Les fortifications endogenes au Senegal Oriental (17ème – 19ème siecle) 9781407306360, 9781407336091, 9781407359243, 9781407359236

Table of contents :
Cover Page
Copyright Page
Table of Content
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Introduction to Research Concept
1.2 Research Objectives
1.3 Definition of the Study Area and Environmental Setting
1.4 Methodology
1.5 Previous Archaeological Work in the Study Area
1.6 Related Issues and Researches
1.7 Sources
1.8 Summary
Chapter 2: Conceptual Framework
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Historical Archaeology
2.3 Landscape and Space
2.4 Ports
2.5 Sea Transport
2.6 Capitalism and Marxism
2.7 World-Systems
2.8 Power and Identity
2.9 Colonialism and Post-Colonialism
2.10 Africanist Identities
2.11 Nationalism
2.12 Summary
Chapter 3: Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Historic Narratives of the East African Region
3.3 Summary
Chapter 4: Archaeological Context
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Waterfronts
4.3 Management and Trade Centres.
4.4 Markets Prior to the Colonial Era.
4.5 Residential Areas.
4.6 Summary
Chapter 5: Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Tanga
5.3 Pangani
5.4 Bagamoyo
5.5 Unguja
5.6 Dar es Salaam
5.7 Chole
5.8 Kilwa Kivinje
5.9 Summary
Chapter 6: Colonial Urban Historical Archaeologies of Coastal Tanzania
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Management and Trade
6.3 Bomas
6.4 Colonial Residential Areas.
6.5 Terrestrial Communication
6.6 Defence
6.7 Monuments and Burials
6.8 Summary
Chapter 7: Colonial Urban Historical Archaeologies of Coastal Kenya
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Mombasa’s Pre-Colonial Waterfront
7.3 Mombasa’s Waterfront
7.4 Management and Trade
7.5 Indian District
7.6 Colonial Residential Areas
7.7 Terrestrial Communication
7.8 Defence
7.9 Monuments and Burials
7.10 Summary
Chapter 8: Discussion
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Historical Archaeology
8.3 Landscape and Space
8.4 Ports and Sea Transport
8.5 Capitalism and Marxism
8.6 World-Systems
8.7 Power and Identity
8.8 Colonialism and Post-Colonialism
8.9 Identities, Nationalism and Colonialisms Legacy
8.10 Summary
Chapter 9: Conclusion
9.1 Overview
9.2 Future Research Avenues
9.3 Concluding Statement
Appendix A: Historic Text Referred to in Chapter 2
Appendix B: Historic Text Referred to in Section 3.7
Appendix C: Historic Text Referred to in Section 3.8
Appendix D: Images Referred to in Chapter 4
Appendix E: Images Referred to in Chapter 5
Appendix F: Historic Text and Plans Referred to in Section 6.2
Appendix G: Population Figures Referred to in Section 6.2
Appendix H: Images Referred to in Chapter 6
Appendix I: Images Referred to in Chapter 7
Appendix J: Site Gazetteer
Bibliography

Citation preview

BAR S2075 2010

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 79 Series Editors: John Alexander, Laurence Smith and Timothy Insoll

RHODES HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGIES OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY COLONIAL TANZANIA

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania A comparative study

Daniel Rhodes

BAR International Series 2075 2010 B A R

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 79 Series Editors: John Alexander, Laurence Smith and Timothy Insoll

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania A comparative study

Daniel Rhodes

BAR International Series 2075 2010

ISBN 9781407306360 paperback ISBN 9781407336091 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407306360 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

Table of Content Acknowledgments

ix

Chapter 1: Introduction

1

1.1 Introduction to Research Concept 1.2 Research Objectives 1.3 Definition of the Study Area and Environmental Setting 1.3.1 Geology and Coastal Morphology 1.3.2 Geography of the Indian Ocean 1.3.3 Climatology 1.3.4 Resources 1.4 Methodology 1.5 Previous Archaeological Work in the Study Area 1.6 Related Issues and Researches 1.7 Sources 1.8 Summary

1 1 1 3 4 4 4 5 6 7 7 8

Chapter 2: Conceptual Framework

9

2.1 Introduction 2.2 Historical Archaeology 2.3 Landscape and Space 2.4 Ports 2.5 Sea Transport 2.6 Capitalism and Marxism 2.7 World-Systems 2.8 Power and Identity 2.9 Colonialism and Post-Colonialism 2.10 Africanist Identities 2.11 Nationalism 2.12 Summary

9 9 10 12 13 14 14 15 16 17 20 21

Chapter 3: Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Historic Narratives of the East African Region 3.3 Summary

23 23 23 43

Chapter 4: Archaeological Context

44

4.1 Introduction 4.2 Waterfronts 4.3 Management and Trade Centres. 4.4 Markets Prior to the Colonial Era. 4.5 Residential Areas. 4.6 Summary

44 44 59 63 66 67

Chapter 5: Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania 5.1 Introduction

69 69

i

5.2 Tanga 5.3 Pangani 5.4 Bagamoyo 5.5 Unguja 5.6 Dar es Salaam 5.7 Chole 5.8 Kilwa Kivinje 5.9 Summary

69 80 91 94 103 107 117 124

Chapter 6: Colonial Urban Historical Archaeologies of Coastal Tanzania 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Management and Trade 6.3 Bomas 6.4 Colonial Residential Areas. 6.5 Terrestrial Communication 6.5.1 Railway Systems. 6.5.2 Route-ways/Roadways 6.6 Defence 6.7 Monuments and Burials 6.8 Summary

126 126 126 133 136 140 140 145 146 150 154

Chapter 7: Colonial Urban Historical Archaeologies of Coastal Kenya 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Mombasa’s Pre-Colonial Waterfront 7.3 Mombasa’s Waterfront 7.4 Management and Trade 7.5 Indian District 7.6 Colonial Residential Areas 7.7 Terrestrial Communication 7.8 Defence 7.9 Monuments and Burials 7.10 Summary

156 156 156 160 165 176 180 183 186 189 190

Chapter 8: Discussion

195

8.1 Introduction 8.2 Historical Archaeology 8.3 Landscape and Space 8.4 Ports and Sea Transport 8.5 Capitalism and Marxism 8.6 World-Systems 8.7 Power and Identity 8.8 Colonialism and Post-Colonialism 8.9 Identities, Nationalism and Colonialisms Legacy 8.10 Summary

Chapter 9: Conclusion

195 195 195 197 197 198 199 200 201 203 204

9.1 Overview 9.2 Future Research Avenues

204 206 ii

9.3 Concluding Statement

206

Appendix A: Historic Text Referred to in Chapter 2

207

Appendix B: Historic Text Referred to in Section 3.7

208

Appendix C: Historic Text Referred to in Section 3.8

212

Appendix D: Images Referred to in Chapter 4

214

Appendix E: Images Referred to in Chapter 5

221

Appendix F: Historic Text and Plans Referred to in Section 6.2

252

Appendix G: Population Figures Referred to in Section 6.2

256

Appendix H: Images Referred to in Chapter 6

257

Appendix I: Images Referred to in Chapter 7

272

Appendix J: Site Gazetteer

286

1. Tanga 2. Pangani 3. Kilwa Kivinje 4. Mombasa (CMA 2001).

286 289 295 298

Bibliography

307

iii

List of Figures Chapter 1 Figure 1.1 Map showing the Western Indian Ocean and the East African region. Figure 1.2 Map showing the northern oceanic boundaries of the Indian Ocean.

2 3

Chapter 2 Figure 2.1 Pan-African Congress, Nairobi 1947.

20

Chapter 3 Figure. 3.1 Map of Indian Ocean rim. Figure 3.2 Map of the East African region showing places discussed in chapter 3. Figure 3.3 Map showing nineteenth-century German East Africa.

23 34 41

Chapter 4 Figure 4.1 Marine approach to Bagamoyo. Figure 4.2 Marine approach to Kilwa Kivinje. Figure 4.3 Remains of fishing weir south of Kilwa Kivinje. Figure 4.4 Nineteenth-century ceramics from Kilwa waterfront. Figure 4.5 Marine approach to Dar es Salaam. Figure 4.6 The ‘Old Boma’ at the junction of City Drive and Morogoro Road, Dar es Salaam. Figure 4.7 The ‘Sayyid Barghash’ building on the corner of Mkwepu Street, Dar es Salaam. Figure 4.8 Marine approach to Zanzibar. Figure 4.9 Zanzibar’s pre-colonial waterfront. Figure 4.10 Marine approach to Chole. Figure 4.11 Marine approach to Tanga. Figure 4.12 Marine approach to Pangani. Figure 4.13 Building PBF. Figure 4.14 Plan of building PBF. Figure 4.15 Zanzibar waterfront painted in the mid-nineteenth century. Figure 4.16 Bagamoyo Caravanserai (BBC). Figure 4.17 Pangani Boma (PBA). Figure 4.18 Building PBI. Figure 4.19 Map showing features recorded during current archaeological survey at Tanga. Figure 4.20 Building PBJ. Figure 4.21 Map showing features recorded during current archaeological survey at Pangani.

45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Chapter 5 Figure 5.1 Map of Tanga showing nineteenth-century centre within curve of railway line and later districts of Ngamiani and on Ras Kazone. Figure 5.2 Tanga’s industrialized harbour, looking north-east. Figure 5.3 Structure TF6. The low coral-rag wall marks an indigenous dhow harbour, looking south-west. Figure 5.4 Tanga’s historic urban waterfront. Figure5.5;Building TB8. A late-period (post 1918), large commercial buildings dominating a major road junction leading from Customs Street, looking south-east.

iv

70 71 71 72 74

Figure 5.6 Building TB1. Mixed commercial and residential building upon the towns ocean façade dating from 1900 to 1914, looking south. Figure 5.7 Building TB70. Possible military structure associated with outlying pillarboxes, looking north. Figure 5.8 Building TB74. Tanga’s Town Hall and Colonial Boma, looking north-west. Figure 5.9 Tanga Clock Tower and Burials (TB115), looking east. The clock was constructed in 1961 and the adjacent graves date from 1888-1900. Figure 5.10 Plan of TB115, Clock Tower and Burials. The clock was constructed in 1961 and the graves to the west date from 1888-1900. Figure 5.11 Building TB109. A post-World War 1 European colonial structure, looking south. Figure 5.12 Building TB111. German period structure (c. 1890-1910) where the Anglo-German ceasefire was signed in World-War 1, looking south. Figure 5.13 Plan of TB111, possible hospital site. Figure 5.14 Pangani’s Urban Waterfront. Figure 5.15 Pangani sea wall (PBD), looking south east. Figure 5.16 Southern most pier upon Pangani’s northern bank, looking east. Figure 5.17 Building PB1. Industrial structure from the post World War 1 British Protectorate period, possibly associated with railway activity, looking north-west. Figure 5.18 Historic picture (c.1900) showing railway line and plantation lands to east and north of Pangani’s waterfront. Figure 5.19 Building PBE, German Post Office and Customs, south facing elevation. Figure 5.20 Plan and Elevation of Building PBE, German Post Office and Customs. Figure 5.21 Building PB5. A Zawia or small mosque located upon Pangani’s waterfront, looking north-east. Figure 5.22 South-west facing section through PF1. Figure 5.23 Chart showing the percentages of ceramic types found in PF1. Figure 5.24 Bagamoyo’s historic urban waterfront. Figure 5.25 East facing elevation of Bagamoyo Customs Building (BB1) as viewed looking west from the marine approach. Figure 5.26 Plan and east facing elevation of Bagamoyo Customs building (BB1) (author’s own survey 2005). Figure 5.27 1873 map of Bagamoyo town and mission (after Bagamoyo Roman Catholic Mission Archive, 1873 reprinted in Chami et al. 2004, 16). Figure 5.28 Zanzibar’s Urban Waterfront. Figure 5.30 Map of Zanzibar Town, 1895 (Bauman, 1897 reproduced in Sheriff 1995, 10). Figure 5.31 Building ZB11 (Beit al-Ajab) as seen from the marine approach, looking south-east. Figure 5.32 Upper image: Shangani customs area c.1890. Lower image: Shangani customs c.1900. Figure 5.33 The old palace Beit al-Sahil (ZB9), 1896. Figure 5.34 Illustration of Zanzibar waterfront 1857. Figure 5.35 Beit al Hukm (ZB10), 1896. Figure 5.36 Building ZB1 (Ithnaasheri or Old Dispensary), looking saouth-east. Figure 5.37 Plan of ZB1, Ithnaasheri or Old Dispensary (modified from Battle 1995, 97). Figure 5.38 Dar es Salaam’s Nineteenth-century Urban Waterfront. Figure 5.39 Dar es Salaam’s lighterage wharf (DB4) c.1906. Figure 5.40 Dar es Salaam City Hall. Figure 5.41 Early German period Government Buildings upon Dar es Salaam’s waterfront. Figure 5.42 Sewa Haji Hospital (DB2), showing the main two-storey entrance and three-storey tower to the north-west. Figure 5.43 Plan of Chole’s Urban Waterfront. Figure 5.44 Chole Boma (CBA), looking south-west.

v

74 75 76 77 78 79 79 80 81 82 82 84 85 86 87 88 89 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 97 98 99 100 100 101 102 103 105 105 106 107 108 109

Figure 5.45 Building CBB at Chole. Locally reputed to be a gaol however, most probably used as a military barracks, looking south. Figure 5.46 Possible grave at Chole, looking south-east. Figure 5.47 Possible mosque (CBC) at Chole, looking north-east. Figure 5.48 Building CBD at Chole. A large elite structure containing traditional Arab architectural styles, looking south. Figure 5.49 Moulded masonry from CBD at Chole, looking east. The aperture is designed to hold an imported ceramic bowl, usually China, as a symbol of status. Figure 5.50 Chole market (CBI), looking south. This enclosed structure would have allowed the colonial authority to closely monitor trade. Figure 5.51 Building CBE at Chole, looking north-east. This is building an large enclosure is believed to be a former Indian Temple. Figure 5.52 Plan of Kilwa Kivinje’s Urban Waterfront. Figure 5.53 Sea Wall at Kilwa Kivinje (KB7), looking north-west. Figure 5.54 Slipways and seawall (KB7) in front of Customs Building (KB2) at Kilwa Kivinje, looking north. Figure 5.55 Remnants of Boma Complex (KB1) at Kilwa Kivinje, looking south. Figure 5.56 Fish Market (KB3) at Kilwa Kivinje, looking south-west. Figure 5.57 KF10, upper looking north-west and lower looking west. Figure 5.58 Plan of KF10, structure within the intertidal zone at Kilwa Kivinje, possibly used as a butchery or some Figure 5.59 British colonial government plan of proposed Kilwa Mosoko ‘Township’ and environs c.1920s.

111 112 113 114 115 116 116 118 119 119 120 121 122 123 125

Chapter 6 Figure 6.1 Top building TB54 and bottom building TB55, looking north-east. Both display the typical Indian influenced carved timber balcony. Figure 6.2 Map of central Dar es Salaam showing India St. and Uhindini District highlighted by dashed red line. Figure 6.3 Building KB12, looking south-west. Figure 6.4 Building KB13, looking south-west. Figure 6.5 Building KB14, looking north. Figure 6.6 Plan of Bagamoyo Boma (BB5), constructed 1897. Figure 6.7 Building BB5 (Bagamoyo Boma), south-west facing elevation. Figure 6.8 Building PB9, looking north-east. This was constructed some time after 1919 European management at Pangani within a distinct Europe zone. Figure 6.9 Building KB4, looking south. Figure 6.10 Building KB5, looking south. Figure 6.11 Caravan routes from the East African coast to interior. Figure 6.12 Tanga’s railway cutting, looking north. Figure 6.13 Building TB116. Tanga railway station, looking south-east. Figure 6.14 Structure PF21, looking south-west. This structure may be related to a proposed railway on the southern coast of Pangani. Figure 6.16 Darajani Bridge and railway c. early 1900s, connecting Zanibar Stone town and Ngambo to the east over the creek. Figure 6.15 Zanzibar railway line c. early 1900s, running south-west to northeast in front of the Gereza (Peabody Museum Neg. 24254). Figure 6.17 Road bridge to north of Kilwa Kivinje, looking north. Figure 6.18 South facing section at the southern Kilwa Kivinje bridge (Trench No. KU1). Figure 6.19 Building BB7 (German Block House), looking west. Figure 6.20 Plan of Pangani’s German Blockhouse. vi

129 130 131 132 132 134 135 137 138 138 139 141 141 143 144 144 145 146 147 148

Figure 6.21 Plan of Bagamoyo Fort (BB4), constructed 1860. Figure 6.22 Bagamoyo Fort (BB4) c.1900. Figure 6.23 Bagamoyo’s Wissman Monument. Figure 6.24 Wissman memorial in Dar es Salam, replaced in 1927. Figure 6.25 German cemetery at Pangani, looking north. Figure 6.26 Indigenous burial ground (BFC) at Bagamoyo, looking north-west. Figure 6.27 KF11 (Muslim burial at Kilwa Kivinje), looking south-west.

149 149 151 151 152 153 154

Chapter 7 Figure 7.1 Marine approach to Mombasa. Figure 7.2 Plan of ‘Mombaze’ c.1586. Figure 7.3 Rezende’s Plan of Mombasa c.1634. Figure 7.4 Map of Mombasa Island, c.1728. Figure 7.5 Mombasa’s historic urban waterfront. Figure 7.6 Swahili House at Mombasa. Figure 7.7 Plan and elevation of Mombasa Swahili House. Figure 7.8 Shop House at the north of Ndia Kuu. Figure 7.9 Plan and elevation of Mombasa Shop House. Figure 7.10 Traditional Mombasa House (MB5) on Mbarak Hinawy Road. Figure 7.11 Plan and elevation of Mombasa Traditional House. Figure 7.12 Mombasa Customs Complex (MB18). Figure 7.13 Map of Mombasa’s Treasury Square. Figure 7.14 Building MBF. Figure 7.15 Building MBN. Figure 7.16 Building MBK. Figure 7.17 Building MBJ. Figure 7.18 Building MBR. Figure 7.19 Building MBH. Figure 7.20 Building MB29. Figure 7.21 Building MB33. Figure 7.22 Building MB46. Figure 7.23 Building MB48. Figure 7.24 Map showing Mombasa railway and trolley system at the end of the nineteenth century. Figure 7.25 View of Treasury Square c.1900. Figure 7.26 View north-west along Mbarak Hinaway Road c.1900. Figure 7.27 Plan of Fort Jesus, 1610 by Manuel Godinho de Heredia. Figure 7.28 Contemporary plan of Fort Jesus. Figure 7.29 Mbaraki Pillar c.1900. Figure 7.30 Wavell Monument. Figure 7.31 Allidina Visram monument. Figure 7.32 Construction of Kilindini Harbour and Railway c.1896.

156 157 158 159 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 170 171 171 172 173 173 175 177 178 179 181 182 183 184 185 187 188 189 191 192 193

Chapter 8 Figure 8.1 Conceptual model showing the movement of material out of Africa Figure 8.2 Conceptual model showing the spatial distribution of the social zones within the coastal urban centres discussed in this monograph.

vii

198 200

List of Tables Chapter 1 Table 1.1 Direct uses of the mangrove tree species in Tanzania and their names in Kiswahili. Table 1.2 Types of fish caught by coastal East Africans and types of methods used.

4 5

Chapter 2 Table 2.1 Suggested periodic divides within archaeological research. Table 2.2 Showing type and function of port facilities.

9 13

Chapter 4 Table 4.1 Study area harbour types.

44

Chapter 5 Table 5.1 Buildings along Tanga’s waterfront. Table 5.2 Buildings in Pangani discussed in this monograph. Table 5.3 Buildings in Bagamoyo discussed in this monograph. Table 5.4 Buildings in Zanzibar discussed in this monograph. Table 5.5 House Types in Zanzibar – 1893. Table 5.6 Buildings in Dar es Salaam discussed in this monograph. Table 5.7 Buildings in Chole discussed in this monograph. Table 5.8 Buildings in Kilwa Kivinje discussed in this monograph.

73 83 90 96 101 104 107 117

Chapter 6 Table 6.1 Showing the colonial departments serviced by and the number of trolleys used in Tanga in 1922.

142

Chapter 7 Table 7.1 Buildings along Mombasa’s Old Port waterfront. Table 7.2 Buildings in Mombasa’s Treasury Square.

169 170

Chapter 8 Table 8.1 Showing the relative roles of the ports under study during the nineteenth century.

viii

197

Acknowledgments My first experience of Tanzania came at the auspices of the British Institute of Eastern Africa (BIEA), for that I thank Dr Paul Lane, Dr Andrew Burton and Dr Stephanie Wynne-Jones. Thanks are also extended to Dr Edward Pollard (University of Ulster), Mr Joseph Matua (BIEA), Mr Mjema Elinaza and Ms Mary Davies for support and assistance during fieldwork in Tanzania. Fieldwork was also facilitated in Chole by the BIEA. I am indebted to my doctoral supervisors Dr Colin Breen and Dr Rory Quinn. I would also like to thank a number of people at and associated with the University of Ulster, all of whom have supported this PhD and far exceeded their professional and personal commitments by not only offering academic support, but for also allowing me to share their friendship and their homes when necessity demanded. Above all, Colin Breen, Claire Callahan, Daire and Caoimhe deserve the greatest thanks. Furthermore, Rory Quinn and Rosemarie McMenamin, Wes Forsythe and Gemma Reed, all offered advice, friendship and a place to sleep throughout the course of this research. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Elizabeth Jones, who not only took time to proof read the final stages of this monograph but also offered a perspective hitherto absent in a single minded PhD researcher.

ix

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Introduction to Research Concept

archaeological survey of the nineteenth-century coastal colonial landscape of Tanzania. This process will: a) identify and document new and existing sites; b) develop a comprehensive range of understandings about the nature and form of the cultural landscape in the study area during the nineteenth-century colonial period; c) generate a comprehensive understanding of the cultural activities and archaeological evidence of colonial activity in Tanzania; d) develop an in-depth understanding of the archaeology and morphology of colonial urban centres in nineteenth-century Tanzania; and e) develop in comparison to Tanzania an in-depth understanding of the archaeology and morphology of nineteenth-century Mombasa (Kenya).

By conducting a study of archaeology and the built environment within an East African context, this monograph aims to actively promote the conservation of culturally important and endangered environments, and to use archaeology to address fundamental questions of identity within the process of colonialism in East Africa in the nineteenth century. Through a comparison of material remains the study places an emphasis upon Tanzania with comparative analyses drawn from Kenya and in so doing it is proposed that methods of colonial subjugation through landscape and seascape use can be better understood. The monograph aims to offer an essential insight into the origins of contemporary East African identities and address questions of ideological intent versus practice on the part of colonial powers. By concentrating primarily upon the Tanzanian towns of Tanga, Pangani, Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam, Chole, Kilwa Kivinje and comparing these to the Kenyan town of Mombasa it is intended that a better understanding of the nineteenth-century colonial experience and its legacy can be achieved. The research aims to achieve this by adopting a landscape approach, which will take as its lead the interaction between humans and the nonhuman environment, as well as assessing the development of architecture and town morphology

•

Objective 2: To examine the role of the built environment as a tool of ideological expression within the colonial environment. This process will: a) demonstrate the possible ways in which historical archaeology can be used to address fundamental questions of social and political change; and b) examine the Tanzanian colonial narrative in terms of the wider Indian Ocean.

This research will further the development of archaeology within the maritime sphere by approaching the physical remains of maritime peoples with regard to their position in the wider landscape and seascape. It will also address the implications of colonial involvements in the activities of indigenous peoples and the global implications of trade and development of East African states and identities.

•

Objective 3: Develop a regional chronological sequence for cultural development in the area which is supported by theoretical examination through: a) the identification and recording of all available documentary information relating to the study areas; b) the subsequent production of a detailed chronological history of the study areas; and c) the interrogation of all data in a theoretical framework.

From a theoretical perspective this research develops further the growing awareness of the important relationship between those periods and practices considered ‘historical’ and those ‘archaeological’. By embracing the multivocality of both and looking more deeply at the context and environment in which different sources are manufactured, then the project can not only develop further understandings of the East African colonial periods but also add to the growing development of interdisciplinerary archaeohistoric research.

1.3 Definition of the Study Area and Environmental Setting The East African region (Fig. 1.1) is defined within this monograph as comprising Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Reunion. The area traditionally known as the Swahili coast stretches from Somalia to Mozambique some 3000km from North to South but reaching at its narrowest only 20km inland (McConkey and McErlean 2007, 99). It includes a

1.2 Research Objectives • Objective 1: To generate a comprehensive

1

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 1.1; Map showing the Western Indian Ocean and the East African region (after University of Texas, 2008).

number of offshore islands including Madagascar, Zanzibar and Comorian archipelagos. Traditionally viewed as part of a homogenous cultural unit the area has developed into a number of distinctive nation states. However, the peoples of the East African littoral remain, at least within the archaeological record, grouped within an overarching cultural communality known as Swahili (Horton and Middleton 2000, 2). A number of studies have contested this homogeneity (Eastman 1971; Salim 1975; Wynne-

Jones 2005) and promoted individual diversity amongst coastal settlements in the past. It is the aim of this current monograph to present an investigation into the area within the East African coast now known as the Independent Republic of Tanzania (the shoreline of which extends from c.4º30’S to 10º30’S, a distance of just over 725km) and although the author recognizes the shortcomings of an approach which aims to encompass the western Indian Ocean into a universal Swahili identity, the study area is

2

Introduction defined by the overarching cultural trait of the supposed Swahili peoples, that of the maritime lifeways of the Western Indian Ocean. As such this monograph defines its study area as that of the East African littoral within the nineteenth century.

Tanzania and Kenya a number of rivers run into the Indian Ocean. These include the Pangani, Wami, Ruvu, Rufiji, Matandu, Mbemjuru, Lukuledi and Ruvma in Tanzania, and the Galana, Ewaso Ng’iro and Tana in Kenya. In Tanzania, the rivers run into two distinct environments: the Pangani, Lukuledi, and Rovuma flow through narrow estuaries and into deep water where the majority of their sediment is deposited, whereas the Wami, Ruvu, and Rufiji rivers discharge into the shallower waters in the lee of Zanzibar and Mafia Island, at which point the Wami and Rufiji have formed Deltas (Alexander 1985, 691). In Kenya the coast can be separated into two differing system, north and south. The north received depositional material predominantly from continental and deltaic (or estuarine) environments and in the south, the materials are mainly marine and lagoonal in origin (Ojany 1985, 697).

As a comparison the research also addresses colonial activity within contemporary Kenya and as defined above, Kenya falls geographically within the traditional Swahili coast. As such, it was subject to the same kind of social, economic and political nineteenth-century colonial forces as Tanzania and therefore offers an insight into the physical colonial processes as applied to different indigenous social and cultural environments. While Chapter 4 of this monograph includes individual descriptions of coastal morphology and bathymetry in relation to the individual study areas, the following section provides a description of the overriding physical geographical traits of the Western Indian Ocean.

The geomorphology of the coast is varied and can be classified into seven categories. Those included within areas of open coastline are low-lying sandy coasts, rocky coasts, fringing reef coasts, and patch reef coasts; and in areas of sheltered shores; inlets, estuaries and creeks (Pollard 2007, 41). Broadly speaking in Tanzania the most developed coral barrier islands and reefs occur in the north between Pangani and Kenya, with less developed examples occurring between Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam. To the south of Kilwa Kisiwani these are largely absent, although, fringing reefs are common (Alexander 1985, 691). In Kenya coral is much more continuously developed in the south and forms a more or less continuous fringing reef. In the north, terrigenous sedimentation impedes growth (Ojany 1985, 697).

1.3.1 Geology and Coastal Morphology The coastal plateau of East Africa is composed of both marine and terrestrial sediments ranging in age from the Jurassic through Cretaceous to Tertiary and Quaternary. However, much of the coast is made up of Pleistocene and Recent coral limestone in the form of raised coral reefs, sandstones and sand dunes (Francis et al. 2001, 11; Pollard 2007, 33). The coastline is relatively low lying (although Tanga, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa all sit upon raised coral ridges) and rises slowly in a westerly direction. In

Figure 1.2; Map showing the northern oceanic boundaries of the Indian Ocean (modified from Smith 2008).

3

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania 1.3.2 Geography of the Indian Ocean

pattern creating winds that move roughly southwest to northeast (November to February) and weaker northeast to southwest (April to September). Not only do these winds carry annual rains allowing agriculturalists to work to a fairly regular seasonal pattern but they also facilitate maritime activities throughout the region. The months of March/April and October/November represent the intermonsoon periods and are usually the calmest. June and July are the windiest with March, April and November experiencing the lowest and most variable wind speeds (Francis et al. 2001, 10). Monsoon from the Arabic mausim or mawsim meaning season (McPherson 1998, 9, for a more in-depth study of the Arabic derivation and early sources see Tibbetts 1971, 360-382), however, Toussaint (1966, 8-9) also asserts that the term originally meant market or feast.

Broadly speaking the Indian Ocean (Fig. 1.2) is the world’s third largest ocean (some 27 percent of the maritime space of the world, Pearson, 2003: 14) and lies between Africa, Asia, Australia and Antarctica (Smithsonian Institute, 1995). More specifically, the ocean’s western limit reaches from 20°E at Cape Agulhas to Queen Maud Land in Antarctica. Its eastern limit, south of Australia, reaches from the western boundary of Bass Strait to Cape Grim in north-western Tasmania; and from the south-east Cape of Tasmania, along meridian 147°E, to the Antarctic continent. The eastern limit, north of Australia, stretches from Cape York to New Guinea (141°01’E) to Java, Sumatra and Singapore (Fairbridge 1966, 370).

1.3.4 Resources

In the western region (the region with which this study is most concerned) there exists a complex pattern of oceanic basins. From north to south there is the Red Sea Basin, the Arabian Sea Basin, the Somali Basin, the Mascerene Basin off the east coast of Madagascar, the Madagascar Basin to the south of the island, the Crozet Basin, the Mozambique Basin and the Aghulas Basin off southeast South Africa (Prescott 1985, 156). The coast is mesotidal and subject to semi-diurnal tides ranging from less than 2m to up to 4m and the dominant wave and wind direction is from the southeast under the influence of the southeast and southwest trade winds between April and December (Kairu and Nyandwi 2000, 7)

Not only were the natural resources of the Western Indian Ocean an important part of the subsistence life-ways of its indigenous population, but they also acted as the major impetus for colonial mercantile speculation and later plantation development during the nineteenth century. For example, the Tanzanian coast and islands proved a suitable environment for coconut and cloves and the availability of coral supplied the raw material for urban stone construction. Of these resources, mangrove first attracted the attention of Europeans due to its central role in the maritime oceangoing culture of East Africa i.e. its use in construction. Mangroves are marine tidal forests that develop around river mouths and sheltered bays. The mangrove forests of mainland Tanzania cover approximately 115,500ha and contain nine species of mangrove tree (Francis et al. 2001, 28). These trees have a number of uses (see Table 1.1) as well as forming an important part of the East African ecosystem by providing breeding, feeding and nursery grounds for prawns, shellfish and fish, resulting in higher fishery yields in areas of mangrove development (Francis et al. 2001, 30).

The Indian Ocean also contains a number of smaller seas which include: The Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, Laccadive Sea, Bay of Bengal, Andaman Sea, Malacca Straights, Singapore Straits, Mozambique Channel and the Great Australian Bight (Fairbridge 1966, 370; Pearson 2003, 16). 1.3.3 Climatology The prevailing climatological phenomenon in the Indian Ocean is that of the monsoon. This is an annual weather

As well as mangrove, seaweed is used on a small scale

Species

Kiswahili Name

Uses

Avicennia marina

Mchu

Inferior Firewood (used for boiling of brine fish), smoking and production of lime, building dugout canoes and beehives; leaves used as goat and cattle fodder; branches support beehives.

Msinzi or Mshinzi

Good firewood used for fish smoking; fishing stakes and poles.

Mkandaa Msikundazi or Mkungu

Good firewood, poles, fishing stakes and fence posts.

Mkandaa dume

Good firewood.

Mkoko or Mkaka

Good firewood, poles, fence posts, fish traps, and fishing stakes.

Bruguiera gymnorrhiza Ceriops tagal Heritiera littoralis Lumnitzera racemosa Rhizophora mucronata Sonneretia alba Xylocarpus granatum

Mlilana or Mpira Mkomafi

Good firewood, timber for boat building, furniture and dhow masts.

Inferior firewood, commonly used in boat building, pneumatophores used as fish net floats. Good firewood, used for fish smoking, boat building and making furniture. The seeds are used to treat stomach problems and the fruit pulp to cure rashes.

Table 1.1; Direct uses of the mangrove tree species in Tanzania and their names in Kiswahili (after Francis et al. 2001, 30).

4

Introduction Type of Fish

Fishing Technique

Demersal (bream, parrotfish, snappers, mullet, emperors and groupers etc.).

Lines (troll line, handline and longline), traps (fixed and moveable), nets (purse seine, scoop, drift gillnets, demersal gillnets with small and large mesh, shark nets and surrounding gill nets).

Small Pelagic (sardines, mackerel and anchovies etc.). Large Pelagic (tuna, kingfish, sailfish, marlin, shark and ray).

Nets (purse seine, scoop and surrounding nets). Lines (troll line, handline and longline), nets (drift gillnets, demersal gillnets) and shark nets.

