INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS • AFRICA STUDIES

HASHIM
“Nadra O. Hashim’s book demonstrates that the most exciting research is being conducted across disciplinary
boundaries. She has creatively applied a social psychological theory to provide a penetrating and highly readable
account of modern Zanzibar, set in historical context.” —FATHALI M. MOGHADDAM, Georgetown University

Language and Collective Mobilization analyzes the origins of communal conflict in five phases of Zanzibar’s mod-
ern history. The first phase examines the implementation of British colonial control, focusing on the conversion

COLLECTIVE MOBILIZATION
of Zanzibar’s subsistence farming economy to a cash-crop plantation complex. This first phase of colonial rule dis-

LANGUAGE
rupted a variety of indigenous political and social institutions that traditionally promoted peace and stability. Dur-
ing subsequent phases of colonial rule, the British government devised political, economic, and educational
policies that promoted elite Arab rule at the expense of the majority Swahili-speaking population. Colonial

LANGUAGE AND
AND
authorities rendered illegal any attempts by Swahilis to organize political resistance, a rule that exacerbated anti-
Arab animosity.

Colonial rule ended in 1964, when Swahili-speaking Zanzibaris led a violent revolution against English command

COLLECTIVE
and Arab control. Having forced a variety of wealthy Arab and Indian communities off the island, Swahili revo-
lutionaries allowed a small number of Indian merchants and a few Shirazi farmers to remain. Less than twenty
years after the revolution, in this fifth phase of Zanzibar’s political history, partisan conflict between the Shirazi

MOBILIZATION
and Swahili populations threatens to unleash a new rash of violence. The social climate mirrors the first phase
of British rule, where economic stratification deepens and political tensions grow.

The analysis offered in this book will find an audience in students, scholars, journalists, and policymakers inter-
ested in understanding so-called ethnic conflict in Africa.

NADRA O. HASHIM is adjunct professor at DeVry University and an independent researcher.

THE STORY OF ZANZIBAR

For orders and information please contact the publisher
LEXINGTON BOOKS
A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200

NADRA O. HASHIM
Lanham, Maryland 20706
1-800-462-6420
www.lexingtonbooks.com

Language&CollectiveMobilizationL1 1 3/5/09 1:28:32 PM

Language and
Collective
Mobilization
 Language and
Collective
Mobilization
The Story of Zanzibar

Nadra O. Hashim

LEXINGTON BOOKS

A division of
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
Lexington Books

A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Copyright © 2009 by Lexington Books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

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means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hashim, Nadra O.
Language and collective mobilization : the story of Zanzibar / Nadra O.
Hashim.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7391-2211-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-3708-6
(electronic)
1. Zanzibar—History—Revolution, 1964. 2. Zanzibar—History. 3.
Zanzibar—Languages—Social aspects. 4. Zanzibar—Social conditions. 5.
Zanzibar—Politics and government. I. Title.
DT449.Z26H37 2009
967.8’1—dc22 2008055649

Printed in the United States of America

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992.
For Alice and Osman Hashim, parents and scholars, who made this and
other research possible.
 Contents

A Preface to Zanzibar ix
Introduction: The Five-Phase Model 1

I Stratification 15

II Disarticulation 51

III Repression 117

IV Resistance and Revolution 165

V Inversion 203
Bibliography 233
Index 243
About the Author 259

vii
 A Preface to Zanzibar

Before there was the Silk Road, there was the ancient maritime spice
route, and Zanzibar was in the middle of it all. Ancient Oman and Soma-
lia, the lands of frankincense and myrrh, were two important endpoints
of this trade and the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar became a vital
naval midpoint where sailors rested, trading spices for equally lucrative
tortoise shell and ivory. From antiquity to the present, Zanzibar has been
described by people fascinated by the Orient. This included the author
of A Thousand and One Nights, who introduced the islands of the Indian
Ocean, and the broader Middle East, to European explorers devoted to
rendering enigmatic lands less mysterious.
Dubbed “the coast of the blacks,” or Zanzibar, by first-millennium
Iranians, Arabs referred to East Africans as “coastal dwellers” or Sahili,
which later became Swahili, a name for the people and later their lan-
guage. Centuries later, British diplomats would christen Zanzibar “the
isle of cloves” and, finally, American political observers nicknamed the
island the “African Cuba.” Given a variety of pet names and conquered by
a variety of empires, Zanzibaris have been engaged in a long and intense
search for a unified national identity. Since colonial independence Zan-
zibaris have chosen to refer to their island as Unguja and themselves as
Ungujans. However, much of the world still thinks of Unguja as Zanzibar
Island.
Well before Zanzibar became an object of imperial design it was
a sleepy international harbor. At that time Zanzibar was known as

ix
x A Preface to Zanzibar

Menouthis, a name given by Greco-Roman sailors who spoke of its

wealth and splendor.1
Like Switzerland, but in an Indian Ocean setting, first-millennium mar-
iners knew Zanzibar as a safe international harbor, a neutral outpost in an
era of contesting empires. In the modern era, Zanzibar has all but lost that
idealized image. While still an international harbor, by the mid-twentieth
century the “clove isle” had become one of the most impoverished and
potentially violent nations in East Africa. In the years leading to and fol-
lowing independence, continuous election violence and charges of “ethnic
cleansing” once in the 1960s and again in years 2000–2005 have made
Zanzibar a harbinger of a new and sad phase in African history—the era
of political decline.2 Today the foreign ministries and state departments
of Western countries often warn against travel to Zanzibar. Meanwhile,
the economic tensions and communal conflict that now animate island
politics threaten to cloud and possibly eclipse a spectacular culture with
a glorious past.
Described by ancient historians Hippalus and Herodotus, and later
Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, Zanzibar became a fixture in popular
imagination from the golden years of the Greco-Roman era to the golden
age of modern European imperialism.3 Zanzibar retained that image
throughout the first and well into the second millennium, and attracted
farmers and traders from the far reaches of Africa and Asia. These de-
velopments made the island even more exotic, which played into the de-
signs of rival dynasties and empires. When Western European explorers
finally “discovered” Zanzibar they found a land of contrasts: a languid,
exotic isle but also a bustling business enclave with a vigorous mari-
time economy. An East African nation governed by wealthy Arabs and
Asians, Western European powers realized that controlling the lucrative
trade of the “clove isle” could be very profitable. Eventually both the
export of cloves and the island itself would come under the control of
British authority.
Like most tropical islands, Zanzibar evokes a range of emotions, in-
cluding wonder, delight, and curiosity. This was especially true in the
mid-nineteenth century when British explorers David Livingstone and
Richard Francis Burton were making their maiden voyage to Africa’s
Great Lakes region. The many visitors who followed these intrepid voy-
agers were wary of the rigors of the African mainland and the weather,
 A Preface to Zanzibar xi

topography, and diminutive size of Zanzibar Island made it more hospi-

table than the rugged terrain of inland travel.
Zanzibar is one of several tropical islands off the coast of Africa. It is
637 square miles (approximately 1,660 square km). Thought by geolo-
gists to have separated from the mainland in the Pliocene era, the island
topography is composed of limestone, along with a variety of soils in-
cluding sand, clay, and loam.4 A humid climate and fertile soil produce
a variety of crops including cassava, yams, and various fruits associated
with the tropics.5 The discovery of microlithic tools suggests that Zanzibar
has been home to intelligent humans for at least twenty thousand years.6
Today the island boasts a population that is descended from Africans,
Near Easterns, and Asians, many of whom are small traders and farmers
and upward of 95 percent of whom are Muslim.
Though quite diverse now, in prehistoric times Zanzibar, mainly the
home to animist Bantu farmers, was much more homogeneous. These
migrants left central Africa and settled in southern and eastern Africa
between 30,000 and 5,000 BC.7 As the first permanent residents of the
island, they established a modest economy organized around subsistence
economy and trade with the mainland, and possibly Greece, Rome, and
Egypt.8 By the first millennium AD, Zanzibar emerged as a harbor town in
an era when the Mediterranean’s small nations became great naval powers.
Throughout southern Europe and the Near East, various ancient maritime
nations, sponsored by ambitious dynasties, established absolute control in
their own countries, and then created wealth and power for themselves by
extending their authority over neighbors. In addition to the Mediterranean
Sea, these early powers relied on the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean for
their livelihood. Thus, Zanzibar’s ancient maritime heritage can be divided
into three overlapping periods: the Greco-Roman period (350 BC–395
AD), the Iranian Sassanid times (224 AD–610 AD), and lastly, and per-
haps most importantly, the Sohar (a region in Oman) period.9
The Sohar period, the era of Oman’s early political dominance, is
important because it is a dynastic bridge between two distinct historical
periods in Zanzibar: the era before and the centuries after the emergence
of Islam. The Sohar era, the emergence and rise of Omani power is also
important in Zanzibar’s history because the Omani Sultanate would ex-
ert some form of power over Zanzibar from the era before Christ until
the mid-twentieth century. As in later years, in the early Sohar, the late
xii A Preface to Zanzibar

Greco-Roman era, Zanzibar was primarily known as an ancient exporter

of rare commodities such as ivory. Roman cartographer Hippalus first
documented the island’s legendary beauty in 45 AD in a guidebook he
called Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
Other historians of the ancient world, including Herodotus and Claudius
Ptolemy, also documented travel to the exotic markets of Rhapta, now
called Pemba and its larger neighbor Menouthis, which is Zanzibar. Even
in that ancient era these islands were known for their stock in rare items
such as animal skins, shells, and tusks harvested on the islands, along with
other goods, such as cinnamon, which were produced on the mainland and
sold to naval parties docking on the islands.10 At that time Bantu farm-
ing and in-kind trade was still the dominant feature of the local culture.
However, by the late centuries of the first millennium, a seismic shift in
the society, economics, and politics of the Middle East would eventually
change Zanzibar forever.
After the emergence of the Islamic faith, Arab merchant dynasties, pro-
tectors of the new faith, began conquering their rivals in areas spanning
Western North Africa, into the Levant and throughout and just beyond
the Arabian Peninsula. Between the seventh and twelfth centuries, the
Ummayad dynasty (661–750), headquartered in Damascus, the Abbasid
dynasty (749–1258), which had its capital in Bagdad, and the Fatimid dy-
nasty (909–1171), which governed from a seat in Egypt, presided over an
exponential growth in the Muslim population of the Middle East.11
The Fatimids, in particular, presided over an extensive trade network
that expanded Mediterranean and Arab trade of the ancient world to
China.12 Under the Fatimids, Abbasids, and the Ummayads, the growth of
new states, cities, and governments also transformed loose groups of no-
madic tribesmen into stable urban and farming populations.13 The material
wants and needs of these new communities, along with the desire of their
governments to increase state revenue, led to the coordination of a variety
of formerly random trade routes.
By the tenth century, the Arab dynasties had developed urban monetary
and agricultural credit systems.14 These twin developments led to greater
cultural unity among previously competing communal groups. Villages
became cities and then states as trade became more diverse and profitable.
The growing trading cities of these new Muslim empires relied on corre-
sponding rural areas to supply agricultural goods and labor to cities, which
 A Preface to Zanzibar xiii

in turn produced goods for export. Zanzibar’s proximity to both Africa

and southern Arabia made it a natural commercial and tourist harbor and
by the eighth and ninth centuries, successive waves of Ummayad Syrian
emigrants, Persians from Shiraz, and Omanis from areas outside Muscat
settled in Zanzibar. These communities began to change the composition
and culture of the island and helped establish Zanzibar as Africa’s primary
gateway for Arab, European, and African trade traveling east.
As a result of Zanzibar’s emerging role as an international harbor,
Bantu influence, which relied on agricultural trade with the African
mainland, began to decline. Arab and Persian trade propelled Zanzibar’s
economy, and the competition between these two groups developed into
an intense rivalry. Arab culture and the Islamic religion experienced a
period of rapid territorial expansion during the medieval era. This led
to intense dynastic competition among Arab tribes seeking a permanent
place where they could exercise their particularistic tribal governance and
newly realized imperial aspirations.
The primary cleavage that emerged in the Middle East was the ten-
sion between Sunni Muslims—those that believed Caliph Abu-Bakr, the
Prophet Muhammad’s most loyal disciple, should succeed him—and the
Shi’a Muslims—those who believed the prophet’s son-in-law Ali should
have been the first caliph.15 This dispute created a lasting faultline in Mid-
dle Eastern politics. In the eighth and ninth centuries, many Shi’a located
in eastern Arabia and Persia found themselves on the “losing” side of this
ideological battle. A number of Arab and Iranian Shi’a, comfortable with
East African trade and society, left Arabia permanently and made their
home on the eastern coast of Africa. A large group settled in Zanzibar.
Between the eighth and fifteenth centuries, the Arab and Persians, and
their descendants the Afro-Arab Swahili and Afro-Iranian Shirazi, created
in Zanzibar a political arrangement where they often shared power.16 By the
fifteenth century Afro-Shirazi clans had established and governed more than
thirty coastal towns stretching from modern-day Somalia to Kenya. Swahili
power, less dominant in this era, led to intensified rivalries between the two
groups.17 In the eleventh century, Oman established East Africa’s first foreign
government, when the sultanate in Muscat installed various governors to re-
solve disputes, prevent disruption to trade, and enhance the general peace and
security of Zanzibar and other coastal towns. As Oman began to exert more
influence over the island, the power of the Swahili clans increased.
xiv A Preface to Zanzibar

The Shirazi were still a formidable power in the fifteenth century,

when the Portuguese crown began to search for new venues for trade
and conquest. The Indian Ocean islands and the eastern coast of Africa
became important because they were thought to be gateways to Africa’s
gold wealth and provided a new route for Arab and Indian spice trade.18
Between the late 1490s and early 1520s the Portuguese navy attacked
Shirazi strongholds in the coastal cities of Kilwa, Sofala, and Mobassa.
Overwhelmed by Portugal’s massive power, the Shirazi were now vulner-
able to attack by Bantu clans, which were neither Shirazi nor Swahili.19
In 1509 Portugal attacked and subdued Zanzibar.20 The crown kept a
fortification there until the mid- to late 1600s when Oman began helping
the coastal clans expel the Portuguese from many of their holdings in
East Africa. In 1652 an Omani fleet sacked the Portuguese stronghold in
Zanzibar, and, by 1698, the sultanate in Muscat had dislodged the Portu-
guese from the last of their East African possessions. 21 In addition to the
Omanis, the Portuguese were weakened by Persian powers resisting their
conquest of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the Dutch East India Company was
waging a diplomatic campaign to divest the Portuguese of any hospitable
trading bases anywhere in the Indian Ocean.22
A mere twenty years after the Omani navy defeated the Portuguese in
the Indian Ocean, the sultanate in Muscat came under attack from a com-
bined Persian-Portuguese strike.23 For the next one hundred years Oman
continued to be vulnerable to Persia’s imperial incursions. Ultimately, the
Al bu Said, or Busaidi dynasty, the clan of the current rulers of Oman,
thought that for security reasons the Omani capital should be moved from
Muscat. In 1832 the Sultan Seyyid Said decided to make Zanzibar the
capital of the sultanate.24 In the years that followed the sultan drafted a
series of exclusive trade agreements with Britain. The Busaidi dynasty
relied on British dotage to protect their burgeoning clove trade from am-
bitious French and German interests, eventually ceding more and more
control over the island until 1890 when the British made Zanzibar an
official colonial protectorate.25 In the years that followed Zanzibar would
become one of the centers of British power in the Indian Ocean. During
the span of the twentieth century Zanzibar was transformed from a sleepy
international harbor to a vast British entrepôt, and eventually to one of
Africa’s first independent Swahili governments—but one with an alarm-
ing tendency toward fragmentation.
 A Preface to Zanzibar xv

The Zanzibar story is far from complete, and the search for national
identity still animates much of the conflict. Today, at the beginning of
the new millennium, the communal violence that threatened to destroy a
newly independent African nation is once again looming. These tensions
are symbolic of many of the problems throughout Africa and beg several
important questions. Namely, is it possible for Africa’s national leaders
to compromise on matters of economic and political power sharing? Can
they promote peace and reconciliation, or will they allow old wounds to
fester, to the detriment of themselves and their mainland neighbors?

NOTES

1. Lionel Casson (trans.), The Periplus Maris Erytheai (or Periplus of the
Ertheian Sea, written by ancient Greek historian Hippalus) (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1989), and G. W. B. Huntingford (trans.), Periplus of
the Erythrean Sea (London: The Haklut Society Publishers, 1980).
2. Violence in the 2000 elections is documented online; see “Violence Fol-
lows Zanzibar Polling,” October 30, 2000, CNN.com; and in the 2005 election
at “Zanzibar: Violence Flares,” The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organi-
zation, April 1, 2005, at unpo.org/content/view; also “Pre-election Violence in
Zanzibar,” October 10, 2005, at BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/Africa.
3. By the thirteenth century the great Arab historian Ibn Battuta used the term
Swahili to refer to residents of the coast and isles of East Africa; see Basil David-
son, Africa in History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 118.
4. The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 12, fifteenth ed., 2005, 895–96.
5. The World Book Encyclopedia (World Book Inc., 2007), 586.
6. David Else and Sarah Chanter, Guide to Zanzibar (Walpole, Mass.: Hunter
Publications, 1995).
7. Erin Digitale, “Genetic Evidence traces ancient African Migration,” Stan-
ford Report, August 6, 2008, news-serivce.stanford.edu/news/2008; and L. L.
Sforza-Cavalli et al., History and Geography of Genes (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1994).
8. Felix Chami, “Greco-Roman Trade Link and the Bantu Migration Theory,”
Anthropos 94 (1–3): 205–15; and Felix Chami and P. Msemwa, “A New Look at
Culture and Trade on the Azanian Coast,” Current Anthropology 38, 673–77.
9. Pat Southern, The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine (Oxford:
Routledge, 2001); and David Nicolle, Sassanian Armies: The Iranian Empire
Early 3rd to Mid 7th Centuries AD (London: Monvert Publishers, 1996); and
xvi A Preface to Zanzibar

Oman: A Sea-Faring Nation (Muscat, Oman: Ministry of Information and Cul-

ture, 1979).
10. Casson, The Periplus Maris Erytheai. Regarding the extent of the Afro-
Asian spice trade, see Innes J. Miller, The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), chapter 8. For a further discussion
of ancient trade between pre-Islamic Oman and towns in East Africa, see F. D.
Omanney, Island of Cloves: A View of Zanzibar (Philadelphia: J.B Lippincott
Company, 1956).
11. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (New York: Warner Books,
1991), 38–58.
12. Irene Beeson, “Cairo, A Millennial,” Saudi Aramco World, September/Oc-
tober 1969, 24–30.
13. Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, 43.
14. Davidson, Africa in History, 209.
15. For a succinct description of the Sunni-Shi’a philosophical debate, see Mir
Zohair Husain, Global Islamic Politics (New York: Harper-Collins Publishers,
1995), 7–9.
16. Omar Mapuri, Revolution in Zanzibar: Prospects and Achievements (Dar-
es-Salaam: Tema Publishers, 1996), 5; and Neville Chittick and Robert Rotberg,
East Africa and the Orient (New York: Africana Publishers, 1975), 34.
17. Norman R. Bennett, A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar (London:
Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1978), 8–13.
18. Ladis Da Silva, Through A Door in Zanzibar (Toronto: Celaz Print Shop,
1994), 62.
19. Reginald Coupland, East Africa and Its Invaders: From the Earliest Time
to the Death of Seyyid Said in 1856 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938; reprint
1965), 60–61.
20. Zoe Marsh and G.W. Kingsnorth, A History of East Africa (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1972), 31.
21. R. W. Beachey, The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa (New York: Barnes &
Noble, 1976), 33–42.
22. Claude Ake, A Political Economy of Africa (London: Longman Group,
1981), 47.
23. C. S. Nicholls, The Swahili Coast (New York: Africana Publishers, 1971),
33.
24. John Illiffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979), 108.
25. D. A. Low and Alison Smith, History of East Africa (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1976), 492–94.
 Introduction

The Five-Phase Model

In October 2000, Zanzibar experienced a protracted electoral conflict that

various Western newspapers described as either a racial conflict or as an
“ethnic clash,” reminiscent of its violent anti-colonial revolution thirty-
five years earlier.1 In fact, throughout the late twentieth century scholars
have categorically labeled most political cleavages in Africa as racial
“conflict,” and in those discussions race and ethnicity have been conflated
or used interchangeably.2 A prolonged and focused study of war in Af-
rica suggests that rather than a pure racial contest, or a clash of cultures,
communal violence is more often a legacy of conflict over language and
political privilege on the one hand, and the distribution and ownership of
land on the other.
In fact the very complex nature of both the 1964 revolution and con-
temporary electoral politics inspires several questions. The first and most
obvious question is whether readers should attribute the conflict in Zan-
zibar to ethnic cleavage. If, as various scholars suggest, ethnic tensions
are responsible for violence in Zanzibar, then it is necessary to determine
what “ethnicity” means to Zanzibaris. More precisely, it is necessary to
determine how Zanzibaris define themselves and how others have defined
them.
When considering the distinction between “race” and “ethnicity,” read-
ers should remember that Zanzibar is culturally diverse and racially het-
erogeneous. The most precise way of defining Zanzibaris can be derived
from the way individuals and groups construct their respective identities.

1
2 Introduction

In Zanzibar language defines ethnicity. Swahili-speaking Zanzibaris

of mixed Bantu-Arab-Iranian origin refer to themselves as Swahili, while
individuals with an identical racial heritage, who speak a Bantu dialect,
refer to themselves as Shirazi or Bantu. Arabic-speaking residents of
Zanzibar perceive themselves as Arab, even if they cannot name an Arab
ancestor. Race was and continues to be incidental to conflict, both among
and within, Zanzibar’s rival communal groups. The primary conflict in
Zanzibar was, and continues to be, a contest over national resources.
Thus the true sources of conflict in Zanzibar are largely economic and
linguistic; they are a function of the grave disparities that characterize
plantation economies. Like most plantation economies, Zanzibar’s singu-
lar oppression of the working class included a suppression of subordinate
languages, and the imposition of a political system that limited access to
education and social advancement. In this closed system the only individ-
uals who had full access to the elite educational system were Zanzibar’s
linguistic elite.
The Oman Sultanate and later the British colonial government placed
a high social and political premium on their subject’s linguistic ability. In
the twentieth century English and Arabic enjoyed a particularly lofty sta-
tus relative to Zanzibar’s indigenous languages. This was due in large part
to the fact that linguistic groups were defined by their role in Zanzibar’s
highly stratified plantation economy and its rigid colonial bureaucracy.
Swahili-speaking individuals were uniformly consigned to the lowest oc-
cupation until they revolted against the colonial government in 1964.
Zanzibar’s 1964 revolution is especially interesting because it repre-
sents one of Africa’s earliest contests between foreign authorities and the
indigenous population over two types of resources—land and language.
Ultimately, the conflict that preceded Zanzibar’s revolution, and the revo-
lution itself, represented a struggle over what was to become the dominant
political, economic, and social culture of the nation.
The1964 revolution was not only a struggle against foreign rule, it was
also a movement toward the formal institutionalization of the indigenous
Creole culture and language.3 I argue that the colonial dictates of a planta-
tion economy impoverished the majority of Zanzibar’s farmers and sup-
pressed the subsistence economy. I also argue that the conflict prevented
the development of a unified indigenous language or the cultivation of a
counter-elite, making revolution likely, if not inevitable.
 Introduction 3

The 1964 revolution was essentially a class conflict, and not a “racial”
struggle, for two reasons. First, racial difference is not the sole or even the
most accurate explanation for much of the conflict throughout Zanzibar’s
ancient or medieval history. Yet scholars of the 1964 revolution empha-
size racial difference as the main source of modern communal violence.4
As mentioned before, this approach does not explain why revolutionary
Africans attacked Arabs while they spared the Indian community. Second,
with regard to the Bantu-Iranian Shirazi community, racial difference
fails either to explain or to predict their political organization or party
affiliation. Shirazi political behavior, like political behavior in the Bantu,
Swahili, and Arab communities, reflects economic interest. In the case of
the Shirazi, the plantation economy produced a pronounced split within
the community along class lines. This cleavage was especially obvious
during electoral contests, and it prompted some Shirazi to vote with the
largely working-class African Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), while other Shi-
razi voted with the upper-middle-class Arab Zanzibar Nationalist Party
(ZNP).
This book incorporates a range of elements that explain the cleavage
within Zanzibar’s communal groups and between its various social classes,
as well as the specific dynamics of the 1964 revolution. These models ana-
lyze important aspects of communal relations, in general and in the specific
case of prerevolutionary Zanzibari politics. They locate the core causes of
communal tension and revolutionary violence, which happen in Zanzibar
due to economic and linguistic cleavages. I examine the evolution of these
cleavages using a model specifically designed for the study of Zanzibar
that I call the five-phase model of modern communal relations.
The five-phase model specifically addresses economic anomalies which
characterize Zanzibar’s political history. As such, it is thick, layered,
descriptive, and deep. The five-phase model is a complex analysis that
owes a great intellectual debt both to Fatton’s three-site model of class
formation and McKirnan and Taylor’s five-stage model of intergroup
relations. Taylor and McKirnan’s model “concerns relations between
groups of unequal status, and the individual and collective responses of
the disadvantaged to their status.”5 According to this model there are five
stages of social development that most societies experience, even though
the time frame of these stages may vary from a few years to decades or
4 Introduction

even hundreds of years. The stages include periods of (1) clearly strati-
fied intergroup relations, (2) the promulgation of individualist ideology by
the high status/privileged group, (3) the ideology of and attempt toward
individual social mobility by the disadvantaged/low status group, (4)
consciousness raising among the disadvantaged group, and finally (5) the
collective action of the underprivileged group. This model differentiates
most of the groups based on an ascribed characteristic. In Zanzibar locals
use language as the ascribed characteristic to differentiate among, and as-
sign value to, individuals and groups.6
Robert Fatton’s model also addresses communal differentiation. His
model is comprised of three sites that include class formation, class disar-
ticulation, and class resistance. Fatton’s three sites are analogous, or par-
allel, to the first three stages of Taylor and McKirnan’s five-stage model.
Fatton’s three-site model locates class cleavage, and the five-stage model
describes the timing of these conflicts. More specifically, stages 4 and 5
of the five-stage model are merely logical extrapolations both of the first
three stages of the five-stage model and Robert Fatton’s three sites.7 The
model I have developed for the discussion of Zanzibar adapts elements of
both models and analyzes the distinctive conditions that led to Zanzibar’s
revolution while describing the timing of these events. The new model
modifies the fourth and fifth stages of Taylor and McKirnan’s model. It
analyzes Zanzibar’s dominant classes’ use of ascribed characteristics to
foster both class differentiation and class cleavage. This new model also
introduces concepts from political science that narrowly focus on class
cleavage within the African state—ideas that are just outside the narrow
scope of the final stages of Taylor and McKirnan’s five-stage model. The
altered and expanded discussion of the fourth and fifth stages requires
that the new model be given its own nomenclature. The combination and
modification of Fatton’s three sites and adaptation of the five-stage model
produces a hybrid model I call the five-phase model of modern communal
relations, which I use in this book to describe political cleavage in Zan-
zibar.8
The new model will be abbreviated, and will hereafter be called the
five-phase model. The phases are: (1) the emergence of a plantation
economy and the creation of a stratified class system—a system closed
to nonelites or counter-elites, (2) the promulgation of social, educational,
and sociological policies by the British protectorate government, (3) the
 Introduction 5

manifestation of a repressive colonial policy toward indigenous populist

leaders and organizations, (4) the emergence of strong resistance to and
violent revolution against the colonial government by the underprivileged
group, and (5) the emergence of a new class system, the mirror image of
phase 1, with new elite leadership closed to former elites.
In addition to the five-phase model, I examine the discussions of state
and civil society found in Francois Bayart’s analysis of African conflict.
The five-phase model’s analysis of elite formation, along with Francois
Bayart’s discussion of the reciprocal assimilation of those elites, guides
my exploration of intergroup conflict that was the legacy of British colo-
nial rule in Zanzibar.9 In addition to elite theory and class analysis, I also
examine the role of linguistic differentiation generally and the colonial
government’s specific privileging of minority languages in Zanzibar.
In the course of examining twentieth-century conflicts in Zanzibar, I ex-
plore various methodologies of political science. Some are called “grand
theories” and others are more aptly described as “models.” Traditionally,
either grand theories or narrow models have been used to examine social-
political phenomena. I have found that they are both useful in analyzing
the emergence of class and group conflicts in Zanzibar. Recognizing
this utility, I have employed certain analytical models to supplement my
primary analysis, which requires a heavy and dense historical treatment.
I begin by examining the core arguments of the three-site and five-stage
models; the former suggests that political development is the result of
class conflicts, while the latter argues that conflicts derive from differ-
ences in group identity.
In addition to employing these models, I examine the colonial ideolo-
gies of conservative imperialism and “liberal” dual mandate. I employ
the five-phase model, a narrow construct, which allows me to examine
the general influence of dual mandate, Britain’s foremost grand theory,
on class and group conflict. The five phases allow me to examine certain
grand theory assumptions, some of which became a direct source of Brit-
ish colonial policy. Tracing the ideologies of the colonial government is
crucial to understanding Zanzibar’s economic history, which is beset by
complex social cleavages.
I argue that the social dynamics of the plantation economy played
a fundamental role in the evolution of political cleavages in Zanzibar.
Conservative imperialism and dual mandate led the colonial government
6 Introduction

to promote communal groups whose role in the plantation economy was

vital to British enrichment. The languages of the preferred groups, the In-
dian financial class and the Arab planting class, were English and Arabic.
These became the official languages of the state. By the early twentieth
century, language became the most important medium by which Zanzi-
baris improved and consolidated upward mobility.
The five-phase model assists my exploration of the trajectory of lin-
guistic conflict and the impact of British policies in Zanzibar. In the early
phases of Zanzibar’s modern history, dual mandate policies excluded
most Swahilis from the political system. In the absence of more progres-
sive policies of British colonialism, Swahili-speaking Zanzibaris felt
compelled to rebel against protectorate authorities. Ultimately, the Swa-
hili killed or expelled many members of the Arabic-speaking community.
They quashed the dual mandate system of colonial rule in the most violent
way imaginable. In the subsequent phase of political governance, the
Swahili ended cash-cropping, and established an economic communitari-
anism as well as a political system that best served the Swahili majority.
In contrast to the situation in Zanzibar, British governance in Tangan-
yika did not drive its contending classes to violent revolution. Peaceful
change was possible in large part because Fabianism, which gained popu-
larity at the League of Nations and the United Nations, also prevailed in
Tanganyika. It was a school of thought that advanced social development
at the expense of expanding cash-cropping. Fabianism animated much of
British policy in Tanganyika and British Fabians cultivated Tanganyika’s
local institutions and its national leaders. The Tanganyikan African As-
sociation (TAA) and Julius Nyerere emerged as a result of Fabian patron-
age. Ultimately Nyerere and the TAA developed their own indigenous
grand theory of political governance, the so-called Ujamaa method of
governance.
Ujamaa discouraged violence, which made incremental change pos-
sible. Communitarian incrementalism, in turn, created the conditions for
inclusive public policy and stable majority rule. Thus, the complex nature
of cleavage in East Africa, and in the specific case of Zanzibar’s modern
history, is directly tied to the contending policies that informed colonial
policy. Zanzibar’s history is also influenced by the highly personal creeds
of various economic actors, coupled with the contentious nature of the
plantation economy. Each of these actors and their sweeping ideologies
 Introduction 7

requires thick historical analysis. The five-phase model, a descriptive

construct that concentrates on the specific conditions unique to Zanzibar,
can accommodate dense analysis of several contending policies. In the
same manner as the five-stage and three-site models, the five-phase model
focuses on group and class conflict.
However, as this book is specifically interested in the plantation
economy, an extension of these models is required. The resulting five-
phase model examines the root cause of specific cleavages in Zanzibar.
The five phases are low-level, grassroots analyses that examine the role
of taxation as a form of economic extraction, land alienation as a means
of social control, and linguistic stratification as a tool of elite assimilation
and alien rule.
Few scholars have examined the role linguistic privilege plays in sus-
taining communal cleavage in Zanzibar. Even fewer scholarly works con-
sider land and language in tandem. Most analyses of East African politics
view Zanzibari cleavages as primarily racial. However, the heterogeneous
nature of mixed and Creole society makes racial analysis a far more
compelling analytical tool when it is coupled with a study of linguistic
difference, privilege, and group conflict. In addition to the five-phase
model, I draw on literature that examines state collapse and failure. This
literature, along with analysis of linguistic differentiation, helps examine
the final phases of Zanzibar’s political disintegration culminating in the
1964 revolution.10
Analysis of communal conflict in the Balkans, the former Soviet Re-
publics, in Belgium, among the Celtic and Welsh populations of Great
Britain, and the Quebecois of Canada often considers the role linguistic
difference plays in sustaining hierarchies and in creating communal con-
flict. If scholars of Zanzibar could depart from the standard discussion
of racial difference and focus on linguistic differentiation, readers may
better understand the broader nature of East African communal cleav-
ages. Paradoxically, while race often trumps language in most analysis
of modern African conflict, it is the very presence of linguistic competi-
tion along with Africa’s global and economic marginalization that has in
many instances animated, and in some cases determined, the outcome of
Africa’s struggles against colonial rule.11 Like most conflict in Africa, the
struggle in Zanzibar is complex. Most thoughtful studies of conflict in
colonial Africa consider linguistic and economic cleavage in addition to
8 Introduction

ethnic tension. One particularly compelling approach attempts to infuse

the analysis of intergroup conflict with a consideration of the relationship
among language, class, and occupational status in Africa.12
Judith T. Irvine argues that more than being a means to an end, lan-
guage is an end in itself. Irvine suggests that many societies, especially
hierarchical ones, privilege language, which in turn creates a linguistic po-
litical economy where there are elite and subordinate languages. Individu-
als either become linguistic haves or have-nots. Irvine’s characterization
of a linguistic political economy is especially relevant in describing the
economic and linguistic dislocations that accompany the establishment of
plantation economies.13
Like Irvine’s work, Debussman and Arnold’s analysis describes Zanzi-
bar’s metamorphosis from a system of land held in communal trust to one
where individualistic and corporate interests prevailed and the concepts
of ownership and property came to dominate older social norms such as
African communitarianism and Arab philanthropy.14 Both Irvine’s obser-
vations and Debussman and Arnold’s analysis contribute to understand-
ing how an ascribed characteristic, such as language, identifies class and
describes the relation of class to the study of political conflict. Thus, taken
together, Irvine, Debussman and Arnold, Fatton and Bayart, and the five-
phase model form the core analysis in this book.
Chapter I of this book gives a brief overview of Zanzibar’s political
history and discusses the dislocation of indigenous political and social
institutions that occurred with arrival of the Omanis and the British. It
identifies the emergence of class and linguistic privilege associated with
plantation economies, as well as Zanzibar’s social and political devel-
opment, giving a brief historical overview of Zanzibar’s earliest immi-
grants.15 It continues with arrival of nineteenth-century colonial powers,
describes the competition among these groups for political hegemony in
East Africa, and examines what policies and institutions the colonial pow-
ers transplanted to Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
These policies included, but were not limited to British attempts to co-
opt local chiefs, centralize political authority under British colonial rule,
and cultivate an economic elite. As in most countries it colonized, Britain
enacted what I call its first-phase policy. This political strategy modified
existing social relations, maximizing economic control, and generating
and extracting the greatest amount of revenue for the crown. To this end,
 Introduction 9

Britain promoted Zanzibar as an Arab state and Arabs the sole governing
power. Establishing Arabs as their political representatives was an easy
choice for the British as local Arabs were already wealthy from their
transnational maritime trade routes and were the dominant economic rul-
ing class.
Throughout its African colonies, Britain made dominant economic
classes, often minority groups, the dominant political class as well. Before
the British intervention in Zanzibar, the Omani government adopted a
checks and balances approach to social engineering, making rich Indians
the dominant economic class and powerful Arabs the dominant ruling
class. In this respect, British and Omani economic and sociological poli-
cies overlapped and reinforced one another. However, in other instances,
especially in the areas of political and educational policy, British and
Omani policies clashed, changing Zanzibari society in ways that neither
Britain nor Oman could have predicted. Either way, Omani rule and Brit-
ish protection had a cumulative impact on Zanzibari society. This first
chapter therefore juxtaposes economic life before and after the arrival of
the Omanis and the British in tandem.
As mentioned earlier, during its first-phase economic program the
British government invented organizations and political structures that
would serve the crown and expand the local plantation economy.16 Britain
formally recognized Zanzibar as an Arab state and created a system that
converted communal land into state-owned private property. The protec-
torate government transplanted European feudal and industrial economic
norms concerning the creation and management of plantations. More spe-
cifically, the colonial government developed a strategy that determined
how crops should be taxed and how cash-crop farmers should be paid and
classified.
During this period of protectorate rule, the British created the ethnic as-
sociations, the Clove Growers Association (CGA), Zanzibar’s legislative
committee (LEGCO), and executive committee (EXCO), in order to es-
tablish a class hierarchy and to assimilate elites. The colonial government
diminished the power of African chiefs, expanded British control over
state bureaucracies, and patronized Indian-owned mortgage companies.
Chapter II builds on these contrasts as it explores the second phase of
colonial policies, juxtaposing societal and linguistic privilege before and
after foreign rule.
10 Introduction

I examine the social, educational and economic policies of the British

government and the Arab ruling class vis-à-vis Zanzibar’s majority Afri-
can population. This discussion analyzes the process of class disarticula-
tion and also reflects the continued assimilation of elites within the colo-
nial institutions created during the first phase of colonial rule. Following
these initial economic programs, the British government began what I call
the phase 2 policy of transplanting colonial culture and economic control
by enacting polices of a sociological nature.17
Britain’s second-phase sociological policies reflected its attempt to
influence Zanzibari public opinion through its educational policies, its
promotion of English and Arabic in state bureaucracies, as well as its use
of the CGA, EXCO, LEGCO, and ethnic associations as engines for the
advancement of British interests. Britain’s second-phase policy sponsored
linguistic differentiation in every aspect of colonial life. Ultimately, the
protectorate government devised a highly politicized census that it used
to formulate policies in the years between the two world wars, its second
and third phases of colonial rule.18
Chapter III examines the third phase of British colonial policy and how
it affected the bureaucratic and political life in the middle years of the
British protectorate.19 This chapter also explores Britain’s third-phase co-
lonial policies regarding the political orientation of state bureaucracies, the
colonial government’s policy toward trade unions, the use of Zanzibar’s
“ethnic” associations to defeat subaltern rebellion, and Britain’s influence
over indigenous political parties and the courts. Here I continue my ap-
plication of Bayart’s analysis, while drawing on a variety of other scholar-
ship that discusses African political resistance to the system of linguistic
and economic repression.20 I contrast political transition in Zanzibar with
similar efforts in Tanganyika. More specifically, I examine the extent to
which German, and later British, efforts to cultivate indigenous political
leadership in Tanganyika made it possible for Tanganyikans to facilitate a
peaceful transition from colonial rule to African independence.
Chapter IV addresses the repercussions of political repression during
the third phase of British colonial rule. British efforts to suppress African
civil society and prevent it from challenging Zanzibar’s colonial economic
order ultimately led to violent revolution. I designate this stage of violent
revolution the fourth phase of colonial rule.21 I describe the revolution in
detail, and this analysis becomes the body of my fourth-phase analysis
 Introduction 11

and the focus of the fourth chapter. Finally, I argue that there is yet a final,
or fifth phase in Zanzibari political development.
The fifth phase of postcolonial governance is the inverse or mirror im-
age of first-phase colonial rule, where power is reversed, but the system
remains closed to counter-elites.22 Chapter V describes fifth-phase un-
equal distribution of political power in contemporary Zanzibar, where the
island’s remaining Arabic-speaking Shirazi populations claim that they
are a marginalized minority group in a political system that only promotes
Swahili leadership.23

NOTES

1. Raw News/abcnews.com, “Zanzibar and Tanzania Worlds Apart,” October

28, 2000.
2. While the term “race” purports to be a biological label and ethnicity a cul-
tural one, in many studies of East Africa the terms ethnic and racial were used
interchangeably to denote both the origin of these groups and their contemporary
affiliation. When in the rare occasions that I use the term race in my analysis, I
adopt its common usage and groupings—e.g., white (Caucasian), black (Negroid),
and Asian. In the case of Zanzibar there was so much mixing that the notion of pure
racial groups loses all meaning and is actually inaccurate. When studying Zanzibar,
most cautious scholars use the term “ethnicity” rather than race to refer to rival
political groups. I will use the term ethnicity simply because it is the most accurate
way of referring to Zanzibar’s complex communal groups. I employ it only with
the caveat that linguistic affiliation is the primary means of defining ethnicity, and
that, taken together with land ownership and material wealth, linguistic affiliation is
a better determiner of political affinity than cultural or racial background.
3. The American Heritage Dictionary describes a creolized language (such as
Swahili) as “[a] type of mixed language that develops when dominate and subor-
dinate groups that speak different languages have prolonged contact, incorporating
the basic vocabulary of the dominant language (Arabic) with the grammar and ad-
mixture of words from the subordinate language (Bantu)”; The American Heritage
Dictionary, second college ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1982), 339. An
Arabic question reads Kam (how many) Askari (soldiers), while the same Swahili
question uses the Arabic word for soldiers with a Bantu interrogative. As a result,
the Swahili phrase Askari wangapi (how many) reads in the inverse manner that
Bantu grammar dictates; Joan Russell, Swahili: A Complete Course for Beginners
(Los Angeles: NTC Publishing Group, 1996), 35. For a further discussion of the
12 Introduction

role of the Swahili lingua franca in East African political development, see Peter
Pels, “The Pidginization of Luguru Politics: Administrative Ethnography and the
Paradoxes of Indirect Rule,” American Ethnologist 23, vol. 4, 738–61.
4. W. H. Ingrams, Zanzibar: Its History and Its People (New York: Barnes &
Noble, 1967); and Esmond Bradley Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978). Even scholars such as Middleton and Campbell
who document Zanzibar’s income and land inequality resist identifying group con-
flict as economic cleavage. Rather, they argue that revolutionary violence derived
from racial and cultural difference; John Middleton and Jane Campbell, Zanzibar:
its Society and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 9 and 32–42.
5. Donald M. Taylor and Fathali Moghaddam, Theories of Intergroup Rela-
tions (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Press, 1987), 153.
6. Donald Taylor and D. J. McKirnan, “A Five Stage Model of Intergroup Re-
lations,” British Journal of Social Psychology 23 (1984), 291–300; and Taylor and
Moghaddam, Theories of Intergroup Relations, 153–57.
7. Robert Fatton’s three sites describe the location and distinctive features
of class cleavage in African society. The three-site model describes how socially
prominent and wealthy classes situate themselves in powerful positions of authority
in order to keep their actions isolated from public scrutiny as they try to monitor and
control the actions of subordinate classes. The five-stage model details the timing
and evolution of the process, from the origins of group stratification through the
period of individual mobility to the era of collective class resistance.
8. Robert Fatton, Predatory Rule (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
1992), 8–11, 19–37, and 144–45.
9. Robert Fatton, Predatory Rule; and Jean-Francois Bayart, Politics of the
Belly. The first three phases of the five-phase model address British attempts to
control and direct Zanzibari society to suit its commercial interest between the years
1870s and the 1950s. The colonial government created policies, programs, and or-
ganizations that would influence the economic, sociological, and political dynamics
of the state, which will be discussed later.
10. Judith T. Irvine, “When Talk isn’t Cheap: Language and Political Econ-
omy,” American Ethnologist 16, no. 2 (May 1989), 248–67; Ali A. Mazrui and
Alamin M. Mazrui, The Power of Babel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1998); and Alessandro Duranti, Linguistic Anthropology (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1997).
11. Colonial protectorates, plantation economies, elite privilege, and subaltern
repression are the hallmarks of closed political systems, especially where individual
access to higher circles or group advancement is based on the acquisition of an
ascribed characteristic such as linguistic ability. Yet, as mentioned earlier, much
of economic or linguistic analysis of conflict in Africa has been overshadowed by
 Introduction 13

analysis emphasizing tribal or racial divisions. By contrast, studies of European

cleavage often include a variety of conflict indices, and ethnic difference figures
prominently in studies of European conflict by examining linguistic difference,
political orientation, historical legacy, and class cleavage.
12. Class animates differentiation in Robert Fatton’s three-site analysis and as-
cribed characteristics inspire differentiation in the five-stage model. My analysis of
Zanzibar concerns differentiation based both on class and wealth, and more specifi-
cally cleavages based on land ownership and linguistic cleavages.
13. Judith T. Irvine, “When Talk Isn’t Cheap.”
14. Robert Debusmann and Stefan Arnold, Land Law and Land Ownership in
Africa (Bayreuth, Germany: Bayreuth Publishers, 1996).
15. This discussion loosely corresponds to Robert Fatton’s analysis of ruling
class formation—the first site.
16. The first phase or category of Britain’s economic policies is also described
by Robert Fatton’s first site. Ultimately many of these policies influenced and in
many respects acted as a governing principle over Britain’s subsequent second site
sociological and political policies.
17. The second phase of colonial rule, the introduction of sociological policies,
corresponds broadly to Robert Fatton’s second site class disarticulation.
18. The latter phenomenon corresponds both to Robert Fatton’s second and third
site. Irvine and Debussman and Arnold’s observations are addressed in the second
and third chapters of this book because they deal respectively with African cultural,
economic, and third site/phase political resistance as well as Arab and British re-
pression of those efforts.
19. Chapter IV of this book will cover election strife that led to the 1964 revolution,
and will analyze the revolution itself and the subsequent union with Tanganyika.
20. This dynamic corresponds to Robert Fatton’s third site subaltern political
resistance.
21. Fatton’s analysis concerns three sites. I introduce this fourth phase to con-
sider what Fatton says may happen if third-site resistance is crushed. This fourth
phase—the site of violent and successful regime change—considers the events
leading to the 1964 revolution and the revolution itself. More broadly, my fourth
phase also corresponds to the fourth stage of the five-stage model and may be worth
considering as a unit of analysis for the African countries where third-site resistance
turns to violence and repression. Discussions of state collapse or failed states could
also be considered (as a divergent part of) fourth-site (fourth-phase) analysis; Taylor
and McKirnan, “A Five Stage Model of Intergroup Relations.”
22. This site corresponds to the fifth stage of the five-stage model. Fifth-stage/
fifth-phase societies have gone through fourth-phase revolution, but have not expe-
rienced collapse or state failure. These societies tend to revert to political systems
14 Introduction

that promote a newly powerful group over a subordinate faction, a mirror image of
stage/site/phase 1.
23. See Douglas Anglin, “Zanzibar: Political Impasse and Commonwealth Me-
diation,” The Journal of Contemporary African Studies 1 (January 2000): 39–66.
The terms “Arab” and “African” are used broadly to denote that a cleavage that is
still essentially linguistic. Swahili-speaking residents of Unguja are currently the
political rivals of Arabic-speaking residents of Pemba.
 I
Stratification

The geographical location, strategic value, and diverse population of

Zanzibar give this island nation a complex history. Over the centuries in-
dividuals and groups came to Zanzibar from other African nations. Other
immigrants traveled from the Middle East and Asia to Africa, arriving
on the shores of Zanzibar’s main island, Unguja, and its smaller island,
Pemba.1 Some of these immigrants became permanent residents.
As early as the first millennium BC, Zanzibar Island was among East
Africa’s most important port cities. Traders from Indonesia used the larger
island, Unguja, as a place to distribute cinnamon to the spice markets of
East Africa and southern Arabia. Spices traveled from the ports in Zanzi-
bar north, south, and, most importantly, to western European empires. Co-
incidentally, just as Europeans were becoming aware of Zanzibar’s role as
a growing spice market, the island was also becoming one of several large
East African ports in Middle Eastern slave trade.
The Indian Ocean spice trade and the Middle East slave trade ran con-
currently as parallel economies operated by different classes and nation-
alities of individuals, and were therefore largely independent phenomena.
By contrast, the European trade of African slaves and the European
feudal/plantations system became inextricably linked. The arrival of the
British and the merging of these two European trades ultimately became
the foundation of Zanzibar’s nineteenth-century sharecropping system,
which, in turn, became the basis for Zanzibar’s twentieth-century political
cleavage.

15
16 Chapter I

I argue that the European and Middle Eastern trade of African slaves
are separate systems. The former developed as the natural outgrowth of
European feudalism, a rigid system that dictated most facets of social and
economic custom. By contrast Middle Eastern feudalism and slave trade
were less rigid systems. To support this argument I contrast the rules and
regulations of these respective feudal systems with slavery. Ultimately, I
argue that both Middle Eastern slavery and feudalism produced temporary
social dislocations that did not impede social mobility. Further, when con-
trasted with European feudalism and European slavery, Middle Eastern/
African feudalism and slavery can be viewed as more open, less repres-
sive systems of social control. More specifically, Middle Eastern political
systems diffused, rather than encouraged, violent regime change.
The focus of this book is the history of Zanzibar’s twentieth-century
dislocations, the product of the island’s nineteenth-century plantation
economy and the offspring of European feudalism.2 I will briefly contrast
the differences between European, Middle Eastern, and African agricul-
tural traditions, in order to determine how each of these systems created
unique social dislocations, specific to each culture.

MIDDLE EASTERN, AFRICAN, AND EUROPEAN FEUDALISM

European feudal serfs were crucial to the survival of very powerful landed
aristocrats, noblemen, and, perhaps more importantly, their vast armies.
The European feudal system emerged when the landed aristocracy decided
to participate in agricultural production to feed their armies, and later to
create revenue-generating export.3 The European aristocracy needed new
sources of labor for this vast new project, and, in the second millennium
BC, began to establish the principalities that preceded the rigid feudal
system. The feudal system, in turn, created a captured class of bonded ag-
ricultural labor and a rigid hierarchy of class and caste. First millennium
economic, political, and religious transformations within Europe rein-
forced a type of social arrangement peculiar to societies organized for the
mass production and export of goods. In tenth-century England, landlords
gained the right to exclusively control private industry. Ultimately they
owned water mills, baking ovens, and wine presses, and controlled the
production and sale of alcohol. This industrial system was monopolistic,
 Stratification 17

because it allowed peasants the right to labor on the land but denied them
the right to own land.4 Feudalism impoverished most small farmers while
it dramatically increased the wealth of the already rich manorial class. The
new business of agricultural export thrived because of the emergence and
codification of a rigid system of European—but especially British—land
law. The export industry made the feudal manor the vehicle of European
social organization.5
The British manorial system demanded that its peasants only harvest
crops for two purposes: to meet the subsistence needs of their respective
peasant families and, more importantly, to create revenue which was
given to the manorial estate. Peasants could not sell what they grew, and
were never able to gain independence from their lifelong feudal duties.
The British government checked families who wanted to produce crops
for surreptitious personal sale by codifying law that prevented individual
peasants from owning more than two oxen, while larger families could
own no more than eight. Most peasants found that on tracts of land as
large as twenty-five acres, owning as few as two oxen made farming for
profit nearly impossible.6 The British manorial system made upward mo-
bility impossible since marriage, by law, was strictly forbidden between
peasants outside of one’s particular parish, or between peasant and non-
peasant classes.7 While the feudal system preceded the modern industrial
era by hundreds of years, it made the various facets of capitalism such as
wage labor and the modern division of labor possible. Medieval European
aristocrats made the competitive “hide” system as rulebound and antago-
nistic as possible. By pitting peasant families against one another feudal
lords prevented the laborers from organizing large-scale revolts against
the manor.8
The Norman conquest of England took place in 1066. From the twelfth
century well into the industrial era, British aristocracy relied on the hide
system to organize and keep England’s peasantry locked into a system of
permanent serfdom.9 Throughout the medieval era the aristocracy coerced
peasants into producing large quantities of agricultural goods for sale and
export. This economic activity dominated the lives of farmers on English
manors and eventually spread to European society more broadly. The
concept of large-scale cash-crop farming was largely European and only
a few African societies had any system of feudalism that even closely ap-
proximated Europe’s feudal plantation economy.
18 Chapter I

Though similarly committed to mass production of agricultural goods,

Africa’s most hierarchical medieval societies were not as rigid as most
European feudal communities. In fifteenth-century Mali, one of Africa’s
early “feudal” societies, chattel and domestic labor still had greater access
to land than their counterparts in Europe, because more land was held in
common in Africa than it was in Europe.10 Further, Mali’s peasants had
access to private land through more prosperous kin, to whom marriage
was possible. In exchange for allowing their poorer relatives to occupy
their land, the rich kin could garner patron status, which was a significant
political achievement, one that simultaneously assured the patrons of
having loyal, accountable clients.11 Mali’s governing authority was ex-
ercised not over individuals but rather over families and clans, of whom
there were always a few rich or powerful members who could check any
authoritarian tendencies of the governing leadership.12 In many North Af-
rican countries, communities rather than individuals were accountable for
producing the crops used as payment to the government.13 Another differ-
ence between the European and the African feudal plantation system was
that neither African feudal nor slave status prevented an individual from
“owning” land.14 Further, slaves could sell or barter any agricultural goods
they produced beyond subsistence and manorial rent.15
Beyond norms governing production and consumption, European
feudalism differed from Middle Eastern and African feudalism in other
ways. Whereas in Europe, only the aristocratic classes derived a steady
income from the feudal plantation system, in Ottoman society the military
leadership, or sipahs, were also given a division of feudal land, called a
timar. Given to bureaucratic and military officers in exchange for their
military and tax raising services, the system of timariots allowed peasants
to live on timars and grow crops for personal consumption and sale, as
long as they provided crops for the state.16 Like similar feudal systems
in first millennium Iran and Iraq, and their European counterparts, the
timariot system was prone to abuses of power. Nonetheless, all three of
these Middle Eastern feudal arrangements stood in stark contrast to the
European system of perpetual and inescapable feudal bondage.17
According to Richards and Waterbury:

The elaborate legal, church-sanctified infrastructure of European feudalism,

was missing, or, where it existed, flatly contradicted the principle of an he-
 Stratification 19

reditary nobility as much as it contradicted that of inherited vassalage. Indeed,

local Middle East power figures had no legal authority over vassals, only the
Muslim judge, the qadi, had such authority. Second, the privileges of power
figures were legally temporarily and often assigned to scattered bits of territory
rather than being concentrated geographically, as in Europe. Finally, there were
no serfs in the legal sense in the Middle East; peasants were not bound to land,
although all sorts of extralegal pressures might tie them down.18
Marxist and liberal economists agree that the laws emerging in medi-
eval Western economies rested on the rule of production, while Ali Maz-
rui argues that subsistence nomadic culture of the pre-Islamic era relied
on laws governing subsistence consumption. As a result, the concept of
farming for profit, or, more precisely, creating plantations for the export
of a solitary cash crop, was fairly new, and rather foreign. By the time
the prophet Muhammad’s successors had spread Islam throughout the
far reaches of the medieval world, a mixed economy emerged in what is
now called the Middle East and northeast Africa. What Karl Marx called
the “Asiatic mode of production” Ali Mazrui called a mixed economy,
“regressive but self-sustaining.”19
The contrast between European and Afro–Middle Eastern feudalism is
important. The European colonial project of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries ultimately replaced flexible and indigenous forms of African
and Arab feudalism with a restrictive agricultural system akin to Euro-
pean feudalism. However, European powers modified their feudal system
when they exported it to Africa. As Omanis had already introduced the
cash-crop export system, a new development in East African economic
life, it was easy for the British to expand it. Ultimately the protectorate
government forced subsistence farmers and even nonagricultural nomads
into a lifestyle they resisted. Cash-cropping institutionalized economic
difference, and in Zanzibar it created a hierarchy that privileged some oc-
cupations and languages over others.20
Part of keeping a class of agricultural workers captured and bound to the
land involved keeping their personal and professional aspirations artificially
depressed. In Europe, local aristocrats achieved their ends through restric-
tive feudal law. In East Africa, during the second phase of colonial rule sev-
eral European powers created a colonial hierarchy by promoting foreign or
minority languages and making educational opportunities and professional
employment an unattainable goal for most indigenous people.21
20 Chapter I

PHASE 1: TRANSPLANTED FEUDALISM

AND AFRICA’S PLANTATION ECONOMIES

As medieval European expansion reached its logical and final dimensions,

and Europe’s population began to overwhelm local agricultural and mon-
etary resources, British politicians and economists began promoting imperi-
alism as a way to create new markets to sustain growth. In the Elizabethan,
Stuart, and Georgian eras, when Britain was busy colonizing the American
New World, British imperialism was limited to economic and personnel
exchange. In the late eighteenth century, when Britain began considering
conquest of the Pacific and Africa, colonization in the Far East came to
involve more complex exchanges including a transfer of British politics,
culture, and religion. British imperialists began to differ about the proper
parameters of this new sociological aspect of colonization.
By the early nineteenth century British imperialists began organizing
themselves into two camps, called “liberal” imperialism and “conserva-
tive” imperialism. The first camp represented “liberal” intellectual explor-
ers who believed that Africa could enrich Britain materially, and in return
Britain could have a “civilizing” liberal influence on the continent and its
residents.
The “commerce and civilization” camp consisted of Whig, Liberal,
“radical,” and later Labor party politicians, including William Ewart Glad-
stone, often considered the Liberal party’s foremost leader. Other “liber-
als” included Lord John Russell and Sir Edward Grey (later Viscount Grey
of Fallodon), who supervised the administrations of Sir George Napier
and Sir Harry Smith in South Africa, and the government of Lord Elgin
in Canada.22 The other camp dubbed itself the Palmerston school, after
Prime Minister Henry Temple Palmerston. These conservative imperialists
wanted British “commerce and expansion” to surpass the imperial efforts
of the other European powers.23 This school promoted British settlement,
and opposed the “civilizing” social welfare programs that characterized
Gladstonian “liberal imperialism,” both in Britain and abroad.
Despite the fact that Gladstone, Palmerston, and their respective col-
leagues had very strong views, they often formed parliamentary coali-
tions with opposing parties. In fact, the terms liberal and conservative
in nineteenth-century British politics were somewhat flexible. Gladstone
was a liberal by party affiliation. He supported the Concert of Europe,
 Stratification 21

and argued that morality, not expediency, should dominate foreign policy.
However, as prime minister Gladstone was not opposed to all forms of
imperial expansion. In fact, Gladstone favored conservative efforts to re-
duce government spending and argued against most forms of income tax,
favoring taxes on property and luxury goods.
The Gladstone approach was in many ways a reaction to the two impor-
tant conservative politicians of the nineteenth century—Lord Canning, who
served as foreign minister in 1807 and prime minister in 1827, and Lord
Palmerston, who served as foreign secretary twice between the years 1830
and 1851 and later was the appointed prime minister in 1851.24 Though a
member of the Whig party, Palmerston considered himself the disciple of
Lord Canning and therefore pursued fairly conservative policies. Many
historians consider Palmerston a conservative, despite his Liberal party
affiliation. As foreign secretary, Palmerston supported the opium war in
order to open China’s markets. When it came to British trade interests,
Palmerston did not distinguish between constitutional governments and
absolutist regimes. Finally, Palmerston’s approach to dealing with smaller,
if intransigent, nations was so severe that he was given the nickname “John
Bull.”25 Palmerston and Benjamin Disraeli, also a disciple of Canning, tried
as much as possible to distance themselves from the multilateralism of
Liberal-Radical Gladstone. As a result, historians considered Palmerston
and Disraeli among the foremost conservative imperialists of their era.
In the 1880s and 1890s British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli
and the Tory colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain spoke for a power-
ful constituency in Britain when they offered their idea of an advanced
mercantilism in the form of “imperial federation.”26 Prime Minister
Disraeli and his “conservative” colleagues argued that Britain was the
world’s leading metropolis and should therefore receive the “tribute of
the world.”27
In addition to the great political leverage of Palmerston, Disraeli, and
Chamberlain, there were many important conservative philosophers who in-
fluenced formulations of imperial policy both within the conservative party
and throughout Britain’s broader political arena. Edward Gibbon Wakefield
was one of the most influential conservative scholars of the Victorian era. An
academic and sometime politician, Wakefield was dubbed the “prophet of
new imperialism.” He made colonization a field of study, and more specifi-
cally raised imperialism to an economic discipline in British political study.
22 Chapter I

His principal philosophy was that imperialism should serve the crown and
not the colonial settlers or the indigenous natives.
Wakefield’s approach promoted Britain’s use of the colonies as sites for
agricultural production. He suggested that colonial governments should
convert indigenous subsistence farmers into an agricultural labor class
akin to medieval serfs, while a white upper class of expatriate industrialist
or “impoverished” aristocrats should run the colonial bureaucracies. He
argued that since there was a superabundance of land, and far less capital
or people in Africa, it would be wise for the British government to induce
a percentage of its population to emigrate and settle in new colonies, but
only those Britons of the right socio-economic class.28
Wakefield believed that having a landed (white) aristocracy in Africa
would make it easier for the British government to control the colonies.29
As such, Wakefield was totally against devolution of power to settlers.
For that reason, he considered Lord John Russell’s attempt to “reform”
colonial government in Canada and South Africa, devolving power to lo-
cal authorities, to be completely foolish.30 Consistent with his opposition
to devolution, Wakefield argued that having a foreign overclass would
make colonies more orderly and economically efficient, and as such, he
introduced his leading theory, called the principle of “sufficient price.”31
Wakefield developed his doctrine of “sufficient price” by studying
some of the difficulties colonial administrators experienced in South Af-
rica, Canada, and Australia. According to Wakefield, the British in these
colonies faced so many problems due to the nature of land distribution.
Wakefield argued that the British government had, indiscriminately and
unwisely, given white settlers tracks of land that were too large and un-
yielding. He suggested that by raising the price of land, in fact, keeping
land prices artificially high, the British government could induce “a better
class” of British to settle in new colonies. Thus, according to Wakefield,
establishing a “sufficient price” could ensure that the settlements them-
selves were smaller and easier to govern. Wakefield believed that the co-
lonial office should strive to “reproduce in the colonies the society of the
mother country.”32 As Adam Smith had written nearly fifty years earlier,
Wakefield suggested that, in England, there was a “superabundance of
capital and labor in relation to the field of production.” Wakefield was an
expert in marketing his ideas, and tried to make sure that his ideas about
land distribution, in particular, became the official colonial policy of the
 Stratification 23

British government. In 1836 Wakefield used his considerable influence as

a ranking member on the Select Committee on the Disposal of Lands in
the British Colonies. He further convinced influential friends in govern-
ment to place the sale of all land in the colonies and the rules governing
British emigration under the central land board, which was answerable
only to select individuals in the colonial office, rather than Britain’s entire
parliamentary body.
Long after he retired from government, Wakefield’s ideas and his influ-
ence in the colonial office had an impact on land policies in Zanzibar. Al-
though colonial officials did not have to contend with a large population
of white settlers, Wakefield’s concept of “sufficient price,” taken together
with Britain’s other “land to property” squatter policies, made it easier for
the British government to keep clove-growing land in the hands of a few
wealthy Arab families.
Thus, in Zanzibar “sufficient price imperial federation” meant displac-
ing more egalitarian forms of Afro-Arab feudalism with a program where
the British government could track and tax Arab land and agricultural
products. Arabs were land rich, but due to taxes, increasingly cash poor,
while Indians, prevented from owning land, were cash rich, but land poor.
The large African working class was, on the whole, totally impoverished
and completely dependent.33
Palmerston, Disraeli, Wakefield, and the other supporters of imperial
federation argued that Britain could better exploit foreign wealth by es-
tablishing formal colonies. As important as these British thinkers were,
they simply articulated a formal ideology for a centuries-old British policy
of colonial expansion that had existed since the late sixteenth century.34
In fact, since the decline of feudalism, and the beginning of enclosure
(events that preceded European industrial development), Europeans
looked south and west for territorial expansion and for the acquisition
of cheap labor and material resources. By the 1600s it became clear that
Native American populations used as slave labor on early tobacco, rice,
and sugar plantations were dying off sooner than they could be replaced.35
Europeans turned to a new resource for an unlimited number of plantation
slaves. The African continent was primed for exploitation.36 As a result of
this new trade in African slaves, British commerce reached its zenith.
During the 1700s the triangular trade between England, Africa, and co-
lonial America supplied exports, while plantations produced and exported
24 Chapter I

raw materials. Slave ports in Zanzibar equaled, and then surpassed, Mo-
zambique as the largest East Coast supplier of transatlantic and Middle
Eastern slaves.37 When American independence ended British colonial tax
revenue, the British led European efforts to colonize Africa.38 Thus, the
sixteenth-century effort to find slaves required fleets and armies to subdue
Africa, while the eighteenth-century need to find more raw materials and
markets for Western goods kept Europeans in Africa.39 The colonization
of Africa began when Europeans established cash-crop plantations and
transplanted European feudal customs, converting land into cash-crop
agricultural property—which simultaneously advanced European culture
and commerce.40 In some African countries, European governments in-
duced natives to grow crops such as rubber and sisal for export. Owing to
its location near the Indian Ocean spice trade, Britain decided Zanzibar
could become a cash crop export colony.41 In the decades before the Brit-
ish arrived, the Omanis established small clove plantations. However,
under the British, the clove plantation became the dominant force of
Zanzibar’s economy.
It is worth noting that the Omanis came to Zanzibar at the behest of its
inhabitants. During the seventeenth century the Swahili chiefs of Zanzi-
bar’s coastal kingdoms appealed to the Omani sultan to help them expel
the Portuguese. Omani rule seemed like the only way to prevent the Portu-
guese from prevailing over local coastal Shirazi and Swahili chieftaincies.
However, the Omani Sultanate and its economic interest in expanding the
clove trade ultimately became the gateway for British rule and led to the
emergence of a permanent hierarchy of an Arab landowning class over
African “squatters.” When the Omanis created and the British expanded
the plantation economy, they initiated Zanzibar’s first-phase class strati-
fication. Britain differentiated between Zanzibar’s diverse communal
groups and social classes by passing laws, formulating policies, and estab-
lishing organizations that advanced Arab landownership and commercial
clove trade and obstructed African subsistence farming, while promoting
Arabic and English over all indigenous languages. These first-phase eco-
nomic policies and social programs led the British to promulgate laws and
establish organizations that promoted the reciprocal assimilation of elites.
This first created the context for predatory British rule and then autocratic
Arab governance. During the first phase of British colonial rule Zanzibar
 Stratification 25

went from being a mere station in the Middle Eastern slave trade to the
largest Indian Ocean spice plantation with the largest number of agricul-
tural slaves in the region. Even before Britain established its massive cash
crop project, Omani clove plantations were becoming a growing source
of political and economic tension. Like other Middle Eastern empires,
the Busaidi dynasty of mid-nineteenth-century Oman was committed to
imperial expansion and chose agricultural production as the obvious way
to integrate its trading empire.
In the early nineteenth century, Iran occupied Oman’s capital, Muscat.
Iranian occupation and other strategic concerns led Oman’s deposed sul-
tan, Seyyid Said, to make Zanzibar his new residence. As mentioned ear-
lier, Swahili chiefs relied on Omani military strength as a buffer against
Portuguese aggression. In 1832 Seyyid Said established Zanzibar as the
capital of the exiled Omani Sultanate. So when there was not any great re-
sistance by local Shirazi and Swahili chiefs, Sultan Said decided that Zan-
zibar, like some of the other successful spice islands in the Indian Ocean,
could devote some land to cash-crop farming. Throughout Said’s reign,
before Britain became involved in the cash-crop industry, Zanzibar’s
agricultural production was still largely directed toward the traditional
subsistence farming that characterized most East African economies. In
most cases, Omani farms were not cash-crop plantations and as such taxes
were not, on the whole, levied against farmers, but rather on foreign com-
modities traded by Indian and Arab merchants.42
Eventually, as Sultan Said expanded the clove plantation industry, he
began to place a modest tax on crops “characteristic of Arab serfdom”
called the jizia. The jizia was based on Indian rupees, the currency used by
many Arab kingdoms, including the Omani Sultanate.43 The tax was mini-
mal, by British standards. The cash crop industry was still in its formative
stage, commercial farming was still entirely optional and the jizia only af-
fected a small group of farmers who chose to plant cloves for profit. Fur-
ther, sharia law, and shamba and waqf agricultural conventions, promoted
communitarian norms in other sectors of Zanzibar’s economy, influencing
the national culture. These mixed economic systems made Zanzibari so-
ciety more fluid than the rigid class systems found in European societies
and, before the establishment of the protectorate, made upward mobility
attainable.44
26 Chapter I

