Tanzania
Population distribution in Tanzania is extremely uneven. Density
varies from 1 person per square kilometer (3 per sq. mi.) in arid
regions to 51 per square kilometer (133 per sq. mi.) in the
mainland's well-watered highlands to 134 per square kilometer (347
per sq. mi.) on Zanzibar. More than 80% of the population is rural.
Dar es Salaam is the capital and largest city; Dodoma, located in
the center of Tanzania, has been designated the legislative capital
and the Parliament meets there four times a year.
The African population consists of more than 120 ethnic groups, of
which the Sukuma, Haya, Nyakyusa, Nyamwezi, and Chaga have more than
1 million members each. The majority of Tanzanians, including such
large tribes as the Sukuma and the Nyamwezi, are of Bantu stock.
Groups of Nilotic or related origin include the nomadic Masai and
the Luo, both of which are found in greater numbers in neighboring
Kenya. Two small groups speak languages of the Khoisan family
peculiar to the Bushman and Hottentot peoples. Cushitic-speaking
peoples, originally from the Ethiopian highlands, reside in a few
areas of Tanzania.
Although much of Zanzibar's African population came from the
mainland, one group known as Shirazis traces its origins to the
island's early Persian settlers. Non-Africans residing on the
mainland and Zanzibar account for 1% of the total population. The
Asian community, including Hindus, Sikhs, Shi'a and Sunni Muslims,
and Goans, has declined by 50% in the past decade to 50,000 on the
mainland and 4,000 on Zanzibar. An estimated 70,000 Arabs and 10,000
Europeans reside in Tanzania.
Each ethnic group has its own language, but the national language is
Kiswahili, a Bantu-based tongue with strong Arabic borrowings. |
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Northern Tanganyika's famed Olduvai Gorge has provided rich evidence
of the area's prehistory, including fossil remains of some of
humanity's earliest ancestors. Discoveries suggest that East Africa
may have been the site of human origin.
Little is known of the history of Tanganyika's interior during the
early centuries of the Christian era. The area is believed to have
been inhabited originally by ethnic groups using a click-tongue
language similar to that of Southern Africa's Bushmen and
Hottentots. Although remnants of these early tribes still exist,
most were gradually displaced by Bantu farmers migrating from the
west and south and by Nilotes and related northern peoples. Some of
these groups had well-organized societies and controlled extensive
areas by the time the Arab slavers, European explorers, and
missionaries penetrated the interior in the first half of the 19th
century.
The coastal area first felt the impact of foreign influence as early
as the 8th century, when Arab traders arrived. By the 12th century,
traders and immigrants came from as far away as Persia (now Iran)
and India. They built a series of highly developed city and trading
states along the coast, the principal one being Kibaha, a settlement
of Persian origin that held ascendancy until the Portuguese
destroyed it in the early 1500s.
The Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama explored the East African
coast in 1498 on his voyage to India. By 1506, the Portuguese
claimed control over the entire coast. This control was nominal,
however, because the Portuguese did not colonize the area or explore
the interior. Assisted by Omani Arabs, the indigenous coastal
dwellers succeeded in driving the Portuguese from the area north of
the Ruvuma River by the early 18th century. Claiming the coastal
strip, Omani Sultan Seyyid Said (1804-56) moved his capital to
Zanzibar in 1841.
European exploration of the interior began in the mid-19th century.
Two German missionaries reached Mt. Kilimanjaro in the 1840s.
British explorers Richard Burton and John Speke crossed the interior
to Lake Tanganyika in 1857. David Livingstone, the Scottish
missionary-explorer who crusaded against the slave trade,
established his last mission at Ujiji, where he was "found" by Henry
Morton Stanley, an American journalist-explorer, who had been
commissioned by the New York Herald to locate him.
German colonial interests were first advanced in 1884. Karl Peters,
who formed the Society for German Colonization, concluded a series
of treaties by which tribal chiefs in the interior accepted German
"protection." Prince Otto von Bismarck's government backed Peters in
the subsequent establishment of the German East Africa Company.
In 1886 and 1890, Anglo-German agreements were negotiated that
delineated the British and German spheres of influence in the
interior of East Africa and along the coastal strip previously
claimed by the Omani sultan of Zanzibar. In 1891, the German
Government took over direct administration of the territory from the
German East Africa Company and appointed a governor with
headquarters at Dar es Salaam.
Although the German colonial administration brought cash crops,
railroads, and roads to Tanganyika, European rule provoked African's
resistance, culminating in the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905-07. The
rebellion, which temporarily united a number of southern tribes and
ended only after an estimated 120,000 Africans had died from
fighting or starvation, is considered by most Tanzanians to have
been one of the first stirrings of nationalism.