Table 1.2; Types of fish caught by coastal East Africans and types of methods used (after Muhando et al. 2001, 52-53).

along the coast of Tanzania. Its uses include the covering of wounds (Ulva fasciata), as fish baits in traps (Enteromopha, Laurencis papillosa, Acanthophora spicifera and Ulva), and as a vegetable or medicine (Francis et al. 2001, 33).

place in Tanzania and Kenya between May and October 2005 and April 2006. Site recording was carried out by conventional means, walking the shorelines (traversing on foot the intertidal and coastal zone parallel to the high water mark) and recording monuments and related material culture through the production of descriptive text and sketch and scale plans, as well as the surface collection of artefacts. All sites were geographically recorded using a hand held GPS (accuracy +/-5m) and plotted using Surfer 8.04 upon the most recently available admiralty charts. The distances covered by the coastal survey in relation to individual towns was again dictated by time, funds and the accessibility of the coastal landscape in terms of the natural environment (i.e. most often dense mangrove development or watercourses formed natural termini and only a finite distance could be travelled on foot on a daily basis). All the streetscapes of the towns within the study were individually mapped using a hand held GPS (accuracy +/-5m), with the greatest amount of attention paid to standing buildings and monuments. Each individual building within the towns of Kilwa Kivinje, Chole, Bagamoyo, Pangani and Tanga were externally photographed and at Dar es Salaam and Mombasa those deemed of greatest archaeological interest were similarly recorded. These images form the basis of the stylistic distribution analyses and elevation drawings (using CorelDRAW 12) seen later in this monograph, with buildings categorized as European, Indian or Swahili depending upon their dominant facades and construction technique. All the fieldwork was carried out by the author personally and augmented at Kilwa Kivinje by Mr Joseph Matua of the British Institute in Eastern Africa who aided in the mapping of the town and the coastal survey. As also did Mr Mjema Elinaza (an archaeological undergraduate at the University of Dar es Salaam) at Pangani and Tanga. The fieldwork carried out at Chole was assisted by Dr Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Ms Mary Davies of the British Institute of Eastern Africa, both of whom helped to map and record the standing remains upon the island. Fieldwork data is referenced within the monograph in relation to its study area. For example, buildings, finds and excavation units were allocated either consecutive numbers or letters which are prefixed in the text with the town initial. Therefore, excavation unit 1 at Tanga is referenced as TU1, building 1 is TB1 and findspot 1 is TF1 (in a number of places letters are used in place of numbers).

Seagrasses and mangroves are also indigenous to the shore of East Africa. Seagrasses mostly occur in areas of soft sediment and mangrove predominantly to the southern region where tide range is higher. Fishing forms a large part of the subsistence of the small communities all along the East African coast and a number of different techniques are used (see Table 1.2). 1.4 Methodology This study is designed to be both field oriented/empirical while also grounded in informed interrogation. As a result a programme of desk-top survey, field work and archival research was devised. Following the generation of the monograph concept and framework, desk-top work included the collation and assessment of the available documentary, cartographic and photographic resources available for the area. These included British Government reports from the late nineteenth, early twentieth century, British colonial departmental correspondence, unpublished maps from the same period and photographic evidence from private archives as well as those of the Tanzanian and Kenyan National Archives (see section 1.8). This element of the research continued throughout the entire project and it became clear at an early stage that an archaeological assessment of nineteenth-century Africa was a relatively new concept and that gaps in knowledge regarding material expressions of colonial activity would require fieldwork. A survey of parts of the Tanzanian and Kenyan coast was carried out during September and October 2003. The aim of this was to identify urban centres that displayed within their standing remains, specific European influences. This, in conjunction with the aforementioned desk based research, brought to light the realization that many of the places within the study had been previously addressed academically but had not, most importantly, been approached from a historical archaeological or specifically maritime archaeological perspective. Coupled with factors such as physical access, available time and financial restraint, the towns within the current monograph were selected and further fieldwork began in 2005. This involved archaeological landscape analysis and survey, individual site survey and a certain amount of excavation. This took

As with all archaeological investigation it was undertaken within an environment informed by theory, whether it be that of basic stratigraphic approaches to excavation, or more sociological poststructuralism.

5

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania 1.5 Previous Archaeological Work in the Study Area

and designed to develop global partnerships around the Government of Tanzania’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (within which the Department of Antiquities is located) and protect the maritime cultural landscape in East Africa. In 2004 the French Embassy in Tanzania, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Tanzanian Tourism also instituted a restoration and conservation programme of (the UNESCO World Heritage Site) Kilwa Kisiwani’s Great Mosque including, ethnographic, historic and archaeological research (Pradines and Blanchard 2005, 20).

Archaeological research in East Africa began during the colonial period with the investigation by white western researchers into human evolutionary development or Stone Age technology (Leakey 1931, 1935; Odner 1971; Ucko et al. 1972; Phillipson 1982). More recently, post independence (Tanzania in 1961, Kenya and Zanzibar in 1963), western-trained African archaeologists began to investigate the development of the identities of coastal peoples, predominantly under the auspices of European funding e.g. as in the Swedish Government funded ‘Urban Origins of East Africa’ project (Chami 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002; Kusimba 1999). This research direction has traditionally been dominated by western researchers (as has archaeology in Africa in general) and largely concerned itself with the origins of stone towns and the Swahili peoples (Kirkman 1954, 1959, 1963, 1966; Chittick 1974, 1984; Horton 1996; Horton and Middleton 2000). These works did, however, contain an implicit maritime orientation by stressing the role of East African urban coastal sites in wider Indian Ocean networks. As an extension of these early works, archaeologists have begun to look outside towns and more closely at the relationships between these urban centres and their terrestrial hinterlands (see for example La Violette et al. 1989, 1999; Chami and Mapunda 1998; Kessy 1997, Chami and Kessy 1995; Fleisher and La Violette 1999, Wynne-Jones 2005). As a result of this a less maritime oriented approach has begun to emerge, with less emphasis placed upon the wider Indian Ocean and more upon rural terrestrial cultural networks, a phenomenon in line with recent historical and anthropological studies (for example, Feierman’s 1974 history of the Shambaa Kingdom; Giblin’s 1992 nineteenth and twentieth-century history of North-eastern Tanzania; Glassman’s 1995 assessment of Swahili rebellion in the late 1800s and Askew’s 2002 study of music and cultural politics in Tanzania).

These projects have the shared characteristic of an engagement with the more recent past. This is to say that all are explicitly aware of the implication of material from the past interacting with the present and our subsequent forms of interpretation and management. This parallels research in South Africa by Martin Hall (Hall 1988, 1993, 2001a, Hall and Markell 1993) and Nick Shepherd (Shepherd 2002, 2007) at the University of Cape Town that has aimed to develop studies into the relations of power between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, within the study of historical archaeologies. The development of historical archaeology internationally is discussed further in Chapter 2 of this monograph, however; recently specific works have discussed the implication of the concept within a specifically African context. For example Connah (2007) in a recent paper outlining the relevancy of such a concept, highlights the multi-contextual and to a large extent individualistic nature of defining ‘historical archaeology’; “‘Historical Archaeology means different things to different people.’ They go on to point out that for some ‘the field is the archaeology of European colonial expansion and subsequent post-Columbian peoples’, for others ‘it is the archaeology of capitalism’, for yet others it is the ‘outcome of the rich play between word and object, text and artefact.’ Thus, as they say, many people believe that ‘this latter aspect defines historical archaeology by its method rather than its content’” (Connah 2007, 37).

In contrast to this a series of studies have emerged from the Centre for Maritime Archaeology (CMA) at the University of Ulster (of which this current monograph is one) that embrace the earlier archaeological tradition of the wider maritime cultural landscape of East Africa and more appropriately the Western Indian Ocean. This change in approach began with Breen and Lane’s (2003) critique of the traditional maritime archaeological approach dominated by architectural structural studies of marine vessels and shipwrecks (such as Garlake and Garlake 1964; Prins 1967, 1982; Sassoon, 1970). Subsequently, a more holistic approach developed which has embraced geomorphological analyses and foreshore and intertidal research at Mombasa, Kilwa and Bagamoyo (Forsythe et al. 2003; McConkey and McErlean 2007; Pollard 2007; Quinn et al. 2007) and the role of archaeology in the sociopolitical development of Sub-Saharan Africa (Breen 2007). This approach manifested itself recently in cross-cultural engagements in the form of government and university inter-departmental workshops in Zanzibar in 2007 and an earlier series of seminars at Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar between 2002 and 2006 conducted by the CMA

In East and West Africa written materials and, indigenous/ folk histories are beginning to be addressed archaeologically, as are issues of contact between indigenous and nonindigenous (see Reid and Lane 2004; Croucher 2006). Furthermore, scholars are beginning to recognise the importance of addressing the ways in which more recent past activities have formed ‘pathways of belonging’ (see Brennan et al 2007, 3 for a study of the social, cultural and political development of Dar es Salaam) Nonetheless, in only one or two instances are archaeologists addressing the impact upon Africa of Europe’s nineteenth-century phase of colonialism. Only in the work (again in South Africa) of Behrens (2004) and Malan and Klose (2003) do we see archaeologists attempting to address the industrialisation and intensification of European activity, and the impact of this upon both European and African peoples within an urban coastal context.

6

Introduction 1.6 Related Issues and Researches

Construction, Energy, Lands and Environment) and The Lamu District Planning Study (Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, Republic of Kenya 1983, see Pulver and Siravo 1986).

On a governmental and management level, Kenya and Tanzania have both established government antiquity/ heritage departments tasked with the job of protecting the historical cultural heritage within their national borders. In Kenya this falls to the National Museums of Kenya (NMK), and in Tanzania to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Department of Antiquities1. An increased global awareness of the value of both submerged and coastal cultural resources has also resulted in a number of international charters. The United Nations Law of the Sea Convention came into force on the 16th November 1994, making provisions for the protection of the sea and seabed as well as its resources, both cultural and natural. ICOMOS (International Council of Monuments and Sites) is a non-governmental organisation founded in 1965 and based in Paris. Its role is one of an advisory body to the United Nations and UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization), with a specific role in support of the World Heritage Committee and their decisions on inclusions onto the World Heritage List. ICOMOS also ratified the Charter on the Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in 1996, drafted by the International Committee on the Underwater Heritage (ICUCH). UNESCO drafted a Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage that calls for the recognition of underwater cultural heritage, defined as all traces of human existence for at least 100 years (UNESCO 2001).

1.7 Sources Documentary materials relevant to the study were sourced from; • • • • • •

Tanzania National Archives (TNA), Dar es Salaam Kenya National Archive (KNA), Nairobi Zanzibar National Archive (ZNA), Zanzibar British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), Nairobi East African Collection, University of Dar es Salaam Government of Tanzania, Survey and Mapping Division, Dar es Salaam • U.K. Hydrographic Office, Admiralty, Taunton.

The Tanzanian, Zanzibari and Kenyan National Archives contained a large body of documentary sources in the form of official correspondence between British Government and African colonial departments and districts (these are cited individually within the text). The Annual Regional Reports presented to the British Foreign Office by the various District Commissioners in East Africa in the early twentieth-century not only outlined both the British and German Governments official colonial policies as they pertained to East Africa in general, but also highlighted the difference between this policy and its actual material implementation and implication in the individual study areas. These reports contained information such as population statistics, economic activities (exports and imports), legal issues (arrests and prosecutions), building works, agricultural activities and legislation, land purchases and usage and personal comments and opinions regarding colonial activities, successes and failures. As a result, such sources were approached with the understanding that they were highly subjective. However, this subjectivity often revealed non-government opinion and was as such useful in examining the application of government policy and plans within the everyday activity of colonial East Africa.

The implication of this last convention is important in relation to the aforementioned query of the role of historical archaeology in Africa. As heritage investigators it is our ideological duty to engage with projects to protect and maintain the cultural resources we study and if this is defined as anything over 100 years old then our job begins with material from 1907. Although the current author would argue that even this arbitrary date is too far in the past for adequate protection of culturally important materials. It is also hoped that this extension of archaeology to include both the underwater world and more recent past may also lead to more work in the study of historic ports. So far within an East African context only Hoyle (1967, 2001, 2002) has taken a specifically waterfront oriented view in assessing regeneration work at the Old Port of Mombasa based upon the National Museums of Kenya’s conservation plan (part funded by UNESCO, National Museums of Kenya (NMK) and Mombasa Municipal Council and work which led to the creation of the Mombasa Old Town Conservation Office). Further government conservation pertaining to the East African costal urban heritage includes the Zanzibar Stone Town Planning Project (funded by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTA), the Ministry of Water,

The historical and archaeological source material examined at the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) and the East African Collection, University of Dar es Salaam was primarily made up of unpublished research either by early academics or private residents. Again these were largely Europeans who were usually resident in East Africa as part of a colonial or religious regime (i.e. government or missionary). Likewise, the bias and highly subjective nature of these materials was addressed during analyses. Nineteenth and twentieth-century maps and charts were obtained from the Admiralty in Taunton and the Surveys and Mapping Division in Dar es Salaam. These are referenced individually throughout the monograph. Also utilised were the nineteenth and twentieth-century African Pilots, produced by the Hydrographic Office of the Royal Navy. These offered information pertaining to the coastal and maritime morphology of the East African coast and

The Antiquities Act No. 10 (1964) states; A relic is defined as any movable object made or otherwise produced or modified by human agency before the year 1863, any human or other vertebrate faunal or botanical fossil remains or impressions. A monument is defined as any structure erected, formed or built by human agency before the year 1863, any rock painting or carving erected by human agency before the year 1863, any earthwork excavated or engineered by human agency before the year 1863 and any place declared to be a monument (Strati, 1995). 1

7

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania as such were essential in understanding the way European colonialists viewed the east African maritime environment.

• Stanley, H.M. 1878. Through the Dark Continent. • Stanley, H.M. 1890. In Darkest Africa.

The earliest literary references for East Africa are to be found in the first-century CE Graeco-Roman texts Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (Casson 1989) and the Geography of Claudius Ptolemy, compiled in 150CE (FreemanGrenville1962, 3). Later references to East Africa were largely sourced from Freeman-Grenville’s 1962 publication The East African Coast: Select Documents from the first to the earlier nineteenth-century. The collection includes descriptions of the Western Indian Ocean by Abu al-Fida (1273-1331), who wrote about both Malindi and Mombasa, Ibn Battuta (1331), Vasco da Gama (1502), Hans Mayr (1505), Duarte Barbosa (1517-18), and João de Barros (1552) all of whom wrote descriptions of Kilwa Kisiwani. More recently the work of European explorers and missionaries has been useful in providing descriptions from a purely western-centric nineteenth-century perspective of the peoples and places of East Africa. Of most use during the current study were;

All of the data within this study were approached with a critical eye, therefore where these sources are utilised throughout the work a fuller discussion is presented as to the context in which they were created and the nature and reliability of the data they present. 1.8 Summary This monograph has the explicit aim of examining the role of the built environment as a tool of ideological expression within the nineteenth-century colonial environment of the Western Indian Ocean. This chapter has set out the aims of the monograph and explained the approach and methodology adopted in the archaeological examination of colonial activity in nineteenth-century East Africa. It has also summarised recent work within the study area as well as highlighted the cultural resource management context in which it is produced. In order that the sites in question can be investigated within a more holistic landscape approach the reader has also been given a macro introduction to the environment of the Western Indian Ocean. Finally, an outline of the written source material has been presented in order that a full understanding can be gained as to the nature of the data used in the production of this historical archaeological monograph.

• Burton, R.F. 1860. The Lake Regions of Central Africa. • Burton, R.F. 1872. Zanzibar: City, Island, and Coast. • Krapf, J.L. 1860. Travels Researches and Missionary Labours. • Speke, J.H. 1863. Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. • Stanley, H.M. 1872. How I Found Livingstone.

8

Chapter 2 Conceptual Framework

2.1 Introduction

debate has continued in an attempt to define the boundaries of historical archaeology, and one undeniably influential scholar in the development and promotion of archaeologies of the more recent past is Orser (2004) who in one of many definitions writes;

This chapter is intended to present the reader with an outline of the key themes and theoretical concepts within the monograph. These are presented as both guiding definitions relevant to the reading of the current work, and precursors to the debates and arguments that develop within it. The first two sections present definitions of what is meant when archaeologists talk of landscape and space, with an introduction to empirical approaches to urban environments. This empiricist approach is continued in the outline of specific coastal urban environments and infrastructure, in the form of ports and nineteenth-century sea transport. The chapter then provides an account of the debate surrounding the development of historical archaeology within the academic world and the nature of the discipline as it stands today. Sections 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7 are intended to introduce the reader to the global scale of the research, and contextualise the study area within a world wide economic and political system. The remainder of the chapter goes on to present a history of the theoretical, ideological and political ideas behind current trends in the development of African identities and specifically their impact upon archaeological practice. This includes a look at the development of Pan-African ideologies and ideas of Negritude and what is meant when references are made to ideas of Nationalism. All of these are ideas embedded within archaeology and archaeologists within the East African context, an understanding and engagement of which is essential in the validation of this research.

“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.” (Orser 2004, 240). Similarly, Deetz (1977) a number of years earlier drew a comparable theoretical boundary; “Historical Archaeology studies 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). In his work Orser (2004, 1-28) separates the development of historical archaeology into three broad spheres; historical archaeology as the study of a period, historical archaeology as a method, and historical archaeology as the study of the modern world. Historical archaeology as the study of a given period is probably the most widely understood and easiest to insert into a general archaeological worldview. Traditionally archaeology has, by necessity to its empiricist origins, sought to order the world into defined temporal frames. One broad example of this is Clarke’s (1971) division of the human past into; Autonomous Prehistory, Secondary Prehistory/Protohistory, and History. With Secondary Prehistory/Protohistory arguably being what we might today call the ‘archaeology of contact’ or ‘colonial archaeology’ i.e. the interaction of literate

2.2 Historical Archaeology Historical Archaeology has throughout its practice defied close definition. Archaeologists have, however, on a practical basis been involved in the excavation and analyses of material from traditionally historical periods, as well as absorbing written records and anthropological accounts into their arsenal of data-evidence, for a number of years without the necessity for a scholarly definition. Nonetheless, Historical Phase

Societal and Temporal Scope

Classical Archaeology

Minoans c.3000BCE to Later Roman Empire c.527CE 400 to 1400CE 1450 to 1750CE 1415CE to Industrialization c.1750CE onwards Table 2.1; Suggested periodic divides within archaeological research (after Orser 2004, 7). Medieval Archaeology Post-Medieval Archaeology Historic Site Archaeology Industrial Archaeology

9

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania and non-literate peoples (Orser 2004, 7). Furthermore, historical archaeology has in the past been divided into sub-disciplines, within the bounds of ‘literate civilizations’. In addressing this Orser turns to the work of Schuyler who proposed five distinct phases (Table 2.1).

above are oriented towards methodologies applied to European and American archaeologies. However, it is the case that archaeologists in Africa have adopted literary and ethnographic sources to inform their work for a number of years, without the aid of theorizing principles (e.g.; Chami and Kessy 1995; Chami and Mapunda 1998; Chittick 1974, 1984; Fleisher and La Violette 1999; Horton 1996; Horton and Middleton 2000; Kirkman 1954, 1959, 1963, 1966; Kessy 1997; La Violette et al. 1989, 1999; Wynne-Jones 2005).

By this definition, the current study falls under the heading of industrial archaeology. This term was first coined in 1955 (Rynne 1999, 2) but is far too narrow a label for the current study. Although this monograph does contain a number of implicitly industrial elements, as well as including the recording of a number of standing structures for the purpose of preservation (often a large part of western industrial archaeologies remit), the overriding aim of both this study and current historical archaeology as a whole is somewhat broader.

The development of historical archaeology in Africa is again a relatively recent occurrence and a result of the activities of Western archaeologists both at a time of colonial rule and post-independence. The earliest archaeological investigations concerned themselves with the investigation of either human evolutionary development or later Stone Age technology. Only post-independence, have African archaeologists (often trained in the west, but teaching in African Universities) begun to investigate more recent cultural phenomena. Specifically in East Africa this has taken the form of either ethno-archaeological research (Feierman 2002) or the development of the identities of coastal peoples (Chami 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002; Kusimba 1999). The development of the discipline of archaeologies along these lines is a direct result of the circumstances under which archaeologists found themselves working. Archaeology as a late arrival in the academic world of African Universities was almost without exception developed through the 1980s and 1990s within existing History departments. As the teaching of the subject increased, students underwent a combination of archaeological and historical training with the option of specialising in archaeology in their final year. One would expect from this the development of a methodological relationship suited to historical archaeologies. However, an over-emphasis upon the later Stone Age persevered and only since the turn of the millennium has the recognition of a specific historical archaeology emerged. In South Africa the work of Hall (1988, 1993, 2001a) and Shepherd (2002, 2007) at the University of Cape Town has, and still is, working to develop studies into the relations of power between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. In East and West Africa, written materials and indigenous/folk histories are being addressed archaeologically, as well as issues of contact between indigenous and non-indigenous (see Reid and Lane 2004). Nonetheless, in only one or two instances are archaeologists addressing the impact upon Africa of Europe’s second phase of colonialism. Only in the work of Behrens (2004), Malan and Klose (2003) and Lucas (2006) do archaeologists attempting to address the industrialisation and intensification of European activity, and the impact of this upon both European and African peoples.

The view of historical archaeology as a method is one unencumbered by the kind of temporal delineation described above. This approach is most useful in its adoption of Hogarth’s 1899 classification of archaeological evidence as ‘literary documents’ and ‘material documents’ (Orser 2004, 11) and the equality of such evidence. Even when dealing with material remains alone, archaeologists have adopted a myriad of techniques to extract as greater a number of meanings as possible from objects. The use of thin section analyses or luminescent dating upon a ceramic sherd does not detract from the role of the archaeologist who excavated and removed the sherd from the ground and their learned knowledge of such materials. It is simply a technique used to inform us further. Likewise the use of literary documents when addressing archaeological questions, be they traveller accounts of non-western societies, or antiquarian literature pertaining to the recovery of stone age artefacts, can be viewed as simply another form of data. Include in this the use of ethnographic analyses/folk narratives and archaeology becomes a truly multi-disciplinarily endeavour. Indeed, it is impossible to think of any circumstances under which any individual (be it historian or archaeologist) with an active interest in the thorough investigation of the past, would knowingly disregard available data resources and still proclaim validity. To approach historical archaeology as the study of the modern world would be to adopt a too broadly westerncentric attitude. To talk of The Modern World is simply referring to ideas and actions emanating from Western cultures. By this view, historical archaeology becomes “the archaeology of the spread of European culture throughout the world since the fifteenth-century and its impact on indigenous peoples.” (Deetz 197, 5). However, in opposition to western centrism, historical archaeologists have begun to study the modern world as the study of a process (Orser 2004, 16). More importantly, by viewing the past in terms of social processes such as colonialism and the spread of a capitalist world economy, archaeologists have begun to engage with the influences of indigenous (traditionally nonWestern/European) peoples with the wider world (Funari et. al. 1999, 4). Thereby viewing them as active participants in history and not simply peripheral to traditional superpowers. By contrast, those theoretical boundaries set out

2.3 Landscape and Space Within archaeology and the social sciences today, the way landscapes are researched is the result of a combination of the development of Renaissance thought, the rise of analytical world-views, and mercantile capitalism

10

Conceptual Framework (Cresswell 2004, 10). More recently these relationships developed firstly into the late eighteenth-century Romantic Movement and its ideological focus upon the aesthetic, and subsequently the nineteenth-century European worldview of rationalist scientific investigation (Johnson 2005, 157). The landscape became something predominantly viewed from the outside, whether to assess its value, its aesthetic or its geological makeup. Up until the mid to late twentieth-century it was the overriding opinion within the social sciences that human behaviour was predominantly a reactive force against the environment (Jones and Eyles 1977, 27), the environment taken to be what Einstein is reported to have defined as; “everything that isn’t me” (O’Riordan, 1996; 250). For some, this determinist view continued (see Renfrew and Bahn, 1991) but for the more philosophically ontological, this approach disregards too strongly the possibility of conscious intervention, reflexivity and planning. In short, to ignore human agency would serve only to reduce the environment and landscape to nothing more than stages upon which history is acted out. On the other hand to nullify the role of environment and landscape within human action denies the non-cognitive/concrete its intrinsic part in influencing individuals and social actions. As Cunliffe aptly writes;

phenomenological approaches to settlement patterns. To approach differing landscapes as reflections of differing societies requires that the archaeologist view settlement patterns as closely determined by ideological phenomena such as social hierarchy, its manifestation in the creation of social space and wider settlement hierarchies. This predominantly European approach is closely tied to theme number three above; landscape as cognitive expression, and the manipulation of landscape and space as a manifestation of belief and ideology. Individuals or groups can attach meaning to landscapes materially. Ascribing these to the land through the management of space in the use of, for example, architecture or rock art. These meanings can also be held in memory and expressed through oral communication (Ashmore 2004, 259); “What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value….The ideas ‘space’ and ‘place’ require each other for definition. From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.” (Tuan 1977, 6)

“History, then, is human behaviour controlled and empowered by environment. More starkly reduced, it can be characterised as the dynamic relationship between the organism and its ecological niche.” (Cunliffe 2001, 19)

In applying this to the colonial experience in East Africa we can see a number of eighteenth and nineteenthcentury trends. Primarily, the application of new scientific techniques of analyses that undercut much of the exploratory work, as well as the fanatical zeal with which the mapping and re-naming of Africa (well into the twentieth century) was an essential part of European understanding of the continent. Physical representations of the African landscapes were required in order for Europeans to comprehend the nature of the lands they wished to exploit. This not only demonstrates the fundamental lack of cognitive understanding that underpinned colonial rule but also demonstrates how the implementation of mercantile capitalism relied upon visual mimesis. The commodification and subsequent exploitation of resources relied upon the mapping and dissection of the African landscape into ways easily understood by Europeans.

As a result of earlier historical universalising philosophies (Otto Schluter’s coining of the phrase Kulturlandschaft, or Cultural Landscape and Carl Sauer’s development of the idea in the 1920s (Sauer 1925, 19-53) and the development in the 1980s of an ever more theorized archaeology and a greening of the discipline, three key themes as to how we may approach landscape arose; 1. Landscape as resource; 2. Landscape as reflection of society; 3. Landscape as cognitive expression (Johnson 2005, 157) The first of these, landscape as resource, is very much born of prehistoric archaeology and closely associated with attendant techniques therein. In 1971 Vita-Finzi and Hoggs developed the technique of Site Catchment Analyses, an analytical technique that simply approaches the archaeological site as relative to the surrounding environmental resources. Later in 1972 Vita-Finzi and Higgs, reappraised their technique and re-named it Site Territorial Analyses; it being a form of theoretical analyses based upon suppositions of the maximum distances of daily travel in the acquisition of subsistence resources in relation to the distribution of these resources in relation to settlement locations (Bailey 2005, 231), whereas Site Catchment Analyses was more empirically concerned with analysing with the actual, geographically closest, subsistence resource within the archaeological record (ibid). The major flaw in both these reductionist approaches is their inherent rejection of more cultural and

Consequently, in taking part in the research of landscapes in East Africa it is important to endeavour to see a world of meaning and experience; to think of it as a rich and complicated interplay of people and the environment (Cresswell 2004, 11). The cultural landscape within the colonial context is multifaceted with capitalist modes of production both creating and highlighting difference. Space and landscape can be both dominated and transformed by technologies, as well as appropriated and modified to serve the needs and possibilities of groups and societies (Dear 1997, 57). Landscapes, for the necessity of capitalist production become locations of specificities, at the epicentre of which is the creation of urban space; “Urban landscapes are both expressions of identity, and a means of shaping the relationships between

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania those who inhabit them. They are palimpsests in which buildings, street layouts and monumental structures are interpreted and reinterpreted as changing expressions of relations of power.” (Hall 2006, 1).

have, however, failed to unify upon the issue of urban as a definable and specific structure of social relation (Cox 2001, 746). Saunders (1981) argued that the existence of individuals in the urban environment did not necessarily create specific and separable urban politics, whereas Harvey (1989) argued in direct contrast, citing the inequality of urban and regional fluidity with the Marxist theory of capitalist consumption. As Cox (2001, 747) succinctly illustrates, the territory of capitalist politic is not necessarily urban space. The two being more socio-politically and economically fluid;

However, morphological definitions of urban landscapes, along with associated words such as ‘town’ and ‘city’, can be temporally and culturally specific (Herbert and Thomson 1997, 4). It is obvious that the classical city-states of Greece and Rome varied greatly in size, density and organization from contemporary New York or Hong Kong. However, in relative terms to their cultural and physical context, a number of definitive criteria for separating them from rural space exist; • • • • • • • • • •

“First…space makes a difference not through the contingencies of spatial arrangements; rather spatial arrangement gets internalized by the capitalist accumulation process and becomes a necessary moment of it. Second, capitalist space is a contradictory unity of concrete spatial arrangements and space in the abstract and the tension between fixity and mobility. And it is this that gives to capitalist development its strong, territorializing politics.” (Cox 2001, 747)

Population size, densities Economic base function Administrative functions, art, culture Central place functions, city as exchange Urbanism, lifestyle characteristic Extent of built up area Links with contiguous areas Labour-market areas Population-size thresholds The perceived sense of place

2.4 Ports For the purpose of this research, it is necessary to define ‘ports’, ‘port towns’ and ‘harbours’. Firstly, it is possible to assign a number of key characteristics to port towns, in order to render them distinguishable from coastal towns. At its simplest, a port town is an urban development upon a seashore or riverbank, which possesses adequate anchorage for marine vessels. Within this setting there must also be facilities for loading and unloading merchandise from vessels, as well as adequate means of repair, fitting and victualling. As a permanent settlement, a port town must also be considered to have vessels which belong to it, i.e. it being the homeport, as well as providing residence for ship owners, merchants, and crew (Fox 2001, 8-9).

(Herbert and Thomson 1997, 5) In the past, studies into East Africa’s heritage has emphasised a strong dichotomy between the urban and rural using the existence of stone structures as the signifier for urban (see Allen 1993; Fleisher 2004; Helm 2000; Horton and Middleton 2000; Kusimba 1999; Pouwels 1987; Sinclair 1995; Sinclair and Håkansson 2000; Sutton 1998, 1999; Willis 1993; Wynne-Jones 2005). This current study also adopts this approach (all be it in the more recent past) but also aims to expand the analyses of urban zones into a wider more socio-political dialogue through the use of the paradigm that the very social and physical fabric of the town can be analysed as artefact, and in consequence reflects attitudes and ideologies (Carter 1983, xiv). This approach is based upon the premise that the economic, political, social and cultural environment manifests itself in people’s physical manipulation of space. In doing so, a number of geographical themes are addressed;

Likewise, it is possible to define from a marine perspective what is meant when reference is made to ports and harbours. A port consists of differing technological alteration to the natural environment and is designed to accommodate the landing, loading and unloading of vessels at the interface of land and sea. In contrast, a harbour is an environmentally advantageous place at which marine vessels can find a safe anchorage. Harbours can therefore be the result of a number of environmental events and as a result morphologically different. Forms include;

• Site and situation, concerned with the physical qualities of the land over which urban settlements developed; • Spatial distribution of towns, networks of urban places and their connectivities; • Urban morphology, physical fabric, the types of buildings, layout of streets and town plan, and the relation of these to the historical phases of urban growth, and • Historical evolution of the towns and their regional settings, diversity of form, changes over time and cultural variations at a regional scale (Herbert and Thomas 1997, 1).

• • • • • •

Coral harbours Offshore bar and spit harbours Island-protected harbours Fault harbours Estuaries and rivers (Pangani) Coastal submergence (Kilindini/Mombasa, Mtwara)

(Morgan 1958, 27-47) The morphology of a port facility can result from a number of influences; the availability of technology or funding, the

It is important to highlight also that contemporary scholars

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Conceptual Framework Type of Port Facility Lighter ports Quays Piers Moles

Function Carrying cargo to and from an anchored vessel by the use of lighters, barges, or boats (probably the most uneconomical method)(e.g. Tanga, at least up until 1958; Kilwa). Designed to provide a vertical face and a level ground surface along the side of which a vessel can manoeuvre in order that ship to shore cargo loading and unloading is as direct as possible. Structures created by piling foundations into the sea bed to create a platform protruding at a right-angle to the shore along the side of which a vessel may moor. Designed to function in the same way as a pier but unlike the pier is a solid structure. Its density makes it more suitable as a foundation upon which warehouses and railways can be placed. Table 2.2; Showing type and function of port facilities (after Morgan 1958, 54-60).

nature of the coastal environment, the type of vessels to be facilitated and the type of materials to be transported. As a result, a number of different techniques have arisen to facilitate these variables. All, however, are designed to load and unload merchandise from marine vessels in the most economic manner. Designs include;

replacing these with other goods which could eventually be sold at the home port (Kemp 1988, 885). The use of such transport management techniques by British merchants was stimulated in the mid nineteenth century by the repeal of the Corn Law, which promoted free trade, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which reduced by some 8,000km the journey to the Indian Ocean, and telegraph communication, which meant that both shipping orders and vessel locations could be relayed quicker than previously possible (Couper 1972, 90-91).