BRITISH FIRST-PHASE POLICIES VERSUS INDIGENOUS

ECONOMIC TRADITIONS

By the early 1880s, Britain began its colonial project in earnest. In 1890
Britain established Zanzibar as an official British protectorate. Britain
was the metropole and Zanzibar was the periphery. As Britain’s largest
colonial holding in the region, India acted as a submetropole, first lending
its currency and then its educated population to the British protectorate
to facilitate its colonial agenda.45 Under Omani rule, the Indian business
class had a nominal role in East Africa’s economic order and an almost
entirely negligible role in Zanzibari politics. When the British established
the protectorate, Indians garnered exclusive control over the banking and
lending institutions, which gave them both great political and economic
power. In addition to having minority Arab and Indian populations admin-
ister colonial rule in Zanzibar, Britain enacted other features of its phase 1
colonial rule. Britain’s phase 1 policies ultimately dislocated most peasant
farmers, changing the legal and economic system, maximizing revenue
for the crown, and reducing the political and economic opportunities of
most Africans. During this era the British eliminated the Arab waqf and
Bantu shamba land systems, as well as Zanzibar’s indigenous political
institutions.
Originally, the Bantu shamba system of laws protected the rights of the
Bantu to clear land and grow food on that land in perpetuity. The shamba
system also established a code protecting Bantus’ right to inherit cleared
land used by their ancestors.46 The Shirazi had a similar, if more com-
plex, system of land use based on kinship, while the Swahili had, by the
nineteenth century, an emerging system of land ownership that combined
Bantu customary law and southern Arabian tribal communitarianism.
As mentioned earlier, when early Shirazi clans arrived from Persia, they
intermarried with Bantu and formed a network of thirty or more coastal
cities that they ruled through the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. As late
as the early twentieth century the basic political structures of most of the
coastal cities of East Africa largely reflected the Shirazi political organi-
zation established six centuries earlier.47 Throughout the medieval era, the
Shirazi, largely a planting and subsistence community, traded along the
East African coast, while their successors, the Swahili dynasties, traded
beyond the coast, across the Red Sea.48 As Swahili political organiza-
 Stratification 27

tion became more complex, the economy began expanding beyond its
local and subsistence domain. Eventually Shirazi and Swahili political
structures merged.49 When Sultan Seyyid Said overran the Portuguese, he
transferred his royal court and the Omani capital from Muscat to Zanzi-
bar, and brought the Swahili coastal towns under tributary control.50 The
network of Zanzibar’s political organizations became even more complex.
The Omanis brought governors, qadis (judges) and created various small
bureaucracies including a treasury, army, import/export customs, a court
system, and post office.
The Omani establishment dominated local government. The sheha and
liwali posts, which the Shirazi and Bantu created and occupied, were
taken over by Arab Omanis who took orders from the sultan. The Omani
government took pains to try to maintain Shirazi custom where possible,
and preserved the right of the community to pick their sheha by public ac-
claim as they had done for centuries before the arrival of the Omanis. In a
brief fifty-year period the Omani sultans cobbled together a coherent form
of governance from the disparate Arab, Shirazi, Swahili, and Bantu politi-
cal traditions while maintaining a decentralized form of government.51
As mentioned earlier, the Omanis brought the Islamic sharia legal
system that weakened, but did not eliminate, the indigenous Swahili,
Shirazi, and Bantu communitarian land use systems.52 In compensation
for these dislocations the Omani sultans established schools offering
free elementary educations and charitable waqf land trusts. Dislocations
included encouraging farmers to grow cash crops for international export,
while allowing locals to continue growing traditional subsistence crops
for local trade and barter. The Omani program of farming for profit led
to a dramatic increase in an otherwise fairly small slave trade. By the
mid-nineteenth century, the growth of slavery, supported by the British
interest in Indian Ocean trade, led to the emergence of rigid social hierar-
chies in Zanzibar that were, heretofore, usually associated with plantation
economies in Europe.53 In Zanzibar, nineteenth-century social divisions
and the protectorate era tax scheme led to permanent class and linguistic
stratification.
Before the arrival of the British government, the practice of an intact
and coherent system of sharia law held Zanzibar’s disparate groups and
classes in peaceful coexistence, compensating dislocated individuals with
squatting rights on land held in trust.54 This new order was held together
28 Chapter I

by an unwritten social contract between the Omanis and the Africans they
governed. The Omani order promised mobility within an Islamic system
of sharia law.55 By contrast, when the British arrived they took immedi-
ate control over the government and of all of the local principalities. The
protectorate government allowed British officers, who lived outside the
community, absolute control over local leaders.56 The British ended the
Zanzibari slave trade in 1897, seven years into the colonial protectorate.
However, when the British government ended slavery it closed Oman’s
porous social system, making it impossible for former slaves to achieve
the type of social advancement previous generations enjoyed. Once the
British arrived, they replaced parts of sharia law with British common
law, leaving a void in the new social system. The new system was effi-
cient in extraction, but incoherent to the non-British residents of Zanzibar,
and incapable of producing the norms of justice to which Zanzibaris had
become accustomed.
Farming cloves became a lucrative international cash crop. Individual
Arab merchants, as well as representatives of the Omani government
mortgaged their property and soon grew indebted to the colonial govern-
ment. Newly impoverished Arabs began to expropriate land whenever
they chose and by whatever means they had at their disposal.57 In some
cases this acquisition took the form of clearing unoccupied jungle land; in
other instances Arabs harassed the Wahadimu, the Swahili people of Zan-
zibar Island, as well as various Bantu tribes, into selling their land.58 As
the British Empire extracted wealth from Zanzibar, Omani regents threw
more Zanzibari families off their land and many became propertyless
squatters.59 The process of creating “property” where land once existed,
and establishing a large tax system for colonial extraction, characterized
the stratification associated with the first phase of colonial rule.60 Fredrick
Cooper suggests:

A sharp division arose between “Arabs,” cultivating cloves and other tree
crops in northern and western Zanzibar, and the (Swahili) Wahadimu culti-
vating subsistence crops supplemented by small scale cash crops in south-
ern and eastern Zanzibar.61

On Pemba Island, indigenous Africans retained more land than Afri-

cans on Unguja. Pemba’s “indigenous population,” largely Swahili Wa-
hadimu and Shirazi Wapemba (Pemba residents of Bantu-Shirazi origin),
 Stratification 29

held onto their land because the plantations were small and the British
were not interested in controlling cash crop production on Pemba, which
had a smaller yield than Unguja. The Wahadimu and Wapemba controlled
Pemba clove production themselves, ultimately raising tax revenue for
the Omani sultan and later the British Empire, pooling family and clan
resources.62 Most of Pemba’s indigenous residents retained their land
and property rights, so their lack of fluency in Arabic or English played
less of a role in their economic or political mobility on Pemba than their
counterparts on Unguja.63 On Unguja, Arabs, and the British government,
threw the Shirazi and Swahili off their ancestral lands with equal fervor.
On Unguja, the British compounded Shirazi-Swahili dislocation when the
government created a political system that rewarded English and Arabic
speakers and relegated Bantu speakers to the bottom of Zanzibar’s lin-
guistic pyramid.64 Swahili-speaking laborers lacked the linguistic skills,
business networks, or social resources that would allow them to advance.
Rather, the new plantation economy accelerated their decline. While the
British officially ended slavery in 1897 and the slave/nonslave distinction
disappeared under British occupation, the colonial government perpetu-
ated a political system where linguistic ability and occupational role, a
phenomenon directly influenced by the legacy of slavery and dynamics
of sharecropping, determined the direction of an individual’s life.65 Fur-
thermore, whereas slavery was over, the British co-option of the Omani
squatting system in many respects was more rigid than Omani “slavery.”
The Omani Sultanate in Zanzibar was not a predatory government as
such, but the expansion of Omani financial interests and the inauguration
of a large-scale cash crop clove economy generated the conditions that
made predatory rule possible. Only an alien government interested in pur-
suing economic imperialism could institutionalize these dislocations and
hierarchies.66 While the Omanis weakened many of Zanzibar’s various
communitarian land arrangements, the British removed the communitar-
ian land systems almost entirely. The British also removed the sharia
system of law that had protected both customary African legal practices as
well as economic upward mobility. The protectorate government replaced
the pluralistic linguistic political economy that characterized the Swahili
coast with British common law and a rigid metropole system of English
and Arabic. After the turn of the century English and Arabic became
Zanzibar’s core economic and bureaucratic languages. Though a majority
30 Chapter I

of Zanzibaris spoke the Swahili and Bantu dialects, the new economy
drove these dialects to the periphery of Zanzibari society.
The Omanis grafted Zanzibar’s plantation economy, a foreign entity,
onto the existing tribal economy. The British expanded the Omani agricul-
tural system, superimposing their political system on all other indigenous
communal arrangements, and promoted commercial over subsistence
interests, which in turn, institutionalized permanent class cleavage. The
protectorate government then expanded the Omani jizia tax scheme, en-
couraging private ownership of farm land and coercing new land owners
to plant cloves.67 These acts precipitated the closing of Zanzibari society.
Once the British established their dominion over Zanzibar, they made the
laws of the protectorate and the economic orientation of the plantation
economy inextricably linked. These laws, which initially concerned land
ownership, taxes, and crop revenue eventually extended to educational
opportunities and finally to linguistic, political, and economic affiliation.
Whereas before 1890, the majority of Zanzibaris—Bantu, Shirazi, and
Swahili—grew various crops on land they held in common, after that
year, they grew cloves on “property” as sharecroppers.68

SQUATTING, SHARECROPPING, AND

THE POLITICS OF COLONIAL LAND USE

Like the Arab waqf and the Shirazi shambas, the British ultimately co-
opted Zanzibar’s squatting system, an indigenous land use scheme that
furthered colonial extraction. As with the waqf and the shambas, squatting
preceded the arrival of the British; however, unlike these two schemes,
the squatting system expanded rather than declined under phase 1 British
rule. The ultimate goal of phase 1 British colonial rule was to convert
freed slaves from their seasonal work as clove harvesters on small Arab
owned farms to full time laborers on large plantations. Concomitantly, the
British also sought to convert the Arab planter class into a landlord class.69
Zanzibar resisted both efforts to create a hierarchy of class interest. Ex-
slaves were not interested in abandoning subsistence farming in favor of
full-time work, and Arab planters were suspicious of a system that relied
on such large amounts of debt.70 Nevertheless, the British colonial gov-
ernment was committed to such a system because it converted the in-kind
 Stratification 31

barter economy to a fully monetized system in which they could domi-

nate. When the British government made ex-slaves wage workers, they
also made them taxable persons, creating revenue for the crown. When the
British government monetized the clove economy they created the need
for British participation in the Indian Ocean economy. As a result, Indian
businessmen, and, more importantly, the Indian spice buyers, could sup-
port Arab clove export.71 When the British advanced the clove cash crop
and export economy they had to substantially alter the indigenous squat-
ting system in every way other than name.
Originally “squatting” referred to a system that allowed slaves and
free-persons alike to reside on their property, as long as they agreed to
pick cloves at harvest. It existed contemporaneously with slavery, because
there were never enough slaves to harvest Zanzibar’s ever-expanding
clove industry. After the British emancipated Zanzibari slaves, squat-
ting—living rent-free on Arab land—became a significant social phenom-
enon. Arabs assigned squatters a small parcel of land and allowed them
to plant subsistence crops so long as they agreed to continue to harvest
cloves. Thus, squatting under Arab rule allowed nonslaves and former
slaves equal opportunity to live rent-free, participate in the harvest, and
plant what they pleased, when they pleased.
The British government believed that the squatting system under the
Omanis was too vague, and, in a series of executive orders, turned the
squatting system completely on its ear. In complete contravention to the
spirit of the squatting system, the British pushed Arab planters to collect
rent from the squatters, and argued that “squatter” labor should be paid,
but made compulsory. The British government established vagrancy laws,
similar to those in the Jim Crow states of the southern United States.72
The colonial administration tried to convince Arab planters to take on the
difficult task of compelling nonslaves or ex-slaves to become compulsory
laborers, claiming that Arab tax burdens could be shifted from the Arab
planter class to the African laborers.73 The foreign and colonial offices
were interested in creating a wage labor system because it allowed the
protectorate government to create rents that expanded the revenue/tax-
rich clove industry. The British government helped Arab planters, Shirazi
landlords, and the Indian business class create organizations that could
advance their economic interests. These organizations furthered what
Bayart calls the “reciprocal assimilation of elites.”74
32 Chapter I

In 1913 the British crown moved Zanzibar’s administration from the

foreign office to the colonial office. This change in venue carried with it a
change in status for the people of Zanzibar. Zanzibar became more than a
holding. The British realized that Zanzibar was a possession that must be
controlled and as such began a campaign to co-opt local institutions that
controlled the government and economy, creating new ones to maximize
British control of Zanzibar’s elite. One of Britain’s earliest creations was
the Arab Association. Founded right after the 1897 emancipation of the
slaves, its initial and primary objective was to ask the British government
for compensation for losses sustained by the emancipation of Arab-owned
slaves.75 In 1905, wealthy Indian financiers formed the Indian Merchants
Organization (IMO). In 1910, just before World War I, they renamed the
IMO the Indian National Association (INA). The INA pleaded the cases be-
fore the British colonial office on behalf of a variety of Indian merchants.
The British wanted to control Zanzibar’s indigenous political institu-
tions by creating new state bureaucracies and supporting “ethnic” asso-
ciations, which in turn, established the most efficient revenue-generating
markets that Zanzibari society could support. In sum, the colonial govern-
ment created a class system that included new labor, management, and the
landlord classes. England designed this new labor-class system to ener-
gize its revenue-generating machine and to introduce both the concept and
function of debt-driven European governance. The colonial government
believed the best way to achieve these goals was to try to influence, if not
co-opt, organizations such as the Arab and Indian associations. However,
British efforts to capture and assimilate Zanzibar’s elites often led to
conflict.

THE RECIPROCAL ASSIMILATION OF

ELITES AND THE DEBUT OF CLASS CONFLICT

Bayart describes the process of reciprocal assimilation both during and

after colonialism. He characterizes the “production of ethnicity” as a
manifestation of colonial efforts to create classes while attributing class
conflict to precolonial or preexisting “racial” strife.76 In order to fully
understand the assimilation of elites during the first thirty to forty years
of the British protectorate, it is necessary to identify how the British cul-
 Stratification 33

tivated the elites, who the elites were, what institutions represented them,
and how their reciprocal relationship worked.77
The British government implemented Zanzibar’s first-phase political
“development” in six consecutive steps. Steps 1 and 2, Britain’s conversion
of land to property, its transplantation of European agricultural traditions and
its diminution of local chiefs, have already been discussed. During steps 3–6,
Britain created the Clove Growers Association (the CGA), the ethnic associa-
tions, and the EXCO and LEGCO. In furtherance of elite assimilation and the
expansion of the colonial state, the British created Indian mortgage compa-
nies, which came increasingly into conflict with Arab clove planters.
As mentioned earlier, former slave traders formed the Arab Association
(AA) in 1897. The AA’s initial aim was to try to convince the British to pay
Arabs compensation for the loss of slave trade revenue. Eventually, the Arab
Association, with the help of the British government began promoting the
notion that Zanzibar was an Arab state, with a dual Arab-British mandate.
The Arab Association began to argue that Arab economic interests should
prevail, and more specifically, that the British government allow Arabs sole
ownership of the land. While the Arab Association was among Zanzibar’s
most powerful economic organizations, the Indian Association (IA) ran a
close second. The IA represented Zanzibar’s prosperous financial class,
and as a result the IA soon found itself in conflict with the British colonial
government, the Arab planter/landlord class, and the Arab Association.78
Before the 1890s Arab plantation owners had a fairly good relationship
with Indian merchants who lent them money. After the British established the
protectorate Indians began forming networks and alliances to shore up their
financial interests. This networking culminated in the formation of the IA.
The IA represented the interests of the richest Indians, especially those who
held mortgages on Arab plantations. As a result, the orientation of the IA had
less to do with racial politics than with politics of creating wealth.79 When
the British created the Clove Growers Association, the economic competition
between the Indian and Arab Associations came to a threatening impasse.

THE CGA

The institution which most embodied the dynamic of British class differ-
entiation, debt production and rent-seeking was the Clove Growers As-
34 Chapter I

sociation. The British formed the CGA because the Indian financiers associ-
ated with the Indian Association were demanding higher and higher interest
payment on Arab plantation owners. Britain’s prohibition on slave trade and
its termination of income from the slave trade made it necessary for Arabs
to take out bigger and bigger loans. Ever-increasing British taxation made
it impossible for Arab planters to repay these Indian loans, and the Arabs
asked for British intervention, which led to the formation of the CGA.
Britain advanced the notion of an Arab-British dual mandate. Wealthy
Arabs dominated the CGA and the protectorate government gave them
special powers to inspect and evaluate the cloves of clove dealers. Indians
occupied the position of clove dealer. The British government required that
all clove dealers, including Indians, receive licenses from the CGA. Due to
the power of Arabs in the CGA, Zanzibar’s precarious balance of economic
interests temporarily shifted from Indian mortgage lenders to the Arab
clove growers. By the 1920s, Arab planters were the sole representatives
of the CGA. Britain’s final transferal of power occurred in 1937 when the
government compelled individual Indian clove dealers to obtain licenses,
and obliged them to buy cloves only from Arabs.80 Thus the British govern-
ment was directly responsible for promoting the emerging and continuing
conflicts between Arab planters and the Indian business class. Before the
protectorate, during the era of the slave trade, Arabs took Indian loans on
a competitive basis. As a result, pre-protectorate era loans usually carried
low interest that Arabs would pay back whether or not they made a profit
on their annual clove sales. Before the British established the CGA, Indians
were not monitored by the colonial state, which made the clove trade less
regulated but more competitive. These previous arrangements benefited
both small Arab/Shirazi planters as well as the Indian clove merchants.
Once the British ended slavery and Indians became exclusive managers
of loans in the protectorate, Arab planters began to feel that they were at a
distinct economic disadvantage. These conflicts emerged in the 1930s just
as the global economic depression rendered luxury items such as cloves
expendable. As a result of their losses sustained during the depression,
Indian mortgage lenders increased the interest on loans. The British, fear-
ing a collapse of the clove industry in Zanzibar, intervened and formed
the CGA. Due to the fact that Arabs governed the CGA, an organization
whose clients were often the very same Indian clove merchants who
floated Arab planters loans, the impasse worsened.81
 Stratification 35

The conflict between nascent elite planters and Indian bankers deepened
and tension developed into an intractable class cleavage. Eventually the In-
dians, and the Indian Association in particular, decided to boycott Zanzibar’s
clove industry. Zanzibar’s Indian Association asked India’s National Con-
gress, then essentially a liberation movement, to stage an Indian boycott on
Zanzibar’s exportation of cloves to the subcontinent. This was a serious de-
velopment because India was the largest importer of Zanzibar’s cloves. Once
again, the British government decided to intervene, leaving Zanzibar’s Indi-
ans at a disadvantage. Despite British assurances that the colonial government
would give Indians more power in the CGA, Zanzibar’s Arabs maintained
dominance and control. Meanwhile, the colonial government continued to
block Indians from acquiring plantations from bankrupt Arab planters. Thus,
British policy uniformly kept Indians as a landless financier class and landed
Arabs as cashless landlords, always in conflict with one another.
Despite this apparently intractable cleavage, Indians and Arabs shared
privileges unavailable to most Zanzibaris. Most wealthy Indians and Arabs
were conversant in English and Arabic. Most, if not all, sent their children to
private schools making them eligible to serve as British civil servants and rep-
resentatives of the British government over a large population of increasingly
aggrieved African laborers. Despite Swahili and Bantu attempts to get the
British to open the civil service to Africans and to working class individuals
of other groups, it remained closed. When the British created the legislative
committee, the LEGCO, and the executive committee, the EXCO, members
of Zanzibar’s labor classes thought these political organizations, while not
open with regards to membership, might at least acknowledge African politi-
cal grievances. However, despite increasing tensions between wealthy Indi-
ans and land-rich Arabs in Zanzibar’s “ethnic” and political organizations,
these individuals tacitly agreed with the basic premise of British rule. The co-
lonial government must continue to exclude Swahili-speaking laborers from
institutions where they might be able to advance their political and economic
aspirations to the detriment of Zanzibar’s minorities.

THE LEGCO AND EXCO

The rhetorical mandate of the LEGCO and EXCO were to ameliorate

“racial” tensions between Zanzibar’s various communal groups. In fact,
36 Chapter I

these organizations actually promoted Wakefield’s concept of suf-

ficient price, land accumulation, and conservative imperial class
federation and as such created more tensions than they relieved. The
British claimed that they created the LEGCO and EXCO to reduce
the manifestations of class tension between the business-finance class
(who happened to be Indians) and the landowning planter class (who
happened to be Arabs). The LEGCO and EXCO promoted the recipro-
cal assimilation of Zanzibar’s elite, who were responsible for various
aspects of Zanzibar’s plantation economy. However, because of the
adversarial nature of the plantation economy and the British role in the
powerful CGA, Indian lenders and Arab planters came into constant
conflict, even in the legislature.
Britain’s denials to the contrary, the LEGCO and the EXCO appointed
representatives who advanced the interests of their economic class rather
than their communal group.82 As such, the British promoted Indian clove
traders/financiers, rather Indian lawyers or shopkeepers. Similarly, the
British groomed Arab plantation owners and rich Shirazi planters to be
representatives of their communities, rather than individuals who were
outside the clove industry, or who may pose a threat to the narrow inter-
ests of the respective committees.83
Thus, the British government made the CGA an organization whose
primary function was to promote the economic interests of rich Arabs and
of the British colonial government. By contrast the EXCO and LEGCO
were designed to unify and translate conflicting planter-lender class in-
terests into a unified and focused economic agenda for the British crown.
Whereas British governance bred tension between Indians and Arabs over
cloves, which yielded cleavage between the Arabs and Africans over land
and language, these conflicts were the product of a clash of economic in-
terests, rather than racial, cultural, or religious values.84 Fredrick Cooper
argues:

The ties of religion, ethnicity, and clientage did not supersede the ties of
class but were used to maintain the domination of the planter class. Just as
the transformation of the relationship of the state to the plantation system
in the years after abolition helped to shape the interests and consciousness
of an upper class, so the same process slowly and incompletely helped to
shape a lower-class identity.85
 Stratification 37

From the beginning the Arab and Indian Associations pursued eco-
nomic agendas that were in direct opposition to one another. The Indian
Association committed itself to establishing Indians as the sole providers
of loans, and the main means for Arabs wishing to gain access to India’s
lucrative spice market. The Arab Association was, after the abolition of
slavery, almost solely interested in reducing its debt to Indian money-
lenders while preventing them from owning land. As mentioned earlier
the British managed this potentially explosive situation.86 The British took
the concept of Arab/British dual mandate of government very seriously
because it furthered Britain’s economic goals.
Consistent with Wakefield’s formulation of conservative imperialism,
the British government established the CGA, EXCO, and LEGCO during
its first phase of colonial control. As with Wakefield’s theory of suffi-
cient price, the primary objective of the CGA, LEGCO, and EXCO was
to promote the interests of the British government and those of the Arab
minority ruling class. During the first phase of colonial rule, protector-
ate administrators cultivated class-based institutions that would govern
the plantation economy and generate British revenue. The protectorate
government often pursued its first-phase economic objectives by finding
willing allies within the LEGCO, EXCO, and CGA. The colonial admin-
istration pitted Zanzibar’s ruling, financial, and labor classes against one
another, hoping to promote British interests, then “managing” the conflict
that emerged to prevent violence.

CONCLUSION

The British colonial office made ex-slaves wage workers and made plant-
ers landlords, rigidifying classes and creating an impenetrable class hier-
archy that in the first phase of colonial rule stratified individuals accord-
ing to their debt level and access to land. During the first phase of colonial
rule, the British government encouraged specific social dynamics that
would continue through all four phases of colonial rule and into the early
years of colonial independence. The success of a plantation economy
required that the government exaggerate differences between wealthy
Indian lenders and wealthy Arab borrowers, between middle-class Shirazi
38 Chapter I

and Arab farm owners, and among poor Shirazi and their poorer Swahili
and Bantu counterparts.
Colonial authorities cultivated these differences by creating land own-
ership policies unique to each group, depending on their heritage and
geographical location. In a radical departure from its policies concerning
most small farmers, the British government allowed Pemba Shirazi the
right to retain their land and control over their cash-crop harvest. Con-
versely, the government refused to allow Unguja Shirazi the same access
to their land or the right to control their farms. In an analogous strategy,
the colonial government pressured Arabs to acquire more land from Afri-
can Shirazi than they could cultivate, while refusing Indians who wanted
to own clove farms the right to purchase land. These policies displaced
Swahili-speaking farmers, created Arab-African cleavage, and fostered
conflict between Indians and Arabs.
During Britain’s second phase of colonial rule, conflicts between Indians
and Africans and Africans and Arabs emerged and intensified as the govern-
ment made education an instrument of class cleavage. In the second phase,
the British phase 1 system of economic stratification, a program based on
debt acquisition and land dispossession, was augmented by disparities in
linguistic acquisition and academic opportunities. These disparities trans-
lated into differences in educational attainment and social status. Together
these inequalities reduced opportunities for upward mobility, a trend that
affected African Zanzibaris, individually and collectively.87
I now turn to Britain’s implementation of its phase 2 educational policies
and its attempt to characterize phase 1 class differentiation as phase 2 racial
conflict.88 Chapter II further analyzes how these new educational hierar-
chies affected Arab-African linguistic, economic, and political relations.

NOTES

1. The larger of the two islands, Unguja is often called Zanzibar Island, while
Pemba Island is sometimes simply called Pemba. When referring to both islands
they are simply referred to as Zanzibar.
2. The connection between European feudalism and transatlantic plantations
economies is discussed in Philip Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation
Complex: Essays in Atlantic History (London: University of Cambridge Press,
1990).
 Stratification 39

3. John Martin, From Feudalism to Capitalism (New York: MacMillan Press,

1983), 58–68.
4. R. H. Hilton, English and French Towns in Feudal Society: A Comparative
Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 12. As mentioned before,
European peasants were also refused ownership of industrial materials.
5. G. W. S. Barrow, Feudal Britain: The Completion of the Medieval King-
doms, 1066–1314 (London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1956), 43; and John Martin,
From Feudalism to Capitalism, 36.
6. Martin, From Feudalism to Capitalism, 34.
7. Ibid.
8. Despite the contentious nature of the hide system, some feudal workers
united and formed large-scale revolts toward the end of the fourteenth century. See
R. H. Britnell, The Commercialization English Society 1000–1500 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993), 224–26.
9. F. M. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, 1066–1166 (Oxford:
The Ford Lectures, 1950), 117.
10. Regarding the relative size of communal land in Africa and Europe, see
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington, D.C.: Howard
University Press, 1982), 36.
11. In many respects the feudal system in medieval Mali was similar to the
shamba system of land distribution among eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Zan-
zibari Bantu and Shirazi populations. For a thorough discussion of Middle Eastern
and North African patron-client arrangements, see Philip Khouri, Urban Notables
and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus 1860–1920 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1983); Halim Barakat, The Arab World: Society, Culture,
and State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); see Middleton and
Campbell, From Child to Adult: Studies in Anthropology of Education, 30–31.
12. Basil Davidson, The African Slave Trade (London: Little Brown and Co.,
1980), 46 and 99.
13. The ancient north African practice of treating communities as collectively re-
sponsible for tax burdens was reinforced by a similar Ottoman tradition introduced
by aristocratic rulers beginning in medieval north Africa and continuing into the
nineteenth century; see Kenneth M. Cuno, The Pasha’s Peasants in Lower Egypt,
1740–1858 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 35.
14. African slaves could “own” land the way other free persons in Africa
“owned” land, i.e., they had exclusive use of the land and its products. Often the
chief retained the deed rights and veto powers over its disposal, sale, and legal
status. See B. Davidson, Africa in History (New York: Macmillan, 1969), and H.
Labouret, Africa before the White Man (New York: Walker & Co., 1962).
15. Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 61.
40 Chapter I

16. When tax was collected in cash it was collected and paid by the entire vil-
lage. When fluctuations in currency or acts of nature prevented the sale of crops,
then taxes were often paid in kind; Cuno, The Pasha’s Peasants in Lower Egypt,
29. The Ottoman timariot system was similar to the Omani “squatting” arrangement
discussed earlier in this chapter.
17. Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements
of Iraq (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978); Nikki Keddie, Roots
of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1981); Charles Issawi, An Economic History of the Middle East
and North Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).
18. Alan Richards and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), 43
19. Ali A. Mazrui, Cultural Forces in World Politics (London: James Currey,
1990), 69.
20. Abdul Sheriff and Ed Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule (Athens:
Ohio University Press, 1991), 20.
21. This aspect of phase 2 colonization is reflected in Fatton’s second site and
is discussed in chapter II of this book. The exception to this norm to colonial rule
based on linguistic privilege is present in the German experiment in Tanganyika
that will be discussed later.
22. W. P. Morrell, British Colonial Policy: In the Age of Peel and Russell (Lon-
don: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1966), 476–77. Although all these men considered
themselves liberals, pursuing liberal policies such as granting Canadians a measure
of autonomy from the British government worried them.
23. Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians (New York:
Macmillan & Co., 1965), 77–79.
24. Prime Minister George Canning served as the leader of a coalition of
liberal Tories and conservative Whigs. In 1807, as foreign secretary, and then
in 1827, as prime minister, Canning “opened” Latin America for British com-
merce, supported Greece against the Turkish Empire, and the Spanish-Ameri-
can colonies against Spain. He condemned the French revolution, and during
his tenure as prime minister withdrew Great Britain from the alliance with
Austria, Prussia, and Russia, called the Congress system. His bold and acquisi-
tive policies, though very beneficial to Britain, were often considered by many
of his opponents to be opportunistic.
25. John Cannon, The Oxford Companion to British History (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997), 417 and 720. In many respects “conservative imperialists”
of the late Victorian era took their cues from this “Rule-Britannia!” Liberal-Whig
prime minister.
 Stratification 41

26. Bernard Semmel, The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire: Theories
from Adam Smith to Lenin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993),
111 and 169.
27. Semmel, The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire, 57.
28. Morrell, British Colonial Policy, 6.
29. White is in parentheses here because, in various colonies—notably, Zanzi-
bar—where whites could not be induced to immigrate, an indigenous aristocratic
minority, such as Omani Arabs, was often cultivated to serve as a political proxy
for Britain’s ruling class.
30. In 1838 a rebellion in Canada led the British government to send British
Premier Lord Grey’s son-in-law, Lord John Lambton Durham, to investigate the
situation and write a report. Durham was called “Radical Jack” because of his
campaign for social reforms that would expand suffrage in England. Premier Grey
thought that his well-known “radical” ideas would instill confidence, and that Lord
Durham would be able to comprehend the Canadian perspective. Grey believed
Durham possessed political finesse and as such, would make him the most effective
representative of the British government. At Durham’s behest, Gibbon Wakefield
accompanied him to Canada; see Cannon, The Oxford Companion to British His-
tory, 316. Unlike Durham, Wakefield thought that the Canadians were being cod-
dled. Wakefield argued that white settlers were too demanding and rather than being
indulged by England they should learn to oblige their mother country. Ultimately,
Wakefield disagreed both with Durham’s recommendations, and with Premier Grey
and Prime Minister Russell’s conclusion, that white settlers in Canada as well as
those in New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa would have to be given more
autonomy. Russell, in particular, argued that Britain’s colonial ventures should be
tempered by its “imperial responsibilities” to “protect” white settlers and “civilize”
black natives; see Earl Grey, The Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell’s Adminis-
tration (Richard Bently, publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty, 1853; reprinted in
August Kelly, 1970), 79.
31. Wakefield became personally entangled in the debate over devolution, argu-
ing that the trend toward expanding colonial self-governance was a personal attack
on his economic theories. Wakefield charged P. M. Russell, Lord Grey, and Prime
Minister Gladstone with neglecting the sufficient price model; Morrell, British
Colonial Policy, 478. Yet, despite the fact that his approach was unpopular during
the liberal regimes, Wakefield’s sufficient price model survived, and ultimately
became central to land policies implemented by the conservative imperialists who
succeeded Gladstone.
32. Morrell, British Colonial Policy, 473.
33. The indigenous Afro-Arab forms of feudalism will be discussed later.
42 Chapter I

34. The business interests and the Disraeli-Chamberlain vision of foreign policy
toward Africa was challenged by J. A. Hobson who argued that imperialism repudi-
ated free trade and suggested that efforts to open foreign markets distracted Europe
from expanding its own continental markets. He characterized imperialism as a
corrupt vestige of feudalism. Similarly, Thomas Veblen, a contemporary of Hob-
son, argued that imperialism only benefited Europe’s financial class at the expense
of its common men; Semmel, The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire, 57.
Ultimately Hobson and Veblen’s work became one of the basis for Marxist, neo-
Marxist, and world systems critique of European colonialism.
35. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1999), 210–12.
36. Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex, 17–25.
37. Esmond Bradley Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution (London:
Hamish Hamilton, 1978), 32.
38. The “Liberal” imperialism of the early Victorian era, with its tentative colo-
nial ventures, gave way to voracious imperial expansion by the mid-1870s. Recall-
ing the successes of Palmerston and Foreign Secretary Canning, the conservative
government of the late 1870s began a set of foreign policies that ushered the era
of the scramble for Africa. The scramble for Africa in the 1890s and the imperial
policies that preceded it by two decades were the logical extension of conservative
British imperialism. In 1874, Conservative Premier Benjamin Disraeli defeated the
Liberal Gladstone government by appealing to “disenchanted Palmerstonians,” who
wanted fewer reforms within Britain and more expansion overseas.
39. During the era of late Victorian imperialism the role and temperament of
the colonial administrator, usually called the colonial governor, and his relationship
with his direct supervisor in Britain’s colonial and foreign offices became very im-
portant in the nature of scope of a particular colonial enterprise. In the years after the
rebellion of 1838, the colonial governor in Canada was able to persuade the home
office that devolution of power to the settlers was in the best interest of keeping
England out of war in the far north. By contrast, Sir George Napier, colonial gov-
ernor in South Africa persuaded Undersecretary Hope that the expansion of British
settlements and colonial law were consistent with the needs of the “natives” and
they (and the Boers) would eventually submit. Though Napier was succeeded by a
series of more moderate governors, the Boer War broke out fifty years later because
of the unresolved territorial conflicts that preceded apartheid.
40. The conversion of land into property and the transference of Britain’s feudal
traditions are the first and second of six aspects of Britain’s site 1 policies in Zanzi-
bar described in the beginning of this chapter.
41. Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex, 48–49.
42. Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 1991.
 Stratification 43

43. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Toronto: Warner Books,
1991), 35; and Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 192.
44. Between the years 1850 and 1870 the international demands for cloves
increased exponentially, the European powers began their intensive interest in Af-
rica which culminated in the Berlin conference dubbed “the scramble for Africa,”
hosted, ironically, in Zanzibar. Due to Sultan Said’s tenuous military power vis-à-
vis East Africa’s new European actors, Said was forced to cede official control of
Zanzibar to Britain. A few years later Zanzibar became a British protectorate.
45. India’s role as submetropole was due to its role as the proverbial jewel in
Britain’s political empire.
46. A comprehensive treatment of the various indigenous agricultural schemes
and their subsequent commercial modifications, see Robert Debussmann and Stefan
Arnold’s Land Law and Land Ownership in Africa.
47. The most basic unit of Shirazi political organization, consistent with their
tradition of kinship-based land use, is a “bilateral kinship group” called the ukoo.
The ukoo is divided into kinship subgroups called the tumbo, or womb, and the
mlango, or door. Members of the tumbo and the mlango share an “inalienable piece
of land” called the kiambo. More often than not a kiambo was land that fell within
the limits of a particular town. The main feature of the kiambo land system was that
it was an unalienable land shared by relatives who could not sell land without the
permission of others in their kinship group and never to outsiders. This feature of
Shirazi land ownership made their economic and social identity quite distinct from
both the Arabs and the Swahili, who increasingly became indebted or were forced to
sell their land. The ukoo to whom a given kiambo belonged often lived in different,
albeit neighboring, towns, which meant that visiting members of the ukoo diaspora
had rights to the land as tenants. Rather than being a source of intra-Shirazi griev-
ance, this expanded concept of land use strengthened Shirazi social bonds, as did
the other economic traditions of bride-wealth and funeral expenses that held most
ukoo together; Middleton and Campbell, 1965, 32–37.
48. Ancient maritime records indicate that the first millennium Indonesian
cinnamon trade had its African entry point through the coastal cities of modern
Somalia, Zanzibar, and Kenya. These ancient port cities then traded cinnamon and
other spices among themselves. By the sixteenth century the confluence of Por-
tuguese colonialism and Swahili rule created a two-way trade of amber, ivory as
well as various spices. More than that, Zanzibar was considered the ideal stopping
point/resting area for weary Europeans on their way to India; G. F. Hourani, Arab
Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1950).
49. As Shirazi dynasties waned due to interclan rivalries, Swahili families emerged
as natural leaders of these cites and supplanted Shirazi rule in the late fifteenth
44 Chapter I

century. The Mazrui family, one of the most prominent families, left the Shirazi
political structures in place and simply acted as the chief over the Shirazi’s many
local clan leaders and political deputies. When the Swahili families began to
prevail over Shirazi rulers and their local Shirazi headmen, known as sheha, the
Swahili organized villages and towns into political units called miji and kijiji
respectively. Towns and villages were divided into smaller areas, wards, called
mtaa. Swahili towns were governed by four Watu Wakuu (Great Men), but the
Swahili great men retained the Shirazi sheha as their adjutants.
50. As mentioned earlier, by the early eighteenth century the Omani Yorubi
dynasty had, with the encouragement of East Africa’s Shirazi and Swahili coastal
rulers, displaced the Portuguese. In 1745 the Busaidi dynasty replaced the Yorubi
as the effective rulers of Oman. In the 1880s the Swahili Mazrui clan was ruling
Pemba through a liwali, or deputy of the family. Two Wapemeba (Shirazi) diwani
or local rulers sought help from Sultan Seyyid Said bin Sultan. The sultan overthrew
the Mazrui and decided to defeat and capture Mazrui held Mombasa and then relo-
cated his court to Zanzibar; Middleton and Campbell, 3–4.
51. E. B. Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 40. Sultan Seyyid Said,
who established Zanzibar as the Omani capital, died in 1856 and was succeeded
by Seyyid Majid his son who ruled until 1870, and then by a younger son Sultan
Seyyid Barghash bin Said, who ruled until 1888 and was responsible for expanding
the sharia system and bringing more qadis to be sent into the interior of Zanzibar’s
towns and villages; Middleton and Campbell, 5. Sultan Seyyid Khalifa succeeded
bin Said Sultan Barghash, Barghash’s youngest brother, in 1888, but reigned only
for two years until 1890. Threats from Germany and France prompted Sultans
Barghash and Khalifa to accept British protection in November 1890. Between
1890 and 1911 Sultans Seyyid Ali bin Said, Seyyid Hamed bin Thwain, and
Seyyid Hammoud and his son Seyyid Ali bin Hammoud ruled in rapid succession,
each conceding more authority to the British colonial government. In 1911 Seyyid
Khalifa bin Harrub, a great-grandson of the founder Seyyid Said bin Sultan, suc-
ceeded and ruled, with limited power and at the indulgence of the British, until
1960; R. N. Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times (London: Hurst and Blacknett,
Ltd., 1905).
52. Anthony Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath (London: C.
Hurst and Company, 1981), 3 and 21; and Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under
Colonial Rule, 117. The most obvious of these dislocations was of the Arab (and
then the British) co-option of the Swahili/Shirazi Mwinyi Mkuu, traditional chiefs
or lords on the main island (Unguja). This was significant occurrence in the lives of
most African Zanzibaris, because the Mwinyi Mkuu were traditionally considered
the sole legal and political representatives of rural peasants. The Mwinyi Mkuu dy-
nasty was absorbed, co-opted, exiled, and ultimately died out in 1873.
 Stratification 45

53. Although slavery and feudalism were parallel and largely unrelated subcul-
tures in the Middle East, during Oman’s brief foray into cash cropping these two
cultures converged. In Zanzibar this meant that as the clove industry grew through-
out the late nineteenth century, Omani dependence on slave labor increased as well.
After 1870 slave capture expanded and the individual slave tenure lengthened until
Omani slavery no longer resembled eighteenth-century New World indenture, but
instead more closely favored sixteenth-century European serfdom. Despite that,
the vast majority of Zanzibar’s African population was comprised of free men and
women who worked as subsistence farmers. However, Oman’s unusual economic
experiment made it much easier for Britain to graft its transplanted and less benign
sharecropping/plantation system onto the Omani clove industry than it would have
been had Sultan Seyyid clung to more traditional Omani norms governing slave
tenure and manumission. See Frederick Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980).
54. Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule.
55. Economic mobility was possible under Omani rule because education
in basic Arabic was attainable in the Omani system of mandatory kindergarten
through elementary Koranic schooling. Knowledge of basic Arabic was a neces-
sary condition for work in the public sector. However, appointment to positions
in the Arabic civil service was also governed by a code of patronage and a large
measure of serendipity. When the British took over they made entry to civil
service even more remote. They also eliminated the Omani waqf and modified
the sharia judicial system. These were crucial elements in the Omani social in-
frastructure responsible for making the political system appear open and which
helped adjudicate Arab-African land disputes. Without these accommodations
the political system appeared, and was indeed closed to those without kinship or
patronage ties.
56. E. B. Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 40.
57. John M. Gray, History of Zanzibar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964),
57.
58. Michael Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1965), 43–51.
59. For an analysis of French acquisition of Algerian land, see John Ruedy, Land
Policy in Colonial Algeria (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), 13,
24–25, 87, 99–105.
60. As mentioned earlier, like Fatton’s first site, this first phase of Zanzibar’s
political development, which occurred during the beginning of British protection,
corresponds to the first stage of the five-stage model of social relations. See Donald
M. Taylor and Fathali Moghaddam, Theories of Intergroup Relations (Westport,
Conn.: Praeger Press, 1987), 157; see also the introduction of this book.
46 Chapter I

61. Frederick Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980), 58; and W. H. Ingrams, Zanzibar: Its
History and Its People (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967), 29–32 and 122. The
term Wahadimu refers to the largest tribe of Afro-Iranian Shirazi. They inhabit
mainly the eastern cost of Unguja and in larger concentrations throughout southern
Unguja. Some speak only Bantu dialects others are conversant in both Swahili and
Bantu dialects.
62. Gray, History of Zanzibar, 57.
63. Language, and specifically the ability to speak Arabic, became an issue
among Pembans on the eve of Zanzibar’s colonial independence, when Zanzi-
baris formed political alliances based on wealth and linguistic affiliation.
64. See Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 1991; E. B.
Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 1978; Michael Lofchie, Zanzibar:
Background to Revolution, 1965; Anthony Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and
its Aftermath, 1981. When Britain converted land from communitarian, shamba,
waqf, and Shirazi systems to private property, it issued these decrees in English and
Arabic. The government subsequently published these and other laws in Arabic or
English. Most Bantu-Swahili laborers could not read Arabic script or understand
English and could not resist or challenge these orders. Further under British pro-
tection, Islamic sharia courts, which originally permitted that proceedings be held
in the Swahili language, were replaced by a judicial system that was conducted in
English or Arabic only. Furthermore, under British rule, the main source of Swahili
education, the Koranic school system fell into decline. The details of this decline
will be discussed in chapter II.
65. While slavery ended in 1897 by official treaty between Britain and Oman,
Great Britain had two policies regarding African/Middle Eastern slavery, which
made Omanis suspect of their motives. Between 1500 and 1807 Britain uncon-
ditionally encouraged slavery. However, with Britain’s early 1800 conversion to
wage labor, slavery was provisionally discouraged, depending on the relationship
with and relative power of Britain’s political subordinate. See Curtin, The Rise and
Fall of the Plantation Complex, 143.
66. Robert Fatton, Predatory Rule: State and Civil Society in Africa (Boulder,
Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992), 7 and 55–56.
67. The British tax on Zanzibari clove growers, ultimately created one of the
greatest sources of revenue for the British crown anywhere in Africa, exceeded
only by British holdings in Asia, and India, in particular. Beginning in the 1870s,
as the British influence dominated the Omani state, and the government increased
domicile and land taxes. By 1886, four years before the beginning of the official
protectorate, 30 percent of British revenue came from the sale of the clove crop.
By 1896, the British created a direct 25 percent tax on clove production, where
 Stratification 47

none had existed before, deriving wealth at the beginning and at the terminus of
clove production—leaving very little clove wealth for Zanzibar itself. While this
new tax on cloves had to be paid in pounds sterling, it was largely administered
by Arab civil servants who reported to the sultan and the crown—thereby putting
an elite Arabic face on a monarchical English practice; Sheriff and Ferguson,
Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 32, and Michael F. Lofchie, Zanzibar: Back-
ground to Revolution, 55. Sheriff and Ferguson argue that as much as 90 percent
of Zanzibari state revenue was raised through taxes on clove production, workers,
and small farm owners.
68. Chris Jones in Robert Debussman and Arnold, Land Law and Land Own-
ership in Africa, 142–44. Once converted from land, the designated property
was in some instances owned by Omanis, but in many cases, it was owned by
the British government, administered to Anglo-Indian holding companies, but
leased to Omanis.
69. Frederick Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters, 220–32. Cooper’s analysis of
this process is comprehensive.
70. Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution, 107. Islamic banking princi-
ples eschew incurring debt and participating in interest bearing economic activity.
71. Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times, 271–72. In return for their service,
the British government acknowledged the Indian community as Zanzibar’s official
financial class and retained special privileges as citizens of the British Common-
wealth.
72. Vagrancy laws induced squatters to pay rent and to plant cloves all year long
in contravention to age old Omani norms governing crop rotation.
73. Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters, 37. In actuality the Arabs found that
everyone would be taxed and despite the increase in coerced African labor and Af-
rican taxation, Arab debt burden to the British crown and Indian lenders continued
to increase exponentially.
74. Promoting the short term economic interests of Zanzibar’s elite (and the
British government) ultimately undermined Zanzibar’s indigenous economic plu-
ralism and replaced it with a hierarchy of class interests that came to dominate the
government.
75. Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution, 99
76. In the case of political development in Zanzibar these occurred during the
colonial era, and corresponded to the first and second sites of the three-site model
and phases/stages 1 and 2 of the five-phase and five-stage model.
77. The end of the slave trade and the beginning of the British Protectorate led to
great economic upheaval on Unguja and Pemba. Whereas the economy was diversi-
fied, the British plantation economy and the centralization of government created
class interests, even as the classes were just coming into being.
48 Chapter I

78. Omar R. Mapuri, The 1964 Revolution: Achievements and Prospects

(Dar-es-Salaam: Tema Publishers), 1996.
79. The African Association formed in 1920, and the Shirazi Association
formed in 1938, were established in reaction to the economic advantage enjoyed
by the Arab and Indian Associations. The former organizations will be discussed
in chapter II, which covers Britain’s second phase of colonial rule—the creation
of sociological methods of control, the site of working-class disarticulation.
80. As opposed to Shirazi and Swahili farmers, who were more willing to ac-
cept a lower price for their cloves.
81. Very often the British colonial government benefited from promoting,
then managing class conflict.
82. The LEGCO and EXCO were created by decree. They were appointed
bodies. The LEGCO members included four ex-officio members, while the Brit-
ish nominated five official members and eight unofficial members were nomi-
nated by the sultan, including three Arabs, two “Africans” who were uniformly
Shirazi and usually wealthy, two Asians (Indians), and one European. The Arab
and Indian Associations were give then privilege of submitting the names for
consideration to the LEGCO and EXCO positions. The EXCO members included
the sultan heir apparent, four ex-officio members (the same individuals in the
LEGCO), and three official members were British officers nominated by the
British resident, who, with the sultan, presided as vice-president and president,
respectively. From 1926 to 1955 the LEGCO and EXCO remained unchanged.
Eventually, in 1955 by official decree the LEGCO was expanded to twenty-five
members. In 1955 six members would be placed on a common roll to be elected
by Zanzibar’s registered voters.
83. While there were wealthy Arab businessmen working in other industries,
as well poorer Shirazi shamba (clove farm) owners, these on the whole were
denied access to either the LECGO or EXCO.
84. There were cleavages among Africans, between African mainlanders and
the older pre-nineteenth-century residents, cleavages between town and rural
dwellers, and most importantly between small African planters who hired African
peasant or migrant labor and those migrant/peasants themselves. Curiously, the
British did not exploit these cleavages very successfully, and by the 1940s the
non-Shirazi African labor class began developing a fairly well integrated ideol-
ogy of African labor unity.
85. Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters, 170.
86. Despite Britain’s best efforts, Indian boycotts of the CGA and Arab coun-
ter boycotts of Indian clove traders led to conflict in 1938, when Arab militia
formed and began threatening violence (ironically) against Indian shopkeepers.
Ultimately the Arabs tried to end the Indian boycott by appealing to Muslim
 Stratification 49

Indians and to the rich clove exporters of the Indian National Association (who
viewed themselves as separate from the less wealthy rural Indian shopkeepers).
Ultimately the Indian National Congress became involved and threatened to enact
an Indian embargo against Zanzibari cloves. Finally the colonial government of
India and the Indian office in London sent India’s British resident, J. Hawthorn
Hall, to Zanzibar to resolve the dispute. A treaty named the “Heads of Agree-
ment” created a charter or rules of business conduct that governed Zanzibar’s
Indian clove exporters and the Arab CGA. The charter required Indians to buy
cloves from the CGA, at a base price, but stipulated that the CGA would no
longer exercise authority over the export of cloves. The British hoped with this
agreement to manage Arab indebtedness so that it never threatened Arab owner-
ship of land; Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution, 123–26.
87. In the five-stage model conflict that arises from not letting the disadvan-
taged group advance. However, this conflict is diffused if “talented” but disad-
vantaged individuals are allowed to “pass “ into the privileged group. Chapter II
discusses how the British government frustrated stage/phase 3 linguistic “pass-
ing.” The protectorate’s exclusive educational system prevented the majority of
Zanzibaris from learning either Arabic or English and prevented them from pass-
ing into the privileged classes.
88. This technique of representing class conflict as racial conflict is consistent
with Fatton’s discussion of class disarticulation.
 II
Disarticulation

A s suggested in the first chapter, and as with most empires, the British rule
focused on extracting wealth from its new trade routes and on expanding its
territory. Europe’s tentative exploration of new worlds during the Elizabethan
age gave way to its enthusiastic trade of slaves and to imperial expansion of
British Victorians. In the Zanzibari protectorate the British government
expanded Omani organizations as a means of furthering British colonial au-
thority. The colonial government eliminated institutions that might challenge
the rapid economic expansion that characterized the Victorian era.
This chapter examines how a range of British philosophies beginning
in the late 1700s, and continuing throughout the Victorian and Edward-
ian eras, influenced Britain’s colonization of Zanzibar. Britain’s phase 1
policies established a plantation economy. These policies inspired British
second-phase policies that sought to create a plantation culture. During
the second phase of colonial rule, the composition, nature, and interests
of liberal and conservative imperialism became more subtle and complex.
As the membership of Britain’s political camps changed, the nature of
debates concerning the most effective means of colonizing Africa ex-
panded. The first camp, formerly the liberal camp, became the “three Cs”
(Christianity, commerce, and civilization) camp, and ultimately evolved
into the indirect rule/dual mandate camp.1 The other school belonged to
conservative imperialists. In the late nineteenth century the writings and
observations of industrialists residing in the British colonies—most nota-
bly, Cecil Rhodes—dominated “conservative imperialism.” Conservative

51
52 Chapter II

imperialists associated with scholars in the field of social Darwinism

and strategized with politicians who advocated “new imperialism.”2 In
the twentieth century, conservative imperialists changed their name to
the “new imperialists.” New imperialists argued that Africa’s best, most
resourceful, and fertile land was “white man’s country.”3
Beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing into the mid-
twentieth century, the dual mandate camp became engrossed in three
important debates with the new imperialist camp. These debates greatly
influenced Britain’s second phase of colonial rule in Zanzibar. The first
debate concerned divergent Victorian ideas regarding the respective
educability of Europe’s working-class whites and Africans of all back-
grounds. The second debate pertained to the duties or responsibilities of
Europe’s imperial powers toward those they colonized. The latter debate
focused on the role white and non-white foreign settlers should play in
determining the nature of colonial government in Africa.4 Ultimately, the
powerful mercantile interests of the new imperialists camp prevailed. This
was especially true during the second and third phases of colonial rule,
when new imperialism dominated social discourse and overwhelmed the
dual mandate sensibilities, championing universal education. In that vein,
Zanzibar’s phase 2 colonial government expanded its phase 1 program
and increased the plantation workforce. It promoted the reciprocal as-
similation of the financial and planter elite beyond the narrow confines
of adult economic organization into the protectorate’s official program of
primary education.
Following an examination of the origins and history of British edu-
cational philosophy, this chapter will discuss how a variety of colonial
ideologies and a small group of political actors defined second-phase
educational policy in Zanzibar.5 The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate
that after Britain created a rigidly stratified economic system during the
first phase of rule, it exacerbated economic cleavage by creating a strati-
fied educational system during the second phase of colonial governance.
During the second phase, the colonial administration issued various policy
statements and published documents that suggested that British rule af-
forded Zanzibar a greater degree of working-class social advancement
than it had enjoyed under Omani rule. The colonial government suggested
that under British governance class cleavage did not exist, and, further,
that political conflict in the Zanzibar protectorate was the result of an-
 Disarticulation 53

cient racial divisions.6 Thus, British phase 2 social policy, like its phase
1 economic policy, promoted what Robert Fatton calls working-class
disarticulation.7
Meanwhile, Zanzibar’s plantation economy and Britain’s phase 1 eco-
nomic institutions continued to severely limit individual or group mobility
throughout the second phase of colonial rule. In an effort to diffuse blame
and evade social responsibility for communal tensions in Zanzibar, the
colonial government promoted the idea that group conflict was the result
not of the extractive and competitive nature of the plantation economy, but
rather of Zanzibar’s intrinsic racial heterogeneity. The campaign to promote
economic and political disarticulation and call it racial strife is described
by Francois Bayart as the shadow theater of ethnicity.8 In Zanzibar, British
educational orthodoxy, developed by the protectorate government in the
nineteenth century and implemented in the second phase of colonial rule,
argued that popular education should promote only the agricultural realities
of life in Africa. As such, individuals and groups should advance gradually.
According to the political orthodoxy of the day, this incremental progress
should be measured by the level of tribute given to the British government
in the form of taxes raised or services rendered to the colonial administra-
tion. Consistent with the nominal educational opportunities afforded the
average white resident of the British Isles, Britain’s colonial program for
African “civilization” was similarly modest.9

THE EMERGENCE OF BRITAIN’S SCHOOL SYSTEM

The emergence of universal education in Britain was mainly the out-

growth of pressure by interest groups that came largely from religious
communities. For the “Non-Conformists,” and the “evangelical wing” of
the Anglican Church, the explicit goal of expanding British education was
to encourage students to read the Bible and commit to a Christian life. In
addition, or perhaps in reaction to the efforts of religious organizations, a
very small group of individuals, not affiliated with religious institutions,
promoted African literacy. Many of these worked alone, or in small insti-
tutions that advanced secular instruction.10
Members of the Victorian intelligentsia were also members of the landed
and mercantile classes. They were, therefore, not especially enthusiastic
54 Chapter II

about popular education. Similarly, social theories of the late eighteenth

and early nineteenth century suggested that education was wasted on the
poor and laboring classes. More specifically, the Romantic movement
disparaged formal education and crowded urban living. It celebrated the
country life as solitary but suffused with opportunities for personal medi-
tation and growth. In reality, the vast majority of poor eighteenth-century
farmer-tenants lacked the time for personal reflection or the means for
formal education.11 By the early nineteenth century the urban businesses
of the industrial revolution were recruiting a vast number of rural workers
for British cities.
As whole farming communities moved to British cities, early nineteenth-
century Utilitarians argued that urban schools should tailor education to
the economic class of the student and his/her likely profession. Schools
reserved the most advanced curriculum for a small group of students,
those who could improve their talents and connections by such an educa-
tion, and who in turn could advance British interests to the furthest extent.
The Utilitarians often juxtaposed the poor and other, Global South “lower
orders” with wealthy Global North “industrious classes.” Utilitarians were
neither entirely convinced of vertical social mobility, nor fully committed
to the democratizing realities of popular education.12
At the same time that ideologues began acknowledging Utilitarianism
as an important field of economic analysis, the study of race emerged as
a popular facet of social Darwinism. Though initially inspired by Charles
Darwin’s scientific concept of evolutionary (natural) selection, social
Darwinism developed into a study of racial differentiation and political
preferences. One of the most troubling aspects of social Darwinism was
its celebration of caste and class hierarchies, and its repudiation of social
programs that aided “the weak,” or the poor. Ultimately the Romantics,
the Utilitarians, and the social Darwinists advanced a type of idealized
social order where the poor remained quiet, restrained, and thoroughly
dominated by the “skilled” classes.13 Thus, eighteenth-century philoso-
phies about the “natural order of things” were not much different from the
ideologies that energized the caste system of Europe’s feudal era.14
From the medieval era well into the industrial era, the British govern-
ment classified European laborers according to the skills they acquired
by birthright. Government classified households into economic units, and
it assigned children value based on their “economic contribution” to that
 Disarticulation 55

household.15 When children were young they kept busy completing their
household chores and animal husbandry. As they got older, children worked
either in the “open field system” where they planted crops all year long, or
toiled in the newly expanding industrial economy. Thus, for most European
children, education was considered a luxury.16 To that end, many Victorian
scholars argued that with the exception of Britain’s “new elite” mercantile
classes, the majority of Britain’s working classes were innately incapable of
mastering the sciences, abstract thinking, literature, or advanced math.17 In
colonial Africa, a desire to expand Europe’s industrial revolution and create
a parallel workforce led to similarly pseudo-scientific arguments regarding
the costs and benefits of educating Africans.18
Britain’s earliest concept of life in Africa was parceled together from
ancient narratives of early Greek explorers and the contemporary and
formal accounts of Portuguese colonials, as well as the anecdotes of Brit-
ish mercenaries who sailed along the west coast of Africa.19 Like most
good yarns, the more fantastic the story, the more it bore repetition.20
As a result, the accounts about life in Africa that got the most attention
were those exaggerated, sometimes fabricated, tales that simultaneously
captivated and distressed their audiences.21 Many narratives portrayed
even the most mundane local customs as wildly exotic and potentially
threatening.22 Furthermore, the attitudes and beliefs of the most fantastic
aspects of one region were used to imagine life in regions as yet unknown
to Europeans.23
As England’s common people were first hearing about life in Africa,
the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the scope of her empire surpassed the
Portuguese system, meeting Spain’s vast naval power. By the late nine-
teenth century, British slaving missions in Africa gave way to early and
tentative colonial settlement.24 In the mid- to late Victorian era the appeals
of private business interests and the official policy of the British govern-
ment began reflecting a desire to colonize Africa. These early imperialists
agreed that the crown should implement colonization, but differed on the
scope and nature of the enterprise.
The political tensions that characterized domestic social policy dur-
ing the mid-Victorian era became even more pronounced when the
British foreign office began formulating social policy in the colonies.
During the first phase of colonial rule the tension between “liberal” and
“conservative” imperialists affected whether and how often the crown
56 Chapter II

should acquire colonies and how the British government should imple-
ment land and taxation policies. In the second phase, influenced by the
highly personal philosophies of colonial authorities and African reaction
to the colonial experience, British policy grew subtler. Two major points
of contention between the rival philosophies of conservative and liberal
imperialism remained. More specifically, these differences arose from the
crown’s formulation of colonial educational policy, as well as the type of
political participation best suited for Africa’s indigenous populations.25
Conservative direct rule imperialists, like many liberal indirect rule
imperialists, advanced the notion that the best of African land and wealth
was entirely available for colonial consumption.26 Insofar as conservative
imperialists believed they owed Africa’s indigenous people anything, they
were inclined neither to help nor to hinder indigenous institutions, largely
ignoring Islamic schools, known as medressas. Similarly, while conserva-
tives often gave tacit support to missionaries striving to create a sympathetic
local elite, they did not meddle in the content of missionary syllabi.27
In contrast to the conservative philosophies of Britain’s “new imperial-
ists,” liberals promoted the ideal of reciprocity enshrined in the rhetoric
of dual mandate. As such, many liberals endorsed mass, albeit vocational,
education of African children. British liberals believed their government
had a role, however small, in helping Africans fund and expand their
educational opportunities, and as such they supported secular as well
as missionary efforts.28 Conservatives and liberals agreed that while a
system of primary education could be conducted in a region’s dominant
vernacular, schools should use English for secondary and advanced levels
of instruction.29
As in the first phase of economic rule there were second-phase philo-
sophical tensions among British politicians regarding the direction of
colonial policy and the nature of social control. Some of these tensions
came from differences in the economic or political background of rival
appointees, as well as the social class of individuals responsible for Brit-
ish colonial policy.30 Most of the tensions between the political factions
in Britain’s colonial office were due to differences in party politics and
worldview.31 These conflicts concerned how Africa should be colo-
nized—whether the government should encourage education and the
degree to which African culture, divergent and therefore “inferior” to
European culture, could be modified to better suit British interests.
 Disarticulation 57

In Zanzibar, Britain’s phase 2 policies concerning foreign settlement,

governance, and socialization were formulated, privately, to maximize
British economic interest first and elite Arab advantage second. These
same policies were publicly promoted as a means of “improving” Africa’s
indigenous Bantu population.32 Educational policies, the dominant aspect
of phase 2 “socialization,” were promoted as Western “enlightenment.”
Britain’s colonial government hoped its phase 2 educational policies
could perpetuate its phase 1 economic policies, promoting class stratifica-
tion while denying that class interests exist.

