The Sultanate of Zanzibar, also known as the Zanzibar Sultanate, refers to the
territories over which the Sultan of Zanzibar was the sovereign. Those
territories varied over time. At one point they included all of what is now
Kenya as well as the Zanzibar Archipelago of the Swahili Coast. Later
they included only a ten mile wide coastal strip of Kenya and Zanzibar.
Under an agreement concluded on 8 October 1963 the Sultan relinquished
sovereignty over his remaining territory in Kenya. On 12 January 1964 Sultan
Jamshid bin Abdullah was deposed and lost sovereignty over the last of his
domininons, Zanzibar. History
In 1698, Zanzibar became part of the overseas holdings of Oman after Saif bin
Sultan, the Imam of Oman, defeated the Portuguese in Mombasa, in what is now
Kenya. In 1832, or 1840, Omani ruler Said bin Sultan moved his court from
Muscat to Stone Town on the island of Unguja. He established a ruling Arab
elite and encouraged the development of clove plantations, using the island's
slave labour. Zanzibar's commerce fell increasingly into the hands of traders
from the Indian subcontinent, whom Said encouraged to settle on the island.
After his death in 1856, two of his sons, Majid bin Said and Thuwaini bin
Said, struggled over the succession, so Zanzibar and Oman were divided into two
separate realms. Thuwaini became the Sultan of Muscat and Oman while Majid
became the first Sultan of Zanzibar, but obliged to pay an annual tribute to the
Omani court in Muscat. During his 14-year reign as Sultan, Majid
consolidated his power around the local slave trade. His successor, Barghash bin
Said, helped abolish the slave trade in Zanzibar and largely developed the
country's infrastructure. The third Sultan, Khalifa bin Said, also furthered
the country's progress toward abolishing slavery.
= Context for the Sultan's loss of control over his dominions=
Until 1884, the Sultans of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the
Swahili Coast, known as Zanj, and trading routes extending further into
the continent, as far as Kindu on the Congo River. That year however, the
Society for German Colonization forced local chiefs on the mainland to agree to
German protection, prompting Sultan Bargash bin Said to protest. Coinciding
with the Berlin Conference and the Scramble for Africa, further German
interest in the area was soon shown in 1885 by the arrival of the newly created
German East Africa Company, which had a mission to colonize the area.
In 1886, the British and Germans secretly met and discussed their aims of
expansion in the African Great Lakes, with spheres of influence already agreed
upon the year before, with the British to take what would become the East
Africa Protectorate and the Germans to take present-day Tanzania. Both powers
leased coastal territory from Zanzibar and established trading stations and
outposts. Over the next few years, all of the mainland possessions of Zanzibar
came to be administered by European imperial powers, beginning in 1888 when
the Imperial British East Africa Company took over administration of Mombasa.
The same year the German East Africa Company acquired formal direct rule over
the coastal area previously submitted to German protection. This resulted in a
native uprising, the Abushiri Revolt, which was crushed by a joint
Anglo-German naval operation which heralded the end of Zanzibar's influence
on the mainland. 1890 - Establishment by the British of
the Zanzibar Protectorate on part of the Sultan's dominions
With the signing of the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty between the
United Kingdom and the German Empire in 1890, Zanzibar itself became a British
protectorate. In August 1896, following the death of Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini,
Britain and Zanzibar fought a 38-minute war, the shortest in recorded history. A
struggle for succession took place as the Sultan's cousin Khalid bin Barghash
seized power. The British instead wanted Hamoud bin Mohammed to become Sultan,
believing that he would be much easier to work with. The British gave Khalid an
hour to vacate the Sultan's palace in Stone Town. Khalid failed to do so, and
instead assembled an army of 2,800 men to fight the British. The British
launched an attack on the palace and other locations around the city after
which Khalid retreated and later went into exile. Hamoud was then peacefully
installed as Sultan. That "Zanzibar" for these purposes
included the ten-mile coastal strip of Kenya that would later become the
Protectorate of Kenya was a matter recorded in the parliamentary debates at
the time. 1895 - Establishment by the British of
the East Africa Protectorate on part of the Sultan's dominions
In 1886, the British government encouraged William Mackinnon, who
already had an agreement with the Sultan and whose shipping company traded
extensively in the African Great Lakes, to establish British influence in the
region. He formed a British East Africa Association which led to the Imperial
British East Africa Company being chartered in 1888 and given the original
grant to administer the territory. It administered about 150 miles of
coastline stretching from the River Jubba via Mombasa to German East Africa
which were leased from the Sultan. The British "sphere of influence", agreed at
the Berlin Conference of 1885, extended up the coast and inland across the
future Kenya and after 1890 included Uganda as well. Mombasa was the
administrative centre at this time. However, the company began to fail, and
on 1 July 1895 the British government proclaimed a protectorate, the East
Africa Protectorate, the administration being transferred to the Foreign Office.