The density of traffic, or success, of a port is largely dependant upon the hinterland it serves. Both in terms of the commodities extracted and exported from this hinterland, and the markets that exist within it, i.e. its import consumption. A port’s response to these forces, i.e. its change and development, is also subject to the influence of global market conditions, international political change and technological levels (Hoyle 2000, 1). Morgan (1958, 11120) has gone so far as to separate port hinterlands into three categories; Primitive Hinterland, Raw Material Hinterlands and Liner Port Hinterlands. However, taking inspiration from these definitions, this current research wishes to develop this idea further within the context of East Africa and propose the use of a similar tri-partite classification with less emphasis upon hierarchies. This being a classification that approaches port activity and hinterland relationship in terms of; Low Density Hinterlands, Raw Material Hinterlands and High Density Hinterlands. Those areas where a port services a single market or routeway, but is not necessarily restricted to small-scale commodity exchange represent Low Density Hinterlands. Raw Material Hinterlands are those that provide a ‘heavy low-value commodity’. Finally, High Density Hinterlands are those with a wide range of import and export commodities that are transported to a large number of locations both inland and out of port. When applied to specific case studies in later chapters, these categories are not intended to predetermine size or levels of technological infrastructure, but as a means of developing a model of changing patterns of use and network within the wider coastal system of East Africa and the Indian Ocean.

Liners belonged to specific shipping companies, and in addition to carrying merchandise also carried passengers. Unlike Tramps, Liners worked scheduled shipping routes, a system of great advantage to manufacturers who required frequency of delivery and regularity of contact with a wide number of markets. It was especially advantageous where relatively small quantities of high value goods were needed (Couper 1972, 98; Kemp 1988, 486). Dhow1 per se is a rather generic term to describe indigenous timberbuilt trading vessels used in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. Their points of individual distinction being a (forward raking) single mast and lateen sail (Kemp 1988, 245). It is not the aim of this monograph to delve into marine vessel typology, suffice to say that historical and archaeological sources attest to the existence of a successful oceanic marine trade through the use of Dhows of varying size along Africa’s Eastern seaboard and throughout the Indian Ocean prior, during, and after the arrival of western technologies (see chapter 3). Sail maintained a commercial advantage over steam due to the size of available cargo hold, because steamships required considerable space amidship for engine and boiler, thereby lowering transport capacity. The technical innovation that was to secure the supremacy of steam over sail was the development of the use of steel replacing iron in the 1880s (Marsden 1997, 108-112). However, steamers did not replace dhows as the dominant vessel along the East Africa coast, and the two developed a relationship that could accommodate both local and international markets. The continued use of the Dhow into the present day attests to the longevity of the vessels utility.

2.5 Sea Transport In nineteenth-century East Africa, three types of sea vessel dominated the shipment of goods from ports, the European Tramps and Liners, and the Dhow. Tramps were cargo carrying merchant vessels that did not work regular routes but carried cargo to any destination as trade required. This kind of trade had developed out of the older merchantadventurers, who would load cargo aboard their ships and then attempt to trade these at various ports, usually

There is contention as to the origin of the name ‘Dhow’. Indeed it may be more appropriate to refer to such indigenous craft in an East African context using the Swahili dau (pl madau). Research by Agius (2002, 3334) suggests the term is no longer recognised by Arabs of the Persian Gulf and the modern use of the word most probably derives from eighteenthcentury European contact with vessels off the East African Swahili coast. 1

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania 2.6 Capitalism and Marxism

Africa? Would it be valid to hypothesise that East Africa skipped feudalism as a result of colonial intervention (being forced from tribal organisations into capitalist)? Or would it be more appropriate to approach the study of nineteenthcentury East Africa as containing elements of all three phases of Marxist development within a contemporary setting, all vying for supremacy and ultimately succeeding to endure in one form or another?

It is possible to approach this monograph from the premise that the study of historical archaeology is the study of the modern world (as seen from the point of view of history as a narrative of international economic movement that is both colonial and expanding (Funari 1999, 43)). As a result of this understanding, an engagement with the inherent concepts of capitalism within Marxist ideology informs the study as a whole. As Johnson (1996, 9) rightly points out, capitalism per se is a complex and multifaceted process and formulating a definition that could be considered coherent is problematic. Nonetheless, it is an ideological structure that incorporates economic, social, material and cultural facets within an international economic system - the very development of which demands expanding markets and colonial development (Robertson 1986; 31; Johnson 1996, 9; Forsythe 2006, 237), i.e. those very criteria central to the archaeological investigation of the more recent past;

This kind of approach and its rejection of such generalising principles is an unashamedly post-modern stance. Although commodity production and exchange are central to this overall study, it is hoped that care is taken in avoiding the acceptance of capitalism as an inevitable step in processes of social and economic change. Although historically legitimate in Europe and North America, in an East African context the imposition of such a western model is both ideologically colonial and denies the influence of all social actors and pre-subordinates the non-capitalist;

“The Discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.” (Marx and Engels 1848, reprinted 1977, 36).

“The supposed ‘inexorable’ of capitalism and its power to rule the minds of people, creating a disciplinary society is a concept which can lead to the underestimation of resistance and heterogeneity, ‘flattening out’ past societies by portraying them in terms of a unifying culture” (Funari et al 1999, 6) This is not to deny the legitimacy of capitalist development in the study of colonial East Africa. It is central to the justification of European actions in the nineteenth-century and the basis for the theoretical world-systems approach at the heart of this monograph.

“The need for the constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere… In place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations.” (Marx and Engels 1848, reprinted 1977, 39).

2.7 World-Systems World-systems analyses is 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 effected by, and should therefore be analyzed in terms of their relation with, the economies of the wider world, itself dominated by the USA, Japan and Europe (Herbert and Thomas 1997, 49). Like Marx, Wallerstein argues that the modern capitalist world-system originated in Europe in the sixteenth century via the economic transformation from feudal organisation to capitalist (Wallerstein 1980, 2005). A capitalist world economy is then characterized by three primary traits;

The application of Marxist ideologies of capitalism and production to an East African colonial narrative is in many ways problematic. If we provisionally accept the Marxist world-view that historical economic development leads to a transition from social and economic relations based upon feudal systems of hierarchy and land-lordship to one based upon control of capital, mercantilism and production. How does one align this with the development of colonial activity in East Africa, which includes both the control of land and hierarchy as well as the manipulation of capital, mercantile infrastructure and factory production? How therefore, is this developmental model (i.e. the tribal2 – feudal –capitalist model of Marxist theory) applicable to colonial-era East

• Geographical expansion to cover/effect the whole world, • Cyclical phases of expansion and contraction, and the geographical movement of economic roles, • Slow transformations through technological invention, industrialization, proleterianization, and the eventual political opposition and political resistance to the worldsystem (Wallerstein 1980, 7-8).

Reference to socio-political groups in Africa as tribal can be viewed largely as a colonial phenomenon. Although groups often recognised similar traits of language and custom these were exaggerated under colonial rule in order to create discrete and manageable administrative units (Basham 1978, 221). 2

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Conceptual Framework All three traits can be seen in the histories of the expansion of mercantilism across national frontiers in the later historic period in Europe (closely linked to Britain’s industrial revolution and France’s bourgeois revolution), and subsequently in its impact upon East Africa. Economic justification for national policies of colonialism and expansionism led in turn to global socio-historical change through the development of class-formation, political struggle and cultural perceptions. It is the intention of this monograph to examine the local dynamics of such worldsystems and the reaction of those peoples affected by it. The adoption of such a world-systems model as the foundation for the current study is a result of the system’s intrinsic theoretical core of material consumption;

institutional infrastructure and currency is necessary (Wallerstein 1989, 130-31). Ultimately it is hoped that this monograph can test the legitimacy of such a model and also define the actual physical manifestations of the socio-economic processes. 2.8 Power and Identity During the 1990s, subjectivity and the ways in which people describe themselves to others became a central area of interest within archaeology and cultural studies (Gosden 1999; Hall 1996; Jenkins 1996; Yaeger 1996). The central questions being one of identity, i.e. process and manner in which individuals, groups, communities, cultures and institutions define themselves (Jackson 1999, xiii). 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. Or 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, 122). 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. Anti-essentialists would even go so far as to argue that identities do not exist but are in reality discursive constructs which are formulated through ones personal dialogue with ones socio-cultural, physical and political environment.

“…our original primary purpose was to show that most production within the capitalist world-economy that placed items for consumption on the market was the result of a long chain that did in fact cross frontiers, and that this had been so throughout the entire history of the capitalist world-economy from the long sixteenth-century to today.” (Wallerstein, 2005) Just as archaeologists do, Wallerstein (1980, 2005) recognizes the phenomenon of the geographical movement of things (commodities and materials etc.). In so doing, he is attempting (as do archaeologists) to interpret the sociocultural implications of these things and their movements. Another important factor addressed by the world-systems model of particular relevance to the period under discussion is the process by which socio-economic groups formerly outside the boundary of the capitalist world-system are drawn into the periphery of this system by the core actors (i.e. in the case of East Africa, European powers). The model dictates that those external to the system (external because they base economic management decisions not upon pressures from core capitalist states but upon smaller independent local necessities) must be made to react to ‘world market conditions’ before they are homogenised into the system. This occurs through a combination of both internal and external circumstance;

It is the nature of this dialogue and ones autonomy within it that has developed into a philosophical debate as to the role of the self in the formation of identity. The two main protagonists within this debate are Foucault (1972, 1977) and Giddens (1991). Both agree that; “…self-identity is negotiated through linked processes of self-exploration and the development of intimacy with the other.” (Giddens 1991, 97)

• The creation of larger less locally-oriented decision making units which balance internal autonomy and a subservience to world-market conditions. These units could either be plantations (i.e. sites of production) or mercantile centres in which the merchant class controls suppliers/producers (i.e. through price and purchase control). • The ability to acquire and control the elements necessary for production, i.e. technology, material, capital and most importantly labour. • Those who control production have to be permitted, aided and often subsidised by those institutions with political power (in the case of later European colonial activity in East Africa those controlling political power and the means of commodity production are one and the same). • To ensure compatibility with a world-system a secure

However, the debate rests upon the level of autonomy available to the individual within the multiple and competing discourses between the self and the other. Foucault (1972, 1977) argues that the individual is subservient to the dominant social discourse, which is based upon the power of shared knowledge3. 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 “…power produces knowledge (and not simply by encouraging it because it serves power or by applying it because it is useful); that power and knowledge directly imply in one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.” (Foucault 1977, 27). 3

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania from the creation or exploitation of markets for material goods produced by the colonising power (Robertson 1986, 53). This should not be confused with imperialism, a much more idealistic approach to social control. It is theoretically possible for member groups or territories within an empire to be politically and economically equal, with motivation for the creation of an empire being the desire to spread a particular political belief, way of life or ideology. In reality the ideological justification for imperialism, historically associated with the spread of ‘civilisation’, is often adopted as the vindication for colonial exploitation.

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 postcolonial debate on the role of participants in colonial activity. Furthermore, the search for identity, be it individual or society, requires a meta-narrative (Meskell and Preucel 2004, 125) in order to formulate a dialogue between life experience (meta-narrative) and perception (the self). This meta-narrative takes the form of culture4 whilst cultural identity is the extent to which one is representative of a given culture behaviourally, communicatively, psychologically, and sociologically (Jackson 1999, 10).

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, Hume and Iversen 1994; Benjamin 2002; Comaroff and Comaroff 1992; Dirks 1992; Gasco 2005; Mignolo 1995; Seed 1991). What these studies have in common is their rejection of binary oppositions in colonial discourse. By rejecting the traditional historical view of the ‘coloniser’ and the ‘colonised’ new ideas of socio-cultural hybridity have developed in response to the recognition of new societies created through the colonial process (Gasco 2005, 70). The problematization of these traditional discourses has developed into what we now term post-colonial theory. This is both a temporal and ontological epithet. The label ‘postcolonial’ can be used as a signifier of research; events and thought that occurred post-deconstruction of European Empire in the mid to late twentieth-century. It can also be an academic approach whose ideology is the investigation of narratives of ‘otherness’5, and the re-appraisal of the world from a non-colonialist, less western-centric viewpoint. However, the use of the label as the first definition suggests, as a signifier of the end of colonialism or colonial activity, is simply untrue. Although relevant to the dismantling of the governmental networks of European Empires and the creation of self ruling autonomous nation-states in Africa, the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent, the subsequent economic neo-colonialist activities of western states (specifically the members of the European Union and the USA) and the creation of an international world economy (as evidenced in the continued development and control of the economic world-system) suggests that the world is in no way in a state of global equality and therefore by definition far from post-colonial. As Benjamin eloquently argues;

All of these theoretical strands exist within the history of the development of African identities, or more specifically, the international politicization of African identities in the twentieth-century. As Hall (1990, 225-26) demonstrates in an essay addressing the African diaspora, wrestling control of contextualising metanarratives is central to struggles 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’. “ 2.9 Colonialism and Post-Colonialism For the purpose of this monograph, colonialism is taken to mean the control of people and territories outside ones own state with the aim of increasing the wealth and welfare of the colonising power. The driving force behind the acquisition of colonies is the extraction of resources, material or labour from the colony at a lower expenditure than would normally be attainable on the open market. In conjunction with this, colonising states can also profit

“Colonialism broadly conceived, or ‘coloniality’, when seen as a process including territorial expansion and imperialism, labour regulation processes, and epistemological and discursive

4 Cultural production is dependant upon the nature of social learning, itself a product of a cognitive process that can take a number of forms. Borrowing, acculturation, reception and resistance (Raheja, 1996) are all cultural actions, which contribute to understandings of culture, be they personal or observed. Culture in itself holds no meaning and it is only in the act of contextualisation in the personal and social that it adopts meaning. Cultural practices are ‘multi-accentual’ (Storey, 1996) and are often defined by temporal lineage in that what makes something part of a particular culture is that the cultural act appears to be part of the cultural heritage of a particular society (D’Andrade, 1996). Thus the delineation of a culture becomes an act of relativism (in this case historic) but also depends again upon context, or more specifically scale. Cultural delineation/boundedness may be represented by a small number of ‘traits’ that are shared by many and form a core consensus, or may appear to be lots of ‘traits’, which are known only by a few individuals in certain social roles (ibid, 1996).

5 ‘Otherness’ being non-hegemonic theories such as feminism, gay/ lesbian and ethnic studies, diaspora and resistance. More specific anticolonial works began to emerge in the post-World War II period, these included; Du Bois’s Colour and Democracy (1945) and The World and Africa (1947), Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism (1950), Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Padmore’s Pan-Africanism or Communism?: The Coming Struggle for Africa (1956), Memmi’s The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957), Wright’s White Man Listen! (1957) and Sartre’s Black Orpheus (1948).

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Conceptual Framework ‘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)

different levels distinct successions are to be found.” (Foucault 1972, 169) Furthermore, this study exists within the post-colonial paradox, by openly beginning from the ideological position of opposing the forced hegemonic rule of one people over another. It is hoped that active investigation of the remains of the past in a more ethically transparent way than has been previously attempted can offer a newer broader insight into the past. The intention is that, by applying archaeological techniques to an area that has previously seen little investigation outside traditionally historical interpretation, newer perspectives can be created.

The second definition of postcolonial theory as an ideological application has been separated by Goldberg and Quayson (2002, xii-xvi) into three interrelated sets of ideas of particular relevance to the current study. • Post-colonial studies have an intrinsic opposition to binaristic premise as such an approach is value laden with one element assumed to have ethical, conceptual, normative and logical priority. The approach therefore opposes metanarratives. • The paradox of post-colonial theory is that it benefits or survives as an academic study through the continuation of the very injustices/inequalities it opposes. By embracing an ethical obligation to oppose those dominant ideologies which feed inequality we constantly walk the line between a utopian ideal for a freer future, and the hope that by embedding the study of cultural and social phenomenon in a wider spectrum of contexts than previously attempted, then the practice is in someway a worthwhile end in itself. • Post-colonial study possesses a ‘theoretical expansiveness’ by the way in which it aims to adopt the voice of otherness included within all experiences. Thus addressing issues that at first glance may not appear obviously post-colonial in nature and in practice appropriating data from as wider consciousness as possible to create multi-layered and universal contextualisation.

2.10 Africanist Identities The African Association was established in London in 1897 by Henry Sylvester Williams, a black West Indian barrister practicing in London (Mathurin 1976, 68). The aim of the association was; “To encourage a feeling of unity and to facilitate friendly intercourse among Africans in general; to promote and protect the interest of all subjects claiming African descent, wholly or in part, in British colonies and other places, especially in Africa, by circulating accurate information on all subjects affecting their rights and privileges as subjects of the British Empire, by direct appeals to the Imperial and local Governments.” (Report of the Pan-African Congress 1898 in Mathurin 1976, 41) Shortly after this in 1900, with the assistance of Bishop Alexander Walters of the American Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (and president of the National AfroAmerican Council), the first Pan-African Conference was convened at Westminster Town Hall (Langley 1973, 29). The meeting, although significant6, was not an isolated demonstration of malcontent. In an editorial from Reynolds’ Weekly Newspaper further dissatisfaction with European colonialism was aired;

So what of the application of these definitions to the current study? Firstly, the rejection of meta-narratives. Although the aim of this monograph is to address the actual processes of European colonial activity over a large geographical scale, the aim is not to lay claim to a totalizing knowledge of this process. The author would echo the so-called Frankfurt School and the development of critical theory (see for example Leone et al. 1987; Shanks and Tilley 1987 and Hodder 1986 and 1992), with its recognition of the historically conditioned nature of studies of the past, and accept that this monograph stands within a specific context and is generated form a specific world-view, but nonetheless, aims to highlight shared characteristics within (perceived) events and activities in the past. As Foucault (1972) argues, the aim is to demonstrate the nature of discourse within a given context;

“We predict that Africa will always remain what it has always been – the black man’s continent. There may be fringes of population of whites here and there, but the main bulk of the people will be black. We talk of Briton and Boer in South Africa, as if that were a statement of the whole matter. What if, at some distant date in the future, South Africa should belong neither to Boer nor Briton, but to the Negro – his by right, by superior numbers, and superior power? We may smile at the idea, but it may easily become a tremendous reality….

“Instead of following the thread of an original calendar, in relation to which one would establish the chronology of successive or simultaneous events, that of short or lasting processes, that of momentary or permanent phenomena, one tries to show how it is possible for there to be succession, and at what

The Lagos Standard (1900) reported; “The unprecedented spectacle of a Conference of members of the Negro race gathered together in the world’s Metropolis, discussing their wrongs and pleading for justice for the race, is sufficiently striking to attract public attention in an unusual degree…” (Langley 1973, 29). 6

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania The old slavery is dead, but a more subtle if not more cruel slavery may take its place. The demand of the capitalist everywhere is for cheap and docile labour…Hence the China crisis [the Boxer Rebellion], hence the danger to the blacks of Africa. We have little to be thankful for to men like Rhodes. But we may thank him for exposing his designs and so warning the Negro race of the evils in store for them if he and his like are to bear sway….

shaped the nature of future black social emancipation movements. Dubois’ ideological approach was to promote a world-wide unity based upon the race alliance of white and black labour, as well as the creation of an hegemonic black Africa (in 1918 he proposed the formation of a ‘great free central African state’ consisting of what was at the time German East Africa, the Belgian Congo, Uganda, French Equatorial Africa, German South-West Africa, Angola and Mozambique) (Langley 1973, 60). This was a school of thought very much based upon utopian socialist principles and placed the intelligencia at the vanguard of the movement and eventual rule. By contrast, Garvey promoted an ideology (latterly Garveyism) geared toward, not only a free homogenous Africa, but also the return to the continent of those of African descent;

Now the Negro must be protected against this insidious conspiracy. But that protection must largely depend on himself. We can help him; but he must in the main work out his own salvation, as all men have had to do since history began.”

“The Negroes of the world say, ‘We are striking homewards towards Africa to make her the big black republic.’ And in the making of Africa s big black republic, what is the barrier? The barrier is the white man; and we say to the white man who now dominates Africa that it is to his interest to clear out of Africa now, because we are coming not as in the time of Father Abraham, 200,000 strong, but we are coming 400,000,000 strong, and we mean to retake every square inch of the 12,000,000 square miles of African territory belonging to us by right Divine….We are out to get what has belonged to us politically, socially, economically, and in every way. And what 15,000,000 of us cannot get we will call in 400,000,000 to help us get.”

(Langley 1973, 30)

During the course of this first Pan-African Conference the African Association transformed into the Pan-African Association, the aims of which were; 1. To secure to Africans throughout the world true civil and political rights. 2. To ameliorate the condition of our brothers on the continent of Africa, America and other parts of the world. 3. To promote efforts to secure effective legislation and encourage our people in educational, industrial and commercial enterprise. 4. To foster the production of writing and statistics relating to our people everywhere. 5. To raise funds for forwarding these purposes.

(Speech delivered by Garvey at Carnegie Hall 1920. In Cronon 1966, 66)

(Colored America 1901 quoted in Mathurin 1976, 68)

Another important figure in the narrative of the global African diaspora is Aimé Césaire. Césaire coined the phrase ‘Negritude’ in a 1939 poem ‘Cashier d’un retour au pays natal’ (Return to my native land), as a sobriquet for a collective identity born of the shared historio-cultural experience of subjugation, a result of the African slave trade and colonial plantation societies (Nesbitt 2002). The term Negritude was subsequently adopted by Césaire’s circle of Paris based intellectuals, including Leopold Senghor (who was to become the first president of Senegal in 1960). The two, however, were to eventually develop opposing interpretations with Senghor adopting the term as a more politically militant ideology whereas Césaire maintained a more socialist intellectual stance (although both still portrayed Garveyist African pride). The most famous white exponent of Negritude philosophy was Jean-Paul Sartre, specifically his short publication Orphée Noir (Black Orpheus) (1947). The piece first appeared as the introduction to a 1947 anthology of poetry of the French empire, which included work by Césaire;

From this time on, the driving force behind the Pan-African movement was to shift to Afro-America, largely under the influence of William Edward Burghardt DuBois and Marcus Mosiah Garvey (Pieterse 1988, 16). Dubois (born in North America), as well as publishing key texts such as The Souls of Black Folks (1903) and The Negro (1915) co-ordinated subsequent Pan-African Conferences between 1919 and 1927 in Paris (see appendixes A), Brussels, Lisbon and New York. By contrast, Garvey (born in Jamaica) promoted not Dubois’ intellectual bourgeois approach to Pan-Africanism, but a greater belief in a pride in racial origin; “Be as proud of your race today as your fathers were in the days of yore. We have a beautiful history, and we shall create another in the future that will astonish the world.” (Garvey quoted in Pieterse 1988, 16)

“A Jew, white among whites, can deny that he is a Jew, can declare himself a man among men. The Negro cannot deny that he is a Negro nor claim for himself that abstract colorless humanity: he is black. Therefore he is driven toward authenticity:

This ideology of black pride was the foundation for the Universal Negro Improvement Association, established by Garvey in 1914 (ibid.). These two schools within the Pan-African movement

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Conceptual Framework insulted, enslaved, he stands up, he picks up the word ‘nigger’ that they had thrown at him like a stone, he asserts his rights as black, facing the white man, with pride. The final unity that will draw all oppressed people together in the same combat must be preceded by what I call the moment of separation or of negativity: this antiracist racism is the only road that can lead to the abolition of racial differences.”

racialism. The East Africans had thrashed out this issue in the first Pafmeca meeting and had decided to phrase their arguments in egalitarian rather than xenophobic or racial terms.” (Nye 1966, 42)

As Nye (1966) goes on to point out, African became an adjective that was used to procure and sanction western political concepts and their application in an African context, be this Nyere’s Tanganyikan Socialism or Kenyatta’s multi-party Democracy.

(Sartre 1976, 15)

It is, however, difficult for the reader to align Sartre’s admiration for the writings of black exponents of Negritude when many of his pronouncements read today as ethnic/ African fetishism. For example;

So what of the implications of these concepts upon archaeology and the formation of narratives of the past in Africa? Firstly, it is important to state the nature of the ‘constructedness’ within African archaeology. The practice and debate of archaeology in Africa has not taken place in a vacuum immune to the influences of those ideas outlined thus far. Likewise these ideas have not developed without the influence of archaeological and historical knowledge. Such relationships between archaeology and politics are addressed by Shephard (2002, 189), who draws upon a number of related themes that coincide with the intercultural activities in Africa’s more recent past. Firstly, archaeology in Africa has been a colonial science, with a role in the conquest of territories and peoples (represented by antiquarian styled exploration and the exchange of goods, technologies and ideas). Secondly, it has been part of the colonial administration and white settlers activity (for example, Louise Leakey’s involvement in the suppression of the Mau Mau Rebellion as a supposed Kikuyu expert (Elkins 2005, 107). Thirdly, it has, and continues to, play a role in developing African nationalism. Shephard (2002, 195) cites the work of Cheik Anta Diop and his thesis on the origin of a number of African peoples and the Nile Valley; a more recent example includes that of Chami (2006) who, through interdisciplinary research and a wide archaeological pallet aims to; “…give back to Africa what is their rightful heritage i.e. their ancient history” (Chami 2006, 7). Fourthly, archaeology has a relationship with ‘post-colonial’ Africa (raising issues of cultural-imperialism and narratives of subjugated indigenous peoples, as discussed in Hall’s work in Cape Town (Hall 1993, 1996, 2001a, 2001b, see also Shephard 2002, 2007). Furthermore, the development of theories of public archaeologies and debates over perceptions of cultural heritage are beginning to give rise to the creation of indigenous management models (for example the University of Cape Town created the Cultural Sites and Resource Forum in 2000, and the Antiquities Department of Tanzanian entered into an agreement of co-operation with the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Ulster in 2006 regarding the fostering of joint training and education initiatives; see also Said 1999, Mabulla 2000).

“There exists in effect an objective negritude which expresses itself in the customs, the arts, the songs and the dances of the African populations” (Sartre 1976, 31) Africans are, according to Sartre in a state of Romantic, Rousseau-esque, enlightenment, a ‘mythical fecundity’ (Sartre 1976, 31). This is also a critique placed upon Césaire, who could be seen to lapse into what Parry (1996, 94) neatly labels ‘nativist nostalgia’; “I systematically defend our old Negro civilizations; they were courteous civilizations.” (Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism in Parry 1996, 94)

Here lies the main thrust of criticism against the creation of both the Pan-Africanist and Negritude movement. Members of the African Diaspora, not indigenous Africans, largely created them both. Not only that, their ideological origins lay in the metropolitan intelligencia of the Western world. Marxists or Marxist-Leninists might argue that this is an essential strand of the revolutionary process, with western intellectual diasporic-Africans filling the African power vacuum created by colonial subjugation. However, it is possible to question the validity of an ideology of African emancipation, the foundation of which is rooted in western tautological pedagogy. Hobsbawm (1990, 67) presents a withering appraisal of Negritude as a largely ‘colour-consciousness’ emotion of ‘feeling’, and insists that not a single African state gained independence as a result of this. Hobsbawm (ibid.) goes on to say that while Pan-Africanism provided an inspiration for independence struggles in Africa, independent African states were still formed out of, and maintained, those territorial delineations dictated by former colonial administrations. Furthermore, Nye (1966) draws a distinction between the application of Pan-Africanism between West and East Africa;

Historically then archaeology in Africa has possessed a research agenda very much steered by, if not direct Western control, Western influences (these include a pre-occupation with stone-age cultures, specifically artefactually led). This is a phenomenon which Robertshaw (1990, 3-4) views

“East Africans asserted racial equality, not racial superiority. Racialism asserted inequality. East Africans had no ‘chosen people’ mentality. On the contrary most leaders where consciously opposed to

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 2.1; Pan-African Congress, Nairobi 1947 (after Robertshaw 1990, 9).

in Wallersteinian terms of the World-Systems approach, with western research institutions at the core and African research at the periphery. A cursory glance of two recent anthologies of African archaeology bears this point out. Within A History of African Archaeology (Robertshaw, 1990) and African Historical Archaeology (Reid and Lane, 2004), of the thirty-two contributors only seven work within African institutions, at least twenty of the thirty two gained PhD qualifications in Western universities (nine in total from Cambridge). This bias has in the past also been represented in the history of The Panafrican Archaeological Congress for Prehistory and Related Studies (previously The Panafrican Archaeological Congress for Prehistory and Quaternary Studies). A total of twelve meetings have been held in varying places in Africa from the first in 1947 in Nairobi to 2005 in Gaborone. Initially organised by Mary and Louise Leakey the first Pan-African Congress was a virtually all white affair (Fig. 2.1), by contrast those speaking at the twelfth congress in 2005 were much more representative of African nations with approximately 47% of the delegates affiliated to African institutions (Tsheboeng, in press).

225). This relationship was spawned by the recognition that legitimate socio-political rule and autonomy is largely based upon the creation of past processual narratives. A national identity is fostered through the representation of shared experiences as transmitted through stories, literature, popular culture and the media (Barker 2005, 253). Furthermore, a nation is made up of a group both ideologically and territorially definable; “A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture.” (Stalin (1912) in Hobsbawm 1990, 5) Nationalism is not ‘ethnocentrism’, although it sometimes adopts ethnic and/or cultural identity as a political tool of definition of difference, in the most basic use of politics as power and power being the control of a defined group (in modern nationalism this is manifested in state control). This raises a common theme within any discourse on nationalism: that of its moral duality. Nationalism can be representative of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ political aims; it can be both unifying and disintegrating depending upon one’s own political standpoint. Most importantly, nationalism or more specifically nationalist movements are manifest representations of abstract cultural ‘feelings’. It offers people a ‘conceptual map’ that enables them to relate their own unique material or moral interests to a broader collective action (Breuilly 1993, 34-46). Nationalism is born of socio-cultural and ethnic self-identification leading to a desire for political autonomy. With specific reference to colonial Africa, it is possible to argue (e.g. Hobsbawm 1990, 137-39), that the unification of territories in the struggles

2.11 Nationalism The development of social archaeology through the 1990s led to a greater engagement on the part of researchers with the relationship between archaeological practice and nationalism (see Meskell and Preucel 2004, 318-19 for synopsis and bibliography). Nationalism being the political belief that a group of people should live independently under a single political system, as well as possess the right to equality in the world order with others (Robertson 1986,

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Conceptual Framework for liberation could not avoid building upon common elements of social organisation given to those territories by colonial powers. This is because these were often the shared traits and experiences that unified indigenous participants within their nationalist dialogues. Its possible to theorise therefore, that national identities are intrinsically connected to modes of communication and the expression of similarity and difference through symbols and actions in relation to territory (Barker 2005, 253). As a result, archaeology as a discipline is uniquely placed in the realms of the social sciences to begin a process of attempting to identify and decipher these cultural material symbols.

have been presented along side more theoretically-led ideas of landscape and urban space, with the intention of developing an understanding of the ideological methodology of this monograph. An account of the intellectual development of historical archaeology has offered a brief précis of the context in which this study exists, and investigation of the possible implications of global political and economic systems upon the study area in question has given an indication of the ideological scope of the research. By presenting a history of the development of African ideologies of identity such as Pan-Africanism and Negritude, and the varying factors that influence these shared self-definitions, the current nature of African archaeology has been contextualised. This chapter was intended most explicitly as an indication of the sociocultural environment within which the study exists and the nature of the ideological influences under which it was produced.

2.12 Summary This chapter outlined key themes and theoretical concepts central to the current study. Empirical definitions of geographical phenomenon such as ports and sea transport

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Chapter 3

Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean

3.1 Introduction

trade system. Attention is then turned to the western Indian Ocean Swahili Coast and a sequence of broad narrative phases from the eighth century to the nineteenth century is given in prelude to further discussion of the impact of these narratives upon later disputed histories. The chapter continues with a description of the nature of the caravan trade in East and North Africa in order to contextualise later international colonial trade, and then looks at the traffic of slaves through these economic channels and the European reaction to the phenomenon. The chapter ends with the introduction of more recent Europeans in the form of explorers and christian missionaries. A brief history of the British East India Company is presented in prologue to the final section in which the activities of the British and German governments are outlined in relation to their eventual political occupation of East Africa.

This section seeks to provide the reader with an overview of the salient socio-political events impacting the peoples of the Indian Ocean (Fig. 3.1) prior to the arrival of English and German colonialism of the mid nineteenth century. In doing so, a number of primary sources of each phase of activity and region are addressed with the aim of providing an outline of the dominant historic narratives. The section opens with an outline of both the history of the Arab trade within the Indian Ocean and the associated primary literary works from the seventh century, along with a description of Chinese maritime activity in the region from the seventh century to the fifteenth. Reference is also made to indigenous Indian maritime activities up to the seventh century. The inception of early European colonialism is described with the arrival of Portuguese aggression at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the subsequent development and commercialisation of the Indian Ocean

3.2 Historic Narratives of the East African Region Long distance trade and interaction between small regional

Figure. 3.1; Map of Indian Ocean rim showing places discussed in this chapter and the cultural geography of the Swahili Coast (modified from Smith 2008).

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania economic markets was a feature of the dynamic Indian Ocean activity from the early seventh century under the newly Islamized Arab seafarers. This was to have lasting repercussions on the social dynamics of the Indian Ocean up to the present day, as a result of the associated spread of faith in the word of Mohammed. The dominant economic centres of this new longer distanced maritime trade were the Ummayad Caliphate of Damascus, from the mid seventh to the mid eighth century; the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, from the mid eighth to the early tenth century; and the Fatimid Caliphate of Cairo, from the tenth through the eleventh century (Kearney 2004, 57).

of the Indian Ocean prior to the arrival of Europeans, with specific references to Barabara and Zangibar (Fage and Oliver 1977, 681). The earliest known is a vicarious account which appears to date from the T´any dynasty (618-906) in the form of the Yu-yang Tsa-tsu (The Miscellany of the Yu-yang Mountain), compiled by Tuan Ch´eng-shih in 863, but unpublished until some time between 1598 and 1657 by Mao Chin (Wheatley 1964, 142 and 169). As early as the first century BCE Chinese subjects under the Emperor Wu were sailing the Eastern India Ocean. However, it was not until the Southern Sung dynasty (1127-1279) that Chinese maritime trade was to reach its peak of pre-modern productivity; with an estimate of maritime trade amounting to one-fifth of the total cash revenue of the state (Wheatley 1964, 147).