PRIMARY EDUCATION IN EUROPE AND

AFRICA DURING THE VICTORIAN ERA

The history of British educational policy in Africa can be derived from

general theories about popular education within the British Isles, and the
specific cultural and economic relationship Britain developed with Africa.
During the Elizabethan and Stuart eras, European—specifically British—
explorers began writing commentaries on the cultural differences between
Africans and Europeans. The authors of various fantastic accounts of
African excesses published their narratives, which made Africa a place
deserving more exploration. Britain’s nineteenth-century religious revival
and the growth of its colonial shipping enterprises converged, making Af-
rican markets and its religious conversion an attractive venture. Britain’s
commercial interests used that timely confluence of events to petition both
the crown and the colonial office for military and political support. They
argued that Britain’s colonization of Africa was obligatory if the continent
was to become a “civilized” trading partner.
The European tendency to think in terms of white superiority and black
inferiority, juxtaposing international commerce and “white” civilization
on the one hand with subsistence farming and Negroid “barbarism” on
the other, emerged in antiquity and was called “the Great Chain of Be-
ing.” The Great Chain of Being, a philosophy of the first millennium,
enjoyed renewed popularity in the eighteenth century with the emergence
of Europe’s study of the human anatomy. By the early 1900s, physiog-
nomy, phrenology, and craniology were the leading fields of intellectual
inquiry.33 These studies, often funded by the wealthiest and most highly
58 Chapter II

regarded individuals in Europe, defined the parameters of social debate

in the Victorian era, sustaining notions of African intellectual inferiority
well into the twentieth century.34 Craniology and physiognomy, theories
that were popular in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe,
and the true forebears of social Darwinism, became modern representa-
tions of the Great Chain of Being, a concept that originated in the ancient
empires of Greece and Rome.35 Ward and Lott describe great chain social
categorization:

Simply stated, the idea of the Chain is that all inanimate matter, living be-
ings, and supernatural powers are arranged in a hierarchy with the basest
of matter at the bottom and God on top. Man is placed in the middle of this
graded hierarchy, between the brutes on the one side and the angels on the
other.36

The tendency to categorize peoples according to their geographical

location or by their so-called innate qualities was an idea central to lit-
erature that defended colonialism. Regarding the educational system in
British colonies, the colonial office argued that the particular “disposition
and temperament” of each of Africa’s various communal groups must be
understood “before a suitable education could be provided.”37 According
to Paul Reinsch:

It may nevertheless be said that there are four great classes of populations
with whom we have to deal; namely, [1] savage races, [2] those populations
whose social cohesion has been impaired or destroyed, [3] the Moham-
medan races and [4] other races of higher civilization.38

In Zanzibar, British policy as late as the twentieth century suggested

that they considered the Bantu “savage,” and the Shirazi and Swahili
“impaired” communities.39 The Arabs, due to their status of former rulers
were a Muslim “race” shown deference but granted influence with grave
reservation.40 The British government reserved its highest honor, com-
monwealth membership, for Zanzibari Indians. Further the British gave
many Indian families grants to inaugurate their mortgage companies.41
British citizenship and financial support implied that the crown consid-
ered Indians “a higher civilization,” one approximating European culture,
and therefore the only group that was worthy of trust.42
 Disarticulation 59

It is evident that the African is intellectually, morally and personality-wise

inferior to the European. Zanzibar Africans, just like a pendulum clock,
need constant reminding and reprimands. They are like children who have
been taught Arab manners. I think it is true that most of these Africans were
born thieves and hypocrites.43

Chosen by the Royal Geographical Society to lead the greatest Vic-

torian expedition to East Africa, Sir Richard Francis Burton landed in
Zanzibar in December 1856 and immediately published his thoughts on
its Swahili population.44 Burton castigated the Swahili:

From the Arab they derived shrewd thinking and practice in concealing
thought; they will welcome a man with the determination to murder him;
they have unusual confidence, self-esteem and complacency; fondness
for praise, honours and distinctions, keenness, together with short-sight-
edness in matters of business and a nameless horror of responsibility
and regular occupation. . . . their African languor upon doctrinal points
prevents their becoming fanatics or proselytizers. African, also, is their
eternal restless suspicion, the wisdom of serf and slave compensating
for their sluggish imagination and small powers of concentration. They
excel in negro duplicity . . . honesty and candour are ignored even by
name. When they assert, they probably lie, when they swear, they cer-
tainly lie.45

Thus, even before Zanzibar became a protectorate, the British govern-

ment received reports suggesting that the Swahili, Zanzibar’s majority
population, were essentially lazy, morally bankrupt, and uncivilized.46
Having both a familiarity and high opinion of Arab and Indian culture,
many colonial administrators believed that the Arabs and Indians might
become the guardians and potential leaders of their incompetent African
countrymen.47 The staff of Britain’s Committee on Education perpetuated
Burton’s view of the Swahili:

If properly educated, the Arab can be trusted with positions of author-

ity. He can effectively be employed in the police force on account of
the respect he enjoys from the African. The African can subsequently
be enabled to participate in political and economic matters alongside
the Arabs and Indians of the Protectorate only if he is painstakingly
educated.48
60 Chapter II

In Zanzibar, the Arab community was accustomed to raising funds for

the “proper” education of its children well before the advent of British
protection. By contrast, neither the sultan’s administration nor the British
colonial government were concerned with the “painstaking” education of
Africans. Both Britain’s new imperialists and the dual mandate devotees
wanted to establish educational programs in Africa on the cheap. As
such, the government limited access to vocational and primary schooling,
excluding most Zanzibaris—African, Arab, and Indian alike. The policy
of the Phelps-Stoke Fund argued that a common vernacular should be
used in primary education, and that schools should introduce European
languages at the secondary and higher levels, where, no doubt, the higher
“classes” would gravitate.49
A variety of colonialists stationed throughout British colonies testi-
fied about their own experiences with establishing profitable plantations.
Many argued that if lower classes, especially labor, were given too much
education they would lose the discipline required to work.50 In the late
1600s the European drive to organize its local economies, coupled with
the desire to understand human reasoning, led to the popular should-not
argument that cognitive deficiencies among the working class could
not, therefore, be remedied by education. Various scholars thought that
especially true when external conditions, ranging from bad weather to ag-
ricultural scarcity, “discouraged rational thought.”51 The most prominent
advocate of the “external intelligence” theory was seventeenth-century
philosopher John Milton. Milton believed intelligence was influenced
largely by environmental factors. He argued that hot weather and innate
intelligence were inversely proportional.52 Milton appealed to his audi-
ence by awakening their feelings of national pride:

Lords and commons of England: consider what nation it is whereof ye are,

and whereof the governors—a nation not slow and dull, but of quick, inge-
nious and piercing spirit; acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse,
not beneath the reach of any point the highest human capacity can soar to.
. . . Those natural endowments [are] haply no the worst for two-and-fifty
degrees north latitude.53

Like Milton, other scholars of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries tried to explain variations in human intelligence by relying on
 Disarticulation 61

clues that they observed in plain sight. William Petty, one of the founders
of Britain’s Royal College of Physicians, promoted physiognomy—the
study of the physical attributes of mammals. According to Petty, internal
disparities in analytical ability between groups and individuals manifested
themselves in their external physical attributes. In the late eighteenth cen-
tury, Petty inferred that Africans’ physical dissimilarity with Europeans
meant that blacks were less intelligent than whites. Utilizing the idiosyn-
cratic grammar and irregular spelling that characterized eighteenth-cen-
tury European literature, Petty described African physiology to readers,
who, in most cases, had never seen Africans:

I say that the Europeans do not onely differ from aforementioned Africans
in collour . . . but also in their haire . . . [and] in the shape of their noses,
lipps, and cheek bones. . . . [Africans] differe also in the nautrall manners
and in the interall qualities of their minds.54

Petty suggested Africans seemed physiologically closer to apes.55 A few

years later Charles Darwin developed his taxonomy of human evolution.
Darwin asserted Europe’s connection with evolutionary development in
Africa, and more specifically Europe’s connection with African apes. Al-
most immediately, scholars challenged Darwin’s theories and promoted
those that reflected Petty’s sensibilities. Ultimately, several European in-
tellectuals adapted Darwin’s explanations of evolution. They altered parts
of the model that supported pseudo-scientific race theories, including an
eighteenth-century version of the Great Chain of Being. Proponents of a
new great chain “grad[ed] humanity itself, thereby placing the black and
not the European in the slot next to apes.”56 Taken together, the ideologies
of the Victorian era created a sense of European intellectual superiority
and cultural entitlement. Many of these pseudo-scientific race theories
supported a variety of assertions, especially claims of African inferiority,
the benign nature of the slave trade, and, later, the need for European trade
and imperialism to “civilize” the “dark continent.”
However, while Britain’s imperial ventures generally adopted a tone
of racial superiority, colonial policy in Zanzibar was a function, first and
foremost, of Britain’s commercial class interests. In fact, British colo-
nial policy regarding education in East Africa was similar to the social
agenda Britain’s financial elite created for its own working classes. While
62 Chapter II

European, and especially British, writers were making hasty and dubi-
ous speculations about African intellectual ability, they were developing
very similar theories regarding education of European labor. Between the
years 1830 and 1850 British Anglicans, the Protestant Non-Conformists,
and the Voluntary-Secular educational communities were insisting on
strictly vocational curricula for all but a few of their “gifted” working
class pupils.57
In the 1830s the Anglican curriculum was largely based on the pre-
sumption that most working-class children would not go to school. In their
official policy papers, the Anglican educational authorities suggested that
by four years old children were ready to assist in domestic chores, while
children of five years could work in the fields. Those few working-class
students who attended school were given minimal lessons in reading, writ-
ing, and arithmetic. During the rest of the three to four years students spent
in school, daily lessons focused on ways to improve farming skills or moral
reasoning.58 Non-Conformist daily schools, mostly located in urban cen-
ters, offered courses in the newly established industries of the 1850s. The
curriculum focused on brick-laying, carpentry, metal “smithing,” and glass
cutting, which were especially lucrative careers for working-class labor-
ers.59 Like Non-Conformists, Voluntary-Secular schools located mostly
in urban communities, also emphasized industrial labor in the elemen-
tary and secondary school curricula. Most Anglican schools continued to
serve students in rural areas, and as such, favored teaching innovations in
agriculture rather than industry.60 Non-Conformist, Anglican, and Volun-
tary-Secular schools competed for limited funds allocated by the British
government for expenditure on primary education.61
In the late nineteenth century, Britain’s trade unions, especially the
Trade Union Congress (TUC), along with the Socialists and Fabian So-
cieties led a campaign to expand primary education in Britain. Business
interests who believed that such reforms would drain Britain’s thriving la-
bor force resisted the efforts of labor organizations to expand educational
opportunity.62 Fabian and TUC efforts to democratize working-class edu-
cation were met with even more resistance when they discussed African
educational opportunities. Many influential colonialists, like their wealthy
commercial counterparts in Europe, suggested that African matriculation
through elementary was more than sufficient. The Fabians disagreed and
continued to press for more and better educational opportunities through-
 Disarticulation 63

out the colonies. W. E. F. Ward, high-ranking member of the Fabian

party and deputy education adviser in the colonial office during the years
1945–1956, argued that the colonial government had a responsibility to
promote education in the colonies. Ward argued that:

Politically, education must serve the agreed policy of preparing the peoples
of the colonies for self-government. . . . Education, therefore, has to be
developed as a balanced system. It must include primary, secondary and
higher education of all types . . . it must include adult education and com-
munity development.63

Noting India and Pakistan’s postindependence use of Hindi and Urdu, Ward
also stressed the importance of helping former African colonies replace
English with a local lingua franca.64 Ward’s position, and the general norms
of British Fabians, was more consistent with German linguistic policy than
with the indirect rule mandate of Britain’s colonial office. The German pol-
icy of direct rule, and its belief in using a lingua franca, such as Swahili, to
create a successful educational policy in East Africa, was due to Germany’s
successful experimentation within its own borders. In addition to a vast and
successful educational bureaucracy, Germany also created several acad-
emies for the study of policy relating to language, education, and political
philosophy. One such organization was the Colonial Institute in Hamburg.
In 1911 the German government asked the institute to send a survey to all
schools in German colonial Africa. Martin Schlunk, a noted German Afri-
canist, compiled the statistics and interpreted the results, describing both the
objectives of German policy and the realities of politics in the colonies. He
published his findings in The School System in the German Colonies.65
Schlunk made two observations that were critical in the development
of Germany’s unique position with regard to language policy in Africa.
Schlunk initially proposed two conflicting positions. He suggested, on
the one hand, that for “political reasons its was expedient to try to replace
the language in the colonies” with German.66 On the other hand, Schlunk
recommended that “for pedagogical reasons it seemed wise not to teach
a foreign language in the colonies.” Ultimately, Schlunk argued that the
short-term political expediency of teaching German did not guarantee
long-term political success and that forcing African students to learn
German in elementary and middle school would eventually lead to native
resentment toward colonial rule. He advised that “it is possible to give the
64 Chapter II

natives a feeling of patriotism toward the fatherland without the teaching

of the German language.”67 Schlunk suggested that:

The teaching of German is at best only of doubtful value for the majority of
the native pupils. Only a small minority of them will have any use for that
language after leaving school. Every educational program, in order to be
useful, has to be given in the native language.68

When the League of Nations made Tanganyika a mandate and trans-

ferred political authority from German to British control, the new co-
lonial government used its prerogative to establish indirect rule, where
direct rule had once prevailed. Like Britain’s other colonial rulers, the
educational philosophy of Tanganyika’s first governor, Governor Donald
Cameron, protégé of Lord Lugard, betrayed a preference for indirect rule.
Sir Donald Cameron established English as the language of the colonial
government and made instruction in English available primarily to a small
number of Tanganyika’s elite.69 In Zanzibar, the British promoted indirect
rule that encouraged the elite to use English and Arabic as the primary
languages of commerce and governance. Indirect rule also convinced elite
Indians and Arabs to respectively consider themselves citizens of the Brit-
ish Commonwealth and subjects of the sultan, rather than Zanzibari na-
tionals. In Tanganyika, as elsewhere, the British government established
indirect rule in order to to discourage African nationalism, promote elite
rule, and foster British economic and political ascendancy.70 Ironically,
most if not all of the elite sons of Tanganyika’s African chiefs, educated
at Britain’s new English-language high schools, became the loudest crit-
ics of indirect rule. One such son, Julius Nyerere, cultivated a friendship
with British Fabians, and, along with other similarly situated elites, led a
successful mass movement against colonial rule.71
As was the case in Tanganyika, Fabians generally argued that Africans
in other countries needed to learn their own languages and deserved to
rule their own nations. In contrast to the Fabian worldview, several cham-
pions of indirect rule, as well a larger number of European export tycoons,
argued that African intellectual inferiority would prohibit even the best
efforts to democratize colonial education. Speaking in 1954 at the annual
meeting of Rhodesia’s Missionary Conference, Godfrey Huggins, protégé
of Cecil Rhodes and mentor of Ian Smith, invoked ideas associated with
the Great Chain of Being when he discussed the future of educational
 Disarticulation 65

policy in Africa. Huggins took issue with Ward and other Fabians and
suggested that promoting African education, beyond the primary level,
was an exercise in futility. He promoted the functional education of Afri-
cans.72 In 1954 Huggins declared:

We have the sad spectacle of many of our so-called educated Africans

wasting their energies on some completely unattainable objective such as
self-government. The African with one foot in his primitive culture presents
two problems for the government. [The first is], how to deal with the im-
mediate situation caused by the mis-guided so-called African intellectuals.
The second is how to develop the African so that the educated ones do not
waste their time on sterile and futile nationalistic agitation. The best that
we can do is to formulate a policy to assist the African with one foot in his
primitive culture to emulate the white man. Our task as a government is to
reverse the claimed consciousness which is believed to have come about as
a result of the war and guide the African mind toward a proper end.73

A century before the Ward-Huggins debate of the late 1950s, disputes

regarding British educational policy served as the harbinger of a grow-
ing contest between Africa’s Fabian and imperial interests.74 By the late
nineteenth century, the British government endorsed education for work-
ing-class children that would enhance their practical mastery of manual
labor.75 These educational theories, revised, expanded, and exported to
Africa, made it seem necessary for the British government to establish
programs that would introduce the African elite to European social, politi-
cal, and economic norms that would “civilize” them.76
During the industrial and Victorian eras, Britain’s colonization of Africa
was referred to as the “three Cs”—Christianity, commerce, and civilization.
As mentioned in chapter I, Britain’s Stuart era “discovery” of Africa was
closely followed by its industrial era slave trade. Britain’s seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century explorers, betraying their obvious cultural bias, sug-
gested that Africa needed Europe to domesticate its populations through
trade and commerce. Using this rationale, British slave traders maintained
that as Africans lacked civilization, transporting slaves to a better life was
not theft or murder, but charity. During slavery’s waning years, David
Livingstone returned to British readers’ late medieval thinking, suggesting
that Europeans could leave Africans in Africa, but transfer the benefits of
white culture—namely, Christianity and commerce—by colonizing Africa.77
66 Chapter II

Later, in 1856, when John Hanning Speke arrived in Zanzibar with fellow
traveler Sir Richard Francis Burton, he suggested that British rule could also
transfer civilization, in addition to Christianity and commerce.78
Initially, the primary goal of the Speke-Burton mission was to deter-
mine if British enterprise and settlement might be possible in East Africa.
Speke and Burton toured the entire region, including Lake Tanganyika,
Uganda, Lake Victoria, and the powerful kingdom of Buganda. Despite
the sophistication of their government and the wealth of the various East
African communities, Speke wrote of the need for white settlement to
establish “Christianity, commerce and civilization.” Speke’s voyage and
writings were largely responsible for European knowledge of the interior
of East Africa and later contributed to British imperial zeal leading to the
“scramble for Africa.”79
The three Cs concept, like the writings of other European explorers,
justified Britain’s international imperial campaign. Ultimately, the philos-
ophy that energized Speke’s three Cs was incorporated into, and replaced
by, a concept called “the white man’s burden.” The notion that the Global
South needed improving, and that it was the white man’s burden to take
up this three Cs challenge, came from a poem of the same name. British
explorer/scholar Rudyard Kipling wrote “The White Man’s Burden” on
the eve of the twentieth century.80 Kipling exhorted his American readers
to assume duties that came with white privilege, urging them to “send
forth the best ye breed . . . to wait in heavy harness on . . . sullen peoples,
half-devil, and half-child.” For several decades the ideology of the white
man’s burden enjoyed broad application in the fields of politics and di-
plomacy. Late Victorian and early Edwardian imperialists often evoked
Kipling’s appellation because it made imperialism seem like a reciprocal
enterprise—one that benefited the colonized as much as the imperialist.
By the first few decades of the twentieth century, the concept of “white
man’s burden” fell into disuse.81 The international political community
began to debate and censure European imperialism, and especially Brit-
ain’s colonial enterprises. Rather than altering their imperialistic ventures,
Europe’s great powers developed new nomenclature for their activities.
Among the British, white man’s burden was succeeded by the somewhat
more moderate and far more elegant expression developed by Lord Lu-
gard. Lord Lugard transformed Speke’s three Cs and Kipling’s burden
into the formal policies of dual mandate and indirect rule.
 Disarticulation 67

Britain formally promulgated “dual mandate” and “indirect rule” as poli-

cies in 1888 when Lord Frederick Delatry Lugard arrived in East Africa,
fresh from serving in the Indian army. Lord Lugard’s assignment in Africa
was to establish British authority in Nigeria, Nyasaland, and Uganda. Serv-
ing as British advisor on international commission concerning Africa, Lord
Lugard implemented his ideas between 1900 and the 1920s.82 He published
his experiences with, and ideas about, dual mandate in 1922. He argued
that Britain ruled Africa primarily for England’s own “enlightened self-
interest,” and, to a far lesser degree, “for the advancement of the African
people.”83 The British often called their concept of “indirect rule” their sys-
tem of “native administration,” which was also developed by Lord Lugard
and discussed in Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa.84
Like the dual mandate, British scholars initially formulated the ideolo-
gies of Romanticism, Utilitarianism, and social Darwinism for domestic
European consumption. These early philosophies evolved into the basis
for imperialist design during the Edwardian era and the period of World
War I. The concepts of the three Cs, white man’s burden, and indirect
rule/dual mandate, developed for the express purpose of pursuing imperi-
alism, ultimately converged with Romanticism, Utilitarianism, and social
Darwinism and spread beyond the borders of Europe.85 As these ideas
converged they came to govern the field of economic and, especially, edu-
cational policy, in Britain’s foreign, colonial, and field offices.86 In most
instances, the power of social Darwinism was all-consuming. It over-
whelmed well-intentioned, if limited, efforts of progressive politicians to
reduce colonialism’s economic displacement and cultural domination.87
Like most empires, the British imperial system functioned imper-
fectly, burdened by many cross-purposes and philosophical tensions.
The first controversy of Victorian colonialism concerned the educabil-
ity of Britain’s working-class whites and most, if not all, Africans. The
second debate concerned Britain’s civic or cultural responsibility in
Africa. A third tension emerged when a conflict arose between those
British elements who believed that “dual mandate” governance in Af-
rica demanded a vast European settler presence and those who believed
“dual mandate” could be accomplished with fewer white settlers and
more “indirect rule.”88 This settler debate reflected aspects of both the
education and three Cs debates. It became central to the core debate
in Britain’s ongoing discussion of policies formulated throughout the
68 Chapter II

twentieth century, well into, and even beyond Africa’s colonial inde-
pendence.
Although the British coined the three Cs and dual mandate rule in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century, these notions had much older
roots and were therefore harder to eradicate. The Europeans who visited
Africa between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries made the
three Cs/dual mandate agenda possible. Many of these early imperialists
held important political positions in British or other European royal courts.
In the late eighteenth century, C. B. Wadstrom, a Swedish political official,
went on a fact-finding mission to Africa to find out whether “Africans
could be convinced to grow cash crops” and to determine “above all how
far [Africa was] capable of improvement and of colonization.”89 An early
proponent of what would later be called liberal imperialism, Wadstrom
promoted his version of idealized colonial rule, including references to
ideas that the British government later called “enlightened self-interest,”
indirect rule, and dual mandate. Wadstrom believed that Europe’s relation-
ship with Africa could be both extractive and friendly.90 More than friend-
ship, Wadstrom argued that the European relationship with Africans could
lead to the latter’s advancement. Wadstrom believed that:
Friendship to the Africans is not incompatible with friendship to the Euro-
peans, and to all mankind. The author has ever thought that the most likely
ways to promote the civilization of mankind would be to lead their activity
into the cultivation of their country, as the best exercise for their affections
and to diffuse among them a spirit of liberal commerce, to exercise their
understanding. . . . The day, I hope, is not far distant when Africa will enrich
Europe with the most lucrative commerce.91

The sentiment expressed by C. B. Wadstrom, an officer in the eighteenth-

century Swedish court and consultant to the British Privy Council, was
echoed in the statement by Lord Lugard regarding Britain’s twentieth-
century dual mandate in Africa. Beseeching his audience, Lugard sug-
gested that:
We are endeavoring to teach the native races to conduct their own affairs
with justice and humanity, and to educate them alike in letters and in indus-
try. . . . As Roman imperialism laid the foundations of modern [European]
civilization, and led the wild barbarians of these [the British] islands along
the path of progress, so in Africa to-day we are re-paying the debt and
 Disarticulation 69

bringing to the dark places of the earth, the abode of barbarism and cruelty,
the torch of culture and progress, while administering to the material needs
of our own civilization.92

The material or economic needs/desires of the British Empire were

vast, and, as a result, spending on social programs in the colonies was
necessarily meager and usually inadequate. Thus, Britain extended its
phase 1 neglect of Zanzibar’s indigenous economic institutions to Zan-
zibar’s indigenous educational and civic institutions, such as the Shirazi
system of communal land ownership, during the second phase of colonial
rule. During Britain’s second-phase implementation of sociological and
educational regulation, the protectorate government neglected or refused
to fund Zanzibar’s medressas or other indigenous institutions. Instead,
the colonial government supported newly created European academies,
where class hierarchies thrived. While phase 1 policies created financial
institutions that facilitated economic extraction and promoted class strati-
fication, phase 2 policies promoted social regulation that increased British
revenue accumulation and land alienation.
Britain’s phase 2 policies in Zanzibar should be classified into three
broad and often intersecting categories. These categories correspond to the
three broad debates that energized British colonial philosophy throughout
the Victorian era.93 The first of Britain’s phase 2 policies openly promoted
economic, educational, and social stratification. These policies were a
legacy of ongoing contest between Fabian/missionary forces who supported
the education of working-class whites and Africans versus social Darwin-
ists who questioned the innate intelligence or educability of these popula-
tions. While the crown claimed that the social, educational, and economic
systems were open, in reality, Britain’s phase 2 policies promoted stratifi-
cation and disarticulation. More specifically, Britain’s second category of
phase 2 policies delivered economic, political, and social stagnation. The
nineteenth-century debate between dual-mandaters and new imperialists
reflected Europe’s responsibility toward the colonized Global South, and is
consistent with Britain’s policy of class disarticulation.
The third and final category of second-phase policies created economic
and educational stratification by perpetuating a caste system based on eco-
nomic origin and communal history, while claiming that intergroup conflict
was due to racial difference. This category was ultimately influenced by the
70 Chapter II

debate regarding the role of white and non-white foreign settlement,

and its influence in determining the nature of colonial government in
Africa. In the second phase of colonial rule, as in the first, the eco-
nomic interests of the elite Arabs and Indians at the expense of African
laborers reinforced “the politics of classlessness that paradoxically
reinforces class—a politics mired safely in class formation.”94 Even
in the decades before the official declaration of protection, England
argued that the presence of “British Indians” required a larger and
more formal British presence. Sheriff and Ferguson describe academic
disarticulation:

With respect to education, religious observance and right to appeal, Indians

as a whole were intentionally isolated to form a separate community under
the imperial policy of divide and rule. Under this scheme it was possible
to divide the local appropriating classes along “racial” lines whereby com-
munity denoted function, a policy which paid off the British in the years of
colonial rule.95

The Indian community benefited from this head start. Along with Chris-
tian schools Zanzibar’s Hindu community established Zanzibar’s first
K–12 schools in the mid-nineteenth century.96 After a brief experimenta-
tion with one nondenominational school for all the Indian communities in
the early 1900s, Zanzibar’s wealthy Indian traders returned to the notion
of establishing small schools for the elite of their respective linguistic and
religious communities.97 Most Indian schools established between nine
and twelve grades, which far and away exceeded the primary education
of most Swahili students educated, almost exclusively, in K–5 Islamic and
missionary schools.98
Thus, Zanzibar’s Indian, and to a lesser extent its missionary,
schools, having opened fifty years in advance of most of the private
Arab and secular government schools, gave their communities a dis-
tinct political and economic advantage.99 Both Indian and missionary
schools emphasized broad, liberal curricula that promoted education
in professional and technical fields. By contrast, British government
schools emphasized agricultural and, occasionally, limited clerical
training. These forms of vocational education would be serviceable to
the British colonial administration “in relation to the absorptive capac-
ity of East Africa.”100
 Disarticulation 71

The British government’s efforts to create economic communities that

performed a particular function in the larger plantation economy was
central to all its colonial programs, including the formulation of land
law, and later its education and settler policies. The third of three debates
concerning colonial policy during Britain’s second phase of imperial rule
concerned settler policy.101 In this third debate there were three distinct
arguments. Some imperial parties argued that the British government’s
revenue-generating needs should reign supreme over humanitarian or
social welfare considerations. Others argued that the British government
should make the investment interests of individual settlers its primary
consideration. Still others thought that promoting the livelihood of in-
digenous Africans was crucial to the survival of British colonies. As in
all former debates, the dominant philosophies of the new imperialism
prevailed. The British government ruled out European ownership of Zan-
zibari clove plantations because it thought Zanzibar’s clove farms were
too unprofitable to operate and too onerous for Europeans to manage. In
1915, Zanzibar’s British resident responded to a query regarding shamba
ownership by a European investor named Wilson Fox.102 The British resi-
dent stated what many Arabs believed:

What is required is for someone to devise a scheme to regenerate the clove

plantations of those Arabs, who ruined by the abolition of slavery, have
got deeper and deeper into the hands of the Indian money-lender until,
unable to redeem their mortgaged properties or pay their labor, they have
relinquished all interest in their plantations. The Indian mortgagee who was
probably long ago repaid his initial loans by charging exorbitant interest (on
his loan) does nothing to replace the dead clove tree with young ones. . . .
I can conceive of no European settlers tolerating for any length of time the
payment on the 25% duty of cloves. I do not necessarily uphold this heavy
burden on the clove producer but the fact remains, this is one of our main
sources of revenue.103

As in matters of land and tax policy, the British developed an educa-

tional policy by emphasizing the financial interests of the colonial gov-
ernment. In Zanzibar, the British government created and funded schools
for those who needed the most education, not, as in Tanganyika, to staff a
large bureaucracy, but to run the island’s sprawling network of mortgage
houses. The British government therefore almost exclusively encouraged
72 Chapter II

Indians to get the most training because of their historic role as financial
agents of the colonial government and their status as citizens of the Brit-
ish Commonwealth. Britain’s theories regarding elite education, land
ownership, governance, and settler rights dictated policy in many African
colonies. However, these policies did not prevail everywhere.

EDUCATIONAL THEORY IN GERMANY AND ENGLAND

In order to evaluate the influence of European colonization and its implica-

tions for East African political development, particularly in Zanzibar and
Tanganyika, it is useful to make a comparative analysis of British and Ger-
man state bureaucracy and colonial rule. Educational systems in nineteenth-
century Europe, especially in Britain and Germany, became the basis for
twentieth-century colonial education in Zanzibar and Tanganyika. When
Britain initiated its educational reforms in the late Victorian era, as little
as 25 percent of the population had access to a primary level education.
By the late nineteenth century, only 50 percent of England’s primary-
school-age children were attending primary and secondary schools.104 By
contrast, in 1860s Prussia, 81 percent of the population’s young children
attended a six-year elementary school.105
Several other early nineteenth-century developments in the German
school system distinguished it from the British educational system. The
General Civil Code of 1794 proclaimed that the state should supervise,
however nominally, Prussia’s mainly religious schools. The 1794 code also
established Prussia’s “modern/secular” system of primary education called
the Volksschule. In 1817 the Prussian state chancellor, Karl von Hardenberg,
created the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs. Von Hardernberg
appointed Karl von Altenstein, a reform-minded educator, to run the new
ministry. In April 1822 von Altenstein signed an edict that demanded that
the Volksschule establish a confessional educational model.106 Later, in
December 1822, another edict created a system of bilingual German/Polish
education in eastern Prussia.107 These two developments prepared German
colonial administrators for the diverse linguistic and confessional student
bodies they would face when governing East Africa.
As was the case with British colonial explorers and race scholars,
many Germans intellectuals viewed themselves as the intellectual and
 Disarticulation 73

“racial” superiors of the Africans they colonized.108 Despite a wealth of

scholarship that claimed that working-class whites and Africans were
uneducable, the official educational policy of nineteenth-century Prus-
sian government suggests otherwise. German social Darwinists and race
theorists certainly had their audience. However, the seat of Prussian
political decision-making, at least with regard to domestic and colonial
education, seemed to be dominated by the ideas of Max Weber. Weber
argued that well-organized bureaucracies could promote “ideal,” rule-
bound behavior.109 Extrapolating Weber’s arguments, many of Weber’s
devotees maintained that rational institutions could force even the most
“irrational” men, or “races,” to behave rationally.110
The Tanganyikan colonial experiment, as executed by Germany’s co-
lonial administrators, suggests that the doctrine of bureaucratic rationality
prevailed over both race and class theories. This was especially true where
Tanganyikan education and African political participation were con-
cerned. Thus, in the first of three sweeping dialectics, the debate regarding
the innate intelligence of certain classes of people had a very different
outcome in Germany than it did in Britain.111 As early as the eighteenth
century, Prussian advocates of a rational, progressive, and even ambitious
educational agenda prevailed over their more conventional colleagues.
By contrast, well into the first half of the twentieth century, ideologies
that supported class-based political and educational limits routinely over-
whelmed Britain’s progressive forces.

THE RATIONAL USE OF SWAHILI

IN TANGANYIKAN EDUCATION

The writings of men such as David Livingstone and John Speke energized
the German missionary system in East Africa, and led to the formal annex-
ation and development of a system like the British missionary system.112
By the end of the nineteenth century, there were six hundred mission
schools in German Tanganyika, which enrolled as many as fifty thousand
pupils.113 Whereas British missionaries in Zanzibar were largely free to
pursue their educational program independent of government control, as
of 1891 the German missionary school system in Tanganyika became part
of the government system.114 Tanganyika’s Colonial Governor Karl von
74 Chapter II

Soden, a Weberian “liberal,” implemented a program of direct rule right

away. He recruited several Swahili-speaking Germans and a few educated
Tanganyikans into a growing colonial bureaucracy, ones that emphasized
secular education and civic participation.115 Von Soden promoted a policy
that demanded that the Swahili language be the medium of instruction in
Tanganyikan schools. Von Soden’s educational program was consistent
with the logic of the state, which, although German, catered to the majority
of the population, rather than an elite minority.116 Further, when von Soden
recruited the first German education officer he hired an agnostic, fluent in
Swahili.117 Von Soden anticipated the day when Tanganyikans might play a
role in government and educated them in the Swahili language.
In an attempt to reach out to the Muslim community, von Soden of-
fered to pay Muslim teachers to visit colonial schools for daily religious
instruction. Ultimately, various missionary organizations frustrated ef-
forts to include the Islamic community in government schools, causing a
pronounced rift between the central Tanganyikan government, the Swahili
school system, and Tanganyika’s Muslim community.118 The German
educational system in Tanganyika was most effective in larger cities and
focused on the instruction of coastal Swahili-speaking boys. As such,
boys in interior, or rural, Tanganyika and most if not all Tanganyikan girls
remained unschooled. Despite this fact, Germany made two significant
and lasting contributions to Tanganyika’s national development. First, as
mentioned earlier, the colonial government insisted on making Swahili
the nation’s official language.119 Secondly, and equally important, Ger-
many created an educational system that developed both the vocational
skills and literary talents of many Tanganyikan pupils, regardless of their
origin or status. In doing this, Germany encouraged Tanganyika’s mis-
sionary schools and its Islamic schools, or medressas, to become more
progressive, and to compete with government schools for students and
for funding.120
By contrast, both Zanzibar’s missionary and government schools met
with little success. The termination of the slave trade, though necessary
for Zanzibar to move to a system of wage/migrant labor, led to social and
economic upheaval. The Arab community could never recover from this
turn of events. From the era preceding British and German rule, Arab com-
munities on the coast established a network of Islamic primary schools, or
medressas, that eventually reached into the East African mainland. When
 Disarticulation 75

the British protectorate government established Zanzibar’s education de-

partment in the first decade of the twentieth century it refused to fund me-
dressas. However, Muslim parents, afraid of Christian “indoctrination,”
kept their children out of government schools. As a result, five years after
the British established Zanzibar’s government schools only 348 Muslim
students were enrolled.121 Even fewer Bantu, Swahili, and Shirazi students
could enroll in such schools because, in addition to issues of religious
difference, few could afford to pay government school fees. Thus in
Zanzibar, as elsewhere, the source and nature of educational grants were
responsible for making the educational system functional. From the earli-
est European settlements, until twentieth-century colonial independence,
missionaries, missionary schools, and missionary fundraising dominated
the African educational system. Middleton and Read describe the relation-
ship between the church and African schools:

European thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw no

incompatibility between establishing “forts” to regulate the slave trade
and educating a very limited number of Africans to assist them in their
enterprises. This education implied, as a rule, conversion to Christianity,
and in this respect the early trading companies anticipated the work of the
missions. . . . In the British territories the missions depended for their educa-
tional, and indeed for all their work at first, on contributions from the home
churches, and on the gifts often in kind, from African peoples and the al-
most universal payment of fees by pupils in schools. As the governments in
the territories assumed full responsibility for all the administrative services,
they established a system of grants-in-aid for mission schools.122

The grants-in-aid program was established in 1925, three years after

the British administration took over the postwar mandate in Tanganyika.
To inaugurate the grants program the colonial government sponsored a
conference meeting with missionaries, social progressives, and various
commercial interests to discuss educational policy and funding strategies.
It was the first such meeting of its kind in the colonies.123 The conference
provided a range of perspectives and a lively debate ensued. Progressives
and missionaries thought education should receive broad government
funding, while commercial and government parties argued that schools
should be funded by private money and school fees. On the surface, ten-
sions at the 1925 conference seemed simply to reflect differences regarding
76 Chapter II

budgetary allocation. On a more philosophical level, the debate between

conference partisans reflected an enduring controversy between two basic
groups—liberals and conservative or “new” imperialists.124
After the conference, participants published a memorandum outlining
the specific objectives of the meeting as well as the broader policies of the
British government regarding educational policy in colonial Africa. These
principles were collectively known as “Education for Adaptation.”125
The principle of adaptation maintained that African land was Britain’s
primary source of revenue, and, as such, the colonial government should
emphasize agricultural and vocational education above all other curricula.
The conference memorandum took a sharp turn away from the literary
curricula of the German system, and advocated vocation and agricultural
education offered by schools in Britain. The other important proposal dis-
cussed in the conference memorandum was how these schools should be
funded. The resulting grants-in-aid system, which the British developed
to promote “education for adaptation” fell woefully short of the goal of
expanding educational opportunity for Tanganyikan students beyond the
primary level.126 From the earliest days of the protectorate, British colonial
policy promoted class and linguistic stratification, while it continuously
underfunded welfare programs. As a result, the grants-in-aid program
failed to promote inclusion, even at the primary level.
When the British government established the protectorate in the 1890s,
most Zanzibaris, and nearly all African Zanzibaris, lived in rural clove
growing areas. Various factions resisted the Department of Education’s
early attempts to create rural schools. Parents of African and Arab origin
living in rural districts were suspicious of government schools for several
reasons. In many cases newly arrived high school teachers of Indian or
Egyptian origin found life in East Africa challenging. Despite the infu-
sion of these highly qualified new hires, most government schools had to
draw from missionary societies to staff the primary and secondary courses.
Whereas Tanganyika’s coffee tribes could request the types of schools
they wanted, African Zanzibaris lacked the wealth or power, and often the
conviction, to make such demands. Meanwhile, Zanzibar’s wealthier Arab
and Indian groups continued to increase educational opportunities for their
children. The gap in educational attainment between the classes widened.
Despite the colonial government’s recruitment of foreign teachers,
there was still a dearth of qualified individuals to teach in Zanzibar’s
 Disarticulation 77

many rural school districts. When the Department of Education tried

to hire teachers from local medressas to lecture at government schools,
the arrangement failed. Many medressa instructors were uncomfort-
able with the secular environment of government schools and several
objected to the “Western” content of the syllabus. Ultimately, Swahili
students and poorer Arab and Shirazi children completed their primary
education almost exclusively in Islamic medressas. Having garnered
limited support from the British government, Zanzibar’s various Indian
communities continued to rely on their own wealthy patrons to fund
their schools. The colonial administration established its most success-
ful government-community educational partnership with the creation of
the highly exclusive Arab School. The sultan endorsed the school, and
Mr. Rivers-Smith, the director of the Department of Education, paid for
the school’s conversion from a four-year primary school into a proper
elementary academy offering seven standards or grades. Renamed the
Primary School, the staff conducted classes strictly in Arabic and Eng-
lish. The school awarded successful students Zanzibar’s coveted Pri-
mary Certificate, which in turn-of-the-century Zanzibar was practically
a prerequisite for placement in the British bureaucracy.
Between its inception in 1905 and 1910, the Primary School, formerly
the Arab School, taught only wealthy Arabs. As such the language and
curriculum favored elite tastes. By 1908 there were approximately sixty
Arab boys enrolled to study Arabic and English, literature, and phi-
losophy. The strictly elite culture of the school started to change in 1909
when the school decided to accept boys of all races and began offering a
three-year industrial course.127 The next year, in 1910, boys in the Swahili,
Arab, Shirazi, and Indian communities entered the Primary School. This
school’s policy of inclusion ran counter to most colonial philosophies of
the era.128 Detractors in a number of privileged circles thought Zanzibar’s
integrated school subjected Arab children to the improper influence of
their “subordinates.”129 Chilver and Smith describe colonial philosophy
regarding native education:
The sympathies of British officials lay with the Arab aristocracy; they saw
the country, not as one society, but as separate communities. The population
was labeled by race, [but] race denoted function; Arabs were landowners
and clove-planters, Indians were traders and financiers, and African labor-
ers. The “correctness” of this hierarchy was supported by contemporary
78 Chapter II

ideas of racial superiority for the status of communities was in theory one
of ascending order according to “whiteness.”130

In Zanzibar, the proclivity to create economic stratification to promote

a linguistic hierarchy, while calling it “social order,” was a tradition more
of British imperialism than a legacy of Omani rule.131 Before British rule,
Zanzibar’s mainly Muslim population usually obtained three or four years
of primary education in Islamic medressa. Once the British protectorate
was established, the colonial government organized Zanzibari society by
economic specialty, while identifying this order as an immutable racial
hierarchy. This development discouraged African laborers from attend-
ing school beyond the medressa or seeking education in professions that
would not, under protectorate dominion, be open to them.132 Consistent
with the view that education should be relevant to origin and occupation,
Britain’s Department of Education proposed that government schools in
rural areas offer curriculum relevant to agricultural life. The government
opened three schools in rural areas on Unguja, or Zanzibar Island, and one
on Pemba Island.133 According to various accounts, the temptation of early
employment and lack of rural schools, along with the seasonal nature of
agricultural work in Zanzibar’s plantation economy, made it impossible
for African students to attend school with any regularity.134
In the 1920s, after more than thirty years of colonial rule, only six thou-
sand British pounds, less than 1 percent of all government expenditure, was
allocated for Zanzibar’s schools.135 There were forty thousand school-age
children in Zanzibar, yet less than 10 percent, only three thousand students,
attended mission or government schools. Approximately half of those at-
tending Zanzibar’s schools were Indian students, a group that was wealthy
and comprised less than 5 percent of Zanzibar’s population.136 Of the re-
maining 1,500 Arab and African students, the vast majority were Arab or
Swahili, and as Muslims they were disinclined to attend missionary schools.
This group of students had seven government schools to choose from, two
on Pemba and five on Unguja. All of the seven schools required fees be-
yond the reach of most Bantu, Shirazi, and Swahili families.137 This require-
ment, and the location of the schools, ensured that the government would
recruit largely from urban areas, and in trades other than clove work. Thus,
from inception into the modern era the protectorate’s educational enterprise
promoted class and occupational differentiation.
 Disarticulation 79

Britain’s literature on the educability of Africans and working-class

whites, the feudal classes of empire, promoted vocational training. In
Zanzibar, where the plantation economy demanded a vast supply of la-
bor, British schools promoted a modest curriculum focused on keeping
Africans bound to agricultural work. Paradoxically, though confronted by
religious and cultural resistance, missionary schools had a broader cur-
riculum than many secular schools. In fact, in many instances, missionary
schools exposed children to the type of literature, advanced mathematics,
and social sciences unavailable even in the best secular academies. The
elementary missionary school syllabus was more consistent with second-
ary training in Europe’s secular schools than most government schools in
colonial Africa. Whereas, in Tanganyika, tribal chiefs were able to con-
vince the British to maintain and expand the use of the Swahili language
as the medium of instruction, community leaders in Zanzibar adopted no
such strategy. As a result, a strange and bewildering primary system of
education emerged in Zanzibar, with Swahili written in Latin script in
elementary and middle school years.138 Thus most African students of the
Swahili, Shirazi, and Bantu communities stopped their education after at-
tending three-year medressas. As a result most African Zanzibaris were
never trained for professional work and instead began working on clove
farms well before ten years of age and continued to toil on farms for the
rest of their lives.
In summary, only a small percentage of East Africa’s equally small
number of students attended the government’s eight primary schools.
Most students in Tanganyika and Zanzibar attended either missionary
schools or medressas. As medressas were routinely excluded from the
grants system, the largest recipients of grants-in-aid were missionary
schools.139 The total budget for grants-in-aid was small, so most mission-
ary schools were woefully underfunded.140 The colonial authorities drew
Zanzibar’s tribal chiefs into the government’s sprawling clove project.
Under Britain’s indirect administration the chiefs lacked the formal au-
thority or financial independence to make any real demands of the British
government.
By contrast, Germany ruled Tanganyika through the direct authority of the
local government and with a massive network of offices situated throughout
Tanganyika’s rural areas and supervised by Swahili-speaking Germans.
Paradoxically, direct rule afforded Tanganyikans a large measure of
80 Chapter II

financial independence. Tanganyika’s leading revenue-generating export

was coffee, and Tanganyikans, not Germans, dominated the country’s
many independent coffee farms. Thus, Tanganyika’s tribal chiefs were at
once independent of German administration and in command of a thriv-
ing local economy. Chiefs with the largest populations and biggest coffee
farms were able to insist that the government fund the secular schools they
wanted established throughout rural Tanganyika. Tanganyika’s chiefs
increased their demands, including the expansion of literary and indus-
trial education, and further requested that rural schools provide education
beyond the primary level.141
Despite the brave efforts of Tanganyika chiefs to create more secular
schools, as of World War II, 95 percent of the children receiving a pri-
mary or secondary education in Tanganyika were enrolled in missionary
schools.142 As such, the Germans did not disclose the source, origins, and
parameters of most educational funding in Tanganyika until after World
War I. After 1925, missionary schools received British grants-in-aid,
which, being a source of funds independent of the colonial budget, al-
lowed them to expand at a rate far exceeding government schools.143 In
1920, the British inaugurated their mandate in Tanganyika, allowing them
to assume civic responsibility for Germany’s vast colonial programs.
The education department of Zanzibar’s administration service recruited
S. Rivers-Smith, the new director of education in British Tanganyika.144
During the interwar era, the British government generated Zanzibar’s edu-
cational funding by implementing various forms of taxation of the native
communities.145
The fact that Zanzibar was a protectorate did not alter the reality that
the economy was primarily agricultural, and education was not a para-
mount concern among most classes of Zanzibaris. A notable exception
to this rule was Sultan Seyyid Ali Bin Hamoud, who was among the first
Zanzibaris to pursue a Western education.146 Having failed to persuade
the British government to create a secondary school that would provide
Zanzibaris with a Western education, Sultan Seyyid Ali established a
small school in his palace for the sons of leading Arab families. In 1905
Sultan Seyyid Ali convinced the British government to form an education
department that it would fund at forty-five thousand rupees per annum.147
In 1906 the education department took over his school and named it the
Arab School.148 Zanzibar’s Arab School was a success, largely because its
 Disarticulation 81

director, S. Rivers-Smith, formerly the director of education in Britain’s

Egyptian service, knew how to manage urban schools and elite students.
In 1910, the Primary School was integrated into the government
system. The Department of Education decided that Swahili, rather than
Arabic, should be taught in the lower levels, while Arabic and English
was made compulsory at the upper levels.149 Some Arabs objected to the
emphasis on Swahili and withdrew their students. The primary school
retained 50 percent of its students at the end of the first three years of
coursework in Swahili. The teachers shifted academic instruction from
Swahili to Arabic and English in the last four years of primary instruc-
tion, and only 10 percent of students managed to graduate with primary
certification.150 Despite British inclusion of medressas into Zanzibar’s of-
ficial educational system and the removal of school fees, pupils enrolled
in Zanzibar’s schools at a very slow rate. For the years 1944, 1948, and
1952 total school attendance was 2,103, 3,952, and 5,104 students respec-
tively.151 Even with such small group of primary graduates, Zanzibar’s
lack of secondary schools made it impossible to accommodate many
students who wanted to extend their training. In 1958 one thousand of the
approximately five thousand primary school graduates sat for exams for
secondary school. The British government only had places for the top two
hundred students in one of a handful of secondary schools.152 As of the
1950s, secular education in Zanzibar was not a great success. Less than
10 percent of male children attended primary school, a fraction of that
number attended secondary school, and less than 1 percent of Zanzibar’s
girls saw the inside of a government school. Upper-class children contin-
ued to receive better education, both in Zanzibar and abroad, than their
Swahili-speaking counterparts. Yet very few technical and government
jobs were available for Arabs or their Bantu and Swahili countrymen and
women. When Zanzibar gained independence from British rule, the gap
in educational attainment, and the broader issue of illiteracy among Afri-
cans wishing to vote, became a significant source of conflict. Educational
inequality contributed to Zanzibar’s communal violence that, in turn,
provoked a coup d’etat and revolution.
In Tanganyika secular schools were more of a success. Between the
year 1885 and 1905 Tanganyika’s indigenous Bush schools increased
their student body from 405 boys to 3,452 students, of which 1,822 were
boys and 1,620 were girls.153 In 1911 Tanganyikans graduating from
82 Chapter II

primary schools numbered more than sixty thousand, while students in

government and mission schools offering higher education numbered
only 1,290. There were 286 students enrolled in industrial government
and mission schools. All totaled, there were 66,647 graduates of some
form of Tanganyikan school. Between 1911 and 1914 German secular
government schools increased by sixteen, from eighty-three to ninety-nine
schools, graduating sixty-one thousand students.154
In 1957, 51,549 students were enrolled in the final year of Tangan-
yika’s primary schools. In 1961 that number rose to 93,978 students; of
that number 31 percent were girls. Tanganyikans still suffered the dispari-
ties that all Africans faced with regards to their European counterparts;
however, by the 1930s the German government, in cooperation with bush,
missionary schools and Islamic medressas, had ensured that between 20–
25 percent of Tanganyika’s youth was literate in their national language.
The number of literate students in Zanzibar was far smaller. Africans in
Zanzibar and Tanganyika were both poor, but Tanganyikans had a distinct
advantage. Tanganyika’s schools, its government, and its economy all
functioned in Swahili. This political system established by Germans and
continued by British Fabians fostered a cohesive national identity.
Zanzibar’s schools and students fared much worse for several reasons.
First, the protectorate government’s conception of Zanzibar as an “Arab”
state made it fundamentally reject Swahili as the national language. This
led to a convoluted system that trained only a handful of children in Swa-
hili, and when it did, taught them alternately in Arabic and Latin scripts.
This approach was incoherent and led to confusion within the primary
system and especially between the primary, secondary, and advanced
classes. Further, the colonial government’s continued insistence on col-
lecting school fees made attaining an education out of the reach of all
but Zanzibar’s richest communities. Finally, even when the government
suspended school fees, the program of inducing Zanzibaris to work for
wages on commercial plantations held more value in Zanzibar than it did
in Tanganyika, where mainland farms were generally family- or clan-
owned. British insistence on utilizing Christian educational orthodoxy
in Muslim Zanzibar created deep-seated resentment. However, of all the
controversies caused by the colonial government, the issue of linguistic
stratification was among the most important concerns haunting Zanzibar’s
 Disarticulation 83

Department of Education, its government broadly, and its society more

generally. Raymond Betts stipulates that:

In the Tanganyikan context special note should be taken of the importance

of language policy in fostering nationalism. Confronted with the problem
of communicating with people who spoke over one hundred languages
and dialects, the German regime discovered there was one potential lingua
franca: Swahili, spoken by most of the coastal population and a few up-
country inhabitants. Officials, in attempting to establish an efficient subor-
dinate civil service, decided to use Swahili as the medium of instruction in
the lower [primary and secondary] levels of their schools and German in the
upper. Missionaries used local dialects to win confidence. . . . When Britain
assumed the mandate, general and educational administrators alike favored
further promotion of Swahili . . . gave Tanganyika an advantage not shared
by the majority of African colonial territories: an indigenous language.155

Zanzibar differed from Tanganyika in every possible way regarding

language use and education. The German penchant for teaching Swahili
and using it as the official language of its colonial government was an
idea derived from Germany’s philosophy regarding education and gover-
nance. As mentioned earlier, by the mid-nineteenth century the German
government, despite differences in language and religion, committed to
expanding popular education throughout Germany. By contrast, British
experts in the fields of philosophy and education were more dedicated to
the instruction of the British elite in London than they were to the educa-
tion of England’s rural communities, or religious and linguistic minorities
in distant regions of the United Kingdom. Another difference between the
British and the Germans involved the German approach to colonial rule.
German governments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
were strong advocates of direct rule in their colonies. Rather than relying
on co-opting or altering indigenous political and social institutions as the
British did, the Germans built an extensive bureaucracy in Tanganyika.
They sent many Germans conversant in Swahili to occupy the execu-
tive positions, but allowed Africans to work in these institutions in other
capacities. Thus the combination of direct rule, Germany’s creation of
Tanganyikan political institutions of governance, and its dissemination of
Swahili established the conditions necessary for mass education, which
84 Chapter II

compelled Tanganyikans to create a nonviolent nationalist movement and

eventually sustained and enlightened Swahili rule.156
British rule in Zanzibar could not have been more different. By the
early 1900s British officials in Zanzibar employed a system of indirect
rule, co-opting the local Swahili-Shirazi system of liwalis to control clove
production in Zanzibar’s rural areas.157 In Zanzibar Town the British
relied on the sultan and his good, but modest, offices to rule Zanzibar’s
ports. Promoting the concept of indirect rule/dual mandate, the protector-
ate government used Arabic and English in the courts and in the second-
ary school systems, maintaining Arab landownership while strengthening
Indian monopoly of financial and skilled occupations. R. H. Crofton enu-
merated the hopes and grievances of the Arab community:

As a result of the changed conditions many landowners found themselves in

financial difficulties, with their properties heavily mortgaged. At the same
time practically all skilled trades had become an Asiatic monopoly. On the
success of the plan for education rested the hope of rehabilitation of the
once prosperous plantation owners and the establishment of the Sultan’s
subjects firmly in the skilled labor market. The foundation on which to build
was anything but promising. The only possible medium in the elementary
stages was Swahili, but the Protectorate being Muhammadan [Muslim] it
was essential to recognize the need for the study of the Koran and there-
fore the inclusion of Arabic as a subject of study in the curriculum. There
seemed little doubt that the old Arab families visualized in education a
channel through which the prestige of their language might be restored.158

Ultimately, the British government felt that its colonial business in-
terests could only be expanded if an educated and wealthy minority re-
mained in power. In Zanzibar, Arabs held that distinction. Britain’s most
persuasive colonial forces argued that keeping African education at the
primary level and its curricula in the vocational and agricultural fields
would keep the labor and upper classes in balance, and the political and
economic aspirations of Africans low. The justification for such attitudes
originated with a centuries-old argument—namely, that Africans simply
were not intellectually equipped and would therefore never be “ready”
to assume control over their own political and economic futures. In the
1950s, Rhodesian prime minister Godfrey Huggins, mentor of Ian Smith
and protégé of Cecil Rhodes, spoke to various political groups, including
 Disarticulation 85

a conference of European missionaries. He suggested that black attempts

at self-rule were a “sad spectacle” white Rhodesians must discourage.
Huggins argued that even after seventy years of British rule, the African
mind was still “primitive.”159 He declared that white Rhodesians would
always need to guide Africans to their “proper end,” which was service to
the colonial government.160
The effort to maintain minority rule in Rhodesia continued into the
1970s, decades or more behind similar efforts in most African colonies.
To the shock and dismay of the international community, Rhodesian prime
minister Ian Smith, a staunch defender of white rule, declared his historic
Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), hoping to preempt African
demands for independence from Britain or for majority black rule. The
attitude of many white Rhodesians and the actions of their prime minister
supported the contention made by many African revolutionaries. Power
could not be granted—it could only be seized. A decade after the UDI,
Ian Smith still faced armed resistance from black Rhodesians, and public
censure from the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations.161
Smith continued to ignore international efforts to mediate the conflict.
Smith made his personal stand the official statement of the UDI:

After the tremendous effort of the past 10 years to preserve western civilization,
[white] Rhodesians have no intention of handing over [power] to anyone.162

In Rhodesia and elsewhere, minority governments, especially Euro-

pean imperialists, often characterized colonial rule as a colossal effort
to impart European “civilization” to “primitive” Africans. Champions of
minority rule often juxtaposed “civilized” order with “mass” brutality.
Britain’s clients, minority Indian and Arab communities, like their Euro-
pean patrons, wanted to maintain cultural and economic ties with African
colonies and with one another. As African independence approached,
many European governments and several of their minority clients feared
African rule would defeat European “enlightenment,” and would com-
promise international trade. As a result, many European countries tried to
arrange African colonial independence in a way that would most benefit
Europe and her governing clients. During the decades of the Zanzibari
protectorate, the British government successfully employed indirect rule
to promote enrichment of Arabs, Indians, and the British crown. The
86 Chapter II

colonial office, dominated by many “new imperialist” legacies, believed

that Arab rule could and should prevail after independence. Hoping to
maintain economic ties with Zanzibar’s richest communities, the British
crown granted Zanzibaris independence, but restored the Omani sultan as
a constitutional monarch.
Many Africans regarded Zanzibar’s new political system as a con-
tinuation of indirect rule. Several argued that the economic and social
deprivations that were the norm under “protection” might prevail during
“independence.” In the 1950s the Young African Union (YAP), the youth
wing of Zanzibar’s Afro-Shirazi Party, quite accurately argued that Brit-
ish policy was responsible for denying generations of Africans the educa-
tional opportunities available to most Arabs and Indians. The YAP further
asserted that these educational disparities were the result of Britain’s
distinct preference for alien rule, and that the Omani government would
promote similar policies.163 Ultimately, and in complete contravention to
British views on the matter, the YAP argued that the only way Africans
could attain educational and economic progress in Zanzibar was if the
country became an African, rather than an Arab, state.164

CONCLUSION

Before the era of “protection” and the official era of indirect rule, the
British government allowed missionaries and Islamic authorities to oper-
ate their schools largely unfettered by colonial control. Had the British
allowed missionary and Islamic schools to continue their natural growth
in Zanzibar, they may have expanded their numbers and achieved rates of
primary matriculation similar to those of Tanganyikans under Germany’s
“direct rule.” Indirect rule in Zanzibar changed this trajectory.165 More
specifically, once Lord Lugard successfully “organized” British colonial
interests in Nigeria, the colonial government began monitoring local
medressas and missionary schools throughout its African holdings. The
British colonial office increased the number of schools staffed by secular
authorities. These secular institutions were accountable to the colonial
government and were responsible for monitoring curricula content as well
as the educational achievement of their students. The colonial system re-
quired that native authorities regulate their behavior in order to stabilize
 Disarticulation 87

the political system and help the colonial state generate as much revenue
as possible.166 Thus, while the British government of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century advocated the “dual mandate” goal of uni-
versal education, it really promoted the narrow economic priorities of
elite minorities. This approach characterized most colonial projects and
inspired by British “new imperialism.”
By contrast, the Weberian philosophy of nineteenth-century bureau-
cratic Germany strove to create a hybrid Swahili-German system of
direct rule. Rather than creating a plantation system where the govern-
ment controlled and taxed the national cash crop, German officials al-
lowed Tanganyikan “tribes” to manage their own farms. Rather than
taxing Tanganyika’s coffee cash crop, they established modest house and
sales taxes.167 The German bureaucracy in Tanganyika was large and the
Germans centralized their authority. However, despite this centraliza-
tion of authority, the German government appeared progressive because
it funded indigenous “bush” schools. Unlike the British government in
Zanzibar, Germany created many government schools, primary and sec-
ondary academies, which, unlike Zanzibari schools, were free.168 Finally,
German authorities used Swahili as the official language of Tanganyikan
schools as well as of the Tanganyikan government. For these reasons the
German government was able to cultivate a relationship that appeared to
be based more on affinity than on control.169
In Zanzibar, the first manifestation of Britain’s phase 2 policy was its
effort to put the state, already at the heart of the plantation economy, at
the center of colonial educational policy. The colonial government effort
to promote working-class disarticulation was visible in its program of in-
tegrating competing social philosophies into a broad design for its educa-
tional program. The final feature of Britain’s second-phase policy focused
on its narrow economic strategy of educating only those Zanzibaris who
would promote British rule and cash-cropping rather than Swahili rule.
During all three of these efforts, Britain’s leading thinkers and its most
powerful industrialists argued about the nature of African educability, the
burden of imperial rule, and the uses of settler or minority populations
to generate colonial revenue.170 The formulation of colonial educational
policy was influenced by all three debates. Ultimately, the new imperial-
ists, several of whom were social Darwinists, prevailed. The new imperi-
alists promoted educational policies that sustained the British bureaucracy
88 Chapter II

and preserved the ruling elite. They eliminated programs that threatened
the protectorate, or more specifically, the plantation economy.171 Though
the British referred to governance in Zanzibar as “indirect rule,” its reach
appeared wider and stronger than Germany’s so-called direct rule of Tan-
ganyika.
When formulating second-phase educational policy, Britain’s primary
aim was to determine how Zanzibar’s schools could be financed—
cheaply.172 While the British government proclaimed the virtue of ex-
panding educational opportunity, it created and ultimately funded only a
handful of schools.173 This ruse of academic development and economic
oversight gave the government control over all educational institutions, to
the detriment of Islamic medressas and African Zanzibaris.
Like the British, German colonial authorities enjoyed almost complete
control over Tanganyika’s school system, and, like the British, they
were frugal. However, due to Germany’s unique legacy of educational
populism, a singular quality in nineteenth-century Europe, German co-
lonial administrators were willing to adapt their policies to Tanganyika’s
indigenous bush and Islamic schools. Further, these same administrators
learned Tanganyika’s lingua franca, adopting Swahili as the official lan-
guage of Tanganyika’s government, thereby encouraging genuine social
integration. By contrast, Britain’s system of elite education, and its culti-
vation of Arabic and English as the official languages of local trade and
the Zanzibari state, led to increased economic and linguistic stratification,
and, finally, profound African resentment. When African resentment
turned to political defiance, British authorities often blamed Omani rule,
Indian wealth, and Arab privilege, dubbing economic struggle “racial
conflict.”174
The third chapter will analyze Zanzibar’s land and linguistic inequali-
ties, introduced in the first two chapters, in order to consider African po-
litical will and social activism. As with chapters I and II, chapter III will
consider British political strategy—more specifically, phase 3 economic
development, contrasting Zanzibar’s preindependence political conditions
with parallel experiences in neighboring Tanganyika. Chapter III will also
consider the impact of indirect rule, a major influence in academic policy,
on Zanzibar’s political institutions and African activism within and out-
side these organizations, as well as Britain’s next phase 3 response toward
African labor strikes and economic boycott. The chapter will conclude by
 Disarticulation 89

considering the role Zanzibar’s land, language, and political conflicts had
in animating phase 4 revolution.

