History History

Humans appear to have first colonized the southeast coast of the island about 20,000 years ago, according to prehistoric tools found in the Kuumbi caves. According to the characteristic glass beads found, dating from 2800 BC to the year 0, a second settlement originated from the Indian Ocean rather than the African continent. Finally, around 1000 BC, the Tumbatu and Hadimu Bantus, originally from the Great Lakes, advanced to the present-day coast of Tanzania and then to Zanzibar.

The first mention of the "zinj" coastline (the coastline of the Great Lakes region) dates back to 700 BC, when the Queen of Sheba ruled a kingdom in place of present-day Yemen. The Sabeans used the aptly named "Monsoon" wind to navigate the Indian Ocean. Over the centuries, Arab, Phoenician, Shirazian (Persian) and Indian navigators, who sailed the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to sell precious goods in Egypt and Arabia, settled in Zanzibar. This route carried many luxury goods on board the first dhows: Indian spices, silk from India, myrrh from Arabia, rare woods, feathers, ivory, precious stones, ambergris, gold, silver and slaves...

Muslim influence dominated Zanzibar from the 8th century, with the emergence of a Shiite diaspora. These Shirazians who came from Persia (present-day Iran) integrated into the local culture and language: the Swahili identity was created. Trading posts and the first mosques were built by the Shirazians in Pemba and Unguja. The Sultanate of Kilwa, founded in the 9th century (on the southern Tanzanian coast), was an important gold trading post led by the Persian prince Hassan bin Ali. It dominated Stone Town, Pemba, Mombasa and the Comoros from 975 to 1503, until the Portuguese invasion. The remains of Ras Mkumbuu and Mtambwe (Pemba), dating from the 10th century, remain from this period. In Unguja, the mosqueof Kizimkazi dates from 1107. In 1204, the Shirazian Persian Sultan of Basra (now Iraq), Yusuf bin Sultan bin Ibrahim el Alawi, settled in Tumbatu, north of Zanzibar. He built a vast palace in Kichangani (now Michamvi). Until the 13th century, the rich merchants mixed with the natives. Two tribal chiefs emerged: Mwenyi Mkuu among the Hadimu, and Sheha among the Tumbatu, from the two original Bantu groups. The former is part of the Afro-Shirazian Alawi dynasty, little known in the literature, but which ruled for 60 generations.

At the end of the 15th century, Zanzibar became an independent sultanate, minting its own currency. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Portuguese chased the Persians from Hormuz and the Arabs from Muscat on the Zanj coast. The commander Ruy Lorenço Ravasco seized Unguja (Zanzibar) and forced the Muslim notables to pay tribute to the Portuguese empire in exchange for peace. The latter accepted because the white settler was nevertheless an ally against the African invaders from the coast. In 1516, Duarte Barbosa, Magellan's cousin, described with admiration the fertility of the Zanzibar archipelago and the wealth of the inhabitants of this "city of the monsoons", using boats "sewn" to a single mast (the dhows). He describes the trade in silk and cotton clothes from India, and gold and silver from Zimbabwe. The inhabitants are depicted as black Muslim Moors, but some are red-haired and even blond, speaking Arabic and Swahili.

At the beginning of the 16th century, due to a lack of resources and men, the Portuguese gradually lost ground. In 1698, they were defeated in Mombasa and Zanzibar by the 3,000 men of Saif bin Sultan, the Imam of the Sultanate of Oman, and retreated to Sofala in Mozambique, where they kept control of the gold trade. The Omanis then built the old fort of Stone Town, around 1700, to defend themselves from the Portuguese, against whom a long struggle began. The only significant remains of the Portuguese occupation, which lasted for two centuries, are the ruins of Mvuleni Fukuchani, in the north-west of Unguja, near Nungwi.

Even under Portuguese rule, the Shirazian kings reigned locally until the arrival of the Sultans of Oman. The Swahili Queen Fatuma, who had cohabited peacefully with the Portuguese, pledged allegiance to the new conquerors. Another king of this Alawi dynasty, Mwenyi Mkuu (in Kiswahili), also pledged allegiance to the first Sultan of Oman, Seyyid Said. He built a palace in Dunga (Unguja), now in ruins. Shirazian and Arabic coins and Chinese and even Mongolian objects (from the Sultan of Tabriz) found on site bear witness to a wealth and a long commercial activity.

In 1840, Sultan Sayyid, who reigned in Muscat (Oman), decided to move to Zanzibar with his royal court, his retinue of slaves and a number of Omani notables in his wake. The Arab elite organized a flourishing triangular trade in spices and ivory, but especially in slaves. In 1845, under British pressure, the Sultan signed the Treaty of Hamerton: he undertook to stop exporting slaves, but he did not keep his promise. He nevertheless developed the cultivation of cloves to compensate for his losses. When he died in 1856, his sixth son, Sayyid Majid, took the throne in Zanzibar. The island quickly became richer than its big sister Oman and became free. Despite its beautiful appearance, it was nicknamed "Stinkybar" by the English explorer Livingstone, described as a dumping ground for garbage and human excrement. A situation that caused cholera epidemics; the one in 1859 killed 20,000 people.

After his first stay in England, Said Bargash, the island's^third sultan, decided to build a railway line between the city and his palace in Chukwani, 10 km to the south, to speed up the transport of spices. This steam locomotive, inaugurated in 1890, was the first in the Great Lakes region. Another modernity: a telegraph wire between Zanzibar and Aden. Finally, in 1883, the House of Wonders or Beit el-Ajaib, the largest house in East Africa, was inaugurated on the site of Queen Fatuma's castle in Stone Town. It owes its name to an electric elevator, which was very futuristic for its time!