The trade of the Islamic empire was of vast extent (at its height stretching from central Asia across the Middle East and North Africa to the Atlantic). Muslim merchants travelled to India, Ceylon, the East Indies and China. As well as forging important early links with Europe as far as the Baltic via the Caspian, the Black Sea and Russia (Lewis 1966, 87-8).

It is also reputed that in 1405, during the reign of Emperor Yung-lo, the third Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, a Chinese expeditionary fleet set sail across the Indian Ocean under the command of Cheng Ho, with 63 large vessels, 255 small, and a company of 27,800 men (Reader 1998, 322). This may have been the first time the opportunity was available for Chinese orthonography to include first hand accounts of the western Indian Ocean;

Literary source material available to the archaeologist consist of historical and geographical descriptions beginning in the eighth century. The most extensive early descriptions are by Mas’ūdī and Buzurg ibn Shahrigar of Ramhormuz. Mas’ūdī is said to have made the journey to Kambalu on a number of occasions (the last being 916) and later recorded descriptions in Murūj al-Dhahab wa Ma’adin (c. 945) and Kitāb at tanbīh wa’l-ishrāf (c.955). Buzurg wrote his text Kitāb ‘Ajā’ib al-Hind c.960 (see Freeman-Grenville 1981 for translation) (Horton 1984, 464). Later authors include Ibn Hawqal who produced Kitab Surat al Ardh in 1086 as an aid to merchant shipping sailing to East African ports, and the geographical writings of Al Idris in the twelfth century. The most reliable travelogue of East Africa within the earlier Arabic sources is that of Ibn Baţţūţu’s fourteenth-century Voyages, in which we learn of his visits to Mogadishu, Mombasa and Kilwa (for translations and discussions of Arabic literary source material specifically regarding East Africa see Freeman-Grenville 1962, 1966, 1981; and Trimingham, 1975).

“Going southward from Pieh-li-lo in His-lan [Ceylon], one can reach this country [of Brava] in twenty-one days and nights. It is a continuation of the mountainous land of Mu-ku-tu-shu [Mogadishu] and borders the coast [of the Azanian Sea]. The town walls are built of piled rocks, the houses of ashlars. The locality is devoid of herbs and trees, and the countryside presents an extensive saline waste. There is a salt lake into which one has only to throw branches and trees and when, after a period of time, one lifts them out, they have become covered with white salt. The customs [of the people] are simple. They do not till the soil but support themselves by fishing. [Both] men and women dress their hair in rolls. Some wear a short skirt, others rap themselves in a length of cotton [cloth]. The married women wear gold coins in their ears and pendant fringes around their necks. [Of vegetables] they have only onions and garlic, but no brinjals. Local products include ma-ka beasts [antelope], which resemble musk-deer; hua-fu-lu [zebras], which are like piebald donkeys; leopards, deer, rhinoceroses, myrrh, frankincense, amber-gris, ivory and camels. The goods traded [there] include gold, silver, satins, silks, rice, beans and chinaware. The ruler [of Pu-la-wa], in appreciation of the Imperial bounty, offered local products as tribute at the Chinese court.” (translation of Fei-Hsin’s description of Brava c.1450. Wheatley 1964, 162)

From the eleventh century (under the Fatimids) until the end of the fourteenth century (under the Mamluks) Muslim ships trading between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean unloaded their cargoes at either on the northern Sudanese coast at Aydhab, or at Suakin, from where trade items could be transported via caravan to the Nile Valley down the river to Cairo (Tuchscherer 2002, 30). Also strategically important was the port of Aden (Al ‘Adan) in modern day Yemen at the entrance to the Red Sea that was under Muslim control from the seventh to the sixteenth century. As a link into the Red Sea and beyond to the Mediterranean, its importance was not overlooked by the Europeans upon entering into trading activities in the Indian Ocean, with the Portuguese placing it under bombardment in 1513 (Kearney 2004, 109).

Such voyages by Chinese to the eastern shores of Africa were not to continue with any (at least documented) frequency following the death of Cheng Ho in Calicut, India, while returning on his seventh voyage (embarked on in 1431). His previous visit having established official relations between the Ming court and hierarchies in

A number of written sources from China attest to both knowledge of, and later travel to, the East African coast

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Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean Mogadishu, Malindi, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam and Kilwa (Reader 1998, 323). In reality international diplomatic activity in the Indian Ocean had begun to decline from around 1413, as the attention of subsequent Emperors was drawn not only into an ever increasing centralised hegemony but also to the necessity to defend the Empire at its northern land border against the Mongols, as well as a longstanding invasion of Vietnam in the south (which by the final Cheng Ho voyage had lasted almost 20 years) (Chan 1988, 272; Huan 1988, 156).

During the Classical period of European history the major markets for eastern goods had been Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople. By the seventh century the predominance of Muslim expansion had removed the control of the markets of Alexandria from western merchants. A control which subsequently re-centred upon Constantinople where Venetian and Genoese merchants played a major role. When Constantinople fell to Turkish forces in 1453 the supply of goods2 from the Indian subcontinent into Europe was falling further from European influence and alternative routes were needed. Thus, in 1487, under the patronage of the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope in search of a maritime trade route to India, followed in 1497 by Vasco da Gama on his first of three voyages to India (Pearson 2003, 92-2; Smith 1958, 160).

Unlike that of the Arabs and Chinese, there is no tradition within the historiographic study of the Indian subcontinent of similar maritime narratives. When first engaging with India’s early histories, eighteenth-century western scholars relied largely upon traditional accounts held by the Brahman priests and reconstructed from Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit, or from the Hindu Dharmashastras (Law Books) (Thapar 1966, 18). Histories have traditionally concentrated upon internal dynastic activities, with descriptions of external trade and contact being largely gleaned from those Greek, Latin, Chinese and Arabic source materials discussed earlier.

The principle literary source for these journeys is Gaspar Correa’s Lendas da India (see Stanley 1869 for translation) and also Ravenstein’s 1898 translation of A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1497-1499, by an Unknown Writer, in which the ports are recorded where da Gama’s fleet landed (in the current study area these included Kilwa, Mombasa, and Zanzibar).

It is evident from the Graeco-Roman sources that India’s western seaboard was part of the wider Indian Ocean maritime network during the classical period. Both Herodotus and Ktesias in the fifth century BCE attest to a knowledge of India, but not until the operations of Alexander between 326 and 323 BCE and the reports of his staff, does India really enter European source material. The Indica written by Megasthenes (c.350-290BCE) served as an important work of reference for both Strabo’s Geography and Lucius Flavius Arrianus’s Indica (c.87-145), in which an account is given of the journey from India to the Persian Gulf by Alexander’s admiral Nearchus (c.360-c.300BCE) (see McCrindle 1877 and Sélincourt 1970 for translations).

With a view to removing control of the lucrative market in Indian goods from the control of Muslim North Africa, areas of strategic importance were quickly identified and subsequently seized. These included Goa in 1510, Colombo in 1505 (to control cinnamon export), Melaka in 1511, Hurmuz in 1515, Diu 1535, Sofala 1500 (to control the Gold export from Zimbabwe), Diu 1509 (close to the Gujarat textile industry), Cochin 1503 (for the pepper of Malabar); and in East Africa, Mozambique 1500, Zanzibar 1503, Kilwa and Mombasa in 1505, and Malindi 1509 (as well as also possibly Pemba and Mafia) (Strandes 1989, Kearney 2004, 110; Pearson 2003, 120).

More recent historians look to the Gupta Dynasty (c.320647) and its more settled political climate in comparison to those before or after as what Kearney (2004, 49) describes as; “…the greatest period of importance on the Indian Ocean that it [India] would ever know.” Characterized by an explosion of distinct artistic expression in music, architecture, sculpture and painting, this ‘Hindu Renaissance’ is believed largely due to the consolidation of Dynastic powers in the north of India and a lack of external threat. A large part of this seeming stability aided by the economic productivity of ports on the western shore of the subcontinent such as Bharōch (Broach), Sopāra, and Cambay which fed straight into the larger Indian Ocean network. Major promotion during the Gupta Dynasty of an economic system of free-private enterprise lead directly to the development of this western seaboard and the growth of number of ports1 (Pearson 2003, 92-2; Smith 1958, 160).

By 1505 Dom Francisco de Almeida was made first viceroy of Estado da India and took up residence in Cochin (now Kochi) on the south-west coast of India. From here the Portuguese authority imposed upon shipping license demands in the form of a cartaz, insisting that any merchant ship calling into a Portuguese controlled port must pay customs duties before it continued, and then to only those ports stated upon an allocated license (Harrison 1958, 328; Prakash 1998, 170; Kearney 2004, 109). In 1509 Almeida was succeeded by Affonso de Alburquerque, this time not as viceroy but governor. By the time of his death in 1515 Alburquerque had established control on behalf of the Portuguese crown of all the strategic entry-points into the Indian Ocean. Bases in East Africa at Kilwa and Mombasa controlled the south, a base at Socotra controlled the north and bases at Ormuz, Malabar and Malacca controlled the east (Harrison 1958, 328).

The subcontinents major ports during the pre-European period being; Daybul/ Bambore, Lahari Bandar, Gujarat, Malabar (Kerala), Calicut, Tinnevelly, Ceylon, Malabar Coast (the principle ports during the Roman period being; Muzirs or Cranganore, and Bakarai or Vaikkarai), Puhar/ Pukar/Kaviripattinam. 1

These goods being; Spices, Pepper, Perfumes, Jewels, Textiles (plain woven clothe, brocades, embroidery and calico), Ivory, Rice, Sugar, Ghee, Dyes, Iron, Exotic animals, Fortune tellers, Conjurers, Prostitutes, Pearls, Gems (Pearson 2003, 92-2; Smith 1958, 160). 2

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania In 1538, with the intention of establishing themselves in Aden, a fleet commanded by the Pasha of Egypt attacked the Portuguese fortress at Diu and was defeated (Toussaint 1966, 108). Further threats occurred in 1549 (again an attack on Diu), 1551 (an incursion into the Indian Ocean from the Red Sea, an open threat to the Portuguese and their base at Socotra), and 1553 (another incursion into the Indian Ocean this time from the Persian Gulf). According to Toussaint (1966, 108) Portugal’s most precarious position of power was on the East African coast or Contra Costa;

(with English aid) in 1622 the Portuguese were no longer any realistic competition for eastern trade (Coupland 1938, 53). The East African Coast of the western Indian Ocean (Fig 3.1) is characterised in both historic and archaeological narratives as the Swahili Coast. This is both a contested and a grossly oversimplified name for a much more heterogeneous social and political environment. As Glassman (1995) argues ‘The boundaries separating Swahili towns-people from the supposed ‘barbarians’ of the hinterland were shifting, permeable, and extremely ambiguous, and they were kept that way by the constant challenges of slaves, villagers, and people from the interior who wished to cross them’ (Glassman 1995, 266). But although having never formed any overarching internal autonomous polity (Horton and Middleton 2001, 5) the peoples of the Swahili coast have in traditional discourse 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 formalised regional designation under the Omani rulers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century (Wynne-Jones 2005, 20).

“In 1585 Turkey intervened on the African coast, this time with sailing ships. A Turkish captain named Ali Bey left Jidda with two vessels, and succeeded in rousing Mogadiscio [Mogadishu] and other coastal cities against the Portuguese. Having managed to take several Portuguese vessels, he soon found himself in command of a real fleet, which he used to devastate the entire Contra Costa. The king of Malindi, still faithful, sent a warning to Goa and asked for reinforcements, but when they arrived, Ali Bey had already returned to the Red Sea, taking with him a rich booty and fifty Portuguese prisoners.” (Toussaint 1966, 108-9) Further engagement with Ali Bey and his Turkish forces occurred in 1589, when he again attacked the East African coast. However, Portuguese forces from Goa succeeded this time in defeating them outright at Mombasa.

As outlined earlier, the region of the East African coast was already known to early travellers from the Greek, Islamic and Chinese worlds prior to the arrival of Europeans. The writers referred to the region as Azania, or Zanj, meaning the land of the blacks (Pikirayi 2006, 238). Although these sources offer valuable insight into the interaction of the peoples of the Indian Ocean region, more recent studies on the East African coast have begun to look more closely at indigenous histories in the form of ‘chronicles’ relating to specific coastal towns (Allen 1993; Fleisher 2004; Helm 2000; Horton and Middleton 2000; Kusimba 1999; Pouwels 1987; Sinclair 1995; Sinclair and Håkansson 2000; Sutton 1998, 1999; Willis 1993; Wynne-Jones 2005). Translations of the chronicles of Kilwa, Mombasa and Lamu have appeared in English3, the chronicles themselves being written versions of much older oral traditions relating to the foundation and histories of the towns (Wynne-Jones 2005, 29).

Portugal’s influence within the Indian Ocean region was to diminish largely as a result of European events. In Spain, under Isabel la Católica of Castile and Fernando el Católica of Aragon, a regime began which lead to the Spanish Inquisition in 1484, the expulsion of Jews in 1492, and then the expulsion of Muslims in 1504. These acted to seriously undermine the political and economic strength of the Spanish middle class for many years (Kearney 2004, 110). Subsequent to this the merger of the crowns of Spain and Portugal in 1580 meant that any economic pressure felt within the former Spanish border must now be absorbed into Portugal’s economic system. An economy that was fast losing ground to the assurgent northern European centres of manufacturing and banking, namely, the Netherlands, Germany, and England. Indeed, as soon as the two monarchies united, both British and Dutch merchants foresaw imminent decline and opportunity, and a number of London traders petitioned the British monarch Elizabeth in 1580 for consent to begin expeditions direct to India; a year later the Dutch made a similar request to William 1 (Hunter 1899, 225).

The archaeology and historiography of the coastal peoples has subsequently undergone a number of conceptual changes as a result of the histories of colonial contact and the dominance of external non-indigenous narratives. The Swahili Coast has through time become separated ideologically from its adjacent hinterland and interior through the claim of elite mercantile coastal townspeople to ‘Shirazi’, or Arabic/Persian origins (Helm 2004, 59). Recent archaeological research has established a number of phases to this development (for overviews see Breen and

The final downfall of this Portuguese-Spanish alliance was to come in 1588 with the defeat of the Spanish Armada and by 1600 the formerly dominant Portuguese maritime establishment was in no state to counter the dual mercantile threat of the new royally chartered English East India Company and, in 1602, the Vereenigde OostIndische Comagnie (Dutch East India Company). One or two important positions were maintained, such as Goa and Malacca, but once driven from Hormuz by the Persians

For Kilwa see Chittick 1969; Freeman-Grenville 1962, for Mombasa see Omar and Frankl 1990; Knappert 1964, and for Pate see FreemanGrenville 1962; Tolmacheva 1993. 3

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Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean extended also wherever the Yaos went….That was when the Yaos first began to trade and to penetrate as far as the coast….at Mchiwinja Mchilwa (Kilwa), and so that has always been the part of the coast most favoured by us Yaos, as being known to us from ancient times.” (Abdallah 1919, 26-7)

Lane 2003; Horton 1996, 407-28; Horton and Middleton 2000, 87-114; Kusimba 1999; La Violette 1996; La Violette 2004; Spears 2000; Sutton 1999). 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 which can be seen at excavated sites such as Shanga and Pate (for Shanga see Horton 1996; for Pate see Wilson and Omar 1997). From this time until c.1100 trade upon the East African coast was dominated by merchants from the Persian Gulf, the socio-cultural interaction between them and the indigenous populations forming the distinctive cultural Swahili group (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 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 represents the height of the development of the stone-built Swahili town on the East African coast, and during this period Kilwa Kisiwani and Pate thrived as independent city states (Chittick 1977, 205:209). The arrival of the Portuguese c.1500 introduced a whole 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, 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.

It is not unacceptable to presume trading spheres overlapped with the result that goods began to move from interior to coast and visa-versa between independently evolved networks. Early sites such as the ninth-century occupation at Schroda in the Limpopo River basin contain evidence that goods from the coast had been received by inland peoples, as demonstrated by the presence of beads and cowrie shells (Hall 1987, 79). This type of exchange or relay trade was to become further stimulated by increased demand from the coastal region upon the arrival of the Portuguese. The Jesuit priest Monclaro wrote in 1571; “These Moors have some commerce with the islands of Comor, and in the interior in ivory, which they buy from the Kaffirs to sell to the Portuguese who are always on these parts, or to the factor [trading agent] of the captain of the said [East African] coast, whence there come also quantities of honey and wax.” (Freeman-Grenville 1962, 138) We also learn from the Portuguese Dr. Francisco José de Lacerda e Almeida at the end of the eighteenth century that these interrelated trading networks adapted to international markets; “…the great quantity of ivory, which every year leaves the kingdom of Kazembe, and those kingdoms or lands which he has conquered … ends in the hands of the Yoa, their [the Bisa’s] neighbours, and these do not sell it all in Mozambique, for there is a notorious difference between the quantity of ivory which the Yao formerly brought to Mozambique, and that which they presently introduce, to the advantage of the trade which the people of Zanzibar have carried on in the commodity since then.” (quoted in Alpers 1975, 179)

In the past, studies of East African historiography often expressed the opinion that contact between the coastal peoples and those of the interior was all but non-existent prior to the sixteenth century (Alpers 1967, 3; Abir 1968, 104). A thesis which serves the idea of either the oligarchic coastal city-state or the independent non-indigenous Swahili coastal hegemony. An alternative is that of a narrative of interconnectedness and a view of pre-modern trade in the interior of Africa as intrinsic to the development of later wider Indian Ocean economies. For example, recorded traditions from northern Mozambique demonstrate an active system of exchange some time before coastal peoples began to organise trade expeditions into the interior (Jerman 1997, 109). The Yoas people tell us;

In later periods evidence has been largely inferred from anthropological knowledge and, as Curtin et al. (1978) point out, each town within the Muslim coastal strip appears to have had its allies within the non-Muslim hinterland. For example, at Mombasa the town often made payments to the Musungulos (predecessors of the modern Mijikenda), and in return the Musungulos offered military assistance. Likewise the Kamba from central Kenya hunted and traded in an exchange system with the mainland coast opposite Zanzibar (Curtin et al. 1978, 176). A more recent archaeological investigation by Wynne-Jones (2005) also aimed to define more clearly this relationship between coastal city-state and hinterland, attempting to go someway toward defining a more fluid economic relationship between peoples.

“It happened that there was a certain district upcountry, on the way to the coast, where there were no hoes, and the Achisi did not go there to sell theirs; …these people took foodstuffs and went to sell them to the people who lived near the coast, and there they bought a piece of white calico. When they got this they took it to buy a hoe at a village visited by the Achisi. And they (the Achisi) carried word of it when trading in another village. In this manner the fame of this calico spread everywhere…throughout Yaoland, and some paid a fee to see it; and its fame

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania What is clear is that 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 upon the Mrima and Nyali coast being Tanga, Pangani, Sadaani, Winde, Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam, and Mbwamaji. South of the Rufiji Delta along the Mwera or Ngao coast were Kilwa Kivinje, Lindi, Mgao Mwanya (Mongalo), and Mikindani (Alpers 1967, 6). In the north on the Benadir coast was Brava and Mogadishu (Abir 1968, 105). These coastal towns were the eastern most terrestrial limits of six established route-ways. 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 axis, one from south to north, linking Sennar and Egypt, and one roughly east to west linking Darfur and Suakin. (Abir 1968, 104; Curtin et al. 1978, 197-199; Glassman 1995, 56; Holt and Daly 2000, 8).

The overall trend in the mid nineteenth century was for urban merchants to take control of the caravan routes, thanks largely of their ability to acquire credit from the coastal towns in advancement of trade. This resulted in the bypassing of the smaller village trade-system and the exclusion of the rural peasant classes (Glassman 1995, 57). The organisation of the caravans was also to create a new class of wage earning peoples no longer reliant upon subsistent pastoral life-ways, but who could earn money acting as porters. In 1872 Burton described the nature of the caravans 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 mangey camels, and half-wild asses.” (Burton 1872, 2:117) Those free individuals who took part in caravan porterage came from a wide scattering of agricultural regions and included Kavirondo (Luyia or Luo), Bisa, Yao, Kamba, Nyamwezi (including Sukuma)5, Zaramo, Manyema, and Swahili (Cummings 1973, 2). Burton again gives an indication of the spectacle of the Caravan; “The Kirangozi (guide) is immediately followed by the aristocracy of the caravan – the ivory carrier, who in their burden take a pride which salves the sore of its dead galling and undiminishing weight…. Next in order come the cloth and bead carriers; then those laden with wire; and in the rear a rabble rout of slaves corded or chained in file; women and children in separate parties, the idlers and the invalids, bearing the lighter stuff, rhinoceros tusks, hoes, cones of salt and tobacco, baskets, boxes, beds tents, calabashes, watergourds, bags, pots, mats, and private stores…. A mganga (priest) almost invariably accompanied the caravan, not disdaining to act as a common porter….” (Burton 1860, 414)

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. From this point on, caravan trade was to become a closely managed activity not least due to the importance of the taxation revenue earned by the Sultan (Curtin et al. 1978, 396). Trade was based largely upon the three main export commodities of ivory, slaves, and cloves4. For much of the European colonial period the export of ivory was to be the most profitable of all East Africa’s exported goods. 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, this was 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 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 commodity 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 destabilising practice of slavery by necessitating the use of slaves in

A more comprehensive list of trade commodities includes; Ivory (elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus), animal hides and skins, tortoiseshell and some precious stones. Ambergris, civet. Sorghums, millets, sesame (used for oil), coconut oil, vinegar, copra, dried fish. Hardwoods, ebony, mangrove. Boats, sisal, coir, rubber. Ivory, rock crystal, copal, orchella and other varnishes, tobacco, carved doors and chests. Forged iron, incense, myrrh, other gums and resins, rhinoceros horn and many ingredients for ‘magic’. Gold and copper. Domestic, field slaves, and concubines (Horton and Middleton, 2000: 13). 4

By 1890 it was estimated that up to one quarter of the male Nyamwezi population was working as porters away from home (Raum 1965, 170). 5

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Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean wealthy families of Canton possessed African slaves. In another Chinese reference, the work of Chau JuKua, written in 1226, there are several references to African slaves including the remark the Africans ‘are enticed by offers of food and then caught and carried off from Pemba for slaves to the Ta0-shi (Arab) countries, where they fetch a high price’.” (Martin and Ryan 1977, 72-73)

villages where many members were away for long periods earning a porters wage. According to Cummings (1973) 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 (Cummings 1973, 8). 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 further control and standardise the activities of the caravans (Iliffe 1979). It was thus that the British dominated authority in Zanzibar began to introduce regulations to be observed by caravan leaders (see Appendixes B). 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 Minster and Consul upon Zanzibar (Alpers 1967).

Furthermore, text by the Arab al Idrisi (1100-1166) also tells of slaving activity; “When they (the African) see an Arab, whether a traveller or a merchant, they prostrate themselves before him. The visitors to this country steal their children, enticing them away by offering them fruits, finally take possession of them and carry them off to their country.” (quoted in Martin and Ryan 1977, 73) Later, in 1606 during the Portuguese period, Gaspar de Santo Bernadino testifies to the continuation of slave trading; “When we reached Pate we were informed that some Moors from Arabia had arrived in a small vessel for the purpose of bartering for African boys whom they carried off to their country. There the boys were made to follow the Moorish religion and treated as slaves for the rest of their lives. Six of them had already been purchased.” (Freeman-Grenville 1966, 162)

The nature of trade activity in East Africa at this time (realistically Raubwirtschaft, or ‘plunder economy’) 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). This conclusion is based upon three factors. Firstly, the increase in regional specialization in raw materials at the expense of the indigenous manufacturing capacity. Secondly, the spread of disease through contact, and thirdly, the demographic impact of slave trading (Austen 1987, 67).

Evidence also suggests that slavery within East Africa was not simply a concept introduced from outside, but the practice of indentured labour was, for some, part of an indigenous social structure. For example, Feierman’s (2002, 174-76) anthropological study into the history of the Shambaa peoples6 clearly demonstrates the existence of a class of individuals (known as Mtung’wa) who for one or more reasons had his or her ties to a particular social lineage severed, and was instead absorbed into the court of a Kilindi (ruling descent group). Within this social system a Mtung’wa could be eventually raised back into the mainstream social system, own farms and livestock, as well as marry. Thereby, reciprocally bolstering the position of the Kilindi by populating the capital with individuals dependant on the ruling elite. Alternatively, within Shambaa law it was also permitted to kill slaves, and in one instance (the Gao ritual) the murder of a slave was part of traditional ritual life.

Slavery in East Africa was only really acknowledged negatively in a public sense in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. This was due in the main to the increased activities of missionaries and explorers, and the development of East Africa at this time as a viable commercial asset. The upsurge in England of liberal humanist opinions (Wilson 2003) and the close bond between the patriarchal civilising mission (Crone 1962) and the recognition of Africa as ripe for economic exploitation, inevitably led to a British antislavery policy and a public policy that could be seen to both help the indigenous population by apparently attempting to introduce European lifeways, while at the same time removing a facet of the established Arab/Muslim trading hegemony. It would appear from a number of sources that East Africa prior to the nineteenth century was subject to the activity of both internal and external slavery;

What is apparent is that archival material and historiographic studies of the coast regions and their involvement with slavery far outweigh information available pertaining to the activities of the peoples of the geographical interior (Deutsch 2006, 17). This in many ways is a result of the history of European involvement in East Africa and the relative dominance of the coastal region over Europe’s

“In the middle of the 9th century, the Chinese scholar Tuan Ch’eng’shih refers to slave export from Po-pa-li which according to Fredrich Hirth, J.J.L. Duyvendak and Paul Wheatley is in Somalia. In the 7th and 8th centuries, female African slaves were part of imperial tribute paid to China by Java, and a document dated 1119 states that most of the

6 A society of agriculturalists of north-eastern Tanzania who live to the west of the Usamabara Mountains.

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania economic interest in the Western Indian Ocean, as well as a scholarly paradigm which has in the past valued nineteenthcentury East African slavery and the British abolitionist movement as the starting point of what Alpers (1977, 207) calls; “continuing historical significance”.

categories; those born in slavery or prisoners of war – as a product of a war declared on the inhabitants of Dar alHarb or the Abode of War which lies outside Dar al-Islam or the Land of Islam’ (Hasan 2003, 60). The development of international trade links therefore supported the continuation of the institution of slavery within Islamic law. This does not mean to say, however, that Muslims were the only group involved in the export of slaves from East Africa.

If we turn again to Feierman (2002) and the Shambaa we can begin to gain some idea of the radical social change that occurred in the two decades leading up to the German occupation of what is now Tanzania. As a result of an ever-increasing demand for slave labour from external social participants, indigenous groups began to alter their social laws in order to create a surfeit of slaves for which goods could be exchanged (most notably firearms). Death penalties for criminals now became sentences of slavery. Those found guilty of witchcraft were also no longer sentenced to death but slavery. Indeed a whole criminal’s lineage group could be sold into slavery (whereas before they would have been responsible for providing reparations for a victim); and incidents of kidnapping increased;

Thus it was that the traffic in slaves was able to adopt the mercantile infrastructure of older indigenous established trade routes. Routes which led from the East African coast into the interior, as well as further north between Darfur, Sinnar, Fezzan, Egypt and east via the ports of Badic, c Adhad, Suakin, Dahlak or Masawwac to Arabia (Holt and Daly 2000, 17-18; Hasan 2003, 62). The expansion of the slave trade in the nineteenth century forced those engaged in the acquisition of slaves further into the interior of East Africa and subsequently, the lands behind the coast of Kilwa were to become the main supplier of slave stock;

“Now these Yao are certainly not prisoners of war, because they are of the same nation as their sellers: but all are victims of some crime, either real, or supposed; and among them there are some crimes which, though committed by only one individual, the onus falls upon his entire family, and most remote relatives; thus it is not rare to see the father, mother, sons, daughters, nephews etc., being sold in the same fair.” (Bishop Mártires 1822 quoted in Alpers 1975, 230)

“The process of depopulation to which I have adverted goes on annually. The coast Arabs from Kilwa come up with plenty of ammunition and calico to the tribe called Waigau or Ajawa, and say that they want slaves, Marouding parties immediately start off to the Manganja or Wanyassa villages, and, having plenty of powder and guns, overpower and bring back the chief portion of the inhabitants. Those who escape usually die of starvation. This process is identical with that of which we formerly saw so much in the lands of the Portuguese in the Shiré valley.” (Livingston to Lord Clarendon 20th August 1866, quoted in Hutchinson 1874, 32)

Contrary to Bishop Mártires’ experience, leaders began to make war not only for political reasons but to acquire slaves and the profit they offered. Wars that were not fought using local soldiers (in the event that these possessed a shared lineage with those captured and sold as slaves) but with individuals from other more geographically distant groupings. It was, over a relatively short period, a time of fundamental social change;

Customs statistics from Zanzibar in the 1860s, along with British Naval records pertaining to captured dhows in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, suggest that the largest percentage of slaves originated from the Yao (Sheriff 1988, 144). The second largest peoples represented in the slave statistics being from the region of the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa. By the 1860s it seems that greater numbers were originating from Ngindo in the south and Sagara and Mrima groups of eastern Tanzania. Other areas impacted by slaving activity included the Manganja, the Makua, the Makonde, and the Mwera in the south. Also affected were the Nyamwezi in central Tanzania and the Bisa, the Tumbuka, the Hehe, the Gogo, and the Matumbi from the west of Lake Nyasa (Sheriff 1988, 144).

“The overwhelming majority of lineages had come to their present places of residence before the middle of the nineteenth-century, and informants said that they had moved to escape famine or escape war. Only for the late nineteenth-century movements were there respondents who said that their fathers or grandfathers had moved to be nearer to the war.” (Feierman 2002, 178-79) The more mercantile, organised, exportation of peoples from East Africa is historically closely associated with the development of Arab contact with the coast. The organisation of early Islamic society, like Christianity and Judaism, included the exploitation of individuals as indentured labour; ‘The spirit of Islam towards traffic in human beings is echoed in a tradition ascribed to the Prophet Muhammed condemning such an activity: Sharru ‘l-nas man baca al-nas; The wickedest of people are those who sell people…[However, although] …Islam does not allow the enslavement of Muslims … it recognizes two

As to the volume of slaves exported from the East African coast there have been a number of studies and a number of different estimates. Baur (1882, 91) placed the likely figure at 80,000 slaves exported in a period encompassing the early 1880s alone. By contrast Beachey (1967, cited in Martin and Ryan 1977, 72) places the figure as high as 5,000,000 for the entire nineteenth century. Austen 1989, 29) calculates a total slave export for the same period at

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Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean “Curtailment of the slave trade round the Cape came not as a result of the anti-slave trade patrol’s activity, but rather as a result of happenings in Brazil. The appearance there of yellow fever in 1849-50 was attributed to the arrival of slaves from East Africa. A public outcry against the import resulted in a radical drop in numbers of slaves brought in by slave vessels. An annual figure of imports of 60,000 as at 1850 was soon reduced to a few thousand by 1853. Material concern as to the health and well-being had achieved what a moral campaign could never have attained.”(Beachey 1976, 20-21)

313,000. Alternatively Martin and Ryan (1977, 76) assert that between the years 1770 and 1890, slave exports from the East African mainland to Zanzibar, Arabia, Persia and India amounted to 1,257,100. All these figures, however, exclude estimates of the number of slaves acquired in the interior and not exported from the mainland, but retained in the coastal regions (Martin and Ryan (1977, 86) estimate this to be a further one million). In the nineteenth century the development of new European colonies in other areas of the world increased the demand for African slaves. This demand was increased still further by the activity of the British and their anti-slave trade campaign in West Africa, creating a greater investment by Arab merchants in the export of slaves from East Africa, as well as by Portuguese slavers in Brazil and French and Spanish slavers in Cuba and the Americas (Alpers 1975, 209). The French demand stemmed from their plantations in Réunion (formerly Bourbon and built upon its sugar monopoly in the French market and a successful vanilla industry (Beachey 1976, 31)), that had previously been supplied by Madagascar, but who had, according to Alpers (1975, 95) become reluctant to do business with the French during the later part of the eighteenth century. However, later as the anti-slavery movement gained momentum in France the planters of Reunion were forced to acquire labour by other channels and in 1841 a system known as free labour or engage was created on the back of a convention signed by the Sultan of Oman (Alpers 1975, 95). This allowed slavery to the French colonies from mainland East Africa, Zanzibar and Madagascar to continue under a thinly veiled disguise which consisted of asking those kidnapped from their homes if they agreed to a term of five years work in the Réunion or the Comoros once imprisoned and hauled aboard a slaving vessel (Beachey 1976, 32).