NOTES

1. The three Cs refer to commerce, civilization, and Christianity. The three Cs,
dual mandate, and indirect rule are considered in the discussion to follow.
2. In the late 1880s Sudan’s Mahdist rebellion and the Boer raid against
the government in South Africa suggested that native and white populations
were willing to challenge British colonial authority. Meanwhile, various Brit-
ish adventurers and an assortment of European politicians pushed for “a new
imperialism,” an aggressive march of British forces into new territories, coupled
with renewed attention to security in lands already occupied by the British. Cecil
Rhodes, the struggling prime minister of 1890s South Africa, was one of the lead-
ing advocates of “new imperialism.” Unlike most Gladstonian liberals, Rhodes
and other “new imperialists” believed the more colonies the crown acquired,
the better; see Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, 410. Among
Cecil Rhodes’s “Realpolitik/imperial federation” allies in the Liberal party was
Lord Rosebery, a Gladstone appointee in the foreign ministry whose family and
in-laws, the Rothchilds, would gain from African resource wealth (312). Rhodes
and Rosebery’s desire for colonies could not be sated.
3. Despite simultaneous rebellions in Sudan, Egypt, Uganda, and South Africa,
new imperialists pressed for expansion of British rule. In the late nineteenth cen-
tury, new imperialist philosophy and Rhodes’s personal ideologies, in particular,
dominated Britain’s prevailing doctrines regarding colonialism and education in
Africa. Rhodes argued that Africans were incapable of learning. They could not be
educated, and did not need schools; see Rhodes’s Confession of Faith. A tract writ-
ten by Lord Hugh Cholmondeley Delamere, called “White Man’s Country,” made
the case for increased white settlement in the temperate East African regions. Lord
Delamere believed white settlement would make it possible for crown to transfer of
wealth and resources from Africa to Europe; Robert Collins, Documents from the
African Past (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Weiner, 2001), 298–300.
4. This debate continued into the third, fourth, and fifth phases of governance
in Zanzibar. In the mid-Victorian era, Britain preferred to think of itself as an
ever-expanding empire of “white colonies.” Canada, Australasia, South Africa,
and the West Indies, governed by the progeny of Englishmen, initially inspired
more confidence than colonies associated with the Indian subcontinent. Creating
a “white” empire became more difficult as white settlers began expanding and
expropriating “native” lands in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa well
90 Chapter II

beyond urban areas and against the advice of Britain’s colonial office. Some
colonies, such as America, broke with Britain, while others, including Canada,
Australia, and South Africa, maintained their links as they sought more local
control and autonomy. Once supported only by Britain’s commercial interests,
“new imperialist” white settler expansion was ultimately defended by the British
government because it continuously delivered bigger revenue for the crown; see
Ronald Robinson, John Gallagher, and Alice Denny, Africa and the Victorians
(New York: Macmillan & Co., 1965), 8–9.
5. In 1869, only 50 percent of British children attended “voluntary” schools,
and these were largely run by religious organizations. The Education Act of 1870
made it possible for nonsectarian organizations to establish schools, which would
be supported by local and national taxes. However, when the British government
gave the Church of England the largest amount of tax derived school funds,
Non-Anglican Protestants, often called “Non-Conformists,” began resenting the
power of the Anglican Church. They petitioned the government for a nonsectar-
ian approach to the dispersal of money. Parliament issued the Act of 1870 and
the Education Act of 1876, which made it possible for school boards to make
elementary school mandatory. This expanded British literacy. In 1880 British
students were required to attend school until the age of ten and in 1891 school
fees were eliminated. In 1918 The Education Act made school compulsory until
students were fourteen years of age; see Melinda Core and George Ochoa, The
Encyclopedia of the Victorian World (New York: Henry Holt Publishers, 1996),
148–49; and Martin Pugh, Britain Since 1789: A Concise History (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1999), 167. The British government passed no such laws to make
schools either free or compulsory in Britain’s African colonies.
6. Zanzibar’s sultanate never claimed that society was open to group advance-
ment, but the sultan’s administration promoted a vigorous program of individual
advancement, referred to in chapter I as “linguistic passing.” The colonial govern-
ment made many claims suggesting that British rule opened Zanzibar to Swahili
social advancement. In the first phase of colonial rule, these assertions concerned
Britain’s campaign against slavery. During the second phase of colonial rule the
British government maintained that it was delivering civilization and commerce.
More discussion of these assertions will follow.
7. Britain’s various phases of colonial rule are discussed in chapter I. Under
British rule, linguistic education and “linguistic passing” became difficult to
achieve. Britain tied its emancipation of domestic slaves with its system of tax
driven mandatory labor on plantations. Though free, former slaves were relegated
to income and living conditions of Britain’s working class. In the second phase
of colonial rule, the government promised to expand opportunity and promote
upward mobility by opening public government schools. However, the British
 Disarticulation 91

state promoted class disarticulation by helping fund private primary and second-
ary schools for Arab and Indian elite, while opening only a handful of primary,
largely vocational, schools for Africans.
8. Francois Bayart, Politics of the Belly (London: Zed Press, 1997).
9. Beginning in the late Victorian era, Britain began to open its educational
system. It gradually became somewhat affordable and therefore more popular.
However, these changes came slowly and even as late as the beginning of World
War I, Britain’s schools were still not entirely accessible or democratic. British at-
titudes toward working class education were still tempered by Victorian attitudes
concerning class as well as caste and the orthodoxy of a well-ordered society.
10. For a thorough discussion, see David Wardle, English Popular Educa-
tion 1780–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 7; and P. W.
Musgrave, Society and Education in England Since 1800 (New York: Barnes &
Noble, 1968), 11. During the 1830s, Robert Owen, self-proclaimed “radical” and
agitator for social justice, established his own school that focused on infant edu-
cation. He argued that environments, not inherited traits, influenced individual
children. Owen established cooperative communities in England and America,
where he also became involved in the trade union movement. His philosophies
ran counter to many of the dominant Victorian philosophies of the late nineteenth
century. As such, they enjoyed limited circulation; see P. W. Musgrave, Society
and Education in England Since 1800, 11. Other educational reformers who
worked outside the missionary system included individuals who sympathized
with Britain’s emerging labor and socialism movements. One such organization
was the Fabian Society, which became especially influential in Tanganyikan
independence era politics.
11. Deborah Simonton, A History of European Women’s Work (Oxford: Rout-
ledge, 1998), 13–36.
12. Pugh, Britain Since 1789, 41–42.
13. The notion that the middle and upper classes bred more intelligent children
than the lower classes was central to the popularity of the eugenicist movement
among Europe’s would-be elite, the rising professional classes; Pugh, Britain
Since 1789, 119–20.
14. For a discussion of the Romantic Movement, see Sheldon Rothblatt, Tra-
dition and Change in English Liberal Education (London: Faber & Faber, 1976),
53. For a discussion of Utilitarian educational orthodoxy, see David Wardle, Eng-
lish Popular Education 1780–1970, 4. Social Darwinism is discussed in Corey
and Ochoa, The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World, 414–15. The above phi-
losophies are contrasted in Wardle, English Popular Education 1780–1970, 7.
15. Joan Simon, The Social Origins of English Education (Oxford: Routledge,
1970), 63.
92 Chapter II

16. Simon, The Social Origins of English Education, 62; and Pamela and Har-
old Silver, The Education of the Poor (Oxford: Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1974), 5.
The content and nature of education in medieval/industrial Britain was bifurcated.
It organized students according to their economic class. The higher the economic
status of the parents the more education the students would receive. For hundreds
of years elementary and secondary schools were two separate systems. The ele-
mentary system, created for mass education, stressed “mechanical obedience.” In
the frugal years of the early nineteenth-century elementary schools used a system
called “monitorial” instruction where one book was used to teach an entire class.
Whereas in the elementary system students graduated from a basic diet of the
three Rs, in the secondary “grammar” schools, students were instructed in seven
liberal arts, including grammar, logic, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, as-
tronomy, and finally Latin and Greek; see John Cannon, The Oxford Companion
to British History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 327–28. The gap
between these two educational systems was never spanned, and working-class
students suffered. However, in the mid-Victorian era, the mercantile elite created
a small group of schools designed to train the rising sons of mercantile families
in classical curriculum previously available only to the landed aristocracy. Class
differences remained an issue in Britain’s new schools. Schools such as Rugby,
Bretton, and Woodward were established for a groups of boys who were consid-
ered neither “too low” such as tradesmen sons nor “too high” such as Britain’s
landed aristocracy; John Raymond de Symons Honey, Tom Brown’s Universe
(Memphis, Tenn.: Millington Books, 1977), 15.
17. Established in the early nineteenth century, Britain’s “public” schools
wanted the rising middle class, the so-called new elite to develop social skills
that would enhance their status among Britain’s traditional ruling classes. As
such, along with the acquisition of professional skills that would lead to work in
government or politics, these schools emphasized literary and linguistic training;
Honey, Tom Brown’s Universe, 229 and 237. In addition to foreign languages,
students were expected to erase any accents or vocabulary that would identify
their class or origin. Young students such as William Gladstone, identified by his
“Lancasterian burr,” and Benjamin Disraeli, known for speaking a “Lancanshire
patois,” were expected to modify their accents if they hoped for a bright career
in government. Ultimately graduates of these schools referred to themselves as
“public schools boys” well into their old age. Many became leaders in Britain’s
new foreign colonies, forming associations based on their public schools heritage,
often socializing only with one another. For further discussion of linguistic ac-
cent, class, psychological, and professional identification in British history, see
Rom Harre, Social Being (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979), and Rom Harre and Paul F.
Secord, Explaining Social Behavior (Oxford: Blackwell, 1972).
 Disarticulation 93

18. Among the arguments that became popular in the late Victorian era were
those that suggested that non-European racial characteristics (such as an “Afri-
can” cranial shape) were incompatible both with innate intellectual reflection
and with learned moral reasoning. In the late 1700s German medical doctor S.
T. Von Soemmering conducted a forensic experiment, contrasting the shape of
an African skull with the skull of a European person. He published a paper titled
“Concerning the Physical difference between Negros and Europeans,” cited in
Vincent Battle and Charles Lyons, Essays in the History of African Education
(New York: Columbia University, 1970), 2. Charles W. White, a medical student
in Britain, began research based on Von Soemmering’s “analysis”; Battle and Ly-
ons, Essays in the History of African Education, 25. White argued that there were
four races that developed independently; the Europeans were of the highest order,
followed by Asian and Red races. The Africans were assigned to the lowest rung
of existence—a group Von Soemmering and White suggested was incapable of
advanced thought due to their small skulls/brains. White’s work was influential
in pro-slavery works in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. For
further discussion and critiques of these theories, see Christine Bolt, Victorian
Attitudes toward Race (Oxford: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), 75–108.
19. In 1555 William Waterman published The Fardle of Fashion (The Burden
of Culture), a book based on William Prat’s Description of the Country of Africa
(1554). Prat’s book was itself a translation of Johan Boemus’s Ominium Gentium
Mores (1520). All three works are cited in Eldred Jones, The Elizabethan Image of
Africa (Washington, D.C.: The Folger Shakespeare Library—The University Press
of Virginia, 1971). Prat, Waterman, and Boemus’s books were notable because they
all featured Herodotus’s ancient observations about North Africa, in addition to
more contemporary commentary by an assortment of medieval European explorers
concerning European trade in West Africa. The same year the Fardle of Fashion was
published, Richard Eden translated Peter Martyr’s Decades of the New World, also
in Jones, The Elizabethan Image of Africa, 6. Waterman, Prat’s, and Eden’s books
provided sensational, exaggerated descriptions of Africa’s wealth in gold and ivory.
They also distinguished among various Africans populations, in some instances
creating and designating “racial” nomenclature to distinguish between them.
Waterman classified central, western, and eastern Africans as “Nigrite(s), Moors,
Ethiopes . . . ,” respectively, making further, if dubious, distinctions between “white
and black Ethiopes,” in Jones, The Elizabethan Image of Africa, 7. What these narra-
tives lacked in science they more than compensated for in creativity.
20. Richard Eden’s accounts of explorer John Lok’s voyage to Guinea came
to typify medieval views toward Africa.
21. “The people which now inhabit the regions of the coast of Guinea . . .
Moors, Moorens or Negroes, [are] a people of beastly living, without God, law,
94 Chapter II

religion or commonwealth,” from Decades of the New World, cited in Jones, The
Elizabethan Image of Africa, 12. Another account in Eden’s work referred to the
people of Benin. It suggested that “the inhabitants live in idolatry, and are a rude
and brutish nation”; see Jones, The Elizabethan Image of Africa, 25.
22. William Bosman, a chief officer for the Dutch West India Tea Company
wrote about his trip to Axim (Axum) in 1700–1701. He was puzzled by Axum’s
representative form of government, where power was “not vested in a single per-
son.” Bosman found their bicameral legislature, with a body of young warriors
called manceros and a smaller assembly of elders, known as the caboceros, to be
incomprehensible. He lamented that “the best of their methods of administration
are confused and perplexing”; see Robert Collins, Documents from the African
Past, 121–28. Bosman argued that custom of having the king consult with the
bicameral legislature before formulating foreign policy, especially acts of war,
peculiar and unnecessary.
23. The narratives of Fathers Joan Dos Santos (1590) and Giovanni Cavazzi
(1654) of Portugal made universal the violent and cannibalistic tendencies of a
few Ethiopian and Angolan warriors. European readers were made to believe
these were mundane African custom throughout the continent, in Collins, Docu-
ments from the African Past, 60 and 109. Ultimately, exaggerated narratives such
as these, promoted the idea that Africans were culturally subordinate to Europe-
ans. These and other stories, delivered by similarly esteemed individuals, served
as justification for Europe’s exploitation of Africa people and resources.
24. Sir John Hawking, Britain’s first regular slave trader, began his missions
in 1562, 1564, and 1567. Many slave traders and shipping companies followed
his lead, cited in Jones, The Elizabethan Image of Africa, 16–17, and Walter
Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 83.
25. For a discussion of the distinction between liberal and conservative impe-
rialists, see the beginning of this chapter. Eventually, narrow treatises, written by
men with financial interests in African conquest began replacing Lord Palmerston
and P. M. Disraeli’s ambivalent and enigmatic essays concerning the pros and
cons of colonization. Cecil Rhodes and Lord Rosebery, men of different classes,
but similar economic philosophies, promoted “new imperialism” unequivocally.
These works, in turn, were succeeded by more refined policy papers published by
conservative and liberal factions between the 1890s and 1930s.
26. Throughout the nineteenth century, both conservative and liberal imperi-
alists wrote tracts in favor of discovering and exploiting resources in lands that
could be colonized. They disagreed how colonization should be conducted, and
to what extent the indigenous residents had the right to obstruct European colo-
nial interests. By the twentieth century, well after the end of the slave trade and
the beginning of the scramble for Africa, Britain’s industrial interests reflected
 Disarticulation 95

European entitlement to African resources. In a tract titled “White Man’s Coun-

try,” Lord Hugh Cholmondeley Delamere argued that poorer white colonists
could work in the positions occupied by Indian traders, while richer white set-
tlers could expand trade and “civilization,” in a manner in which Africans and
Indians could not; see Collins, Documents from the African Past, 298–301. This
and other conservative arguments naturally regarded the ideals of dual mandate
and indirect rule as unnecessary and ineffective, respectively. Ultimately, even
liberals stopped advocating dual mandate aspect of “indirect rule,” in favor of
letting Africa “gradually” develop “along its own lines” toward self-government.
Of course, after sixty years of colonial rule, Africa’s lines were now irrevers-
ibly fragmented, and Britain’s gradual Africanization was a concession given
too little, too late. For a review of the official policies of indirect rule and “let-
ting Africans develop along ‘their own lines,’” see Sir Donald Cameron’s tract
in Documents on Modern Africa, Walter T. Wallbank, ed. (Tucker, Ga.: Anvil
Publishers, 1964), 44–47. For a discussion of the policies of “Africanization”
and “gradualism,” see “The Watson Report,” Wallbank, Documents on Modern
Africa, 87–91, and “Gradualism for Southern Rhodesia,” 160–64, respectively.
27. For conservative new imperialist “tolerating” Islamic medressas and
“supporting” missionaries amounted to the same thing—neither controlling the
content of the syllabus, nor funding either institution. As in Britain, many con-
servatives resisted the efforts of liberals to end school fees.
28. Liberal imperialist advanced three types of education in Africa—voca-
tional, literacy, and technical training. Most students, farmers, and other laborers
would enroll in vocational classes and matriculate with a primary level course
of literacy. A smaller group of clerical workers would achieve a secondary level
education and would read European literary works. The most advanced students,
a lilliputian group, would finish their studies with technical expertise and could
compete, perhaps with Indians, for work in finance and medical fields. Thus,
liberal theories concerning the “role appropriate” education of Europe’s working
classes, were consistent with the conservative goals of keeping secondary and ad-
vanced education limited to Africa’s smallest, and perhaps, wealthiest classes.
29. For a thorough discussion of the various debates concerning the use of
English and Africa’s vernacular languages, see 72–78 of Julian Dakin, Brian
Tiffen and H. G. Widowson, Language in Education (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1968). In 1911 and 1923 the British government organized the first Impe-
rial Education Conferences. At the 1923 conference, delegates from British colo-
nies emphasized the problems with bilingual education; Dakin et al., Language
in Education, 73. During the same period the Phelps-Stokes commission began
its own inquiry into education in Africa. A report titled “Education in Africa,”
1922, published by the Phelps-Stokes Fund, gave three recommendations for
96 Chapter II

primary and secondary school teachers in Africa. During the elementary grades
the commission promoted local tribal language should be used. In the middle
years teachers should use a lingua franca, such as Swahili, should be used to
teach intermediate students. Finally, in the last years, or “upper standards,” Eng-
lish should be introduced as the preferred medium of instruction. Other British
reports that emphasized linguistic bifurcation included the “Memorandum on
Educational Policy in British Tropical Africa,” Her Majesty’s Stationery Office,
1925, and “The Place of the Vernacular in Native Education,” African No, 1110,
H. M. Stationery Office, 1927.
30. Early and mid-Victorian era political leaders hailed from aristocratic
backgrounds and inherited both their titles and appointments from their fore-
bears. Gentlemen such as Earl Charles Grey and his son Earl Edward Grey, both
enjoyed tenures as Britain’s foreign secretary; see Cannon, The Oxford Compan-
ion to British History, 437–38. Similarly Earl George Villers Claredon was the
progenitor of a noble legacy of three earls who were both inherited royal and
appointed power (216–17). By the late Victorian era these and other aristocrats
who had political power shared governmental authority with men such who either
acquired wealth and distinction through trade rather than nobility, or who gar-
nered nobility through education and service to the crown; Gallagher, Robinson
and Denny, Africa and the Victorians, 18, 20–22. Whereas before 1895 aristo-
crats held the majority of all appointees in all British cabinets, by the turn of the
century they never enjoyed such a distinction again; Eric Hobsbawn, The Age of
Empire: 1875–1914 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), 171.
31. For a discussion of how the aristocratic tendencies of the ruling nobility
and the middle class political strategies of England’s new elite created friction in
Britain’s foreign and colonial offices, see W. P. Morrell, Colonial Policy of Peel
and Russell (London: Frank Cass, 1966), 29–34.
32. According to Abner Cohen elite associations, and policy are “maintained
in the public interest, but at the same time are used to develop and protect maxi-
mal [elite] rewards”; see Abner Cohen, The Politics of Elite Culture (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1988), 219.
33. Though craniology enjoyed its most prominent position in the late nine-
teenth century, it remained an important field of study into the 1940s, energizing
discussions concerning Europe’s role in Africa’s preindependence educational
policy; see Raymond D. Dart in I. Schapera, ed., The Bantu-Speaking Tribes of
South Africa: An Ethnopgraphical Study (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
Ltd., 1937), 1–32. Raymond Dart, a professor of race and craniology, contrib-
uted to an inquiry commissioned in 1937. Dart’s published his observations with
other preeminent European faculty of South African universities in an edited
compilation. In his study Dart described the South-African “bush” race as having
 Disarticulation 97

low-vaulted pentagonal skulls with large foreheads. He claimed that bush people
had a skull in the “foetal form,” calling this tribe of people champaepentagonoid;
Schapera, The Bantu-Speaking Tribes of South Africa, 9 and 17. See also The
American Heritage Dictionary, second ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, Co.)
An invented term, the first part of the word derived from the Bantu word for mon-
key—“chimpanzee,” the second part came from the Greek word for five-sided
object. Dart called the Bantu ortho-ovids, named for their supposed vertical,
egg-like skulls; Schapera, The Bantu-Speaking Tribes of South Africa, 18. Due to
the fact that there was variation in skin color among the Bantu and because they
spoke a variety of dialects, Dart concluded that they must be related to “Mediter-
ranean or brown races” (21). In a unique departure from most of the studies of
the era, Dart argued that the Bantu population should be considered one of the so-
called brown races responsible for the great civilizations found in the Nile valley,
Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Dart argued that as a brown race, the Bantu must
possess more intellectual potential than other neighboring groups of southeastern
African. Dart dubbed the black people of southeast Africa the “bush” races and
suggested that they were less progressive than the Bantu; see The Bantu-Speak-
ing Tribes of South Africa, 9, 23, and 31. Like Dart’s work, nineteenth-century
craniological studies argued that most if not all southeastern Africans were both
wholly “bush” and Negroid. Furthermore, like Dart, most craniological studies
argued that the black or “non-brown” races of Africa were incapable of advanced
thought. However, unlike Dart, most scholars in the field of craniology were not
particularly interested in these subtle classifications and grouped most African
tribes, including the Bantu and the Swahili as Negroid and therefore thoroughly
ignorant. See Stephen Gould, The Mis-measurement of Man, for a comparison of
the various theories in the fields of craniological study.
34. See Charles Lyons, To Wash an Aethiop White: British Ideas about Black
African Educability 1530–1960 (New York: Columbia Teachers College, 1970), 14.
35. According to much of ancient Greek literature, people were classified as
either Greek or barbarian, which was largely a geographical index; see Julie K.
Ward and Tommy Lott, Philosophers on Race (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
2002), 14–37. Aristotle used the term barbarian to describe most people, includ-
ing northern Europeans (21). As a rule, barbarians were thought to lack the ability
for rational deliberation (24). In Aristotle’s estimation, the riotous personality
or untamed nature of barbarians, especially northern Europeans, required that
Greeks rule them “despotically” (23).
36. Ward and Lott, Philosophers on Race, 14.
37. See Paul S. Reinsch, Colonial Administration (New York: Macmillan Co.,
1912), 41. Reinsch was a prominent German sociologist in the early twentieth
century.
98 Chapter II

38. Reinsch, Colonial Administration, 41.

39. Lady Claud (Genesta) Hamilton, a visitor and biographer of Zanzibar life
in the early 1900s, described the Mwenyi Mkuu, one of several indigenous Swa-
hili tribes that ruled Zanzibar’s coast until Arab invasion, as “cruel” and predis-
posed to “witchcraft”; see Lady Hamilton, The Princes of Zanj, Elspeth Huxley,
ed. (London: Hutchinson, 1957), 81. The colonial government considered the
Mwenyi Mkuu, a tribe conquered by the Omanis and absorbed into an undifferen-
tiated pool of Bantu and Swahili squatters, uncivilized; Middleton and Campbell,
18 and 26. European observers interviewed for Hamilton’s book called Africans
of the interior (whose ancestors were captured as slaves), “savage,” “absent of
thought,” in Huxley, Princes of Zanj, 84 and 89.
40. European visitors in East Africa referred to Arabs of Zanzibar’s royal
house as educated and sophisticated and praised them for the creation of clove
plantations, but suggested that they still lacked “the constructive and adaptable
minds of the West”; Huxley, Princes of Zanj, 201–2.
41. Not all accounts regarding Zanzibar’s Indians were favorable. In fact,
much of the literature produced by and for the British government was ambiva-
lent when it came to discussing the role the Indian community played in expand-
ing the colonial economy in Africa. British royal explorer Sir Richard Burton
referred to Zanzibar’s Indians especially those of Western India as “mild,” calling
them the “fellow-subjects” of the British crown. However, Burton also suggested
that “these Hindus lead a simple life, active only in the pursuit of gain”; Sir Rich-
ard Burton, Zanzibar: City, Island and Coast (London: Tinsely Brothers, 1872),
331, vol. 1. Burton maintained that in most cases Hindus were given to “usury”
that was “rapacious”; Burton, Zanzibar: City, Island and Coast, vol. 2, 147. He
described another groups of Indians, the Khojahs, as “by no means deficient in
intelligence, though unscrupulous and one-idea’d in pursuit of gain. They are
popularly accused of using false weights and measures . . . they are receivers of
stolen goods, and by the readiness with which they buy whatever is brought for
sale, they encourage the pilfering propensity of slaves,” in vol. 1, 338–39. For a
contemporary study of the stereotypes that describe “model minority” Asians, see
Frank H. Wu, Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black & White (New York: Basic
Books, 2002), 67–77, 79–88.
42. Clearly the terms “race” and “civilization” are expressions used by the
author to denote higher orders of existence. Despite the obvious scorn the Brit-
ish had for the “savage” Bantu and the “impaired” Shirazi and Swahili, these
communities, along with Arabs and Indians, all played a vital economic function
in Britain’s plantation economy. British organization of these groups into an oc-
cupational hierarchy was based more on generating revenue for the crown than
promoting its extensive feelings of disdain. However, various British imperial-
 Disarticulation 99

ists, some adherents of craniology or the logic of Social Darwinism, others with
their own feelings of superiority, generally placed indigenous African groups
at the base of a racial pyramid. Groups that the British thought to be similar to
themselves were placed at the pinnacle. There were exceptions. In cases where
Europeans, such as the British, experienced economic competition from “ad-
vanced” groups, the civilization or culture of these “enlightened” groups came
into question. For negative views by British regarding Indians in Kenya and
Boers in South Africa, see, respectively, Lord Delamere’s “White Man’s Coun-
try,” and Thomas Pringle’s “Boer Meets Bantu,” both in Collins, Documents
from the African Past, 298–300 and 183–87.
43. A British colonial officer cited in Omar R. Mapuri, The 1964 Revolution:
Achievements and Prospects, 9. For a similar view of Swahili Zanzibaris, including
the British notion that the Swahili feign good manners and are therefore like a clock
that requires constant winding, see Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times, 224.
44. Cannon, The Oxford Companion to British History, 144, and Lyne, Zanzi-
bar in Contemporary Times, 68.
45. Sir Richard Burton cited in R. N. Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times,
203. Sir Burton’s views regarding African inferiority were consistent with those
of Britain’s Anthropological Society, of which he was a ranking member, are
cited in Cannon, The Oxford Companion to British History, 144.
46. The official reports of Sir Richard Burton, and men like him, reached
several colonial authorities. One such report caused Lugard to argue that despite
their shortcomings, Zanzibar’s Swahili might be “molded to fit British will”;
Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times, 223. In contrast to Messrs. Burton and
Lugard’s view of the Swahili, Bishop Frank Weston argued that they were ad-
mirable. A missionary sent to Zanzibar at the turn of the nineteenth century, he
suggested that “in fact the African is not idle. Even if it were true that Africans
were idle, the remedy must not be one that is itself immoral. . . . The call of ser-
vice to the human race is always valid; but it does not summon a man to work for
the enrichment of a small band of commercial foreigners. . . . The doctrine that
Europeans are justified on commercial grounds in making serfs of the Africans is
in itself immoral”; Lord Oliver, White Capital and Coloured Labour (Richmond,
UK: The Hogarth Press, 1929), 111. Reports such as Bishop Weston’s caught
the attention of the Fabians in the colonial office, but otherwise generally fell on
deaf ears.
47. European writing of the nineteenth century is replete with contempt of
Bantu or “African” culture and admiration for Arab civilization. Ironically there
are also examples of contempt for Bantu culture in the Swahili language and
culture. The word for civilization in the Arabic language is pronounced hadara.
Hadara literally means to be settled, urbanized, or stable; J. M. Cowan, ed., The
100 Chapter II

Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary (Urbana, Ill.: Spoken Language Services,

1976), 244. The word for civilization in Swahili is ustaarabu, which means to
act or behave like an Arab (as opposed, presumably, to a Bantu); see Frederick
Johnson, The Standard English-Swahili Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1939), 90.
48. “Report of the Committee on Education 1915,” cited in Mapuri, The 1964
Revolution, 9. In 1924 the Phelps-Stokes Commission challenged this view and
sent delegates to visit East Africa. The commission stated that its primary aim
was “to find the types of education best fitted to meet the twofold needs of Negro
masses and of the Negro leaders of Africa in the near future,” in Battle and Lyons,
Essays in the History of African Education, 109. In its 1924 report the commis-
sion argued that “every people must have some of its own to serve as leaders,”
Phelps-Stokes Report on Education In Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1962), 138. It argued that “the secondary school is the all-important institution
for training almost every type of leader required in Africa” (150). To the detri-
ment of a truly feasible policy for colonial education, the commission also made
assertions regarding the need for expensive boarding schools, thought to cultivate
“sounder habits,” among potential African leaders (149). Discussions of second-
ary school funding were omitted from the “official recommendations” of the
commission. However, the report concluded by stating that the development of
boarding schools, favored by the commission, required “the generous aid of the
[British] government” (209–10).
49. Ibid., 43.
50. British colonials in Jamaica argued that the educational system produced
indolence among the agricultural labor class, see Mapuri, Essays in the History
of African Education, 50. Similarly, a German missionary and headmaster of
a government school in Tanganyika complained to a British colleague that he
feared that the German educational system would make Tanganyikans less will-
ing to work on government-run banana plantations, and, instead, would only
work on their own, tribal-owned, coffee farms; see Julian Sorell Huxley, Africa
View (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1968), 55.
51. This new school of thought continued well into the colonial literature of
the twentieth century, supporting the notion that European administration should
allow Africans to develop their underdeveloped land which would energize
their “latent [intellectual] capacities”; see T. Walter Wallbank, ed., “General
Considerations Affecting White Settlement,” a report by the joint Committee of
both Houses of the British Parliament, 1931, in Documents on Modern Africa,
53–55.
52. See Lyons, To Wash an Aethiop White, 21, for a discussion of John
Milton’s book, Aeropageitca (published in 1644).
 Disarticulation 101

53. See Lyons, To Wash an Aethiop White, 21, and note 52 above.
54. Henry W. Landsdown, ed., The Petty Papers: Some Unpublished Writings
of Sir William Petty (two volumes; London: Constable, 1927), II, 31. Spelling
reflects eighteenth-century English grammar.
55. Lyons, To Wash an Aethiop White, 21. Various late medieval and early
industrial ages secular scholars, including the philosopher Jean Bodin, as well as
religious scholars such as Morgan Godwyn, and medical doctors such as Petty,
implied that Africans looked, acted, and socialized with apes.
56. Lyons, To Wash an Aethiop White, 15.
57. J. M. Goldstrom, The Social Content of Education 1808–1870: A Study
of the Working Class School Reader in England and Ireland (Shannon: Irish
University Press, 1972). Beginning in early nineteenth century, members of
Protestant sects that separated from the Anglican Church of England, collec-
tively known as the “Non-Conformists,” began establishing their own elemen-
tary schools. The Non-Conformists successfully petitioned the British govern-
ment for financial assistance.
58. Wardle, English Popular Education 1780–1970, 93.
59. Goldstrom, The Social Content of Education 1808–1870, 45.
60. Some secular schools took on the role of community leader, eclipsing par-
ish priests, who had once ruled supreme. Anglican and secular schools leaders,
taking cues from local government, began dispensing financial advise to families
of their students. More specifically, local governing councils told the students
enrolled in secular schools located in financially challenged rural areas that they
could increase their wealth by accepting credit, and mortgaging their farms to
“expand family wealth”; ibid., 76–77.
61. In 1833 the British government instituted an annual grant of twenty
thousand pounds to voluntary organizations that managed primary/elementary
schools. Most of the organizations that received this money were religious as-
sociations. In fact, much to the chagrin of the Protestant Non-Conformists, the
British government began investing a large amount of money in establishing its
own Anglican schools. Ultimately, most Non-Conformists children had to attend
Anglican schools. Non-Conformists parents were upset because large, wealthy
Anglican schools were being subsidized at a rate equal to or greater than the far
small and fewer Non-Conformist schools. Anglicans, on the other hand, were
upset because, as of 1870, Non-Conformists were allowed to run for election to
school boards, and, not long after, began outnumbering their Anglican colleagues
on many of the school boards in most parishes; see Martin Pugh, Britain Since
1789, 101.
62. Clive Girgiss, The Trade Union Congress and the Struggle for Education
1868–1925 (London: The Falmer Press, 1983). In the 1880s and 1890s, both the
102 Chapter II

Fabians and the Trade Union Congress, the TUC, sought to make working class
education more accessible, equitable, and closer to elite education. The TUC’s
initial attempts to promote education reform in the early 1880s were a success.
However, by the turn of the century, the drive to make educational reform im-
portant was reduced, taking a backseat to wage reforms and attempts to reduce
the national work-week. During World War I, the demand for child labor to as-
sist in the war effort reduced educational opportunities even further. Even when
“universal” education was successfully promoted by the TUC during the years
1880–1930, it largely advocated technical curricula, all the while worrying that
such a move may stifle lower class upward mobility (14).
63. See Arthur Creech Jones, ed., New Fabian Colonial Essays (Westport,
Conn.: Praeger, 1959), 191.
64. Jones, New Fabian Colonial Essays, 187.
65. Cited in full in David Scanlon, Traditions of African Education (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 27–50.
66. See Scanlon, Traditions of African Education, 39.
67. Scanlon, Traditions of African Education, 42.
68. Ibid.
69. When he arrived in Tanganyika Donald Cameron announced that “We’re
here on behalf of the League of Nations to teach the Africans to stand by them-
selves”; J. Cameron and W. A. Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania
(Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1970), 40. Sir Cameron announced that he was on a
mission to locate and train “traditional indigenous authorities” to serve under
British regional deputies and district commissioners (40).
70. Lord Lugard, Political Memoranda 1913–1918 (London: Frank Cass,
1970), 130–31. According to Lugard, “the primary function of education should
. . . ensure that the exceptional individual shall use his abilities for the advance-
ment of the community and not to its detriment, or to the subversion of the con-
stituted authority” (130).
71. Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 41–42.
72. Paradoxically, while many of Zanzibar’s elite Arabs were given a British
“grammar” school education and Africans were largely relegated to technical and
agricultural curricula, in 1920 Britain’s Education Commission argued that “the
future of agriculture, we must assume, in the main lies with the Arabs,” cited in
Bennett, A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar, 224.
73. See Godfrey Huggins cited in Dickinson A. Mungazi, The Mind of Black
Africa (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Press, 1996), 115. The debate between the Fabian
and conservative forces regarding colonial Africa in the twentieth century is impor-
tant to the study of East Africa. While Fabians mentored Julius Nyerere and Tang-
anyika African National Union, Britain’s conservative forces dominated Zanzibar’s
 Disarticulation 103

the two official political organizations, the LEGCO and the EXCO. More discus-
sion on these divergent political influences will follow in chapters III and IV.
74. Fifty years before the “scramble for Africa,” Britain’s concept of an
educational system was largely based on promoting primary schools created by
Christian organizations. The British government reserved the right to show fi-
nancial and political preference toward some religious organizations/schools and
very little consideration of others. Naturally, the British colonial government also
used this approach when endowing schools in East Africa, and Zanzibar in par-
ticular; see Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 68.
75. Cannon, The Oxford Companion to British History, 328.
76. Outside the religious and labor union communities, the political impetus for
popular education in Britain and in Africa came from “liberals” in the Whig party
and “progressives” in Liberal party, with the limited assistance of a few “radicals”
in the Conservative party. When Britain participated in the Berlin conference and
established the protectorate in Zanzibar, the Conservative new imperialists were in
control of British Parliament and, the foreign and colonial offices. World wars, eco-
nomic depressions, and the continued dominance of “new imperialism” kept British
social polices restrained and to a minimum—especially experimental endeavors
such as colonial education. By the time liberal forces regained stature in British
politics, African colonial independence was imminent. In Tanganyika, British
Fabians were able to build on the large and bureaucratic school system established
by the Germans. In contrast, the few mission schools that survived economic hard
times in Zanzibar were hardly equipped to accommodate more than a handful of
students. More discussion of these developments will follow.
77. David Livingstone’s travel to East Africa preceded the Speke-Burton mis-
sion by a decade. As a missionary, an officer of the British crown and a product
of industrial era he believed and professed that his charge in Africa was to “try
to make an open path for commerce and Christianity”; P. J. Marshall, Cambridge
Illustrated History: British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 208
78. In Collins, Documents from the African Past, 253–57.
79. See Collins, Documents from the African Past, 252–57. For a reproduction
of the official documents epitomizing the African scramble, including the Berlin
Act of 1885, and the 1919 League of Nations Mandate concerning the allied
acquisition of axis colonies, see Wallbank, Documents on Modern Africa, 15–17
and 21–23 respectively.
80. Rudyard Kipling published his celebrated poem in McClure magazine in
February 1899, in support of the American acquisition of the Philippines dur-
ing the Spanish-American war. The poem created many reactions. Among the
Americans who thought new world imperialism was a luxury America could ill
104 Chapter II

afford was Anna Manning Comfort, who wrote “Home Burdens of Uncle Sam,”
published in The Public, May 1899. A poem titled “Charity begins at Home,”
published in The Colored American, March 1899, expressed a similar sentiment;
see Jim Zwick, ed., Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898–1935, 2003.
81. Even though the term “white man’s country” became less popular, new
imperialists of the early twentieth century remained true to its ideology, as they
adopted more politically correct terminology.
82. Collins, Documents for the African Past, 290.
83. Lugard coined the term “enlightened self-interest,” which was subse-
quently used by various “liberal” advocates of colonization; see the Dual Man-
date in British Tropical Africa, cited in Wallbank, Documents on Modern Africa,
40–42.
84. Margery Perham, Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London:
Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. [1922], 1965), 204–6.
85. In some missionary communities of the late nineteenth century, the Chris-
tian ideal of charity and a preoccupation with Social Darwinism led to a philoso-
phy known as the “Social Gospel,” which was similar to the principle of the three
Cs, in Battle and Lyons, Essays in the History of African Education, 24.
86. British advocates of the broadest notion of dual mandate, and therefore
those tentatively committed to universal primary education, included individuals
who considered themselves part of the liberal Gladstonian tradition, including
Sir Harry Smith, Lord John Russell, and Lord Stanley. As crown governor in
South Africa, Harry Smith advocated a policy that foreshadowed Lord Lugard’s
notion of dual mandate. Like Lugard, Smith believed that Africans could be
“ameliorate[d] . . . from brutes to Christians, from savages to civilized men.”
Smith’s supervisor, the Lord Earl Grey, believed that “the means of advancing
civilization” in Africa were of two kinds. On the one hand he believed that it
was important to “stimulate the industry of the people, by having recourse . . . to
direct taxation bearing upon them as the means of raising revenue required for
public service (the crown).” Lord Grey believed the colonial government’s other
civic responsibilities included maintaining order, security, and improvement of
infrastructure, as well as fairly vague directives to provide both secular and reli-
gious education; see Lord Earl Grey, The Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell’s
Administration (Richard Bentley, publisher in Ordinary to her Majesty, 1853;
reprinted August M. Kelley, 1970), 79.
87. In the early 1840s Earl Charles Grey, secretary of state for the colonies,
asked Britain’s leading educational organization, the Committee of the Colonies,
to “report on the mode in which. . . . Industrial schools for the colored races
may be conducted in the colonies, so as to combine intellectual and industrial
education”; see Battle and Lyons, Essays in the History of African Education,
 Disarticulation 105

16–17. The committee, however, disregarded Lord Grey’s high opinion of Afri-
can intellect and pursued its investigation based on three assumptions. First the
committee argued that (1) blacks had lower capacities than Europeans, that (2)
the “tropical exuberance” made it necessary to help them overcome the habits of
“listless containment” (laziness), and as a result (3) blacks could only fill humble
posts. Lord Grey did not support the “great chain of being” hypothesis that “in-
nate differences” separated intellectual abilities of European and non-Europeans.
Furthermore, his proposal suggests that he believed the committee would respect
his efforts to devise a method for combining literary and agricultural education.
By contrast, due to their basic assumption of African inferiority, the committee
reported that Africans could only benefit from simple primary-level religious
and agricultural education, which would, coincidentally, also best serve Britain’s
financial interests; Battle and Lyons, Essays in the History of African Education,
16–17, and Philip Curtin, The Image of Africa: British Ideas & Action 1780–1850
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), 427–28.
88. Indirect rule suggested that even in the absence of white settlers, colonial
policy could still be promoted through willing and cooperative foreign (or very
wealthy native) elites. Although both “indirect rule” and “dual mandate” were
formally pronounced in the twentieth century, the ideas of indirect and dual
mandate rule were concepts that emerged much earlier. While sixteenth-century
representatives of trading companies were solely interested in obtaining African
wealth, by the late seventeenth century, missionaries from various European
countries began suggesting that in addition to trading in African slaves and
goods, Europeans could transfer their culture, religion, and technology. Narra-
tives, and official colonial dispatches by Father Rui De Aguiar in 1561 about
the reign of King Myemba Nzinga (christened Affonso I of the Congo), and an
account by Father Antonio Suarez regarding the conversion of the king of the
Mutapa (Mozambique), petitioned the Portuguese crown to increase exploration
of Africa; see Collins, Documents from the African Past, 25–27 and 113–15.
Several centuries after these missionaries wrote about the moral duty of white
settlers to improve/educate their African hosts, Lord Lugard suggested Britain’s
indirect rule and dual mandate were inextricably linked and absolute require-
ments of African colonization.
89. C. B. Wadstrom, An Essay on Colonization: Particularly Applied to the
Western Coast of Africa, with some free thoughts on Cultivation and Commerce
(London: Darton & Harvey Publisher, 1794; reprinted by August M. Kelley,
1968), ii. Mr. Wadstrom identified himself as an officer in the Swedish court who
requested leave of his post to travel to Africa for a year. In 1787 the Swedish king
financed Wadstrom and two companions in what became an official fact-finding
mission to west and central Africa. Before returning to Sweden in 1788, the Brit-
106 Chapter II

ish Privy Council asked him, as a visitor in England, to give them a description
of what he thought of Africa. Wadstrom’s essay reflects his final report to the
British Privy Council and to the king of Sweden.
90. Wadstrom, Smith, Grey, and Lugard’s conceptualizations of indirect rule/
dual mandate, along with “the material needs” of the crown, affected, among other
things, the implementation and funding of schools in Zanzibar. By the twentieth
century, few colonialists treated dual mandate/indirect rule as a unitary theory. Many
colonists viewed them as independent concepts, often advancing one without the
other, or advancing them in different degrees. The tension between the “civilization
imperative” of dual mandate and profit driven premise of enlightened interest/indi-
rect rule, meant that Britain’s social welfare policies in the colonies were often in
jeopardy, especially in times of imperial decline or regional economic distress.
91. C. B. Wadstrom, An Essay on Colonization, iii–iv, emphasis mine.
92. F. D. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (Edinburgh:
Frank Cass and Sons, Ltd., 1926 [reprinted 1965]), 617–18, emphasis mine.
93. Discussed at the beginning of chapter II.
94. Fatton, Predatory Rule, 1992, 9.
95. Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 168. As early as the
1850s, Zanzibar’s leading financial firms were Indian. Indian firms were the gate-
way for British economic monopoly and later formal colonial rule of Zanzibar
(163–71). Robert Fatton uses the term disarticulation to describe how privileged
communities (and sometimes the state), try to limit the social and economic de-
velopment of laboring classes.
96. Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 168. The Portuguese
attempted without much success to establish Christian schools in Zanzibar for
the education of missionaries throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century.
Aside from a few converts, the schools, and the missionaries they produced met
with little professional success. Most of these early Portuguese missions were
closed, a few were replaced by French, German, and English missionary schools
in the late nineteenth century; see J. M. Gray, Early Portuguese Missionaries in
East Africa (London: Macmillan, 1958), 27.
97. L. W. Hollingsworth, The Asians in East Africa (London: St. Martin’s
Press, 1960), 156–58. In 1916, Zanzibar’s British Department of Education made
its first grant to Indian schools; see O. W. Furley and T. Watson, A History of
East Africa (New York: Nok Publishers International, 1977), 35.
98. Indian communal particularities and Christian mission work emphasized in-
group similarities and exaggerated out-group differences. Well into the first decade
of the twentieth century, even Britain’s so-called secular schools emphasized Chris-
tian religious training in their syllabi. All of these factors led to a segregated edu-
cational system in Zanzibar based on community membership, which as mentioned
 Disarticulation 107

earlier denoted language, occupational function and class. Further, these attributes
defined ethnic identity; see Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 35–36.
99. In the mid-nineteenth century the British campaign to end slavery in East
Africa resulted in their establishing St. Andrews College, a teachers college, for the
education of freed slaves in Zanzibar and later German East Africa. Between the
years 1869 and 1912 approximately six hundred primary teachers from St. Andrews
graduating with the hopes of working on mainland Tanganyika and Uganda as
teachers, leaving Zanzibari missions to fend for themselves. Non-Muslim African
Zanzibaris, and other Zanzibaris willing to send their children to mission schools
suffered directly from this policy; see John Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule
1905–1912 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 176.
100. At the turn of nineteenth century, the British government generally be-
lieved that colonial education in Africa should be “geared to clearly identified
needs in pursuance of a predetermined policy of development.” A few years later
Zanzibar’s first director of education in the 1920s, Mr. S. Rivers-Smith, argued
that “the ideal for a system of African education would be that based on an em-
ployment census and a careful forecast of economic development”; Cameron and
Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 63. A 1937 report by a com-
mission appointed by the secretary of state for the colonies similarly endorsed
the notion that educational opportunities should be tailored to fit local industry.
The commission suggested that “the requirements of employers should be stated
before attention is given nature of schools which may be provided in order that
the question of quantity may be considered in relation to absorptive capacity of
East Africa”; see Higher Education in East Africa (H.M. stationery office, Lon-
don, September 1937), 16. British colonies policy consistently sought to limit
educational opportunities for Zanzibar’s Africans rather than expand or vary their
employment opportunities.
101. See the beginning of this chapter for a discussion of the three debates.
102. A shamba is a medium-sized clove farm.
103. Cited in Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 173.
104. Corey and Ochoa, The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World, 1996, 148.
105. Marjorie Lamberti, State, Society and the Elementary School in Imperial
Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 19.
106. Karl von Altenstein’s argued was that the confessional system would
grant fair access to all groups who wanted an education for their children, and
would prevent dissention which was the norm in Prussia’s interconfessional
schools. The new decree promoted increases in taxes, fees and dislocations. Thus,
the confessional system initially proved to be disruptive to the students formally
enrolled in large interconfessional schools. Additionally, school administrators
resisted having their schools reorganized. Ultimately, however, the confessional
108 Chapter II

system proved popular and succeeded in its goal of increasing literacy. By 1861,
of the 80+ percent of Prussia’s students attending primary school, 99 percent
of Protestant and 97 percent of Catholics attended schools of their own confes-
sion; Lamberti, State, Society and the Elementary School in Imperial Germany,
20–21.
107. Lamberti, State, Society and the Elementary School in Imperial Ger-
many, xii.
108. Immanuel Kant’s writings characterized a school of German thought that
promoted the inferiority of black or African intelligence (Akademie-Ausgabe,
Critique of Pure Reason, IX, 316) and the problems with race-mixing (AA, VIII,
367); Friedreich Nietzsche was responsible for more general musings on the
relation between European craniology and advanced intellect (On the Genealogy
of Morals, I: 5). These ideas were popular throughout Europe in as late as the
nineteenth and early twentieth century; see Ward and Lott, Philosophers on Race,
158, 159, and 186.
109. Although Weber was not one of Germany’s noted neo-Kantian scholars,
his work conveyed some of same the well-known concepts regarding rational
thinking and human endeavor found in Kant’s writings. Penned in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries respectively, Kant’s categorical imperative and Weber’s
“ideal” type share a desire to respectively make exemplary moral behavior and
cool rational thought the paragon of human behavior; see Jay M. Shafritz and
Albert Hyde, Classics of Public Administration (Three Lakes, Wis.: Cole Pub-
lishing, 1992), 51–57, and Konard H. Jarausch, Students, Society and Politics in
Imperial Germany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), 170–71.
Weber’s philosophies regarding appointment of administrators was that they
should be chosen based on their ability rather than their status or connection.
These ideas were central to German’s direct rule approach used in its African
colonies. Direct rule and bureaucratic rationality encouraged the Germans to
establish a large and an exacting school system in Tanganyika. By contrast, the
British fondness for indirect rule stimulated Arab patronage in Zanzibar, a system
that thrived in the absence of rigorous educational program.
110. Max Weber was a “liberal of the left, by German Standards.” However,
Weber also believed that Germany should be a strong imperial power. He joined
the “ultra-reactionary” Pan-German league. Weber’s code of bureaucratic neu-
trality became attractive to politicians on Germany’s entire political spectrum;
see Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire 1875–1914 (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1987), 188. Critics of Weberian thought, including Leo Strauss, argued
that in the tradition of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke, modern, positivist theo-
ries such as Weber’s discouraged moral features of political life; see Leo Strauss,
Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), and
 Disarticulation 109

Thomas Mautner, The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy (New York: Penguin

Books, 1996), 543.
111. For a discussion of colonialism’s three great debates, see the beginning
of this chapter.
112. By the 1890s there were one thousand Europeans, mostly Germans, who
began building modern state in Tanganyika. Germans missionaries built eleven
mission stations for health and education; E. B. Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and
Revolution, 43.
113. Even after the German administration established its schools, missionary
schools in Tanganyika accounted for 95 percent of student enrollment. This was
not a problem at the time however because less than 10 percent of Tanganyikans
were Muslim. At the turn of the century, the colonial government estimated that
Muslims comprised less than 10 percent of the population. By the mid-1950s
the British government believed the Muslim community to be approximately 27
percent of Tanganyika’s population; see J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam In East
Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 60.
114. E. B Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 43, and Cameron and
Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 55. Just before the turn of the
century, the German colonial authority established three government schools,
which were built in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanga, and Bagamoyo.
115. Late nineteenth-century Social Darwinist writings on the inferiority of
black or African intelligence did not seem to dominate colonial educational
policy or the personal philosophy of Director von Soden; see Ward and Lott,
Philosophers on Race, 158 and 186.
116. By World War II, the German colonial administration conveyed most
of its official dispatches and policy in Swahili; see Lene Buchert, Educational
Development in Tanzania (Oxford: James Curry, 1970), 16
117. Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 56.
118. Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 55 and
68. The adherence by many of Zanzibar and Tanganyika’s “secular” government
schools to some variety of Christian instruction meant that they could not ben-
efit from donations from one of the richest communities in East Africa, namely
Zanzibar’s coastal Arabs. The rift between Tanganyika’s Muslim community and
the German school system was not as serious as the cleavage between Zanzibar’s
Muslims and the British, because the Muslim community represented 20 percent
and 90 percent of the Tanganyikan and Zanzibar’s population respectively; see J.
Spencer Trimingham, Islam in East Africa, 60.
119. In 1911 the Colonial Institute in Hamburg sent a survey to all schools in
German colonial Africa. Martin Schlunk, a scholar of German colonial Africa,
described the purpose of German educational policy and the politics of language
110 Chapter II

in the colonies. He published his findings in The School System in the German
Colonies (Hamburg: L. Friederichsen & Co. Publishers, 1914), cited in full in
David Scanlon, Traditions of African Education, 27–50. Schlunk argued that
“the teaching of German is at best only of doubtful value for the majority of the
native pupils. Only a small minority of them will have any use for that language
after leaving school. Every educational program, in order to be useful, has to be
given in the native language” (42). Schlunk’s recommendations validated the
policy implemented by Tanganyika’s first director of education Karl von Soden,
and von Soden’s successors.
120. The German government established schools between the 1890s and
World War I, which, despite their progressive exterior, emphasized “submis-
siveness and not enlightenment” and promoted pro-German nationalism; see
Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 57. As such,
secular schools were the first causality of war with the Allies, while the mission-
ary system absorbed pacifistic strategies and ultimately prevailed.
121. Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 48. For several decades
after the establishment of government schools, the number of enrolled Muslim
students remained very low.
122. Middleton and Read, From Child to Adult: Studies in Anthropology of
Education, 276, 278.
123. Buchert, Educational Development in Tanzania, 20. The missionaries,
and commercial interests were largely represented by foreign or minority groups.
Very few Africans attended this important conference.
124. During World War I, Britain’s Liberal-Imperialists had become a loose
association of progressive parties who professed, sometimes ambivalently, that
imperialism meant great opportunity but equally great obligation. Dubbed the
“limps” by their conservative rivals, they shortened their name in the 1920s to the
“Liberals.” In contrast to the Liberals, conservative (new) imperialists, had by the
1920s, become as narrowly focused on the financial rewards of colonial rule, as
they had been during the “scramble for Africa.” Many continued to argue, quite
adamantly, that neither colonial settlers nor the British government were in any
way obliged to help Africans. Ultimately, the interests of Edwardian era commer-
cial partisans often prevailed, as they so often throughout the Victorian age.
125. The document in which the 1925 conference ideals were enshrined was
called “Educational Policy in British Tropical Africa.” The idea of transferring
new farming techniques was the laudable aspect of adaptation. In the absence of
other forms of education, however, adaptation to Africa’s postcolonial economy
could and would not be fulfilled.
126. The other aspect of “adaptation” was its promotion of an educational
system which distinguished primary, secondary and higher education by its use
 Disarticulation 111

of language; see T. J. Jones, Education in Africa (Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1922),

25–26. In Zanzibar, during the elementary years of instruction, Swahili was writ-
ten in an Arabic script, while other Bantu “vernacular” languages were written
in Latin script. In the intermediate or middle school years the British eliminated
Bantu dialects and Swahili instruction was rendered in the Latin script. Ultimately
Swahili was eliminated from high school and secondary instruction. English and
Arabic were introduced as the new mediums of instruction in the most advanced
levels and, coincidentally, among the wealthiest classes.
127. According to Rivers-Smith, “As a result of changed condition [the end of
slave labor], many [Arab] landowners found themselves in financial difficulties,
with their properties heavily mortgaged. At the same time practically all skilled
trades had become an Asiatic monopoly.” Sheik Abd el Bari, a leader in the Arab
community, created the industrial program specifically for Zanzibar’s Arab com-
munity, but allowed a few Swahili boys to attend. The success of the program
rested on the hope that the fortunes of once prosperous plantation owners could
be restored. This Arab vanguard would presumably lead the larger Arab commu-
nity, the sultan’s true subjects, to dominion over the skilled labor market, thereby
challenging the power of the Indian community by becoming the darlings of the
British government. Naturally, the sultan would bask in their reflected glory; see
R. H. Crofton, Zanzibar Affairs 1914–1933 (London: Francis Edwards, 1953),
20–21.
128. Once again the school’s fee prevented many Shirazi and most Swahili
boys from enrolling.
129. The idea that “racial” integration would detrimental to Zanzibari Arabs
was saturated with irony. Before the arrival of the British, most schools, Islamic
and missionary, were fully integrated by race and class, even if they were segre-
gated by religion.
130. E. W. Chilver and Allison Smith, History of East Africa (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1965), vol. 11, 651.
131. Chapter I argued that divisions between Arab planters and Bantu slaves
were largely a factor of linguistic and religious difference. As Bantu peoples were
absorbed into the Arab culture, linguistic, and religious conversion made manu-
mission possible. The African intertribal slave trade that existed on a small scale
before the arrival of Arab immigrants expanded with Arab trading networks.
Once the Europeans established the transnational slave trade in the seventeenth
century, slavery in Africa took on a racial dimension. For a discussion of “the
industrial factor in race prejudice,” see chapter III of Lord Oliver, White Capi-
tal and Coloured Labor (Richmond, UK: Hogarth Press, 1929), 44–49. In the
subsequent chapter (49–59), Lord Oliver further explains that racial exploitation
was expressed in its highest degree during the slave era and again, decades later,
112 Chapter II

during the “new imperialist” industrial era. These were periods of time noted for
British economic expansion and separated by a brief era of colonial “liberalism,”
promoted by missionaries and like-minded politicians.
132. By 1897 Britain had emancipated all former slaves. This led to mass mi-
grations of rural populations to the city. There were not enough jobs in the city
to employ former slaves; rather, there was only seasonal and rural clove work.
Aware of this new labor dynamic, and the need to have a population of cash crop
workers at the ready, Rivers-Smith realized that expanding African education
might lead to a demand for African employment; see R. H. Crofton, Zanzibar
Affairs 1914–1933, 20–27.
133. These schools offered a minimalist version of Britain’s three Rs and more
in-depth courses in agricultural planning. Especially bright student to enroll in
Zanzibar’s Primary School to complete the last four years of primary education.
However, the government rarely fulfilled the promise of rural education for most
students even the most talented. All four rural schools had very low enrollment be-
cause of a small, yet compulsory, fee. Furthermore, students periodically dropped
out of school to harvest cloves and other small cash crops. In 1910 the number of
rural schools had increased to eight schools, but the combined attendance was un-
der two hundred students; see Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 40.
134. In 1913, a year when the clove harvest was especially successful, enroll-
ment of students in rural schools dropped during the harvest season over thirty per-
cent from 642 to 459 students; Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 43.
135. Reflects statistics from the fiscal year 1922; see Thomas Jesse Jones, Ed-
ucation in East Africa (New York: Negro University Press, 1925 [1970]), 224.
136. T. J. Jones, Education in East Africa, 224–25.
137. T. J. Jones, Education in East Africa, 225. In the early 1920s, the British
established an eighth government school. It was free, but like the other govern-
ment schools emphasized a curriculum that was mainly vocational.
138. Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 134.
139. Medressas fell into the category of “unassisted” schools by virtue of
their general unwillingness to subscribe to the “regulation” of curricula imposed
by the colonial government; see Lord Lugard, Political Memoranda: Revisions
of Instructions to Political Officers 1913–1918, third ed. (London: Frank Cass &
Co., 1970), 157.
140. The grants-in-aid program received less than 5 percent of British ex-
penditure in 1925 until the end of the Second War when 5 percent of colonial
expenditure was allocated for the annual education budget. At the end of colonial
rule in the 1960s that percentage had only risen to 12 percent; see Buchert, Edu-
cational Development in Tanzania, 59.
141. Buchert, Educational Development in Tanzania, 27.
 Disarticulation 113

142. Although Tanganyikans had many more students enrolled in primary

schools than Zanzibaris, and were a lot more vocal about participation in the
education system, both Tanganyikan and Zanzibar enrollment in secondary lev-
els was very low. In the 1920s and 1930s, less than 3 percent of Tanganyikan
students were enrolled in secondary school or beyond; see Buchert, Educational
Development in Tanzania, 27. In 1935 the British government established only
one secondary school in Zanzibar. It graduated only twenty-nine students in
1936; see the Commission on Higher Education in East Africa, Report of the
Commission appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies 1937 (H.M.
Stationery Office, 1937), 50.
143. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 20.
144. Rivers-Smith, like German Governor von Soden, had respect for Islamic
faith and held the Swahili language in high esteem; see Cameron and Dodd, So-
ciety, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 58–59. The British government never
fully committed to Swahili as a national language in East Africa, the way the
German government had in the years before World War I.
145. Buchert, Education in the Development of Tanzania, 23
146. Sultan Seyyid Ali was educated in England at Harow; see Furley and
Watson, A History of East Africa, 36.
147. Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 37.
148. Sultan Seyyid Ali and the protectorate government both recruited teach-
ers from Egypt.
149. In the 1920s the bifurcated vernacular-colonial language education
system was endorsed by the leading educational foundation the Phelps-Stokes
Fund. They suggested that (1) the tribal language should be used in the lower
elementary standards or grades, and (2) a lingua franca of African origin should
be introduced in the middle class. In areas which occupied by large native groups
speaking diverse languages, and (3) the language of the colonizing nation in
control should be taught in the upper standards. See the Phelps-Stokes Fund,
Education in Africa Report.
150. These statistics specifically refer to the year 1911, but reflect general
trends in the retention and advancement of students at the Primary school from
years 1911 until the 1950s; see Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial
Rule. During the years of World Wars I and II school attendance dropped mark-
edly for students of all groups, but especially African students.
151. Of the approximately 5,000 primary school students, only 410 were girls;
see Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 214.
152. Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 217. These numbers do not
reflect medressas of which there were 795 in 1954, which graduated 7,454 boys and
3,563 girls. In 1960 Zanzibar’s medressas graduated 9,714 boys and 7,060 girls.
114 Chapter II

153. Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 48

154. Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 63–64.
155. Raymond F. Betts, The False Dawn: European imperialism in the 19th
Century (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1975), 62.
156. The League of Nations made Tanganyika a mandate after World War I
and transferred authority from German to British control. The new governor of
Tanganyika was Donald Cameron, protégé of Lord Lugard. Cameron’s policy,
faithful to norms of the indirect rule, who promoted government schools for the
elite, as well as the use of English in these elite schools and in the government;
see Cameron and Dodd, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania, 41–42.
157. As mentioned in chapter I, the British made the liwali system less demo-
cratic, by selecting the liwali rather than allowing communities to vote for their
leader as they had done both before and during Omani rule.
158. R. H. Crofton, Zanzibar Affairs 1914–1933, 20.
159. For the complete quotation from Godfrey Huggins, see note 185 of this
chapter.
160. See A. Mungazi, The Mind of Black Africa, 35 and 115. Godfrey Huggins
made this statement in an official capacity at annual meeting of Rhodesia Mis-
sionary conference in 1954. The Rhodesian case study is valuable to a discussion
of colonial policy in Zanzibar because Cecil Rhodes, Godfrey Huggins, and Ian
Smith clearly articulated the prototypical new imperialist position. This world-
view captured Britain’s colonial office at the beginning of the twentieth century
and held sway until Africa’s colonial independence, influencing the formulation
of policy in Britain’s various holdings, including Zanzibar. African Rhodesians,
like African Zanzibaris, had little or no access to primary or secondary education;
see T. R. M. Creighton, Southern Rhodesia and the Central African Federation
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976), 164–69. African Rhodesians, like
African Zanzibaris, viewed land disparities between the indigenous majority and
ruling minorities as a source of historic discrimination; see “Land: Rhodesia’s
Powder Keg,” the statement of ZAPU cited in full in The African Liberation
Reader, Aquino de Braganca and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds. (London: Zed
Press, 1982), 57–59.
161. The UDI was declared in 1965; see Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock, Rho-
desians Never Die (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 99.
162. The citation was Ian Smith’s response to Dr. Henry Kissinger’s efforts to
promote a “philosophy of responsible majority rule”; Kissinger cited in Godwin
and Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, 155. Ian Smith argued that in the 1970s
Rhodesia was already a “meritocracy,” and that the most qualified people, in-
dividuals who just happened to be almost exclusively European, were the most
“responsible” parties for the job.
 Disarticulation 115

163. In 1952 the YAP declared that “the educational system in Zanzibar has
been such as not to give the same facilities for higher education to Africans. . . .
What facilities are there for Africans for secondary school?” See YAP official
statement in Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution, 1981, 161–62. In the
1930s the number of African youths entering secondary school(s) in Zanzibar
was under thirty students, see Higher Education in East Africa 1937 (H.M. Sta-
tionery Office), 50. Secondary education for African Zanzibaris remained under
one hundred students throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
164. Ibid., 163.
165. Despite the implementation of British mandate and indirect rule after
World War I, Tanganyikan’s progressive educational system designed by the
Germans during fifty years of rule, survived. Further discussion of Tanganyikan
adaptation to the end of German rule and the inception of British mandate will
follow in subsequent chapters.
166. See David Abernathy, The Political Dilemma of Popular Education
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1969), 82. Before Lugard, “the
willingness of the British administrators to leave education in the hands of the
missionaries, and the relative indifference of the colonial government to the
role of education in justifying colonial rule, produced a laissez-faire educational
policy in Southern Nigeria during the period before 1914. . . . Educational
policy changed noticeably under Sir Frederick Lugard, who became Governor of
Southern as well as Northern Nigeria in 1912, and who in 1914, engineered the
amalgamation of the two areas under one administration” (82).
167. The German system in Tanganyika stands in stark contrast to the tax
system on Unguja Island (Zanzibar Island), where nearly every process in the
production of clove cash crop was taxed. The German system of letting tribes
control Tanganyika’s coffee cash crop, and taxing only houses and nonagricul-
tural products, more closely resembled the system in which Pemba Shirazi were
allowed to maintain their clove production under separate agreement with the
British protectorate government.
168. While the German government in Tanganyika created secondary schools
in close proportion to the number of primary schools, British policy fundamen-
tally resisted creating secondary schools in most of its African colonies. While
the British Phelps-Stokes commission condemned “any movement to provide an
inferior system of education for the black man,” but, paradoxically, stressed that
vocational training must prevail. The commission argued that secondary schools
would only produce clerks, which Africa’s agricultural economy did not truly
require; see L. J. Lewis, Phelps Stokes Reports on Education in Africa (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1962), 25–26. On the other hand, the report stressed that
“the ultimate test of colonization is not, however, in the exploitation of physical
116 Chapter II

resources. The final test is in the civilization of the Native people” (136). As such
the report stressed the need for middle schools to train African “leaders.” These
schools would only provide an additional three years of education beyond the
three years of primary school (143–45).
169. While missionaries in Tanganyika prevented von Soden form includ-
ing Islamic teaching in the government school curricula, and, later, from giving
medressas grants-in-aid, the German government did not try to convince Muslim
Tanganyikans to transfer their students from medressas to government or mis-
sionary schools, which was the case in Zanzibar.
170. See the beginning pages of this chapter for a thorough discussion of these
debates.
171. Consistent with the dominant strain of colonial philosophy, the British
government established a system of colonial rule in Zanzibar’s urban bureau-
cracy that emphasized centralized control more than Lord Lugard’s indirect rule
system. British colonial authorities reduced the number of Arab and Indians in
the “higher echelons” of Zanzibar’s colonial administration. Colonial authori-
ties justified these dismissals by advancing a need for British leadership, which
could establish bureaucratic “efficiency,” which in turn would promote a system
of indirect rule and native authority in rural areas; see Bennett, A History of the
Arab State of Zanzibar, 191. In actuality, the British government was prepared to
support Arab plantation owners and Indian financiers in economic capacities, but
wanted to reduce the political power of the sultan over his clients—Zanzibar’s
rich communal groups.
172. Funding expenditure for education in Zanzibar was 1 percent of revenues
at the beginning of the protectorate, and rose to 2 percent in the 1920s, where it
remained until the 1940s. Between 1940 and 1960 expenditure rose to more than
5 percent of the annual revenue, but this was too little too late; see Phelps-Stokes
Commission Report, cited in Furley and Watson, A History of East Africa, 129
and 211.
173. In the second phase of colonial rule British authorities claimed they were
“opening” Zanzibari society, promoting “mass” education. In reality, elite educa-
tion was expanded, while the majority of African labor was largely neglected.
British rhetoric regarding its educational campaign is consistent with stage two of
Taylor and McKirnan’s model, which suggests that the elite of stratified societies
claim to expand opportunities, but consistently promote their narrow interests to
the detriment of the majority of the population. This trend is discussed in chapter
I of this book.
174. British strategy of framing economic struggle as racial conflict is dis-
cussed in Fatton’s second site in the introduction to the first chapter.
 III
Repression

The first and second chapters of this book argue that in the years before
the arrival of the British, social inequality in Zanzibar was caused by a
distinction made between free and slave labor. In most cases the Arab
ruling class groomed and promoted only free persons, particularly those
individuals who either had a specific talent, or who belonged to a clan
that could advance the state’s political or economic interests.1 Chapter I
indicated that the British established a system of stratification based on
disparities in wealth and land ownership and that this led to the impover-
ishment of the African laborer. This system was not unique to Zanzibar,
but was characteristic of most plantation economies.
In concluding chapter II, I argued that the colonial educational system,
small and elite in nature, ultimately became a prominent source of strife
among Zanzibar’s incipient political organizations, including labor unions
and political parties. The unrest over educational opportunities extended
in Zanzibar’s third phase to other aspects of political and social develop-
ment. These conflicts are the focus of the following chapter.2
This chapter will determine how Britain’s land and language policies,
which defined its phase 1 agricultural and phase 2 educational strategies,
ultimately influenced its phase 3 labor practices.3 While the primary focus
of the first and second phases of the British administration was creating
property and linguistic differentiation, the colonial government also con-
centrated on eliminating indigenous political institutions that it thought
might challenge British rule. The colonial administration replaced native

117
118 Chapter III

structures and institutions with British institutions or associations of elite

communal interest. In many instances it was Zanzibar’s independent eco-
nomic organizations, both those that were indigenous to Zanzibar and those
created by foreign forces, that were the focus of colonial manipulation.
Thus the primary focus of colonial administrators during the third phase of
colonial rule was to continue the policies of “new imperialism”—namely,
to prevent both native and alien efforts from organizing labor.4
This chapter thus focuses on phase 3 political repression. The first area
of inquiry concerns the lasting impact the ideologies of new imperial-
ism and dual mandate had on colonial administrations in Zanzibar and
Tanganyika. Although chapters I and II dealt strictly with colonial rule in
Zanzibar, political analysis in this chapter will contrast political develop-
ments in Tanganyika with Zanzibar. It is useful to explore the Tanganyika
case for several reasons. After World War I, Britain assumed control of
Germany’s African colonies and ruled in Tanganyika until its indepen-
dence in 1961.5 Due to the fact that British policies toward Tanganyika
and Zanzibar were so dissimilar, a discussion contrasting these policies is
necessary, particularly because this chapter endeavors to determine why
British rule in Tanganyika did not end violently. The Germans and Brit-
ish began their rule as repressive colonial powers. However, while the
German administration in Tanganyika became progressive, the British
government in Zanzibar grew more conservative. When Britain came to
rule in Tanganyika, the indigenous population, accustomed to relatively
progressive German leadership, pressured Britain to build on this progres-
sive legacy. When the British mandate and trustee administrations did try
to implement conservative policies in Tanganyika, Tanganyikans used
political, economic, and social resources to resist.
British rule in Tanganyika and Zanzibar grew more divergent as the
respective colonial governments followed ever more progressive and
conservative trajectories toward independence. Analysis of Tanganyika
begins with a focus on the evolution of German command to the introduc-
tion of the British mandate, and the United Nations’ implementation of
the trusteeship system. This will be contrasted with the profound expan-
sion of economic imperialism in British Zanzibar. The political situation
in Zanzibar, described in chapters I and II and consistent with the dynam-
ics described by the five-stage and five-phase models, began as a closed
system, and became more exclusive in each phase. By contrast, native
 Repression 119

reaction to colonial rule opened Tanganyika’s previously closed system to

progressive Fabian rule. The second area of analysis will contrast German
and British attitudes toward subsistence and cash-crop farming and will
examine different forms of African resistance to cash-cropping and Brit-
ish labor policies more broadly. Colonial reaction to indigenous resistance
will also be examined.
This analysis will demonstrate that although the political system in Tan-
ganyika began as a more rigid colonial authority when compared to the
government in Zanzibar, the German colonial authority modified its style
of governance in response to native resistance, and adapted to changes in
the global economy. More specifically, the German government opened
Tanganyika’s economic and political systems to African participation.
By contrast, colonial rule in Zanzibar began as a liberating force, but it
quickly embarked on a path of African exclusion. Phase 1 economic and
phase 2 educational exclusion extended to civic and political restrictions
during the third phase. Thus the first section of this account deals with the
evolution of two waves of labor unionism in Britain and Germany and
how these significant endeavors ultimately influenced East African colo-
nial administration. As the primary colonial agents in East Africa, British
and German labor history had a lasting impact on the modern politics of
Zanzibar and Tanganyika, respectively.
The central dynamic that animated phase 3 European colonial rule was its
response first to domestic and then to colonial labor unionism. At the turn of
the twentieth century, miners’ boycotts, dockworkers’ strikes, and the Maji-
Maji revolt were the first episodes of labor insurgency. The first occurred in
Germany and the second in Britain. The final revolt took place in Tangan-
yika and was a rebellion against Germany’s early agricultural policies. All
three insurgencies occurred within a fifteen-year period. By contrast, almost
fifty years later, and after a long era of relative calm, Swahili dockworkers
brought labor resistance once again into colonial consciousness.
When Tanganyikan and Zanzibari dockworkers went on strike in the
late 1940s they made many of the same demands as their European coun-
terparts. However the reaction of the respective colonial governments
could not have been more different. In Tanganyika the British trustee
government met many of the demands of the striking dockworkers and al-
lowed them to organize a permanent political organization. However, the
government in Zanzibar frustrated or ignored most worker demands.
120 Chapter III

Global economic depression and events leading to two world wars

dominated European politics between 1914 and 1944. During those years,
British labor politics lay dormant, only to surge in the mid- to late 1940s.
British labor, a factor since the early twentieth century, did not become a
leading force in domestic politics until the end of World War II. Interna-
tionally, the Labor party was able to express itself more forcefully, first
with the socialists and the Fabians in the League of Nations and subse-
quently, in the United Nations. These two organizations were directly
responsible for developing policy in postwar Tanganyika.
From the turn of the century until the end of World War II the Conser-
vative and Liberal parties, with their right and center-right domestic and
international policies, dominated the British political landscape. This was
especially true in the British colonial office, where the weight and gravity
of the Conservative party cast a long shadow over the administrations of
Conservative and Liberal parties alike. This meant that Britain’s progres-
sive elements were meager and isolated relative to its conservative forces.
Reactionary political thinking dominated policy formulation in British
colonies, especially cash-crop, resource-rich protectorates such as Zanzi-
bar. Hampered by a long tradition of conservatism, Britain’s progressive
elements could not make early gains in the arena of domestic politics, and,
as a result, were unable to influence most of British colonial policy.
This chapter will analyze early attempts by East Africans to resist co-
lonial authority as well as British and German reactions to those efforts.
Here the discussion will expand themes discussed in chapter II—namely,
the distinct nature of colonial rule in German and British East Africa. This
discussion will focus on the differences between Britain’s approach to im-
posing pure economic imperialism in Zanzibar and its more progressive
economic strategy in the Tanganyikan mandate.
In Tanganyika, German attempts at colonial governance began as an
exercise in pure and direct rule. The German government established a
broad network of colonial offices throughout the Tanganyikan country-
side, staffed by Swahili-speaking Germans. A central colonial office in
the capital Dar-es-Salaam controlled this bureaucracy. The contrast with
British indirect rule, at least at first, could not be starker. From the outset,
the British system was ad-hoc. It relied on co-opting and coercing local
institutions and individuals into implementing British policy. In many
ways British indirect rule meant to be more egalitarian than German
 Repression 121

rule. However as time wore on, the plantation economy became a bigger
burden on its subject population and indirect rule grew less enlightened.
Tanganyikans soon discovered that direct rule was not without positive
aspects. Among other concessions, direct rule offered its subject popula-
tions a very progressive educational system and a colonial bureaucracy
that recruited those elite who matriculated through the system.
What German colonialism had in common with British rule, and other
forms of European imperialism, was that it promoted revenue generation
as the primary goal of its political operations. Germany, as were most of
Europe’s imperial governments, was interested in expanding trade—espe-
cially agricultural cash crops. In Tanganyika the German government began
a campaign to get Tanganyikan locals to grow crops on their small plots
of land. They created the need to produce cash crops by establishing an
annual hut tax, which Tanganyikans did not oppose, at least initially, be-
cause they still retained ownership of their land.
The British colonial government took a different approach when it es-
tablished a cash-crop economy in Zanzibar. First, the protectorate gradu-
ally alienated Zanzibar’s Africans from their land. The British colonial
government then forced them to work as hired laborers on land they lost,
which was newly acquired by Arab families. The government created a
range of taxes that had to be paid throughout the year and then coerced
squatters to work by establishing vagrancy laws and monitoring their ac-
tivities. By contrast, Tanganyika’s Africans retained their land even when
the German government began producing luxury cash crops for export.
Tanganyikan backlash against Germany’s cash-crop campaign emerged
as soon as the policies were implemented. This backlash came in the form
of the Maji-Maji rebellion of 1905. The rebellion had an impact for de-
cades to come, influencing colonial policy in Tanganyika for a variety
of political administrations over the next fifty years. In Zanzibar the
gradual alienation of Africans from their land and the slow but deliberate
expansion of clove plantations elicited a similarly dilatory and sluggish
response. Whereas Tanganyikans actively opposed the system of cash-
cropping, Zanzibar’s Africans chose to adopt work slowdowns and work
stoppages, avoiding outright rebellion until well after World War II and
then not effectively until 1964.6 In the years between the first and second
world wars, Zanzibar’s economic situation worsened and, as the need for
colonial revenue generation increased, colonial repression intensified.
122 Chapter III

