzibar Old Fort) 44, 45, 104 German activity in Africa 26 approach to colonialism 34 capital of East Africa 64 Colonial Association 29 colonial motivation 27, 113 colonies in Africa 12 commemoration 107–9 see also monuments consuls 27 decline after World War I 35–6 East Africa Company 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 44, 59 emigration 34 partition of Africa 28, 33 plantations 35, 99 response to opposition 32–3 unification 12 urban design 38 German development Bagamoyo 64, 93 Chole 46, 75–7 Dar es Salaam 44, 100 Kilwa 78–9 Pangani 53, 60–1 Tanga 46–7 Zanzibar 139 Giddens, Anthony 8 Hall, Martin 7, 9 harbour Bagamoyo 37, 40, 93 Chole 45, 75 Dar es Salaam 42–4, 73–4, 100 development of deep-water 75, 77, 81–2, 93, 112 European domination of 82–3, 93 Kilwa 41, 78, 80–2 Pangani 48 Stone Town 44–5, 52–3

162 Index Tanga 46, 54–5 use by small vessel 81–2, 112 headquarters colonial, Dar es Salaam 78 of district police at Fort Jesus 106 Kilwa 82 Mombasa 123, 124 heritage 134 built 1, 11, 13, 111, 134, 135, 136, 137 destruction of 136 and development 137–9 iconic 88 invested 107 legislation 128, 129 material 13, 127 organizations 106, 131 protection 127, 130–1, 133, 135 Roman 119 sites 106, 115 studies 3 tool of social management 134 tourism 129, 135, 136–7 urban 1, 13, 97, 135, 139, 140 value (monetary) 137; world 126, 131, 133, 138 historical archaeology 9 Holland 3, 5 house(s) European 82, 84, 95 Indian 88, 89 indigenous 83, 84, 96–7 merchant 54, 67 Omani 54 residential 60 stone built 43, 95 Swahili-Arab 49, 88, 95, 96, 106 with balcony 88, 89 of wonders 69, 71, 135 see also Beit-al-Ajab imperialism 10 new 3

independence in Tanzania 3 in Zanzibar 126 India colonialism in 113 National Bank of 67, 123 Indian architecture 71, 72, 88, 89 Association 126 bourgeoisie 94 civil service 65, 72 merchants 43, 64, 72, 87, 94 middle class 68, 90 urban zones 73, 77, 78, 87, 88, 90–1 Indian Ocean British domination in 25 Islamization of 16 Indigenous architecture 64, 94 disenfranchisement 94 harbours 52 imitation in architecture 121 influence on urban planning 125 infrastructure 54 knowledge 6, 7 representation in heritage interpretation 135 segregation 116 settlement at Stone Town 44, 45 trade 80 urban zones 47, 57, 64, 74, 82–3, 84, 96–7, 99, 119 wage labour 18, 19 35, 86, 93 intangible heritage 106, 127, 130 system of social interaction 97 Kenya 16 caravan routes in 17 see also caravan heritage legislation in 128 National Museum of 123, 125 northern border 118 road in 101

Index Kilwa 78, 81, 87, 108 coast 41 district 34, 84 Kisiwani 16, 33, 41, 42, 49, 82 Kivinje 1, 17, 32, 33, 39, 40, 41, 42, 64, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 82, 92, 93, 101 memorial 108 Mosoko 78, 79, 80, 82, 84, 97 King Leopold (of Belgium) 12 Krapf, Johan 23, 46–9, 57, 78 Kusch, Rodolfo 7 Lake Tanganyika 107 Latin America 4, 6 le Corbusier 133–4 Madagascar 46, 115–16, 147 Pangani 62, 63 protection 127, 128 maji maji rebellion 34, 102 markets 54 Chole 81 colonial centralization of 86–7 heritage 137 Kilwa Kivinje 79–80 Kilwa Mosoko 83, 84 Madagascar 116 of the Shambaa 85 Stone Town 55–6 supply of by ports 111 Tanga 55 tool of colonialism 4, 113, 119–20 Marx, Karl 4, 6, 9 Marxist 5, 126, 134 memorial Bagamoyo 107 Kilwa 109 Pangani 62, 63 Mignolo, Walter 5, 6 military Chole 76 display of 70, 116 domination 6, 67, 76

