Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar. Abdul Sheriff

Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar

bent on discovering the African initiative in history that colonialism seemed to have obliterated. The approach is best summarised in Professor Terence Ranger’s inaugural lecture and demonstrated in the History of Tanzania edited by I.N. Kimambo and A.J. Temu. But the school was already being challenged by the emerging ‘radical’ school influenced initially by the Latin American theory of underdevelopment and dependency, and later by Marxist theory. The atmosphere was vivacious and from it emerged Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, and a series of three conferences on the history of Tanzania, Kenya and Zanzibar under colonial rule of which the proceedings of only the first, unfortunately, have so far been published.

My encounter with this new trend during that first year at Dar es Salaam was of too short a duration to allow me to digest it, and yet long enough to impress upon me the need to come to grips with the fundamental philosophical questions in the debate. Although I went on to complete my thesis at London using all the empiricist skills I had learnt, I began to carry out a thorough critique of my own work upon my return to Dar es Salaam. This led me to the decision, perhaps unfortunate in hindsight, that I should refrain from publishing the results of my research, even with the fresh dust-covers of a new introduction and conclusion to gloss over the intellectual dilemma that I, and some other scholars at the time, faced. I decided instead to try to bring harmony to my mind first and revise the thesis accordingly to maintain its unity. Laudable as this was, I was to realise rather painfully with time that a new philosophical tradition cannot be learnt overnight and used as ‘a tool of analysis’; it has to be developed and internalised through endless debate and struggle. This meant participation not only in strictly academic activities, including the teaching of new areas of history such as Tanzanian economic history, and contributing to various textbook projects of which Tanzanian schools as well as the University of Dar es Salaam were then in need, but also extra-curricular activities in which an academic comes face to face with the realities of life.

During this long period the various chapters went through several revisions, and the present work had to be almost entirely rewritten. While the primary research done for the thesis still forms the bedrock of primary data, a greater theoretical clarity has enabled me to interpret and bring out the full significance of the historical trends I had tried to analyse. One of the more significant dimensions that was poorly developed in the original thesis, which was conceived as ‘a purely economic history’, was the political aspect, both internally in connection with the political role played by the various classes in the commercial empire, and externally in terms of the long-term subordination of Zanzibar to British over-rule, and the interconnection between the two.

It has not been easy over the last few years to keep up with ongoing research, especially that carried out in the United Kingdom and the United States. Although certain aspects of the economic transformation of East Africa in the nineteenth century have undoubtedly been picked up for detailed analysis by other scholars, I nevertheless feel that there is enough merit left in what I did to warrant the publication of the broad interpretation of the history presented below.

The honours list of people who have directly or indirectly contributed to the formulation and execution of the present work has grown to such lengths after all these years that it would be impossible to list them all; sometimes it is difficult for me even to remember where I picked up a particular fruitful lead. But the main source of ideas that have fashioned the present work has undoubtedly been the University of Dar es Salaam. Interdisciplinary barriers were breached in many places during the 1970s to permit a lively and very fruitful cross-fertilisation of thought to understand social change which, after all, is hardly divisible into neat academic compartments. A partial list of people who have contributed to the development of my own thought may be an unsatisfactory one, but it would be unforgivable not to mention my colleagues Mr Ernest Wamba, Professor Issa Shivji and Mr Helge Kjekshus, as well as Professors Steve Feierman, Ned Alpers and David Birmingham with whom I have had intense exchanges of ideas at various times.

Although a long period separates the present work from the original research, it would be unfair to forget the librarians and archival staff who had contributed to the success of the research, at the Public Record Office and India Office in London; in Paris; at the National Archives in New Delhi and the Maharashtra State Archives in Bombay, and particularly at the research institutions in Salem, Massachusetts, where personal attention to a researcher’s needs has left very fond memories. I should also record my appreciation to the Rockefeller Foundation for support during the initial research for my thesis, and the Ford Foundation for support during the year I spent at Madison, Wisconsin, when I began the revision. My gratitude to the University of Dar es Salaam, and the History Department in particular, which provided the milieu and direct and indirect support during all these years, however, remains immeasurable.

Finally, the revision of my thesis has encompassed so much of the early life of my son Suhail that it is only fitting I should dedicate this book to him to record my appreciation for his patience and companionship, and to make up for any neglect he may have suffered.

A.S.

Dubai

Illustrations

Frontispiece Zanzibar from the sea, c. 1860

Plate 1 Zanzibar from the sea, c.1857

Plate 2 Seyyid Said bin Sultan

Plate 3 Fort Jesus, Mombasa, c.1857

Plate 4 Mwinyi Mkuu Muhammad bin Ahmed bin Hasan Alawi

Plate 5 Coconut oil milling using camel power

Plate 6 Chake Chake Fort, Pemba, c. 1857

Plate 7 Clove picking in Pemba

Plate 8 Zanzibar harbour, 1886