The primary focus of the following discussion is to examine the Brit-

ish policy of political repression, just before, during and after the world
wars, with the objective of assessing the interaction of economic imperi-
alism with Africa’s emerging political resistance. A brief digression into
the study of German policy before and after the Maji-Maji rebellion will
prove useful in analyzing the impact of the rebellion on German rule prior
to World War I and during British rule in the era of the Tanganyikan man-
date.7 Most importantly, it will facilitate analyzing the remarkably dif-
ferent approaches the British and German colonial governments adopted
with regard to their colonies.
The present account addresses how native response to the disparate
labor policies adopted by the British mandate government in Tanganyika
and the British colonial administration in Zanzibar influenced the forma-
tion and character of labor unions in East Africa. The emerging conclu-
sion will show that during the third phase of colonial rule, the British
government in Zanzibar shifted its administrative strategy from merely
co-opting or eliminating institutions it did not like to repressing the de-
velopment of newly emerging political institutions, populist leaders, and
socio-economic movements.8
This chapter argues that during the third phase of British rule Zanzibar’s
colonial government escalated political repression.9 Third-phase African
political resistance was disorganized, lurching from impulsive to chaotic,
until the fourth phase, when John Okello led an organized and successful
revolt.10 Before Okello, third-phase political resistance developed over a
period of three intervals. The initial interval spanned the first decade of
the twentieth century, while the next interval began just before World War
I and lasted the duration of the war. The final interval of phase 3 British
rule spanned the interwar years, the Depression, and World War II.11
In the years before World War I, African Zanzibaris faced a world that
was changing dramatically. The transfer of land from African kinship
groups to a handful of Arab families was almost complete. African Zan-
zibaris, now alienated from their land, were forced to work in Zanzibar’s
colonial industries. These new industries were almost exclusively agro-
industrial, providing processed crops for export.12 None of the occupations
open to Africans required education or allowed for social enrichment.
Both during Omani rule and later under British protection, Zanzibar
remained a society closed to Africans seeking upward social mobility.
 Repression 123

Before British rule, Bantu, Swahili, and Shirazi members of the popula-
tion were either slave or free. As slaves they had very little access to land
ownership or wealth. However since slavery was not an inherited status
and as manumission was part of the creed of Arab society, emancipation,
social status, and wealth could be attained during a slave’s lifetime. Brit-
ish protectorate rule ended de facto slavery. However, the colonial state
replaced the Arab slave system with British wage dependency.13
Modern African social inequality was created in the colonial office,
sired by the plantation economy, and sustained by Arab rulers indebted
to the growing British Empire. It was economic imperialism in its purest
form, a cycle of stratification that permeated every aspect and stage of
colonial rule. As opportunities for transnational trade expanded for Arab
and Indian merchants during the first and second phases of colonial rule,
free Africans were integrated into this modern economic system solely
as an immutable caste of agricultural laborers. As the British demand for
cloves, taxes, and cash-crop revenue increased, so did its desire to create
a large class of African workers. Having created this class of workers by
alienating them from their land, the colonial government realized it would
have to monitor their political activity very carefully.
As with the British in Zanzibar, the German colonial government
in Tanganyika initially pursued pure economic imperialism, coercing
Africans to grow cash crops. Between the years 1890 and 1904 the Ger-
man “grow more crops” scheme proved successful. The scheme raised
a significant amount of revenue for the German government. By 1905,
however, Tanganyikan reaction required the German government to put
down a countrywide rebellion and initiate radical steps to reform their
agricultural policies, eschewing economic imperialism in favor of a
milder approach to colonial governance. In almost total contrast to the
German approach, Britain’s first-phase colonial administration developed
an elaborate scheme to seize Zanzibari land and appropriate African
labor. The British colonial government justified this scheme during the
second phase through a carefully worded rhetorical campaign promoting
political, civic, and educational opportunity. In reality, Britain’s second-
phase educational policies, like its first-phase economic program, solely
benefited the Arab and Indian elite. Namely, second-phase educational
opportunities were available only to those already enriched during the first
phase by the clove trade.
124 Chapter III

The second phase of colonial rule expanded and institutionalized social

inequality, creating a monetized economy that excluded the vast majority
of the society. That phase of colonial rule was also marked by the formu-
lation of colonial philosophies that rationalized the economic and cultural
dislocations with which it was associated. Twentieth-century European
political theory suggested that both vast economic dislocation, as well as
intense individual sacrifice, were the price of social progress. By extrapo-
lation, any dislocations experienced by non-European people—especially
those throughout British colonies—were considered of even less signifi-
cance. Ironically, the dislocations of industrialization and modernity were
a source of discontent both across colonial Africa, as well as throughout
many newly industrialized Western societies. In Europe the dislocations
associated with industrialization similarly included loss of property and
community identity, which became the catalyst for European labor to or-
ganize unified opposition to rapidly expanding capitalist industry.
The central dynamic that characterized phase 3 European colonial rule
was its response to the worldwide surge of socialist/progressive labor
unionism at the turn of the century and again during the interwar years
between 1920–1940, as indicated at the outset of this chapter. The par-
allel evolution of two waves of socialism in Germany and Britain and
the convergence of these movements in East Africa influenced colonial
policy in German Tanganyika and, later, in Zanzibar. The first wave oc-
curred in 1890–1910, and the second wave developed during the years
after World War II. As colonial agents, Britain and Germany had a lasting
impact on politics in colonial East Africa. Germany, Britain, and German
Tanganyika experienced three different types of labor insurgencies: min-
ers’ boycotts, dockworkers’ strikes, and the Maji-Maji revolt—an African
insurgency against German agricultural policies that had to be put down
by the German military. Almost fifty years later, and after relative calm,
labor resistance again erupted in East Africa.
As in Africa, nineteenth-century European labor unionism met conser-
vative backlash. This was true both in Britain and Germany. However,
in Germany, the backlash was shorter in duration and less effective. The
economic gains and political institutionalization of progressive German
socialism, and the legacy of Germany’s medieval guild tradition, subdued
conservative resistance to Germany’s modern labor unions and encour-
aged the growth of political parties. Ultimately this legacy of progressive
 Repression 125

socialism became a source of enlightened colonial policy in German

Tanganyika.
The evolution of socialism, labor unionism, and progressive politics
in Britain, by contrast, occurred in fits and starts, and encouraged a high
degree of conservative resistance and backlash. Labor activism in Brit-
ain surged later than it did in Germany and made only modest political
gains, which were temporary—reversed during the onset of World War I.
Throughout the early years of the twentieth century, reactionary elements
in the Conservative and Liberal parties dominated British politics. These
elements formulated domestic and foreign/colonial policy to frustrate
rather than accommodate the development of labor unions. England’s
guilds, quashed under Tudor rule, survived only at the margins of British
society until the beginning of the industrial revolution, when the British
Parliament formally outlawed them.14 Workers formed small trade unions
or “houses of call” because they were exploited and did not have guilds
to protect their interests.15 Houses of call remained largely secret organi-
zations because the government promulgated a series of laws called the
(anti-) combination (of workers) acts. The parliament passed the combina-
tion acts in 1799 to curb the growth of labor organizations and aimed to
keep the trade union movement from developing. However, trade unions
continued to ripen underground until 1825 when political pressure in par-
liament led to the “houses of call” act being repealed.16
By the late 1860s Britain’s various “houses of call” united, creating the
modern Trade Union Congress (TUC). Along with the creation of the TUC,
there was the growth of other independent labor unions, the emergence of
socialist activism, and the rapid expansion of the cooperative movement.17
One of Britain’s first and most elite progressive-socialist organizations was
the Fabian Society (FS). Moderates in the Socialist-Democratic Federation
(SDF) who felt that SDF politics were both too radical and too provincial
founded the FS in 1884. Coincidentally, the Fabian Society became one of
the few organizations in colonial Africa that responded, both rationally and
empathetically, to striking Swahili dockworkers.18
Like other political organizations in Britain, the Fabians initially promoted
nineteenth-century colonial exploration. However, by the early twentieth cen-
tury the Fabians argued that colonialism was not the solution to either Britain’s
economic depression or its political problems. They believed that there was
a great need for labor reform, but Liberal-Conservative rule shifted focus
126 Chapter III

away from reforming economic conditions to eagerly endorsing African

colonization. Public support for Fabian and socialist reform diminished as
enthusiasm for colonialism soared. In contrast to the situation in Britain,
Germany’s East African labor policy, like its domestic trade unionism, was
far more progressive than its British counterparts, both at home and in its
overseas colonies. That fact was in large measure due to Germany’s unique
political history. Germany’s progressive political spirit was a reflection of
the state’s sympathetic attitudes toward its guilds and labor unions. German
guilds were Europe’s first modern nongovernmental organizations, and, un-
like British guilds, they grew largely unfettered.19
Eventually, the economic and civic power of German guilds evolved
into political power.20 This produced a strong and enduring tradition that
encouraged provincial oversight over Germany’s medieval oligarchy,
its medieval state bureaucracy, and, much later, its modern labor unions
and colonial possessions overseas.21 According to John Moses, scholar
of medieval European labor history, German political development was
unique:

Only in Germany did guilds themselves play a significant role in the nine-
teenth century, thus making for distinctive political culture and social phi-
losophy. As before, their fate was bound to the small “hometown” though
they functioned in large cities too. Their position in the German milieu was
related both to later industrialization and to the Napoleonic experience. It
was also bound up with continuing German debate about the location of
Germenischaft (community) between individual and state and the peculiarly
German constellation of forces, in which individual liberty was ranged
alongside state power against guild and commune.22

By the nineteenth century, German guilds were several hundred years

old. They were able to influence, even sway, the policies of Germany’s
modern trade unions as well as the nation’s emerging political parties.
The heirs of the guild movement, Germany’s trade unions and its emerg-
ing socialist and cooperative movements, expanded during the years
1860–1930.23 The years that reflected the most growth for Germany’s
progressive labor unions were the late 1880s to World War I. Paradoxi-
cally, Europe increased its imperial activities during that era.
Germany’s initial strategy of new imperialist direct military rule, para-
doxically dubbed “the age of diplomacy,” spanned the years 1890–1904.
 Repression 127

Germany enacted policies during this era sought to expand cash crop
plantations and coerce Tanganyikan labor to grow crops for export. Tan-
ganyikans responded to Germany’s program of forced labor by collective
rebellion, engaging in the Maji-Maji rebellion of 1905–1906.24 The rebel-
lion was Germany’s wake-up call in colonial Africa, analogous to a series
of mine workers’ strikes in Ruhr in 1889 and the English dockworkers’
strike during that same year. After the Maji-Maji rebellion Germany
changed its imperial policy in Tanganyika. Between 1906 and 1910 the
German government modified its colonial program to foster political ac-
commodation. This era was called the “age of reform.”25

GERMAN LABOR POLICY 1890–1905

AND THE MAJI-MAJI REBELLION

Germany instituted the age of reform to correct the singular rapacity of

German agricultural policies established during the “age of diplomacy”
and the ensuing pan-tribal Maji-Maji rebellion.26 In the years before 1891,
only German businesses occupied properties in East Africa. By 1891, the
German government formally intervened with its military on behalf of the
German East African Company, which was facing resistance to its efforts
to expand trade along Tanganyika’s Swahili coastline.27
Between 1891 and 1896 military officers were responsible for the
administration of German East Africa. In 1896, Governor Eduard von
Liebert took over administration of the region. Von Liebert encouraged
European settlement. Lack of interest on the part of the German public,
however, doomed the settlement scheme and administrative costs rose
steeply. In reaction to the rise in costs:

It was decided that the cotton should be grown by the forced communal
labor of neighborhood units. The Africans would receive no payment until
the cotton had been sold, when one-third of the proceeds would go to the
producers, one-third to the government’s non-European agents, and one-
third to district funds.28

The government instituted that Volskulture planting scheme in Dar-es-

Salaam in 1903.29 After two years of planting and harvesting, the govern-
ment failed to pay Tanganyikan farmers. In the summer months of 1905,
128 Chapter III

as the time to harvest the third cotton crop approached, the peasants of
Kilwa began a small rebellion. Grievances with the Volskulture scheme
were extensive and profound and the rebellion spread. The rebels enlisted
the help of the religious and spiritual community to help them fight the
Germans. Tanganyikan witch doctors dispensed “medicated water” that in
Swahili was called maji.30
The Maji-Maji rebellion was a movement that ultimately enlisted all
those who had grievances with the German government, and this cut a
wide swath in Tanganyikan society.31 This rebellion against controversial
land and cash-crop policies was possible because of the linguistic cohe-
sion of Tanganyikan society, which, though diverse, was able to under-
stand and speak a few words of the Swahili language.
The Swahili language was neutral; it did not represent a particular com-
munity or history of conquest or defeat as it did in Zanzibar. More specifi-
cally, in Tanganyika Swahili represented a shared rather than a contested
national identity. After all, in Zanzibar, Swahili was largely ignored or
maligned by colonial authorities, while in Germany it was raised to the
level of an official language of commerce, governance, and education.
Unlike the British government, which told Zanzibar’s Africans that colo-
nial rule would lead to economic and political advancement, Germany’s
colonial administration never made such claims.
Whereas Zanzibaris resisted cash-cropping with circuitous tactics such
as working slowly and work stoppages, Tanganyikans decided to fight the
colonial authority squarely and directly. Maji-Maji rebels made several
bold moves in the early days of the rebellion, murdering as many Euro-
pean and non-European government officials as possible. They burned
military and administrative buildings and as much of the cotton crop as
they could lay hold of. Governor Gustav Adolph von Götzen’s response
was initially quite measured; however, his military ultimately turned to
reprisals, destroying food, which led to the deaths of over seventy thou-
sand Tanganyikans. In 1907, after restoring order, the government lifted
martial law. The era of reform began when the German imperial govern-
ment sent Albrecht von Rechenberg to assume the position of colonial
governor of Tanganyika.
Von Rechenberg devised a reconstruction program. In one of the
most progressive efforts by a colonial power to date, von Rechenberg’s
government strove to engage the local African peasant-agriculturalists in
 Repression 129

devising an export scheme that would both enrich the colonial govern-
ment while allowing the native community to continue to grow local
subsistence crops.
Governor von Rechenberg believed that the proper economic policy of
colonial nations should be “to maintain an independent peasantry carry-
ing on self-subsistence farming.”32 Beyond that, von Rechenberg believed
that rebellion could not be quelled unless the German government im-
proved Tanganyikans’ material well being. The central tenet of the Ger-
man “agricultural” reform was financial, and these innovations required
consultation and accommodation.33 German agricultural reform ultimately
altered the nature of political relations between German administrators
and Tanganyikan subjects much as guilds and labor unions changed the
course of politics in Germany.
Germany’s treatment of the Chagga people of the Mt. Kilimanjaro region
and the Luguru of the Mororogo district was perhaps the best example of
Germany’s willingness to respect Tanganyika’s indigenous political orga-
nizations. Rather than fight it, the Germans institutionalized it in the Kili-
manjaro Native Planters Association (KNPA), which became the Kiliman-
jaro Native Cooperative Union (KNCU). By creating the KNPA/KNCU,
the Germans kept, but modified, the patronage system, expanding the
institution of one highly organized tribe to incorporate the less organized
neighboring tribes. The government made the Chagga patronage system an
engine of inclusion rather than exclusion. Gus Liebenow argues that the ad-
ministrative activity of the KNCU had a “spill-over” effect that influenced
the larger political environment. The KNCU/Chagga alliance served as a
form of training in progressive national leadership, which, in turn, served as
an “institutional framework” transcending intra- and intertribal rivalries.34
While reform-minded German colonials were moving to accommodate
native resistance by modifying direct rule, the British government in
Zanzibar was intensifying the exercise of new imperialist economic strat-
egy. Britain’s policy of limited or indirect rule was changing to one that
increasingly promoted direct rule while expanding compelled labor. This
was certainly true during the third phase of British colonial rule, when
the government was trying to expand Zanzibar’s cash-crop industry in
an era when the economy was declining. For the colonial government in
Zanzibar repressing native resistance became an end in itself. Ultimately,
the divergent approaches adopted by German and British administrators
130 Chapter III

served to further differentiate autonomous inland Tanganyikans from

their more acquiescent island neighbors.
While rebellion in Tanganyika induced Germans to “reform” their most
coercive colonial practices, there was no outright rebellion in Zanzibar, no
initial Swahili mutiny that induced reform.35 This acquiescence continued
as coercive growing policies intensified. During this era of submission,
the British tried both to eliminate old communal organizations and to
prevent new labor or political associations from emerging. The British
colonial office hoped to keep native Zanzibaris from challenging colonial
economic expansion or demanding political reform.
When World War I broke out, Germany lost its East African colonial
holdings to Britain. Paradoxically, while Zanzibar’s colonial administra-
tion was becoming more repressive, a trend thoroughly consistent with
the third phase of the five-phase model, an entirely different situation was
transpiring in neighboring Tanganyika. Due to the peculiar character of
mandates and the unique disposition of the British colonial office after
World War I, Tanganyika’s political system continued to accommodate
political participation.36 In fact, Britain’s acquisition of German colonies
created a set of conditions that tended to support progressive leadership.
After World War I various European countries began to view the ideals
of the failed League of Nations in a new and positive light. The mandate
and United Nations trusteeship systems realized Woodrow Wilson’s by-
gone aspirations for a world governed by international law, an idea that
had support in many quarters.

FABIAN INFLUENCE IN THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS,

THE UNITED NATIONS, AND TANGANYIKA

Following the war, the British Socialist Party, the Fabian League, and
members of the Labor and Independent Labor parties made a sustained
effort to change the new imperialist nature of British foreign policy.37 The
Fabians demanded immediate change:

An organized “internationalism,” with each racial group or Nation-State

pursuing its own evolution, and shaping its own destiny, uninterruptedly
in its own way, intensifying thereby its characteristic faculties, and thus
increasing the special services that it could render to the world.38
 Repression 131

As likely progenitors of allowing Africans to “develop along their

own lines,” the Fabians were keenly aware that powerful forces within
the British government wanted to maintain a rigid social order in most
British colonies.39 Those members of the Fabian movement who found
themselves in the British government had to balance their zeal for colonial
reform with an equally important duty to assuage fearful conservatives
still promoting imperialism. Most British conservatives and many liberals
shared a belief that socialist Fabianism, along with pan-African national-
ism, might drive African militants to overthrow Britain’s various colonial
regimes.40 Thus a fundamental tension began to develop within the British
government. The conflict pitted advocates of reforming new imperialism
against those who sought to preserve traditional doctrines enshrined in
British colonial policy.41
During the interwar years Britain developed two policies regarding her
holdings in East Africa. In Zanzibar the government expanded its policy
of ever-increasing suppression of native resistance. In Britain’s adopted
colony of Tanganyika, colonial authorities, heavily influenced by power-
ful Fabians at the League of Nations and the United Nations, tried to ac-
commodate resistance.42 Having transformed distrust into cooperation, the
colonial government tried to advance Britain’s economic agenda while
appearing as dedicated to reform as the Germans had been.
The mandate system, however, demanded a liberalizing of colonial
policies. This new approach dovetailed with the socialist Fabian cause of
promoting an international challenge to coerced labor. Socialist Fabians’
nominal role in British politics during the 1930s, and the modest political
authority possessed by the League of Nations, circumscribed both Fabian
radicalism and their efficacy. There were, on occasions, prominent Fabi-
ans who gained a level of political power during the 1930s that was truly
remarkable.
Sydney Webb and his wife Beatrice were members of Britain’s co-
operative movement and founding members of the Fabian league. Mr.
Webb entered government as a British liberal, rising through the party
ranks until ultimately in 1929 he gained the title Lord Passfield, and be-
came secretary of state. One of Secretary Webb’s most important pieces
of legislation was the Passfield Memorandum, a document that helped
shape labor policy in the decades before colonial independence. In the
memorandum, Lord Passfield demanded that each and every colonial
132 Chapter III

trade union should be legalized and registered. He argued that without

British authority Africans might explode into violence or implode in
disaffection:

[Without] sympathetic supervision and guidance, organizations of laborers,

without experience of combination for any social and economic progress,
may fall under the domination of disaffected persons by which their activi-
ties may be diverted to improper and mischievous ends.43

The memorandum is important because it identified the shared misgiv-

ings many British Liberals, Fabians, and socialists had about promoting
colonial reform. They were fundamentally wary about the impression their
own progressive ideology, as well as the ideologies of pan-Africanism and
communism, might make on disenfranchised African labor. Like most
conservatives, many British liberals, especially during the interwar years,
hoped to preserve colonial rule indefinitely. The same could be said for
British labor, at least during the interwar years.44 Thus, the fear of African
nationalism and its “mischievous ends” increased as Fabianism and pan-
Africanism were hitting their strides.
The pan-African movement began quietly, but by the end of World
War I became well known in America and throughout Europe. Between
the years 1919 and 1945, W. E. B. Dubois, the dean of the Harlem Re-
naissance, began a series of pan-African conferences to challenge white
rule in Africa. The first, in 1919, was among the most notable because it
occurred just after World War I. Colonial Africans were fighting on both
sides of the conflict under various European flags.
Dubois drafted the Pan-African Congress’s petition that demanded
that the League of Nations establish a permanent bureau to help Africans
gain rights to their own land and capital after the war. The petition also
demanded that the league end forced labor and extend mass education for
Africa’s primary- and secondary-school-age students. The final demand
was that European governments should immediately grant Africans posi-
tions in the offices of the colonial state. Many of the recommendations of
the first Pan-African Congress received favorable recognition in progres-
sive circles of influence. Thus by the end of the World War I, the pan-
African movement was a power to be reckoned with, or, in certain
spheres, a force to be feared.45
 Repression 133

In 1921 the second Pan-African Congress invited members of

London’s various liberal and progressive organizations in addition
to several delegations of African leaders. Members of the socialist-
leaning Fabian society showed special interest in helping Dubois
circulate his ideas.46 It was at this conference that an enduring con-
troversy emerged regarding the influence of communists on black
African nationalism.47 Despite the controversy, more political patrons
from the Labor and Socialist parties in London, including Labor party
leader Ramsay McDonald, began to attend, advise, and support the
Pan-African Congress. This was especially true of the men and women
of the Fabian Society.48
Between the two world wars the pan-African movement, the Fabian
league and international labor unions continued to expand their agendas
and increase their supporters. In all three of these movements, African
labor became the focal point of political discourse, the heart of their
international agendas. As a result, the British government accused the
pan-Africans, the Fabians, and especially international labor organiza-
tions of promoting communism, as was the case during British dock-
workers’ strikes decades earlier.49 As with most pan-African organiza-
tions, the more powerful international trade unions became, the more
they aroused conservative distrust. This was especially true following
World War I.50
In the years after World War I, colonial enrichment and indirect
rule continued to be the governing doctrine of Britain’s colonial
bureaucracy and its ruling political parties. In London, with a few
notable exceptions, the Conservative and Liberal Parties dominated
the Colonial Office between the years 1920–1964.51 More than that,
colonial secretaries who emerged from the Labor and National Labor
Parties rarely, if ever, enjoyed consecutive years in power. As a result
most Labor policies, many of which tried to reflect the ambiguous
ideals of dual mandate, rarely, if ever, enjoyed a long tenure. Except
for three fleeting instances, a colonial secretary from one of the labor
parties was almost always preceded and followed by a colonial secre-
tary from the Conservative Party.52 The first two instances occurred in
1935 when two National Labor politicians held the office of colonial
secretary for two years, only to be succeeded by a string of Liberals
and Conservatives.53
134 Chapter III

MODERN FABIANISM AND THE RISE OF

TANGANYIKAN POLITICAL AUTONOMY

After World War II Fabians began to emphasize the dual mandate aspect
of colonial order over the purely extractive aspects of indirect rule. As
such they tried to help African labor and British colonial governments
strive for political compromise and accommodation in the years leading
to colonial independence. Though much of Labor and Fabian policies
in Tanganyika were supplanted during the ten years of conservative
command during the 1950s, the advances gained by Tanganyika’s labor
unions and civic leaders could not be undone. Tanganyika was by then a
British trust territory and benefited from Labor rule.54 The benefits of the
trusteeship system, though modest, were especially valuable to African
Tanganyikans because of their history of communitarianism and the pe-
culiar nature of indirect rule. Ultimately Fabians would help establish the
Tanganyikan African Association, one of East Africa’s most important
and most inclusive political institutions.
Colonial administrators who wanted to monitor the development of
political organizations in the Tanganyikan mandate founded the Tangan-
yikan African Association (TAA), in 1927.55 The TAA remained largely
apolitical until 1946 when it hosted a territorial convention to discuss
Tanganyika’s transition from a British mandate to UN trusteeship.56 Over
the next decade the TAA evolved into a more militant organization.57 In
1953 Julius Nyerere, a Western-educated teacher/scholar and protégé of
various Fabian leaders, joined the TAA and helped it become a more po-
litically activist organization.58
As president of the TAA Nyerere helped the organization become
more articulate and transformed it into an umbrella organization for vari-
ous Tanganyikan organizations.59 In 1954 the TAA changed its name to
the Tanganyikan African National Union, or TANU. TANU eventually
became both the leading advocate for independence as well as one of the
few instruments of a peaceful transition from colonial rule to Tanganyikan
statehood. Fabian expansion of Tanganyika’s educational system during
the late years of German rule and early years of the British mandate cul-
tivated a population conversant in Swahili as well as an elite literate in
political dialogue. According to Hugh Stephens:
 Repression 135

Swahili significance was due to the fact that senior officials in the govern-
ment insisted that “Swahili had truly become a ‘national’ language and had
facilitated the exchange of information both horizontally across societies,
and vertically modernized strata” . . . much of both African and non-African
cadres maintain high standards in its usage.60

The Germans made Swahili the language of colonial governance and na-
tional political integration. In the 1940s it became the language of anti-co-
lonial political resistance. Nowhere were Swahili’s democratic possibilities
more evident than in the Tanaganyika dockworkers’ strike of 1939–1947.61
Sandbrook and Cohen examine the dockworkers’ activities and argue that
between 1939 and 1947 the dockers conducted three important strikes
from which they gained in three ways. First, they achieved a strong and
self-conscious unity as dockers. Second, they won a privileged position as
the best-paid workers in Tanganyika. Third, they temporarily became the
spearhead of anti-colonial activity throughout the territory. These develop-
ments show how the dockworkers created their own consciousness and
organization through their common actions “in the struggle.”62
For several days in 1947, the combined efforts of a small number of
dockworkers who continued to strike, along with a far larger number of
striking railway workers, paralyzed most of the commerce in the country.63
C. W. Hatchell, a seasoned administrator who believed the claim of the
dockworkers had merit, created and presided over a tribunal to resolve the
labor dispute. After a few weeks workers in most sectors went back to work,
and the government granted several concessions. The dockworkers received
the biggest settlement of all. The Hatchell tribunal created a substantial
award that included free meals, free hospital treatment, and a wage increase
of 50 percent. Furthermore, Hatchell urged legislation to end the shift sys-
tem and make dockworkers a professional class. The most important gain,
however, was that the Hatchell tribunal inspired the dockworkers to create
the Dockworkers’ and Stevedores’ Union.
In 1947 the Tanganyikan dockworkers’ strike severely curtailed com-
mercial activities. After protracted negotiations and legislation, the work-
ers succeeded in gaining increased wages along with a range of fringe
benefits. These important gains were threatened only three years later,
when a band of part-time dockworkers, who claimed that the union had
136 Chapter III

become corrupted by a system of patronage, began a protest against the

union. The protest led to a strike. The British military police stepped in
and tried to force dockworkers back to work. Violence broke out. Ulti-
mately forty-one men were arrested, but not before a crowd of approxi-
mately five hundred dockworkers stoned a disarmed police squad. In the
days after the arrests, the British government replaced the striking dock-
workers, who never regained their jobs, with more casual workers. Thus
the 1950 strike was a significant reversal of fortune for the Dockworkers’
and Stevedores’ Union. One of the important results of the strike was that
all workers, both the part-time dockers and their full-time colleagues,
lost their standing in the eyes of the government. They also forfeited the
mantle of labor leader in Tanganyika’s incipient labor movement. On a
more positive note, the legacy of the 1939 and 1947 strikes established
dockworkers as catalysts of Tanganyika’s trade movement. This inspired
other groups, especially TANU, to engage in a long-term economic and
nationalist struggle.64 Unfortunately, the same could not be said for labor
unionism in Zanzibar.

ZANZIBAR UNDER CONSERVATIVE

THIRD-PHASE COLONIAL RULE

In Zanzibar, economic imperialism, which defined the government’s first-

phase land-acquisition policies and its second-phase educational policies,
continued to frustrate political and social development during Britain’s
third phase of anti-labor colonial repression.65 Following World War I,
and as a consequence of the depression, the colonial administration’s need
or demand for tax revenue increased. During this era, Zanzibar’s political
administration possessed all the extractive impulses associated with new
imperialism. More specifically, the government advanced indirect rule
without promoting any of the humanitarian or civic obligations of dual
mandate. This arrangement characterized much of Britain’s third-phase
rule.66 In the beginning of the third phase, due to changes in the interna-
tional political system between the two world wars, Britain’s parliamen-
tary conservatives grew suspicious of challenges to colonial authority. As
a result, Zanzibar’s government became more rigid and repressive. As the
years wore on, social and economic cleavages between and among Arabs,
 Repression 137

Indians, and Africans deepened, and these made the colonial government
even more antagonistic to displays of political activity.
By contrast, a tenuous balance between the otherwise imperfect systems
of indirect rule and dual mandate made it possible for the Tanganyikans
of different backgrounds to air their grievances within the TAA or other
grassroots organizations. Unlike Zanzibar, Tanganyika’s mandate govern-
ment gave “ethnic” associations in Tanganyika a political mandate.67 The
trusteeship system and the tutelage of the Fabians gave Tanganyikans a
window of opportunity that they seized. As clients of the Fabians they
were able to reject or shrug off the label of anti-Western militants while
simultaneously expanding the TAA, converting its ideology from an as-
sociation of colonial accommodation to a confident activist movement.
The contrast with Zanzibar could not be more striking. The only politi-
cal organizations created by the British in Zanzibar were the EXCO, the
LEGCO, and Clove Growers’ Association (CGA). These organizations
were only for elite and wealthy Arabs and Indians.68 African membership
was nonexistent. This situation allowed the colonial government to keep
Zanzibar as one of its unregulated colonial cash cows.
In 1914 the British transferred administration of the Zanzibari protector-
ate from the foreign to the colonial office. The senior British official in the
government was given the title British resident. Although this new move
appeared to simply shift in the administrative system, it really represented
a consolidation of British and Indian dominance over the economy. The
emancipation of slaves and Zanzibar’s conversion from a subsistence to a
cash-crop economy generated a constant need for new revenue and increased
plantation laborers. Zanzibari political activity during the era of 1914–1930
became a struggle between newly emancipated labor and an ever more
repressive British administration. On the one hand, many African laborers
wished to maintain their livelihood as squatters, choosing to avoid British
coercion to work. On the other hand, British authorities sought to harness
labor through coercive practices including taxation and vagrancy laws.
Rather than trying to oppose British authority, African Zanzibaris adopted
the practice of working slowly, traveling far and wide to elude vagrancy po-
lice. Ultimately, as a few wealthy Arab plantations absorbed small farms,
efforts to avoid clove work on the island of Unguja proved almost impossi-
ble. The government expanded vagrancy laws. The colonial administration
abridged and ultimately vacated Muslim laws promoting squatting rights.
138 Chapter III

The government created institutions to establish and preserve social order,

and determined that Asians should dominate trade and more specifically the
Clove Growers’ Association. The government placed Arabs, who did not
own plantations, as junior officials in Zanzibar’s various colonial agencies
and ministries. This meant “Africans, indigenous or mainland, could only
be labourers.”69 Anthony Clayton suggests that the development of Swahili
political life ebbed and flowed with the strength of the economy:

From abolition in 1897, a colonial order of political and economic institutions

was developed under British supervision. This order gathered strength until
the 1930s when, simultaneously the first small cracks appeared: in politics,
the birth of an African nationalism and in the economy the consequences of
the Depression and a change in the birth-rate of the indigenous Africans.70

The first breach in Britain’s colonial order occurred in the mid 1930s
when a few Swahili laborers created the African Association (AA) in
1934. Membership was diverse and the African Association had more
cleavage than unity. The AA recruited individuals from Unguja as well
as Pemba and the mainland. They came from the city and rural areas and
most importantly, they spoke a variety of languages.
As discussed in previous chapters, language in Zanzibar was a divisive
issue. There were individuals of Shirazi, Bantu, and Arab origin who ar-
gued that speaking Swahili forced them to deny other, equally important,
aspects of their heritage. In many cases linguistic cleavage prevented
similarly situated Zanzibaris from organizing class-based associations, the
basis of mutual interest. As such, in 1939 the Shirazi of Pemba, many of
whom shared a variety of grievances with Unguja Swahili, felt the need
to form their own political organization called the Shirazi Association.71
Due to the fact that the British government neglected its few state-owned
plantations, and allowed the Pemba Shirazi to keep their land, the Shirazi
were able to transform the Shirazi Association from merely a social orga-
nization to a first-rate political alliance.
By contrast, the largely Swahili African Association of Unguja was
unable to evolve into an effective advocacy organization because the
British made Unguja a police state. The government closely monitored
any innovation. Junior government officials joined Ungujan committees,
specifically the African Association, thereby preventing anti-colonial
progressive nationalism from ever taking root.72 Beginning with the emer-
 Repression 139

gence of pan-Africanism in the 1920s and continuing into the mid-1950s,

Zanzibar’s colonial government adopted a successful policy of encourag-
ing, then co-opting, repressing, or generally frustrating organizations that
it believed sponsored African nationalism.
Between the first year of the Zanzibari protectorate and World War
I, the British government created a vast plantation economy and estab-
lished a social hierarchy based on class and occupation. Peasant labor-
ers, largely Africans of Bantu or mixed Swahili origin, suffered as the
government confiscated and redistributed their land.73 During the second
phase of British rule, the period between World War I and the 1920s, the
British government established its policies of linguistic stratification by
creating differentiation and exclusion in Zanzibar’s educational, civic,
and social organizations.74 The British initiated these policies in the early
years of the twentieth century, but the effects of this policy stretched into
the modern era, animating elite politics into the new millennium.75 As a
result of Britain’s manipulations, African Zanzibaris endured poverty and
landlessness during the first and second phases of British rule.76 By the
third phase of colonial rule, the diffuse influence of pan-African and Fa-
bian socialism began to surface in the rhetoric of Swahili workers trying
to promote labor activism in Zanzibar. Zanzibar’s colonial administration
became more repressive.77
Coercing Zanzibaris to work in clove plantations required that the Brit-
ish government dispossess subsistence farmers, raise taxes, and make the
African public subject to a series of vagrancy laws. In the third phase of
colonial rule the protectorate government contained individual African
efforts at social mobility, while repressing group efforts to check colonial
authority. In the first and second phases of colonial administration, the
British government created economic and political institutions, such as
the CGA, the LEGCO, and the EXCO, that excluded Zanzibar’s Africans.
In the third phase the colonial government tried to stop Africans from cre-
ating their own organizations, claiming that they promoted pan-African
radicalism and communism.
Paradoxically, while the protectorate administration was excluding
most Zanzibaris from political participation, Tanganyika’s Fabian gov-
ernment was simultaneously expanding opportunities for its African
population. The British administration in Dar-es-Salaam increased Ger-
man educational institutions, created local governing bodies called Native
140 Chapter III

Authorities, and expanded the centralized bureaucracy, which increased

its recruitment of Africans to positions of administrative authority. Fur-
thermore, under the stipulations of the mandate and then the trusteeship,
the British made an effort to create peaceful economic associations in
Tanganyika. These efforts included an assortment of communal and
cooperative planting organizations, which encouraged African political
and economic development. The government made these efforts despite a
sneaking suspicion that this type of political development might one day
lead to revolutionary African nationalism.
On the whole, African reaction to British and Arab rule in Tanganyika
and in Zanzibar was more the result of dispossession and poverty than
African nationalism. Pan-Africanism, which by the 1930s had become a
worldwide intellectual phenomenon, was much more a threat in the colo-
nial mind than in political reality. In fact, Zanzibar’s most important po-
litical organizations did not originate among labor unions, nor in mosques
nor at political rallies—rather, they sprouted in Ungujan soccer fields.
In the 1920s Indian and Arab Zanzibaris began forming sports clubs,
and, though allowed to participate in the clubs, the British government
prevented Swahili and Bantu players from assuming leadership positions.
In response to this policy, in 1933 Bantu and Swahili players formed the
African Sports Club.78
Members of the sports club, including future Zanzibari president Abeid
Karume, founded the African Association. The colonial government and
its clients had an immediate reaction, which included trying to slow or
stop the registration of the organization, as well as attempting to subvert
the organization by planting individuals sympathetic to the colonial gov-
ernment. After five years, the colonial government relented, and in 1939
registered the association. Abeid Karume was elected as its secretary.79
Those five years of struggle weakened the African Association. The AA
never became a strong political entity and could therefore never chal-
lenged the Indian or Arab Associations. Infighting within the African
Association, especially cleavages based on class and sectarian politics,
forced Pemba Muslims to form their own organization in 1938 called the
Shirazi Association.
Tanganyika’s system of indirect rule, especially under UN trusteeship,
promoted a variety of civic organizations. By contrast the colonial gov-
ernment in Zanzibar did not. Many British bureaucrats, recruited from
 Repression 141

India, were particularly fond of promoting minority rule over participa-

tory government.80 The government was loathe to relinquish its authority
and only shared power with wealthy Arab planters who were its clients.
As the elite rulers in a British protectorate, Arab planters similarly wanted
to limit the number and strength of civic organizations that would in any
way affect their privileged status. Thus British and Arab reaction to Af-
rican attempts to form political organizations was to slow their progress,
infiltrate, and change the mandate of the organizations. African efforts to
express economic resistance to British rule within the Arab-dominated
plantation economy grew more severe.
British interest in monitoring African labor union activity, especially
in its cash-rich colonies, dominated the policy of Britain’s newly created
Labor Committee, established in 1930. Meynaud and Bey suggest that the
protectorate adopted a divide and rule strategy with regard to Zanzibar’s
laboring classes:

The aim of British policy on trade unions was to keep economic and political
demands separate and to ensure that trade unionism did not reinforce the nation-
alist movement. The Colonial Office . . . had seen at a very early date the dan-
gers involved if trade unionism became a weapon for the political leaders.81

In response to pressure from conservative factions in Britain’s parlia-

ment, individuals who feared the expansion of pan-African nationalism,
Zanzibar’s colonial administration established the Trade Union Decree of
1931. This act required that trade unions go through elaborate registra-
tion processes, agree to be monitored, and disavow strikes.82 Ten years
later the government passed a second Trade Union Decree, stipulating
even more specific conditions for the colonial government’s registration
and auditing of native labor organizations. As a result, during the years
1930–1945, an era when there was a rapid expansion of labor unions in
neighboring Tanganyika, not a single group of Zanzibari workers came
forward to apply for labor union status.83
Eventually, economic decline following the depression and World War
II led to a rash of strikes between the years 1946–1948.84 In 1946, postwar
imported food shortages reached an all-time high. Further, widespread
drought made subsistence farming impossible, leading to famine in rural
areas. Cash cropping and clove export suffered greatly, and as a result
workers in the various occupations in that sector despaired. In March 1946
142 Chapter III

a group of dockworkers transporting products within the harbor went on

strike. Lasting four months, the strike spread to other workers in the clove
industry as well as dockworkers. When the strike finally incapacitated the
clove economy, the British military eventually put it down. The govern-
ment restored a semblance of order, although the colonial administration
never met demands for pay increase.85
Economic concerns, left unresolved from the 1946 strike, simmered
for two years, boiling to the surface when a charismatic leader, Abbas
Osman, organized his fellow Swahili dockworkers in August 1948. A
paradox of British rule during this era was its almost paralyzing fear of
the nebulous threats of communism and pan-Africanism, coupled with
its inability to gauge the seriousness of the dockworkers’ strike, which
were neither sponsored by African Communists nor influenced by Pan-
Africanism. In fact, three separate colonial governments in Tanganyika
and Zanzibar, with three different administrative structures, were unable
to analyze the situation correctly.86 Yet the behavior of the laboring
classes in both countries, during the late 1940s, was quite similar. In both
countries economic resistance and national sentiment began with Swahili
dockworkers.
Britain’s own experience with the dockworkers’ strike of 1889 should
have indicated that ignoring labor unionism would not make it go away.
In Zanzibar, ignore it they did, and the 1948 dockworkers strike became
a boycott unlike any the island had ever known. It was better organized,
shorter, more intense, and certainly more devastating than the haphazard
efforts of laborers in 1946.87 Whereas the Tanganyikans had several or-
ganizations in which both African labor and the Swahili language were
a dominant force for change, Zanzibari labor was far less well equipped.
As of 1948, Zanzibari labor lacked the type of institutions that could pro-
mote either colonial resistance or political development. The dockworker
strikes in Tanganyika and Zanzibar enjoyed success mainly because the
participants were similarly situated, were Swahili-speaking, and had a will
to power.88 The same could not be said for the vast majority of Zanzibar’s
laboring classes. Its dispossessed, largely illiterate, sharecropping classes
would toil in obscurity until violent revolution became the only recourse
for achieving economic empowerment.
The 1948 dockworkers’ strike presented a unique opportunity for
Zanzibar’s protectorate government to, at long last, begin to democratize
 Repression 143

Zanzibar’s economy and improve the lives of Zanzibar’s African labor-

ers in a gradual and peaceful manner.89 Like dockworkers in England, the
primary complaint Zanzibari dockworkers had with the government was
the irregularity of work and the fluctuation of wage. Although the 1948
workers wanted a raise in wage, they also wanted a “reduction in the cost
of living.” This was a summons that went far beyond compensation to a call
for deep financial reform. For all intents and purposes this was inconsistent
with the demands of Zanzibar’s plantation economy.90 Rather than address-
ing the dockworkers’ economic grievances, or starting on a path of reform,
Zanzibar’s administrators failed to acknowledge the strike as a legitimate
grievance. Further, the 1948 dockworkers’ strike apparently failed to con-
vince the protectorate government that it needed to change its policies to
more closely reflect those of the TUC and Fabians in Tanganyika.
Instead of resolving the conflict and expanding economic opportunities
for the dockworkers, the colonial administration in Zanzibar defined it
as a racial conflict stirred up by unnamed “agitators.”91 The author of the
crown’s labor report suggested that

[a] particularly unfortunate feature of this strike was the clearly evidenced
inspiration by agitators not normally resident in the Protectorate. It is not
clear to what extent cooperation in the general strike was voluntary or in-
duced by threats of violence, but it was apparent that a number of African
workers came out on strike for no better reason than mistaken sense of
loyalty to their own race; this is a Protectorate in which the cordial relations
between races has always been notable.92

Ultimately the British colonial administration labeled the 1948 strike

a “political” activity, which was proscribed by the government, and put
down with military force. As the British government in Zanzibar was
demonizing indigenous efforts to organize economic boycotts, it was
also trying to prevent these boycotts from leading to the development of
indigenous political organizations—a stark contrast from British policy
regarding Tanganyikan dockworkers.
Between the years 1950 and 1957 the government arrested Zanzibar’s
emerging union leaders, cancelled union registrations, and prohibited espe-
cially successful labor unions or forcibly shut them down.93 Third World trade
unionism became the focus of a competition between the Russian-dominated
World Federation of Trade Unions, the WFTU, and the American-dominated
144 Chapter III

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the ICFTU.94 In 1955 the

ICFTU held its fourth World Congress where the British TUC made several
notable statements regarding the acceptable role of labor unionism in colonial
politics. The TUC argued that Africans were ready to assume control over
their own destinies:

There can be developed an effective trade union movement, the principles

of democracy can be practiced and learned in order to serve the purposes
of self-government.95

However by 1957, the growing strength of indigenous political move-

ments, with their revolutionary lexicon of pan-African unity led the TUC
to take a more cautious position toward African labor unions. The TUC
argued that:

[There is] a growing tendency for African trade unions to be subordinated

to the aims of political Pan-Africanism, to the detriment of genuine trade
union activity; and this tendency is being wittingly or unwittingly encour-
aged by some non-African trade union organizations.96

True to this warning, the early efforts of the Fabians, and the TUC
itself, led Tangnayikans to create labor unions and associations in Tan-
ganyika that became political and demanding. By the 1950s these orga-
nizations were calling loudly, albeit peacefully, for independence from
colonial rule. Meanwhile in Zanzibar, local colonial administrators, many
dominated by an alliance of conservative and liberal party benefactors in
England, continued to believe they could silence, repress, or co-opt chal-
lenges to British authority. Where the government thwarted these African
challengers, their frustrated political activity became latent hostility,
which eventually led to violence. Of course, Tanganyika and Zanzibar’s
respective trajectories toward peace and violence were established well
before the modern era of labor unionism and independence activism.
The Bantu and Swahili people of Zanzibar had little experience with
political participation. At the turn of the twentieth century, when the Indi-
ans and Arabs were establishing their respective associations to advance
their economic interests, Africans were just gaining their legal freedom.
Further, many were too distracted by changes in land law and the squat-
ting system to consider a change in the political order. Africans in Zanzi-
 Repression 145

bar lacked the historic tribal linkages many Tanganyikan farmers enjoyed
because the latter population was largely settled, and many of Zanzibar’s
tribes were partially nomadic. It was far easier for the Chagga people to
become politically active than most Swahili Zanzibaris because they had
indigenous agricultural associations, which with the proper patronage,
developed into a growing cooperative society. The stability and political
sophistication of large portions of Tanganyika’s agricultural population
led to the development of the TAA in the 1920s. The TAA became an
umbrella organization for the disenchanted; it took up a political mantle
and changed its name to TANU, becoming one of East Africa’s most
potent political entities.
Zanzibari political development suffered because, from the earliest
years of the protectorate, the colonial administration prevented Bantu and
Swahili Africans from forming associations that mixed economic activity
with political activity. As a result, Zanzibaris had no African Association
to speak of until well into the 1940s.97 Zanzibar’s African Association,
rather than being an umbrella for political articulation, reflected attitudes
of similarly situated classes and tribal affiliations, sharpening fissures
created by fifty years of plantation politics. By various accounts, until the
1950s the leaders of Zanzibar’s African Association were employed as
clerks in the British civil service.
In 1947, under pressure from its patron, the colonial government,
Zanzibar’s African Association severed its nominal ties with the more
politically savvy, “more radical” TAA.98 Eventually, the African Associa-
tion evolved into the Afro-Shirazi party, an organization that represented
the political interests of its African constituents. However, this did not
occur until the mid-1950s, far too late to have a modifying or conciliatory
affect on the impoverished and disillusioned Africans seeking political
independence from Britain.
Perhaps the most glaring example of the protectorate’s disinterest in
acknowledging African grievances or its unwillingness to allow African
political development could be seen with the emergence of a new politi-
cal party, known as the National Party of the the Subjects of the Sultan of
Zanzibar, or NPSS. Following the 1948 strike and other meager rebellions
of that era, a small number of Swahili dockworkers and peasant farmers
formed the NPSS.99 This party was Swahili in culture and language; the
founding members referred to themselves as “Swahili.”100 Thus, despite
146 Chapter III

its late start, the NPSS promised to be an organization that could channel
Bantu and Swahili animosity, even rancor, into a valuable site for African
nationalist politics. By the mid-1950s NPSS membership had expanded
and the party needed financial support. The Arab Association, in turn,
believed it needed to build bridges with a non-Arab political entity and be-
gan funding the NPSS. Eventually the Arab Association began to dictate
the agenda of the NPSS and soon Arab members of the party transformed
it from a peasant/worker league, a potential force for Swahili political
advancement, to yet another organization promoting Arab economic in-
terests. Thus, unlike their colleagues in Britain or Tanganyika, who were
able to build on the strike, Zanzibar’s dockworkers were unable to insti-
tutionalize their political activity, or to establish a permanent organization
to represent their interests. In late 1955 Arab members renamed the NPSS
the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), an organization that would eventu-
ally take Zanzibar into its worst civil war in modern history.
There were other factors that made political repression during Britain’s
third-phase rule intolerable. Britain’s tax revenue system, which the
government institutionalized in the first three decades of the twentieth
century, became steeper during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1946, the year
the protectorate government put down Zanzibar’s first official strike and
refused to raise the wages of its dockworkers, it also issued a ten-year
development plan. Within Zanzibar, the protectorate government touted
the Programme of Social and Economic Development for . . . 1946–1955
as a plan to help Zanzibaris diversify their crops and generate revenue for
building national infrastructure.101 However, in the actual language of the
legislative document the colonial office claimed the plan would rely on
tax revenue for “capital expenditure.” The British government planned to
give the protectorate 25 percent of the funds, while Zanzibaris, already
heavily taxed during the war years, were responsible for producing the
remaining 75 percent. Therefore, at the same time that colonial officials
suggested that Zanzibar relied too heavily on the clove plantation to de-
velop properly, they also stated that the most reliable way of financing
other projects was through the taxation of the very same clove indus-
try. The protectorate development plan for 1946 stated that: “If the full
500,000 [British pound] programme is to be undertaken, the major part
of the money required must be provided from local sources by means of
increased [clove] taxation.”102
 Repression 147

In a less subtle expression of the economic imperative in colonial policy,

the authors of the development plan for the years 1955–1959 suggested that
revenue generation was still the paramount goal of the government:

Every effort is being made to preserve balance between expenditure on

social services on the one hand, and expenditure calculated to result in
economic advantage to the protectorate on the other, but in the absence of
natural resources in the protectorate, this question continues to cause much
difficulty to the development planner.103

During the era of the development plans, between the years 1946 and
1959, the standard of living and quality of life for African Zanzibaris
continued their downward spiral that began during the expansion of the
plantation economy.104 From phase 1 to phase 4, economic imperialism
was the dominant political ideology of the British government in the
Zanzibar protectorate. In phase 1, economic imperialism prompted the
British government to seize African land, create the plantation system,
end squatting, and pass a series of coercive laws to force Africans away
from producing a variety of crops for local trade/subsistence farming.
In the second phase economic imperialism prompted the government to
create exclusive economic and political organizations such as the CGA,
the LEGCO, and the EXCO, and to seize control over the development
of these organizations so that they favored Arab planting and Indian trad-
ing classes while excluding African labor. In the third phase of rule, in
accordance with the dictates of Conservative and Liberal Party foreign
policy, Zanzibar’s colonial government began establishing local govern-
ment bodies in rural areas of Zanzibar. However, true to the dictates of
economic imperialism, which promoted hierarchies of class and privilege,
these bodies were presided over by Arabs.105
Third-phase new economic imperialism prompted the British gov-
ernment to try to quash all attempts by Africans to challenge colonial
policies and to suppress, subvert, and destroy any African-led political or
economic organizations. Third-phase economic imperialism also led the
British government to promote “development” schemes that were simply
more of the same policies, geared toward enriching the British govern-
ment and Zanzibar’s wealthier classes. By contrast, from the early years
of German rule to the eras of the British mandate and UN trusteeship,
Tanganyika’s colonial governments attempted to make their economic
148 Chapter III

and political programs adhere more faithfully to the norms of the dual
mandate.106 Tanganyika’s colonial governments promoted genuine politi-
cal participation and economic growth in the earliest stages. When devel-
opment plans were created they similarly promoted genuine long-term
economic growth rather than immediate financial gain.107 More specifi-
cally, the members of British trustee government, many of whom were
members of the Fabian Colonial Bureau, tried to build on the progressive
agricultural policies of Germany’s late colonial government.108 Unlike
Zanzibar’s protectorate government, Tanganyika’s trusteeship prevented
Africans from being alienated from their land.109 Furthermore, the British
trustee government built on German efforts to keep coffee exportation
completely in the hands of African Tanganyikans.
The trusteeship formulated a development strategy called the “focal
point program,” which concentrated on using the Department of Agricul-
ture’s meager staff for projects that would expand the colonial economy
while benefiting African Tanganyikans. The agriculture department
focused on expanding African coffee production, but also preserved Ger-
man ordinances governing crop rotation and soil conservation.110 Further,
unlike Zanzibar’s protectorate government, the Tanganyikan trusteeship
supported traditional African cooperatives, and, later, nascent coffee labor
unions. Specifically, the agriculture department developed a focal point
budget that concentrated solely on coffee, the cash crop that Tangan-
yikan farmers had traditionally grown. Later the staff of the department
helped institutionalize their coffee cooperatives into labor unions. As
a result, when the colonial government granted Tanganyikans colonial
independence, Africans had control and ownership over an industry that
had grown and promised to continue expanding. Zanzibaris, on the other
hand, were simply landless laborers, growing a crop that had been in
decline more than three decades. In further contrast to Zanzibar, even
Tanganyika’s tax system genuinely improved the lives of Tangayika’s
African population.
The British system of taxation in Tanganyika allowed approximately 90
percent of revenue collected to stay in the “native treasury.” The govern-
ment used money in the native treasury for local health clinics, develop-
ing agriculture, and establishing cooperatives.111 In the 1930s the British
government created local councils, which expanded political participation
in Tanganyika’s rural districts. Between the 1940s and the 1950s the Brit-
 Repression 149

ish government specifically discouraged the expansion of cash crops and

encouraged subsistence farming.112 Finally, rather than drawing solely on
its British and Indian elite, the colonial government in Tanganyika spe-
cifically recruited and trained Africans to assume positions in the colonial
administration, a policy they called “Africanization.”113
Thus in the decades leading to colonial independence, Tanganyika ap-
peared to be regressing into subsistence economy, but in reality it was on
a dual mandate path of slow but steady economic independence and fully
realized African political participation. By contrast, Zanzibar appeared
to be on the road to development. However, Zanzibari development was
mostly pretense and affectation. It soon became obvious that third-phase
protectorate development was a continuation of the twin evils of new im-
perialism—political exclusion and revenue extraction. What was striking
about British policy in this era was that in Tanganyika Britain continued
the progressive political socialization the Germans began years earlier.
In Zanzibar, British policy remained highly regressive. In addition to
taking native land, coercing natives to grow crops they did not want and
denying them even elementary education, third-phase British administra-
tors sought to arrest political development in areas outside agricultural
production. They were fearful and suspicious of any kind of political
resistance in Zanzibar, especially a strike that might spark widespread
rebellions, such as those that characterized labor unionism at the turn of
the century in Britain, Germany, and Tanganyika.
Like other imperial nations, the British colonial government was a prod-
uct of its domestic political traditions. The state in Britain had an aversion
to medieval guilds and modern labor unions. Nineteenth-century British
politicians made largely symbolic wage concessions to striking workers
rather than try to accommodate worker demands. Unlike German work-
ers or workers in former German colonies, there were few institutional
resources for either British labor in England or African labor in British
colonies. Whenever the colonial government in Zanzibar established an
institution that promised to benefit Africans, very often, paradoxically, it
did just the opposite.
In the fourth phase of colonial rule, the colonial government endorsed
the efforts of elite Arabs to establish their political hegemony just prior
to Zanzibari independence. This was because the British colonial gov-
ernment still described Zanzibar as an Arab state, despite its majority
150 Chapter III

African population.114 Arab leaders began stealing elections and capturing

colonial institutions for the sole use of their Arab clients, thereby further
immobilizing African political activity and incapacitating African politi-
cal parties. Britain’s blind patronage of the Arab elite enraged Zanzibar’s
African majority, who still sought political participation merely as a
means toward achieving economic justice. The cumulative effect of
Britain’s policies was that it rendered peaceful colonial resistance impos-
sible. Thus, when Zanzibar’s disaffected peasants finally decided to revolt
against the colonial government, they cried out a great many slogans that
reflected their subject status, but perhaps none as vivid or appropriate as
“no taxation without representation.”115

NOTES

1. In rare cases slaves with particular skills or talents, or who had been of great
service to the sultan, were given their freedom and a wage in order to continue
working for the government.
2. As mentioned at the conclusion of chapter II, by the early 1950s, the YAP, the
youth wing of the Afro-Shirazi Party, suggested that African social equality would
only be secured by cessation of British rule and the transformation of Zanzibar from
an African state to an African, Swahili-speaking nation. The YAP was neither the
first nor the last organization to voice opposition to colonial rule. In fact, by the
1920s, African political resistance to colonial rule merged with sporadic protests.
In the 1940s Swahili-speaking dockworkers known as the hamali began a series of
strikes against the colonial government. The strikes recall the London dockworkers’
strike of 1880 that was a catalyst for Britain’s modern labor movement. As such,
the hamali strike was a wake-up call for Britain’s colonial authorities. Their reac-
tion to this labor activity will be discussed in great detail throughout this chapter.
3. In the introduction to chapter I, I describe Taylor and McKirnan’s five-stage
model; see Taylor and Moghaddam, Theories of Intergroup Relations, 155–57. In
the introduction I also explain how I have integrated Fatton’s three-site analysis
into the Taylor/McKirnan prototype to produce the five-phase model. The five
phases specifically describe the political conditions in Zanzibar’s colonial his-
tory. They are (1) the creation of a stratified class system based on plantation
economy, (2) the promulgation of social and educational policies by the govern-
ment, (3) the manifestation of a repressive colonial policy toward local leaders/
organizations, (4) the emergence of strong resistance/violent revolution against
 Repression 151

colonial government, and (5) the rise of a new class system—the mirror image of
phase 1, with new elite leadership and new counter elites.
4. Chapters I and II discussed the distinction between “new imperialism” and
“dual mandate.” Chapter I described the idea of “dual mandate” as derived from
the notion that in exchange for extracting wealth from Africa, Europeans would
bring “commerce, civilization, and Christianity” to its native inhabitants. In the
twentieth century, and in practical terms, the three Cs evolved into policy that
sought to establish schools and governments that might one day be transferred
to independent African nations. “New imperialism” was defined in chapter II as
an aggressive march of British forces into new territories coupled with renewed
attention to lands already occupied by British forces. New imperialism reached
its height during the scramble for Africa but continued well into the twentieth
century. “New imperialism” was represented by an alliance of wealthy political
interests such as members of parliament, wealthy industrial interests and colonial
adventurers. For a discussion of new imperialism, see Robinson, Gallagher and
Denny, Africa and the Victorians, 312 and 410.
5. Tanganyikan political timeline:

1890–1916 German Rule Tanganyika

1916–1922 British occupation of Germany’s African colonies; Tan-
ganyika’s administrative status not defined.
1922–1946 Establishment of the British Mandate for East (Tangan-
yika)—drafted by League of Nations
1946–1961 United Nations created (Britain’s) Tanganyikan Trustee-
ship Agreement.
1961 Tanganyika gains colonial independence from Britain
1961–1964 Independent Tanganyika
1890–1964 British Protectorate of Zanzibar
1964 Zanzibar Revolt
April 1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar become the United Republic of
Tanzania and Zanzibar. This is an arrangement similar to
Northern Ireland and United Kingdom; see I. N. Kimambo
and A. J. Temu, A History of Tanzania (Nairobi: East
African Publishing House, 1969), 249
1964–1965 United Republic of Tanzania, or simply Tanzania

6. Initially Zanzibaris eschewed out-right rebellion, preferring to adopt a

“work slow” strategy and only striking in the years following World War II.
African Zanzibaris only rebelled against the colonial government in 1964 upon
learning that independence was qualified by a return to Arab rule.
152 Chapter III

7. The mandate was established by the world powers that were members of
the League of Nations after Germany lost its territories in World War I.
8. As discussed in chapters I and II, Britain’s first and second phases of rule
in Zanzibar led to the creation of a plantation economy; this, in turn, generated a
stratified class system that further required the promulgation of educational poli-
cies that would reinforce colonial class assignments.
9. On the other hand, liberal governance in Tanganyika, first by Germans
and then British Fabians, created a political system that expanded economic and
social opportunity. This more open political process encouraged African Tang-
anyikans to participate more peacefully in political resistance against, and later
in political cooperation with, colonial powers.
10. The British colonial system in Zanzibar was based on economic imperial-
ism. It preserved plantation economy against democracy and modernization. Oc-
casionally the British government would make gestures that signaled a potential
opening of the political system. In the third phase this was most obviously dem-
onstrated by a series of laws established between the years 1930 and 1940 that
initially sanctioned labor unions. Not long after these laws were promulgated, the
British government began banning labor unions that were considered to promote
African nationalism or anti-colonial activity. In several instances the colonial
government appeared to approve of Zanzibari political or economic activity only
to try to undermine these organizations or arrest their leaders. This controversial
and largely contradictory behavior on the part of the British government led to
alternating cycles of false hope and despair. In the fourth phase the continued
cycles of false hope and despair escalated leading to rage that culminated in
revolutionary violence. For a discussion of this cycle, see Sheriff and Ferguson,
Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 197.
11. During 1940s British involvement in the World War II particularly af-
fected Africans, because human and natural resources were drawn from many
African colonies, including those in East Africa.
12. In Tanganyika, as mentioned earlier, the government’s urge to plant more
cash crops was not accompanied by a program of land acquisition, and thus Tan-
ganyikans could challenged it.
13. Bill Freund describes how slaves became squatters and then wage depen-
dent seasonal workers in Zanzibar and elsewhere; see Bill Freund, The African
Worker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 67–68.
14. See Robert Rayner, The Story of Trade Unionism (London: Longmans,
Green and Co. Ltd, 1929). During the last decades of the eighteenth century and
the first decades of the nineteenth century, attempts by the British working class
to get better hours and wages were frustrated by various laws that prohibited
labor organization (1–8). Labor organizations “struggled to survive” until the
 Repression 153

1830s, when the repeal of combination acts allowed labor organizations to func-
tion in the open (22). During the late 1820s until the late 1870s labor organiza-
tions began to expand their activity, developing as they launched into a series of
“false starts,” and ambitious but “unsuccessful experiments” (22, 44).
15. The trade union movement was unsuccessful because of its own internal
weaknesses. Local unions and sectional interests detracted from efforts to create
a unified plan of action. The situation improved in the 1850s when trade unions
finally merged. However, the basic tension between the centralization and frag-
mentation within the British trade union movement remained, and furthermore,
new conflicts developed between Social-Democrats, Fabians, and politicians
of every stripe within the Liberal Party; Rayner, The Story of Trade Unionism,
22–44.
16. See Cannon, The Oxford Companion to British History, 229.
17. Trygve R. Tholfsen, Working Class Radicalism in Mid-Victorian England
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 253–54 and 284.
18. The SDF concentrated its efforts in the practical matters of leading
actual worker strikes and promoting civil disobedience. SDF’s leading role in
trade union activism freed Fabians to pursue regional and international politi-
cal alliance and cultivate party politics in Britain, and later in Britain’s African
colonies.
19. In the small towns in southern and western Germany, medieval guilds en-
dured changes in the economy and government, producing a local heritage of “in-
stitutional eccentricity and close social integrity”; Mack Walker, German Home
Towns: Community, State and General Estate 1648–1871 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1998), 35. Guild towns helped sustain participatory democracy
throughout the German empire when advocates of centralized political authority
became both more powerful and unyielding (38–41, 193).
20. The notion that the upper classes lead revolutions, and then, after becom-
ing more conservative, regulate society as they energize and sustain the economy
is discussed in Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968), 288–91.
21. John A. Moses, Trade Unionism in Germany from Bismarck to Hitler
1869–1933, vol. I (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1982), xvi. As discussed ear-
lier, the connection between England’s guilds and its labor unions was much
more tenuous. Guilds, quashed under Tudor rule, enjoyed a brief revival until
the beginning of the industrial revolution, when the British Parliament formally
outlawed them in 1830s; Cannon, The Oxford Companion to British History, 229.
Most of England’s trade unions remained small local organizations throughout
the first half of the nineteenth century.
22. Moses, Trade Unionism in Germany from Bismarck to Hitler, 167–68.
154 Chapter III

23. See Theodore Cassau, The Consumers’ Co-operative Movement in Ger-

many, trans. J. F. Mills (Manchester: Co-Operative Union Limited, 1925), 123. For
a list of German political parties and their election results for the years 1871–1933,
see Moses, Trade Unionism in Germany from Bismarck to Hitler, vol. II, 515. Dur-
ing the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth
century, a cold war between General Union Social Democrats and Liberal-leaning
consumer’s unions developed and was energized by mutual exclusion and scorn.
These developments were important factors influencing the tolerant view German
administrators took toward Tanganyika’s communal organizations, and were cen-
tral to the decision to allow Christian trade unions access to trade. It stands in stark
contrast to the philosophy and policies of the British in Zanzibar.
24. If German rule and the Maji-Maji rebellion are examined through the prism
of the five-phase model, one can be argue that rather than going through each
phase of the model, Tanganyikans went directly from phase 1 stratified intergroup
relations to phase 4 consciousness raising. For a comparison/contrast of the five-
phase model with the five-stage model, see Taylor and Moghaddam, Theories of
Inter-group Relations, 156–61, and the first chapter of this book. Similarly, ex-
amining Tanganyika through the prism of Robert Fatton’s three sites reveals that
Tanganyikans experienced class formation almost at the same time they decided to
use class to resist colonial authority. These sites overlapped in Tanganyika and, as
a result, the German colonial authority did not have an opportunity or conditions to
create class disarticulation; Fatton, Predatory Rule, 8–11, 19–37, 144–45.
25. As in the last decades of the nineteenth century, during the first decades
of the twentieth century the German colonial office continued to be dominated
by conservatives. However, unlike conservatives in Britain’s colonial office
German conservatives were compelled to listen to liberal and progressive
voices because of the power of Germany’s labor and social democratic parties.
Colonial Director Dernburg, a businessman and conservative of the emerging
“managerial class,” advocated economic (liberal) imperialism; see Iliffe, Tan-
ganyika under German Rule 1905–1912, 48. However, the rising influence of
labor forces in German politics and the outbreak of Tanganyika’s Maji-Maji
rebellion, both of which occurred under Dernburg’s watch, began to temper
Derburg’s views, making him more receptive to progressive political forces.
Ultimately, Dernburg was compelled to listen of the advice of Tanganyika’s
colonial secretary Albrech von Rechenberg, a Marxist-leaning aristocrat who
thought African colonialism was a waste of human and material resources; see
Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule 1905–1912, 50–55. These two men,
often working in tandem, became leading forces responsible for the relatively
progressive “reform” policies that preceded Britain’s acquisition of the Tang-
anyikan mandate.
 Repression 155