German colonial domination of Tanganyika ended after World War I
when control of most of the territory passed to the United Kingdom
under a League of Nations mandate. After World War II, Tanganyika
became a UN trust territory under British control. Subsequent years
witnessed Tanganyika moving gradually toward self-government and
independence.
In 1954, Julius K. Nyerere, a school teacher who was then one of
only two Tanganyikans educated abroad at the university level,
organized a political party--the Tanganyika African National Union
(TANU). TANU-supported candidates were victorious in the Legislative
Council elections of September 1958 and February 1959. In December
1959, the United Kingdom agreed to the establishment of internal
self-government following general elections to be held in August
1960. Nyerere was named chief minister of the subsequent government.
In May 1961, Tanganyika became autonomous, and Nyerere became Prime
Minister under a new constitution. Full independence was achieved on
December 9, 1961. Julius. Nyerere was elected President when
Tanganyika became a republic within the Commonwealth a year after
independence.
Zanzibar
An early Arab/Persian trading center, Zanzibar fell under Portuguese
domination in the 16th and early 17th centuries but was retaken by
Omani Arabs in the early 18th century. The height of Arab rule came
during the reign of Sultan Seyyid Said, who encouraged the
development of clove plantations, using the island's slave labor.
The Arabs established their own garrisons at Zanzibar, Pemba, and
Kilwa and carried on a lucrative trade in slaves and ivory. By 1840,
Said had transferred his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar and
established a ruling Arab elite. The island's commerce fell
increasingly into the hands of traders from the Indian subcontinent,
who Said encouraged to settle on the island.
Zanzibar's spices attracted ships from as far away as the United
States. A U.S. consulate was established on the island in 1837. The
United Kingdom's early interest in Zanzibar was motivated by both
commerce and the determination to end the slave trade. In 1822, the
British signed the first of a series of treaties with Sultan Said to
curb this trade, but not until 1876 was the sale of slaves finally
prohibited.
The Anglo-German agreement of 1890 made Zanzibar and Pemba a British
protectorate. British rule through a Sultan remained largely
unchanged from the late 19th century until after World War II.
Zanzibar's political development began in earnest after 1956, when
provision was first made for the election of six nongovernmental
members to the Legislative Council. Two parties were formed: the
Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), representing the dominant Arab and
"Arabized" minority, and the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), led by Abeid
Karume and representing the Shirazis and the African majority.
The first elections were held in July 1957. The ASP won three of the
six elected seats, with the remainder going to independents.
Following the election, the ASP split; some of its Shirazi
supporters left to form the Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party
(ZPPP). The January 1961 election resulted in a deadlock between the
ASP and a ZNP-ZPPP coalition.
United Republic of Tanzania
Zanzibar received its independence from the United Kingdom on
December 19, 1963, as a constitutional monarchy under the sultan. On
January 12, 1964, the African majority revolted against the sultan
and a new government was formed with the ASP leader, Abeid Karume,
as President of Zanzibar and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council.
Under the terms of its political union with Tanganyika in April
1964, the Zanzibar Government retained considerable local autonomy.
On April 26, 1964, Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form the
United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. The country was renamed
the United Republic of Tanzania on October 29, 1964.
To form a sole ruling party in both parts of the union Nyerere
merged TANU with the Zanzibar ruling party, the Afro-Shirazi Party
(ASP) of Zanzibar to form the CCM (Chama cha Mapinduzi-CCM
Revolutionary Party), on February 5, 1977. The CCM was to be the
sole instrument for mobilizing and controlling the population in all
significant political or economic activities. He envisioned the
party as a "two-way street" for the flow of ideas and policy
directives between the village level and the government. On April
26, 1977, the union of the two parties was ratified in a new
constitution. The merger was reinforced by principles enunciated in
the 1982 union constitution and reaffirmed in the constitution of
1984.
President Nyerere stepped down from office and was succeeded as
President by Ali Hassan Mwinyi in 1985. Nyerere retained his
position as Chairman of the ruling CCM party for 5 more years and
was influential in Tanzanian politics until his death in October
1999. The current President, Jakaya Kikwete, was elected in December
2005. Zanzibar President Amani Abeid Karume, the son of Zanzibar's
first president, was elected in 2000, in general elections that were
marked by widespread irregularities throughout the Isles. His
predecessor, Salmin Amour, was first elected in single-party
elections in 1990, then re-elected in 1995 in Zanzibar's first
multi-party elections. These elections also were tainted by violence
and serious irregularities in the voting process. |
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