The origins of the British and European anti-slavery movement largely rested upon the dual pillars of Christianity and Capitalism and were predominantly lead by Britain in the 1800s. The leading proponent of the antislavery movement and in many ways its figurehead was David Livingstone. Both his self-promotion and his death served to add weight to the actions of the Anti-Slavery Society and the hope that ‘…by the slow and steady influence of trade and imported civilization, the Arabs may be led to change their ways’ (Livingstone 1866 quoted in Hutchinson 1874, 18). By contrast Germany, prior to its official stance as a colonial power in 1885, had little involvement in anti-slavery legislation aside from an 1841 treaty between Prussia, Britain, Russia and Austria (see Appendixes C). Unification of European powers behind anti-slavery policy came partway to fruition in 1890 at the Brussels Conference. Prior to this, at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, Germany, under Bismarck, agreed only to a moral opposition to African slavery and not one tied by any legal ramifications. According to Miers (1967, 94) Bismarck; ‘… only took up the antislavery cause when the disturbances in East Africa developed into a widespread rebellion. He realised that the revolt had been largely provoked by the actions of the German East Africa Company, but in order to whip up public opinion at home and abroad to support the company, he represented it as the desperate resistance of Arab slave traders to interference with their trade’

This development of the French slave trade was primarily centred upon Mozambique, but some attention was paid further north at Kilwa. A combination of social unrest within Swahili society and an increasingly violent environment meant that by the end of the 1830s the once dominant Kilwa Kisiwani was surpassed as East Africa’s primary slave trading port by Kilwa Kivinje, twenty-seven kilometres to the north. (Alpers 1975, 236). Alpers (1975, 237-38) further goes on to estimate that an average of 13,000 to 15,000 slaves were exported to Zanzibar alone from Kilwa in the early 1840s with an unknown number also supplying the Mozambique and French markets (estimating that nearly twenty percent of all the slaves exported were shipped to destinations other than the market at Zanzibar).

By 1888 the British government was under pressure from the Anti-Slavery Society, the missionary societies and the African Lakes Company, who were facing a private war with Arab traders at the north of Lake Nyasa. A confrontation intensified by a growing fear of high quality firearms entering the African market following the refit of European forces in the 1880s). At the same time the founder of the Roman Catholic Missionary ‘White Fathers’ began an anti-slavery crusade backed with a papal blessing (Miers 1967, 87-90). The Brussels Conference therefore went ahead under the guise of establishing civilising legislation designed to end the scourge of the slave trade, but in reality was an opportunistic gathering together of the various European powers with a stake in the control of Africa. For the British government it was also used to re-establish naval supremacy in the Indian Ocean where the rights to stop and search vessels had not previously been fully realised between all nations.

The two major entrpôts of the southern East African slave trade were Inhambane and Quelimane. Campbell (1988, 169) notes that between 1824 and 1826 the French exported c.3,500 slaves a year from Inhambane, and Brazil imported 116,000 slaves from Mozambique and Madagascar between 1817 and 1843 (approximately twenty-five percent of the total slave exports from Mozambique at this time). This flourishing market to Portuguese Brazil was though to be severely reduced by the mid nineteenth-century;

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania The results of the conference were highly influential. For the first time, humanitarian concerns were addressed within an international political arena, with the measures agreed upon by the signatories affectively legitimising colonial conquest through the agreed strategy of combating slavery by the establishment of colonial administration in the interior of Africa and the restructuring of African society. (Deutsch 2006, 108). At the conference it was suggested by the Belgian delegation that the most effective way to establish such an administration was through the development of the colonial infrastructure. This was to include the establishment of fortified posts in the interior to act as centres of refuge for emancipated slaves, as well as garrisons for troops able to pursue slave caravans. Roads and railways were to be constructed from the coast into the interior and steamboats were to be placed on navigable rivers and lakes (Miers 1967, 107). Although neither Britain nor Germany fully committed to these proposals, their discussion at the Brussels Conference was nonetheless later useful. When either government wished to propose large-scale infrastructure development in Africa it could now legitimately invoke the Brussels Conference and antislavery civilising rhetoric.

upon the basis of free enterprise. The first governor, Sir Thomas Smythe wrote; “The Portuguese…notwithstanding their many rich residences, are beggared by keeping of soldiers. They never made advantage of the Indies since they defended them. It has also been the error of the Dutch who seek plantations here by the sword. Let this be received as a rule, that if you will profit seek, seek it at sea and in quiet trade.” (quoted in Carrington 1950, 153) The role the EIC played within the local indigenous communities of the Indian Ocean greatly increased after the English Civil war and the Restoration of Charles II. The Companies bases in the Indies ceased to rely solely upon the goodwill of local leaders and manoeuvred themselves into such a political position that by as early as the 1660s the Directors were authorized to coin money, enlist soldiers, arm fortresses and ships, enforce martial law and even engage in war or negotiate treaties with non-Christians. In reality, the comparative power of the three presidents in India was greater than that of a royal governor of North America. (Carrington 1950, 158).

The East India Company (EIC) was first established in 1600 as a joint-stock association of English merchants under the title of ‘The Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies’, the ‘Indies’ being defined as the lands lying between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan (Foster 1929, 77).

By 1784 there was sufficient support in parliament for Prime Minister Pitt to introduce the India Act. The intention of which was to; “…take care to prevent the Government from being ambitious and bent of conquest. Propensities of that nature had already involved India in great expenses, and cost much bloodshed. These, therefore, ought most studiously to be avoided. Commerce was our object, and with a view to its extension, a pacific system should prevail, and a system of defence and conciliation.” (Pitt’s speech in the House of Commons 6 July 1784 in Aspinall and Smith 1969, 826). The bill effectively gave the control of Company occupied lands to the British government by subordinating the Directors to a new government department, the Board of Control;

The primary literary source for the early activities of the EIC are the Calendars of State Papers, East Indies, 15131634 (compiled by Sainsbury 1862) as well as Birdwood’s (1886) The Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies; which contains the text of the first volume of The Court Minutes of the East India Company, 1635-79. Closely linked to the establishment of the EIC was the development of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Comagnie (VOC), or Dutch East India Company. The aim in trading in the Indian Ocean for both the English and the Dutch was not East Africa or India primarily, but Indonesia or the Spice Islands beyond. During its first ten years the EIC sent seventeen ships to Asia, in contrast to the VOC’s 134 (Carrington 1950, 152). The result being the Dutch were able to establish trade settlements at Java and Moluccas, Batavia (to be capital of their eastern empire) in 1607, Malacca in 1641, Mauritius in 1644, Table Bay in 1652, and Ceylon (taken from the Portuguese) in 1658. By the end of the century their ‘factories’ and forts were dotted all over the East – in the Persian Gulf, on the coast of India, and the Malayan archipelago. The EIC was largely confined to Surat (1612), Madras (1639), Calcutta (1650) and Bombay (1665), (Coupland 1938, 53-54). This inequality of settlement numbers is also indicative of the different approaches to overseas trade at this time by the English and Dutch. In contrast to the VOC the EIC remained independent of direct state ownership (being answerable instead to company shareholders) and promoted its activities

“It shall not be lawful for the Governors or Presidents and Councillors of Fort Saint George and Bombay…to…issue any order for commencing hostilities or…to negotiate…any Treaty…with any Indian Prince or State (except in cases of sudden emergency or imminent danger, when it shall appear dangerous to postpone such hostilities or Treaty) unless in pursuance of express orders from… Governor-General and Council…or from the… Court of Directors…” (clause XXXV of the 1784 India Act in Aspinall and Smith 1969 830) Thus is was to begin that under the newly organised United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies, the sovereignty of India became Britain’s responsibility. By concentrating their main centre in Java the Dutch had seceded any Indian interest to the English, and the French (who had not entered the competition until 1700s) lacked the support they needed to compete with the already established English (Spear 1958, 335).

32

Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean 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 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 shape7.

Missionary Society sent the now well-known David 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’ (Crone 1962, 90; Cameron 1980, 102). 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.

Probably the major transformations 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 colonisation of Africa. Although exploration was newly imbued with a sense of scientific analyses, 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. ‘By treating reason as a divine gift and the universe as a divine creation, they established a framework in which observation need not be viewed as hostile to faith.’ (Black 1990, 210).

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” (quoted in Cameron 1980, 101). This aim was further strengthened following his return to England upon the failure of his second Zambezi expedition; “We have been careful to mention in the text the different ways in which the Slave Trade is carried on, because we believe, that though this odious traffic baffled many of our efforts to ameliorate the condition of the native, our expedition is the first that ever saw slavery at its fountain-head, and in all its phases. The assertion has been risked, because no one was in a condition to deny it, that the Slave Trade was, like any other branch of commerce, subject to the law of supply and demand, and therefore it ought to be free. From what we have seen, it involves so much of murder in it as an essential element, that it can scarcely be allowed to remain in the catalogue, any more than garrotting, thuggee, or piracy.” (Livingstone quoted in Hutchinson 1874, 14)

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 1850-55 (Oliver and Fage 1972, 143).

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 1966, 104), thereby christianising and ‘civilising’ indigenous peoples.

In 1763 James Bruce was 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. Bruce spent three years in the Abyssinian capital of Gondar before continuing his journey (see Fig. 3.2 for this and other place names discussed in the chapter). He was able to reach the source of the Blue Nile at Geesh and returned to Cairo via Sennar, Nubia and the White Nile in 1773 (Crone 1962, 85).

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 following letter from Lord Russell is an indication of the role Livingstone forged for himself;

Later in the middle of the nineteenth century the London These being somewhat watered down ideologies reminiscent of those of revolutionary Europe which had seen Louis Philipp removed from the French throne in February 1848 and the Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, Metternich, deposed on 13th March. 7

“Earl Russell to Lieutenant – Colonel Playfair.

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 3.2; Map of the East African region showing places discussed in this chapter.

34

Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean “Foreign Office, May 5, 1865.

108; Ingham 1966, 100). 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 to similarly attempt later in the nineteenth century to gain control of this same trade network.

“Sir, - I have to acquaint you that the Queen has been graciously pleased to appoint Dr. Livingstone to be Her Majesty’s Consul in the territories of the African Kings and Chiefs in the interior of Africa not subject to the authority of the King of Portugal, or of the King of Abyssinia, or of the Viceroy of Egypt. “The Queen’s Commission has been given to Dr. Livingstone with a view to assist him in the important journey he is about to undertake, and which has for its objects the exploration of that part of the African continent lying between the 5th degrees of north and south latitude, the encouragement of lawful trade, and the suppression of the export traffic in slaves.

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).

“Dr. Livingstone will proceed to Zanzibar, where he will make arrangements for starting on his journey into the interior; and I have to desire that you will yourself afford him the benefit of your advice and assistance, and that you will bespeak for him the good offices of the Sultan of Zanzibar in the prosecution of the important expedition he is about to undertake, and in the success of which, you will inform His Highness, Her Majesty’s Government take a lively interest. “I am, &c.,

It was the RGS who sent Joseph Thomson to East Africa in 1882 with the intention of discovering a route from the east coast entrepôts to the Nile. Beginning in Mombasa and travelling via Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya to the north-east corner of Lake Victoria Nyanza, Thompson’s most important endeavours being, as a trained geologist and naturalist, the first investigation and scientific description of the Africa Rift Valley (Crone 1962, 131).

(Signed) “Russell.” (quoted in Hutchinson 1874, 17)

The exploration of East Africa had previously claimed the life of not only Livingstone, but also two other European explorers, Albrecht Roscher and Carl von der Decken. Roscher had been attacked and killed near the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa in 1859. Von der Decken had intended to join Roscher, but on hearing of his death decided to rescue Roscher’s diaries. Upon facing considerable opposition from Arabs along his route from Kilwa to the interior he amended his plans and decided to explore the areas around Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro. In 1865 he began a journey that was to follow the Juba River toward Mount Kenya but was killed by local inhabitants at Bardera (Ingham 1966, 107).

Beginning from Mikindani near the mouth of the Rovuma River, Livingstone travelled to Lake Nyasa. At the Lake he encountered problems in the form of unfriendly Arab traders who refused to grant Livingstone’s party transport on account of his attack upon the slave trade during his second Zambezi expedition. The expedition was forced to travel on foot south to Lake Tanganyika, after which Livingstone was taken seriously ill for a month. Livingstone spent the following two years (1867-69) travelling in the region to the south and south-west of Lake Tanganyika, during which he became the first European to map the location of the Lakes Mweru and Bangweulu. He reached Ujiji in March 1869 to find the stores he had had sent from the coast were heavily looted and near useless. For the following two years he continued to travel about the west Lake Tanganyika only to return to Ujiji in 1871 to find a further set of supply stores stolen (Ingham 1966, 107-8). It was here that he was to encounter relief in the person of Henry Morton Stanley.

Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands) was to become as well known as Livingstone for his activity in Africa, not least for his direct association with Livingstone himself, but also through the nature of his own selfpublication as first and foremost a journalist. As leader of the Livingstone relief expedition in 1871, Stanley was to secure his place in the history of African exploration and seemingly acquire the inspiration for the rest of his activities as the heir to Livingstone’s dream of discovering the source of the Nile. Between 1874 and 1877 Stanley undertook his first trans-continental expedition, visiting Uganda and circumnavigating both Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. He subsequently mapped the course of the River Congo by sailing down its length from Central Africa to the west coast. In 1878 he became the co-founder of the Congo Free State along with King Leopold II of Belgium and in 1887

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 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 (Crone 1962,

35

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania undertook his second trans-continental expedition, this time from west coast to east as part of a relief mission for Emin Pasha (Crone 1962, 119).

Africa, Africa Inland Mission, Church of Scotland Mission, United Methodist Mission, Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, the Seventh Day Adventist Mission, and the Berlin Missionary Society for East Africa.

Of specific interest to this study, and worth explicit mention for his accounts of a number of coastal settlements in East Africa, as well as his alternative, more egalitarian approach to interaction with indigenous peoples, is Richard Burton (Lovell 1999). 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, as not only did Burton possess a keen interest in Muslim culture8 having made the hajj in 1853, but 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, 644-45; Lovell 1999).

As Zanzibar in the second half of the nineteenth century increasingly became more and more 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). Sultan Said of Zanzibar sent him with an introduction to his subjects, describing him thus; “Dr Krapf, the German, a good man who wishes to convert the world to God. Behave well to him and be everywhere serviceable to him.” (Gray 1963, 242) As the Sultan rightly states, it was Krapf’s intention to “convert the world to God”, but beginning first with the un-explored African interior and the linking of East to West; “The coast mission must have a broad basis towards the west, and be the first link of a mission-chain between East and West Africa.” (Krapf from an article in CMI 49.55 quoted in Oliver 1952, 6) Krapf 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 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 (under Father Horner). 1874 saw the establishment of another mission in the vicinity of Mombasa, this time by the Church Missionary Society lead by Sir Bartle Frir. These coastal missions were soon exploited as launch pads for incursions into the interior to spread the Christian faith and in 1877 the United Mission to Central Africa had established another mission at Masasi (160km inland from Lindi) and another c.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, 242-4).

Christian activities began in the Indian Ocean with the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. However, the early fleets had carried Franciscan friars as chaplains rather than as missionaries. Nonetheless, Freeman-Grenville (1963a, 136-7) tells us of the inclusion of Christianity as part of the early involvement by Europeans in the Indian Ocean, with an account of a letter from the Captain of Kilwa to the King of Portugal in 1506 reporting that forty men and women wished to become Christians (and that the Sultan was strongly opposed). Also in 1542 St. Francis Xavier travelled along the East African coast, stopping at Mozambique, Malindi, and Socotra, on a journey to Goa were he was to become the Vicar Apostolic of the Indies by the mid sixteenth century. Protestant missionary activity outside Europe began with the late eighteenth-century pietistic revival in Germany and the Evangelical revival in England (Oliver and Fage 1973, 140; Curtin et al. 1978, 524). By the late nineteenth century a large number of religious organisations had begun active mission endeavours in Africa including the united Free Methodists, Holy Ghost Fathers, White Fathers, Roman Catholic, the Church Missionary Society, London Missionary Society, United Missions to Central Burton also published a translation of The Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night, traditional Arab folktales dating as far back as far as the eighth-century CE, popularly known as The Arabian Nights, in 1885; and had previously collaborated with F.F. Arbuthnot on the first English translation from Sanskrit of the Kama Sutra (1883), and Aranga Ranga: Stages of the Bodiless One or The Hindu Art of Love (1885). 8

European missionaries met with mixed success. The underlying aim of all the missions in East Africa was to

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Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean gain converts to Christianity but this proved a disheartening task. For example, when Oscar Baumann visited the Church Missionary Society station at Kilimani Urambo he found that after twelve years the mission had failed to convert a single Nyamwezi. In total, in German East Africa by 1908 the Protestant societies ran 72 main stations with 152 missionaries, 20 female workers, and had 11,655 African coverts. The Roman Catholics maintained 67 main stations with 269 missionaries, 126 sisters, and had persuaded 38,976 Africans to baptise (Raum 1965, 202-3). A similar story unfolded further north in the Sudan. The Roman Catholic Mission to Central Africa established its headquarters in Khartoum in 1848 as a direct result of the opening up of the White Nile to prospective European trade. In 1853 a mission station was opened at Gondokoro but abandoned just one year later. A replacement was begun 240km downstream at Dinka, but again was eventually closed in 1860 (Holt and Daly 2000, 61), the Sudan having proved resistant to religious conversion.

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 from the north upon 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 was in effective control of the whole of Arabia except its southern and eastern coasts, 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.” (quoted in Coupland 1938, 462). However, privately Palmerston expressed a slightly different opinion;

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 control), the home government reluctantly sanctioned the inclusion of Buganda into its Protectorate (Curtin et al. 1978, 456).

“Looking exclusively at our own interests, I cannot but think they lie more in the direction of Egypt than Turkey. The overland communication with India is daily becoming more important; it can hardly yet be said to be established, because as yet it is not connected with steam navigation, as it ought to be and will be; still, what benefits we already derive from it, and how many more may be expected when this discovery becomes fully developed! By the policy however, which we are now pursuing, we shall drive Mehemet Ali to declare his independence, which France will as surely recognise as we shall not, and we shall then have France thwarting us in Egypt with all her jealousy and all her resources, and the hostility which this will create on our part towards Mehemet Ali will only make France the more necessary to him, and rivet him more securely in her grasp.” (Extract from a Memorandum forwarded to Palmerston by Clarendon (then Lord Privy Seal), 14 March 1840 in Bourne 1970, 241)

Following the placement of a British Consul, Atkins Hamilton (who was both answerable to the Foreign Office in London as consul and to the Government of Bombay as agent of the East India Company) (Gray 1963, 229), on Zanzibar in 1841, interest in the East African mainland developed. At this time Zanzibar’s growing slave industry had also developed under the reign of Sultan Seyyid Said (following the relocation of his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar) into a major focus of trade. 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.

It was this realisation of technological advancement that gives Coupland (1938, 462-3) his third strand leading to Britain’s increased interest in East Africa. When in 1830 the vessel Hugh Lindsay steamed from Bombay to Suez in just thirty-three 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 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, 1803-1815) Britain had felt no pressure to engage economically with Zanzibar and the East African coast on

The maintenance of the status quo and the establishment of a British coaling depot at Aden in 1838 (in support of a monthly Bombay-England line) therefore, precipitated

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania 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 to its overseas ‘possessions’ (Cunningham 2001, 181).

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 policy was controlled by the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Like the involvement of the other principle 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 (Packenham 1991, 203). 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).

The activities of Carl Peters and subsequently the DOAG (Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft, German East Africa 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 African territory to the satisfaction of both European powers. 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, 137-138).

Following full German unification on 2nd January 1871 and the post-war treaty between Turkey and Russia of 1878 Bismarck constructed a system of national political alliances which, as those in 1815 had done, further lent a territorial stalemate to European struggles and placed the newly unified Germany in direct opposition to both France and Great Britain. Firstly, Germany allied with Austria in 1879, with Italy joining the alliance in 1882 in opposition to France’s taking of Tunisia. Secondly, German policy had at once stood in direct opposition with that of France by annexing within its borders the disputed region of AlsaceLorraine (a dispute which was to escalate in 1914). By contrast any threat felt by Britain from unified Germany was one of attitude rather than territory. With a closely linked royal family and a lack of shared borders it was no doubt Bismarck’s subsequent military expansion (especially naval) that eventually led Great Britain to keep one eye upon Germany prior to direct colonial conflict (Packenham 1991, 203).

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 had allowed the DOAG (Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft, German East Africa Company) the running of German East Africa, this authority 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 fifty years. The agreement secured the Sultan the same custom dues as were paid to him at the date of concession, plus fifty percent of any additional net revenue (Ingham 1965, 139-40). Similarly Germany had undertaken control of the Sultans coastal lands adjoining their sphere, but they unlike the British, had purchased the area outright (Low 1965, 5).

Given our knowledge of Bismarck’s attitude to political leadership9, it comes as little surprise that the Chancellor would suddenly u-turn on his policy of avoiding colonial entanglements and embark upon speedy colonial acquisition from April 1884. In point of fact it may even be that Bismarck’s anti-colonial policy up to this point was more trenchant than often thought. According to Koponen (1994, 52) Bismarck had turned down some time around 1874 an offer by the then Sultan of Zanzibar for his country to be placed under German ‘protection’ in reaction to the pressing British opposition to the slave trade. By contrast, when realpolitik later demanded Germany take land in Africa, Bismarck was to do so.

When the IBEAC eventually collapsed in 1894 it was bought out by the British Government, and the British Protectorate over Buganda was declared. In order to sustain this new protectorate the Uganda Railway from Mombasa was begun and in 1895 the Protectorate of British East Africa was established (Porter 1991, 109).

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 Giving rise to the term “Realpolitik” – government policy was divorced from moral considerations, but dictated by the practical necessities of power and judged by success. 9

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Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean of the Bremen merchant, Franz A.E. Lüderitz (lying north of the Orange River) were hence forth under the protection of the Reich (Wirz 1982, 388). Then came Togo and Cameroon in west Africa, north-eastern New Guinea (‘Kaiser Wilhelmland’) and the archipelago to the north, then, finally, East Africa (Marks 1985, 406; Koponen 1994, 52). 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, 200).

colonially motivated chartered trading company in the form of the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft (German East Africa Company, DOAG). In 1887-88 five directors were appointed to supervise the territories taken by the GDK10. Bismarck’s new intentions were as follows; “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 quoted in Townsend 1921, 180; Henderson 1965, 126)

Before Bismarck’s sudden policy change one particular German individual had spearheaded the drive for expansion, Dr Karl Peters. 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 just across from Zanzibar (in what is now Tanzania) 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 Colonisation 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 twelve treaties covering some 140,000sq km (Henderson 1965, 124; Iliffe 1979, 90).

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 organisation 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, 12). Again Bismarck’s intentions seem clear; “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, 11th July 1885 quoted in Koponen 1994, 72) Thus, following Peters apparent success in winning government support at home a second rash of land grabbing was organised with the order; ‘schnelles, kühnes, rucksichtloses’ (‘fast, daring, and ruthless’). Provocation which inspired Peter’s 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, 293).

The Society for German Colonisation (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) and its 9,000 members (Koponen 1994, 62-3), it certainly 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 1976, 13).

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 eighteen expeditions to East Africa to form treaties with indigenous peoples. It had also by April 1888 established eighteen small trading and experimental stations on the mainland (Iliffe 1979, 91). These did not go unopposed and opposition was largely a result of the

On returning to Berlin, Peters found himself in the middle of the Congo Conference (sometimes referred to as the Berlin Conference) 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, 90). Up to know Peters had been working under the GDK banner and by all accounts Peter’s first foray into East Africa had been on a financial shoestring and conducted with resultant haste (Packenham 1991, 290-1). In this way Germany had its first

These included; The North Coast of Somaliland from Kalule to Warscheik, through Mr. Hornecke and Lt. Anderson in Sept. 1885. The coast of Somaliland at the mouth of the Wubushi River, through Dr. Juhlke, Lt. Gunther and Jancke in Autumn 1886. The country north and south of Sabaki River, through Lt. Anderson in January 1886. Usumbara, Pare, and Chagga through Dr. Juhlke and Lt. Kurt Weiss in May 1885. Usaramo through Lts. Schmidt and Sohnge in September 1885. Kutu through Count Pfeil in June 1885. Uhehe, Mahenge, Ubena and the country of the Wagindo between the Rufiji and Rovuma Rivers, through Count Pfeil in November 1885 (Dundas 1923, 3). 10

39

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania activities and attitude of the DOAG11. 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;

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 1976, 20). The previous month the commander of a German cruiser had transmitted this message;

“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.”

“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, 30th September 1888 translated in Koponen 1994, 81) Captain Hermann 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, 129). Having defeated one of the two major ‘revolt’ 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 (Dundas 1923, 8-13). 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).

(Albrecht O’Swald, 22nd October 1888 to Headquarters (Stammhaus), quoted in Koponen 1994, 77) However, Bismarck and the Reich was 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 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 woman, 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, 3rd October 1888, quoted in Koponen 1994, 80)

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 (Wirz 1982, 391). 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 governmental position than had been intended. Germany’s resignation became clear in 1890-91 when Leo von Caprivi, Bismarck’s successor, said;

The Germans actually engaged militarily with local populations in what became known as the ‘Arab Revolt’. Although more recent historians and archaeologists have begun to recognise that the opposition to German occupation came from a relatively wide and mixed sectors of the heterogeneous coastal society, and was simply spearheaded by the families of those Muslim and Arab merchants established in centres on the mainland prior to the relocation of Sayyid Said’s rule to Zanzibar (Iliffe 1979, 93; Glassman 1995). The first attacks upon German customs officials took place in August 1888 (Koponen 1994, 80), 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 1976, 19). In 1888 a German war ship off Tanga opened fire on the town after purportedly being fired upon and on the 21st of the same month the Germans were given two days to leave the southern coastal towns of Lindi, Mikindani and Kilwa Kivinje (Iliffe 1979, 92). By November 1888 Germany and

“…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 onto the German government and in June and July of 1890 new Anglo-German treaties were signed, which established the borders of the overseas possessions of both Britain and Germany in East Africa (Fig. 3.3). 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, which excluded it from the Upper Nile (Henderson 1962, 20).

“The headman of Dunda, inland of Bagamoyo, asked the Company to remove its station lest ‘eventually white people will be masters of the land’. The Zigua boycotted a station at Korogwe. Early in 1887 two stations in Uzraramo were attacked. The possibility of fighting the Germans was widely discussed during 1886 and 1887, notably by Bwana Heri, the ruler of Sadani.” (Iliffe 1979, 91). 11

Once the borders were established the German government

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Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean

Figure 3.3; Map showing nineteenth-century German East Africa (modified from Duffy, 2007).

and besieged the house of the local akida (government official) (Henderson 1965 139; Iiffe 1979, 168).

set about a strategy to manage their possession. The resultant organisation 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, 468). ‘Two months after the start the Maji Maji 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, 230). At Kibata the indigenous peoples refused to perform compulsory labour

This act highlights the origin of the rebellion in the indigenous opposition to German management demands and its manifestation in direct aggression toward those employed to enforce colonial rule. Firstly, the German administration 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 (Koponen 1994, 230). This shortfall was due largely to the lack of interest by the German public in emigration to East Africa. Figures given by Henderson

41

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania (1976, 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 State 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 dedicated to this disrupted the individual’s ability to cultivate their own fields be it either for necessary subsistence or cash crop. Coupled with this the implementation of a new hut tax and one begins to see the origin of the simmering dissatisfaction with foreign rule12. 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 with violence having been ultimately triggered by this final economic oppression of liberty.

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. In short in the early months of this year (1907) the disaffected districts presented an indescribably tragic scene. Once the rising had been suppressed the senior officials of the Administration were faced with heavy duties. What had been destroyed by war had to be built up again. An exhausted population, bleeding from a hundred wounds, had to be encouraged to undertake the task of reconstruction. In many districts the sultans and jumbes who were formerly in charge of local affairs were no longer available and new appointments had to be made. Natives who had fled from their homes had, if possible, to be brought back and persuaded to rebuild their villages and till their fields again.” (translated in Henderson 1965, 142)

What Koponen (1994, 232) refers to as the ‘ideological foundation’ of the uprising was the water cult that gave the rebellion its name. The cult, known either as Kolelo or Bokero, professed to either make individuals impervious to bullets, or to turn colonial bullets to water, if they drank a specially prepared medicine/water. Hence the war-cry Maji Maji (Iliffe 1979, 169). Thus by crossing age old tribal elegancies through the adoption of a common cult, alliances were formed between previously opposed groups under one common cause. As a letter from an Ngoni chief to the Yao Mataka suggests;

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, 149-55).

“We received an order from God to the effect that all White Men had to quit the country….This war ordered by God must come first. Send 100 men with guns. Help me in taking the boma….Once we have taken the boma of Songea we shall move against the stations of Lake Nyasa, you and I together. Let us now forget our former quarrels. This bottle containing medicine was sent by Kinyala himself, the leader of the war.” (Translated in Wirz 1982, 398) However, although Maji Maji proved a unifying belief it was not one which could be maintained in the face of German bullets, and the casualty estimates for the rebellion offer varying but shocking testament to the shear scale of the bloodshed between 1905 and 1907. According to Koponen (1994, 597) 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. However, this figure covered only the period from July 1906 to June 1907. Later figures of have placed the number of dead as high as between 250,000 and 300,000 (Koponen 1994, 597).

The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 saw the end of Germany’s economic development in East Africa. The conflict was to last some four years and include 3,000 German Officers and 12,000 Askari (Cornervin 1969, 415). 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 (Henderson 1965, 161). As a result at the cessation of hostilities the British Government were 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, declined birth rates, increased

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 According to Koponen (1994, 236) even a number of European colonists and officials opposed this ‘communist way of cultivation’. 12

42

Historic Narratives of the Indian Ocean venereal disease and abandoned and neglected plantations (ibid.).

This new relationship was based less upon reciprocity and more upon the hegemonic authority of a small number of European social actors over both vast areas of land and large populations of indigenous peoples, leading to the creation of European controlled colonies. The history presented here is, however, heavily reliant upon historic sources and as a result very little archaeological evidence, in the form of material remains, has in the past been addressed in the formulation of the dominant cultural narrative. This is especially the case when addressing the more recent past and Britain and Germany’s role both in Tanzania and wider system of global colonialism. As a result of this the remainder of the monograph will address directly nineteenth-century material manifestations of the kind of social interactions outlined within this chapter.

3.3 Summary In summary it is clear that the western Indian Ocean region has a long history of dynamic cultural activity. The history of East Africa and the wider Indian Ocean is one of cultural exchange through communication powered by maritime trade. The arrival of trans-oceanic peoples prior to the European incursion (documentary evidence for which exists from at least the first millennia) occurred as part of a larger ocean wide system of trade relations. These relations formed the East African Swahili identities into which later nineteenth-century Europeans introduced westernized systems of capitalist production and exchange.

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Chapter 4 Archaeological Context

4.1 Introduction

1966, 11), Shanga (Horton 1996, 34), and Manda (Chittick 1984, 18-35) have highlighted the use of protective walls or areas of reclamation upon the foreshore between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. Recent work by Pollard (2007) has demonstrated the value of an intertidal and maritime oriented approach to research. However, only Hoyle (2001, 2002) in looking at the developments of Mombasa’s and Zanzibar’s Old Town waterfronts and Gilbert (2004) with regard to Zanzibar have attempted to address later urban waterfronts and their morphology, both adopting a specifically geographical approach. The research for this section of the study was based largely upon previous archaeological investigations within the study areas, investigations that concerned themselves with pre-colonial activities. This desk-based approach was then enhanced through physical survey of the areas in order to contextualize existing archaeological knowledge within a wider geographical and temporal landscape, i.e. to investigate the relationship between these earlier activities and those of the later colonial period. As with all fieldwork, the methodology for the survey (see section 1.5) was dictated by both geographical and financial restrictions. However, by framing such material within wider temporal and environmental narratives, as well as within the context of less overtly expressionistic socio-cultural material, the role of both large and small material ‘footprints’ can be assessed with the view of creating a broader social understanding of the colonial processes.

This chapter is intended to open the empirical section of the monograph by describing through a combination of fieldwork data, available historic accounts, previous investigation, and archival data, the spatial development of the study within Tanzania and the archaeological context within which the nineteenth-century archaeology is presented in subsequent chapters. In this chapter a description of the evidence for the physical manifestations of pre-colonial Tanzanian coastal societies is presented from the maritime environment, through the differing zonations within the towns in question, and thereby presenting the main physical and material elements that go to make up these centres of trade and settlement. The zones consist of; marine approaches and environmental setting (Table 4.1), the harbour/waterfront, management and trade nodes, and settlement. It is not intended to present every step through every town in turn (as the evidence is often not available), but instead to combine and highlight shared characteristics as well as differences within these coastal systems prior to the involvement of later European social participants. The chapter approaches the various study areas chronologically, beginning with the earliest available written sources, and working through to those sites and towns of which little is currently known. The study of waterfront facilities within an East African context is a relatively recent phenomenon and consequently very limited in scope. Earlier sites such as Mahilaka (Radimilahy 1998, 37), Kilwa Kisiwani (Chittick 1974, 232), Mtanga Makutani (ARDA 1960, 25), Mtambwe Mkuu (Horton and Middleton 2000, 125), Ugwana (Kirkman

Harbour Location

Harbour Type

Tanga

Estuary/Natural Embayment

Pangani

River Mouth

Bagamoyo Kilwa Kivinje

Natural Embayment

Zanzibar

Offshore Bar and Spit

Dar es Salaam

Island in Estuary

Chole

Island in Embayment

4.2 Waterfronts The harbour at Bagamoyo (Fig. 4.1) (6°26’25.82”S, 38°54’32.78”E) is at the head of wide sandy bay entered

Description Long and narrow tidal body of water protected by land banks on either side within a curving bay between protective headlands. Protected from oceanic conditions by banks of river and offshore bar at river mouth. Protected sea inlet between headlands with protective offshore reefs. Offshore bar creates natural wave-break and spit offers anchorage from prevailing north or south monsoonal winds. Long and narrow tidal body of water protected by land banks on either side. Protected sea inlet between headlands with barrier island upon its seaward side.

