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Islands and Coast

By the end of the seventeenth century the Portuguese had left the coasts of Tanzania and Kenya, hut the situation that had prevailed during their stay persisted. The city-states continued to insist on their autonomy and, oriented to their short-term advantage and marked by internal factionalism, were no more able to unite against the Omanis whom they had called to their aid in the struggle against the Portuguese than they had been able to unite against the latter. Nevertheless the local rulers were not prepared to give up their independence, and the Omani dynasty then in power, itself riven by internecine struggle, could not impose its rule firmly on the island and coastal principalities.

By 1741, however, it was replaced in Oman by the Busaidi dynasty, which very gradually established its hegemony on the islands and coast south of Mombasa and generated the policy and some of the conditions for renewed prosperity in the area. Under Busaidi rule relatively sustained interaction between the coast and the peoples of the interior got under way toward the end of the eighteenth century. These relations were not extended and intensified until well into the nineteenth century, however, and Arab and Swahili traders did not themselves make their way into the interior until after 1840.

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century Zanzibar became important, and the towns opposite it on the mainland, particularly Bagamoyo, became dependent on it. Farther south, Kilwa, for some time in decline, became the major port for the southern interior, trafficking in both ivory and slaves. There had always been some slaving, but in this part of eastern Africa slaves had hitherto been acquired largely for local use. The kind of plantation agriculture intensifying the demand for slaves had only recently been established by the French and Portuguese and was soon to be instituted by the Omani Arabs on Zanzibar and Pemba.

The arrival of the Omani Arabs also marked the beginning of a change in the social system of the coast, particularly on Zanzibar. Judging by the use of Swahili titles and Bantu names in the traditional histories, the Africanization of Arab colonists had confirmed through the Portuguese period, but by the last quarter of the eighteenth century—and as the power of the Busaidi Omanis increased—the Arab element seems to have established and maintained a stronger position than it had earlier, although they were, and remained, a minority.