The British Crown and the German Second Reich sign the Treaty of Berlin, delimiting their respective zones of influence in East Africa. Sultan Hamed bin Tuwaid had to say goodbye to his kingdom and keep the crumbs: the islands of the archipelago and a tiny coastal strip. He ceded the north to the British (Mombasa and Lamu, in present-day Kenya), and present-day Tanzania to the Germans. In 1896, shortly after the death of the Sultan, the Heligoland Treaty placed Zanzibar under British protectorate. The sultans were henceforth paid by the British Crown.

The Anglo-Zanzibari war lasted between 30 and 45 minutes before the ceasefire, the shortest war record in history! At the death of Sultan Hamed bin Tuwaid, on August 25, 1896, Khalid bin Bargash, the son of Sultan Barghash, seized power in a coup. The British, preferring Hamoud bin Mohammed, issued an ultimatum of one hour. Determined to resist, Barghash gathered 2,800 men to fight the British. Tick tock, tick tock, the British bombarded the Beit al Hukum Palace in a few minutes. Fearing that the city would be razed to the ground, Bargash's son declared a cease-fire. Hamoud bin Mohammed re-established peace and, in accordance with the wishes of the British, put a definitive end to the slave trade in 1897. He gave freedom to the slaves and financial compensation to their owners. He sent his son Hamoud to study in England.

When the First World War broke out, the British and Germans were fighting here. Stone Town is bombed. In 1925, Great Britain strengthens its colonial power over Zanzibar. During the Second World War, the men serve in the British forces. In the first elections in 1957, two indigenous parties clashed: the Zanzibar National Party (ZNP), a pro-independence party made up of Arabs dispossessed of power and deprived of the slave trade by the British, and the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), an alliance of African farm workers, many of them former slaves, and Shirazi Persians, who rejected the ZNP's Arab rule.

In this ethnic context - a real powder keg - independence was obtained on 10 December 1963. The island was declared a constitutional monarchy under the order of the Sultan. But, as in 1957, the ASP had the largest number of votes (54%) without however obtaining power. Frustrated by centuries of Arab domination, the party launched a proletarian revolution on January 11, 1964, with the support of the far-left Umma party. Many sociologists today study this revolt (called mapinduzi) as the first African proletarian revolution. The government was overthrown and Zanzibar was the scene of terrible massacres. It is estimated that in the old town some 20,000 people from Arab and Indian families were massacred in one night. A river of blood orchestrated by the armed wing of the revolution, John Okello, a Ugandan who invaded the island with 600 to 800 mercenaries who looted, killed, raped and attacked properties. The massacre was filmed by an Italian documentary team in Africa Addio.

Abeid Amani Karume, leader of the ASP, is proclaimed president of the Republic of Zanzibar, Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah is exiled, and nearly 500 political prisoners are taken. On 26 April 1964, the union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar (Tan - Zan - ie) was proclaimed. Zanzibar kept its semi-autonomous status and its president Karume, then vice-president of the United Republic of Tanzania, presided over by Julius Nyerere. The archipelago then had 230,000 Afro-Shirazians, 50,000 Arabs and 20,000 Indians. The socialist government obtained the support of the USSR, the GDR and China. It nationalised two banks to create the People Bank of Zanzibar and all Arab and Indian properties. Karume took totalitarian measures: control of individual freedoms and nepotism, by appointing the directors of administrations and industries.

The reasons for this are not known: personal revenge or a political act. Pro and anti-government forces clashed, but in 1977, Nyerere's TANU and the ASP merged to form the Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM): the Party of the Revolution. In 1980, Ali Hassan Mwinyi (CCM) became the first elected president of the archipelago, then president of Tanzania in 1985. But it was Dr Salmin Amour, elected in Zanzibar in 1990 and re-elected in 1996, who made the development of tourism a priority. The general atmosphere is one of tolerance.

Karume's son (CMM) was elected in 2001 in the face of a protest against the pro-independence Civic United Front (CUF) party led by Seif Sharif Hamad. In Pemba, the army fired on the demonstrators, causing at least 13 deaths according to Human Right Watch. Again in 2010, Karume was re-elected and post-election riots left 9 people dead. Following a referendum on a government of national unity between CUF and CCM, Ali Mohammed Shein was elected president of Zanzibar in 2015 with 91.4% of the vote. Elections under high tension. The latter is banking on the political status quo of the island attached to Tanzania. At the same time, John Magufuli was elected president of Tanzania.

Nicknamed "the Bulldozer", Magufuli was re-elected in 2020, while in Zanzibar it was Hussein Mwinyi (CCM) who took power. While Magufuli became known for his outbursts on Covid-19, denying its danger and even its existence, the vice-president of Zanzibar, Seif Sharif Hamad, officially died of the epidemic in February 2021. A month later, on 17 March 2021, John Magufuli died, officially of heart problems, but he could have been a victim of Covid-19, according to the opposition.

This MP, originally from Makunduchi in Zanzibar, is the first interim president of the Republic of Tanzania, since March 19, 2021. This is an exceptional situation because Zanzibarite society is very conservative. Like a political UFO, she was a minister under Karume, then Minister of State for Union Affairs (the equivalent of the Ministry of Home Affairs) under Magufuli, before taking over the vice presidency. It was the Magufuli-Hassan ticket that won in 2020, bringing mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar under the CCM umbrella.

After years of delay, Zanzibar's new airport was gradually inaugurated in 2022, to become the only terminal receiving foreign flights, with a capacity of 1.5 million passengers a year. The old airport becomes a domestic terminal.