Table 4.1; Study area harbour types (modified from Muckelroy 1980; Morgan 1958; Pollard 2007).

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Archaeological Context.

Figure 4.1; Marine approach to Bagamoyo (modified from Hydrographic Office, 1864).

between Ras Mbegani, 4.8km to the south, and Ras Nunge, 3.2km to the north. Fronting the coast between Ras Mbegani and Ras Nunge is a large bank of sand and mud called Kebandahodi. The sea breaks upon the north part of Kebandahodi 4.5km offshore. 8.8km north-east of Bagamoyo, on the direct route to Zanzibar, lies Mbwakuni. This is a coral reef, several patches of which dry at half tide, and which also has a sandbank upon its western end (Africa Pilot 1980, 201). The embayment at Bagamoyo consists of a gently sloping sandy foreshore bounded on its south-east by Mwangotini Lagoon (the lagoon is enclosed by Ras Lwale, a shore parallel spit of sand and coral), upon the bay’s north-west is Mto Kingani or Mto Rufu. This river flows into the sea 1.6km west-north-west of Ras Nunge. The entrance to the river is fronted by a large drying sand bar 3.2km from the shore upon which the sea breaks heavily, preventing any large vessel access to the river (De Horsey 1897, 407; Africa Pilot 1980, 201). The coast to the north and south of Bagamoyo is also heavily populated with mangrove. The town is fronted by a sandy, gradually sloping seabed that prevents vessels from landing directly adjacent to the settlement unless equipped to ground at low water. It does, however, drop suddenly 3.2km offshore to a depth of 14.6m (De Horsey 1897, 407; Africa Pilot 1980, 201). The open roadstead at Bagamoyo is also afforded no protection during the monsoon seasons. Subsequently the Africa Pilot of 1878 (De Horsey 1878, 318) advises that vessels anchor 2.8km from the shore. To the north of Bagamoyo there are also a number of flood plains created by the Mto Ruvu and large-scale salt production.

Prior to the establishment of the German East African Headquarters at Bagamoyo in 1886 it is most probably the case that the waterfront that existed for the settlement differed little from the natural shore morphology. The earliest European account of Bagamoyo appears to be that of H.M. Stanley in 1869; “The distance across from Zanzibar to Bagamoyo may be about twenty-five 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, 39-40). Most tellingly in Burton and Speke’s account of their 1857 East African expedition no mention of an anchorage or the waterfront at Bagamoyo is made (Burton 1860; Speke 1863). Even during Stanley’s visit it was the Customs Officer of Kaole to the south who carried out the official greeting, not a representative of Bagamoyo itself (Stanley 1904, 39-40). This would suggest a dominance of Kaole over Bagamoyo even as late as 1886. Archaeologically Bagamoyo seems to posses little evidence to counter this argument. Limited earlier material has 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) (Brown 1970, 71). More recently investigations carried out in

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 4.2; Marine approach to Kilwa Kivinje (modified from Hydrographic Office, 1903 ).

conjunction with excavations at Bagamoyo’s Caravanserai uncovered what has been broadly termed Post Swahili Ware1 and believed to date to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Earlier Triangular Incised Ware2 (600 to 900CE) was also located within the current town of Bagamoyo (Chami et al 2004, 34). However, such a paucity of material is dwarfed by the mass of artefactual and architectural remains to be found at Kaole. The site, which is situated some 5km south along the coast from Bagamoyo town (Fig. 4.1), consists of at least two mosques, 56 graves and an unknown number of building/dwellings (Chami 2002b, 26). 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 protected creek upon its southern. The date range for the occupation of the site is believed to be 1200 to 1800CE (Annual Report of the Tanganyika Department of Antiquities 1958, 17; Kwekason 2002, 16). Its eventual demise and the subsequent domination of Bagamoyo has been attributed to sea-level change (lowering), the development of mangrove swamps around the settlement spit, and the siltation of the southern creek (Brown 1970, 70; Pollard 2007, 286). However, wider political implications are also considered by Chami et al (2004, 18) to have resulted in the

development of Bagamoyo over Kaole, the main catalyst being the combination of Omani relocation to Zanzibar and the arrival of the Shomvi clan in Bagamoyo (Chami et al 2004, 10)3. Subsequently, by trading predominantly with Bagamoyo’s more open harbour, Zanzibar affectively drew control away from Kaole’s struggling port. This development of more open marine roadsteads is paralleled in Kilwa, where prior to European involvement from 1886, the dominant port was transferred from the wellknown island of Kilwa Kisiwani to the mainland coast at Kilwa Kivinje. The settlement (Fig. 4.2) (8°44’48.39”S, 29°24’47.99”E) is approached from seaward through the Kilwa Main Pass, a deep channel through a break in the coral reefs which front the coast from Ras Miramba (the southern landward extent of Kilwa Kivinje) to 48km northward. The entrance to the pass is 4.4km wide and formed by the southern most tip of an extensive stretch of coral reef upon which Fanjove Island sits 6km to the north. The southern edge of the pass is delineated by Luala reef situated 6.4km south-west of Fanjove Island and has upon its north-western side a sandbank which dries 1.80m. 12km The Muslim Shomvi clan are believed to have established a number of settlements between Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo. Chittick (1970, 66) believed them to be descendants of the Hatimi from Barawa, a claim seemingly substantiated by a burial tomb at Kunduchi, some 20km north of Dar es Salaaam, dating to the early eighteenth century and commemorating the ruling family (al Hatimi al Barawa) (Chami et al 2004, 11). However, previous anthropological research by Chami (1990) concluded, with the help of nineteenth-century population surveys by Speke, that those claiming Shomvi descent today are most likely descended from a Zaramo lineage owing to their duel linguistsic usage of both Kiswahili and Zaramo. 3

Pottery with decoration upon its neck with a comb like instrument in the style of four incised wavy lines and often stamped to create incised dots using the same instrument (Chami et al 2004, 33). 2 Pottery incised with a triangular pattern as well as frequently lines of punctuation, zigzagging double incision’s and oblique incisions (Chami 1994, 13). 1

46

Archaeological Context.

Figure 4.3; Remains of fishing weir south of Kilwa Kivinje, looking north-east (08°44’46.5”S, 39°25’11.1”E).

to the west of Fanjove Island the pass is marked upon the north by Jewe reef which has a long narrow strip of sand upon its north-western edge which dries 3.40m.

suddenly 2km offshore to a depth of 9m. Subsequently the Africa Pilot of 1865 and 1878 (De Horsey 1865, 1878) describe the landing as shallow and bad except at high water and advise sites for anchorage for European vessels 2.41km offshore (De Horsey 1865, 185; 1878, 279).

The southern edge of the pass is formed by the Mwanamkaya and Amana reefs. Mto Gingwera flows into the sea 5.6km west-north-west of Kilwa Kivinje. The bar at the river mouth dries at low water, but the river is navigable by small boats for a distance of 14.5km. A bank of sand and mud at a depth of 5m or less, extends a distance of 2.8km offshore in places between Ras Miramba and the entrance to Mto Gingwera (De Horsey 1878, 280; Africa Pilot 1967, 326; 1980, 185). The embayment at Kilwa Kivinje sits on the northern side of Ras Miremba and curves north-west to the Mto Gingwera river-mouth. The bay is sheltered slightly by the offshore reefs that bound the main marine pass described above and by Ras Miremba. It has a gently sloping foreshore fronted by extensive mangrove swamps all along its waterfront except where cleared for marine traffic (most noticeably directly in front of the towns main slipway and customs house). At the back of Kilwa Kivinje a flat plateau rises 165m, and is 4.8km in diameter (De Horsey 1878, 279).

It was recorded in 1916 (Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division 1916, 184) that the town of Kilwa Kivinje was amply supplied with wells, but that the water was bad. It was also reported that an aqueduct was in the process of being constructed. Historically, the movement in focus from Kilwa Kisiwani to Kilwa Kivinje was, 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, 8). 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 (Chittick 1969), no written description exists with reference to the nature of Kilwa Kivinje’s early waterfront. 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, through the floating carcases, and the larger craft that lay

The town is fronted by a sandy, gradually sloping seabed that prevents vessels from landing directly adjacent to the settlement unless equipped to ground at low water, but drops

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 4.4; Nineteenth-century ceramics from Kilwa waterfront (08°44’45.0”S, 39° 24’49.6”E).

about a mile and a half from the land. The bay is here planted with four or five extensive Wigo, or fish weirs, stockades submerged at high tide, and detaining the fish when the waters ebb.” (Burton 1872, 356).

quartz and Triangular Incised Wares, dating from c.sixth to eighth century. Finally, during the current project, test excavations at the waterfront of Kilwa Kivinje uncovered layers containing carinated arch-designed ceramic sherds (Fig. 4.4). This demonstrates the continuation of an East African ceramic tradition, in the case of carinated wares, as far back as the sixteenth century (for the earliest examples see Fleischer 2003), and in the case of the arched decorative motif, a tradition redolent of other nineteenth-century East African settlements, at Mombasa, Zanzibar and Bagamoyo (see Kirkman 1974; Chami et al 2004; Croucher 2006).

Here we are offered not only an indication of the type of subsistence strategies adopted by the people of Kilwa, examples of which can still be seen today (Fig. 4.3), but also an indication of one of the trends indicative of this type of mainland coastal harbour. Larger vessels are bound by environmental morphology to remain within open offshore roadsteads and subsequently dependant 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.

Not unlike Kilwa Kivinje, Dar es Salaam (Fig. 4.5) (6º49’.41”S, 39º17’.8”E) and the early development of its waterfront was largely influenced by Zanzibar. The main channel into Dar es Salaam harbour is c.4km in length and is formed by a break in the coral reefs on the seaward side (the most notable of which are the Inner Nyakatombe and Outer Nyakatombe Islands, and Kendwa Island) and a gap in the coastline formed by Ras Chokir to the north and Ras Rongoni to the south. The inner estuary is accessed by passing between West Ferry Point promontory on the north and Ras Makabe promontory on the south. At its widest the channel is c.300m in width and at its narrowest it is c.123m with a depth of 6.5m. The channel was described in 1916 as ‘torturous’ (Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division 1916, 175). A large estuary with two distinct systems, one to the north and one to the south form the embayment at Dar es Salaam. The main harbour today sits within the northern Kurasini Creek about 1km west of West Ferry Point and is

Archaeological evidence from the Kilwa coast pertaining to the pre-European development of Kilwa Kivinje appears to support the historical narrative of its development being largely contiguous with the demise of Kilwa Kisiwani. Coastal and foreshore survey undertaken during the current research (for methodology see Section 1.5), as well as by Pollard (2007), shows a distinct artifactual development within the coastal region, apparently in response to the temporal and geographical movement of settlement. Currently available chronology begins with the ceramic Narosura tradition at Kilwa Kisiwani, dating form c.1000 to 300CE. These are followed by examples of worked

48

Archaeological Context.

Figure 4.5; Marine approach to Dar es Salaam (modified from Hydrographic Office, 1992).

formed by former marshland to the west (today drained and developed as part of the ports industrial zone) and a large curved embayment with sloping sandy foreshore backed by coralline cliffs (up to 15m in the east), upon which the city stands, curving to the south-east. The Southern Creek is navigable by vessels drawing up to 10m for a distance of 2km and is c.300m wide. Land terraces upon either side up to 15m in height bound the Southern Creek with considerable mangrove development at its margins. The Southern Creek branches to become the river valleys of Yombo, Mzinga and Mbagala (Mascarenhas (1970, 87). The Admiralty Chart of 1874 (Hydrographics Office, 1874) shows a maximum depth of 5.5 to 14.6m directly in front of the town’s foreshore. However, both the 1874 and 1891 Admiralty Charts (Hydrographic Office, 1874; Hydrographic Office, 1891) show a number of reefs and shallows within both the harbour and channel.

Mangrove is most dominant upon the southern side of the Creek, both seaward of Ras Makabe and upon both banks of the Southern Creek. The location of today’s city is the result of direct planning by Sultan Seyyid Majid in 1862, largely as an attempt (with encouragement from French diplomats) to counter the English attempts to deconstruct East Africa’s slave trade (Sutton 1970, 2). By at least 1867, what was described as ‘a new palace’ was built on the site of Dar es Salaam, 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 as the main caravan entrepot from the interior and thereby directly benefit the Sultan’s dominions. This was due mainly to its proximity to, and accessibility from, Zanzibar (Bradshaw 1867 reprinted in Sutton 1970, 203). Evidence currently exists, however, to suggest that the site of Dar es Salaam’s harbour was occupied prior to the 1860s. Surveys within the wider landscape offer evidence of former coastal settlements, specifically Mzizima, situated at the current site of the Ocean Road Hospital and Ras Makabe on the southern harbour promontory. Evidence for this was in the form of an unspecified number of graves believed to date from the 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 (Annual Report of the Tanganyika

The channel itself shallows to a depth of just 5.5m to the north-east of West ferry Point, and the harbour contains a patch known as the Central Shoal at a depth of 6.85m. Further to the west of these sits the Kurasani Shoal at a depth of 3.2m. Where shoals are not present the creek and harbour has a sandy bottom (Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division 1916, 175). Both to the north and the south of the Dar es Salaam Channel the coastline is one of a shallow sloping platform with a large tidal range making the landward cliff platform inaccessible by boat.

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 4.6; The ‘Old Boma’ at the junction of City Drive and Morogoro Road, Dar es Salaam (after Msemwa et al 2005, 30).

Department of Antiquities 1958, 20; Chittick 1970, 68). The important point to be taken from this in relation to the current study is the re-location of the settlement’s maritime perspective from open roadstead to estuarine harbour, and the creation of planned waterfront facilities. Not only does this represent a fundamental shift in the use of the interface zone between the marine and terrestrial environments, it is also another example of the re-organisation of social activity by a group of social actors from outside an established community. Remnants of this re-organisation remain extant in the built environment of Dar es Salaam. These include the ‘Old Boma’ (Fig. 4.6) at the junction of City Drive and Morogoro Road and the ‘Sayyid Barghash’ (Fig. 4.7) building on the corner of Mkwepu Street, and a single commercial building to the south of the current City Hall. The Old Boma is a two-storey lime and mortar constructed building with a south-east facing main frontal façade. It has a single narrow doorway in its central ground floor flanked by eight small rectangular windows (four on either side). The second story façade has nine small rectangular windows set equidistance from each other along the whole of the façade. The building is also crenulated upon this main façade. The commercial building on Mkwepu Drive is a similar two-storey structure of coral and lime mortar, the main façade of which consists of a single double central doorway flanked by eight small rectangular windows (four on either side) the upper storey has seven small rectangular windows but may have originally possessed eight in

symmetry with the lower storey. Unlike the Old Boma this structure does not have frontal crenulations, but does have a raised roof parapet. 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, 181). Following the 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 and was described thus;“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, on the inner line of which wells, affording a good supply of fresh water, are conveniently constructed. 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

50

Archaeological Context.

Figure 4.7; The ‘Sayyid Barghash’ building on the corner of Mkwepu Street, Dar es Salaam (after Msemwa et al 2005, 15).

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).

The seabed at Zanzibar slopes to a depth of 5m at a distance of approximately 100m from the shore and falls to a further 11m c.250m further to the west. The maximum depth of seabed within the reef system (c.18m) described above can be found directly in front of Ras Shangani to the east of a smaller inner reef system known as Fungu Chwamba and Pange reef at a distance of approximately 750m.

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 to see further large scale waterfront development. At which time the point of administrative focus was to shift 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-organisation is discussed in Chapter 5.

The pre-European harbour at Zanzibar can be separated into two distinct units, the creation of which was due to the coastal morphology of the early town’s coast. Upon the north-western edge of the promontory upon which the town sits is 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;

By sea, Zanzibar’s Stone town is approached from the west through a system of fringing reefs (Fig. 4.8). Access to the port is gained via a number of marine passes that exist between this complex system of fringing reefs. The northern most pass is known as English Pass and has a maximum depth of 15m. It is navigated between Bet el Ras on the mainland and Chapani reef to the west. To the west of English Pass is French pass, accessed between Chapani reef and Chango reef to the north with a maximum depth of 15m. Further to the west is the Great Pass, which is c.1km wide and located between Bawi reef in the south-west and Chango reef to the north-east. To the south of Bawi reef is the smaller Western Pass, which is less than 0.5km wide and is bounded on its southern side by Murogo reef. The southern-most channel allowing access to Ras Shangani (upon which Stone town sits) is aptly called the Southern Pass. This is the largest channel into the harbour and is bounded on its landward side by Ras Chukwani and on the western seaward side by Nyange reef and is c.1.6km wide.

“Zanzibar harbour is a fine specimen of the true Atoll, barrier or fringing reef, built upon a subsiding foundation, probably of sandstone…. There is a front harbour and a back bay. The latter enables ships 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…. The principal entrance was buoyed by the late Sayyid, but these precautions soon disappeared. 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, 66-71). The town that developed upon Cape Shangani, now known as Stone Town, began as a small indigenous fishing village

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 4.8; Marine approach to Zanzibar (modified from Hydrographic Office, 1992).

(Sheriff 1987, 137) with the earliest known archaeological evidence, in the form of ceramic artefacts excavated from the Gereza, dating from between the twelfth and fourteenth century (Horton and Clark 1985, 168). By the mid nineteenth century it had evolved into a sizable town separable into four distinct zones (mitaa). The first was the largely Omani dominated stone built waterfront upon the north-west shore, the second being the wattle and daub settlement situated upon the northern peninsular adjacent to The Creek, and the remaining two being similar indigenous settlement to the east and the south of Stone Town (Burton 1872, 82). The dominant commercial and administrative quarter was Stone Town, the full waterfront façade of which will be discussed later in the chapter, but which was described upon approach by Burton in 1872 (32-3) as dominated by the ‘artless fort’ and ‘contemptible battery’, which was flanked by the ‘Imam’s palace’, ‘various Consulates’ and ‘the large parrallelogramic buildings of the great’. All of which served to mask any approaching vessel’s view of the ‘dingy matted hovels of the inner town’ (ibid.).

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, in front of which sat a twenty piece battery, the British Consulate, and the American Consulate. At this time however, Zanzibar’s waterfront did not posses either quay wall or breakwater, resulting in occasional flooding, compounded by the landscapes seaward slope. As a result it was deemed necessary, Burton later records (1872, 80-1), for protective piles and rubble to be placed upon the foreshore in front of the British Consulate. Similar to both Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar (albeit on a much smaller scale), the nineteenth-century settlement on Chole developed out of the relocation of peoples from previously active coastal settlements, as part of the process of urbanization and possessed a specifically designed waterfront façade. The harbour at Chole (7º58’37.6”S, 39º45’46.9”E) (Fig. 4.10) is situated upon the western shore of Chole Island within the sandy bottomed Chole Bay, 1km off the south-east of Mafia Island. The Bay is 7.2km in diameter and formed by the curving south-eastern shore of Mafia Island, with Utendi promontory to the south-west

Earlier still the Stone Town waterfront façade of 1846 (Fig. 4.9) consisted in entirety of, from east to west; the

52

Archaeological Context.

Figure 4.9; Zanzibar’s pre-colonial waterfront. 1:American Consulate, 2:British Consulate, 3:Gereza, 4:Former Palace of Sultan, 5:Sultan’s Palace, 7+8: Buildings owned by Sultan, 8:Palace of Son of Sultan (after Guillain 1856).

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 4.10; Marine approach to Chole (modified from Hydrographic Office, 1994).

and Nchangara to the north-east. Chole 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). Access to Chole Bay is via either a northern or southern pass. The northern Kinasi Pass is narrow and delineated on its north side by two islands, Jina to the east and Migwe to the west, and on its southern side by Janvi point, the northern-most tip of Juani Island. The Kinasi pass has a depth of only 16.5m and Chole Bay a maximum of 11m (Hydrographic Office, 1994). The pass was described in 1889 as ‘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). The southern pass runs between Mange Reef to the north-west and Tutia Reef to the south-east and between Kibondo Island to the south-west and Mafia Island to the north-east. This again though was, in 1878, unfit for vessels with a drought of greater than 3.5m (De Horsey 1878, 290). The nearest deep water anchorage was at Kibondo 12.9km south-west, off the southern shore of Mafia Island. The foreshore at Chole Harbour is a shallow sloping beach leading to a coral platform which dries for a considerable distance at low water. It is unknown as to the nature of the water supply upon Chole island, although fresh provisions were described as ‘scarce’ in 1878 (De Horsey 1878, 290). We know from an account given by Krapf (1860, 422) following a visit in 1850 that the island of Chole 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, 34). However, according to local tradition attacks by the WaEsclavi from Madagascar led to the relocation of Omani trade to Chole (Saadi 1941, 25). 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 (Annual Report of the Tanganyika Department of Antiquities 1958, 24-5). The earliest description of Chole waterfront available 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. Both types have grass roofs, as flat roofs are considered unhealthy. The Arab Akida, one of those ludicrous reformers with many followers, who might, when occasion arises, play tricks with the [Prussian?] under officer, has taken pains to spoil this attractive place with embellishments, in his blind enthusiasm. He 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

54

Archaeological Context. reformer’s orders….Particularly pretty are those partly preserved mosques with their wells, where the chattering women draw water. There are also pyramid-shaped [Shariia?] graves, shaded by Banyan trees, surrounded by an old wall which encloses an uncultivated garden.” (Baumann 1896, 21).

they were liable to contamination from sewage. However, previous intelligence reports from 1915 state that Tanga town was adequately supplied with wells that provide good water. These were located at the Market, at the Bora Mosque, and two in the European Hospital. It was also reported that there were several springs, one on the beach near the Fish Market (being formerly used for the manufacture of ice (Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division 1916, 21).

The physical remains mentioned here will be fully addressed in the following chapter, however, archaeological survey on the island during the current research offered no obvious evidence for occupation prior to this late nineteenth-century town. The examination of a number of excavated foundation pits directly in front of the waterfront façade yielded no archaeological stratigraphy. However, within the coarse sand beach deposit exposed by these pits (a uniform deposit excavated to a maximum depth of 0.8m, CU1) a number of examples of undecorated course earthenware pottery of an indefinable date (but most probably of a nineteenth-century indigenous domestic type) were found.

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century development in Tanga seems unfortunately to have all but completely destroyed standing material clues as to the early development of the town. The large industrial harbour and railway upon the town’s immediate foreshore has drastically altered the natural waterfront and created a large debris field. Likewise, German colonial redevelopment of the town upon the edge of the high coastal cliff (following the town’s bombardment on September 8, 1888) 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. However, the site of pre-colonial Tanga was first visited by Krapf in 1844 and the description given, although short, suggests that Tanga, although sizably populated, was not a settlement flush with available stone buildings;

The main channel into Tanga (Fig. 4.11) (5°04’12.32”S, 39°06’11.45”E) runs south-east to north-west through a broken line of coral reef lying parallel to the mainland coast. The channel is denoted by Fungu Nyama Reef to the north and Niule Reef to the south. The channel has a depth of 14.6 to 31m. Once inside these outlying reefs the seaward approach is marked by Niule Reef and Yambe Island to the south and Ulenge Reef and Ras Kwawa to the north. Between Ras Kwawa and Yambe Island the approach shallows to 11m before deepening again inside Tanga Bay to a maximum of 12.8m (Hydrographic Office, 1890). The harbour itself lies at the south of Tanga Bay between Ras Kazone to the east, Udofu Creek to the west, and Toten Island to the north. Burton gives a description of Tanga Bay in 1857;

“On the 11th of March I arrived at Tanga. The hut which the friendly governor gave me for a lodging was soon surrounded by hundreds of men, but alas! I could not speak to them not having then mastered the Suahili [Swahili] language.” (Krapf 1860, 128). Burton’s description of 1857 likewise suggests a pre-stone built settlement, but nonetheless one of considerable size;

“The bay from E. to W., 6 miles [9.65km] deep by 5 [8.05km] in breadth, is partially defended by a coralline bank, formerly the site of Tanga town. This islet [Toten Island] still contains a small square stone fort and scattered huts: it is well wooded, but the water obtained by digging in the sand is more than brackish…. The bay receives the contests of two small streams, north westward (355°) the Mtu Mvoni or Kibokoni ‘Hippopotamus River,’ [Sigi] and westward (311°) the Utofu [Udofu or Mkulumuzi]. The former, at several miles distance from its mouth, must be crossed in a ferry; it affords sweet water, but the people of Tanga prefer scratching into their sand to the trouble of fetching the pure element.” (Burton 1858, 198)

“Tanga, like all settlements in this part of the coast, is a patch of thatched, pent-shaped huts, built in a straggling grove of cocos and calabashes. It numbers between 4000 and 5000 souls; 20 Banyans and a garrison of 15 Baloch, with the customary Jemadar. The country around is fertile, a hard red and yellow clay, producing in plenty cassava, wild toddy palms, - their Indian use is not known – plantains and papaws, holcus and sesamum, castor and wild egg-plants. When we visited it, however, all was dry as Arabian sand, the fields were burnt, and the owners dawdled about in hourly expectation of rain. Of late years it has been spared by the Masai, who have driven from it many a herd; consequently it is now, comparatively speaking, thickly inhabited, and surrounded by flourishing villages; Mvoni, Amboni, Jangani and others. We were here received by the people and their Diwans or chiefs with peculiar cordiality.” (Burton 1858, 198-99).

To the north-east of Tanga Harbour and lying between the two river mouths is the promontory of Kihongwe. This lies within extensive areas of mangrove, which spread all the way from Udofu Creek to the northern banks of Tanga Bay. According to the Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division in 1916 (Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division 1916, 171) water was best obtained from two artesian wells and the wells in the town proper were to be avoided, as

Interestingly, evidence suggests that two earlier stone built settlements existed prior to Tanga’s dominance. The first, Tongoni, 20km south of Tanga upon the coast

55

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 4.11; Marine approach to Tanga (modified from Hydrographic Office, 1992).

at Mtangata Bay dates to at least the end of the fifteenth century, as is clear from accounts by Vasco da Gama (Freeman-Grenville 1962, 58). This appears to have been a sizable settlement containing the largest collection of Shirazi tombs (over forty) 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 (as referred to by Burton (1858) in the earlier extract). Upon this small coral outcrop are (as well as those structures recorded by Burton (1858) 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 (Annual Report of the Tanganyika Department of Antiquities 1958, 7-8). Ceramic sherds collected from the island have been dated to the fifteenth century as well as a number of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain pieces from the sixteenth and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (ibid.). Industrial development and war in Tanga has removed all trace of the town’s pre-colonial waterfront. Taking into account the 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 ark of Tanga Bay. Had Tongoni, at the time of Burton and Krapf 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 is possible to assume that by the mid-nineteenth century Tanga had overtaken Tongoni as the regionally dominant port. As regarding Toten, it is most likely that this was ether a small-scale settlement, maybe seasonal in nature, or predominantly the home of a minority upper class (however, little investigation has been carried out upon the island and this was not possible during the course of the current study). Pangani harbour (Fig. 4.12) (5º25’54.4”S, 38º58’23.0”E) is situated just inside the mouth of the Pangani River where it enters Pangani Bay. The Bay is approached between Mwambe Mawe Reef to the north and Maziwi Island to

56

Archaeological Context.

Figure 4.12; Marine approach to Pangani (modified from Hydrographic Office, 1997).

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. Pangani Bay is known by a ‘verdurous wall’ of cocos, and by ‘diabolitis,’ or small detached rocks rising from the sea. Northward, by Maziri Island, a green-capped patch of golden sand bearing S.E., and, southwards, by the yellow cliffs of Bweni. It is intricate with reefs and shoals; even our Suri nakhoda expended a dollar upon a pilot. At low water the bed is partly dry; during the rains it is filled by freshes; whilst the tide flows its produce is salt, but when heavy and continues showers fall in the hills it is almost potable. Small

the south, and the bay entered between Ras Kikogwe to the south and a slight projection on the coast 4km to the north. Depths within the bay are less than 3.7m and larger vessels must anchor outside the bay where moderate shelter is offered by the shore parallel reefs which run along the coast as well as the further islands of Zanzibar and Pemba (Africa Pilot 1980, 203). A large sand bar is marked upon the Admiralty Chart of 1890 (Hydrographic Office, 1890) as lying just off the Pangani River mouth within the bay. Subsequently, the harbour approach was described in 1916 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 in the roadstead (Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division 1916, 173). 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]

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 4.13; PBF, looking north-east and showing the remains of slots in which mangrove poles were once present at the groundfloor ceiling level as well as Omani style internal wall recesses. Constructed c.1850.

vessels lie snugly in the river opposite the town.” (Burton 1858, 202).

surrounding the current town of Pangani and is to be discussed later in section 4.5. The waterfront at Pangani prior to 1886 was separated, as is the town today, into two separate zones by the Pangani River (see previous quote by Burton 1858). 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 (Krapf 1860, 418). 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 some time around 1850. This building (PBF) (Fig.4.13) is a two-storey, coral-rag structure with an internal and external lime and mortar render. Remains of mangrove pole ceiling beams can be seen at the eastern end of the structure where collapse is less severe.

To the north of the river mouth Pangani Bay has a broad curving sandy beach which joins the land at a gentle slope to the east of the town. At the northern extremity of the Bay the beach is backed by high cliffs which run east-west almost completely cutting off the low lying area upon which the town sits. To the south of the river, again, high cliffs make access to the sea difficult anywhere other than from the village upon the low foreshore. Inland along the Pangani River is characterised almost immediately upon leaving the village by mangrove and dense forest. 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 archaeological reconnaissance carried out in 1977 and 1981 (Gramly 1977; 1981), which discovered over 500 ceramic sherds on the site of Muhembo, including sgraffiato earthenware, Chinese stoneware, celadon, and local wares which Gramly likened to those found in Kilwa. In all, the finds from the site were dated as early as the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries. Archaeological investigation undertaken during the current study also concerned itself with the hinterland

It is also possible to define the remains of slots in which mangrove poles were once present at the ground-floor ceiling level. In plan (Fig. 4.14) the structure is rectangular and measures 15.40m east to west by 10.60m north to south,

58

Archaeological Context.

Figure 4.14; Plan of building PBF upon Pangani’s northern waterfront, showing central doorway flanked by four equally spaced windows and a small low protruding veranda on the ground floor. The rooms within the building are positioned lining the outer wall creating a central funnel or courtyard designed to facilitate ventilation (after Mediavillo-Rojo 2000, 24).

but for the north-east corner which is angled to create the external open space to the north east of the building. The buildings south facing façade contained, on the ground floor, a central doorway flanked by four equally spaced windows, and a small low protruding veranda, as well as nine second storey windows. The structure had a flat roof with crenulations running round the entire outer edge (crenulations most probably representing a phase of colonial restructuring). 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 funnel or courtyard designed to facilitate ventilation. Internally it is also possible to discern a number of wall niches, also redolent of this type of Omani influenced residential building. The building is locally reputed to have been originally utilized as a slave depot and has within its basement a tunnel that leads the short distance to the waters edge through which captives were transported onto dhows. However, during the course of the survey it became apparent that many historic buildings within coastal East Africa possess this common myth and investigation did not reveal any evidence of either a tunnel, or apparent slave activity (e.g. chain fixings or obvious cell like rooms). In mind of these functional and decorative design elements, as well as its proximity and orientation to the waterfront, it is possible that this building was used as both a commercial building and a residence. Indeed the structure is comparable to buildings of such usage at both Zanzibar and Mombasa.

Accordingly, the location and orientation of both PBA and PBF may also single them out as separate and therefore of status by there conspicuousness. Both dominate the inland town areas at the back of the harbour zone (by means of their size and surroundings of open space), yet both face the open ocean, with second storey and roof top views over the tops of the lower built town. All three buildings were constructed within the coastal ‘Arab’ tradition and demonstrate a physical, social and economic domination over the wider population and in this way reflect the social hierarchies within the town, i.e. mercantile domination. It is worth noting at this point that of the two settlements either side of the river at Pangani only the northern settlement appears to possess a specifically designed waterfront facade. The southern settlement, like that of Mombasa, possesses 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. This is a further expression of the domination of mercantile centres over that of more economically small scale trading harbours. 4.3 Management and Trade Centres. This study concerns itself first and foremost with the materiality of colonial processes in the Western Indian Ocean. To this end it is the study of the movement of material objects i.e. goods and trade items, from one place to another, and most importantly the relationships which this created between the peoples moving these goods. This interaction is bounded by social and physical constraints agreed upon by the individuals involved (be it based on coercion or mutual benevolence). Within the current research by far the most overt physical representations of trade management 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),

Less clear is the relationship between this building (PBF) and two large structures set away from the waterfront (PBA and PBI). The location of PBF upon the waterfront may single it as a structure of status through its control by proximity to the activities of the harbour. It dominates the waters edge of the harbour zone and presents a physically dominating façade over the activities of this area.