26. German rule at that time was described as a “siege mentality”; Hugh
W. Stephen, The Political Transformation of Tanganyika: 1920–67 (Westport,
Conn.: Preager Publishers, 1968), 18.
27. Mary E. Townsend, The Rise and Fall of Germany’s Colonial Empire,
1884–1918 (New York: Macmillan Press, 1930).
28. Prosser Gifford and W. M. Rogers, with Allison Smith, eds., Britain and
German in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1967), 560.
29. Gifford, Rogers, and Smith, Britain and German in Africa, 558–59. The
Germans used the term Volskulture to describe peasant cash-cropping (560). In
Togo the German government made cotton the local cash crop.
30. Among various Tanganyikan tribes there was a shared belief in the powers
of witch doctors. In this instance the witch doctors dispensed magic water to rebels
that would supposedly make them impervious to harm against the mighty German
army; Stephen, The Political Transformation of Tanganyika 1920–1967, 19.
31. The Germans were of two minds as to who really was behind the Maji-Maji
rebellion. Tanganyikan Governor Von Gotzen believed that the rebellion was pre-
meditated effort of witch doctors and dispossessed herdsmen. In Germany, more
liberal politicians staffed the foreign office. They argued that the rebellion was the
spontaneous reaction by agriculturalists to the flawed policies of the von Gotzen
regime; Stephen, The Political Transformation of Tanganyika, 561.
32. See Walter Crocker, On Governing Colonies (London: George Allen &
Unwin: 1947), 41.
33. Mary E. Townsend, The Rise and Fall of Germany’s Colonial Empire
1884–1918, chap. 9.
34. See Gus Leibenow, “Tribalism, Traditionalism and Modernism in Chagga,”
Journal of African Administration X, no. 2 (April 1958), 73. The fact that the
government communicated with all tribes and organizations in Swahili, and that
the Chagga were Swahili-speaking individuals, reinforced rather than weakened
national integration. Thus, as colonial powers sought to transfer power to native
African populations in later decades, Tanganyikans had a head start on most of
their contemporaries. They spoke a lingua franca and had developed organiza-
tions, which were recognized by the colonial government and which could further
their economic and political interests.
35. Most Tanganyikas, despite tribe affiliation, were similarly situated as
farmers; many used Swahili as a common language. This fact allowed them able
to organize a very dramatic mutiny against the German colonial government.
36. The fact that land was so plentiful in Tanganyika meant that Africans there
were more often dislocated than truly dispossessed. Their neighbors in Zanzibar
fared much worse. Critics of land transfer policies were few in number. However,
156 Chapter III

in the early 1940s the Labor party took a stand. It declared where “communal
land tenure exist, these systems should be maintained and land should be declared
inalienable by private sale or purchase”; see “Report of the 41st Annual Confer-
ence of the Labour Party,” in Louise W. Holborn, ed., War and Peace Aims of
the United Nations (Boston: World Peace Foundation, 1943), 684. Naturally, the
Labor party could do little to help farmers whose land was already lost. Even
stopping new transfers proved difficult because Conservative and Liberal policy
still prevailed in the foreign, colonial and agricultural departments of the British
government (formally footnote #337).
37. There had been a struggle between the various factions within Britain’s
assorted Socialist organizations for and against war with Germany. The faction
in support of the war named itself the Nationalist Socialist Party. The anti-war
faction kept the name of British Socialist Party; Kenneth Miller, Socialism and
Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice in Britain to 1931 (Boston: Marinus Nijhoff
Publishers, 1967), 52–53.
38. Miller, Socialism and Foreign Policy, 25.
39. Following World War II the British government began to face serious
challenges to its authority. In 1946, despite British attempts to make con-
stitutional reforms, a riot broke out in the Gold Coast. In 1948 a committee
was formed to investigate the conditions in what would become Ghana; see
Wallbank, Documents on Modern Africa. In 1948 the Watson committee
made several recommendations, which included going well beyond reforms
to the colonial constitution. While the report conclusions were organized as
political, economic, or social recommendations, the report made a careful
acknowledgement that there was “no clear dividing line between them and
they are frequently inter-related” (88). Regarding political problems in Ghana
the committee noted an “increasing resentment at the growing concentration
of certain trades in the hands of foreigners” (89). Protectorate authorities
suggested that the Bantu and Swahili of Unguja shared similar sentiments
regarding Zanzibar’s Indian financiers and Arab planters. Under the heading
of economic concerns the report suggested that there was a “feeling that the
[colonial] government had not formulated any plans for the future of industry
and agriculture” (89). The same could be said about Zanzibar, where coerced
labor remained a daily fact and the government’s so-called development
plans failed either to improve the clove industry or create other agricultural
enterprises. Finally, the report suggested that Ghanians were alleging that co-
lonial government intentionally created a “slow development of educational
facilities” (87–91). This last complaint foreshadowed criticism by the Young
African Union regarding schools in Zanzibar, see Lofchie, Zanzibar: Back-
ground to Revolution, 161–62.
 Repression 157

40. See George Padmore, Africa and World Peace (London: Frank Cass,
1972), 143–44.
41. David Goldsworthy, Colonial Issues in British Politics 1945–1961 (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 12–13.
42. For a discussion of how the colonial state in Tanzania tried to “channel and
control workers” through the British TUC, thereby hoping to check Communism,
see Bill Freund, The African Worker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988), 93–94.
43. Labor in the United Kingdom Dependencies (London: British Government
Publisher, 1957), 8.
44. After World War II, the attitudes of Fabians turned toward helping colo-
nized nations achieve independence.
45. See George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism (New York: Dou-
bleday & Co., 1971), 63–74.
46. Ibid.
47. See Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism, 108–10. When the 1921
Congress moved its second session from London to Belgium, the Belgian press at
the behest of the government linked the Pan-African Congress to the Communist
Bolshevik regime in Moscow. The authorities allowed the conference to continue
but the stigma of Communism once penned remained a constant charge.
48. Members of the society included Professor Harold Laski and H. G. Wells
among other dignitaries.
49. Zanzibar’s trade unions were especially suspected. One account sug-
gests that the Arab Zanzibar Nationalist Party was patronized by Communists
and that the multiracial Zanzibar Federation of Progressive Trade Unions was a
“pro-Chinese stronghold”; see Zbigniew Brzezinski, Africa and the Communist
World (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1963), 193. However, other
accounts suggest the ZNP was funded by the fiercely anti-Communist ICFTU,
the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions; see Philip Agee, Inside the
Company: CIA Diary (New York: Stonehill, 1975), 604, and Jonathan Kwitney,
Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World (London: Congdon and
Weed Publishers, 1983).
50. Ibid. The so-called reform policies enacted by Dernburg were at once criti-
cized by local European settlers who wanted to have access to more African land
held in common, and cheaper African labor; Prosser Gifford and William Roger
Louis, The Transfer of Power in Africa (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1982), 557.
51. See David Goldsworthy, Colonial Issues in British Politics 1945–1961, 61.
52. Goldsworthy, Colonial Issues in British Politics 1945–1961, 61. In July
1935 Malcolm Macdonald took office. James Thomas succeeded him in Novem-
158 Chapter III

ber of that same year. Labor experienced a reversal, however, when Liberal Wil-
liam Ormsby Gore became colonial secretary; see William E. J. McCarthy, Trade
Unions, second ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 102.
53. During this brief era Labor dominated the Ministry of State. Specifically,
Arthur Creech Jones, Ivor Thomas, and David Rees-Williams, who served as
minister of state during 1945 and 1950; see Goldsworthy, Colonial Issues in Brit-
ish Politics 1945–1961, 61.
54. Protectorates did not fall under the watchful eye of League of Nations
(mandate) or United Nations (trusteeship); rather Conservatives and Liberals
dominated the colonial and foreign offices.
55. Organizations not sanctioned by the government were under suspicion
and did not last long. The Tanganyikan African Welfare and Commercial As-
sociation was such an organization. Widely believed to have been founded by a
Ugandan Garveyite, organization leaders tried to enlist a cross-section of occu-
pational interests but eventually found that most TAWCA recruits came from the
clerical ranks of big banks/commercial houses. Most of these individuals were
sympathetic to colonial rule. Eventually the TAWCA ceased to be a political or-
ganization. It became, instead, an association of elite society. Less than ten years
later it faded from the social register and disappeared altogether; see J. Cameron
and W. A. Doss, Society, Schools and Progress in Tanzania (Oxford: Pergamon
Press, 1970), 82–83. For a discussion of how the TAA almost shared the fate of
the TAWCA before it returned to its politics and became TANU, see Stephen,
The Political Transformation of Tanganyika 1920–1967, 121.
56. See Stephen, The Political Transformation of Tanganyika, 67.
57. Between the years 1951 and 1954, African farmers/white settlers sum-
moned the TAA/TANU, along with visiting missions from the United Nations
and the Fabians/Labor party, to resolve as series of conflicts among the over land
alienation issues in the Kilimanjaro region; see Daniel R. Smith, The Influence
of the Fabian Colonial Bureau (Athens: Ohio University Center for International
Studies, 1985), 21 and 29.
58. The Fabians had grown to know Nyerere when he was a graduate student
in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1940s.
59. Fabians thought the TAA had been “too conciliatory” before to the colo-
nial order and were happy when Julius Nyerere, an unapologetic African nation-
alist, became its leader; see Smith, 1985, 32.
60. Stephen, The Political Transformation of Tanganyika, 68.
61. As was the case with Britain’s dockworkers before the 1889 strike, Tan-
ganyikans worked for a variable wage that changed depending on the number
of workers bidding for work and the nature of cargo. Most lived in poverty; see
Robert Rayner, The Story of Trade Unionism, 66–90.
 Repression 159

62. Richard Sandbrook and Robin Cohen, The Development of the Working
Class: Studies in Class Formation and Action (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1975), 56.
63. John Iliffe, “A History of the Dock-workers of Dar-es-Salaam,” Tanza-
nian Notes and Records 71 (1970): 119–48.
64. See Peter Gutkind and Robin Cohen, et al., African Labor History (Thou-
sand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publishers, 1978), 175–204.
65. The five phases specifically describe the political conditions in Zanzibar’s
colonial history. They are: (1) the creation of a stratified class system based on
plantation economy, (2) the promulgation of social and educational policies by
the government, (3) the manifestation of a repressive colonial policy toward local
leaders/organizations, (4) the emergence of strong resistance/violent revolution
against colonial government, and (5) the rise of a new class system—the mirror
image of phase 1, with new elite leadership and new counter-elites.
66. As the five-phase model suggests, the third-phase colonial administration
used repressive political and military strategies toward indigenous populist leaders
and organizations. Similarly, the third stage of the five-stage model personifies the
ideology of and attempt toward individual social mobility by the disadvantaged/
low status group; see Taylor and Moghaddam, Theories of Inter-group Relations,
153–57. Robert Fatton’s third site, likewise, is the realm of class resistance; see
Fatton, Predatory Rule, 8–11, 19–37 and 144–45. In the case of Zanzibar, the third
site of class resistance occupied two phases, stretching beyond the third phase into
the fourth phase of colonial rule, where African resistance became violent.
67. Chapters I and II of this book discuss the protectorate’s stipulation that
Zanzibar’s various ethnic associations refrain from political pursuits.
68. In 1926 the British government established the LEGCO and the EXCO.
The British resident was the official head of the LEGCO, and was composed of
Europeans nominated by the British government and Arabs and Indians appointed
by the Omani sultan. The composition of the EXCO was similar, but favored
Arabs and British over Indians; see Hilary Blood, Report of the Constitutional
Commissioner for Zanzibar 1960 (Zanzibar Government Printer). The colonial
government formed the Clove Growers’ Association in 1934. Arabs exclusively
controlled the CGA, and were charged with issuing clove trade licenses to Indian
clove merchants. When the CGA and the Indian association invariably came into
conflict over agricultural matters and commodity issues, the British government
supported the CGA at the expense of the IA; see G. E. Tidbury, “The Clove In-
dustry,” in J. K. Matheson and E. W. Bovill, East African Agriculture (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1950), 273.
69. Anthony Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath (London: C.
Hurst & Co., 1981), 15.
160 Chapter III

70. Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath, 6.

71. Most of the Shirazi Association meetings were often conducted in a pi-
genized Bantu language, not Swahili, but peculiar to Pemba; see Clayton, The
Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath, 17–18.
72. For a comparison with British attempts to co-opt Tanganyikan orga-
nizations, see J. Cameron and W. A. Doss, Society, Schools and Progress in
Tanzania, 82–83, and Omar Mapuri, The 1964 Revolution: Achievements and
Prospects, 8, 27, and 44.
73. By contrast during the same era in Tanganyika, German attempts to ac-
quire land held in common or to force Tanganyikans to grow cash crops was
checked by the Maji-Maji rebellion.
74. In phases 1 and 2 Africans were unable to gain individual social mobil-
ity in Zanzibar’s political and economic system, but they tended to believe that
social mobility was possible because the plantation economy was expanding.
By the third phase of colonial rule, the plantation economy began to experience
financial reversal, and the British government began to repress African colonial
resistance. Thus, at the beginning of phase 3, Swahili and Bantu Zanzibaris
realized that the colonial economy and educational system would not let them
“pass” into the upper classes. At the end of phase 3 Zanzibar’s Africans began
to realize that resistance to colonial rule, whether individual work slow strate-
gies, or tentative efforts to organize group resistance, were failing to achieve
political progress.
75. In the second stage of McKirnan and Taylor’s five-stage model is the
promulgation of individualist ideology by the high-status/privileged group.
Similarly, Fatton’s second site is the arena of class disarticulation. During
the second phase of British rule, the colonial government began to promote
the idea that, having freed the sultan’s slaves, all Zanzibaris were able to
enjoy a thriving livelihood. In actuality, a series of laws compelling labor on
clove plantations situated most African Zanzibaris as sharecroppers on cash-
crop farms. In many instances an equally bad or in some cases even worse
economic/material situation than they had experienced under slavery. The
cleavages among African peasants (or class disarticulation) were largely the
result of British colonial propaganda that claimed that class problems were
really ancient and racial in origin.
76. In the five-stage model the third stage the disadvantaged/low status group
attempt to move toward individual upward social mobility; see Taylor and
Moghaddam, Theories of Inter-group Relations, 156. Failing that, this group
begins what Robert Fatton describes as third site class resistance, which leads to
what I describe as phase 3 political repression; Fatton, Predatory Rule, 8–11, and
chapters I and II of this book.
 Repression 161

77. The efforts of African Zanzibaris to resist third-phase colonial power

through strikes should not be confused with phase 4 violent insurgency—the
1964 revolution—that will be discussed in chapter IV. Here the five-phase
model takes a slight turn from the five-stage model that argues that the ideology
of individual social mobility dominates the third stage, while consciousness-
raising occurs in the fourth stage. By contrast the five-phase model argues that
in the third-phase consciousness-raising in the form of indigenous economic
resistance, Pan-African activism, and Fabian patronage promoted a form of ten-
tative colonial resistance, which when suppressed leads to violent insurgency
in the fourth phase.
78. It is instructive to note the absence of agricultural organizations in Zan-
zibar. Had Tanganyika been a protectorate, the British government may have
eliminated indigenous agricultural organizations, such as those that belonged
to the Luguru and Chagga (during the process of land acquisition/dislocation
that accompanied more than fifty years of clove cash-cropping). The system of
direct rule and nature of Zanzibar’s plantation economy discouraged the colonial
government from creating organizations that would coordinate disparate farmers
growing a variety of crops. Furthermore, African economic organizations would
have been anathema to Arab planters as well as the protectorate system of tax/
revenue generation.
79. Mapuri, The 1964 Revolution, 12.
80. See Bennett, A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar, 208.
81. Jean Meynaud and Anisse Salah Bey, Trade Unionism in Africa: A Study
of its Growth and Orientation (London: Methuen Publishers, 1967), 26.
82. Iona Davies, African Trade Unions (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin
Books, 1966), 38.
83. Some workers, especially those working outside agriculture formed in-
formal self-help organizations that allowed families to cover incidental and food
expenses during times of financial hardship; Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar
under Colonial Rule, 200.
84. A clove infestation dubbed “sudden death,” an increased import cost of the
national staple, rice, and a sharp postwar decline in the export demand for cloves,
precipitated Zanzibar’s earliest revolt. These conditions were discussed in The
Draft Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure of the Zanzibar Protectorate for the
Year 1943 (The British Government Printer, 1942), 9.
85. Ironically, the strike made little impression on the labor office in Zanzibar,
which chose to organize Zanzibar’s industrial leaders rather than its local work-
ers. Beginning in 1946 and continuing through the 1950s the Zanzibar Labor Of-
fice created the United Agriculturalist Organizations, Oil and Soap Manufactur-
ers Association, and the Schooner Captains and Owners Association. These were
162 Chapter III

the organizations of Zanzibar’s European, Arab, and Indian elite; see Sheriff and
Ferguson, Zanzibar under Colonial Rule, 202.
86. British governments in Kenya, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar were quite dif-
ferent, from an administrative point of view. The British governments in Kenya
and Tanganyika promoted indirect rule, but the former was a colony and the latter
a trustee, while Zanzibar was a direct rule Arab protectorate.
87. Dockworkers were given an increase in wage, but not a guarantee that
other demands would be met; see Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and its Af-
termath, 418.
88. Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath, 418.
89. The concluding chapter will discuss frenzied manner in which the Revo-
lutionary Council implemented land and economic redistribution after 1964.
90. Reform in this sense could refer to Rechenberg’s efforts during the Tan-
ganyikan mandate or Fabian efforts under the trusteeship.
91. Anthony Clayton,”The General Strike in Zanzibar, 1948,” Journal of
African History, XVII 3 (1976): 427–29.
92. An unnamed officer of the Zanzibar Protectorete; see Labour Report
for the year 1948, 3, as cited in Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial
Rule, 203.
93. Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar under Colonial Rule, 203–7.
94. G. E. Lynde, The Politics of Trade Unionism (Westport, Conn.: Praeger
Press, 1968), 193.
95. Davies, African Trade Unions, 188.
96. As cited in Davies, African Trade Unions, 196.
97. Meynaud and Bey, Trade Unionism in Africa, 26.
98. Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath, 18. Paradoxi-
cally, Zanzibar’s colonial government recruited a greater number of cheap
migrant workers from the Tanganyikan mainland to work on the clove crop.
These individuals tended to be more politically savvy and more radical. So
while the colonial government prevented Tanganyikan institutions from influ-
encing Zanzibaris, it could not prevent Tanganyikan politics from changing
Zanzibar.
99. Between 1948 and 1955 the NPSS functioned more as an informal as-
sociation, but in 1955, with the help of the Arab Association, it became a more
conventional political party.
100. Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution, 147–48.
101. Programme of Social and Economic Development in the Zanzibar Pro-
tectorate for the Ten Year Period, 1946–1955, Legislative Council Paper No. 1
for the year 1946, Microfiche, IDC publishers, the Netherlands, 32.
102. Ibid., 33.
 Repression 163

103. The Programme of Social and Economic Development in the Zanzibar

Protectorate for the Five Year Period 1955–1959, Legislative Council Session
Paper No. 8 for the year 1955, IDC, 2.
104. For an extensive discussion of the gradual impoverishment of Zanzibari
Africans, see Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar under Colonial Rule. According to
various studies the quality and quantity of foods rich in nutrients began to decline
with the expansion of plantation economy, and grew worse with the two world
wars, the depression, and development plans that required more cash-cropping
and less subsistence farming.
105. See the remarks of D. B. Barber, official of the Zanzibari colonial admin-
istration, as cited in Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath, 23.
106. As discussed in chapters I and II, the norms of dual mandate were ar-
ticulated by Lord Lugard, who also promoted the concept of indirect rule. Many
proponents of dual mandate argued that colonial governments could assist lo-
cal leaders and institutions to develop alongside colonial institution, helping
the economy of the colonized country to grow while simultaneously enriching
the colonial power. Indirect rule was less ambitious. Its proponents were less
concerned with social welfare, and wanted to staff or fund colonies at the most
minimal levels.
107. The German government responded to challenges to its authority, espe-
cially the Maji-Maji, with sincere political reform. The British government in
Tanganyika made an attempt to continue this legacy of progressive rule. British
rule in Zanzibar, on the other hand, ignored latent hostility to its policies and con-
tinued its land acquisition and cash-crop agricultural policies, which ultimately
led to open rebellion.
108. The German government granted Europeans and Indians, who were the
major exporters of all agricultural goods except coffee, only 1 percent of Tan-
ganyikan land. Coffee was the sole dominion of African Tanganyikans. Thus
Africans owned most of the land in Tanganyika and controlled one of its most
lucrative exports, see the International Bank for Reconstruction and Develop-
ment, The Economic Development of Tanganyika (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Press, 1961), 16.
109. Daniel Smith, The Influence of The Fabian Colonial Bureau on the
Independence Movement in Tanganyika (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985,
20–21.
110. The Economic Development of Tanganyika, 102.
111. Roland Young and Henry Fosbrooke, Smoke in the Hills (Evanston, Ill.:
Northwestern Unioversity Press, 1960), 16.
112. Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule 1905–1912, 289.
113. Young and Fosbrooke, Smoke in the Hills, 17.
164 Chapter III

114. Sir Alan Pim argued that the British government must “protect the Arab
against himself.” He argued that Zanzibar was an Arab state, that the British
government had compromised Arab command when it ended slavery, and that
the British government must do everything in its power to prevent the Arab state
from becoming African; see Sir Alan Pim, Report of the Commission Appointed
by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Consider and report on the Finan-
cial Position and Policy of the Zanzibar Government in Relation to its Economic
Resources (London: Crown Agents, 1932), as cited in Sheriff and Ferguson,
Zanzibar under Colonial Rule, 156–57.
115. See introduction, John Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar (Nairobi: East
African Publishing House, 1966).
 IV
Resistance and Revolution

The extractive nature of the plantation economy was the source of Zan-
zibar’s economic, communal, and political cleavage. In the first phase of co-
lonial rule, the British government introduced a system of stratification based
on land ownership and occupation. In the second phase, the British govern-
ment introduced an educational system that excluded Africans and cultivated
an Arab and Indian elite. In the third phase of colonial rule, African labor
began organizing political resistance. The protectorate government met these
efforts by repressing and co-opting African leaders and political movements
on the one hand, while trying to discourage foreign influences including pan-
Africanism and liberal Western unionism on the other.
By the fourth phase of Zanzibar’s colonial history, the Arab elite began
to copy the practices of the British government. Emboldened by Britain’s
third-phase efforts to suppress African labor, Arab Zanzibaris began a
twenty-year effort to check African political development. During that
phase of colonial rule, the Arab elite began marginalizing and undermin-
ing organizations that they believed challenged Arab hegemony or pro-
moted African political resistance. Robert Fatton refers to this phase of
African political activity as the site of class resistance.1
In Zanzibar, African class resistance manifested itself during the third
phase of colonial rule in the form of the dockworkers’ strike and evolved into
electoral and political activism during the fourth phase of British colonial
rule. As in earlier phases of colonial rule, the British government thwarted
African efforts to establish a presence in Zanzibar’s preindependence

165
166 Chapter IV

political system. Unable to suffer in silence, African activists turned against

the Arab population and overthrew the sultan in a violent rebellion against
the colonial state. After the coup d’etat, Zanzibar’s new guard, the long-
suffering African counter-elite, entered into a new phase of public life, cre-
ating a society that excluded Arabs from the avenues of wealth and power,
much as Africans had been excluded under British colonial rule. This era
was the fifth phase of Zanzibar’s modern history and was the culmination of
the four phases of colonial rule that preceded the revolution.
The five-phase model describes the third and the fourth phases as the
arenas of resistance and revolution, respectively. Zanzibar’s fourth phase
of African political resistance escalated into a violent insurgency, a revo-
lution that had the effect of reversing the political order and relegating
the island’s remaining Arabic-speaking elite, the Wapemba Shirazi, to a
largely disempowered status.2 Consistent with the postulates of the five-
phase model, and the specific conditions in colonial Zanzibar, fourth-phase
revolution led to a fifth and final phase of reconstruction. According to the
dictates of the five-phase model, fifth-phase reconstruction often situates
the subordinate group as equal to or superior to the old guard former elite.
In contrast to the five-stage model, the five-phase model argues that the
fifth phase can take the form of a complete inversion of the first phase.
Zanzibar’s inversion made African activists the island’s new elite and,
ultimately, Zanzibar’s hegemonic force.3
The repressive policies of the British administration during the third
phase of colonial rule made it impossible for Zanzibar’s Africans to make
long-term economic gains or transform their tentative labor insurgencies
into organized and institutionalized political opposition. Disheartened and
disappointed, Zanzibar’s Africans eventually abandoned labor activism,
and tried instead to channel their political activism into electoral politics.
Ultimately, these efforts failed because Zanzibar’s Arab leadership
continued the repressive policies introduced by Britain’s colonial admin-
istration during the third phase. In the fourth phase, elite Arabs, many
of whom wanted to garner hegemonic control over Zanzibar’s electoral
politics, organized this effort. Sadly, the failure of African labor to orga-
nize third-phase opposition also adversely affected African attempts to
establish a strong presence in fourth-phase party politics.
Third-phase British rule, which was characterized by the dismal
economic aftereffects of two world wars, was repressive. The global
 Resistance and Revolution 167

economic depression particularly affected the production and trade of

luxury crops such as spices. As Zanzibar was still first and foremost a
clove economy, Zanzibaris of all classes were dependent on the clove
trade, and the British government was still generating colonial revenue
through its taxation on the clove crop. The grave economic conditions
facing East African labor, already severe in the years before World War
I, grew worse in the years leading to World War II. Some sectors began
to react to this deprivation and organized political resistance. The most
dramatic example of this resistance came from Swahili dockworkers in
Tanganyika and Zanzibar. These workers shared a common language and
occupation as well as a similar set of grievances. As a result, they were
able to organize coordinated strikes that brought the respective capitals of
these territories to a standstill.
Due to the size of the African population and the sheer number of
dockworkers, Tanganyika was the site of the region’s most successful
strikes. In addition to these factors, Tanganyikan dockworkers were able
to organize a better strike than their Zanzibari counterparts because their
unique political system was sympathetic to progressive economic devel-
opment and broad political inclusion. Tanganyikans had a particular talent
for organizing resistance, a legacy of intact African communitarianism,
and a unique history with progressive German rule. Liberal British gover-
nance, which only came with the implementation of the mandate, made it
possible for Tanganyikan dockworkers to institutionalize the gains made
during their political strikes.
In contrast to governance in the Tanganyikan mandate, reactionary
conservatives in the British parliament formulated policy for Zanzibar’s
colonial administration. These conservatives controlled the colonial and
foreign offices. Many of these men believed that East Africa should be
divided into regions. The British government carved the first of these two
regions out of some of the best land in East Africa, and dubbed it “white
man’s country.” The government decided that land that was less produc-
tive was less suited to white settlement, and should be used to generate
revenue for the crown.
As the market for cash crops grew worse, Zanzibar’s political admin-
istration grew ever more repressive. As cash crops became less lucrative,
African labor, in all sectors of Zanzibar’s economy, began to suffer.
When the international cash-crop economy declined, clove production in
168 Chapter IV

Zanzibar began to generate less revenue for Britain and less income for
Africans. British rule grew more restrictive as challenges to the colonial
system emerged from various quarters, including the communists, pan-
Africans, and, most importantly, the Fabians, who had gained a foothold
at the League of Nations and the United Nations.
As Britain’s conservatives began sensing a growing antipathy to colo-
nial rule following World War II, Zanzibar’s British administration was
unable to accommodate even the most modest political demands. As such,
the government refused to endorse African labor organizations. The gov-
ernment felt compelled to crush any type of resistance. In some instances,
this meant co-opting or frustrating opposition; in other instances, it in-
volved subverting or driving resistance underground, where it festered.
The inability of Zanzibar’s Swahili labor to institutionalize its third-phase
resistance set the stage for chaos and violence, which occurred toward the
end of the fourth phase of colonial rule. In fact, the lone political organiza-
tion of Zanzibari Africans, the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), did not emerge
until the 1940s and did not become involved in the political process until
the late 1950s, the era of party politics and “popular” elections.
Whereas the Arabs created the Arab Association in the 1890s and the
Indians established the Indian Association in 1910, the Africans did not
form their “ethnic” association until years later. In the 1920s the only
organizations that brought Zanzibar’s like-minded Africans together were
two soccer clubs. Non-African club managers controlled these clubs,
which were comprised mainly of African athletes.
In 1933 the African athletes decided to form their own organization,
which they dubbed the African Sports Club. A year later this organization
gave rise to the African Association.4 The African Association had several
impediments relative to its Arab and Indian counterparts. First and most
obviously, Arab and Indian Associations had, respectively, a forty- and
thirty-year advantage over the African Association, a quantitative advan-
tage. The Arab and Indian Associations also had a qualitative edge over
the Africans. Arabs possessed a greater level of educational attainment
than most Swahilis; they additionally had vast resources and broad social
networks.
The Arab and Indian Associations were only nominally defined by
their ethnicity. Both of these organizations were primarily affiliations of
similarly situated financial interests, clients of the British government try-
 Resistance and Revolution 169

ing to ensure their social ascendancy relative to each other and over the
majority African population.5 The African Association, by contrast, was
an organization of working-class athletes and fans. Its political resources
were limited and its financial resources almost nil. It is the contention of
this chapter, and the book more broadly, that had the African Association,
later the ASP, been able to make the types of financial and political gains
that the Tanganyikan African Association/TANU made on the mainland,
the violence of Zanzibar’s 1964 revolution might have been avoided.
As discussed in previous chapters, the British government disrupted
Zanzibar’s indigenous communitarian networks in every phase of its
administration and prevented new political associations from emerging.
In the first phase, the colonial government alienated Africans from their
land, as well as from their rural farming organizations and indigenous
tribal authorities, replacing these with local Arab leaders from the coastal
provinces and, in some instances, British bureaucrats. In the second phase
of colonial rule, the British government established English and Arabic
as the official languages of the state, which made it especially difficult
for Swahili-speaking Africans to challenge British or Arab authority in
the court system. Simultaneously, the British government established an
educational system that made education in either language almost impos-
sible to afford, and therefore inaccessible to most Zanzibaris except for a
handful of the Arab and Indian elite.6
In phase 3 of colonial rule, British domination took the form of politi-
cal repression. The colonial government co-opted, frustrated or outlawed
any economic organizations that pursued a political agenda. As a result,
while Tanganyikans were developing a wide range of trade unions, Zan-
zibaris were barely able to organize any form of economic resistance. In
the fourth phase the entrenched Arab elite began to copy the practices
of the British government, conspiring to prevent Zanzibar’s African and
Swahili political leaders from exhibiting any form of organized economic
resistance or establishing African-led political parties.
As indicated in the introduction of this chapter, phases 3 and 4 were
both the site of African working-class resistance. In the third phase of
colonial rule, Swahili dockworkers went on strike. After the strike they
tried to institutionalize their movement by creating the National Party of
the Subjects of the Sultan, the NPSS. Not long after it was established, the
Swahili leadership invited several well-financed Arabs to join the NPSS.
170 Chapter IV

Eventually, this new element soon overwhelmed NPSS African leader-

ship. As a greater number of Arabs joined the NPSS, they demanded
Arab leaders. The NPSS Arab leadership, in turn, gradually changed the
agenda of the party to conform to Arab interests. Ultimately, the NPSS
became one of Zanzibar’s leading Arab organizations. The NPSS’s new
constituents continued to push an Arab agenda and changed the name of
the organization to the Zanzibar Nationalist Party. The irony of this de-
velopment was not lost on many of Swahili dockworkers. By rights, the
NPSS and the African Association should have merged and developed
into Zanzibar’s largest political party. The elite Arab leadership was able
to kill two birds with one stone, by absorbing or paralyzing the emerging
Swahili counter-elite and denying the Swahili vanguard their working-
class political base.
Thus, a few short years after the NPSS was formed, its Swahili constitu-
ents were forced out of their flagship organization. Despite the continuing
British prohibition against most African trade unions, some former NPSS
dockworkers tried to form various associations.7 However, on a more suc-
cessful note, and on a parallel political track, Zanzibar’s African soccer
clubs formed the African Association. Twenty years later, the African
Association evolved into the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP). Even at that slow
pace, Britain’s colonial government tried to ensure that neither the AA nor
the ASP produced any type of working-class agenda.8
African political development, and Zanzibar’s working-class activ-
ism in particular, had once again gone through a cycle of false hope and
disappointment. As the British government continued to stymie African
political resistance, Swahili workers tried to fight disarticulation and re-
pression. Meanwhile, in anticipation of independence, the Arab elite tried
to convert their economic privilege into political hegemony.
In the years after World War II, Africa’s working class tried to estab-
lish institutions that could challenge colonialism. However, these efforts
were often undermined by a variety of determined ethnic minorities. In
some cases these groups were leading political oligarchies; in others the
challenge came from prospective oligarchies. In Zanzibar, the African
working class had several opponents—namely, the British authorities,
Zanzibar’s growing Arab elite, and, to a far lesser extent, several wealthy
Indian mercantile interests. However, one of Zanzibar’s most devastating
cleavages was internal in nature.
 Resistance and Revolution 171

As mentioned in previous chapters, one of the main social tensions

among Zanzibari Africans was between land-owning Africans and squat-
ters. In fact, the policies of the colonial government were such that most
of Unguja’s Africans, both those of Swahili and Shirazi origin, had by
the 1940s become totally alienated from ancestral lands—they were es-
sentially landless.9 On the other hand, most of Pemba’s residents, many
of whom were Shirazi, were either landowners, or belonged to a clan that
held property. Sheriff and Ferguson describe how clan loyalties became
the basis for party alliance:

[The Shirazi] resisted attempts to ally with the property-less urban proletar-
iat. Ultimately they formed the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party with a
leadership composed of the most influential Shirazi landowners, merchants,
shopkeepers, butchers and bus owners. When the chips were down, it was
this petit-bourgeoisie character, with its deep-rooted sense of property,
dividing it from the proletariat, which broke from its ethnic moorings to
form an alliance with the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) to represent the
propertied classes.10

Thus, within the Shirazi community, the growing cleavage between

Unguja’s landless Shirazi peasants and Pemba’s landed middle-class
peasants began to mirror the larger cleavage between Zanzibar’s Arabs
and its squatting Swahilis.
While the Bantu and the Swahili were tormenting themselves with
the politics of identity and having difficulty establishing their respective
political institutions, the Shirazi, and to a greater extent the Arabs, estab-
lished a broad network of fairly successful political and social institutions.
The Arabs, in particular, had a firm hold over their constituents and held
sway in many of the organs of the colonial state. The most powerful
Arab political organization was the Zanzibar Nationalist Party. By many
accounts the ZNP emerged out of the ashes of the NPSS, but it also had
additional and older forbearers. The ZNP, like the CGA and Arab Asso-
ciation, was a legacy of British paternalism. As a member of the colonial
government characterized it, the ZNP was merely “the projection of the
Arab Association into the political field.”11
The ZNP emerged in an era when the British government decided to
change the membership rules of the LEGCO. In March 1954, the British
resident declared that the number of seats on the LEGCO would be expanded
172 Chapter IV

from eight to twelve to include four Africans.12 In June 1954 Arab mem-
bers of the LEGCO presented the colonial government with a series of
political demands for “constitutional reform,” which included universal
adult suffrage. As suffrage was contingent on literacy in most British
colonies, the ZNP and its LEGCO representatives believed that an elec-
tion would establish Arab hegemony in the LEGCO, countering British
efforts to extend LEGCO membership to African appointees.13 The Brit-
ish resident and the colonial government, neither of whom wanted to be
responsible for increasing the number of seats in the LEGCO, nor for the
responsibility of monitoring elections, refused to make the LEGCO into
a parliamentary body or open LEGCO seats to elected representatives.
After boycotting the LEGCO meetings for more than a year, members of
the Arab Association formed the Zanzibar Nationalist Party.14
In 1955 the colonial government appointed a constitutional commis-
sion to address lingering Arab concerns over the size and dimension of
the LEGCO. The British government appointed Walter F. Coutts as the
head of the commission. The Coutts commission proposed that in addition
to expanding the LEGCO to twelve seats, an additional number of seats
should be open to elected members. Ultimately the Coutts commission
decided that the LEGCO should be expanded to eighteen members, six of
which should be elected seats.
The colonial government scheduled its first election for July 1957. The
Coutts commission stipulated that only literate men who were at least
twenty-five years of age, owned property of a particularly high value, and
were residents and subjects of the sultan would be eligible to vote.15 It
seemed that the ZNP, with its obvious political and economic networks,
would win a majority of the election positions. Ironically, the Afro-Shirazi
Party and the Shirazi of Pemba voted together and prevailed in the elec-
tions, securing five of the six seats for Africans.
The ASP was a most unlikely victor. The ASP campaign began as a
desperate, eleventh-hour effort to challenge Arab political ascendancy
in a British protectorate. During the first week of February 1957, a mere
four months before the first LEGCO election, eight members of Unguja’s
Shirazi Association and ten members of the African Association met and
formed the Afro-Shirazi Union (ASU). Over the next year, a large number
of AA members joined the ASU and changed the name of the organiza-
tion to the Afro-Shirazi Party. Despite British efforts to hand power to the
 Resistance and Revolution 173

Omani sultan and to forestall the merging of Shirazi and Swahili interests,
this was destined to occur.16
When the African Sports Club decided to rename its organization the
African Association, it alarmed the British colonial administration as well
as a variety of property and clove growing interests on Unguja. At the
instigation of parties inside and outside the African Association, many
property-owning Shirazis withdrew and formed the Shirazi Associa-
tion in 1938.17 The Shirazi Association largely represented the interests
of property-holding Africans who claimed Persian decent. Most of the
association’s Shirazi members were Pemba Shirazi, although there were
a few Shirazi from Unguja who joined in later years.18 In the 1940s, the
African and Shirazi Associations developed separately from each other
and outside Zanzibar’s closed political system until the Coutts decision
made African participation possible.
The fact that in three short months the Shirazi and the African Associa-
tions could unite to form the ASU, rally, and register enough voters to
secure five of the six seats was quite a testament to the quality of their
leadership.19 In reality, the leadership of both the African and Shirazi
Associations had to suppress their sizeable differences and equally large
egos to make ASU victory in the 1957 election even remotely possible.
The leaders of the two associations could not have been more differ-
ent. The head of the African Association, Sheik Abeid Karume, initially
worked as a merchant sailor. He joined the small Swahili middle class by
acquiring a small number of commercial boats. Karume was a hero with
Unguja working-class Swahilis. By contrast, the leader of the Shirazi
Association, Sheik Muhammad Shamte Hamadi had personal and family
wealth that made him financially independent. Additionally, as a product
of the colonial educational system, and a member of Pemba’s affluent
Shirazi planting class, Hamadi worked for the colonial government and
grew sympathetic to Arab planters.20 Each of these men had very different
political styles. Karume was a man of the people, and given to invectives
against the Arab elite while Hamadi was essentially part of the colonial
establishment and a proponent of accommodating Arab authority.
Despite their differences, Karume and Hamadi were able to co-lead
because they obtained separate and distinct leadership positions over the
Unguja and Pemba branches of the ASU respectively. ASU victory in the
1957 election suggested that the Swahili and Shirazi associations might
174 Chapter IV

maintain a lasting alliance and build a strong political base, but ZNP-led
protests in 1958 created a permanent split within the ASU.
The period of 1958–1960 was an era characterized by conflict.21 There
were levels of conflict within and between groups. The broadest dispute
raged between Arab and non-Arabs and concerned economic privilege
and colonial favoritism. This conflict pitted Arabs against Indians and
both groups against a highly diverse Shirazi-Swahili working class.
The most pervasive dispute concerned economics and pitted the Shirazi
against the Swahili, and Swahilis against Arabs. At the core of this debate
the looming question emerged as to whether Zanzibar should function
as an Arab cash-crop plantation or a subsistence economy dominated by
Shirazi farmers. Until this question was resolved, it was assumed that the
Arab community would seize control of the state once the British relin-
quished the colony.
For a period of two years the conflict between Unguja Shirazi squat-
ters and plantation-owning Arabs grew hostile.22 As discussed earlier, the
planting class, both the Swahili and the Shirazi, had been allowed to plant
crops on “Arab” land as long they nursed Arab cash crops. In late 1958
the Shirazi decided to make a statement by starting a campaign of plant-
ing bananas and yams, local food products, which damaged clove trees.
Further, the Shirazi squatters openly refused to weed “Arab” clove trees.
In open defiance of Arab planters they declared: “The trees are yours, the
soil is ours.”23 In 1959 the Swahili and the ASU joined the fray and made
the farmers gibe the ASU’s official slogan.
The ZNP soon became involved and threatened to expel squatters if
they did not reverse their planting scheme and swear allegiance to the
ZNP. The Pemba Shirazi supported the ZNP and Muhammad Hamadi
called for the squatters to abide by the traditional clove-planting arrange-
ment. A few ASU moderates agreed with Hamadi, but the vast majority
of ASU politicos sided with the farmers. Thus, the tentative alliance be-
tween ASU’s radicals and its moderates could not withstand this test of
civil disobedience. The Unguja squatters had made a statement, but at a
high cost.
In late 1959, Sheik Muhammad Shamte Hamadi and his supporters split
from Sheik Karume, forming the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party.
The southern Unguja Shirazi supported the ZPPP, which now mainly
represented wealthy Pemba Shirazi. Karume renamed the ASU the Afro-
 Resistance and Revolution 175

Shirazi Party. The ASP became the party of northern Unguja Shirazi and
most Swahili. It also had the backing of mainland Africans and prominent
personalities, notably Julius Nyerere.
Though the time was ripe for national change, this larger campaign
was damaged by the squatter “revolt.” Neither the ASP nor the ZPPP
were prepared to challenge the legitimacy of the electoral process or
British authority. After 1959, the ZPPP formed an alliance with the ZNP
in the hopes of creating a viable voting coalition in the 1961 election.24
Meanwhile, members of the newly constituted ASP were divided between
those who supported Karume’s combative efforts to escalate ASP’s anti-
colonial activism and those who wanted to pursue a more accommodating
approach.
Had this impasse continued, it might have led to the ultimate dissolution
of the ASP. However, three developments revived the party and put it back
on track toward electoral success. The first of these three developments came
from a consistently vigorous faction of the ASP. After Hamadi formed the
ZPPP, the ASP’s youth wing took a more active role in supporting Karume’s
policies.25 As important as ASP’s youth were in their efforts to rally older
members of the organization, the ASP also needed, and began receiving,
both open and clandestine support from a variety of external forces. In the
years leading to independence, TANU and Julius Nyerere gave the ASP
surreptitious financial and strategic support. However, the most important
development in the ASP’s struggle against British hegemony and Arab in-
transigence was the emergence of a radical black-nationalist movement led
by a Ugandan militant named Major John Okello.
John Okello’s politics were shaped by events beginning in his early
childhood and continuing during his ascension from laborer to business
owner. At every stage of Okello’s life, he grew more resentful of minority
and colonial rule and more committed to black nationalism. Okello was
an orphan by age ten. He was responsible for two younger siblings and
became the sole breadwinner. After six years as sole guardian, he found
relatives to adopt his siblings and began his professional life as a day la-
borer and second-shift college student.26
In 1955 Okello moved from Uganda to Kenya. He got a job as a stone-
mason, continued his evening classes, and became involved in the Nairobi
African District Congress, an emerging Kenyan political organization.27
Okello became especially sensitive to the political situation of Bantu Africans
176 Chapter IV

throughout Kenya. His autobiography is replete with encounters he had with

Arabs who insisted on using racist derogatory epithets against him.28
After working for a few weeks in a Mombasan sugar factory, Okello left
Kenya for Pemba in the hopes of improving his job prospects. He arrived
in Pemba in 1959 and discovered that the end of the clove season meant
that there were no jobs available. He took odd jobs, and joined the Zanzi-
bar Nationalist Party. Eventually, he started his own masonry business and
formed a union he called the Friendly Society of Workers. He was elected
president of the union almost immediately, but that did not change his sta-
tus in the ZNP, where his talents remained largely underutilized.29
As an enterprising young businessman John Okello created lifelong
political alliances when he hired Bantus, Swahilis, and Shirazis to work
in his business. Later he organized African workers so that they only
bought from Pemba’s three African-owned shops. Okello left the ZNP for
personal and professional reasons and joined the ASP just before the 1961
election. In his autobiography he reflected that he was growing wary of
Arab power on both islands:

The predominant Arab influence in the ZNP had awakened in me feelings

of distrust for non-Africans I had met on the mainland. Despite the pro-
gressive public views of the ZNP, their demand for self-government really
meant Arab control, and I knew that eventually the interests of the Arabs
would have to clash with those of the majority Africans.30

Although Okello had not been in Zanzibar during the 1957 election, his
observations regarding Arab hegemony were incredibly accurate. Arab
leaders, and the ZNP in particular, hoped and anticipated taking control
of the state after colonial independence.31 Between 1959 and 1961 Okello
was animated by missionary zeal to subdue growing Arab authority. Al-
most immediately after joining the Afro-Shirazi Party, Okello was elected
secretary of the youth wing from Pemba.32 Okello criticized the ZNP for
representing the “rich [Arab], Asians, Indians and other foreign busi-
nesses.” He believed these groups supplied the ZNP with “unlimited cam-
paign funds,” and therefore dominated the political agenda of the party.
He reserved most of his venom for the Pemba Shirazi who left the ASP to
form their own party.33 He called Muhammad Shamte Hamadi, leader of
the ZPPP, an “imperialist stooge,” an insult that for many Zanzibaris car-
ried an especially painful sting during the era of colonial independence.34
 Resistance and Revolution 177

Despite his anger, as of 1960 Okello had not decided that a revolution
that involved attacking Arabs was the most desirable way for the Swahili
to achieve social justice in Zanzibar. Okello tried to persuade African
workers to vote for ASP, suggesting that politics on Pemba and Unguja
needed radical change.35 Okello recalls:

In my campaign speeches I stressed the importance of freeing ourselves

from both foreign rule and slavery, I dwelt much on teaching my audiences
about far-away revolutions in history. . . . I emphasized also through unity
the Cubans too had won their revolution . . . if a small island like Cuba
could revolt despite the powerful American presence there was no reason
why we could not revolt against imperialism. I stressed that to fight against
foreign rule has nothing to do with skin color, for white Americans once
revolted against British rule.36

As Okello became aware of the grave political inequalities that Swahili

Zanzibaris faced relative to Arabs, his rhetoric became more incendiary.
Okello’s shock at the outcome of the 1961 elections turned to anger when it
occurred to him that the ZNP had won because the Arab ZNP and the Shirazi
ZPPP formed an alliance. Protectorate voting requirements, which based eli-
gibility on literacy in either English, Arabic, or, in a last-minute concession,
Swahili, rendered most Africans ineligible to vote.37 Okello realized that the
ZNP/ZPPP alliance, in light of the literacy requirement, would permanently
frustrate African political aspirations. Thus, from the 1961 elections onward
Okello’s campaign rhetoric began to associate foreign rule with imperialism
and imperialism with slavery. Okello argued that British and Arab rule there-
fore represented an imperialism that had to be defeated.
Whereas in Tanganyika over 40 percent of the population was literate
in Swahili, in Zanzibar less than 10 percent of the population was able
to read at the elementary level. This policy excluded most of Zanzibar’s
African population and perpetuated Britain’s first- through third-phase
policies of stratifying Zanzibaris based on economic class, educational
attainment, and occupational background. Whereas linguistic ability in
one of the two imperial languages and the Creole Swahili language were
a definite economic advantage in the preindependence era, they were ab-
solutely vital during the election era.
Okello realized that if he wanted to challenge the ZNP/ZPPP jugger-
naut, he would have to recruit many more Africans to the ASP. He began
178 Chapter IV

attending community centers, churches, and mosques. He contributed

money in a quest to attract more literate and land-rich, hence eligible,
voters.38 He also looked for African recruits among Pemba’s military and
police forces, and campaigned more widely in Zanzibar City than he had
in the previous election cycle. Okello was again disappointed in 1963,
when, despite his efforts to recruit more literate constituents, the Shirazi
ZPPP and the Arab ZNP maintained their curious alliance, which cost the
ASP many LEGCO seats. Okello recalled in his autobiography that upon
winning, the ZNP/ZPPP coalition began taking reprisals against ASP
supporters. He claimed further that the ZNP excluded ASP representa-
tives from British negotiations regarding Zanzibar’s potential status as an
independent nation.39 Ultimately, he resolved that more drastic action was
needed. Okello recounts his personal feeling on the eve of the revolt:

The Arabs had entrenched themselves in such power that the opposition
was impotent. As the head of State, the Sultan was given almost unlimited
authority. At this point I perceived completely that the Africans, who were
the majority, could do nothing, and I was disappointed to see a growing
division in the ranks of the ASP. . . . The party was weakened and demoral-
ized by this split, and I realized that the time to arrange the revolution was
at hand.40

The transition from third-phase African political resistance to fourth-

phase militancy was largely a byproduct of growing tensions within the
ASP, along with an unnamed fear that the ZNP would assume control
over the state and never relinquish it. Okello redoubled his efforts with
the most fearless members of the ASP, especially the youth league, which
took the acronym ASYL. Okello drew his most avid and committed
supporters from the ranks of the ASYL. Knowing the latent energy and
buried rage of Zanzibar’s Swahili youth, Okello often invoked the most
vivid images of colonial rule when speaking to members of the ASYL.
Okello referred to Zanzibar’s history as a parade of “ruthless Portuguese”
and “cruel Arabs” who ruled with the “assistance of the British.” Okello
did not refer to Indians in his speeches. More importantly, he never cast
them as the “better-off” group responsible for African deprivation. That
moniker was reserved for Zanzibar’s Arabs, the sultan, his supporters, and
the ZNP in particular.41
 Resistance and Revolution 179

Although largely imperceptible to most Swahili-speaking Zanzibaris, the

relationship Indians had with the colonial government was just as influen-
tial, if not more powerful, than the association Arab Zanzibaris enjoyed
with the British. However, because Indians dominated discrete circles of
high finance, especially control over mortgages held on most Arab planta-
tion property, they competed as a group with land-rich Arabs, rather than
the population as a whole. Further, as Arab Zanzibaris used Indian inden-
tured laborers throughout the nineteenth century, many Swahili-speaking
Africans viewed Indians as a deprived group relative to Arabs.
Thus, when the revolution finally arrived, the only Indians that became
a target for African retribution were small shopkeepers, ironically among
the poorest Indians on Pemba and Unguja, but also the most visible repre-
sentatives of the trading class. Ultimately, Okello’s allusion to Zanzibari
society as a struggle between rich planters and poor farmers, between
mean slave owners and meek slaves, was a far more effective technique
for targeting Arabs as the focus for African violence than it was in stirring
up resentment against powerful or wealthy Indians.
Okello juxtaposed the metaphors of slave and slave owner to make it
clear to his largely African followers that coexistence with Arabs was im-
possible. On the eve of the revolution, three months after the disappoint-
ing third round of independence elections, Okello spoke at general ASP
meeting. Okello’s leadership and the activism of the ASYL, along with
Nyerere’s distant patronage, may have been enough to inspire Karume
and the die-hard activists to revolt, but not the mainstay membership of
the ASU. Ultimately it was necessary for the ASP to bring the ZNP’s
disreputable electoral policies to light before ASP radicals could spur the
more conservative membership of the ASP to insurgency.42 At the meet-
ing following the 1963 election Okello roused his audience with allusions
to a gory but victorious end to Arab rule. John Okello pleaded with his
audience:

The minority defeated us in the last election. I plead with you brothers, that you
will never obtain what you want unless you resort to other means. Do not be
ignorant of the fact that now there are not ways other than to shed blood.43

A few days later, Seif Baraki, president of the ASP Youth League, in-
troduced John Okello to the audience as “our redeemer,” a term used by
180 Chapter IV

Ghanaians for their leader, Kwame Nkrumah.44 In reality, the comparison

was shaky; Nkrumah promoted nonviolent ideas antithetical to Okello’s
approach. Even when the colonial government imprisoned Nkrumah for
his political activity, he continued to stress the principles of nonviolence
in written messages smuggled out to his followers.45
On the surface, Okello’s message was very similar to Nkrumah’s.
Like Nkrumah, Okello compared imperialism to slavery, but Nkrumah’s
messianic imagery always stressed struggle and martyrdom rather than
revenge.46 By contrast, Okello felt that violence was the only way to
achieve freedom. He continued to rail against Arabs whenever he had a
Swahili-speaking audience. Okello’s appeals became more vivid as revo-
lution approached:

I went on to remind them that the slave markets and the irons and chains
which held their brothers were still visible in the Island, as were the mass
graves where murdered Africans were buried. . . . I asked the crowd if they
agreed with this and they replied . . . we agree with our hearts, but you must
never abandon us in trouble. . . . I continued . . . “I am here to assure you . . .
the way I shall lead you to freedom is not at all related to voting; it relates
to blood and you must promise that you are prepared to shed blood.”47

On the one hand, Okello was frustrated by his own failed attempts to
make political inroads into the ZNP; on the other hand, he sensed that
the protectorate’s entire political system not only frustrated him, but all
Swahili Zanzibaris, especially laborers.48 Whereas in 1961 Okello framed
his appeal in the language of African unity, a nonviolent challenge to
imperialism, by 1963 he changed his rhetoric to a call for militancy and
racial justice. In 1961, during his initial efforts to check the ZNP, Okello
claimed that the Swahili cultural struggle was not an issue of “skin color.”
However, by 1963, Okello began characterizing British and Arab political
repression as bigotry and he intensified his racial rhetoric.49
The year 1963 was difficult for the ASP. On June 24 of that year, Brit-
ish government granted Zanzibaris, or more precisely the sultan and his
family, internal self-government. The following month the government
held elections for the thirty-one seats in the LEGCO. Despite fears that the
ASP might challenge the ZNP/ZPPP coalition, it held through the elec-
tion. Although the ASP won a majority of the total votes, as in the 1961
 Resistance and Revolution 181

election, they gained only a minority of the seats.50 In September 1963,

three months after the election, the British government published the re-
sults from its independence conference convened to decide the fate of the
protectorate. The official declaration of the conferees was that Zanzibar
should be granted full independence on December 10, 1963, and that the
government should declare the sultan the head of the state of Zanzibar.51
John Okello realized that this was the moment to rally his supporters and
his rhetoric became hyperbolic.
Okello told his followers that independence under the sultan would be
equivalent to a return to slavery. He continually evoked the metaphors of
bondage and deliverance, coupled with the use of very sharp language
of retribution and violence. At an ASP meeting in late December 1963,
Okello prepared his audience for an impending war. He told his listen-
ers to “prepare weapons, primarily spears, bows and arrows, knives and
sticks.”52 Eyewitness accounts of the two-day revolution recall that Okello
gathered his eight hundred ASP “warriors” at ten o’clock the evening of
January 11. Their first action was to take over Zanzibar’s various police
stations. This was done easily, as most of Zanzibar’s officialdom retired
to their homes, and, as such, were unaware that a revolution was at hand,
much less its time or place.53
On January 12, 1964, John Okello’s freedom fighters secured Zanzibar’s
armories and began confiscating “imperialist possessions” and “enemy
vehicles.”54 Okello’s men took over Zanzibar’s radio station and at 7 a.m.
Okello broadcast his first fiery message. Okello roused his followers:

Wake up, you black men. Let everyone of you take a gun and ammunition
and start to fight against any remnants of imperialism of this island. . . .
Never, never relent, if you want this Island to be yours.55

High officials of the government, both Arab and British, tried to flee
the island or went into hiding.56 Fearing Okello’s warriors might turn
on the Shirazi, Muhammad Shamte of the ZPPP asked the Kenyan and
Ugandan governments for military intervention, but, like Tanganyika,
neither agreed.57 On January 13 Arab shops were pillaged and civilians
murdered. In cases where families resisted, the whole family was massa-
cred. Whether Okello expected that violence in Zanzibar would escalate
to the point that it approximated genocide is unclear, but he nonetheless
182 Chapter IV

made it clear to his listeners that violence and murder were crucial. In his
biography Okello claims that in the final days before the revolution, he
gave his military leadership, or freedom fighters, “final instructions on the
conduct of war.” John Okello tried to control the chaos he was unleashing
by stating that

[i]nnocent people should not be harmed . . . and you should only fight
against those important imperialists that I designate. . . . Never kill Europe-
ans of any age; this applies to Asians. . . . I am interested only in removing
Arab control from this Island, not in destroying the population.58

Okello recruited the core military staff of his revolutionary army, his
“freedom fighters,” from the Swahili-speaking officers of Pemba’s police
force, and from the staff of Pemba and Unguja’s prison system. He began
to mobilize supporters by convincing the African population that they faced
a dire future if Arab power continued after the British colonial government
granted Zanzibar independence.59 He claimed that if the Arabs assumed
control over the Zanzibari state there would be no safeguard to prevent
them from abusing their power. Okello promised that “all male African
babies would be killed . . . and that African girls would be forced to submit
to Arabs.”60 He emphatically added that “Arabs would expel Africans who
were not Zanzibaris [i.e., migrant labor] and those who were allowed to stay
would be ruled as slaves.”61 Okello’s so-called military intelligence was
meant for cool heads. In fact, it is unlikely that Okello could have known
that his propaganda would spread so completely throughout the general
population. More importantly, Okello probably never believed that revolu-
tionary violence could escalate to the level of genocide.
Okello’s use of racial fear tactics, his repetition of the slave/slave
owner metaphor, and his invitation to hatred were examples of how many
“great men,” or potentially effective leaders, have fallen short of their own
messianic ideal. Okello escalated Zanzibar’s “war of visions,” its struggle
to find its national identity, to a violent contest for geographic space and
material possessions.62 When Okello gave instructions to his party leader-
ship in the month leading to revolution, he suggested that only specified
“imperialists” should be the targets of violence.
Given the inflammatory nature of his radio broadcast, however, it is
doubtful that Okello’s message and tactics could have led to anything
 Resistance and Revolution 183

other than undifferentiated mass murder. Okello kept broadcasting mes-

sages throughout January 12, 1964, Zanzibar’s one-day revolution. He
claimed that Arabs were resisting or, in some cases, retaliating, and that
“Africans must continue to fight imperialism.”63 By 9 p.m. that evening,
fourteen hours after the first broadcast, Okello’s 9 reported that approxi-
mately 6,300 Arab combatants had been killed and 14,716 Arab and non-
Arab civilians were arrested.64
Fearing continued violence in the days following “the revolution,”
many of the Arab detainees that were not deported felt compelled to leave
Zanzibar forever.65 Okello’s goal of removing an Arab presence from the
island was accomplished in a thirty-six-hour melee. The international
community reacted to the defeat of Zanzibar’s one-month-old ZNP re-
gime and to the violence of the 1964 revolution with disbelief.66
Once the Western media reported casualties, the absolute devasta-
tion of Zanzibar’s Arab community, and the collapse of Arab authority,
the international community became truly shocked and worried.67 The
brutal attack was short but effective. It completely inverted Zanzibar’s
political order. Okello informed the sultan that he had twenty minutes to
kill himself and his family. However, while Okello was busy capturing
other military and police facilities, the sultan and his family escaped to
the mainland.68 On January 13, 1964, Okello formed the Revolutionary
Council and named Sheik Abeid Karume prime minister. He then trav-
eled to the mainland to make an official declaration to the governments
of Kenya, Tanganyika, and Uganda that the liberation had been success-
ful. The Revolutionary Council, and Karume in particular, insisted upon
many immediate and dramatic changes to the order of Zanzibari society.
The Revolutionary Council began a program of reversing colonial policy
in practically the exact order that the British had implemented its policies.
Less than a week after fighting stopped, the ASP confiscated much of the
property Arabs acquired during the first phase of colonial rule. The ASP
declared that all Africans who had mortgaged their property would have
their mortgages canceled.69
On January 20 the Revolutionary Council made Swahili the official
language of the Zanzibari nation, thereby reversing Britain’s second-
phase policy of establishing English and Arabic as the official languages
of the state.70 On March 8, 1964, Abeid Karume, now president of the
People’s Republic of Zanzibar, announced that Zanzibar’s leading Af-
184 Chapter IV

rican organization, the ASP, would be the nation’s sole political party.
He further declared that the government would take over all clubs that
based their membership on ethnicity, religion, or wealth.71 This declara-
tion effectively reversed Britain’s third- and fourth-phase policies, which
were characterized by an attempt to co-opt indigenous Swahili-speaking
organizations, while promoting wealthy and autonomous Indian and Arab
organizations.72 Initially, Karume fulfilled many of the practical demands
of his African population; however, these sweeping changes included cen-
tralizing power in offices of the lone party of the state, the ASP. As ASP’s
titular head in the months after the revolution, President Karume’s power
and suspicion grew to such a great extent that it could not be checked.
Thus, when Okello returned to Zanzibar in early March, President
Karume had him arrested for “immigration offenses.”73 Karume and his
ASP supporters were concerned about what role Okello would want to
play after successfully conducting the revolution. Often outspoken and
brash, Okello had strong opinions about the nature of popular leadership
and clashed, both before and after the revolution, with Karume and other
ASP officials on this and other matters.74 In a thankless and unceremoni-
ous end to his efforts, Okello’s revolutionary colleagues, who considered
him a “threat to the revolution,” placed him in a series of East African
prisons for a period of five years.75
On April 26, 1964, Zanzibar formed a union with Tanganyika.76
Unification was a development that the international community hoped
would restore stability to the region and prevent further hostilities against
Zanzibar’s minority Arab and Indian populations. Unfortunately, only
weeks after the revolution, Abeid Karume began an era of extended au-
thoritarian rule that lasted eight years. President Karume ruled Zanzibar
as a police state. The ASP abolished the Anglo-Arab judicial system and
replaced it with a people’s court, staffed not by the elders of a particular
community, which was the system that prevailed before the protectorate,
but by many personal benefactors of Karume’s Revolutionary Council.77
Karume began an unpopular program of housing “development” which
compelled rural Swahilis to move to Zanzibar City, where the government
encouraged them to live in newly built high-rise apartments.
By the late 1960s Karume’s policies turned from promoting African
culture to denigrating Asian and Arab social and economic influences. In
June 1970 Karume announced that the government would not grant trade
 Resistance and Revolution 185

licenses to minority groups. During his reign, Karume passed personal

edicts and executive orders that were supposed to be binding on both
islands. In 1970 the parliament of Tanzania ratified the Universal Decla-
ration of Human Rights. The declaration stated, among other things, that
marriages should only occur between individuals with the “full and free”
consent of both parties. However, in 1972 Karume issued a decree that
forbade Zanzibari women from rejecting arranged marriages and began
compelling engagements between prominent Asian or Arab girls and
members of his government.78
The island’s Asian and Indian families began to send both their
sons and daughters outside Zanzibar for higher education, and in far
higher numbers than they had under British rule. As punishment,
Karume made the individuals who chose to let their children leave
the island pay a steep fee or face imprisonment.79 While the biggest
wave of Arab and Asian emigrants left after Okello’s revolution, even
more emigrated during the eight years of Karume’s authoritarian rule.
Most of those who fled the island belonged to Zanzibar’s wealthy and
educated classes. They left the island for good and left the economy
in a state of growing chaos. While Karume made life miserable for
Ungujan minorities, he adopted a policy of benign neglect toward the
Pemba Shirazi, whom he regarded as ZPPP benefactors, ASP traitors,
and hence enemies of the state.
Karume’s early years represented an inversion, the mirror image of
Britain’s phase 1 colonial rule. That phase was cruel but strategic and it
involved a redistribution of land and resources, the suppression of indig-
enous Swahili language, and the co-optation of private “ethnic” organiza-
tions on behalf of the colonial government. The latter years of Karume’s
regime typified the sort of irrational authoritarian rule that plagued several
African governments in ensuing decades. During Karume’s eight years as
president of Zanzibar, the tenuous and largely symbolic union between
Zanzibar and the mainland grew strained. The rift between Unguja and
Pemba deepened. There was only a slight improvement when Karume’s
regime ended and Aboud Jumbe became president.80 In 1977, five years
into the Jumbe regime, TANU and the ASP merged to form the Chama
Cha Mapinduzi. The CCM party centralized the authority of the two na-
tions into one organization, a development that sadly would be unable to
resolve Zanzibar’s deepest political cleavages.
186 Chapter IV

