History of Tanzania

Tanzania's history begins at the very beginning.  Supposedly the birthplace of humanity, Olduvai Gorge, is located next to the great Serengeti Plain of Northern Tanzania.

Fast forward a couple million years...

Tanzania's coastline has been the subject of sometimes intense colonial rivalries for centuries.  As early as the 17th century, Arabs and Portugese were establishing ports along the entire East coast of Africa.  By 1800, Arab slave traders had penetrated the interior of East Africa all the way to Lake Victoria.  Slaves were taken to Zanzibar before being transported all over the world.

The tribes of the interior have been migrating around for millenia.  The most recent population movements have been triggered by the slave trade, and the ensuing turmoil.  By 1800, the Maasai settled in Northern Tanzania, between the Serengeti and Mount Kilimanjaro as far South as Dodoma.  The previous inhabitants, Bantus, were upended by slave trading and driven West and South.

As a commercial center for spices and human slaves, Zanzibar became the largest port in East Africa.  In 1832, Zanzibar was made the capital of the Sultanate of Oman.  Cloves were introduced to the island in 1818, and by 1850, Zanzibar controlled 75% of the world clove market.  Today that figure is down to less than 10%.

By the mid 19th century, European interest in Africa was on the rise.  Dr. Stanley Livingstone was exploring the interior of the continent as the British empire dreamed of a railway line from "Cape to Cairo".  But in Tanzania, the German's established themselves sooner, and the German East Africa Company took control of "Tanganyika", as mainland Tanzania was called.

In typical colonial fashion, a bunch of Dead White Men (DWMs) got together to divide up the world between themselves (similar to the way the "Families" of New York did it in "The Godfather").  As a result, Tanganyika became a German Protectorate, and Kenya and Uganda became British Protectorates.

The Germans were not too well liked in Tanganyika.  Of course, none of the wazungu (white people) were terribly popular.  But after World War 1, Tanganyika was given to the British and was pretty much ignored for several decades, until independence was achieved in 1961.

Julius Nyerere was the chairman of the Tanganyika Africa Association, a union of farming cooperatves.  As the head of the largest union in the protectorate, he led the charge towards independence, and was the logical first president of the new nation.  Despite the many tribes that occupy the land of Tanganyika, independence was achieved peacefully.

Zanzibar, which had been a British protectorate since the late 1800s and acheived independence in the early 60s, had become increasingly under the sway of Nyerere's TANU political party.  In 1964, Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika to form the United Republic of Tanzania.

In typical African dictator fashion, Nyerere instituted a wacko socialist collectivism scheme which forcibly relocated millions of people into Ujamaas (a sort of collective farming village).  He alse nationalized the entire economy and things got really bad.

Nyerere did what any right minded African dictator would do under these circumstances:  he blamed it on the West and turned to the Chinese for help.  The Chinese funded another wacko dream, the TAZARA railway line, which links Dar Es Salaam with the copper belt in Zambia.  Unfortunately, after the completion of the railway, the oil shocks of the 1970s bled the economy dry, and maintenance along the TAZARA line was allowed to lapse.

While I'd discussing Nyerere's foibles, one cannot forget the closing of the border with Kenya in the late 70s.  With Nairobi's Kenyatta International Airport receiving most of the air traffic for tourists, Nyerere brilliantly concluded that the way to increase tourism into his own country was to close the border with Kenya and force tourists to fly to Tanzania directly.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.  Tourism to Tanzania almost completely disappeared for ten years.  The border was eventually reopened, but the damage was done.  Now, whenever people think of an East African safari, they think of Kenya.

Despite his economic difficulties, Nyerere is credited as one of the strongest voices against white rule in Africa.  He was called "The Conscience of Africa" because of his outspoken opposition to the apartheid system in South Africa.  Until very recently, there has been a lasting distrust between Tanzania and the ZAR.

Another great international success that Nyerere achieved was the demise of Idi Amin's Ugandan regime.  Idi Amin, the psychotic dictator of Uganda in the late 70s, invaded Tanzania in 1978.  Without any help from the West (themselves outspoken critics of the Amin regime) or neighboring countries, Tanzania singlehandedly defeated a superior Ugandan army.  The Tanzanian army occupied Uganda, and ousted Idi Amin.

Since Nyerere stepped down in the late 1980s, the new president, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, has been moving the country towards capitalism, but at a very slow pace.  While changes are taking place (Tanzania reopened the border with Kenya in the early nineties), they do not happen very fast.