163

intervention 11 monument 107 tradition 69 zones 50, 104 modernity 5, 6, 87 first modernity 3 second modernity 3, 4–5 Mombasa 121 Arab house 49 ceramic tradition 42 District Headquarters 124 Fort Jesus 122, 124 see also fort Indian house 89 missionary activity near 23–4 railway 28–9 road 106 sultan of 122 Treasury Square 123 monument 107–9 monumental, architecture 16, 68–9, 71 museum 106, 115, 122, 123, 125 neo-classical architectural style 121, 123, 124 Italian history 118–19 Omani architecture 49, 54, 74, 105 governor at Pangani 59 plantations 99 relocation to Zanzibar 40, 104 trade on Chole 46 zone at Stone Town 45 Orser, Charles 9, 10 see also historical archaeology Pangani account of 48, 88 ceramics 57 commemoration 63 see also monuments and memorialisation customs house 119 see also customs

164 Index early settlement 49 entrepôt 17, 85 European zone in 94 gentrification of 73 German activity 59–60 harbour 48 see also harbour loss of evidence 58 railway 100 see also railway river 48 parapet (architectural uses of) 105, 106 Peters, Carl 27, 29–31 plantation Benadir coast 118 centralization of 99 in Cote d’Ivoire 115 Dar es Salaam 73–4, 75, 100 development 111–12 economy 86 European design of 77 German 29, 35–6, 99 in Guinea 115 Kaole 40 Kilwa 40–1, 78, 82 Pangani 61, 85 and railway 100 and Railway Authority (Tanganyika) 100 Red Sea 117 in Senegal 114 slave 18 port see also harbour Stone Town 44, 66, 104 Tanga 48, 55, 99 Zanzibar 56, 99 Portuguese approach to colonial expansion 12 church at Stone Town 104 colonialism in the Americas 3–4 colonies in Africa 13 forts 16, 122 see also forts Mombasa 121–3 tax in Mozambique 18

post-colonial African identities 9 discourses 8 heritage 3 studies 4, 7 theory 10 town plans 38, 125, 133 post office 51, 60, 61, 123 protectorate British 28, 29, 33, 82, 93, 96, 101, 115, 121, 123 French 115 Italian 117, 118 of Tanganyika 36, 91 Ugandan 24, 25 Quijano, Aníbal, colonialism 6 race British approach to 114 and its role in identity formation 7 material representation of 116–17 railway authority 100 communication 99 Dar es Salaam 73, 100 Pangani 61 Senegal to Niger 114 small-gauge 99, 100 Stone Town 104 Tanga 46–7, 99 tool of colonial control 97, 99, 100–1 Uganda 28, 121, 123 Zanzibar 67 Rava, Carlos 119, 120 Red Sea colonies on coast of 117 trade links with 16–17, 26 remembrance 107 residential pre-colonial zones 57–8 zones 57, 94, 64, 71, 116, 122 zones and their conservation 127

Index revolution heritage interpretation of 135 Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar 1 role in Marxist theory 4 Zanzibar 117, 126, 135 Ribeiro, Darcy 6 Said, Edward 5, 9 scramble for Africa 12, 27, 31 second phase of European colonialism 3, 4 segregation in French Madagascar 116 in town design 82, 112 segregation zones 127 Shangani 44, 52, 56, 66, 67, 68, 104 Shirazi 47, 126 slavery 18, 19 prohibition of 30 slave trade 21, 23, 27, 42, 99, 114 Spanish colonialism 3, 5 Speke, John 21, 23, 39, 107 Stone Town 68, 71 see also Zanzibar Conservation and Development Authority (STCDA) 133 defences 102, 105 Forodhani gardens in 66–7 heritage interpretation in 135 impacts of conservation in 125–6, 133 maritime approach to 44 markets in 50 master plan 116, 125, 133, 139 origins of 44 public buildings in 70 racial identities in 127 railway 100 social conflict in 126 waterfront 45, 66 world heritage designation 133 structuration theory 8 subaltern, social theory 4 identity 10, 117