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Figure 4.15; Zanzibar waterfront painted in the mid-nineteenth century (Gilbert 2004, 22; source Peabody Essex Museum, catalogue no. 15,600 ).

waxed fat under the matting, and was not sure that he would thrive as much within stone and lime…. An open space now leads us to the finest building in the city, the palace of the late Sayyid….” (Burton 1872, 93-4).

and Customs Houses (centres of distribution and control of imported and exported materials). Not all of these methods of commercial organisation 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 organising 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 1856;

Burton’s description of Zanzibar’s customs area describes the busy activities of a functional space designed to facilitate the exchange of goods both between the terrestrial and marine environment and as a trans-shipment point between vessels. It has been the case that during the current study, 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 (Fig. 4.15), which in turn was superceded by the development of the deep-water harbour to the north.

“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 treestems. 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 warehousing 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

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.; “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

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Archaeological Context. Figure 4.16; Bagamoyo Caravanserai (BBC) showing main south-east facing façade and plan of structure and earlier walls as uncovered during excavation (plan modified from Chami et al. 2004, 38 and elevation from author’s own survey 2005).

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 quoted in Gilbert 2004, 29).

designed to facilitate lateral exchange from terrestrial interior to marine exterior, whereas as well as fulfilling this role Customs Houses also performed the role of marine transhipment nodes. 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 (Fig. 4.16) (located on the inland western boundary of the town some 400m from the Boma), is a single storey rectangular structure made of coral block and lime mortar, measuring 40m north-west to south-east and

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. Differing in its role from the Customs House in that it was specifically

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Figure 4.17; Pangani Boma (PBA) showing first and second storey plan of building and main east facing frontal façade. Constructed in 1810 by Mohamed Salim Breki, originally with a flat roof that was later crenulated and gabled in the 1880s under German rule (plan modified from Mediavillo-Rojo 2000, 24 and elevation from author’s own survey 2005).

42m north-east to south-west. It contains a gated entrance upon its north-eastern side, either side of which are four equally sized rectangular rooms measuring 4m north-west to south-east by 5m north-east to south-west, the entrances to which are accessible from inside the caravanserai only. The Caravanserai possesses a central open, roofless, courtyard in the centre of which today stands a two-storey structure (14m by 8m) and in the north-eastern quadrant a well. Excavation carried out in 2001 by Chami et al. revealed wall foundations on the inner north-west, southeast, and south-west sides of the courtyard, as well as a second smaller entrance on the south-west wall. The southeast and south-west sides having at one time contained rows of at least six small rooms similar to those upon the north-eastern side today. Chami et al. (2004, 61-65) 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 entrepot. 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 accomodation, associated with the First and/or Second World War). The latter phase saw the demolition of those rooms represented by foundations within the excavation trenches and the construction in cement block of those

rooms now standing either side of the north-east gate (Chami et al. 2004). The central political material focus at Pangani was the town’s Boma (PBA) (Fig. 4.17). It was situated in an open garden to the west of the main town centre of Pangani. It is a two-storey building and square in plan with an east facing frontal façade, calumniated upon its front and its northern and southern sides supporting a second storey balcony. The building is thought locally 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 one can begin to see the possible central open yard surrounded by smaller rooms on the outer walls similar to the so called Slave Depot (PBF) (see section 4.2) on Pangani’s waterfront. This open space appears to have been replaced by three columns on the ground floor to support an upper level and the northern extension of those rooms situated upon the southern wall of the building. The building, as noted earlier, appears similar to another in Pangani (PBI) located at the western end of a large open space to the east of the Boma (PBA) (Fig. 4.18). According to the headmaster of Pangani’s local school, this house is believed to have been constructed in 1824 by Said Hemed. Access to the house for purposes of internal comparison was not possible as it is today utilized as a mercantile store, the owners of which where unavailable at the time of survey.

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Archaeological Context.

Figure 4.18; PBI, looking west and showing main east facing three storey façade. Constructed in 1824 by Said Hemed.

4.4 Markets Prior to the Colonial Era.

However, the two structures display external similarities. Both are square in plan, PBI being the slightly smaller of the two, and originally two storey (although both were later increased to three). Both have a large central raised doorway upon their east facing frontal façaded flanked by barazza (traditional seat structures common to the Swahili coast), and small rectangular windows. Both structures have second storey balconies. Unusually neither building is part of the town’s waterfront façade and both are largely obscured from view when approaching from the sea. Both do sit in commanding positions, one (PBA) at the main access point for ferry crossings to the town upon the southern bank of the river and the other (PBI) overlooking what is today a commemorative park. 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. All of which is the result of European design, again to be discussed later in section 5.3 and Chapter 6.

A market in the context of this research is considered to be 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 in order to separate the market from other areas in towns used for the sale of either artisan skills and associated products, or dwelling/shop combinations. Standardization of such market places occurred under the colonial regimes in all the study areas, a process of colonial activity to be discussed in Chapter 5. 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

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 4.19; Map showing features recorded during current archaeological survey at Tanga (in the text all feature numbers are preceded by the initial of the town, i.e. Tanga Feature 1 is TF1 and where features are not discussed in text descriptions are given in appendixes) (modified from Hydrographic Office, 1992).

back, - its round head nodding with every motion of the mother, - they carried heavy loads of saleable stuff, and paid toll at a spot where the road was corded across. Here the Bedouins exchange their sheep and goats, cocos, grain and ghee, for white and blue cottons, beads, and rude iron-wire (knives, bills and hatchets, worked on the coast with metal brought from Zanzibar); fish, salt, and ‘tembú,’ or coco-toddy, together with such luxuries as spices, needles and thread, bluestone and fish-hooks. Formerly a large quantity of ivory found its way to the ‘golio;’ now it is purchased in the interior by trading parties. The groups gathered under the several trees were noisy, but peaceful.” (Burton 1858, 199).

from both the administrative and 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 trade centre/market was in point of fact Amboni to the north; “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! It was salted by the tide and flows under banks 40 or 50 feet high, crowned with calabash and other jungle trees. 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, were clothed in greasy hides, and cotton wrappers of inveterate grime; every man carried his bow and arrows, club sword and shield, but few had muskets. Some, I remarked, shouldered low wooden stools – sitting upon the damp ground in those regions causes dysentery – and not a few rested upon the long stick whose little terminating cross is used as a churn-staff to mix their blood and milk. The women were more numerous, and harder worked; besides the baby tied in a bundle to the

Material encountered during archaeological survey as part of the current study along the foreshore area between Tanga and Amboni (Fig. 4.19) appeared surprisingly sparse when one considers the size of the market described by Burton. Features included; two possible modern structures (TF16 and TF19), two pottery scatters and midden deposits (TF17 and TF21, the latter containing glass stamped with a makers 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), and a jetty constructed of timber and iron (TF20). 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

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Archaeological Context.

Figure 4.20; PBJ, looking north-east. This building is a typical nineteenth-century ‘Arab’ design, with a later gabled-roof addition. Constructed c.1850.

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 Independent Republic of Tanzania’s post-colonial political regime. This area has therefore been subject to intense physical disturbance resulting in a paucity of precolonial material.

is described earlier in section 4.2, and the second (PBJ) (Fig. 4.20), located directly to the north, is locally reputed to have been used as a slave ‘prison’. This is a two-storey coral-rag and lime mortar structure, with lime rendering inside and out. Upon its south-facing frontal façade it has two doorways upon its ground floor, one in the centre and one slightly smaller to the left, and a small window to the right. Upon the second storey are four symmetrically placed windows. The building was originally flat roofed but has been subsequently part-gabled with the construction of three pillars upon its east and west elevations to create a sloping roof. Evidence of an adjoining structure upon its west side is apparent from the exposure of bare coralrag where a sloping roof previously abutted. An internal wall niche can also be seen at the north end of the western elevation suggesting that this previous structure performed a domestic function. No other evidence of this adjoining structure could be seen. The internal morphology of PBJ is unknown, as permission for access could not be obtained during the fieldwork. From its external appearance the building undoubtedly falls into the category of nineteenthcentury ‘Arab’ design. The relatively small size and lack of open space in or around this building would, in the mind of the current author, cast doubt as to its role as a slave prison. A common myth associated with all historic ‘Arab’ type buildings (see discussion of building PBF in section 4.2).

By contrast, Zanzibar with its developed urban environment possessed by the mid 1800s a number of specialist markets catering 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. Besides this sat the Fish Market, and the Suk Melindi in the east of the town was home to the butchers of Zanzibar. 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, 351-52), the slave market was located by 1856 at the eastern border of Stone Town by what is now Creek Road in Kibokoni. The only other town within the study that is reputed to have had a dedicated slave ‘processing’ space is in Pangani. This was in the form, not of an open market, but of two closed buildings located upon the north side of the river. The first at the waterfront façade (PBF)

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Figure 4.21; Map showing features recorded during current archaeological survey at Pangani (in the text all feature numbers are preceded by the initial of the town, i.e. Pangani Feature 1 is PF1 and were features are not discussed in text descriptions are given in appendixes) (modified from Hydrographic Office, 1997).

market place (e.g. daily catches of fish landed upon the towns foreshore were, as today, no-doubt sold upon the foreshore). It is this realisation that led the later European colonial authorities to exert effort in imposing upon indigenous peoples formalized economic legislation and spatial delineation specific to the organisation and control of exchange.

It is also important, in relation to the markets here described 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 four mile 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 manifest 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

4.5 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

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Archaeological Context. stone (that is to say, coral-rag) structures is closely linked with the creation of status, elite groups, and patrician identities within the Swahili world (Horton and Middleton 2000, 117; LaViolette and Fleisher 2005, 35; Wynne-Jones 2005, 63; Pollard 2007, 145). 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 structures4. This is, for obvious reasons, the result of the greater visual identifiability and longevity of stone over that of wattle and daub, which appears rarely in the archaeological record and then as simply small deposits of burnt clay/earth with occasional small post-holes. 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. The archaeological record in East Africa currently places the earliest stone houses in the fourteenth-century (Horton and Middleton 2000, 116). However, as previously mentioned this technique is one that is still utilised today, making the identification of early occupation difficult unless associated with stratigraphic evidence (as in the aforementioned stone site excavations) or other forms of artefactual data.

55.6”S, 038° 57’ 39.6”E) (see Appendix D, Fig. 8) was a possible foundation course made up of 2 rows of stones 2.50m north to south and set 1.50m apart. The stones were cut rectangular in shape with some red brick at the northwest corner of the feature. The feature contained associated plain-ware ceramic to the south-east, but is probably most associated with the contemporary school site located directly to its north-east. In Tanga such foreshore and hinterland survey produced just two areas of activity, one to the south of the present day town and one to the north between Tanga and Amboni. To the south, TF8 (05° 05’ 24.2”S, 039° 07’ 45.1”E) (see Appendix D, Fig. 9 and 10) was a surface scatter of ceramic on a sand-spit jutting into an area of mangrove swamp. The spit measured 30m north to south and 15m east to west. The ceramic fragments were eroding from the dark upper layer predominantly at the north end of the spit along with a great deal of broken shell. The feature produced four fragments of undecorated domestic earthenware and one sherd of a similar earthenware type with incised linear decoration. Finally, TF17 (05° 02’ 59.8”S, 039° 04’ 59.3”E) (see Appendix D, Fig. 11) was another pottery scatter and shell midden at the base of a slope were the shoreline met mangrove and sand-flats and measuring c.8.00m north-east to south-west by c.3.00m north-west to south-east. All the pottery found was of an undecorated medium-coarse red domestic type. It is unlikely that 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 (as will become clear in Chapter 5) to the urban centric distribution of imported wares. The frequent occurrence of shell deposits associated with pottery scatters may also be an indication of the continuity of subsistence strategies both temporally and geographically along the wider Swahili coast. For example, Horton (1996, 34) reported the discovery of dense concentrations of shellfish along the waterfront at Shanga, and Pollard (2007, 135) reports the same kind of deposits at Kilwa and Kaole. These shells, according to Horton (1996, 34), are collected from mangrove swamps and used to bait fishtraps. The association between shell middens/deposits and possible landing places for small craft is also highlighted in the recent work by Pollard (2007, 215). It is therefore possible that many of the deposits described above represent previously cleared access routes through mangrove, designed for small coastal craft. One possible means of defining the different role of such middens is therefore the location of the deposits either at the high water mark or within the eulittoral zone. Those located at the high water mark or at the head of sand spits (created by seasonal flooding and tidal flow) being more likely to be landing places (PF8, PF10, PF16, TF8) than those higher upon the shore (PF7, TF17).

Within this current project no areas of specific wattle and daub style settlement were identified outside those areas contemporaneously occupied. But nonetheless areas of nineteenth-century activity outside colonial stone built towns were identified. At Pangani material was discovered in six areas (Fig. 4.21). The first, PF7 (05° 25’ 22.2”S, 038° 58’ 04.1”E) (see Appendix D, Fig. 1 and 2) consisted of a pottery scatter at the edge of a mangrove and sand flat measuring 7m north to south and 3m east to west. The excavation of a small shovel test pit showed two sandy layers (the lower being slightly lighter than upper) both with roots throughout and both containing the same undecorated straight-rimmed ceramic fragments. The next, PF8 (05° 25’ 19.3”S, 038° 58’ 03.7”E) (see Appendix D, Fig. 3), was a possible shell midden with plain-ware ceramic sherds eroding from a low sand bank and measured 12.00m north to south and 3.00m. east to west. PF9 (05° 25’ 17.9”S, 038° 58’ 04.0”E) (see Appendix D, Fig. 4 and 5) was a series of archaeological layers exposed through contemporary sand mining containing twenty-three ceramic fragments. PF10 (05° 24’ 31.7”S, 038° 58’ 25.0”E) (see Appendix D, Fig. 6) represents a find of undecorated pottery and small fragments of shell eroding from the end of a spit of land protruding west into an area of mangrove, located some 20.00m west of two large baobob trees. PF16 (05° 25’ 54.5”S, 038° 57’ 37.6”E) (see Appendix D, Fig. 7) was located to the south of the Pangani river and was a stone and ceramic scatter at the tip of a protruding sand spit in an area of mangrove swamp. The stones averaged 0.20m and appeared to sit in 2 rows with a roughly north to south orientation. The pottery was all medium-course plain-ware, and at the SW side of the feature a small amount of shell fragments could also be seen eroding from the bank. Finally, PF17 (05° 25’

4.6 Summary In this chapter a description of the evidence for the physical manifestations of pre-colonial Tanzanian coastal societies has been discussed in such a way as to present the main physical and material elements that go to make up these

As at Chwaka (La Violette 2000), Shanga (Horton 1996), Manda (Chittick 1984), Kilwa Kisiwani (Chittick 1974) and Gedi (Kirkman 1954). 4

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania centres of trade and settlement. In summary, evidence suggests that Bagamoyo had very little in the form of pre nineteenth-century urban activity upon its current site and was largely overshadowed by Kaole up until the mid to late nineteenth century and developed primarily in response to trade with Zanzibar. Similarly, this move from sheltered to open marine roadstead was mirrored at Kilwa Kivinje where trade and traffic moved from the older settlement of Kilwa Kisiwani, again at the behest of the Sultan, in 1843. The later Sultan Seyyid Majid also played a large role in the creation of Dar es Salaam as an international trade centre and entrepôt. The town itself was first planned and laid out under his orders in 1862. However, former small-scale occupation to the north may well be represented by pottery and mortuary evidence dating from as early as the thirteenth century. Zanzibar’s Stone Town was pre-dated by an earlier twelfth-century settlement upon Cape Shangani, but began to develop due to the construction of stone built dwellings by Omani traders from the Middle East to become what was by the mid nineteenth century such a sizable and influential town as to warrant the movement of the Sultan of Oman’s court to the island in 1832. At Chole and Tanga

evidence of a pre-European town is present in the form of burials dating from the mid eighteenth century, as well as written descriptions by the English explorer Burton (1858) describing a not inconsiderably sized wattle and daub settlement where Tanga now stands. It is possible that the town of Pangani sits at the southern edge of what was once a small island and that an earlier settlement existed upon the island’s northern edge, dating from the thirteenth or fourteenth-century (Gramly 1977). All the towns discussed in the chapter contain some form of evidence connecting them with the larger Indian Ocean trading network, whether it was through their direct creation as part of an intentional settlement building policy (i.e. Dar es Salaam’s planned grid streets) or through the occupation of sites by individual Arab traders (i.e. Pangani’s Boma or Bagamoyo’s caravanserai). They do not, however, possess any evidence to suggest that stone-built markets or waterfront customs or exchange zones existed prior to the nineteenth-century European period. This may be the result of the destruction and re-design of such areas by later Europeans, but is most probably due to the actual lack of such permanent structures in the exchange-network of pre-colonial coastal Tanzania.

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Chapter 5 Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania

5.1 Introduction

the creation of a system of physical control of the interface of marine and terrestrial environments and points of material exchange in the creation and control of Capitalist environments. 3. Monopolisation of transportation and communication through processes of industrialization and infrastructure development, i.e. control of contact between port and hinterland (leading to stage three of the macro model and the intensification of dominant colonial centres and the abandonment of peripheral ports).

This chapter analyses the remains of the physical manifestations of colonial activities from the mid nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. This was a time at which European-led colonial activity in the Western Indian Ocean was developing from an enterprise driven by chartered companies and individual adventurism and was becoming dictated by European national economic policies. All of this process was part of accelerating global Capitalism (Kenwood and Loughheed (1992, 83-92). As part of this global Capitalist regime the Western Indian Ocean began to develop specific urban material forms in accordance with the implementation of colonial policies in specific environments. The result of which 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 is manifest in the waterfront zones within the study areas. By discussing these within a Tanzanian context this chapter aims to effectively address the point of contact between nineteenth-century East Africa and the wider world and in doing so discuss the nature in which the manipulation of physical space affects and is affected by social participants of colonialism.

With this propositional narrative in mind this chapter examines the Tanzanian urban historical landscapes of Tanga, Pangani, Bagamoyo, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Chole and Kilwa Kivinje in order that comparison can be drawn to other geographical areas that were subject to the socio-economic forces of colonialism, but included differing social actors and socio-political motivations. These external areas are addressed in Chapter 7. 5.2 Tanga Tanga’s contemporary urban landscape is the result of a number of phases of formalized town design. The earliest now recognizable is that of nineteenth century when the townscape was reorganised upon a grid-pattern by the German colonial government in the 1890s (Fig. 5.1) (Askew 2002, 56). Following this design the town’s administrative block sat with the railway to the landward southern side and the ocean to the north. This centre contained the Boma, the prison, the military barracks, the hospital, market place, port, railway station and wide boulevards and parks. The British government later developed the town along the same grid pattern with an extension landward to the south known as Ngamiani, intended as the predominantly African zone. This area does not include any parks or wide boulevards and is densely planned with narrow streets (Tanzania Urban Planning Division, 1975, 29). The town is therefore broadly structured in two sectors with the railway line dissecting into north and south the European waterfront zone and the landward indigenous zone.

This monograph proposes that the physical change over time of the urban historical landscape of Tanzania’s Indian Ocean littoral can be fitted into an overarching model of nineteenth-century colonial activity. At a macro scale the model proposes a simple three-stage evolution; 1. European integration with existing western Indian Ocean economic systems. 2. European domination of economic and political systems and the Europeanization of trade relations. 3. The intensification of activity in dominant colonial centres and the abandonment of peripheral ports. Furthermore, it is suggested that these narrative episodes are reflected in the micro-materialism of individual urban environments and can therefore also be reflected in a suppositional model of change;

Within this study the buildings upon Tanga’s waterfront not considered to be of a recent (post-1960) construction date are separated into two major categories, that of colonial and traditional. Those designated colonial were most likely built during the German administration, c.1890 to 1916, or not long thereafter. Much of Tanga has undergone a great deal of change during the subsequent

1. European integration with existing western Indian Ocean material systems, i.e. the physical adoption of urban space previously occupied by the indigenous or ‘traditional’ mercantile elite. 2. Physical domination of urban waterfront zones, i.e.

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 5.1; Map of Tanga showing nineteenth-century centre within curve of railway line and later districts of Ngamiani and on Ras Kazone (modified from Askew 2002, 56).

British administration and post-independence. Effort has been made therefore to identify as near as possible material pertaining to the earliest of these phases. Later buildings are included with the intention of comparing the aesthetic of colonial administrative structures and their location in the wider townscape in comparison to the distribution of the smaller traditional shop houses. In Tanga, those buildings here labelled traditional, like their earlier counterparts in Mombasa, owe much of their design to the Indian colonial influence that saw the adoption of balconies and verandas in the late nineteenth-century Western Indian Ocean. Most importantly of all (and discussed further in Chapter 6) it has become clear from early observations that Tanga represents a highly designed inorganic town, with a morphology governed strictly by the plan set out early in its colonial history and substantially re developed following World War 1 and up until the mid 1950s (at which time the economic value of sisal, Tanga’s main export, was surpassed on the world market by synthetic alternatives).

cliff separated from the sea by an industrialized port (Fig. 5.2). Access to this port is restricted to just two points. One is Customs Street leading north from the eastern side of town and the other is via the foreshore road from the west of town leading past an area still used by indigenous dhow traffic. The foreshore is relatively inaccessible at the far north-eastern end of town around Ras Kazone and is dominated by a large sea wall c.20.0m high. (Appendix E, Fig. 1) (TF10, 05º03’18.3”S, 039º07’28.0”E) It is possible to see from the material used in its construction at least two phases, the lower course being a rough coral rag and the upper a more recent concrete addition. Evidence of this earlier smaller sea wall can be seen further south of town upon the eastern foreshore of Ras Kazone. The southern most point of this (TF6, 05º04’42.5”S, 039º07’34.8”E) consisting of a low coral rag wall (Fig. 5.3) averaging 0.80m in height, and 0.60m wide. The coral is un-faced and bonded with concrete. This is also the location of a small indigenous dhow harbour where a passage through the mangrove has been maintained to allow access to the open sea at high-water (Appendix E, Fig. 2). In contrast,

The urban waterfront at Tanga is built upon a high coralline

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania

Figure 5.2; Tanga’s industrialized harbour, looking north-east.

Figure 5.3; Structure TF6. The low coral-rag wall marks an indigenous dhow harbour, looking south-west.

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 5.4; Tanga’s historic urban waterfront (in the text all building numbers are preceded by the initial of the town, e.g. Tanga Building 1 is TB1 and where buildings are not discussed in the text no numbers have been allocated) (street plan modified from Survey and Mapping Division, Tanzania, 1963 and building locations from author’s own survey 2005).

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania No.

Zone

Date

Building/Function

Type

Roof

Storeys

Balcony/Veranda

TB1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 3 3 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1

1880-1900 1880-1900 1880-1900 1880-1900 1880-1900 c.1900 1880-9900 post-1918 1880-1900 1880-1900 1950s 1880-1900 1914 1914 1920s c.1900 1920s 1920s 1920s 1920s 1880-1900 1920s c.1900 c.1900 post-1918 1920s 19920s c.1900 1920s 1920s 1920s Clock 1951 c.1893 1880s

Bandarini. Commercial/Residential Commercial/Residential Commercial/Residential Commercial/Residential Commercial/Residential Hospital Commercial/Residential Commercial Commercial/Residential Commercial/Residential Library Administrative/Military Redoubt Redoubt Tanga Press Club Boma Residential Residential Residential Amboni Plantation Offices Commercial/Residential Greek Orthodox Church Residential Residential Commercial Katani House Palm Court Hotel Cliff Block Mkonge Hotel Bathing Club Yacht Club Clock and Burials Port Railway Port

T T T T T C T C T T C T C C C C C C C C T R C C C C C C C C C C C C

Mb Mb Mb Mb T Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb F Mb T Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb T T T Mb Mb T T T Mb Mb -

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 2 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 -

B B B B B B B V B B V B V B V V V B B V V V V B B V B B -

TB2 TB3 TB4 TB5 TB6 TB7 TB8 TB67 TB68 TB69 TB70 TB71 TB72 TB73 TB74 TB75 TB76 TB77 TB78 TB79 TB80 TB81 TB82 TB96 TB109 TB110 TB111 TB112 TB113 TB114 TB115 TB116 TB117

-

Table 5.1; Buildings along Tanga’s waterfront. Where possible dates of construction are included, as well as an indication of the number of storeys and roof type (all the buildings except those designated Colonial or Modern are originally constructed of coral block and lime mortar, although some may have undergone subsequent alteration using contemporary materials). M=modern (post 1960), SW=Swahili, SH=shop house, T=traditional, C=Colonial, P=Portuguese, R=Religious, Mb=mabati (corrugated iron), Mk=Makuti (palm thatch), T=tiles, F=flat, B=balcony, V=Veranda.

the closer one approaches urban Tanga along this Ras Kazone foreshore the larger and more elaborate the sea wall becomes and by the time one reaches the boundary of the port from the east one is confronted with elaborate private gated boat-houses and sea defences (Appendix E, Fig. 3) (TF4, 05º03’49.3”S, 039º06’34.6”E and TF5, 05º03’51.4”S, 039º06’32.7”E).

Tanga’s colonial waterfront has developed into three distinct zones (Fig. 5.4 and Table 5.1); • Zone 1: central German administrative and commercial zone between Mombasa Road in the west and Swahili Street in the east, • Zone 2: elite residential and hospital facilities east of town upon Ras Kazone from Swahili Street to the promontory lighthouse, • Zone 3: peri-urban/suburban estate west of Mombasa Road and Kilimanjaro Road.

The foreshore immediately adjacent to Tanga’s urban centre is dominated by a contemporary industrial port with its associated pier, cranes and warehouses, as well as a branch line of the Tanga railway which runs through the eastern side of town, along the shorefront and terminates at a now derelict boat yard. This is a branch of the Moshi to Tanga Line completed in 1893 (further discussion of the significance of which is presented in Chapter 6). The eastern periphery of the town’s waterfront is also home to a fuel depot.

Zone 1 consists of twenty-three structures and one grave-yard. Of these twenty-three structures thirteen are typically colonial in design and ten are based upon traditional rectangular planned shop-house designs. It is this combination that characterizes this dominantly commercial and administrative waterfront.

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure5.5; Building TB8. A late-period (post 1918), large commercial buildings dominating a major road junction leading from Customs Street, looking south-east.

Figure 5.6; Building TB1. Mixed commercial and residential building upon the towns ocean façade dating from 1900 to 1914, looking south.

74

Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania Located at the east end of Independence Avenue are TB96 (Appendix E, Fig. 4) and TB8 (Fig. 5.5), two late-period (post 1918), large commercial buildings dominating major road junctions leading from Customs Street. Further west the town’s ocean facing façade is almost completely made up of commercial premises, the earliest examples of which (TB1-5, TB7, TB67 and TB68; (Fig. 5.6 and Appendix E, Fig. 5 to 10) are constructed of coral rag with concrete or lime mortar and render with archetypal residential balconies and shop fronts, most probably dating to some time between 1900 and 1914.

To the west of this stands a two-storey rectangular structure (TB70) (Fig. 5.7) of coral-rag, lime mortar and cement. It has a second-storey balcony upon its south facing façade and a sloping corrugated iron roof. This building is unusual as it has a very narrow ground-floor with a pointed arch placed off-centre to the east of the elevation. To the east of this doorway is a small rectangular window and to the west are three rectangular windows with pointed arched tops. It would seem that these windows were originally doorways of the same style as the one that can be seen today and have at some subsequent time been redesigned. In accordance with these doors one can also see corresponding steps, and to the west of these are two further small square windows. The arrangement of the four parallel doors in the centre of this buildings southern elevation is most unusual in comparison to all the other structures encountered in the course of this current research. However, outlying associated features may suggest that this building was designed for some defensive or military function. For example, directly in front of the structure is located a circular stone footing similar to those found in front of the Boma at Chole (CBA) and interpreted here as the footings of heavy artillery. Furthermore, flanking TB70 stand two low heavily built concrete structures (TB71 and 72) (Appendix E, Fig. 13) interpreted here as redoubts or pillarboxes. The pillarboxes are constructed of large square faced concrete blocks and stand to a height of c.2.0m. In plan the structures are c.5.0m square and tapers inward toward their flat roofs. Neither structure has windows upon their southern, eastern or western elevations, with any entrance or rifle slots therefore most likely being upon their northern side, further investigation was not

To the west of these, beginning at Bank Street, is the colonial administrative centre and associated executive housing. The first and most obvious building one encounters is the Library (TB69) (Appendix E, Fig. 11 and 12). This structure was constructed in the mid-1950s under the British colonial regime and was opened by the British Governor Sir Edward Twining, and although outside the temporal range of the current monograph it is included here as an example of the continuation of lasting European ideas of design within the East African context (ideas which encompass western beliefs of what constitute an African, or nonEuropean aesthetic). It is a large single storey building built around an open planted courtyard. The main façade faces south and has a large central entrance with three horseshoe arches supported by two plain columns. This design of arch is continued either side of the main entrance along a calumniated veranda that runs the whole length of this southern facing elevation, as well as along both the east and west facing elevations. The building has a flat concrete roof.

Figure 5.7; Building TB70. Possible military structure associated with outlying pillarboxes, looking north.

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 5.8; Building TB74. Tanga’s Town Hall and Colonial Boma, looking north-west.

possible due to the occupation of the structures associated complex.

out to the bay, but south into the town. Having been placed not only slightly outside the urban epicentre, but also in a position to command views over the single storey buildings opposite. In turn, commanding a dominance of the skyline when viewed from the town centre.

All of the above are closely associated with TB74 (Fig. 5.8) directly to the west. This building is the current Town Hall and colonial Boma. This large two-storey building is stylistically reminiscent of Bagamoyo’s German Boma (BB5) and probably constructed some time around 1900, with its central arched entrance veranda and large flanking bastion styled façade. Access is gained through this southern facing main two-storey façade at ground level, above which is a second storey balcony, both have three pointed arches (a design common to much of the monumental colonial architecture discussed in this chapter) supported by two square columns. The flanking elevations have two small rectangular rifle-slot style apertures or windows at ground level and a single large pointed arched window upon the first-storey. This window is dissected internally into smaller rectangular panes. At the northwest corner of the building stands a high four-cornered tower commanding views over both the town and the harbour and marine approach. Its position and orientation within the waterfront façade and the wider townscape is in itself of note. The building is positioned conspicuously upon the high cliff adjacent to Tanga’s foreshore as well as commanding the aforementioned views to and from the main pass into Tanga Bay. Despite this, the building’s main elevation faces not

The single-storey buildings upon the opposite southern side of Independence Avenue consist of TB73, 75 and 76 (Appendix E, Figs. 14, 15 and 16). All of these are colonial residential buildings once occupied by the staff of the European administration as well as those of the Amboni Plantation Offices (TB78) situated directly to the west. Non-utilitarian material within the built environment can be seen upon the waterfront at Tanga in the form of a clock tower (substantially smaller than that at Zanzibar) and forty graves within a walled cemetery (05º04’12.5”S, 039º06’08.8”E) (Fig. 5.9). The clock tower is marked with the date 1901 but local informants put the date of its re-erection at 1951. It is unknown whether the clock tower and graves are significant to any specific event but they do coincide both geographically (close to the waterfront) and temporally to a German graveyard at Bagamoyo containing twenty graves dating from 1888-1900. The cemetery at Tanga measures 42.5m east to west by 19.0m north to south and the burials are oriented east-west along their longest axis, signifying

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania

Figure 5.9; Tanga Clock Tower and Burials (TB115), looking east. The clock was constructed in 1961 and the adjacent graves date from 1888-1900.