In 1902 administration was again transferred to the Colonial Office and
the Uganda territory was incorporated as part of the protectorate also. In 1897
Lord Delamere, the pioneer of white settlement, arrived in the Kenya
highlands, which was then part of the Protectorate. Lord Delamere was
impressed by the agricultural porribilities of the area. In 1902 the
boundaries of the Protectorate were extended to include what was previously
the Eastern Province of Uganda. Also, in 1902, the East Africa Syndicate received
a grant of 500 square miles to promote white settlement in the Highlands. Lord
Delamere now commenced extensive farming operations, and in 1905, when a large
number of new settlers arrived from England and South Africa, the
Protectorate was transferred from the authority of the Foreign Office to that
of the Colonial Office. The capital was shifted from Mombasa to Nairobi in 1905.
A regular Government and Legislature were constituted by Order in Council in
1906. This constituted the administrator a governor and provided for legislative
and executive councils. Lieutenant Colonel J. Hayes Sadler was the first
governor and commander in chief. There were occasional troubles with local
tribes but the country was opened up by the Government and the colonists with
little bloodshed. After the First World War, more farmers arrived from England
and South Africa, and by 1919 the European population was estimated at
9,000 settlers. 1920 - Sultan loses sovereignty over
what became the Colony of Kenya On 23 July 1920, the inland areas of the
East Africa Protectorate were annexed as British dominions by Order in Council.
That part of the former Protectorate was thereby constituted as the Colony of
Kenya and from that time, the Sultan of Zanzibar ceased to be sovereign over
that territory. The remaining ten-mile wide coastal strip, remained a
Protectorate under an agreement with the Sultan of Zanzibar. That coastal strip,
remaining under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar, was constituted as
the Protectorate of Kenya in 1920. The Protectorate of Kenya was governed
as part of the Colony of Kenya by virtue of an agreement between the United
Kingdom and the Sultan dated 14 December 1895. In summary, the "Colony of Kenya"
referred to the interior lands. The "Protectorate of Kenya" was a ten-mile
coastal strip together with certain islands which remained under the
sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar until the independence of Kenya.
1963 - Sultan cedes sovereignty over the Protectorate of Kenya
The Colony of Kenya and the Protectorate of Kenya each came to an end on 12
December 1963. The United Kingdom ceded sovereignty over the Colony of Kenya
and, under an agreement dated 8 October 1963, the Sultan agreed that
simultaneous with independence for Kenya, the Sultan would cease to have
sovereignty over the Protectorate of Kenya. In this way, Kenya became an
independent country under the Kenya Independence Act 1963. Exactly 12 months
later on 12 December 1964, Kenya became a republic under the name "Republic of
Kenya". 1963/1964 - Zanzibar Protectorate ended
& Sultan deposed On 10 December 1963, the Protectorate
that had existed over Zanzibar since 1890 was terminated by the United
Kingdom. The United Kingdom did not grant Zanzibar independence, as such,
because the UK had never had sovereignty over Zanzibar. Rather, by the Zanzibar
Act 1963 of the United Kingdom, the UK ended the Protectorate and made
provision for full-self government in Zanzibar as an independent country
within the Commonwealth. Upon the Protectorate being abolished, Zanzibar
became a constitutional monarchy under the Sultan. Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah
was overthrown a month later during the Zanzibar Revolution. Jamshid fled into
exile, and the Sultanate was replaced by the People's Republic of Zanzibar and
Pemba. In April 1964, this short-lived communist republic was united with
Tanganyika to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, which became
known as Tanzania six months later. Demographics
By 1964, the country was a constitutional monarchy ruled by Sultan
Jamshid bin Abdullah. Zanzibar had a population of around 230,000 natives,
some of whom claimed Persian ancestry and were known locally as Shirazis. It
also contained significant minorities in the 50,000 Arabs and 20,000 South Asians
who were prominent in business and trade. The various ethnic groups were
becoming mixed and the distinctions between them had blurred; according to
one historian, an important reason for the general support for Sultan Jamshid
was his family's ethnic diversity. However, the island's Arab inhabitants,
as the major landowners, were generally wealthier than the natives; the major
political parties were organised largely along ethnic lines, with Arabs
dominating the Zanzibar Nationalist Party and natives the Afro-Shirazi
Party. See also
List of Sultans of Zanzibar References
Bibliography Parsons, Timothy, The 1964 Army Mutinies
and the Making of Modern East Africa, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN
0-325-07068-7 . Shillington, Kevin, Encyclopedia of
African History, CRC Press, ISBN 1-57958-245-1 .
Speller, Ian, "An African Cuba? Britain and the Zanzibar Revolution, 1964.",
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 35: 1–35 .
External links The Official Website of the Zanzibar
Royal Family http:www.zanzibarroyalfamily.org
"Zanzibar, a sultanate and British protectorate of East Africa".
Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911.