Political Consequences of Trade
In the first half or more of the nineteenth century, slave trading dominated the activity on the southern route, but the chief interest of the traders on the northern and central routes lay in ivory. Traders using the central route in search of slaves tended to go as far as the Congo for them, and the slaves they brought back via Tabora were often retained locally to till the land that Arabs, Swahili, and many Nymawezi were too specialized and busy to do.
Kilwa had become an important slave exporting town in the latter half of the eighteenth century in response to European, particularly French, demand for slaves. In 1822 the Moresby Treaty, to which European powers and the Sultan of Zanzibar were signatories, made the sale of slaves to Christian powers illegal. The Europeans continued to buy slaves, however, until the British developed a more adequate policing system later in the nineteenth century. In any case the development of clove plantations on Zanzibar and the existence of slave markets in the Middle East led to a sustained demand for slaves.
The effects of the slave trade varied from one region to another. In the sparsely populated southeast inhabited by politically fragmented matrilineal communities the impact was severe. The Yao, themselves matrilineal and not centrally organized, had adapted early to commercial activity and led by entrepreneurial raiders took slaves from the other peoples of the area such as the Makua and the Makonde. Some of the peoples of southern and south western Tanzania such as the Nyiha and Fipa were also dislocated by the slave trade to some extent.
In the far northeast, the Pare and the Chaga were touched by the slave trade to some extent especially after the middle of the nineteenth century. In the case of the Chaga it was not so much that they were directly raided as that inter-chiefdom warfare generated the taking of captives, and the opportunity to sell them provided an additional reason for raiding. The Chaga did not always export their captives but relocated them in such a way that they became dependents and supporters of the chief who had taken them.
Among the Nyamwezi, the Gogo, and others the slave trade led to the displacement of elements in the population and to economic gain for those involved. These groups did not so much export slaves as turn them into cultivators. Among the peoples of northeastern and central Tanzania, the slave (and other) trade led to the development of a system of stratification more complex than the comparatively simple one in which the major difference lay between the chiefly family or lineage on the one hand and commoners on the other.
In some parts of Tanzania slave raiding and warfare led to a change of settlement patterns: the Nyiha and Fipa in the south and southwest, for example, built fortified towns encircled by trenches, and the Nyamwezi and others in the northcentral Tanzania concentrated their populations in towns in response to inter-chiefdom warfare. Much later, during the colonial period, these northcentral peoples were to revert to the dispersed settlement patterns that had characterized them earlier.
There were other effects of nineteenth century trade. In some places the rectangular huts of the coast came to he built in place of or in addition to the circular huts indigenous to most of Tanzania. Some groups, or at least their more powerful and wealthier segments, came to wear cloth instead of skins.
The movement of peoples, particularly traders such as the Nyamwezi, led to the development of the institution of the joking relationship (Swahili, utani) in which members of one ethnic group passing through the territory of another engaged in a kind of formal joking with them — a kind of substitute for overt conflict. In the hinterland of the northeast a form of spirit possession that had hitherto been limited to the coastal peoples spread to the Pare and the Shamhaa.
The one element — Islam — that might have been expected to spread as a consequence of the development of the trade routes had no significant impact until after the establishment of European rule late in the nineteenth and early in the twentieth century. The Arabs made no great effort to prosyletize, in part because the conversion of Africans to Islam would have closed off a source of slaves, in part because the Arabs and Swahili in the interior were primarily traders. Moreover, except for a few sects, none of them then present in East Africa, Islam does not emphasize missionary activity.
Although chiefs often adapted to the slave and ivory trade in such a way as to shore up their traditional status with the wealth and power acquired through the trade, the nature of chieftainship changed. The religious base for political power (and in some cases the primarily ritual character of the chiefly role) gave way to military power or to wealth as bases for political power.
Military power and wealth were frequently associated, as when military leaders were able to acquire and sell slaves and ivory, which in turn brought them guns and supporters. Sometimes, however, traders were able to become wealthy largely because of their entrepreneurial acumen and were therefore able to acquire followers.
Men who acquired wealth and guns were often members of chiefly families, and competition for a chieftainship thus had an intradynastic character. At times, however, commoners were among the successful entrepreneurs and were prepared to challenge the chiefly family.
In some cases competition for political power generated by economic developments contributed to the dismemberment of large entities when neither competitor was able to achieve complete victory, and the conflict permitted hitherto subject peoples to break away from the control of the dominant dynasty. In other cases the development of new bases for gaining followers and more effective ways of enforcing a chief's will led to the establishment of larger political entities than those that had prevailed earlier.
Mirambo, a Nyamwezi chief who came to power in a small chiefdom about 1860, established a considerable degree of control over the trade route from Tabora to Ujiji, getting tribute from a number of other chiefdoms and tolls from Arab traders with whom he was in intermittent conflict. lie also sought to establish links with the Sultan of Zanzibar and the king of Buganda. His successes were largely a function of his adaptation of Ngoni techniques of warfare and his use of a professional army, composed to some extent of non-Nyamwezi.
Whatever his long-term visions and ambitions his authority rested on coercion and material rewards for his followers, and he came into conflict with too many competitors, Arab and African, simultaneously. When, therefore, he was succeeded by a less able man the political structure he had put together gradually disintegrated, a process that was helped along by the presence in Nyamwezi country of other strong warlord chiefs and, eventually, the coming of the Europeans.
In addition to the specifically political consequences of nineteenth century trade, there were other effects on the social system. Before the extension and intensification of trade, the free cultivator, the hunter, and the ritual specialist were the persons of highest status. Some highly specialized hunters, such as the members of the Nyamwezi guild retained and may even have enhanced their status because they provided the ivory and some of the other elements in trade, but the traders themselves became the persons of greatest standing, at least in some communities.
A successful trader could invest in plantations, hire workers (or buy slaves), and produce enough food to feed others and thereby gain their support. They also acquired imported goods and gulls, both of which contributed to their prestige.
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