Christian graves (Fig. 5.10). The burials are each marked by a raised coral rag and concrete casket with a stepped pyramidal lid (all averaging 1.5m by 0.75m and 0.90m in height). The orientation and location of this cemetery in such a prominent position would hint at occupants of some status and the conformity of the grave styles would suggest a shared community remembrance1. According to Mytum (2003, 163) British colonial cemeteries of the nineteenth century usually established themselves following the styles set in Britain at the same time. This would also seem to be the case in German colonial East Africa (for example at Pangani and Bagamoyo, section 6.7).

the authority of other groups or classes, never acquired a privileged economic and social position allowing them to erect signs of their belonging’. Zone 2 of Tanga’s waterfront stretches from Swahili Street north-east to the promontory lighthouse at the tip of Ras Kazone. This area contains six buildings of interest all of which post-date 1900. TB109 (Fig. 5.11), TB110 (Appendix E, Fig. 17) and TB112 (Appendix E, Fig. 18) are all large colonial buildings constructed after World War 1, c.1930s. TB111 (Fig 5.12 and Appendix E, Figs. 19) dates to the earlier German period (c.1890 to 1910) and is historically significant as the location of the signing of a cease-fire following an attempted invasion by British and Indian troops during World War 1 (TAYODE 2005, 6)2. It was originally part of the large Bombo Hospital complex, much of which is still functioning today. It is a large two-storey coral rag and concrete structure with a south facing main façade. This façade has a central doorway at ground level

It may be then that this graveyard represents Christianised non-Europeans associated with the colonial authorities as the unlabelled graves do not conform to any known European style. Nonetheless such creation of signs of belonging, of authority over landscape and townscape even after death, are symbolic of an empowered faction of society and community. As Penrad (1995, 83) recognises in his study of graves and cemeteries on Zanzibar, the ‘social groups which were historically dominated, those who did not have power in their hands, but were subordinated to

During the British campaign into German East Africa during World War 1 Tanga’s Raz Kazone was chosen as the site for the landing of 8,000 troops from seventeen British ships which had set out from the port of Bombay on 16th October 1914. On November 2nd the British convoy anchored of Ras Kazone peninsular and noted three buildings that stood out against the vegetation, a two-storey white house, a low red-roofed house and a signal tower. The narrow strip of beach below the so-called Red House was chosen for the landing the following day, November 3rd. Over three days 850 men were wounded until the evacuation of the fleet on November 6th (Chricton-Harris 2001, 8-11). 2

It is possible that these graves are military or missionary associated, although traditionally such graves would carry some form of identification. This is unless the graves were constructed during an episode of military engagement, at which time less permanent structures would have been adopted. 1

77

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania Zone 3 of Tanga’s waterfront is the peri-urban/suburban estate west of Mombasa Road and Kilimanjaro Road. This area will be discussed further in Chapter 6 and is very much categorised by smaller middle class colonial housing reminiscent of wider post-World War 1 East Africa, examples of which can also be seen in Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. This area contains a high density of European religious buildings, including the Anglican Church, Greek Orthodox Church and Catholic Church. One of the unusual aspects of Tanga’s contemporary waterfront is the high number of hospitals present for a town of such a small size. We have seen already Bombo Hospital (TB111) at the east of town on Ras Kazone but there is also reference on a map published in 1963 (Survey and Mapping Division, Tanzania, Sheet 130E/1) (Fig. 5.4) of another hospital upon the waterfront to the west of town. Survey in this area during the current study uncovered at least one structure that represents the remnants of this hospital site. TF22 (05º03’53.4”S, 039º05’31.0”E) (Appendix E, Figs. 21 and 22) is located to the west of town upon the foreshore directly north of a contemporary oil depot and c.10m east of a contemporary stone pier. It consists of a large coral rag and cement platform some 27.0m east to west by 17.0m north to south and 1.30m in height (Fig. 5.13). This is surrounded upon three sides (east, west and northern seaward side) by a collapsed wall 1.20m high and 0.40m wide with three low seaward buttresses. This was possibly designed as a sea wall in order to protect the platform. Between the platform and the wall, set to the west of the structure, is a vertical concrete pipe 1m in diameter. 20m to the east of the feature stands another low wall running north to south for a distance of 3.7m. In and around the feature much of the tumbled stone-work appears in the form of moulded columns and drains/gutters. Other hospital sites at Tanga include the currently in service TB6 on Independence Avenue and a former Quarantine Facility upon Toten Island. Reference for the latter appears in the form of a single entry by G.H. Wyatt the Acting Senior Commissioner of Tanga in the 1922 Annual District Report (p15);

Figure 5.10; Plan of TB115, Clock Tower and Burials. The clock was constructed in 1961 and the graves to the west date from 1888-1900.

“Provisions have been made in next year’s estimates for repair to the Isolation Hospital on Tanga [Toten] Island.” (Tanzania National Archives, Dar es Salaam. 1733/22).

above which is a horseshoe arch containing a circular window. Either side of this entrance are two wings with open second-storey balconies which continue along the north and south elevations of the building. It also has a sloping triple-tiered tiled roof. Like TG74 this building commands dominant views to and from the entrance to Tanga Bay. At the tip of Ras Kazone promontory stands a shipping signal tower, as noted by the British invasion fleet of 19142. Beside this also stands a large Baobab tree, no doubt also once used as a sailing marker for indigenous vessels entering Tanga Bay. Ras Kazone is also home to Tanga’s Yacht Club and Bathing Club, colonial institutions along the lines of the Mombasa Club (Chapter 7), with the bathing club (Appendix E, Fig. 20) (like Mombasa) having a swimming pool upon the foreshore.

The necessity for so many hospital facilities may have been the result of an increased population relating to the large sisal industry and its associated plantations and shipping in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, as described by the Acting Senior Commissioner in 1923; “The prosperity of Tanga depends largely on the labour question… The total labour force must fluctuate considerably between about 16,000 and 25,000 according to the season. On a given date the nineteen largest estates had some 17,000 men on their books, and to this of course must be added Railway and P.W.D., labour, the stevedores of the lighterage coy., labour employed by the smaller

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania

Figure 5.11; Building TB109. A post-World War 1 European colonial structure, looking south.

Figure 5.12; Building TB111. German period structure (c. 1890-1910) where the Anglo-German ceasefire was signed in World-War 1, looking south.

79

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania Tanga’s indigenous and non-indigenous population3. One could therefore postulate that the positioning of hospital facilities upon the waterfront at Tanga demonstrates an intrinsic elitism by association with the wider colonial waterfront, thereby, in just the same way as the yacht and swimming clubs are physically and socially elitist, removing the availability of these specific services from the wider community. 5.3 Pangani 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 DOAD) that awarded the Company administrative duties over the Sultan’s mainland dominions (Freeman-Grenville 1963b, 435). Shortly after this Pangani gained its first DOAD representative in the person of Emil von Zelewski. On the 18th August of the same year, a small force of German soldiers reportedly bullied the local Omani Arab governor Abdulgawi bin Abdallah into turning over the Sultan’s flag to them and hoisted it above the Company station house (Glassman 1995, 1-5). By doing so they symbolically arrested control of Pangani for Germany in the name of the Sultan. This was 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 (Fig 5.14). This northern waterfront has been the historical focus of development throughout Pangani’s colonial and postcolonial period and is therefore indicative of this changing system of colonial control and infrastructure. Of the thirteen pre-modern structures (Table 5.2 for full list of Pangani’s historic buildings) upon the waterfront at Pangani only two are believed to pre-date the colonial period and ten to date from after 1888. If this is widened to include those building’s within the town used during the colonial period for management purposes the total number of pre-colonial structures is seven out of twenty-one, of which the two major earlier elite structures (i.e. the Boma (PBA) and Said Hemed’s House (PBI) are adopted and redesigned to conform to the colonial aesthetic.

Figure 5.13; Plan of TB111, possible hospital site.

employers, and the unfortunately large class of ‘pickers up of unconsidered trifles’ who eke out a precarious existence in a variety of miscellaneous occupations ranging over casual labour on estates, haulage, professional ngomas, and card sharping, to housebreaking and the like.” (Mitchell, P.E. Acting Senior Commissioner Tanga District 1923. Tanzania National Archives, Dar es Salaam 967/822).

The natural waterfront at Pangani was consolidated between 1895 and 1898 with the construction of a sea wall (Fig. 5.15) that runs east to west on both the northern and southern side of the river. On the north it runs in a straight The 1921 census of Tanga placed the indigenous population of Tanga district at 86,666; divided into ‘tribal’ units as Digo 20,631; Sambaa 19,514; Bondei 14,067; Segeju 12,262; Zigua 2,156 and Alien Tribes 18,036. By 1925 the total African population of the district was believed to be 120,000 to 125,000. The number of Europeans was estimated at 300 to 350 and Indians in the 1921 census was placed at 1,500 but fell to 500 in 1925 (Baines, D.L. 1925. Annual Report on the Tanga District. Tanzania National Archives, Dar es Salaam 967/822). 3

It may also be that the number of medical facilities represents a diverse and highly stratified social matrix, with each hospital serving a different ethnic and social sector of

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania

Figure 5.14; Pangani’s Urban Waterfront (in the text all building numbers are preceded by the initial of the town, e.g. Pangani Building 1 is PB1 and where buildings are not discussed in the text no numbers have been allocated) (street plan modified from Mediavillo-Rojo, 2004 and building and pier locations from author’s own survey 2005).

line from 05º25’42.0”S, 038º58’08.6”E to 05º25’46.8”S, 038º58’43.5”E, and in the south curves to follow the natural morphology of the riverbank from 05º25’54.9”S, 038º58’15.8”E to 05º26’08.1”S, 038º58’ 40.6”E. The wall is constructed of rough coral rag (from 0.05m to 0.20m) and bonded with concrete with a concrete render upon its upper surface. The coral rag is faced upon both inner and outer sides and averages 0.90m wide at the base, 0.51m at the top, and 1.91m in height. Upon the north side of the river two piers and a slipway at right angles to the wall are located. Both piers (the northern most at 05º25’43.4”S, 038º58’18.7”E; and the southern at 05º25’45.1”S,

038º58’33.8”E) (Fig. 5.16) are made up of four rectangular coral rag and concrete plinths set in a straight line parallel to the sea wall. These plinths were connected with timber beams upon which planking was placed in order to create a platform. Both piers were associated with nearby buildings, the northern pier constructed to serve the Residence of the District Commissioner (PBP) and the residential houses to the west of the town, and the southern pier to service the buildings PBF and the German Post office and current Customs House (PBE). Of the two piers, the southern is

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 5.15; Pangani sea wall (PBD), looking south east.

Figure 5.16; Southern most pier upon Pangani’s northern bank, looking east.

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania No.

Building

Type

Roof

Storeys

Balcony/Veranda

Date

PBA

Boma Jamhuri Monument and Pillar German/British Monument Sea Wall Customs House/Post Office TANU Office Koran School Mosque Said Hemed’s House Slave Depot Freedom/Independence Grounds Mohammed Nassoro’s House Open Grounds German Building/Mosque German Govt. School House of Bezirksamtmann German Graveyard Poss. Railway Building Private Residential Private Residential Mosque British Cinema Private Residential Private Residential Private Residential Private Residential Private Residential

C M C C C T TR TR T T T C C C C M SH M TR C C SH C C C

Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb

2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1

B V V B V V B V V V

1880s 1961 1890/1916 1895-98 1890s 1880s 1890s 1890s 1824 1880s 1880s 1890s 1890s 1890s 1890s 1910s 1920s+ 1920s+ 1890s 1940s 1920s+ 1920s+ 1920s+ 1920s+

PBB PBC PBD PBE PBF PBG PBH PBI PBJ PBK PBL PBM PBN PBO PBP PBQ PB1 PB3 PB4 PB5 PB6 PB7 PB8 PB9 PB10 PB11

1920s+

Table 5.2; Buildings in Pangani discussed in this monograph. Where possible dates of construction are included, as well as an indication of the number of storeys and roof type (all the buildings except those designated Colonial or Modern are originally constructed of coral block and lime mortar, although some may have undergone subsequent alteration using contemporary materials). M=modern (post 1960), SW=Swahili, SH=shop house, T=traditional, C=Colonial, P=Portuguese, Mb=mabati (corrugated iron), Mk=Makuti (palm thatch), T=tiles, F=flat, B=balcony, V=Veranda.

most likely the last to have fallen from use as not only is it in better state of repair than its northern counterpart but the northern pier is now largely inaccessible due to vegetation growth. The slipway to the south of the Boma (PBA) is a modern construction and serves the motorised vehicle ferry which runs from the north to the south of the river. There is a corresponding slipway upon the southern bank of the river. Upon this southern bank there is also a pier (05º25’54.8”S, 038º57’41.4”E), smaller but similar in design to those upon the northern bank (Appendix E, Fig. 23). It is made up of ten coral rag and concrete plinths upon which beams and planks were once fixed (some of which survive in situ). This pier is not connected to the sea wall and is located west of its termination. It is associated with the school located to the west of the town upon a large sand spit within well-developed mangrove (Also PF17 in section 4.5). The existence of such a large and well-developed pier within a school complex may suggest that the area and buildings were originally intended for some other use. The position of this complex upon the south side of the river at a point opposite Pangani’s hospital suggests that this area originally served as a zone of quarantine, similar to the leper colony at Bagamoyo.

only utilitarian engineering but of what might in a European context be called ‘gentrification’. The waterfront was planted at some time during the colonial period with a line of decorative trees, not only to visually alter the appearance of this 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 utilisation 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. This is a direct physical alteration of the waterfront designed by the European authorities to manage the movement of commodities and people. It was a technique that utilized European traditions of tree planting (as at Bagamoyo’s mission and Tanga and Chole ‘boulevards’) 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. During the current study ten buildings of interest were identified upon Pangani’s northern waterfront. The southernmost of these (PB1) (Fig. 5.17) is a large rectangular building most probably constructed during the post World War 1 British Protectorate. This tall rectangular concrete single storey structure is unlike any other at Pangani, with two large entrances upon its long

Pangani’s northern waterfront also shows evidence of not

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 5.17; Building PB1. Industrial structure from the post World War 1 British Protectorate period, possibly associated with railway activity, looking north-west.

eastern and western facing façades with twelve rectangular windows set either side of these upon both elevations and a timber framed sky-light running the length of the wall on it upper edge. The northern and southern facing gable elevations also have six small rectangular windows in two vertical rows of three. The windows of this building are of a unique style in that they are wider than they are tall. This European structure represents part of a process of industrialization that occurred throughout the Western Indian Ocean during the late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury. As is shown on early photographs of Pangani, a railway line once ran at the eastern end of the town from the waterfront at PB1 to the coconut plantations at the north of the town (Fig. 5.18). It may also be that a railway ran from the southern side of the river south in the direction of Saadani (section 6.5.1), connecting two trade centres and the termini of the nineteenth-century central caravan route. This is of significance, again from the point of view of the redesign of former trade activity following the arrival of European colonial management. Formerly, the dominant modes of transport had consisted of north-south, shore parallel maritime transport and east west terrestrial caravan transport. However, 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. This will be discussed further in Chapter 6. To the west of PB1 sits a building (PB3) (Appendix E, Fig. 24) of the same style as those found within the early twentieth-century urban centres of Mombasa and Tanga and of a type that most often functioned as both a residential and commercial property. Single storey and rectangular in plan this concrete structure has a central doorway with two large flanking windows upon its south facing frontal façade, as well as a low veranda supporting four rectangular columns upon which sits a sloping corrugated awning. Two smaller windows are set symmetrically upon both its east and west elevations, and the northern side of the building is enclosed by a small walled yard. The building is roofed with sloping corrugated iron sheeting. This style of building most commonly contains a central internal corridor running from the front to the back door with four rooms placed two either side. As a waterfront building, this structure served a mercantile and residential function and dates to the 1920s. Its wide doorway and open access veranda allow for the movement of commercial material in and out, while its internal morphology offers accommodation to the rear of the building. Its proximity to the harbour also makes this a suitable location for the exchange of small-scale commercial items. In the late 1800s this type of business was predominantly run by resident Arab traders, or those

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania

Figure 5.18; Historic picture (c.1900) showing railway line and plantation lands to east and north of Pangani’s waterfront (Tanzania National Archive: AB1021).

with family links to the wider Indian ocean network. By the early 1920s such businesses were becoming part of a more established East Africa indigenous population who, as a result, began to develop a stronger physical waterfront presence. However, within larger towns such as Tanga and Mombasa the largely Arab dominance remained and thus within these other towns the larger multi storey Arab houses continued to predominate through the early 1900s.

the European monopolisation of this tradition (as manifest in PB3 and PB4). To the west of PB4 sit buildings PBF (section 4.2) and, by far the most distinctive building upon Pangani’s waterfront, PBE (Fig. 5.19 and Appendix E, Fig. 26). This building functioned as the German colonial Post Office and Customs House (a function it still fulfils today) and was constructed in 1916 (Mediavilla-Rojo et al. 2000, 25). PBE is a twostorey coral block and lime mortar structure (today rendered with concrete) with a south facing pseudo-medieval castle façade. The building can be separated into two sections (Fig. 5.20), 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 small rectangular windows. Above this is a second storey balcony (originally crenulated with a central pediment) covered with a sloping corrugated iron roof. This is flanked by two two-storey wings designed to resemble towers or bastions. The eastern most elevation has two rectangular timber framed windows set one above the other in the first and second storeys (the upper being slightly smaller than the lower). The western most elevation also has a second storey rectangular timber framed window and a wide ground-floor double door within a curved archway (today with a sloping corrugated awning and utilised as shop premises). Both these wings originally possessed crenulated tops and three small upper third-storey rectangular windows. The building’s rear north facing, single storey, façade has a central double door set within a pointed arch (as in the southern facing façade) between two small buttresses, above which are set five

Directly to the west of this building sits PB4 (Appendix E, Fig. 25), another relatively recent concrete structure in a similar style to that of PB3. It is also rectangular in plan with a central corridor and flanking rooms which can be utilised either for residential or mercantile purposes. These buildings occupy an area of previously open ground upon the southern side of what is today known as the ‘Freedom/ Independence Grounds’ (Unwaja wa Jamhuri). These grounds are believed to be the location of a nineteenthcentury slave market closely associated with PB1, PBJ, and PBF to the west and south-west. Although as discussed earlier in Section 4.2, no evidence for the involvement of these buildings in the traffic of slaves was evident during the current survey. The siting of these two more recent buildings (PB3 and PB4) does, however, block the line of sight between building PBI and the entrance to the harbour at the river mouth. This may be indicative of simply a lack of available space within the town, or more significantly of a loss of authority at the beginning of the twentieth century by the descendants of Said Hemed (the builder of PBI). It is nonetheless, intimation of a re-focusing of activity to a less maritime oriented economic subsistence as a result of

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 5.19; Building PBE, German Post Office and Customs, south facing elevation.

windows/apertures. These are symmetrically placed upon the elevation in a horizontal line, each pointed at its top with a sloping lower sill. The central most aperture is set within a recessed alcove running from the bottom of the window vertically to the façade’s apex. The upper edge of the elevation may well have originally been crenulated like that of the south facing. However, the northern elevation has been re-designed to conform with that of the south and thus also now has a raised pediment. Either side of this central elevation are two square timber framed windows set within pointed arch recesses.

of expressions of authority and control, where even the construction of a Customs House and Post Office can have Orientalist connotations. By constructing this building within conceived ideas of what constitutes an East African building (or at the least a non-European building) the designers 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 the 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. Further examples of which can be seen at Tanga (the library building, TB69 and Bagamoyo and Kilwa Kivinje Customs Houses, BB1 and KB2).

These recesses are set within plain flanking walls the tops of which slope (with the line of the corrugated iron roof) from the middle were they join the central elevation to the buildings outer north to south oriented longitudinal walls. The two separate elements of this building represent dual functions, with the frontal two-storey section housing offices for management purposes and the large rear open single storey space for storage. In order to access this storage/work space individuals are required to pass through either the front or the rear main doors and subsequently through the colonial office space, thereby making the movement of people and goods controllable by the minority European management. It is interesting to note in the design of this building, the European mindset of African and medieval romanticism as manifested in the construction

Directly to west of PBE sits PB5 (Fig. 5.21), a small coral rag and lime mortar structure, consisting of a small rectangular single-storey building with two small rectangular windows in its north facing façade. Access to this building is gained through a walled yard attached upon its west and north sides. This yard is entered through a doorway in its southern side, either side of which are three small square apertures set at a height of c.1.5m. The top of the wall is crenulated with curved, slightly pointed merlons. This building is a Zawia, a small mosque used during the week and accordingly has no minbar as there is

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania

Figure 5.20; Plan and Elevation of Building PBE, German Post Office and Customs (plan modified from Mediavillo-Rojo 2000, 24 and elevation from author’s own survey 2005).

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 5.21; Building PB5. A Zawia or small mosque located upon Pangani’s waterfront, looking north-east.

no sermon and no minaret as there is no call to prayer. It is placed close to the waterfront so that those working there can attend to their prayers. The location of this building in such close proximity to the waterfront and the centre of nineteenth-century colonial management is expressive of the relationship between Muslims and Europeans at this time. These two groups existed within a bilateral economic environment that existed within a sphere of colonial management. Despite events such as the so-called ‘Arab Revolt’ (which was in reality the result of economic and social inequality rather than religious opposition), religious co-existence was a fundamental part of nineteenth-century East Africa (at least in relation to Muslim and Christian) and necessary for the continuation of trade relations within the wider Indian Ocean network. Hence the physical representation of non-European religious practices within all of the study areas and specifically within the nineteenthcentury European zones.

28). Local informants attest to this being a replacement for a previous monument erected in 1890 celebrating the establishment of German East Africa. These monuments are understandably located at a point of greatest prominence to the town’s main thoroughfare. All are physical representations of one political regimes replacement of another and designed to reinforce within the minds of Pangani society either the knowledge of external authority (nineteenth-century German colonialism and twentiethcentury British colonialism) or national independence (the new Tanganyikan government of 1961). To the west of the monuments on what is now the outskirts of town is the largely European residential zone and will be discussed in Chapter 6. At this western end of Pangani’s waterfront survey a substantial midden deposit (PF1) was found. The deposit was located at the terminus of the sea wall (05º25’42.0”S, 038º58’08.6”E) where the structure was severely degraded (Appendix E, Fig. 29). As a result of this collapse, tidal currents had eroded an area of the foreshore running from the sea wall in a north-westerly direction for a distance of 30m. This eroded bank had a maximum depth of 0.50m and contained a high density of archaeological material. Surface collection included finds of iron slag, six sherds of domestic ceramic, and three sherds of porcelain.

Along this waterfront at Pangani nothing more remains of the pre-1960s townscape. However, some distance to the west of PBE adjacent to today’s ferry point stand two memorials. One is an obelisk constructed to commemorate Tanzania Independence in 1961 (Appendix E, Fig. 27) 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 1 (Appendix E, Fig.

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania clayey-sand with small coral fragments and occasional charcoal flecks (PF1:5) and below this were two alluvial layers of fine clayey sediments deposited by the adjacent river. The north-western end of this feature (05º25’40.9”S, 038º58’07.5”E) showed signs of intense burning with a number of sherds of melted glass. Within Pangani and its immediate hinterland this feature represents the largest material deposit discovered during the current study. The density of late nineteenth to early twentieth-century sponge decorated, mass produced European wares within this feature relates most directly to the western European zone within Pangani town. It is important to note the inclusion of domestic wares within this ceramic assemblage, suggesting a broad integration of imported and indigenous ceramics. The utilitarian form that this integration took is less obvious. One could presume that within colonial domestic environments local wares were used in the preparation of foodstuffs ‘below stairs’ and European wares used in the presentation and serving of these. However, it is not possible from this midden assemblage to quantify the hierarchical structure of ceramic usage within European colonial domesticity. Nonetheless, the adoption of imported wares by indigenous peoples may well have become more of a part of East African life-ways as colonial experiences deepened. We know from all along the east African coast that Chinese blue and white porcelain was used to adorn Islamic burials, mosques and wall-niches in houses, and was imported from c.900CE (Sassoon 1975, 1-4). By the late 1800s Chinese porcelain was replaced by massproduced European imports (ibid.) but these also appear, nonetheless, to have maintained for some a symbolic resonance. Anthropological research in East Africa in the 1930s, and again in the 1960s and 80s attest to the use of imported porcelain as protective charms; specifically blue decorated porcelain (Donley 1987, 188). During the course of this study a number of contemporary ritual sites were encountered. These shared the common trend of adopting imported materials as offerings as part of the ritual activity and were first and foremost located outside the boundary of towns and are therefore discussed in Chapter 6.

Figure 5.22; South-west facing section through PF1.

A test trench was excavated revealing a section 0.50m deep and 0.35m wide within which seven stratigraphic layers were identified (Fig. 5.22) (for a description of these layers see Appendix K). Directly below the topsoil (PF1:1) was context PF1:2, an orangey-red clayey-sand containing a high percentage of coral fragments and gravel and occasional charcoal chunks. On the basis of its location and morphology in comparison to surrounding soils, this is interpreted as representing an episode of metalling associated with the construction of an access road between the town to the east and an area of cocoanut processing further to the west some time in the early 1900s (see Appendix K for description of features PF3 and PF4 associated with this activity). Finds from this context (see Fig. 5.23) include four sherds of domestic ware and a single sherd of porcelain (Appendix E, Fig. 30). Below this sat context PF1:3, and a lower context PF1:4 which contained three sherds of domestic ceramic, a single sherd of porcelain and one iron fragment (Appendix E, Fig. 31). Directly below this sat a layer of reddish-brown

Figure 5.23; Chart showing the percentages of ceramic types found in PF1.

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania No.

Date

Building

Type

Roof

Storeys

Balcony/Veranda

BB1

1894 1888 1870s 1860 1895 1894 1889 1889 1870

Customs House Warehouse Caravanserai Fort Boma Wissman Monument Block House German Cemetery German Hospital

C C T T/C C C C C C

Mb Mb Mb Mb Mb F Mb

2 2 3 2 1 1

V B -

BB2 BB3 BB4 BB5 BB6 BB7 BB8 BB9

V

Table 5.3; Buildings in Bagamoyo discussed in this monograph. Where possible dates of construction are included, as well as an indication of the number of storeys and roof type (all the buildings except those designated Colonial or Modern are originally constructed of coral block and lime mortar, although some may have undergone subsequent alteration using contemporary materials). M=modern (post 1960), SW=Swahili, SH=shop house, T=traditional, C=Colonial, P=Portuguese, Mb=mabati (corrugated iron), Mk=Makuti (palm thatch), T=tiles, F=flat, B=balcony, V=Veranda.

Figure 5.24; Bagamoyo’s historic urban waterfront (in the text all building numbers are preceded by the initial of the town, e.g. Bagamoyo Building 1 is BB1 and where buildings are not discussed in the text no numbers have been allocated) (street plan modified from Survey and Mapping Division, Tanzania, 1955, 1990 and building locations from author’s own survey 2005).

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Figure 5.25; East facing elevation of Bagamoyo Customs Building (BB1) as viewed looking west from the marine approach.

5.4 Bagamoyo

of the Boma upon the town’s sloping sandy foreshore (Fig. 5.25). According to Brown (1970, 82) it was constructed in 1895 as a replacement for a previous structure that had been removed to the town of Saadani further up the coast.

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 (Table 5.3) and at an early stage of state led colonialism, prior to the development of larger supra-national colonial centres and capitals such as Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Therefore, spatially Bagamoyo’s urban landscape has more in common with Kilwa Kivinje than any other of the towns within the current study. They both have a characteristic triangular street design with the mercantile and administrative zones dominating the waterfront (Fig. 5.24). 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. If it once existed, this triangular design does not survive at Tanga (although it still maintains its European waterfront and indigenous inland zones) but similarly both Bagamoyo and Tanga have major coastal roads running parallel with the shore. At Tanga this was the main Mombasa Road and at Bagamoyo the old main Dar es Salaam Road (for further discussion of this road see Chapter 6).

The building (Fig. 5.26), originally symmetrical in plan, consists of two, two-storey wings either side of an enclosed yard, with a colonnaded symmetrical east facing façade, constructed of roughly rectangular cut coral blocks. Its overall dimensions are 70.96m north to south by 34.45m east to west, with a height of 11.61m. The north and south flanking facades both have two horseshoe arched doorways accessed by five small steps, above which sit two large timber framed windows covered with a sloping corrugated iron awning. Upon inspection the southern most of the two wings was found to be in considerable decay. However, the northern has been maintained and currently serves as the customs office for Bagamoyo’s port authority. It was possible to define a single rectangular ground floor room measuring 7.74m north to south by 14.19m east to west at the building south-west corner and two ground floor rooms at the north-west, one measuring 10.32m north to south by 4.90m east to west and another directly to its west measuring 8.65m north to south by 8.00m east to west. The Customs yard is enclosed upon its seaward eastern side by the colonnade, comprising of fifteen free standing rectangular pointed columns (4.38m in height) connected at their base by a low (1.85m high) wall. These columns probably once supported a covered awning that ran parallel with the foreshore. The western extent of the yard is

Bagamoyo’s Customs Complex is located 235m to the north

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania

Figure 5.26; Plan and east facing elevation of Bagamoyo Customs building (BB1) (author’s own survey 2005).

delineated by a straight wall standing 5.42m high with a crenulated top of pointed merlons and has a double gateway at its northern end. Internally the yard is sub-divided by a 3.61m high wall running north to south parallel with the colonnade at a distance of 9.00m. There are two access points through this wall, one in the centre and one set to the south. To the west of this dividing wall it was also possible to discern the footprint of a rectangular internal division (represented by column bases and wall remnants) measuring 26.71m north to south by 5.42m east to west.

coral construction (as demonstrated in the Customs House constructed six years later. Like Tanga, Bagamoyo also possesses a hospital positioned upon the town’s waterfront. Located c.600m to the north of the Customs House it was originally constructed by the Indian Merchant Sewa Haji in 1870 (Junior 2005, 125). Like all of the colonial urban landscapes within coastal Tanzania addressed within this monograph, Bagamoyo’s waterfront possesses a material association between the centralization of governmental 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. Hospitals are almost without exception located upon the waterfront façade of the urban landscape in direct association with the colonial regime and its waterfront domination. Where this is not the case, i.e. at Pangani, then the simple proximity of the medical facility to the Boma, within the European governmental zone, accomplishes the same symbolic association. Thus, maintaining within nineteenth-century colonial East Africa a basic social inequality based upon physical wellbeing and health, either by emphasising indigenous ill health or European unsuitability to the African environment and the necessity for specific European targeted healthcare.

To the north of the Customs Complex at the opposite side of what became known as Customs Road stand a group of concrete footings (Appendix E, Fig. 32). 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 (BB2) and is believed to have been first erected in 1888 (Department for Antiquities Catholic Museum Bagamoyo 2001, 9; Junior 2005, 127). This structure pre-dates the Customs House that can be seen today and may represent the earliest phase of German construction upon the foreshore at Bagamoyo and an early attempt to dominate the waterfront. It is therefore important to note the temporary nature of this warehouse structure. It may be in its design indicative of an early German colonial mindset that viewed the mercantile possibilities of Bagamoyo as only temporary. It is nonetheless, a demonstration of the development of German construction techniques in East Africa, as it displays an early reliance upon timber framed buildings which soon developed into an adoption of the indigenous technique of

Not directly associated with the legislative management of colonial Bagamoyo but still intrinsically part of the

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania 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).

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 freed-slave settlement of up to fifty houses containing some three-hundred individuals Versteinjen, 1968, 12). By 1879 it was recorded that the;

Solely in relation to the town’s waterfront the mission is of note due to its possession of a formal landing place (Fig. 5.27). This is c.1.5km to the north of the Customs house and marked by a standing cross first erected in 1868 (Versteinjen, 1968, 7) and reinstated in 1993. This cross also marks the seaward end of a linear tree-lined processual avenue leading

‘freedom-village comprises at the amount 60 houses (sic), all constructed on the same model…. and the villagers earn their living as farmers,

Figure 5.27; 1873 map of Bagamoyo town and mission (after Bagamoyo Roman Catholic Mission Archive, 1873 reprinted in Chami et al. 2004, 16).

93

Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania from the landing-place to the Mission grounds. It not only formally separates the Mission’s access to the maritime world from the town’s landing place, but also removes the mission from the colonial management centre, while at the same time also removing it from the indigenous waterfront by creating clear delineated space relating to the mission and access to it. The missions landing place and approach therefore stands as a symbol of the mission itself. It is neither part of the colonial governments 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. This was further

strengthened by the construction of a physical boundary around the mission (shown in Fig. 5.14) that symbolically removes any member of the mission from the surrounding society. Thereby, physically and symbolically removing people from an un-Christianized Africa into a zone of salvation within a microcosmic Christianized Africa. 5.5 Unguja The following discussion of Zanzibar’s waterfront is based largely upon the analysis of two maps published by Guillain (1886) (Fig. 5.29) and Baumann (1897) (Fig. 5.30). These, along with descriptions given by Burton (1872) (section 4.2) attest that the dominant commercial waterfront at Zanzibar during the nineteenth century was the northern zone of

Figure 5.28; Zanzibar’s Urban Waterfront (in the text all building numbers are preceded by the initial of the town, e.g. Zanzibar Building 1 is ZB1 and where buildings are not discussed in the text no numbers have been allocated) (modified from Hoyle 2002, 146).

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Colonial Waterfronts of Coastal Tanzania

Figure 5.30; Map of Zanzibar Town, 1895 (Bauman, 1897 reproduced in Sheriff 1995, 10).

Shangani Point. As with much of Zanzibar’s Stone Town a large part of this waterfront façade has survived to the present (Fig. 5.28). Like Dar es Salaam and Tanga a clear urban zonation developed in the later nineteenth century along the waterfront that separated 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 utilisation of already existing buildings. It can be best separated into three zones (Table 5.4);

Forodhani Gardens directly in front of Beit al-Ajab (ZB11) (Fig. 5.31) and the Old Fort (ZB12) (Appendix E, Fig.33). This area, now a popular evening tourist market, has in the past been home to a Defensive Battery (Guillain 1856 cited in Sheriff 1995, 9), a Lighthouse (Sheriff 1987, 141; Depelchin 1991, 16), a Customs Quay (Appendix E, Fig. 34) and a Railway Depot (Gilbert 2004, 101). 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 (section 4.2) to a defensive zone (the placement of a European military battery) to, finally, a gentrified aesthetic space (pleasure garden) representing the westernization of the town and its control by western elites. This is a process that can be seen in all the towns within the study and all show physical evidence of three key processes, these being, acquisition, consolidation and domination. Acquisition of

1. Port structures. 2. Colonial occupied buildings. 3. Palaces and areas associated with the Sultanate. Contemporary Stone Town boasts a large open space at

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Historical Archaeologies of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Tanzania No.

Zone

Date

Building

Roof

Storeys

Balcony/Veranda

ZB1 ZB2 ZB3 ZB4

1 2

1894 -

T Mb F/T Mb

3 3 3 4

B B B

ZB5

2

-

Mb

3

-

ZB6

-

-

Ithnasheri Dispensary Residential State Fuel and Power Corporation Former Port Office Former Customs Office/ Palace of the Son of the Sultan Residential

F

3

-

ZB7a/b

-

-

Residential/ Palace of the Sultans Dependents

F

3

-

ZB8 ZB9 ZB10 ZB11 ZB12 ZB13 ZB14 ZB15 ZB16 ZB17 ZB18 ZB19 ZB20 ZB21 ZB22 ZB23 ZB24 ZB25 ZB26

3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

1828