CONCLUSION

The political rhetoric of the ASP, and John Okello in particular, em-
phasized the racial nature of Zanzibar’s economic cleavages. However,
Okello’s military strategy, the behavior of the African mob, and the de-
crees of Revolutionary Council following the departure of the deposed
sultan suggest that the 1964 revolution was only superficially an ethnic
struggle. Ethnicity was a symbolic, peripheral issue used by revolutionary
leaders as a catalytic agent to provoke a unified response among working-
class people who shared a common language and had similar economic
grievances.
As suggested by the five-stage, the five-phase, and the three-site mod-
els, Zanzibar’s struggle was a contest over land, language and political
representation, and economic identity. At every stage, phase, and site, the
contest between the Arabic-speaking haves and Swahili-speaking have-
nots concerned economic advantage, educational attainment, and political
authority. In the first phases, Swahili Zanzibaris lost their land to Arabs.
In the second phase Swahili lost its place as an official language of the
court system. During this era, the international trade of cloves became
more important to the British government than the regional trade of sub-
sistence crops. As a result, the Swahili language began to lose its standing
as the de facto language of trade, and Swahili-speaking Bantus began to
lose their status as the dominant political community.81
The expanding plantation economy allowed an increasing number of
Arabs access to an education. Paradoxically, the wage system which en-
ergized the clove economy, and which was almost exclusively dominated
by Swahili labor, made it impossible for most Swahilis to attend even the
first few years of elementary school. In the third and fourth phase, Arab
economic and educational advantage expanded into the political arena.
Thus, in third phase of protectorate rule it became very difficult, and in
many cases illegal, for Swahili workers to form open and transparent trade
union organizations.
During the fourth phase of colonial rule the Arab elite, emboldened by
more than fifty years of colonial patronage, decided to try to emulate Brit-
ish policies toward Swahili organizations. More specifically, in the 1957,
1961, and 1963 elections, the ZNP employed various strategies, both legal
and illegal, to try to exclude representatives of Zanzibar’s Swahili working-
 Resistance and Revolution 187

class population from assuming their rightful role as leaders in the legisla-
tive council, the LEGCO.
Thus the crux of Zanzibar’s economic and political contest concerned
access and ownership of land, dominion over matters of culture and lan-
guage, control over the economy, and, ultimately, command of the po-
litical system. The Swahili insurgents targeted the Arab elite not because
they were racially different or even because they were wealthier, but
because, relative to every other group in Zanzibar, the Arabs appeared to
have the most access to wealth, cultural legitimacy, and political author-
ity. They owned the most land, and the British made Arabic the official
language of Zanzibar’s commerce. The British government gave the Ar-
abs cultural ascendancy over the island’s Swahili-speaking communities
when it declared the Zanzibari protectorate an Arab state.
While the British government gave the Arabs and other non-Swahili
speaking groups the right to establish their own associations, this same
colonial government spent more than fifty years divesting Zanzibar of
almost every indigenous African organization, and prevented new African
institutions from developing.82 In place of these indigenous Bantu-Swahili
organizations, the colonial government established political institutions
that would promote British military command, Arab political authority,
Indian economic leverage, and, on Pemba, Shirazi economic and cultural
ascendancy.
These colonial policies pitted groups against each other to the benefit
of the government and the extreme disadvantage of the Swahili. In fact,
most groups in Zanzibar were materially better off than most Swahili-
speaking Bantu, and the Indian community had some of the most power-
ful, wealthy, and well-connected individuals in the colonial economy and
government. This fact returns the reader to the question that animated
this research, namely: Why did African insurgents primarily, almost
exclusively, target Arabs for revolutionary violence? That question leads
us to the current inquiry—namely, why did John Okello and the ASP
specifically prohibit attacks against the Indians and Shirazis as well as
other Afro-Asian communities? The answer to this question may reside
with the dynamics of the three-site, the five-stage, and the five-phase
models themselves.
The 1964 revolution was, after all, a fairly rational reaction to four cumu-
lative phases of British colonialism. Zanzibar’s Swahili-speaking population
188 Chapter IV

did not perceive that there was a conflict between their economic interests and
that of most members of the Indian community. Furthermore, John Okello
and the ASP may have realized that attacking the Indians would not change
Zanzibar’s political system. For sixty years colonial policy deliberately cre-
ated economic cleavage between poor farmers and rich planting society.
The racial background of Zanzibar’s poor farmers and of its rich planting
society was incidental to their basic conflict, which was economic. Although
the conflict in Zanzibar was often called a racial struggle, the cleavage be-
tween Africans and Arabs was, at the core, a struggle between occupational
groups and concerned the nations’ economic orientation. These factions were
in many respects trying to determine very simply whether Zanzibar would
remain a democratic, subsistence, or authoritarian plantation economy.
Ultimately, the actions of the Revolutionary Council, and Abeid
Karume, more specifically, resolved this dilemma. In the weeks after the
revolution, and in a matter of months, the Revolutionary Council began a
plan of redistributing land in favor of African peasants. President Karume
then used his eight-year administration to convert Zanzibar from a planta-
tion to a parastatal economy. In many respects, the ASP’s postrevolution-
ary program of land redistribution and economic reorientation helped
explain the motivations governing the insurgency. Swahili insurgents
focused on attacking the Arab community because they were considered
the primary beneficiaries of a highly stratified colonial economy.
To be certain, there were poor Arabs, but their material, political, and
cultural interests were protected by a highly visible network of Arab and
colonial institutions that supported the plantation economy. By contrast,
Indian wealth was much more discreet, limited to circles of high finance
and the highly elusive personal associations that govern British patron-
age. Indian wealth, which began in trade, grew exponentially during the
emergence of a network of Anglo-Indian mortgage companies. These
mortgage associations expanded in the 1930s, providing bankrupt Arab
planters with high interest loans after the depression of the 1930s.
Thus, Zanzibar’s rich Indians had an increasingly negative relationship
with rich Arabs, not poor Africans. Further, most Zanzibaris viewed the
Indian community sympathetically because they were aware of the condi-
tions under which Indians first arrived on the island. The earliest members
of Zanzibar’s Indian community were indentured servants, brought to the
island by the British government in order to build railroads and other colo-
 Resistance and Revolution 189

nial infrastructure. Zanzibari Indians had a deep and complex history, well
known to most East Africans. As a result, only the Indians with the most os-
tentatious displays of wealth or those intimately involved in the daily lives
of Swahili attention suffered during the chaos of the 1964 insurgency. Even
then, most wealthy Indians faced evacuation rather than genocide. Those
Indians who chose to remain in Zanzibar after the revolution had their eco-
nomic power checked by less violent but more exasperating means.
From Zanzibar’s earliest history, throughout the era of the protectorate,
linguistic ability has been the primary means of attaining social position
and wealth. Race, on the other hand, has remained a highly fluid con-
struct, elastic and subject to change, especially sensitive to economic and
political advancement.83 From the fourteenth century until the eighteenth
century the Shirazi and the Swahili competed with one another over East
African ports, and over cultural ascendancy. Ultimately the Swahili lan-
guage, culture, and economic system prevailed.
The Swahili had numerous advantages over the Shirazi. While the
Shirazi were the first emigrants to settle in the region, their culture and
language, being absorbed into the dominant Bantu culture, began to dis-
appear almost immediately. By contrast, the Arab immigrants who inter-
married with the Bantu created a third culture. The Swahili culture and
the Creole Swahili language proved to be able both to help preserve the
distinct Bantu and Arab cultures and to simultaneously offer an alternate,
truly innovative national identity, which both Bantu- and Arab-speaking
populations could embrace.84
By the seventeenth century, race in Zanzibar had become—in fact, it
may have always been—a rather fluid construct. Zanzibaris, a racially
mixed population, changed their racial identity to suit their political and
economic aspirations. When the sultan of Oman made Zanzibar the new
Omani capital, his family maintained ties to Arab culture and language.
However, as an astute politician who preferred assimilation rather than
conquest, the sultan also adopted many aspects of the local Bantu culture,
including the Swahili language. Zanzibar became a bilingual nation, but
Swahili was the lingua franca, and the sultan accepted this fact.
While the Omani slave system became a source of tension, this tension was
mitigated by the fact that slave status was not a caste system. Slavery in Zan-
zibar was more like a system of indentured servitude. Sharia law prohibited
the enslavement of subsequent generations of any given family. Thus as late
190 Chapter IV

as the early nineteenth century, race and a person’s occupation were largely
independent variables, and racial ambivalence could be present among sev-
eral members of one family. In the nineteenth-century Shirazi clan system, a
nomad squatter of Bantu heritage, who spoke Swahili and lived on a small
plot of land in Unguja, could refer to himself as a “Shirazi” farmer. His third
cousin, a fisherman who claimed common Bantu ancestry, but spoke Arabic
and lived on Pemba, may have called himself an Arab merchant.
Racial ambivalence was both a mystery to most European colonial
governments and anathema to the survival of the plantation economy.
Plantation farming required a division of labor with a majority of the
population committed to hard labor. For the plantation system to thrive it
had to expand continuously, recruiting an ever-growing number of work-
ers.85 From the earliest days of the protectorate until the 1940s, the British
devised many laws and social programs in an effort to recruit a greater
number of Bantu and Swahili workers, while continuously cultivating
various minority groups into ruling factions that would compete for politi-
cal and economic hegemony as well as British favor.
The British became aware of how truly elastic racial identity could be
in numerous situations, and they found that racial identity was rooted in
economic pragmatism. One of the most obvious examples of this pragma-
tism came during World War II when, in an effort to get more or better
rations, the Shirazi asked to be classified as Asian rather than African.
The British tried to put an end to this racial ambivalence in 1948 when the
government began discussions regarding Zanzibar’s colonial independence.
That year the British drafted a national census and the Shirazi changed their
identity again. This time the vast majority of Shirazi changed their identity
from Asian to African. In fact, most Zanzibaris chose the African designa-
tion in the 1948 census. This included the Shirazi of Pemba, as well as most
of the Swahili of both Unguja and Pemba Islands. Additionally, nearly all
the Bantus who had recently emigrated from the mainland, along with those
who lived in Zanzibar for centuries, also identified themselves as “African.”
Thus, in 1948 the census designated 76 percent of the Zanzibari population,
the majority, African.86 The British government and its elite Arab clients re-
alized that for Zanzibar to remain an Arab state, they would have to monitor
African political development.
In the 1950s Zanzibar’s emerging political party movement prompted
most Zanzibaris to change their identity yet again. While most Swahilis
joined the Afro-Shirazi Party, nearly all Arabic-speaking Zanzibaris, and
 Resistance and Revolution 191

a small number of Shirazis, chose the Arab Zanzibar Nationalist Party. By

1960 Unguja’s Shirazi squatters had developed a deep antipathy for the
plantation system and, by extension, Arab planters and the ZNP. Many
small farm Shirazi planters joined the ASP. On Pemba, where the econ-
omy favored the clan-based planting system, most Shirazi enjoyed fairly
high standard of living. Most of these so-called rich Shirazi felt their inter-
ests might be threatened if the socialist-leaning ASP gained control over
the institutions of the Zanzibari state. Thus the Pemba Shirazi withdrew
from the ASP and formed the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party. The
ZPPP formed a coalition with the ZNP, supporting independence with a
return to the sole rule of the Omani sultan.
During the revolution, like many Indians, the Shirazi community was
largely spared. After the revolution, when the Revolutionary Council de-
clared Swahili national language, redistributed land, and made the ASP
the nations’ sole political party, several Shirazi clans and many “Arab”
families chose to classify themselves as Swahili. Thus in independence
era Zanzibar, as in Zanzibar of the British protectorate, the Omani, Swa-
hili, and Shirazi eras, national identity has been tied to access and domin-
ion over two resources, land and language.
The actions of John Okello, the African mob, and the decrees of the
Revolutionary Council confirmed that the 1964 revolution could only
superficially be called an “ethnic” struggle. The core goal of Zanzibar’s
Swahili population involved changing the political system so that the
majority of Zanzibaris were no longer subjects of the British monarchy
or residents in an Omani Sultanate but bona fide citizens of a distinct and
unified Zanzibari nation. By the fourth phase of British colonial rule, it
became clear to African activists that this change would require a revo-
lution. The revolution would have to not only convert Zanzibar from a
British protectorate to an independent Swahili nation, but would also have
recast the Arab Sultanate into a modern African state.
For almost a century all the government’s first-phase policies benefited
a rich ruling minority at the expense of the vast working-class majority.
Britain’s land redistribution scheme benefited Arab planters at the expense
of African farmers. Similarly, the second-phase colonial policy of promot-
ing English and Arabic as the languages of the state, while making it almost
impossible for most people to attain proficiency in either language, ben-
efited the elite, at the expense of the laboring classes. These policies were
deliberate, and eventually provoked a strong and unrelenting reaction.
192 Chapter IV

During the third and fourth phases of colonial rule, African activists
tried to work within the system. However, their attempts to check colonial
excesses and to open the political and legislative systems to African par-
ticipation were thwarted by ever more repressive means. British authori-
tarianism made African revolution a necessity. When Zanzibar’s Africans
finally created their own nation they established a one-party state, hoping,
perhaps, to bury some of the cleavages within a unified political identity.
However, due to the fact that race was never the true or sole source of
political tensions, some of Zanzibar’s deeper cultural and economic cleav-
ages resurfaced. Chapter V will discuss how these latent tensions have
reemerged in the last decade. This fifth chapter, a postscript, will also
suggest that unstable electoral politics in Zanzibar have influenced, and
may continue to threaten, politics on mainland Tanzania.
*****
The following table describes the characteristics and changing status of
the Afro-Shirazi Union, the Afro-Shirazi Party, the Zanzibar and Pemba
People’s Party, the Zanzibar Nationalist Party, and the Umma Party at the
time of Zanzibar’s three major elections, and during the years after the
revolution until Karume’s death.

Table 4.1. Party Affiliation/Party Name

Election ASU /ASP* ZNP ZPPP UMMA PARTY

1957 SF SF NF WF
WP LP
MSL**
1961 SF MF WF WF
TWP WP CWP CLP
MSL
1963 SF MF WF WF
EVWP WP CWP CLP
MSL
1964–1972 SF NF NF NF
WP
OP

* The Afro-Shirazi Union was renamed the Afro-Shirazi Party in 1959 after the defection of Pemba Shirazi,
who formed the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party. From the 1961 election onward the ASP and the
ZPPP ran competing candidates.
** In 1957 there were still six appointed seats in the LEGCO. The British gave four of these seats to Arabs,
one to a Shirazi, and one to an Indian appointee. Elected ASU representatives had five seats. The ASU rep-
resentatives held a majority over appointed Arabs by one seat, but the ASU was otherwise outnumbered
by non-Swahili LEGCO members, who were all appointees.
 Resistance and Revolution 193

Acronym Key

SF a strong presence or factor—registered as many or more voters

than other parties’ candidates that year.
MF a moderate factor
NF not a factor
WF a weak presence or factor
LP losing party in that election cycle
WP winning party
CLP moderate or weak factor in a coalition with a losing party
CWP moderate factor in a coalition with a winning party
TWP tied with the winning party but defeated by coalition
EVWP exceeded votes of winning party (but received less LEGCO
seats than the losing party)
MSL given a minority of seats in LEGCO
OP only party in era of 1964–1972

Observations Regarding Information on the Chart

As the chart suggests, the ASP was one of the strongest factors in the three
elections. In fact, the ASP regularly had a plurality of the percentage of
total electoral votes, but the protectorate government chose to give ASP
representatives only a minority of seats in LEGCO.
In 1957 the number of elected Swahili representatives to the LEGCO
equaled the number of non-Swahili appointees. Counting the Indian and
Shirazi appointees, African representatives were outnumbered by appoin-
tees by one. This dynamic made Swahilis a legislative minority and frus-
trated most efforts of the otherwise victorious and newly elected Swahili-
speaking representatives to hold sway in the LEGCO between the years
of 1957–1961. In the 1961 and 1963 elections ASP lost seats because of
the ZNP/ZPPP coalition.
Language was a core issue during electoral races because while Unguja’s
Afro-Shirazi far outnumbered all the Arabs of Unguja and Shirazi of Pemba,
the total number of literate Afro-Shirazi was quite limited. In fact, most of
the Arabs of Unguja and many of the Shirazi of Pemba were literate; these
voters, represented by the ZNP and ZPPP, were able to register a larger
number of eligible voters than the ASP was able to register alone. When the
194 Chapter IV

revolution occurred the Revolutionary Council immediately made Swahili

the only and the official language of the nation, made the ASP Zanzibar’s
sole party, and waived literacy as a voting requirement.
In the 1957 election the ASU received votes from just over 60 percent
of the electorate, the ZNP received a little more than 21 percent with the
remaining votes going to independent candidates or candidates of minor-
ity parties. In 1961 the ASP support dropped to just under 50 percent,
with the coalition of the ZNP/ZPPP receiving just under 39 percent. In the
1963 election the ASP received 54 percent of the votes while the ZNP/
ZPPP received just over 38 percent
One of the ironies of the LEGCO voting arrangement was that even
though the ZNP/ZPPP coalition received a minority of the votes they were
given a majority of the seats in the LEGCO. In the 1961 election the ASP
received ten seats, the ZPPP three, and the ZNP ten. In the 1963 elections
the British government granted the ASP thirteen seats, the ZNP twelve,
and the ZPPP received six seats. Thus from the first election in 1957 to
the second in 1961, the ASP went from having 45 percent of the seats to
43 percent and in 1963 to 42 percent. More significant than the decline
in ASP seats, however, was the erosion of ASP power. By 1962 the
ZNP/ZPPP coalition began to articulate a more ruthless political agenda
that involved matters of formulating colonial independence without the
consent of the ASP, and to the detriment of the majority Swahili-speaking
population.
For more detailed electoral statistics, see:
John Middleton and Jane Campbell, Zanzibar: Its Society and Politics (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1969).
“Zanzibar’s Freak Election,” The Economist (January 21, 1961): 241–42.
British Information Services, Zanzibar, I.D. 1474 (October 1963), Stationery Of-
fice Press, 25–27.

NOTES

1. Robert Fatton’s first and second sites, the sites of class formation and disar-
ticulation, correspond to the first and second phases of the five-phase model, and
the first and second stages of the five-stage model.
2. The majority of Arabs were run off the island. The conditions of their
forced “evacuation” will be discussed later.
 Resistance and Revolution 195

3. In contrast to the five-phase model, the five-stage model argues that the
outcome of fourth stage consciousness-raising can either lead to relative equality
between the two groups a situation where the privilege group will maintain its
status advantage over another group. The five-phase model, on the other hand,
suggests that a radical reversal in power may occur and argues that the degree to
which there is a reversal in power varies from case to case, country to country. In
Zanzibar the 1964 revolution and the reconstruction that followed led to an obvi-
ous reversal of power. The economic and political powers of the island’s remain-
ing Arab and Indian residents were severely curbed and the state became a cen-
tralized economy, Swahili-speaking and governed by Tanzania’s vice-president.
By contrast, the reconstruction that took place in the American South following
the Civil War allowed American blacks only limited political and economic par-
ticipation, and even then, these gains were soon reversed, and the society, at least
in the South, entered into a new phase of social stratification.
4. See Mapuri, The 1964 Revolution, 12.
5. Even though Zanzibar’s Arabs were, as a group, considered “wealthy” rela-
tive to other ethnic groups, Zanzibar was also home to poor and working-class
Arabs. Those Arabs who were aristocrats or members of the planting class were
a relatively small group. These Arabs created their association to represent their
particular interests, rather than those of the larger Arab population; see Martin,
Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 49–50.
6. Chapter II discussed the fact that education was impossible because it was
expensive and because most Africans were farmers who could not harvest their
crops if they did not have the assistance of all their family members.
7. The British Trade Union Decrees of 1931 and 1941 allowed Zanzibaris to
form unions, but established colonial oversight into the financial and accounting
practices of these unions, which in turn allowed the colonial administration to
give or withdraw authorization at the discretion of Zanzibar’s British governor,
thereby generally arresting African political development; see Sheriff and Fergu-
son, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 99.
8. George Hadjivayanis and Ed Ferguson suggest that Zanzibar’s labor
movement went through five stages, as cited in Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzi-
bar Under Colonial Rule, 197. According to Hadjivayanis, the first stage of
trade union development in Zanzibar occurred during the years between 1930
and 1940 when the British government officially sanctioned trade union activ-
ity. The next period was the late 1940s, and was characterized by increasing
spontaneous strikes, culminating in the 1948 general strike. These strikes were
the first indication that there was growing labor union solidarity, see Clayton,
“The General Strike in Zanzibar” and The Zanzibar Revolution and its After-
math. Hadjivayanis and Ferguson’s third stage was marked by trade union
196 Chapter IV

inactivity associated with a stretch of increased wealth from Zanzibar’s clove

export. The fourth and fifth stages of trade union development that occurred
between the years 1956–1958 and 1959–1963, respectively, were, according to
Hadjivayanis and Ferguson, the shortest but most meaningful developments in
Zanzibar’s political history. The authors suggest further that the fourth stage
“had these features: the proliferation of trade unions along occupation lines;
the active role of nationalist parties and an unsuccessful effort to create a trade
union federation”; see Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule,
197. While Hadjivayanis and Ferguson’s five-stage model specifically ad-
dresses trade unionism, McKirnan and Taylor’s five-stage model is useful for
general discussion of colonial politics, including, but not limited to, working-
class labor history.
9. As discussed in chapter I, the Zanzibari nation consists of two islands,
Unguja (sometimes called Zanzibar Island) and Pemba Island.
10. Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 134.
11. Zanzibar Government, Report on the Census of the Population of Zanzibar
Protectorate 1958 (Zanzibar Government Printers, 1960), 2.
12. See Mapuri, The 1964 Revolution, 18. By constitutional reform the Brit-
ish government did not envision a radical change in colonial policies, rather, it
planned only to expand the LEGCO to include Africans compatible with other
members of the committee. Three successive British residents were entrusted
with this task. They included Sir John Rankine, who announced the proposal in
1954, and Sir Henry Porter, who succeeded him in June 1955.
13. The ZNP realized in absolute terms that the African population far and
away outnumbered the Arab population, but they thought that literacy was so low
among Africans that the number of qualified African voters would be meager or
negligible. As it turned out, many of the migrants who came to Zanzibar from
the mainland in the decades before independence had often attained at least an
elementary education before the arrived on the island. The ZNP used its power
to make it difficult for migrant labor to establish their residency status or acquire
land, which were other requirements for election.
14. See John Middleton and Jane Campbell, Zanzibar: Its Society and its
Politics, 46
15. W. E. F Ward and L. W. White, East Africa: A Century of Change
1870–1970 (New York: Africana Publishing Co., 1972), 239, and Middleton and
Campbell, Zanzibar: Its Society and its Politics, 43.
16. Both the African and Shirazi Associations were more like incipient trade
unions than organizations based on ethnicity. They both shared a similar interest
in protecting working classes against harmful colonial policies and expanding
Arab political power.
 Resistance and Revolution 197

17. Aside from the obvious differences in British policy regarding Shirazi
and Swahili property ownership, the colonial government also differenti-
ated between the two groups in other ways. During World War II the British
government began rationing food. Initially Arabs and Asians (Indians and
Comorians) were given a larger and perhaps preferred ration of food. When
Africans demanded an equal ration they were denied, leading Shirazi to
claim Asian descent. The colonial government agreed and included Shirazi
in the favored Arab/Asian food-rationing scheme; see B. F. Mrina and W. T.
Mattoke, Harkati Za Ukombozi (The Liberation Struggle) (Dar-es-Salaam:
Tanzania Publishing House, 1980), 50.
18. The Pemba Shirazi were wealthier than their Unguja counterparts and
maintained various local organizations that excluded Unguja Shirazi. Three years
after the ASP was formed many Pemba Shirazi withdrew from the organization,
established the ZPPP, and formed a voting alliance with the Arab ZNP.
19. In fact, there is much evidence that what brought the leaders of the Shirazi
and African associations together were the efforts of Tanganyikans. Julius Nyer-
ere, in particular, was a prominent force in the development of Zanzibar’s parties.
Nyerere initially counseled the ASP to stay out of party politics until it built a
political machine as hardy as the Arab Zanzibar Nationalist Party; see Norman
Bennett, A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar, 255.
20. For a discussion of why Abeid Amani Karume emerged as a leading
Swahili politician, see Ambassador Don Petterson, Revolution in Zanzibar: An
American’s Cold War Tale (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002), 35–39.
21. See Middleton and Campbell, Zanzibar: Its Society and Politics, 51–55.
22. As discussed in previous chapters, the Shirazi on Unguja, like Swahili
neighbors, had most of their land confiscated by the British government and as a
result most worked as squatters on Arab plantations. Pemba Shirazi retained most
of their land and enjoyed financial independence.
23. Middleton and Campbell, Zanzibar: Its Society and Politics, 52.
24. See the conclusion of this chapter for a chart and observations regarding
Zanzibar’s various political parties.
25. See the last pages of chapter III to revisit early activism by the youth wing
and, more specifically, to consider the position on the Britain’s educational sys-
tem in Zanzibar, their ideas regarding electoral politics, and their belief that there
was a need for African revolution.
26. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 99
27. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 57.
28. Okello mentions a number of scenarios where he or his African col-
leagues, are insulted by Arabs, called “slave,” or threatened with enslavement;
see Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar.
198 Chapter IV

29. See Robert Rotberg and Ali A. Mazrui, Protest and Power in Black Africa
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 929. Okello tried and failed to secure
leadership positions in the ZNP; see Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar.
30. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 76–77.
31. The colonial government had long insisted that Zanzibar was an Arab
state, and, as such, should be governed by Arabs; see L. W. Hollingsworth, Zan-
zibar Under the Foreign Office, 1890–1913 (London: Macmillan & Co., 1953),
and Sir Alan Pim, Report on the Commission appointed by the Secretary of State
for the Colonies to consider and report on the Financial Position and policy of
the Zanzibar Government in Relation to its Economic Resources (London: Crown
Agents, 1932).
32. Rotberg and Mazrui, Protest and Power in Black Africa, 929.
33. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 83
34. Ibid., 83–84.
35. For an additional discussion of Okello’s tactics before the 1961 election,
see “Zanzibar’s Freak Election,” The Economist (January 21, 1961), 241–42.
36. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 80.
37. Many of Zanzibar’s Africans could speak Swahili but could not write it;
see Martin Bailey, The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar (New York: Syracuse
University Press, 1973), 19–20.
38. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 89–95.
39. British Information Services, Zanzibar, I.D., 1474, October 1963, H.M.
Stationery Office Press, 25–27.
40. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 93.
41. Groups make comparisons regarding relative wealth and status. Very often
the absolute “wealth” of the target group is rarely at issue, what is important is
the in-group perception that the out-group is better off. According to Taylor and
Moghaddam, “when members of a group are seeking information, with a view
to evaluating their position, they make comparisons with a number of potentially
‘better off’ and worse off” out groups. A “much better off” other, such as the
wealthy and powerful Arabs rather than the merely wealthy Indians, is chosen as
the comparison group in order to maximize the effectiveness of the appeal; see
Taylor and Moghaddam, Theories of Inter-group Relations, 121.
42. The ZNP policies included a plot to deny former mainland Africans the
right to become naturalized Zanzibari citizens and its attempt to exclude African
voters from the 1957, 1961, and 1963 election polls; see Mapuri, The 1964 Revo-
lution, 28, 30–33, and 35–38, and Middleton and Campbell, Zanzibar: Its Society
and its Politics, 48, 57, and 62–63.
43. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 105.
44. Ibid., 107.
 Resistance and Revolution 199

45. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (New

York: International Publishers, 1957), 128
46. Ibid., 127–29.
47. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 108–9
48. Taylor and Moghaddam suggest that after ambitious individuals are un-
able to “pass” into the advantaged group they instigate collective action among
the disadvantaged group. Many are motivated both by feelings of individual
deprivation and fraternal deprivation; see Taylor and Moghaddam, Theories of
Inter-group Relations, 162–67, and 112–20.
49. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 80.
50. Middleton and Campbell, Zanzibar: Its Society and Politics, 60–62.
51. British Government, Zanzibar Independence Conference 1963 (London:
H.M. Stationery Office).
52. Guns were not readily available; see Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 10.
53. See Don Petterson, Revolution in Zanzibar: An American’s Cold War Tale
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002), 54–57. Ambassador Petterson was a
young American foreign service officer posted to Zanzibar in July 1963, six months
before the January 1964 revolution. Petterson suggests that A. M. Babu, a promi-
nent Shirazi associate both with the ASP and the Umma party, might have actually
warned a British official who at the time was commissioner of the police force (56).
Petterson also suggests that Nyerere suspected that the ASP and ZNP might clash,
but was unaware of, and played no part in, Okello’s actions (54–55). For a descrip-
tion of the role of the Umma party, see the chart at the end of this chapter.
54. Keith Kyle, “How it happened,” The Spectator 14 (1964), 202–3.
55. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 143. For a comparison of Okello’s lan-
guage and a radio broadcast during the Rwandan crisis, see “A Prelude to Geno-
cide?” in Harpers’ magazine, August 8, 1994.
56. The U.S. government decided to evacuate the American embassy, while
the British government decided against British evacuation as well as against
sending in British troops; see Petterson, Revolution in Zanzibar: An American’s
Cold War Tale, 60–64.
57. See Petterson, Revolution in Zanzibar: An American’s Cold War Tale, 63,
75–76.
58. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 126–27.
59. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 90–92.
60. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 199–200.
61. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 199–200
62. Francis Deng, author of numerous volumes on conflict in Sudan, argues
that Sudan’s contending Arab and African visions of national identity were cen-
tral to the present conflict, but these conflicts were created by warring factions’
200 Chapter IV

desire to control natural resources; see Francis Manding Deng, “A War of Vi-
sions for the Nation,” Middle East Journal 44, no. 4 (1990): 608.
63. See Kyle, “How it happened,” 202–3, and Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar,
143–56.
64. Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar, 151. For a different set of statistics, see
Robert Rotberg, “The Political Outlook in Zanzibar,” Africa Report 6, no. 10
(1961): 5. Keith Kyle puts the number of Arab deaths below 100 and attributes
Zanzibar’s drastic reduction in its Arab population to flight rather than execution;
see Kyle, “How it happened,” 202–3.
65. Bennett, A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar, 267. By the end of 1964
approximately twenty thousand Asians and Arabs, Zanzibar’s most skilled work-
force, left the island; see E. B. Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 60.
66. J. Ridley, “Black Cloud over Zanzibar,” in Daily Telegraph, July 24, 1963,
and Ephraim Roget, “Zanzibar After the Long Knives,” Analyst, no. 3 (1965). For
a fuller discussion of how the American, European, and Arab media reacted to the
revolution, see Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath, 78 and 102.
67. Time magazine made the Zanzibar revolution among its lead international
stories in the January 17, 1964, issue.
68. The sultan eventually landed in Britain, where he lived the rest of his
life on a small pension provided by the British government; see Clayton, The
Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath, 85, and Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and
Revolution, 57.
69. The ASP issued this first decree on January 18, 1964; see Mapuri, The
1964 Revolution, 60–62, and Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 59.
African land was alienated during the first phase of colonial rule 1890–1910; see
the first chapter of this book.
70. See chapter II of this book. The Revolutionary Council took over Zan-
zibari schools much later on July 1, 1964; see Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and
Revolution, 59.
71. Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution, 279–80.
72. The Clove Growers’ Association was nationalized a few months later on
October 8, 1964.
73. Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 58.
74. Although Karume and Okello disagreed on many issues, they had a
grudging respect for one another. Okello had a far worse relationship with
Abdulrahman “A. M.” Babu, leader of one of Zanzibar’s few labor organi-
zations—the Federation of Progressive Trade Unions, or FPTU. The FTPU
enjoyed an on again/off again association with the Arab ZNP. In 1957, around
the time of Zanzibar’s first election, the FPTU, led by Babu, seceded from the
ZNP; see Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 98. By Babu’s
 Resistance and Revolution 201

own account, many of the social programs of adopted by the Revolutionary

Council were actually developed by the Umma party, Babu’s other political or-
gan, rather than the ASP, as the historical literature more broadly suggests; see
Sheriff and Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 240–41. The association
between the ASU and the Umma party began just before the 1961 election as
an effort to check the ZNP/ZPPP alliance. By the years 1963–1964, Babu and
the Umma party were trying to register voters and were disseminating anti-ZNP
propaganda to journalists and to Umma/ASP supporters. While Okello’s efforts
at this time were largely clandestine, Babu was conspicuous in his efforts to
raise African political consciousness; see Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution
and its Aftermath, 66. By 1964 the intelligence services of the protectorate
government had raided the Umma office and confiscated files, and equipment,
including Umma member cars; see Rotberg and Mazrui, Protest and Power in
Black Africa, vol. II, 924–68. Babu, in some sense, became a periphery figure
by the decline of the Umma party, and the rise of the ASU. He was almost
completely overshadowed when, after the revolution, international attention
was almost exclusively heaped on Okello. Later, Babu found himself relegated
to a secondary role when Karume’s favored status with Nyerere became obvi-
ous. Karume became Tanganyika’s vice-president and Okello was imprisoned,
but Babu was largely invisible.
75. One of Okello’s main detractors was A. M. Babu; see Zanzibar Govern-
ment, Afro-Shirazi Party: A Liberation Movement, 1973.
76. Zanzibar and Tanganyika merged into the United Republic of Tanzania.
Julius Nyerere was the president of Tanzania and Abeid Karume was the first
vice-president. Despite the apparent union, Zanzibar ran its own affairs with little
input from Nyerere on matters of internal governance; see Norman R. Bennett, A
History of the Arab State of Zanzibar, 267.
77. See Marvin Howe in the New York Times, September 23, 1970, and Chris-
topher Hallowell in The Christian Science Monitor, September 15, 1971,
78. In a public rally Karume exclaimed: “In colonial times the Arabs took Af-
rican concubines without bothering to marry them. Now that were are in power,
the shoe is on the other foot”; East African Standard, October 6, 1970.
79. Guardian [London], September 14, 1971, and The Economist, September
23, 1971.
80. Karume was assassinated in 1972; see Petterson, Revolution in Zanzibar:
An American’s Cold War Tale, 265.
81. Hisham Sharabi provides an extensive analysis of the relationship between
linguistic competence, national identity, and political authority in the Middle
East; see Hisham Sharabi, Neo-Patriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in
Arab Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 38–42.
202 Chapter IV

82. Immanuel Wallerstein discussed the role British protection system played
in the decline of indigenous institutions and native languages throughout Af-
rica; see Wallerstein, Africa: The Politics of Independence (New York: Vintage
Books, 1961), 39–40.
83. For a discussion of ethnicity’s variable nature and how African political
groups adopt “ethnic strategies” to advance economic and social objectives, see
Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, 47–59.
84. For a broader discussion of the role of language in creating or resisting
social stratification see Ali Mazrui, Cultural Engineering and Nation-Building
in East Africa (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1972), 94. For a
discussion of how Swahili continuously reinvents itself and resists extinction,
see Lindsay J. Whately, ed., Endangered Languages (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 261–88.
85. See Philip Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in
Atlantic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 17–25. Curtin
suggests that the East African spice islands, specifically Zanzibar, established
plantation economies precisely at a time when the worldwide plantation complex
was in decline. As such they were consigning themselves to disappointment and
conflict.
86. Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution, 71–75.
 V
Inversion

Chapters I–IV argued that analyzing the 1964 revolution as the outgrowth
of ethnic conflict is a risky enterprise. “Racial” cleavage is a misnomer,
which masks a cleavage that is essentially economic, and manifests itself
as a competition between ethno-linguistic groups. Linguistic difference
adds fuel to the fire of economic stratification, which in this case is a
legacy of Arab imperialism and British “protection.” Thus, the most rel-
evant point of contrast between Tanganyika and Zanzibar is the relative
success of political and linguistic integration in Tanganyika as compared
with the relative lack of integration in Zanzibar, a condition that planted
the seeds of discord that sprouted into violent conflict.1
After the revolution, when the ASP revolutionaries drove the Arab
minority from power and off the island, there was the hope that a single
party state led by the Afro-Shirazi Party might help to diminish Zanzibar’s
political and economic cleavages. For a while the ASP elite was able to
suppress the latent tensions that had developed on Pemba as a result of the
policies of President Abeid Karume.
President Karume considered Pemba’s wealthy Shirazi, many of whom
split from the ASP to form their own party, traitors to the revolutionary
ideal of ridding the island of Zanzibar’s ruling-class Arabs. He made a
point of allowing the Wapemba a few representatives in his government,
but then he systematically excluded them from his patronage. Karume
additionally pursued policies that many Wapemba found objectionable.2
Ironically, Karume was quite enamored of the Shirazi of Unguja, who

203
204 Chapter V

had stayed with the ASP and helped lead the revolution. Thus Karume’s
problem with Pemba Shirazi was not so much their ancestry or culture,
and certainly not their “race,” but rather their linguistic and political af-
filiation, and later their aspirations for regional autonomy.
In prerevolutionary Zanzibar the conflict between the Arabs and non-
Arabs concerned land and language and was energized by the efforts of
one powerful group, Arabic-speaking Zanzibaris, who prevented other
groups—namely, non-Arabic speakers—from sharing power. In the post-
revolutionary era the new conflict took the form of competition between
linguistic regions, or in this case islands, and was largely played out be-
tween powerful individuals within the government. In both cases describ-
ing Zanzibar’s political conflicts as racial cleavage is no more useful than
it has been in other conflicts where there are rival groups who derive from
a similarly mixed racial background.3
An argument that focuses on “racial” conflict and excludes economic
and linguistic analysis obscures the true nature of conflict in Zanzibar
and has additionally failed to describe the subtleties of this conflict. In
Zanzibar identity politics is idiosyncratic. There is as much differentiation
within as between groups. Among the Shirazi, some describe themselves
as “African,” while others describe themselves as “Arab” or “Persian.”
Similarly, Bantu populations on Pemba Island sometimes identify them-
selves as Wapemba Shirazi or, if they speak Arabic, Wapemba “Arabs,”
while Shirazi living on Unguja who speak Swahili often called themselves
either Shirazi or Swahili. Swahili persons on Unguja who are not of Shi-
razi origin often referred to themselves as Bantu and Swahili interchange-
ably. Thus, from the twelfth century onward, racial identity in Zanzibar
has been a flexible construct that is more sensitive to linguistic and
economic advantage than to biological or philosophical considerations.
Ultimately, economics trumps identity. Of course, the most obvious ex-
ample of this dynamic took place during Zanzibar’s first three elections
when “rich” Shirazi voted with Arabs and poor Shirazi voted with Bantus
and Swahilis.4
Following the 1963 elections, during the violence of the 1964 revolu-
tion, African revolutionaries left poor Indians alone while they targeted
“wealthy” Indian shopkeepers, whose shops were looted, but whose lives
were spared. By contrast, ASP revolutionaries executed or evacuated all
classes of Arabs, not because of their race per se, but because revolution-
 Inversion 205

aries believed their very existence was a threat to Swahili economic and
linguistic aspirations.5 Thus, while racial identity was always mutating, lin-
guistic differentiation was a constant. In fact, throughout the colonial era,
the complex nature and meager political influence of the Creole Swahili
language was often overwhelmed by the power and wealth associated with
those who spoke colonial languages.
Language rather than race has been, and continues to be, a better in-
dicator of where Ungujans and Wapembans draw their “in-group” and
“out-group” boundaries. This is especially true of the Wapemba Shirazi,
who are highly literate and, while conversant in Swahili, may speak and
write Arabic as a preferred means of communication. In this instance the
ethnic approach cannot describe why the Pemba Shirazi, who are racially
Bantu and culturally Shirazi, speak Arabic and therefore often refer to
themselves as Wapemba “Arabs.” Analysis of African politics by Ali
Mazrui and Francois Bayart takes language into consideration, and sug-
gests that groups such as the Wapemba speak Arabic not because of their
racial affiliation with Arabs but because of their economic aspirations and
cultural connections to Arabs. Ultimately, a model of ethnic identifica-
tion that fails to comprehend the importance of language in constructing
national identity, or illuminating cleavages embedded in regional politics,
will be unable to describe accurately the political realities in many African
countries.6
Taken in isolation, and without proper consideration of how ethnicity
may evolve, theoretical models that posit that ethnicity is static often fail
to describe how major shifts in the political environment can tweak in-
dividual, as well as community, conceptions of ethnic identity and racial
identification. In Zanzibar, a static conception of ethnicity fails to describe
preindependence era conflicts between Arabic-speaking and non-Arabic-
speaking Zanzibaris, as well as the current conflict between residents of
Unguja and Pemba, and the impact these cleavages have had and may
continue to have on mainland Tanzanian politics.
In the current political environment, the fifth phase of Zanzibar’s mod-
ern political development, violence occurs among different linguistic and
economic groups who happen to share a similar mixed racial identity.
More specifically, Zanzibar’s contemporary political problems are the
result of conflict between the Arabic-speaking African residents of Pemba
(the Wapemba) and the Swahili-speaking Africans on Unguja (Ungujans).
206 Chapter V

This development reflects an almost complete inversion of the political

hierarchy that existed before the revolution, a phenomenon peculiar to
twentieth-century African politics, described in the fifth phase of the five-
phase model. In contrast to the five-stage model, which suggests that the
dominant group may accommodate the subordinate group, contemporary
Zanzibari society is an example of role-reversal, a complete inversion of
the political system.
Today, Zanzibari society is a mirror reflection of what it used to be. The
Unguja Swahili now eclipse the heretofore powerful Wapemba. The pur-
pose of this fifth chapter is to focus on the relationship between Wapemba
“Arabs” and the Ungujan Swahili during Zanzibar’s fifth phase of politi-
cal development. This phase marked the decade of the 1990s. I compare
and contrast this analysis with the politics of the 1960s, the era of Africa’s
independence from colonial rule, the fourth of Zanzibar’s five phases.
According to the five-phase model, during the third phase of political
development, the old guard implements a repressive set of policies.7 The
underprivileged group, already provoked by their standing in the social
order, generally finds these policies unacceptable.8
In the fourth phase the underprivileged groups react and, in some in-
stances, reverse the political order. During the fifth phase, the vanguards
of the underprivileged group become the new elite. The political order
that develops in the fifth phase is often a mirror image or inversion of
the one present in the first phase. The powerful group excludes the less
powerful group from economic and political opportunities. During the
Karume regime Unguja’s Swahili begin to pursue policies that limited the
political authority of the previously influential Wapemba.
Though external forces, including Cold War tensions and the cleav-
age between pan-Arab and pan-Africanism, have influenced modern
Zanzibari politics, the dominant cleavage remains an indigenous one. In
both the pre- and postrevolutionary eras, there are remarkable similarities
regarding the economic and linguistic tensions embedded in Zanzibari
society, and reflected in a legacy of distrust and apprehension that typifies
modern African politics.
When Britain and the United States finally recognized Abeid Karume’s
regime, the Revolutionary Council permitted Western diplomats to return
to Zanzibar. In contrast to Western democracies, many prominent Com-
munist states recognized the new Zanzibar government within a few days
 Inversion 207

of the revolution. As in most countries with Islamic populations, Zan-

zibaris generally eschewed communism. However, as a one-party state
with a broad communitarian ideology, Zanzibar’s Revolutionary Council
began an affiliation with several communist states and was the first non-
communist nation to recognize East Germany. East Germany opened an
embassy within a month of the 1964 revolution, and money began flowing
into Zanzibar from East Germany, China, and the Soviet Union.9
Thus the communist, and later the nonaligned, nations became the
greatest supporters of Zanzibar’s new regime. These relationships lent
some credence to the American fear that Zanzibar might be an “African
Cuba.” Throughout the region, Zanzibar’s brutal revolution elicited a range
of emotions—most notably, fear among Arabs and Asians who thought
anti-Asian violence might surface in other East African countries.10 This
fear was heightened when only one day after Okello’s bloodshed, the
governments of Kenya and Uganda—countries with significant Asian
minorities—officially recognized Zanzibar’s Revolutionary Council.
Zanzibar’s wealthy residents, notably its Asian and Arab populations,
enjoyed only a small measure of comfort when the Tanganyikan govern-
ment waited twelve days before it recognized the Revolutionary Council.
Meanwhile, President Nyerere repeatedly condemned the violence of
Okello’s revolutionaries and distanced himself from the bloodshed. By
February, however, Zanzibar and Tanganyika began their march toward
unification.11 In the days following the revolution it was not clear to most
observers whether Okello or Karume would become the de facto leader of
the nation, and whether this two-man contest would lead to further com-
munal violence.
Various regional leaders, especially politicians in Tanganyika, ques-
tioned the stability of Zanzibari political institutions if a military leader
such as John Okello presided over the government. President Nyerere, the
British government, and the CIA were all leery of the residual violence on
Unguja. They feared that the recent arrival of Cuban, Russian, and East
German military personnel would acerbate rather than diffuse conflict.
There was also an abiding fear that Pemba’s conservative “Shirazi” and
“Arab” elements, communities that largely escaped Okello’s rebellion un-
harmed, could launch a counterrevolution that might spread to Unguja.12
On April 26, 1964, President Nyerere and Sheik Abeid Karume con-
cluded the Articles of Union, which established a union between Tanganyika
208 Chapter V

and Zanzibar. The new nation was called Tanzania.13 Given the respective
size and populations of the two countries, the conditions of union were
remarkably unstable or asymmetrical. The interim constitutions of Tanza-
nia, which the mainland parliament drafted in 1965, made the president of
Zanzibar, Abeid Karume, the first vice-president of the United Republic
of Tanzania.14 This arrangement made it possible for the president of Zan-
zibar to dominate politics on the mainland.
The union of Zanzibar and Tanganyika began auspiciously in the spring
of 1964. However, by 1965 latent economic tensions between Zanzibar
and Tanganyika emerged. One of the major grievances between Tangan-
yikans and Zanzibaris was that while Zanzibaris comprised less than 3
percent of the population of Tanzania, they held roughly 20 percent of the
parliamentary seats in the national assembly and had a similar proportion
of representatives in the executive committees.15
By the early 1970s, these tensions, as well as other cleavages, began to
mirror the growing conflict between the Arabic speaking Wapemban and
Swahili Ungujans. From the late 1960s, Zanzibar became more police- and
security-conscious, making public criticism of Karume’s regime nearly
impossible.16 While the notion of people’s courts appeared to be progres-
sive, it was soon apparent that Karume’s “reform” of the colonial court
system was yet another instrument of his expanding police state. By 1965,
Karume had staffed the courts with his political clients, many of whom
had scant legal training. Few of these appointments possessed an interest
in their clients, or jurisprudence, and almost all were political appointees
hand-selected and totally loyal to President Karume.
Karume’s court-appointed political operatives served as the only source
of representation for individuals bringing suit against the state. In actual-
ity, these “lawyers” colluded with the court to protect the state against
incrimination. Karume thought of himself as a populist, but by the last
years of his regime he had grown truly despotic. Zanzibar went from
being a police state under colonialism to a military dictatorship under Af-
rican rule. The Karume regime showed, once and for all, that decimating
the Arab population and chasing most of the elite Indians off the island
did not help create the society where healthy institutions could thrive.
Furthermore, the revolution as institutionalized by the Karume regime
failed to resolve Zanzibar’s persistent economic and linguistic cleavages,
 Inversion 209

and, in the case of Pemba, actually awakened political faultlines that had
remained dormant for several generations.
In 1964 conflict between Wapembans and Ungujans led to the creation
of two separate parties—the ZPPP and the ASP. When Zanzibar and Tan-
ganyika unified, Karume banned the ZPPP and all parties other than the
ASP. Karume used executive fiat, ordering the Umma, one of Zanzibar’s
smallest political organizations, to fold themselves into the ASP, thereby
augmenting and radicalizing his political party and further alienating Shi-
razi moderates on both islands.
Karume’s approach stands in stark contrast to Nyerere’s gradual promo-
tion of TANU as Tanganyika’s lone political party. Furthermore, TANU
gained authority long before independence and well before it became the
state’s sole political organization. In Tanganyika’s early elections TANU
became the preindependence favorite, carrying all but one of the seventy-
one seats in the legislative council. Thus, in Tanganyika, the emergence of
a one-party state was an organic process, while in Zanzibar it was largely
the result of political manipulation by one man and his clients. Karume
and his supporters categorically co-opted or suppressed their opposition.
The one-party system, at least in Zanzibar, grew totally unstable.
In 1964 and again in 1965, members of TANU’s national executive
committee tried to negotiate a merger of TANU and the ASP. Negotia-
tions failed largely because Karume’s ASP was reluctant to submerge its
interests to those of the more socially liberal/economically progressive
TANU. That the two parties did not merge, and that both Tanganyika
and Zanzibar refused to develop a multiparty system, was a political fail-
ure, akin to their failure to create a single unified constitution. It was yet
another obstacle to the two nations ever achieving true and meaningful
political integration.
In 1977, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi, the CCM, became the sole party
of both Zanzibar and Tanzania until 1992. During the years of 1977–1984
President Nyerere, with much obstruction from Abeid Karume, sought to
truly integrate the leadership of the ASP and that of TANU. When the
CCM and the ASP united, Karume continued his system of Swahili pa-
tronage and continued to exclude Indians and Arabic-speaking Zanzibaris.
Under the rule of President Karume, the CCM became a bastion of old
guard ASP clientelism. By the 1980s CCM had developed a “tendency to
210 Chapter V

reward its officials financially to develop local bailiwicks of semi-autono-

mous party-strength.”17
As part of an attempt to reach those alienated by Karume’s rule, Nyer-
ere tried to establish reconciliation with the Arabic-speaking Wapembans.
Nyerere convinced the “Swahili” politicos in the Zanzibar wing of the
CCM to appoint Seif Sharif Hamad, an Arabic-speaking Wapemba, as
chief minister in 1984.18 In 1985, Nyerere retired as president of Tanzania;
Ali Hassan Mwinyi, who succeeded Karume as president of Zanzibar and
vice-president of Tanzania, inherited the Tanganyikan presidency. As a
result, Chief Minister Hamad should have been in line and was poised for
the presidency of Zanzibar and the vice-presidency of Tanganyika.19 This
possibility alarmed the ASP’s Swahili vanguard.
Twenty years after the revolution against the conservative Arab forces
on Unguja and Pemba, it looked as if a “Wapemba Arab” might become
the leader of the Afro-Shirazi Party. In fact, it appeared to ASP’s Swahili
leadership that if Pemba’s “Arabic-speaking” Shirazi assumed power,
they could reverse all the hard-won “gains” made by Okello and Karume.
From the mid-1980s the prospect of Hamad’s presidency and the pos-
sibility of revitalized “Arab” rule created a highly charged atmosphere
among Zanzibar’s CCM politicos. CCM’s strong-arm politics further
exacerbated the twenty years of strained relations between Ungujans and
Wapembans.
The Zanzibari members of the CCM demanded that Hamad be pre-
vented from running for Zanzibari presidency. Hamad was allowed to
maintain his position as chief minister. The presidency of Zanzibar went
to Idriss Wakil, an ASP Bantu/Swahili. Hamad and the CCM seemed to
have made peace with each other, and then in May 1988 the CCM dis-
missed Hamad from his position as chief minister. His CCM colleagues
accused Hamad of plotting a coup d’etat, expelled him from the party,
and had him arrested. In 1992, Hamad formed the Civic United Front, the
CUF, which many Swahili considered to be the political heir to the ZNP
and the ZPPP.20
The CUF was popular among Pemba’s residents, as well as many Unguja
Shirazi, whom scholars often describe as “an Arabic-speaking people” of
Shirazi origin. According to the laws of the state, it was technically illegal
for any party other than the CCM to exist on the mainland or in Zanzibar.
Chief Minister Hamad’s expulsion from the CCM gave the CUF an aura
 Inversion 211

of legitimacy. The perceived disenfranchisement of the Wapemba made

the Civic United Front a popular force capable both of swaying public
opinion and challenging the Chama Cha Mapunduzi.21 Between the years
1992–1995, the CUF grew in popularity and in membership. Meanwhile,
in 1995, Tanzania’s government proposed that Zanzibar should sponsor
multiparty elections. Despite the promise of “free and fair elections” and
new efforts to promote inclusive participatory governance, “zero-sum/win-
ner take all” politics prevailed, much as it had thirty years earlier.
According to various news and political accounts, the rumors that there
was fraud in the 1995 presidential elections rekindled some of the same
political tensions that emerged in the 1960s. Meanwhile, communal vio-
lence in Africa writ large, especially the protracted conflicts in Sudan and
Rwanda, as well as the collapse of the Somali state, served as an effective
warning against apathy among the international political community. The
notion that the 1995 and 2000 elections should in some way recall the
1963 elections is one of the main reasons the international community
became concerned with politics in Zanzibar. After the 1995 elections the
Organization of African Unity, the OAU, offered to mediate a settlement
between the CUF and CCM. When this did not help, the British Com-
monwealth Secretariat became involved.
In the midst of their electoral chaos and despite the increasing fractious
nature of both Zanzibari and Tanzanian politics, Nyerere persisted in
his effort to foster reconciliation and integration. In 1996 the Tanzanian
government created the Tanzania Peoples’ Defense Force, and Nyerere
gave Zanzibaris a significant number of positions in each of the various
units. The TPDF failed because the two governments planned few, if any,
joint military exercises and ultimately very few Zanzibar military officials
were posted to the mainland. In this effort, as with others, Nyerere tried
to reduce the corruption and remove the stigma of violence associated
with Zanzibar’s military and judicial organizations, which Karume had
fostered during his tenure as president.
The atmosphere of the 1995 elections was, in many respects, similar to
the political environment that characterized elections during Zanzibar’s in-
dependence era. More specifically, Amnesty International observed that

[the] campaign [in Zanzibar] leading to the election was conducted in an at-
mosphere of intimidation with denial of the rights of assembly and freedom
212 Chapter V

of expression . . . biased reporting by radio and T.V. [and the prevention of

some citizens] from exercising their legal right to register to vote and make
an informed statement.22

Consistent with fifth-phase inversion, the power equation in Zanzibari poli-

tics favored the African politicians of Unguja’s CCM and impaired Arabic-
speaking old guard Wapembans and their new organization, the CUF.
Even before ballot workers counted all the votes, constituents of the
defeated CUF demanded a recount of those already tallied.23 Upon tally-
ing the recount, members of the election board discovered that Seif Sharif
Hamad, founder and chairman of the CUF, won the election by a very
small margin. Once again, ASP’s elite feared the revolution might be in
jeopardy. The leaders of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi feared that a CUF
victory could permanently challenge their political authority.24 Zanzibaris
in the CCM believed that if the CUF prevailed it would restore Arabic
economic, linguistic, and political authority over Zanzibar’s Africans.
Thus, by October both the Wapemba CUF and the Swahili CCM pointed
an accusing finger at each other. They both complained to the Zanzibar
Electoral Commission, the ZEC, that the election had not been “free and
fair.” The international media also suggested that the initial tallying of
votes had been “rigged.”25
Indeed, the manner in which votes were tallied shifted majority sup-
port from Seif Sharif Hamad of the CUF to Salim Amour of the CCM
and made it possible for the ZEC to record more votes than were actu-
ally listed on the voting register. In one district, the number of votes was
inflated by 25 percent, in another by 50 percent. Having sanctioned a
ballot count giving Salim Amour 165,271 votes and the election, an inter-
national observer group criticized the ZEC, arguing that the race was too
close to call and Amour’s victory might be the result of statistical error.26
Another election irregularity was evident in at least one district where
votes were made on the straight ballot or “common-roll” system—there
was a discrepancy between the percentage and party votes.27 International
observers argued that the insecurity of ballot boxes, stored in the open in
front of polling stations, was a source of concern.
Injured CUF loyalists experienced this final insult on the same day the
ZEC announced official election results, and Salim Amour of the CCM
was sworn in as the president of Zanzibar. Seif Sharif Hamad insisted that
 Inversion 213

the CCM admit that the ZEC had erred and that President Amour transfer
the victory to him. In a blustery response, Amour refused to recognize the
real and increasingly intense anger of CUF loyalists. Even more hostile
than Amour’s rhetoric were the threats made by the CCM to violently “put
down” the CUF opposition.28
When the CUF contested the results of the 1995 election after its
narrow loss, the CCM responded by attacking Hamad, arguing, rather
vaguely, that the CUF challenge represented an abuse of the “principles”
to which democracies should aspire.29 The impasse continued and wors-
ened and CCM suspended CUF parliamentary members’ pay. Reports
by Amnesty International and the U.S. Department of State suggested
that CUF members and Wapembans sustained various injuries, including
those rising to violations of their human rights. There were even reports of
“ethnic cleansing.”30 As in the past, the Western media described the con-
flict in terms of ethnicity, which was not especially illuminating, because
there was a sizable portion of Unguja Shirazi who remained loyal to the
CCM. In contemporary Zanzibar, as in the preindependence protectorate,
the main societal cleavage was based on economic, regional, and linguis-
tic differences.
From the beginning of Omani rule through the colonial era, the role
of economic and political patronage, especially among “Arabs,” was the
principal method of political organization. This was especially true on
Pemba Island, where Arabic-speaking Shirazi elites played an important
role in the economic life and the political culture. On the surface, political
and social development on Pemba and Unguja were similar. However, an
analysis of Arab economic patronage suggests a vast difference between
the two. Whereas Arab Ungujans used Shirazi and Swahilis to sustain
their plantations on Unguja, Pemba Arabs used local Shirazi free laborers.
Pemba Arabs compensated free labor with small plots of land where they
could produce crops for subsistence and sale.31
Thus, while Arabs controlled politics on Pemba, just as they did on Un-
guja, Pemba’s land-owning Shirazi populations played an important role
in the economic life of the minor island. Meanwhile, their counterparts
on Unguja were alienated from their land and therefore rendered almost
completely powerless. As a result, the Arabs and the Shirazi of Pemba
had a less adversarial relationship than their counterparts on Unguja. The
Shirazi on Unguja, historically, never owned land. Most were squatters
214 Chapter V

whose crops were taxed by the sultan. Once the British established their
protectorate, the colonial government dramatically reduced squatters’ land
use and inheritance rights on Unguja. By contrast, the British, who were
not interested in making Pemba a colonial plantation, allowed the Arabs to
maintain their squatting arrangements with Pemba Shirazi. Furthermore,
due to the sheer proximity of many Arab and Shirazi neighborhoods on
Pemba, many “Arab” plantation owners were kinder and more sensitive to
their poorer “Shirazi” neighbors on Pemba than Arabs on Unguja.
While Wapemba’s Shirazi and its Arabs were considered to be racially
distinct by most observers, it is clear that their economic and patronage
ties drew them closer together, making the borders between these two
groups more permeable than classical “race” analysis would allow. Before
independence, when Wapemba Shirazi claimed they had more in common
with Ungujan Arabs than Ungujan Shirazi, many Swahili viewed these
statements as eccentricity. Given what is known about the economic life
of the two islands, the coalition between the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s
Party (ZPPP) and the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) seems to have
been a fairly rational political act. However, a model that relies solely
on ethnic analysis rooted in racial difference cannot explain this devel-
opment, nor can it explain why African nationalism captured Ungujan
imagination, while “Arab” identity resonated with many Wapembans.
In the 1950s, as African nationalism grew more popular on Unguja, and
British protection was drawing to a close, the Afro-Shirazi Party began
viewing the Arabic-speaking Wapemba ZPPP/Arab ZNP coalition as a
potential threat. When the 1964 revolution occurred the ASP outlawed
the ZPPP. The ASP revolutionaries spared the lives of most ZPPP con-
stituents. The remaining Wapemba “Arabs” were able to contemplate a
slow but steady political revival, beginning after Karume’s assassination
in 1972, and culminating with the formation of the CUF in the 1990s.32
The reemergence of Pemba’s Shirazi interests in the form of the
Wapemba CUF caused alarm in the ranks of Unguja’s CCM. The legacy
of Arab and Wapemba Shirazi harassment under Okello and then Karume,
as well as Zanzibar’s cycle of conquest and retribution, suggested that a
reversal of African power was imminent. The return to electoral conflict
in the 1995 election recalls 1964 in some very obvious ways. Namely,
in 1995 as in 1964, the dominant political group used state repression to
squelch dissidents. As in the first half of the twentieth century, the 1995
 Inversion 215

and 2000 elections indicate that economic, linguistic, and party cleavages
spawned much of the conflict in Zanzibar. The “race” of these Africans
is a less informative unit of analysis than the degree to which groups are
able to access the state, and distribute power and wealth to those in their
linguistic and patronage groups.
Throughout the 1990s, public demonstrations for and against the
CCM and the CUF required that the Zanzibari government make ever-
growing security expenditures. Ultimately, the CCM government used
public safety as a reason to detain many CUF supporters as well as jour-
nalists. As the Wapemba CUF continued its protest of the elections, it
began to draw support from a fervent fundamentalist minority that wanted
to introduce sharia law in Zanzibar. This development drew international
attention. In August 1998 the CUF General Assembly finally accepted
Commonwealth Secretariat proposals to resolve the conflict between the
Wapemba CUF and the Unguja CCM.
Salmin Amour’s regime, and to a greater extent the Karume govern-
ment, typified some of the worst tendencies found in corporatist econo-
mies combined with authoritarianism often seen in one-party political
systems popular in postcolonial Africa. During the reign of Zanzibar’s
first president, Abeid Karume, the residents of Wapemba felt they had
been categorically excluded from political and economic development.
After Karume’s assassination, President Jumbte tried to smooth over bad
feelings by appointing a Wapemban to the position of minister of educa-
tion. As such, Minister Seif Shariff Hamad rose through the ranks of the
Chama Cha Mapunduzi. By 1985, Hamad was the senior politician in the
CCM, one of the lone Wapembans in the higher echelons of the party, and
seemed to be a shoo-in for the presidential nomination.33
However, by the mid-1980s, the Zanzibar branch of the CCM had
divided into two warring factions. There were those who supported the
extensive land nationalization policies of the revolution, and believed
Swahili-speaking Zanzibaris living on Unguja should dominate the po-
litical system. They were leery of Hamad’s growing power, and many
participated in the 1963 struggle, so they dubbed themselves “liberators.”
The other group, called the “front-liners,” believed the government should
modify the land nationalization policies and Wapembans should play a
larger role in the island’s politics. The leading “front-liner” was none
other than Minister Seif Shariff Hamad.34
216 Chapter V

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Zanzibar branch of the CCM
tore itself away from its TANU moorings and began to cultivate its local
identity, defining itself as heir of the ASP, a defender of the revolution
and champion of Ungujan “Swahilis.” When the CCM ignored Hamad’s
bid for CCM candidacy and he was passed over for a Swahili from Un-
guja, his Wapemba constituents felt betrayed. Hamad and his supporters
formed the CUF, which over the next few years created a broad Wapemba
constituency, including those who favored Wapemban autonomy. By
1995, the CUF was the principal challenger of Unguja’s CCM.
That year, Salmin Amour, having risen to the rank of CCM presidential
candidate, was the hope of the Ungujans, especially those who wanted
to continue to dominate the political system. There was also those old
guard “liberators” who wanted to sideline Wapemban activism, and the
“front-liners,” Hamad in particular. In the years leading up to the 1995
election, Amour and his supporters developed a political machine for
the sole purpose of suppressing the CUF and winning the 1995 election.
While the Karume regime sought consolidation of Bantu-Swahili power
over the state, the Amour regime represented Ungujan efforts to preserve
their political hegemony.35
During the early 1990s Salmin Amour, and his colleagues in the CCM,
arrested eighteen CUF leaders and began using police and judicial au-
thority to curtail CUF political functions and harass opposition leaders.36
Despite all the machinations of the pro-Amour CCM old guard, the fac-
tion known as “the liberators,” the 1995 race was very close. The CCM
garnered 50.2 percent of the vote and the CUF came in a close second
with 48.6 percent. The CUF claimed there had been electoral irregulari-
ties, disputed the outcome of the election, and initiated a protracted politi-
cal standoff.
Ultimately, the CUF recognized the Amour government, ending its
boycott of Zanzibar’s parliament. Ironically, following Hamad’s effort at
reconciliation, President Amour began to procrastinate and refused to sign
the formal reconciliation document with the CUF.37 What followed in the
next few years can only be described as a campaign of harassment aimed
at Hamad and his sympathizers. By 1998, the campaign escalated and
in July Amour called Hamad in for police questioning and threatened to
impose police charges.38 By painting Hamad as a violent and malevolent
political instigator, and ultimately having him arrested, Amour was able
 Inversion 217

to abort the political reconciliation and begin another series of repressive

measures against the CUF.
More centrist members of the CCM, alarmed at Amour’s behavior,
began meeting in private in an effort to consider how to induce Amour to
make peace with Hamad and how to compel him to sign the Common-
wealth’s Agreement Memorandum. Amour was aware of the growing rift
within his party between his supporters and those who wanted to support
another CCM candidate, anyone other than Amour or Hamad, for presi-
dent. Aware of his own party’s growing dissatisfaction with his leader-
ship, President Amour began his 2000 election campaign by trying to take
the focus off himself, making speeches criticizing the Commonwealth’s
Secretariat mediation efforts and attacking the CUF.39
Tanzania’s President Mkapa supported Amour’s efforts against the
CUF, often at the expense of his own standing as an impartial third party.
Mkapa was in a difficult political situation, and, as a result, in several
instances his analysis of electoral politics in Zanzibar appeared contradic-
tory. On one occasion, President Mkapa suggested that despite the fact
that, as of 1995, Zanzibar was officially a multiparty state, he claimed
the sole right to govern Zanzibar would always reside with the CCM, the
so-called rightful heir of the ASP. Paradoxically, at the same time that
CCM officials in Tanzania were throwing their weight behind Amour,
they were in constant communication with London in the hopes that the
government there would renew Commonwealth negotiation efforts. Be-
fore the Commonwealth Secretariat could renew negotiations, however,
the CCM began altering the terms of peace, extracting concessions from
the memorandum the CUF demanded and that, in past years, the CCM
claimed it would honor.40
The new agreement memorandum “weakened, postponed, omitted or
rendered discretionary” provisions concerning the procedure for elec-
tions.41 The original provisions allowed the CUF to expect and hope for
two outcomes (1) a reconstituted Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC)
and (2) that future elections would be transparent and based on a credible
registration and tallying of voters. The Zanzibari government omitted the
line in the initial draft that provided for CUF consultation on the appoint-
ments to the ZEC in the final memorandum, making the ZEC organization
staffed largely by CCM supporters. This act rendered the second conces-
sion that elections be “transparent” and “credible” difficult to guarantee.
218 Chapter V

In the second draft, vague terms such as “good-faith” efforts to include

the CUF in consultation replaced “guarantees” found in the first draft of
the Agreement Memorandum. Though individual members of the CUF
may have been skeptical of the new agreement, the CUF seemed willing
to enter the 2000 electoral campaign with the belief that the CCM domi-
nated the government and the ZEC could conduct free and fair elections
that October. The two weeks preceding the October 29, 2000, election
began with scuffles between CUF supporters and the police.42 The Zanzi-
bari electorate had to choose between Amani Abeid Karume, the son of
Zanzibar’s first president, and CUF candidate Seif Hamad, the long-suf-
fering CUF cofounder and presidential candidate.
The tensions of the two-week period before election included a police
shooting of eight CUF supporters. However, by election day, the violence
subsided. CUF accusations that the CCM registered ineligible youth and
aliens to vote in the upcoming election persisted. On October 31, the defeated
CUF began an informal boycotting of elections claiming that voting proce-
dures had been chaotic, and, more specifically, that voting stations in regions
loyal to the CUF opened late, and that CUF ballots went missing. Ultimately
the CUF demanded a new election. The Commonwealth Observer Group
agreed that the election was in a “shambles” and should be held again.43
The result of the 2000 election was that the CCM held a majority of
votes in both Tanzania as well as Zanzibar’s parliamentary houses.44
President Benjamin Mkapa was unwilling to respond to CUF’s demand
that the government hold new elections. On November 20, the CUF began
a formal boycott of both Amani A. Karume’s victory on the island and
Mkapa’s reelection on the mainland. As a result, of the contested elec-
tions, conflict between the Wampemba CUF and the Unguja CCM contin-
ued and grew deeper. On January 24, 2001, the CUF chairman Professor
Lipumba called a small peaceful rally in Dar-es-Salaam to protest the
outcome of the election. CCM loyalists attacked him and his supporters.
Three days later, on January 27, the day the CUF chose for a “peaceful”
mass rally on Zanzibar Island, two CUF supporters were killed. On Pemba
the violence escalated. Twenty-three civilians also lost their lives, one po-
liceman was killed, and several hundred civilians were wounded. Several
hundred CUF Wapembans fled to Kenya.45
The CCM/CUF stalemate was resolved, at least rhetorically, on Oc-
tober 10, 2001, when the CCM and the CUF signed the Muafaka II.46
 Inversion 219

