Early History
Early in the second millennium AD Zanzibar was one of a number of coastal and insular city-states oriented to the Indian Ocean trade, Islamic in culture, and inhabited by a mixed, largely Afro-Arab population. The mainland had been peopled over a very long period by a number of groups that were different linguistically, culturally and, in some respects, physically. By the second millennium, however, Tanganyika's population was composed chiefly of groups speaking Bantu languages, using iron implements, and relying on agriculture (supplemented by hunting, gathering, and fishing) for subsistence.
The arrival and mixing of groups on the mainland continued through the nineteenth century. In the course of this process each amalgam evolved its own social and political institutions, Bantu (and non-Bantu) groups were, however, generally characterized by relatively small-scale political units. Even when such units were linguistically and culturally similar a sense of ethnic identity encompassing all of them emerged very slowly.
By the late eighteenth century Zanzibar became the seat of an Omani dynasty, and by the early nineteenth largely Arab-owned clove plantations dependent on slave labor dominated its domestic economy and that of Pemba. Not long after, trading links (including the slave trade) between Zanzibar (and its dependencies) and various groups in the mainland's interior were firmly established, directly and indirectly affecting the economies and politics of mainland societies.
By mid-century European traders had established themselves in Zanzibar, but the chief official presence was that of the British who were there to stop the sale of slaves to Europeans. Except for a few explorers the only Europeans on the mainland before the 1880s were missionaries, Roman Catholic and Protestant, of diverse origin. Substantial success in converting Africans was not to occur until the twentieth century, however. An ancillary but important task, that of bringing Western education to Africans, was also begun and became a major mission responsibility throughout the colonial period.
Tanzania is fortunate in that it does not have the problems of high population density and land shortage that a number of other African countries do, and at the close of the colonial era land tenure arrangements remained much as they had been in earlier years.
Customary tenure practices in pre-colonial Tanzania varied widely, the product of a complex interaction between land, man, and crops whose purpose was to minimize the risk of famine. As a rule, clearing and cultivating land established rights to it, rights that were then held collectively by descendants of the original land-clearer. Although certain activities might be done communally, the farming unit was often the individual housenold.
Among most groups inheritance was patrilineal, and land passed from a father to his sons. (The Zaramo, Luguru, Mwera, and Makonde in the southeast of the country are exceptions and are matrilineal.) Land was relatively plentiful in most areas of the counftry, and when holdings had become sub-divided beyond an economical size or when productivity had begun to fall, new lands could be cleared and brought under cultivation. In a few areas of the country, notably Buhaya and Bugufi west of Lake Victoria, land tenure relations were more hierarchical. Here powerful chiefs allocated large estates of land to officers who in turn allowed tenants to work the land in exchange for services and tribute (i.e., a portion of the crop). This system of landholding and use, referred to as nyaruDanja, survived in the colonial period despite the fact that the military caste it nad served no longer existed.
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