165

Sudan 17, 20, 62, 114 Sudanese 33, 76 Sultan al-Busaid 16 Barghash 68, 69 custom dues 28 European control of 72 flag of 60 Indian administrators to 87 Khalifa 31, 59 liwali 41 mainland dominion 28, 59 Majid 68, 72 Mangungu 29 Mohammad Yusif bin Hassan 122 of Mijjertein 118 of Mombasa 122 of Obbia 118 of Oman 16, 26, 113 palace of the 45 residence at Dar es Salaam 43 Seyyid Majid 42, 68, 72, 73 Seyyid Said 17, 23, 25, 68, 99, 104, 106, 123 sons palace 45 Zanzibar government led by 126 Swahili architecture 95, 95 Bantu origin 15 coast 15, 37, 57, 78, 111 culture 15 heritage representation of 135 port 85 society 95 town 16 Tanga administration buildings 93 boma 119, 121 see also boma bombardment of 32 caravans 18 see also caravan defence 102 entrepôt 17 European zone 96, 100

166 Index gentrification 73 harbour development 93 Indian zone 87, 90 indigenous zone 74 industrial 46 market 56 pre-colonial 47–8, 55 railway 99 road 101 town plan 38 Tanganyika 11, 17, 23, 36, 100 Government of 62 Protectorate of 91 Tanzania 16 antiquities act 128 independence 62, 63 Independent Republic of 55 Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism 129 removal of conservation area protection 136 socialist 127 unification with Zanzibar 126 United Republic of 126 Tourism and heritage 136–8 impact on Zanzibar residents 133 Ministry of (Tanzania) 129 tower (architectural use of) Arusha 91 Bagamoyo 93 Bagamoyo port 74 Dar es Salaam, port 74 Kilwa Kivinje 79 Pangani post office 61 Stone Town 45, 71, 104, 105 town plan 38, 39, 82 town planning 79, 116, 125 traditional architecture 72 buildings 57 ceramics 42 class hierarchies 20 discourse 10

ethnographies 10 military activity 69 oral histories 41 transport 61 view of Swahili Culture 15 transportation 46, 47, 97, 99 Tripoli 20, 118, 119, 120, 121 troops Eritrean 118 German 34 Zanzibar 70, 104 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) 106, 126, 130, 131 urban centres 58, 85, 90, 112, 125, 133, 136 colonial system 59 decline 125 design 13, 38, 84, 94, 120, 134 development 37, 114, 133 displacement 58 dissatisfaction 125 economy 133 environment 58, 134, 142 heritage 1, 13, 97, 135, 139, 140 inequality 134 landscape 74, 83, 86, 88, 90, 94, 107, 111, 124 management 79 model 86 periphery 133 plans 125, 134 politics 134 pre-colonial system 37 society 127 space 13, 37, 83, 94, 111, 113, 134 systems 37 urbanization 45 zones 66, 73, 120 urban design 13, 38, 84, 94, 120

Index veranda (architectural uses of) 88 von Bismark, Otto 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33 and Realpolitik 133 von Wissmann, Herman 33, 102, 107, 108 Wallerstein, Immanuel 5, 6 see also world-systems analyses waterfront Bagamoyo 41, 64 Chole 46, 76 Dar es Salaam 43–4, 72–4, 75 European domination of 64, 65, 82 indigenous 66 Kilwa Kivinje 42, 79 Mombasa 122 Pangani 49, 60–2 Stone Town 45, 52, 66, 68 Tanga 46–7, 48 Tripoli 121 zone 13, 37, 38, 39, 59 world heritage 130 convention 130 designation of Stone Town 133 list 133

167

sites 126, 138 World War I 53, 62, 63, 100, 101 World War II 53 world-systems analyses 5 see also Wallerstein, Immanuel Zanzibar see also Stone Town account of 50, 53 architecture on 49, 67, 71 British control of 33 British on 19, 25, 78 bureaucracy on 68, 70 Germans on 31 harbour 75, 104, 112 heritage interpretation on 135 heritage law on 128 impacts of tourism on 133 Indian influence on 71–2, 87 missionary hub 23, 24 Nationalist Party 126 and Pemba People’s Party 126 revolution 126 slavery on 25 transfer of Sultan’s court to 16, 17, 25, 40 world heritage site 133