“Earth, sea and sky, all seemed wrapped in a soft and sensuous repose” - mysterious - Spice Island of Zanzibar.
The visitor to Zanzibar treads a path that has been worn by
generations of travellers and sea adventurers for many
centuries.
Zanzibar comprises of Unguja and Pemba and other smaller
islets within the territorial waters. The islands cover
land area of around 2300sq.meters. Zanzibar is the second
largest island on the East African coast and is roughly 53
miles long by 24 miles broad (maximum measurements) with an
area of 640 square miles. It lies in latitude 6*, S.
longitude 39* E. and is separated from African continent by
a channel 22.5 miles wide across at its narrowest part.
The highest point in Zanzibar is only 390 feet above sea
level at Masingini-Dole, also known as the “Pink Terraces”.
Pemba, the smaller of the two islands, lies about 25 miles
to the northeast of Zanzibar and 30 miles from the
mainland. It is some 300 yards long by 170 yards broad and
is only about 10 feet above tide level.
Zanzibar town is 135 miles from Mombasa, 45 from Dar es
Salaam, 78 from Tanga, 1,607 from Durban and 6,323 from
London.
Though there are few records concerning Zanzibar, it is
surmised that ancient races such as Sumerians, Assyrians,
Hindus, Egyptians, Phoenicians and Southern Arabians must
have visited the East African Coast from earliest times.
It is probable that the indigenous tribes of Zanzibar
(Wahadimu, Watumbatu, Wapemba) are descended from Bantu
peoples of the East African, the Shirazis (a generic term
applied to all non-Arab people of the Persian Gulf) and
Arabs, Swahili is a term originally applied by Arabs to
those of themselves who settled on the African coast, and
means of a man of the coastal region who is more African
than Arab. The conversion of the coastal peoples to Islam
probably dates from the beginning of the
10th
century. Towards the end of the same century people from
the Persian Gulf and Southern Arabia established a number
of outposts on the coast.
Vasco ad Gamma visited Zanzibar in 1499 on his return
voyage from India. Early in the 16th
century the Portuguese made themselves masters of the East
African coast, and in 1503 Zanzibar itself became tributary
to Portugal. In the latter part of the same century, with
the consent of the local ruler of the island, the
Portuguese established a trading post, and later still
erected a church of the peninsula where the town of
Zanzibar now stands.
In the early years of the 17th
century Portuguese domination was seriously threatened by
the capture of Ormuz by the Persians and the capture of
Muscat by the Arabs of Oman in 1650. In East Africa the
coast towns and Island of Pemba rose in rebellion in 1631
and, though that rising was ruthlessly suppressed in the
course of the next few years, the Portuguese never really
recovered from its effects. In 1698 the Arabs of Oman
captured Mombasa, where the Portuguese had built a fort.
Thereafter the whole of the East African coast as far south
as Cape Delgado, including Zanzibar and Pemba, passed from
Portuguese hands into Arab hands.
Seyyid Said bin Sultan, the ruler of Oman and the founder
of modern Zanzibar and of its clove industry, transferred
his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1832. It was during
his reign that Zanzibar became both politically and
commercially the principal town in East Africa.
By the middle of the 18th
century, as a result of a demand for plantation labour in
the French colonies of Ile de France (Mauritius) and
Bourbon and the Spanish colonies in South America, Zanzibar
had become a considerable depot for the great African slave
trade, but when, early in the 19th
century, public opinion in Britain began to demand the
suppression of the trade, Seyyid Said entered into
agreement with the English for its restriction in his
dominion. He also signed commercial treaties with the
United States of America, Great Britain and France, for
which country consulates were opened in the Island in 1833,
1841 and 1844 respectively. In 1861, by an award of Lord
Canning, then Governor-General of India, the Imam’s
possessions in Africa became independent of Muscat and from
that date Oman and Zanzibar have remained politically
separate.
The next year Seyyid Barghash agreed by treaty with Great
Britain to prohibit the export of slaves from East Africa
and to close all public markets in his dominions.
Thereafter, the great slave market of Zanzibar (Mkunazini)
was abolished.