Among the important conditions of the agreement was the confirmation

of Muafaka I, the formation of a Joint Presidential Supervisory Com-
mission (JPSC) agreement, and review of appointed officials involved in
elections. Muafaka II also established a Commission of Inquiry into the
disturbances of the 2001 election.47
Following the second Muafaka agreement moderates in the CUF and
the CCM began to develop a cordial working relationship on the JPSC.
A few new grassroots political organizations emerged and began to work
toward preserving the union between Zanzibar and the mainland while
trying to make the political environment more receptive to a diverse mul-
tiparty electorate.48 The commitment of the rival political parties to Mua-
faka II, and the involvement of the international community between the
2001 and 2003 elections were an auspicious turn of events for Zanzibar.
In the first instance, there has been a genuine effort by Unguja moderates
in the CCM to cede some of their political turf and accommodate the
largely Wapemba CUF. As the mainland Tanzanian government became
more involved in helping Zanzibaris fulfill the spirit of the Muafaka ac-
cords the situation continued to improve.49 The 2003 elections were by
various accounts successful.50 The election of Karume’s son, who seems
to be a progressive and had been especially sensitive to Wapemba inter-
ests, was a further inducement toward reconciliation between Zanzibar’s
CUF and the CCM.
Some deep and fundamental tensions still exist in Zanzibar, and many
of these disagreements reflect a faultline between the residents of Pemba
and those of Unguja. Many Wapembans still feel that the union with Tan-
zania, a gentlemen’s agreement between Abeid Karume/ASP and Julius
Nyerere/TANU, was not in Pemba’s best interest.51 Further, despite evi-
dence to the contrary, many Wapembans share an unnamed fear that the
younger Karume may, in times of political or economic insecurity, repeat
some of his father’s despotic practices. There are lasting recriminations
on both sides about the 1964 revolution. Owing to the land nationalization
policies of Abeid Karume following the 1964 revolution, the Shirazi of
Unguja enjoyed more wealth than they had in over fifty years, and they
became loyal CCM supporters. The land reorganization policies became a
source of controversy, however, when Pemba Shirazi were asked to cede
some of their land to the government to make redistribution possible. Fur-
thermore, Karume’s policy of excluding Wapemba Shirazi from political
220 Chapter V

participation created lasting cleavage between all Wapemban and Ungu-

jans, but most especially between Shirazi of the respective islands.
However, as of the late 1990s, Zanzibar’s establishment of a multiparty
state and the subsequent efforts to foster reconciliation after the violence
of the 2001 elections have allowed Zanzibaris to enjoy at least a small
measure of national harmony. The 2003 elections, like the 1963 elections,
were a critical moment in Zanzibar’s political evolution. Had the 2003
elections been the subject of controversy or, indeed, had they produced
violence, as was the case in the 2001 elections, the situation in Zanzibar
would have definitely gotten worse and may have even threatened the
political and economic security of Tanzania.52 Currently, President Am-
ani Karume, Abeid Karume’s son, has made conspicuous efforts to stem
island corruption and create other forms of economic opportunity, includ-
ing establishing tourist and fishing industries in Zanzibar. As of the 2003
elections, President Amani Karume’s efforts appear to have brought some
measure of economic opportunity to a greater number of Zanzibaris than
in any era during or since British rule. Regional and international analyses
of Zanzibar’s political cleavages have moved away from concentrating on
the politics of “race” toward a nuanced exploration of Amani Karume’s
efforts to expand economic opportunities for both Wapembans and Ungu-
jans. However, cleavages between the Wapemba supporters of the CUF
and Ungujan supporters of the CCM continue. These cleavages emerged
primarily due to ASP postrevolutionary land redistribution policies that
favored Swahili Ungujans, but alienated Shirazi Wapembans.
At this moment in history, during Zanzibar’s fifth phase of political
development, there are still economic disparities among Zanzibaris, and
these disparities continue to fuel conflict. Wapemba supporters of the
CUF argue that Amani Karume’s economic promises remain rarely un-
fulfilled. As of 2005, Wapemba CUF supporters also maintain that they
remain underrepresented in government appointments and are denied op-
portunities to fully participate in clove exportation.53 During the October
2005 election these issues brought CUF and CCM supporters into the
streets and into violent conflict with one another.54 The official results of
the 2005 election suggest that the incumbent, Amani Karume, retained 53
percent of the vote. Seif Sharif Hamad, the founder of the CUF, gained
46 percent of the vote, but lost the election.55 In the days after the elec-
tion, the CUF claimed that the CCM stole votes. However, many Western
 Inversion 221

diplomats, fearing regional implications of a CUF victory, endorsed the

election.56 There is a growing fear that if the CCM is unable to make good
on its promise to expand economic opportunity, or if it continues to use
authoritarian measures against the CUF, Zanzibar’s communal conflicts
will deepen and expand, and may eventually cause instability on the main-
land. As the 2010 elections approach, there is continued distrust between
supporters of the CUF and CCM. It may once again fall to Amani Karume
to keep the peace and to ensure that these elections are free and fair. The
international community expects it and the CCM will demand it.
During this fifth phase of political development, there are still eco-
nomic disparities between Zanzibaris, but there is recognition that these
are the legacy of bygone eras. In fact, regional and international analysis
of Zanzibar’s social difficulties has moved away from blame associated
with the politics of identity and more toward a nuanced exploration of
Amin Karume’s efforts to expand economic opportunities for Shirazi
Wapembans as well as Swahili and Shirazi Ungujans.57

CONCLUSION

The five-phase study of the 1964 revolution in Zanzibar shows that the poli-
cies of the British government created and sustained intergroup cleavages
that were both quite transparent and very much consistent with the three-
site formulation. The colonial government created classes then it designed
policies that would disarticulate and frustrate the working class. Ultimately,
this policy elicited a response that is consistent with the framework of the
three-site model. However, in addition to working-class resistance to class
disarticulation, some members of Zanzibar’s subordinate groups chose not
to resist. They chose instead to “pass” into Zanzibar’s ruling minority.
I have argued, and continue to argue, that because of its highly varie-
gated and heterogeneous population, “passing” in Zanzibar refers not to
racial pretense, but rather to the ability of individuals to master the domi-
nant colonial languages—Arabic and English. In Zanzibar, passing refers
to gaining access and membership in the dominant economic group rather
than the dominant racial group, as race in East Africa is a very ambiguous
classification. I contrast racial passing in pre–Civil War America and in
South Africa. In the latter instance, the majority population was so large
222 Chapter V

and migratory, and the land so vast, that documenting the offspring of
mixed unions was nearly an impossible task. Thus, mixed-race individu-
als who appeared white and who spoke English (as opposed to Afrikaans)
could “pass for white” no matter how much African blood they pos-
sessed.58 There was no “one-drop” rule, as there was in southern United
States; rather white South Africans developed an ad-hoc committee system
to determine the race of mixed-race individuals, based on language.59
In instances where the racial origin of an individual or several persons
of mixed ancestry was in dispute, the South African government appointed
an ad-hoc committee to resolve the matter.60 The committee decided on a
case-by-case basis if the person was white, mixed-race colored, or black.
If a colored person could speak English well and could convince the com-
mittee he could pass for white, then his economic and social status could
immediately improve.61 In South Africa the ability of a colored person to
pass for white was based on two factors: his or her physical characteris-
tics, and ability to master the dominant English language. Thus, in South
Africa, many mixed-race coloreds were able to pass for white based on
their linguistic ability. In heterogeneous Zanzibar, where practically ev-
eryone was mixed-race, linguistic passing was one of the most important
features, if not the most important, in social advancement. Thus, when I
speak of passing in the context of mixed-race Zanzibar, I speak of lin-
guistic passing.
In this instance the five-stage model is a useful tool of analysis because
it examines subordinate group behavior that falls short of resistance.
More specifically, the five-stage model addresses as a manifestation of
disarticulation the phenomenon of passing, which in most contexts refers
to individuals of the subordinate race who possess the exogenous physiol-
ogy of the dominant group. In most cases, individuals who are “passing”
pretend to be members of the dominant race to gain social advancement.
As a plantation economy stratified according to land wealth, occupa-
tion, and linguistic identity, Zanzibar’s society was closed to members
of different linguistic groups rather than to races. As such, many Pemba
Shirazi, especially those who spoke Arabic, withdrew from their affilia-
tion with their Shirazi counterparts on Unguja. They quit the Afro-Shi-
razi Party to align themselves with the Arab Zanzibar Nationalist Party,
with whom they believed they shared similar political and economic
aspirations. While the five-stage model explicitly addresses the specific
 Inversion 223

manifestations of passing as a form of disarticulation, it does not address

the matter of large-scale “passing.” In the case of Zanzibar, an entire
subordinate group separated themselves from “poorer” members of their
communal group.
Wealthy Wapemba Shirazi aligned themselves with the island’s most
powerful group, Unguja’s planting aristocracy, a group with whom they
shared the ability to speak Arabic. This alliance was economic, and con-
stituted linguistic rather than racial “passing.” Indeed, the British used the
notion of racial stratification to distract Zanzibar’s subordinate economic
groups from contending with Arabic-speaking planters for access to state
resources. Furthermore, British colonial authorities blocked similarly situ-
ated laboring classes from forming associations to advance their mutual
goal of social advancement in Zanzibar’s closed political system. This
effort delayed colonial independence, which advanced Britain’s economic
interests.
In Zanzibar, the dynamic of passing was at its most interesting con-
figuration as a group phenomenon rather than an individual effort. The
whole-scale “passing” of Pemba’s Shirazi in the 1950s and 1960s has per-
manently influenced the dynamics of group politics in Zanzibar. Since the
five-stage model is not constructed to address group passing, or complete
reversals in the political system, I developed the five-phase model.
I began modifying the five-stage model in the first chapters of this book,
drawing from Fatton’s three-site model, as well as Mazrui and Bayart’s
analysis of the impact of the colonial state on African cultural identity.
These adaptations made the analysis of Zanzibar both more specific and
more accurate, and led to the development of what I call the five-phase
model. The five-phase model has been useful because it has been able
to examine processes that can be both visible and invisible. More spe-
cifically, the five-phase model explains why groups in colonial Zanzibar
negotiated a new identity but were rarely able to permanently enter into a
higher economic class. The five-phase model also helped shed light on the
nature of East Africa’s latent struggles, which for many years were largely
invisible to most political observers. These included intergroup and intra-
group struggles between Zanzibar’s Arab and Indian communities, as well
as within the Shirazi and the Swahili communities.
Each phase of the five-phase model is a dialectic, a push by the domi-
nant group and a reaction by a subordinate group. These interactions
224 Chapter V

ultimately produced the next phase of political development. In each new

phase, conflict in Zanzibar remained latent but became compounded.
Ultimately, these dormant tensions intensified until they manifested them-
selves as violent conflict. Fatton’s three sites, the five-stage model, and
the five-phase model all anticipate these phenomena.62 Fatton’s three-site
model is an essential starting point in the analysis of Zanzibar’s political
history because it locates social conflict and class cleavage. The five-
stage model complements the three-site model because it provides a basic
framework for the timing of these conflicts.
The three-site and five-stage models analyze the conditions for com-
munal conflict, while the five-phase model attempts to forecast where
these conflicts might lead. Whereas the five-stage model is appropriate
for analyzing social conflicts in fairly stable democracies, where change
is usually incremental and dominant groups retain most of their power,
the five-phase model may be more useful where the disadvantaged group
may create a complete reversal of the social order—either peacefully,
as in the case of South Africa, or violently, as in the case of Zanzibar or
Zimbabwe. In contrast to the five-stage model, the five-phase model is
explicitly designed to predict outcomes in volatile political environments,
where regime change may be unstable, could be accompanied by armed
conflict and may, in certain instances, lead to a complete inversion in the
political system.
In many instances, previous analysis of the Zanzibar revolution has ex-
amined the problem solely through the lens of biology, and, more specifi-
cally, colonial constructions of racial identity. In fact, scholars have often
defined the conflict in Zanzibar as a struggle between two “racial” groups
categorically identified as the “Arabs” and the “Africans.” That approach
has given little consideration to the fact that these groups often define
their differences as ethnic or linguistic rather than racial. It is therefore
unable to examine how group identities are mutable, often changing, con-
verging, or diverging, as in the case of the Shirazi of Pemba and Unguja.
In Zanzibar the contest over state resources, along with an indigenous
tendency to change one’s ethnic affiliation, developed into a rivalry that
recalls Francis Deng’s research on strife in Sudan. Deng dubbed this
conflict “the contest over national identity.” The three-site, five-stage,
and five-phase models will become valuable sources of analysis as inter-
national conflict moves from struggle between or among linguistic groups
 Inversion 225

to contests within groups having similar “racial” backgrounds but who

may differentiate themselves by divergent linguistic identities or political
orientations. These three models will be invaluable because they are able
to analyze resource conflict within the state among groups who may share
the same racial, and even ethnic backgrounds, but have different linguistic
orientations, as in the case of Belgium, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, or
Zanzibar.
In Zanzibar, racial ambivalence forced linguistic identity to play the
dominant role in establishing cultural allegiance and fostering intra- and
intergroup rivalries. Yet, despite this fact, much of the literature on the
1964 conflict has given only casual treatment of Zanzibar’s contesting
languages and its rival linguistic groups. By contrast, the contest between
languages and the emergence of Swahili as Zanzibar’s dominant national
language is a discussion that is central to the five-phase model and goes a
long way toward explaining the emergence of postcolonial cultural identi-
ties in East African countries other than Zanzibar.
Like the three-site model and the five-stage model, the five-phase
model avoids conflating race with ethnicity. Each of the models deals
with ruling-class formation and subordinate-class disarticulation. How-
ever, the five-stage model rests on three assumptions that are not particu-
larly relevant to the situation in Zanzibar: that the society and economy
are fairly stable, that the political system relies on strong institutions
rather than strong men, and, therefore, that the system prefers incremental
over radical change. The three-site model does not rest on these assump-
tions. Rather, it describes change in a closed society that may or may not
have well developed political institutions. It advances the notion of dis-
articulation and then class resistance. The big questions that the third site
inspires and that a fourth or fifth phase of the five-phase model seeks to
address are whether subordinate class resistance will lead to change and
what the nature of that change will be. The three-site model provides the
framework for disarticulation and class-based group resistance, while the
five-stage model suggests that the reactions to this phenomenon may take
the form of either group resistance or individual racial passing.
By contrast, the five-phase model specifically offers the possibility of
group passing based on an exogenous trait other than race, i.e., the domi-
nant group language. Further, the five-phase model uniquely addresses
reversals of power, as well as the phenomenon of individuals who could
226 Chapter V

pass but choose not to assimilate. The five-phase model is especially rel-
evant to countries in Africa where there have been complete inversions of
the political systems, where language has been at the center of the struggle
between dominant and subordinate groups, and where subordinate groups
were led by an elite who could have chosen to “pass” into the ruling class
or state bureaucracy, but did not.
In countries where individual and group identity are in flux, as is the
case in various regions of Africa, intergroup relations are additionally
fraught with several latent tensions, and there is often a perennial contest
over the state and its resources. The three-site and five-phase models
make it possible for social scientists to study regime change in particularly
complex societies in order to analyze political processes more carefully
and gauge when, why, and how these tensions may become violent. The
five-stage model argues that subordinate groups make a rational decision
when they seek radical change in closed systems, while the five-phase
model suggests that radical action may not make the political system
stable. This is especially true in societies such as Zanzibar with weak
political institutions or where group identities are fluid. Consequently
the five-phase model was specifically designed to describe the situation
in Zanzibar. Each of the five phases addresses the complex anomalies
of British Imperialism and their impact on the character of Zanzibar’s
plantation economy, and on the politics of national identity. Scholars
interested in the study of monoculture economies may benefit from ex-
amining the five-phase history of Zanzibar. Ultimately, the fifth phase of
Zanzibar’s modern political history indicates the importance of examining
the parameters of previous research, whether this means reconsidering the
assumptions of popular analytical models or scrutinizing the definitions
energizing the debate.

NOTES

1. The problem with relying on “race” ethnicity as an explanation for conflict in

Africa generally, and in the specific case of Zanzibar, is that it obscures as much as
it reveals. For example, a conflict between two rival communities in Darfur, Sudan,
escalated into warfare during 2004. The rival group calls the better-armed group
janjaweed, or “evil men on horseback.” They hail from various semi-nomadic tribes
and Western journalists suggest that they are supported by the regime in the north.
 Inversion 227

The Sudanese government vehemently denies any association with this militia.
The janjaweed have been killing and evacuating more sedentary Darfurian farmers
from their ancestral homes for more than eighteen months. According to various
accounts, the international community has not acted until recently because they
disagree as to whether this violence rises to the level of genocide, and are addition-
ally hesitant because the two groups are similar—more specifically, both groups
are racially black, African, and Muslim. In fact, the phrase “racial” conflict, which
has been used repeatedly by human rights advocates, is not completely factual and
may actually be misleading. In other regions of Sudan, conflicts between similarly
situated groups with shared backgrounds have emerged over economic issues such
as land, livestock, and water resources and have spanned decades, even centuries.
For a current discussion of how communal conflicts are labeled genocidal and when
the international community feels compelled to act, see Scott Strauss, “Darfur & the
Genocide Debate,” Foreign Affairs 84, no.1 (January/February 2005): 128–29.
2. As mentioned in previous chapters, before the revolution, the Pemba Shirazi
formed the ZPPP, an association of fairly wealthy landed interests who voted in
preindependence elections in a coalition with the Arab ZNP. At the beginning of
Karume’s presidency he nationalized large tracts of Pemba’s privately owned prop-
erties, thereby materially and politically alienating many of Wapemba’s wealthy.
3. Nicholas Wood suggests that in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and
Montenegro, where the parties to the conflict are all of the same “race,” and can
similarly trace their heritage to a mixed, Turkish, Slavic, and Mediterranean ethnic
background, the national controversy has shifted from territorial claims based on
cultural identity to a demand for multilingual education. According to his article in
the New York Times, the Director of Education for the Bosnian National Council,
Zekerija Dugopoljac, argues that “Language defines the identity of a people.” These
comments, which refer to a conflict in Europe, are applicable to the study of East
Africa and specifically reflect the attitudes of the Abeid Karume and Julius Nyerere
who made Swahili the official language of Zanzibar and Tanzania upon indepen-
dence, see N. Wood, “In the Old Dialect, a Balkan Region Regains its Identity,” The
New York Times—International Section, February, 24, 2005. For a further discus-
sion of how this book differentiates between race and ethnicity in Zanzibar please
see the introduction of chapter I.
4. Consistent with the general contention of relative deprivation theory, the ab-
solute wealth of the privileged group and absolute poverty of the underprivileged
group are not at issue. In fact both groups may be similarly situated, however the
privileged group may, by virtue of their power, seem to have greater access to the
economic resources of the state, and therefore may appear to be far wealthier than
they are. Their power makes them a target of underprivileged rage, see Moghaddam
and Taylor, Theories of Inter-group Relations.
228 Chapter V

5. See A. M. Babu, “The 1964 Revolution: Lumpen or Vanguard,” in Sheriff and

Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 220–47; Okello, Revolution in Zanzibar.
6. For a variety of discussions regarding the dynamic nature of identity, see
Mazrui, Cultural Engineering and Nation-Building in East Africa, and Ali A.
Mazrui, Cultural Forces in World Politics (London: Villers Publishers, 1990);
Bayart, The State in Africa, 42–59 and 110–15; Rom Harre and Fathali Moghad-
dam, The Self and Others: Positioning Individuals and Groups in Personal, Po-
litical and Cultural Contexts (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Press, 2003), 204–5.
7. The five-phase model specifically describes the political conditions in
Zanzibar’s colonial history. They are: (1) the creation of a stratified class system
based on a plantation economy, (2) the promulgation of social and educational
policies by government, (3) the manifestation of a repressive colonial policy
toward local leaders/organizations, (4) the emergence of strong resistance/vio-
lent revolution against the colonial government, and (5) the rise of a new class
system—the mirror image of phase 1, with new elite leadership and old elites
relegated to position of counter-elites.
8. Robert Fatton argues that second site working class disarticulation serves
as a further provocation for political resistance among the underprivileged. A
discussion of the three-site, five-phase, and five-stage models can be found in the
introduction of the first chapter of this book.
9. A. Babu, “The 1964 Revolution, Lumpen or Vanguard?” in Sheriff and
Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 241–44.
10. Agehananda Bharati, The Asians in East Africa: Jayhind and Uhuru (New
York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1972).
11. The Editorial Staff, “The Brushfire in East Africa,” in Africa Report (Feb-
ruary 1964): 21–24.
12. A. Babu, “The 1964 Revolution, Lumpen or Vanguard?” in Sheriff and
Ferguson, Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, 241–44.
13. For more detail on the union, see Bailey, The Union of Tanganyika and
Zanzibar, 37.
14. George Triplett, “Zanzibar: The Politics of Revolutionary Inequality,”
Africana 4 (1971): 612–17.
15. See Douglas Anglin, “Zanzibar: Political Impasse and Commonwealth Me-
diation,” in The Journal of Contemporary African Studies 18, no. 1 (2000): 41.
16. Triplett, “Zanzibar: The Politics of Revolutionary Inequality,”612–17.
17. Roger Yeager, Tanzania: an African Experiment (Boulder, Colo.: West-
view Press, 1982), 114. Yeager argued that one of the paradoxes of the CCM’s
patronage system was that it had limited resources to buy support, making the
political system prone to instability. Yeager’s analysis supports, and in some
 Inversion 229

respects, predicts the degeneracy of Zanzibar’s party-patronage system into the

political impasse of the 1995 and 2000 election cycles.
18. Africa Contemporary Record, 1983–1984 (New York: Africana Publish-
ing, 1984).
19. Mapuri, Zanzibar: The 1964 Revolution—Achievements and Prospects.
20. Michael Lofchie and Rhys Payne, Zanzibar: The Politics of Polarization,
online research paper, University of California (January 1999), 13.
21. The Editors, “Tanzania: Revolution Revisited,” Africa Confidential 42,
no. 4 (February 23, 2001), 6–7.
22. “Prisoners of Conscience face treason trial in Zanzibar,” AI-Index: AFR
56/001/2000, www.amnesty.org.
23. See Civil United Front website, “Agreed Memorandum Between Chama
Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) and the Civic United Front (CUF),” Dar-Es-Salaam,
April 1999, 1–3. For a review of parties, see the chart at the end of chapter IV.
24. See this chapter for a comparison of the 1995 election with the Hamad
debacle of 1984–1985.
25. “Tanzania’s President Vows to Fight Poverty, Corruption,” Business Day,
November 21, 2000; United Nations, “Observation of the 1995 Tanzanian Elec-
tions: Report of the Team Leader of the United Nations Electoral Secretariat in
Tanzania,” Dar-es-Salaam, December 1995.
26. According to the ZEC count, the CCM garnered 50.2 percent of the vote.
The IOG suggested the CUF lost by 157,351 votes, that is to say, 48.6 percent
of the electorate.
27. Douglas Anglin, “Zanzibar: Political Impasse and Commonwealth Media-
tion,” 43.
28. Refer to the chart at the end of chapter IV for a list of Zanzibar’s political
parties.
29. Anglin, “Zanzibar: Political Impasse and Commonwealth Mediation,” 45.
30. Amnesty International, The Human Rights Observer 1, no. 1 (2000).
31. Middleton and Campbell, Zanzibar: Its Society and its Politics, 67.
32. E. B. Martin, Zanzibar: Tradition and Revolution, 116.
33. See Lofchie and Payne, Zanzibar: The Politics of Polarization, 1999, and
Anglin, “Zanzibar: Political Impasse and Commonwealth Mediation,” 2000.
34. See Mapuri, Zanzibar: The 1964 Revolution, 73.
35. See Mapuri, Zanzibar: The 1964 Revolution.
36. See Michael Lofchie and Rhys Payne, The Politics of Polarization, 12–14.
37. As the sitting attorney general and vice-chairperson of the opposition CUF,
Hamad was a threat to the CCM regime and President Amour, in particular; see Am-
nesty International Public Statement, “Zanzibar Opposition Leader May be Arrested
230 Chapter V

on Fabricated Treason Charges,” News Service 132/98, AI index: AFR 6/02/98, July
8, 1998, and Lofchie and Payne, Zanzibar: The Politics of Polarization, 18–21.
38. Amnesty International, public statement on Tanzania, “Zanzibar Opposition
Leader May Be Arrested on Fabricated Treason Charges,” July 8, 1998, AI Index:
AFR 6/02/98, posted on www.Amnesty.org
39. By various accounts Amour’s message saturated the airwaves because
the ruling party, the CCM, received over 70 percent of the airtime/news cover-
age on television and radio beginning in the early months of the campaign until
the election in October 2000. The CUF only had about 12 percent of a share of
political airtime with the rest of coverage devoted to local races and third parties;
see Elections 2000 Media Monitoring Project-Interim Report, Media Council of
Tanzania, Dar-es-Salaam, November 3, 2000, africaonline.com.
40. Mkapa made the announcement that despite stipulations by the Common-
wealth Secretariat that the Agreement Memorandum should not be reworded; the
CCM would withdraw its concessions regarding election reform.
41. Anglin, “Zanzibar: Political Impasse and Commonwealth Mediation,” 58.
42. RawNews, wire at wwww.ABCNEWS.go.com/wire/world October 15
and 17, 2000.
43. RawNews, Tanzania’s President Mkapa to Act on Zanzibar, November
20, 2000, ABCNEWS.co.com/wire/world.
44. Africa Confidential, “Tanzania Revolution Revisited.”
45. Ibid.
46. The CUF and the CCM signed their first accord, or muafaka (literally, ac-
cord or understanding in Swahili), at the behest of the international community
in 1998, after the violence associated with the 1995 elections. The two parties
agreed to reconcile and cooperate in an effort to reform electoral laws and the
Zanzibar Electoral Commission, improve voter registration, and review the elec-
tion. According to a fact-finding mission organized by an academic organization
called the Kituo Cha Katiba of Makereere University in Uganda and sponsored
by the East African office of the Ford Foundation, Muafaka I, the first agreement
between the CUF and the CCM, was “a dead letter for lack of commitment which
was further fueled by suspicion between the two parties”; see KCK, Constitution-
alism and Political Stability in Zanzibar: The Search for a New Vision, October
2003, available online at www.kitouchakatiba.co.ug/zanzibar.html.
47. Commonwealth Secretariat, Report of Commonwealth Expert Team
(CET)—Pemba By-Elections, Zanzibar, May 18, 2003, 3–4. The CET observed
elections held in Pemba on May 18, 2003. The team included the regional direc-
tor for the Electoral Commission of Ghana, Sulley Amadu; Michael Hendricks,
a liaison to the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa; and Mr. Ka-
ramjit Singh, the commissioner of the United Kingdom Electoral Commission.
 Inversion 231

48. KCK, October 2003, 21–22

49. President Mkapa of Tanzania began nominating members of opposition
parties to the union parliament after Muafaka II, KCK, October 2003, 23
50. According to the Report of the Commonwealth Team of May 18, 2003, the
electoral environment in 2003 “reflected a dramatic reduction in the level of ten-
sion and hostility between the parties” (9). The Commonwealth team stated that
the ZEC made sure the elections had been transparent and fair, that the discrete
police presence and impartial and friendly manner of election officials were in
fact responsible for the 93 percent voter turnout (20). The contrast between the
low voter turnout, the suspicion and violence of the 2001 and the success of the
2003 elections was stark.
51. See KCK, October 2003, 30. Union with Tanzania has given Zanzibaris of
all regions access to a bigger economic pie, including huge aid packages awarded
Tanzania from the World Bank and other multilateral donor organizations. Shar-
ing the aid has not always been equitable, and Pemba has often suffered.
52. Anglin, “Zanzibar: Political Impasse and Commonwealth Mediation,”
2001.
53. The Economist, “Spiced with tear-gas: An Election in Zanzibar, Tanza-
nia’s main island, is violently disputed,” November 5, 2005.
54. Associated Press, “Elections turn violent as Opposition backers beaten,”
The Courier-Journal, October 31, 2005. More than twenty people were hospi-
talized after police and CCM militia fired water cannons and tear gas at CUF
supporters.
55. Associated Press, “Incumbent President Takes Office after Chaotic Elec-
tion,” The Courier-Journal, November 3, 2005.
56. The CUF is unknown quantity outside Zanzibar. The Economist dubbed
the CUF an “odd coalition of Zanzibar’s underclass (the counter-elite) and its
former-oriented overlord (the former elite)”; see The Economist, November 5,
2005. There is a fear that the CUF coalition may develop an Islamic militancy
that might threat the stability of mainland Tanzanian politics.
57. Nicodemus Odhiambe, “Conciliatory Karume Sworn in as Zanzibari
President,” PanAfrican News Agency, November 8, 2000; Issa Yusuf, “President
(Karume) calls for broader “muafaka (agreement),” Guardian, February 19, 2005.
58. For a discussion of the subordinate status of the pidgin Afrikaans language
during the era of apartheid, see Shula Marks and Stanplyne Trapido (eds), The
Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century South Africa (Lon-
don: Longman Group, 1987), 95–123.
59. For further discussion on South Africa, see Graham Watson, Passing for
White (London: Tavistock Publications, 1970), 55–61. For a more detailed dis-
cussion of the “one-drop” rule in the United States, see Lawrence Wright “One
232 Chapter V

Drop of Blood,” The New Yorker, July 24, 1994; Berry Brewster, Almost White
(New York: Macmillan, 1963).
60. Many controversies concerned registering young mixed persons who
wanted access to all-white schools.
61. Watson, Passing for White, 18, 22, and 57–61. If a colored individual
could pass for white in South Africa, he/she could enroll in white schools and
have access to a greater number of jobs and jobs of a higher quality; see John
W. Cell, The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Segregation in South Af-
rica and the American South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982),
192–96 and 203–4.
62. The five-phase model specifically describes the political conditions in
Zanzibar’s colonial history. They are: (1) the creation of a stratified class system
based on a plantation economy, (2) the promulgation of social and educational
policies by government, (3) the manifestation of a repressive colonial policy to-
ward local leaders/organizations, (4) the emergence of strong resistance/violent
revolution against the colonial government, and (5) the rise of a new class sys-
tem—the mirror image of phase 1, with new elite leadership and counter-elites.
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Abbasid dynasty, xii
academic disarticulation, 70
adaptation, 76, 110–11n126, 110n125
adult suffrage, 172
Affonso I (king of the Congo),
105n88
Africa: colonization, 24; early British
imperialism, 55; early European
descriptions of, 93n19; European
fears of independence in, 85; “the
scramble for,” 43n44
African Association, 196n16; Afro-
Shirazi Union and, 172, 173;
formation of, 48n80, 138, 140,
168; functions of, 169; Abeid
Karume and, 140; sports clubs and,
170, 173; in Zanzibar, 145
“Africanization,” 149
African Rhodesians, 114n160
African slaves, 18, 39n14. See also
slaves and slavery
African Sports Club, 140, 168, 173
Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), 145, 169,
172; 1963 elections and, 180;
1964 revolution and, 183, 184,
243
Index
203; “Arab” leadership and, 210;
characteristics and changing status
of, 192, 193–94; composition
of, 190, 191; formation of, 170,
209; merger with TANU, 185,
209; John Okello and, 176, 177,
178; rise of, 168; Shirazis and,
3; TANU support for, 175; youth
wing of, 86; ZNP/ZPPP alliance
and, 178, 214
Afro-Shirazi Union (ASU):
characteristics and changing status
of, 192, 194; formation of, 172,
173; plantation owners-squatters
conflict and, 174; renamed, 174–
75; Umma Party and, 201n74
Afro-Shirazi Youth League (ASYL),
178
“age of diplomacy,” 126–27
Agreement Memorandum, 217–18,
230n40
agricultural organizations, 161n78
agricultural reform, 129
Aguiar, Rui De, 105n88
Altenstein, Karl von, 72, 107n106
244
Amadu, Sulley, 230n47
Amnesty International, 211–12
Amour, Salim, 212, 215, 216–17,
230n39
Anglican Church, 53, 62, 90n5
Anglican schools, 101n61
Anthropological Society, 99n45
Arab Association (AA), 32, 33, 37,
146, 168–69, 172
Arab dynasties, xii–xiii
Arabic, 29, 45n55, 46n64, 64
Arab School, 77, 80–81
Arab Zanzibaris. See Zanzibari Arabs
Aristotle, 97n35
Articles of Union, 207
“Asiatic mode of production,” 19
ASP. See Afro-Shirazi Party
ASU. See Afro-Shirazi Union
Axim (Axum), 94n22
Babu, Abdulrahman, 199n53, 200n74
banking, 47n70
Bantu language, 30, 111n126
Bantus: British racial categorization
and, 58; craniological
classification, 97n33; declining
influence through Zanzibar’s
history, xiii; in the fifteenth
century, xiv; identity politics
and, 204; land use system, 26;
Zanzibar’s first permanent
residents, xi
Baraki, Seif, 179
barbarians, 97n35
Barghash bin Said, Seyyid, 44n51
Bari, Abd el, 111n127
Battuta, Ibn, xvn3
Bayart, Francois, 5, 53
Betts, Raymond, 83
bilateral kinship groups, 43n47
Index
black nationalism, 175
Bodin, Jean, 101n55
Boemus, Johan, 93n19
Boer War, 42n39
Bosman, William, 94n22
boycotts, 35, 48n87
British colonial rule: cash-crop
economy in Zanzibar, 121
(see also cash-crop economy);
commercial class interests and,
61–62; development plans, 146–47;
educational policy (see educational
policy); first-phase policies, 8–10,
20–30, 33, 55–56; indirect rule in
Tanganyika, 64, 120–21; indirect
rule in Zanzibar, 64, 84–86, 86–87;
second-phase policies, 10, 51–53,
56–57; tax revenue system, 146;
third-phase policies, 10, 136–50,
166–67
British imperialism, 42n38;
controversies, 67; dual mandate
and, 66–67, 68–69 (see also dual
mandate); indirect rule and, 66–67
(see also indirect rule); overview,
20–24, 42n34; three Cs, 65–66, 68;
“white man’s burden,” 66. See also
British colonial rule; conservative
imperialism; liberal imperialism;
new imperialism
British Socialist Party, 156n37
Burton, Richard, x, 59, 66, 98n41,
99n46
Busaidi dynasty, xiv, 25, 44n50
“bush” races, 97n33
bush schools, 81, 87
business conduct, charter of, 49n87
Cameron, Donald, 64, 102n69,
114n156
 Index
Canada, 41n30
Canning, George, 21, 40n24
cash-crop economy: effects of a
decline in, 167–68; feudalism
and slavery converge in, 45n53;
in German Tanganyika, 123;
Maji-Maji rebellion and, 121, 128
(see also Maji-Maji rebellion);
plantations in the colonization of
Africa, 24; in Zanzibar, 19, 121.
See also clove economy; plantation
economy
Cavazzi, Giovanni, 94n23
CCM. See Chama Cha Mapinduzi
census of 1948, 190
Chagga people, 129, 145
Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), 211,
212, 215; 2000 elections and,
230n39; clientelism and, 209–10;
formation, 185, 209; Muafaka I,
230n46; patronage system, 228n17;
political conflicts in Zanzibar and,
216–21
Chamberlain, Joseph, 21
“Charity begins at Home,” 104n80
child labor, 102n62
children, in Great Britain, 54–55
Christian schools, 106n96. See also
Anglican schools; missionary
schools
Church of England. See Anglican
Church
cinnamon trade, 43n48
Civic United Front (CUF): 2000
election and, 230n39; Islamic
militancy and, 231n56; Muafaka
I, 230n46; political conflicts in
Zanzibar and, 210–21 passim
civilization, 99n47
civil service, 35, 45n55
245
Claredon, George Villers, 96n30
class resistance, site of, 165
class stratification, 24–25, 27, 35
class system, 32
Clayton, Anthony, 138
closed political systems, 12n11
clove dealers, 34
clove economy: British tax on, 46n67;
in Zanzibar, 28, 31. See also clove
plantations; plantation economy
Clove Growers Association (CGA):
Arab control of, 159n68; formation
of, 9, 33; “Heads of Agreement”
and, 49n87; overview of, 33–35;
purpose of, 36, 37
clove plantations, 24, 25; “sudden
death” infestation, 161n84. See
also clove economy; plantation
economy
coffee, 80, 163n108
Cohen, Abner, 96n32
colonial administrator, 42n39
colonial governor, 42n39
Colonial Institute (German), 63,
109–10n119
Colonial Office (British), 133
Comfort, Anna Manning, 104n80
Commission of Inquiry, 219
Committee of the Colonies, 104n87
Committee on Education (British), 59
Commonwealth Expert Team (CET),
230n47, 231n50
Commonwealth Observer Group, 218
communal violence, 1
communism, 133, 157n47, 157n49,
207
communities, collective responsibility
for tax burdens, 39n13
confessional system, 107–8n106
Congress system, 40n24
246
conservative imperialism, 20,
110n124; attitude toward
education, 56; British colonial
rule and, 55–56; new imperialism
and, 51–52; political cleavages in
Zanzibar and, 5–6
Conservative Party (British), 103n76,
120, 133
Cooper, Frederick, 28, 36
Coutts, Walter F., 172
Coutts commission, 172
craniology, 57–58, 96n33
creolized languages, 11n3
Crofton, R. H., 84
CUF. See Civic United Front
Dar-es-Salaam, 127
Darfur, 226–27n1
Dart, Raymond, 96n33
Darwin, Charles, 61
Delamere, Hugh Cholmondeley, 89n3,
95n26
Deng, Francis, 199n62, 224
Description of the Country of Africa
(Prat), 93n19
development plans, 146–47
direct rule, in German Tanganyika,
74, 79–80, 120, 126–27
disarticulation, 106n95; academic, 70
Disraeli, Benjamin, 21, 42n38, 92n17,
94n25
Dockworkers’ and Stevedores’ Union,
136
dockworkers’ strikes, 119, 135–36,
142–43, 150n2, 167, 169
Dos Santos, Joan, 94n23
dual mandate: as an independent
concept from indirect rule, 106n90;
articulation of, 163n106; British
imperialism and, 66–67, 68–69;
Index
British investment in, 37; education
and, 56; new imperialism and,
52; origins of, 105n88; political
cleavages in Zanzibar and, 5–6
Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa
(Lugard), 67
Dubois, W. E. B., 132
Durham, John Lambton (“Radical
Jack”), 41n30
Dutch East India Company, xiv
East Germany, 207
economic patronage, 213
education: Arabs and, 102n72; British
advocates of, 104n86; British
imperialistic views of, 56; British
political impetus for, 103n76;
confessional system, 107n106;
dual mandate and, 56; educational
gap in Zanzibar, 76; expenditures
for in Zanzibar, 116n172; Fabian
Societies and, 62–63; in German
Tanganyika, 73–74, 83–84, 87, 88;
in Germany, 72–73; grants-in-aid,
112n140; in Great Britain, 53–55,
62, 90n5, 91n9, 92n16, 103n74,
103n76; inequality in Zanzibar,
81; linguistic stratification in
Zanzibar and, 82–83; Lord Lugard
on the function of, 102n70; under
the Omanis, 45n55; segregation
in Zanzibar, 106n98; teachers,
76–77. See also educational policy;
schools
Education Acts (Great Britain), 90n5
educational grants, 75–76, 79,
112n140
educational policy (British): adaptation
and, 76; grants-in-aid, 75–76, 79,
112n140; liberal imperialism and,
 Index
95n28; linguistic stratification and,
78, 82–83, 88; on native education,
77–78; “new” imperialism and,
86–87; overview, 71–72; policy
of development and, 107n100;
racial categorization and, 57–59; in
Tanganyika, 64; toward Africa, 62–
63; vocational training, 79; Ward-
Huggins debate, 64–65; in Zanzibar,
64. See also education; schools
educational policy (German), in
Tanganyika, 73–74, 87, 88, 100n50
“Educational Policy in British
Tropical Africa,” 110n125
educational populism, 88
educational reform, 91n10, 102n62
educational theory, in Germany,
72–73
“Education for Adaptation,” 76
education grants, 101n61
“Education in Africa,” 95n29
election of 1957, 172–73
election of 1963, 180
election of 1995, 211–13, 214–15, 216
election of 2000, 217, 218, 230n39
election of 2003, 219, 220, 231n50
election of 2005, 220–21
elementary schools, 92n16
Elgin, Lord, 20
elites, reciprocal assimilation, 24, 31,
32–33, 36
English language, 29, 46n64, 64
“enlightened self-interest,” 68
“ethnic clash,” 1
“ethnic cleansing,” x
ethnic identity: racial identity and,
205; Zanzibar and, 1–2
ethnicity: 1964 revolution and, 186,
191; meaning of, 11n2; the shadow
theater of, 53
247
eugenicist movement, 91n13
European feudalism, 16–19
executive committee (EXCO): class
cleavages and, 35; formation of,
9, 33; members, 48n83, 159n68;
purpose of, 35–37
ex-slaves, 30, 31
“external intelligence” theory, 60
Fabian League, 130–32
Fabians: British foreign policy and,
130–32; education and, 62–63, 64,
102n62, 103n76; influence in East
Africa, 102n73; labor reform and,
125–26; Pan-African Congresses
and, 133; Tanganyika and, 6,
103n76, 134–36
Fardle of Fashion, The (Waterman),
93n19
Fatimid dynasty, xii
Fatton, Robert, 4, 53, 106n95, 165
Federation of Progressive Trade
Unions (FPTU), 200n74
Ferguson, Ed, 195n8
feudalism, 16–19; cash cropping and,
45n53
“feudal” societies, in Africa, 18,
39n11
fifth-phase societies, 13n22; overview,
11, 205–6; political conflicts in
Zanzibar, 206, 208–21
financial firms, 106n95
first-phase class stratification, 24–25
first-phase policies: cultivation
of class-based institutions,
33–37; goal of, 30; linguistic
stratification and, 29–30;
overview, 8–10; political
“development,” 33; tension
between liberal and conservative
248
imperialists, 55–56; transplanted
feudalism and plantation
economies, 20–25; versus
indigenous economic traditions,
26–30; Zanzibar’s plantation
economy and, 30–31
five-phase model: applied to
Zanzibar’s history, 5–11;
background to, 3–4; dialectic in,
223–24; overview, 4–5, 150n3,
228n7, 232n62; purpose of, 224;
significance of, 225–26. See also
individual phases
five-stage model, 3–4, 13n22, 195n3,
206, 222–23, 224–25
“focal point program,” 148
food rationing, 197n17
former slaves, 30, 31
fourth-phase colonial rule: 1964
revolution (see revolution of 1964);
economic cleavage in Zanzibar,
188–92; overview, 10–11, 165–70
Fox, Wilson, 71
Friendly Society of Workers, 176
“front-liners,” 215
functional education, 64
General Civil Code of 1794 (Prussia),
72
German colonial policy: “age of
diplomacy,” 126–27; cash-crop
economy in Tanganyika, 123;
direct rule in Tanganyika, 79–80,
83, 120, 126–27; labor policy,
127–30; linguistic policy and,
63–64; politics affecting, 154n23,
154n25; promotion of revenue
generation, 121; tax system in
Tanganyika, 115n167
German East Africa, 127
Index
German East African Company, 127
Germany: educational theory in,
72–73; guilds, 126; guild towns,
153n19; political development,
126; politics affecting colonial
policies, 154n23, 154n25
Ghana, 156n39
Gladstone, William Ewart, 20–21,
92n17
Godwyn, Morgan, 101n55
Gold Coast, 156n39
Gore, William Ormsby, 157n52
government schools, 70, 74, 75, 78,
109n114, 109n118
“grammar” schools, 92n16
grand theories, 5
grants-in-aid, 75–76, 79, 112n140
Great Britain: Busaidi dynasty and,
xiv; Conservative and Labor
parties, 120; early imperialism in
Africa, 55; education in, 53–55,
62, 90n5, 91n9, 92n16, 103n74,
103n76; Fabians’ effect on
foreign policy, 130–32; grants
to education, 101n61; guilds,
153n21; labor organizations,
152n14, 153n15; labor politics in,
120; labor unionism and, 124–25;
mass migration, 112n132; schools
in, 92n17; Trade Union Decrees,
195n7; Victorian era political
leaders, 96n30. See also British
colonial rule; British imperialism
Great Chain of Being, 57–58, 61, 64
Grey, Charles, 96n30, 104n87
Grey, Edward (Viscount Grey of
Fallodon), 20, 96n30
Grey, Lord Earl, 104n86
guilds, 126, 153n21
guild towns, 153n19
 Index
hadara, 99n47
Hadjivayanis, George, 195n8
Hall, J. Hawthorn, 49n87
Hamad, Seif Sharif, 210, 212–13, 215,
216, 218, 220–21
Hamadi, Muhammad Shamte, 173,
174, 176, 181
hamali, 150n2
Hamed bin Thwain, Seyyid, 44n51
Hamilton, Lady Claud, 98n39
Hammoud, Seyyid, 44n51
Hammoud, Seyyid Ali bin, 44n51, 80
Hardenberg, Karl von, 72
Hatchell, C. W., 135
Hawking, John, 94n24
“Heads of Agreement,” 49n87
Hendricks, Michael, 230n47
Herodotus, xii, 93n19
“hide” system, 17, 39n8
Hippalus, xii
Hobson, J. A., 42n34
“Home Burdens of Uncle Sam”
(Comfort), 104n80
“houses of call,” 125
Huggins, Godfrey, 64–65, 84–85,
114n160
human evolution, 61
hut tax, 121
identity politics, 204
immigrants, xiii
Imperial Education Conference, 95n29
“imperial federation,” 21
imperialism: American, 103n80.
See also British imperialism;
conservative imperialism; liberal
imperialism; new imperialism
indentured servants, 188
India, 26, 35; boycotts and, 35,
48–49n87
249
Indian Association (IA), 33, 34, 35,
37, 159n68, 168–69
Indian Merchants Organization
(IMO), 32
Indian National Association (INA),
32, 49n87
Indians. See Zanzibari Indians
indirect rule: as an independent
concept from dual mandate,
106n90; British imperialism and,
66–67; in British Tanganyika, 64,
120–21; origins of, 105n88; in
Zanzibar, 64, 84–86, 86–87
Indonesian cinnamon trade, 43n48
industrial schools, 104n87
intelligence, theories of variation in,
60–61
interconfessional schools, 107n106
International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions (ICFTU), 144
Iran, 25
Irvine, Judith T., 8
Islam, xii
Islamic schools. See medressas
Jamaica, 100n50
janjaweed, 226n1
jizia, 25, 30
Joint Presidential Supervisory
Commission (JPSC), 219
Jones, Arthur Creech, 158n53
Jumbe, Aboud, 185, 215
Kant, Immanuel, 108n108
Karume, Abeid, 201n78; 1964
revolution and, 183, 184;
assassinated, 201n80; authoritarian
rule of, 184–85; the CCM under,
209; early life of, 173; founding
of the African Association, 140;
250
land redistribution and, 188;
nationalization of property on
Pemba, 227n2; Pemba Shirazi and,
203–4; political repression and,
208; renaming of the ASU by,
174; union with Tanganyika and,
207; vice-president of Tanzania,
201n76; Wapembans and, 215
Karume, Amani Abeid, 218, 220, 221
Kenya, 162n86, 207
Khalifa, Seyyid, 44n51
Khalifa bin Harrub, Seyyid, 44n51
Khojahs, 98n41
kiambo land system, 43n47
kijiji, 44n49
Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative
Union, 129
Kilimanjaro Native Planters
Association, 129
Kilwa, 128
kinship groups, bilateral, 43n47
Kipling, Rudyard, 66, 103n80
Kissinger, Henry, 114n162
Kituo Cha Katiba, 230n46
labor: German policies Tanganyika,
127–30; politics in Great Britain,
120; third-phase policies and, 117–
27; in Zanzibar, 195n8
labor-class system, 32
Labor Committee (British), 141
labor insurgency, 119. See also
dockworkers’ strikes; strikes
Labor Party (British), 120, 133,
156n36
labor reform, 125–26
labor unions: African, 141; British,
152n14; European labor
unionism, 124–25; German, 126;
Tanganyikan, 144; third-phase
Index
policies and, 119. See also trade
unions
landlessness, 171
land ownership: African slaves and,
39n14; British policies, 38; by
indigenous peoples on Pemba,
28–29; Shirazi, 43n47. See also
land use systems
land redistribution, 188
land transfer policies, 155n36
land use systems: first-phase policies
and, 29; indigenous, 26. See also
land ownership
language: group boundaries and, 205.
See also entries at linguistic
language education, 92n17
legal systems. See sharia law
legislative committee (LEGCO): class
cleavages and, 35; composition,
193, 194; expansion of, 171–72;
formation of, 9, 33; members,
48n83, 159n68; purpose of, 35–37
liberal imperialism, 20, 42n38, 68;
British colonial rule and, 55–56;
educational policy, 95n28
Liberals (British), 20, 110n124, 133
Liebert, Eduard von, 127
“limps,” 110n124
linguistic identity: communal violence
and, 7–8; Zanzibar and, 2
linguistic passing, 90nn6–7, 222–23
linguistic policy: in British
Tanganyika, 64; German, 63–64; in
Zanzibar, 64
linguistic stratification: British
educational policy and, 78, 88;
education in Zanzibar and, 82–83;
first-phase policies and, 29–30; in
Zanzibar, 27, 46n64, 205
linguistic training, 92n17
 Index
literacy, 177
literacy training, 95n28
Livingstone, David, x, 65, 73, 103n77
liwali system, 27, 44n50, 84, 114n157
loans, 34
Lugard, Lord Frederick Delarty:
British imperial policies and, 66,
67, 68–69, 86, 99n46, 105n88; on
the function of primary education,
102n70; as governor of Nigeria,
115n166
Luguru people, 129
Macdonald, Malcolm, 157n52
Mahdist rebellion, 89n2
maji, 128
Majid, Seyyid, 44n51
Maji-Maji rebellion, 121, 124, 127–
30, 153n24, 155n31
Mali, 18, 39n11
manorial system, 17
marriages, 185
Marx, Karl, 19
mass migration, in Great Britain,
112n132
Mazrui, Ali, 19
Mazrui family, 44nn49–50
McDonald, Ramsay, 133
medressas, 79, 112n139; British
imperialistic views of, 56;
enrollment, 113n152; in
Tanganyika, 74, 116n169; in
Zanzibar, 74–75, 77, 78
Menouthis, x, xii
middle schools, 116n168
miji, 44n49
Milton, John, 60
minority rule, 85
missionary schools, 70; curriculum,
79; grants-in-aid and, 79;
251
Portuguese, 106n96; in
Tanganyika, 73, 74, 80, 109n113;
in Zanzibar, 74
mixed economy, 19
Mkapa, Benjamin, 217, 218, 230n40
mlango, 43n47
“models,” 5
“monitorial” instruction, 92n16
mortgage companies, 33, 188
Moses, John, 126
Mozambique, 24
Muafaka I, 219, 230n46
Muafaka II, 218–19
Muscat, 25
Muslims: in Tanganyika, 74,
109n113; in Zanzibar’s history,
xii–xiii
Mwinyi, Ali Hassan, 210
Mwinyi Mkuu dynasty, 44n52
Napier, George, 20, 42n39
National Congress (India), 35, 49n87
Nationalist Socialist Party (British),
156n37
National Labor party (British), 133
National Party of the Subjects of the
Sultan of Zanzibar (NPSS), 145–
46, 162n99, 169–70
Native Authorities, 139–40
native education: British policy, 77–
78. See also education; educational
policy
new imperialism, 52, 71, 89nn2–3,
90n4, 94n25; educational policy
and, 56, 86–87
new imperialists, 110n124
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 108n108
Nigeria, 86, 115n166
Nkrumah, Kwame, 180
Non-Conformists, 62, 101n57, 101n61
252
NPSS. See National Party of the
Subjects of the Sultan of Zanzibar
Nyerere, Julius, 6, 64, 158n58,
199n53; ASP and, 175; CCM
politics and, 209, 210; Fabians and,
102n73; president of Tanzania,
201n76; reconciliation efforts, 209,
210, 211; TAA and, 134, 158n59;
TANU and, 209; Zanzibar’s 1964
revolution and, 207; Zanzibar’s
political parties and, 197n19
Nzinga, Myemba (King Affonso I of
the Congo), 105n88
Okello, John, 122, 175–84, 200n74,
207
Oliver, Lord, 111n131
Omani Sultanate: checks and balances
approach to government, 9;
economic mobility under, 45n55;
education under, 45n55; “linguistic
passing” and, 90n6; restored by the
British, 86; slavery and, 45n53; in
Zanzibar, xi–xii, xiii, xiv, 24, 25,
27–28, 29–30
Ominium Gentium Mores (Boemus),
93n19
Organization of African Unity (OAU),
85, 211
Osman, Abbas, 142
Ottoman society, 18
Owen, Robert, 91n10
Palmerston, Henry Temple (“John
Bull”), 20, 21, 94n25
Palmerston school, 20
Pan-African Congresses, 132–33,
157n47
pan-Africanism, 132–33, 140
pan-German league, 108n110
Index
Passfield, Lord (Sidney Webb), 131–32
Passfield Memorandum, 131–32
“passing,” 221–23
patronage, 129, 213, 228n17
peasants, manorial system and, 17
Pemba Island, 15; government schools,
78; landownership by indigenous
peoples, 28–29; linguistic affiliation
of Pembans, 46n63
Pemban Shirazi: 1957 elections and,
172; Abeid Karume and, 204;
landownership and, 38; linguistic
stratification and, 205; “passing”
and, 222–23; patronage and, 213;
Shirazi Association and, 138; ZPPP
and, 197n18, 227n2
Pemba People’s Party, 171
People’s Republic of Zanzibar:
foreign recognition of, 206–7;
formation of, 183–85
Periplus of the Erythreaean Sea
(Hippalus), xii
Petterson, 199n53
Petty, William, 61, 101n55
Phelps-Stokes commission, 95n29,
100n48, 115n168
Phelps-Stokes Fund, 60, 113n149
phrenology, 57–58
physiognomy, 61
physiology, 57–58
Pim, Alan, 164n114
plantation economy: British first-
phase policies and, 30–31;
dependence on labor, 190; origins
of plantations, 19; owner-squatter
conflicts, 171, 174; political
cleavages in Zanzibar and, 5–6;
slaves and, 23–24. See also clove
economy
plantations, origins of, 19
 Index
political “development,” 33
political leaders, Victorian era, 96n30
political repression, third-phase
policies and, 117–27
political resistance, third-phase, 122
popular education, 103n74, 103n76.
See also education
populism, educational, 88
Porter, Henry, 196n12
Portuguese, xiv, 24, 106n96
Prat, William, 93n19
Primary Certificate, 77
primary education, 104n86
Primary School, 77, 81
primary schools, 113n151
Ptolemy, Claudius, xii
“public school boys,” 92n17
“public” schools, 92n17
“race,” meaning of, 11n2
race theories, 61
racial ambivalence, 189–91, 204
racial categorizations, 57–59, 84–85,
93n18
racial conflict, 1
racial exploitation, 111n131
racial identity, 1–2, 189–91, 204, 205
racial integration, 111n129
racial passing, 221–22
Rankine, John, 196n12
rationing, of food, 197n17
Rechenberg, Albrecht von, 128–29,
154n25
reconstruction, 195n3
Rees-Williams, David, 158n53
regime change, 13n21
Reinsch, Paul, 58
relative deprivation theory, 227n4
revolts, 39n8; in Canada, 41n30. See
also revolution of 1964
253
Revolutionary Council, 183, 188, 191,
194, 206, 207
revolution of 1964: as a class conflict,
3; ethnicity and, 186, 191; fourth-
phase of colonial rule and, 186–88;
groups targeted for violence in,
204–5; John Okello and the events
of, 179–84; significance of, 2–3, 6;
underlying causes, 186–88
Rhapta, xii
Rhodes, Cecil, 51, 64, 89nn2–3,
94n25
Rhodesia, 114n160, 114n162
Rhodesians, 85
Rivers-Smith, S., 77, 80, 81, 107n100,
111n127, 113n144
Romanticism, 67
Romantic Movement, 54
Rosebery, Lord, 89n2, 94n25
Royal College of Physicians, 61
Royal Geographical Society, 59
rural schools, 76, 78, 112nn133–34
Russell, John, 20, 22, 41n30, 104n86
Said, Al bu, xiv
Said, Seyyid, xiv, 25, 27, 43n44,
44n51
Said, Seyyid Ali bin, 44n51
Said, Seyyid Barghash bin, 44n51
Said bin Sultan, Seyyid, 44n50
Schlunk, Martin, 63–64, 109n119
schools: Anglican, 101n61;
confessional system, 107n106;
enrollment by sex, 113n151;
enrollment in, 81, 82; funding, 88;
government expenditure on, 78;
in Great Britain, 90n5, 92nn16–
17; Portuguese, 106n96; racial
integration, 111n129; secondary,
100n48; in Tanganyika, 81–82,
254 Index
87; “unassisted,” 112n139; in
Zanzibar, 70, 74–75, 77, 80–81.
See also education; government
schools; medressas; missionary
schools; rural schools; secondary
schools; secular schools
School System in the German
Colonies, The (Schlunk), 63–64,
110n119
secondary schools: in Africa, 100n48;
enrollment in, 113n142, 115n163;
in Great Britain, 92n16; Phelps-
Stokes commission on, 115n168
second-phase colonial rule: categories
of policies, 69–70; colonial
educational policy and, 87–88
(see also educational policy);
development of social inequalities
and, 124; education and class
cleavage, 38; overview, 10, 51–53,
56–57; settler policy, 71
secular schools, 81–82, 101n60,
109n118
self-interest, “enlightened,” 68
settler debate, 67
settler policy, 71
shamba land system, 25, 26, 71
sharecropping, 30–31
sharia law, 25, 27–28, 29, 45n55, 189
sheha, 27, 44n49
Shi’a Muslims, xiii
Shirazi Association, 48n80, 138, 140,
160n71, 173, 196n16
Shirazis: 1964 revolution and, 3;
British racial categorization and,
58; in the fifteenth century, xiii,
xiv; identity politics and, 204;
Abeid Karume and, 203–4; land
ownership, 43n47; land use system,
26; in the medieval era, 26–27;
political organization, 43n47; racial
identity and, 190; Wahadimu,
46n61; in Zanzibar, 189. See also
Pemban Shirazi; Ungujan Shirazi
Singh, Karamjit, 230n47
sipahs, 18
site of class resistance, 165
slaves and slavery, 189; in African
feudal societies, 18; British policies
toward, 46n65; cash cropping and,
45n53; landownership and, 39n14
slave trade, 15, 16, 23–24, 28,
111n131
slave traders, 65, 94n24
Smith, Adam, 22
Smith, Harry, 20, 104n86
Smith, Ian, 64, 85, 114n162
soccer clubs, 168, 170
social Darwinism, 54, 67
Social Gospel, 104n85
social inequality, 124
socialism, 124
Socialist-Democratic Federation
(SDF), 125, 153n18
socialist Fabians, 131
socialist organizations, 156n37
socialist/progressive labor unionism,
124–25
Soden, Karl von, 73–74, 110n119
Soemmering, S. T. von, 93n18
Sohar period, xi–xii
South Africa, 221–22
Speke, John Hanning, 66, 73
Speke-Burton mission, 66
spice trade, ix, 15
sports clubs, 140
squatters and squatting, 30, 31, 171,
174, 191, 213–14
St. Andrews College, 107n99
Stanley, Lord, 104n86
 Index
Stephens, Hugh, 134–35
Strauss, Leo, 108n110
strikes, 141–43. See also
dockworkers’ strikes
Suarez, Antonio, 105n88
Sudan, 89n2, 199n62, 224, 226n1
“sufficient price,” 22, 23
“sufficient price imperial federation,”
23
suffrage, 172
Sultan, Seyyid Said bin, 44n50
Sunni Muslims, xiii
Swahili language: 1964 revolution
and, 183; as a creolized language,
11n3; lack of British commitment
to, 113n144; marginalization of,
30; script taught in, 111n126;
significance in Zanzibar, 189; in
Tanganyika, 74, 82, 83–84, 87,
88, 128, 134–35; as Zanzibar’s
national language, 183, 191, 194;
Zanzibar’s schools and, 81
Swahili Zanzibaris: 1964 revolution
and, 6 (see also revolution of
1964); British racial categorization
and, 58, 59; education and, 70;
in the fifteenth century, xiii;
fourth-phase of colonial rule and,
186–87; land use system, 26;
major ruling families, 43n49; in
the medieval era, 26–27; NPSS
and, 145–46. See also Ungujan
Swahilis
TAA. See Tanganyikan African
Association
Tanganyika: coffee economy,
163n108; dockworkers’ strikes,
167; German and British rules
contrasted, 118; as a League
255
of Nations mandate, 114n156;
medressas and, 116n169; political
timeline, 151n5; schools, 79, 80,
81–82, 87, 109n113, 109n118;
Swahili and, 74, 82, 83–84, 87,
88, 128; TANU and, 209; third-
phase policies and, 118; union
with Zanzibar, 184, 207–8; witch
doctors, 155n30
Tanganyika (British): civic
organizations and, 140;
dockworkers’ strikes, 135–36;
education in, 103n76; Fabianism
and, 6, 103n76, 134–36; fiscal
management, 148–49; indirect
rule, 120–21; labor unions, 144;
linguistic policy, 64; political
development in, 139–40; rise of
political autonomy in, 134–36;
Swahili language in, 134–35;
trusteeship government, 148
Tanganyika (German): agricultural
reform, 129; cash-crop economy,
123; direct rule, 79–80, 83, 120,
126–27; education, 73–74, 83–84,
87, 88, 100n50; labor policies,
127–30; Maji-Maji rebellion, 121,
127–30; tax system, 115n167;
three-sites model and, 153n24
Tanganyikan African Association
(TAA), 6, 134, 137, 145
Tanganyikan African National Union
(TANU), 136; creation of, 134,
145; Fabians and, 102n73; merger
with ASP, 185, 209; support for
ASP, 175
Tanganyikan African Welfare and
Commercial Association, 158n55
TANU. See Tanganyikan African
National Union
256
Tanzania, 185, 201n76, 207–8, 211,
219
Tanzania People’s Defense Force
(TPDF), 211
taxes: British taxation of the clove
economy, 46n67; in British
Zanzibar, 146; communities as
collectively responsible for, 39n13;
German system in Tanganyika,
115n167; paid in kind, 40n16. See
also jizia
teachers, 76–77
technical training, 95n28
third-phase colonial rule: labor
practices and political repression,
117–27; overview, 10, 166–67;
Zanzibar under, 136–50
third-phase political resistance, 122
Thomas, Ivor, 158n53
Thomas, James, 157n52
three Cs, 65–66, 68
three-site model, 4, 12n7, 224–25
Thwain, Seyyid Hamed bin, 44n51
timar, 18
timariots, 18
Time magazine, 200n67
Trade Union Congress (TUC), 62,
102n62, 125, 144
Trade Union Decrees, 141, 195n7
trade unions (British), 62, 125,
153n15
triangular trade, 23–24
trusteeship government, 148
TUC. See Trade Union Congress
tumbo, 43n47
Uganda, 207
Ujamaa, 6
ukoo, 43n47
Index
Umma Party, 192, 201n74, 209
Ummayad dynasty, xii
“unassisted” schools, 112n139
Unguja Island, 15; government
schools, 78; landlessness of
Zanzibar Africans, 171; political
repression, 138–39; Shirazi-Swahili
dislocation, 29; spice trade and, 15
Ungujan Shirazi: landownership and,
38; squatters, 213–14
Ungujan Swahilis: fifth-phase political
conflicts and, 206, 208–21. See
also Swahili Zanzibaris
Unilateral Declaration of
Independence (UDI), 85
United Nations, 85
United Republic of Tanzania, 201n76
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, 185
universal education, 53–55, 104n86
ustaarabu, 100n47
Utilitarianism, 54, 67
vagrancy laws, 31, 47n72
Veblen, Thomas, 42n34
vocational training, 79, 95n28
Volksschule, 72
Volskulture planting scheme, 127–28
“voluntary” schools, 90n5
Voluntary-Secular schools, 62
Von Rechenberg, Albrecht, 128–29,
154n25
Wadstrom, C. B., 68, 105n89
wage labor system, 31
Wahadimu, 28–29, 46n61
Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, 21–23,
41nn30–31
Wakil, Idriss, 210
 Index
Wapemba “Arabs”: fifth-phase
political conflicts and, 206,
208–21; linguistic stratification
and, 205
Wapemba Shirazi: fourth-phase
political resistance and, 166; Abeid
Karume and, 203–4, 219–20; land
ownership and, 28–29; linguistic
stratification and, 205; “passing”
and, 223
waqf land system, 25, 26, 45n55
Ward, W. E. F., 63
Waterman, William, 93n19
Watson committee, 156n39
Watu Wakuu, 44n49
Webb, Beatrice, 131
Webb, Sydney (Lord Passfield),
131–32
Weber, Max, 73, 108nn109–10
Weston, Frank, 99n46
Whig party, 103n76
White, Charles W., 93n18
“white” empire, 89n4
“white man’s burden,” 66
“White Man’s Burden, The”
(Kipling), 66
“White Man’s Country,” 89n3,
95n26
witch doctors, 155n30
Wood, Nicholas, 227n3
working-class disarticulation, 53
“work slow” strategy, 151n6
World Federation of Trade Unions
(WFTU), 143
Yeager, Roger, 228n17
Yorubi dynasty, 44n50
Young African Union (YAP), 86,
115n163, 150n2, 175
257
Zanzibar: 1964 revolution (see
revolution of 1964); basis of
identity in, 1–2; geography,
xi; historical overview, ix–xv;
independence, 86, 181; names
for, ix–x; sources of conflict in, 2;
union with Tanganyika, 184, 207–8
Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party
(ZPPP): alliance with the ZNP (see
ZNP/ZPPP alliance); characteristics
and changing status of, 192, 193,
194; formation of, 174, 190, 191,
197n18, 209; Pemba Shirazi and,
227n2
Zanzibar Electoral Commission
(ZEC), 212, 217
Zanzibar Federation of Progressive
Trade Unions, 157n49
Zanzibari Arabs: British racial
categorization and, 58; the Clove
Growers Association and, 33–35;
economic patronage and, 213;
education in Zanzibar and, 102n72;
European perceptions of, 98n40;
first-phase colonial rule and, 30,
31; fourth-phase colonial rule and,
165, 186–87; indirect rule and, 84;
NPSS and, 169–70; relationship
with Indians, 188; Zanzibar
Nationalist Party and, 170, 171
Zanzibari Indians: 1964 revolution and,
179; academic disarticulation and,
70; British racial categorization and,
58; clove dealers, 34; education
and, 70; European perceptions of,
98n41; financial firms in Zanzibar,
106n95; history in Zanzibar,
188–89; mortgage companies,
33; relationship with Arabs, 188;
258
relationship with the colonial
government, 179
Zanzibar Island. See Unguja Island
Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP),
146, 157n49; alliance with the
ZPPP (see ZNP/ZPPP alliance);
Arab Zanzibaris and, 171;
characteristics and changing status
of, 192, 193, 194; composition
of, 190–91; formation of, 170;
fourth-phase colonial rule and,
Index
186–87; John Okello and, 176;
plantation owners/squatters
conflict and, 174; political goals,
172; resistance to African voters,
196n13, 198n42; Shirazis and, 3
Zanzibar Town, 84
ZNP. See Zanzibar Nationalist Party
ZNP/ZPPP alliance, 175, 177, 178,
180, 193, 194, 214
ZPPP. See Zanzibar and Pemba
People’s Party
 About the Author

Nadra O. Hashim is an adjunct professor of political science at DeVry

University, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was an inaugural Ford Fellow
at Amherst College in 2001, where she taught in the women’s studies
department. Dr. Hashim is currently researching grassroots environmental
conservation efforts in East Africa, and is published in the fields of en-
vironmental law and American presidential politics. She holds a PhD in
international relations and an MA in public administration from the Uni-
versity of Virginia, and obtained her undergraduate degree in psychology
from Georgetown University.

259