History History

It is in the Rift Valley, from Ethiopia to Tanzania, that the first humans appeared. Fossil footprints of Laetoli (3.7 million years old) were discovered here in Olduvaï, as well as the skull of Australopithecus zinjanthropus (1.8 million years old) - from Zinj, the Arabic name for the East African coast -, also in Olduvaï. The National Museum in Dar es Salaam houses the bulk of the archaeological remains. The Kondoa region is renowned for its Stone Age rock paintings. Today, the people who are considered to be the direct descendants ofhomo habilis still live here. They are the Khoisan, cousins of the Kalahari Bushmen, with whom they share their click language. Two groups coexist: the Sandawe in the south, near Kondoa, and the Watindiga, or Hadzabe, on the shores of Lake Eyasi, in cave dwellings. The Sandawe live by breeding, while the Watindiga live by bow hunting and gathering (roots, tubers, berries and honey...). They are small, have a light complexion, fine features and a very round face.

A second settlement took place from 3,000 years before our era, that of the Kushites. This people of pastoralists, mentioned in the Bible (Kush is one of the four sons of Ham, son of Noah), introduced cattle breeding in East Africa and the cultivation of millet. They quickly settled down, especially in the Karatu region. Organized in age groups, they practice circumcision. They do not work with iron, but with polished stone. These black peoples, the Iraqw and Burungi of today, are close to the Somalis and certain Cushitic ethnic groups of southern Ethiopia, Sudan (Barabra and Galla) and also southern Egypt and Arabia. The ancient Cushites probably occupied it at one point in their history, before having to leave it under the pressure of newcomers (Maasai or Tatog).

It lasted for two centuries until 1000 AD. The Bantu, with their darker skin, arrived en masse in what is now Burundi and Rwanda, passing between lakes Tanganyika and Victoria. They were farmers and knew metallurgy fairly well, which they then introduced into present-day Tanzania. The mountains offered fertile slopes, favourable to crops. The Bantu brought cereals, clothes, beaded jewellery and metal tools. They founded a few kingdoms gathering about a hundred tribes and assimilated the Khoisans and Couchites (the Bantus representing 90% of the population), each with a chief at its head. The city of Engaruka, in ruins for 300 years, between Natron and Manyara, dates from the Iron Age. Only the mountains allowed the survival of small isolated indigenous groups, notably the Hadzabe.

As early as antiquity, the first Arab visitors landed on the Swahili coast to trade by barter. The latter was named by medieval Arab geographers Zinj, or Zanj ("the land of the blacks"). The name Zanzibar has kept the etymology. Merchants from the Arabian Peninsula, particularly from Yemen and Oman, Phoenicia, India, the Persian Gulf and Egypt bought ivory, precious wood, copal, gum, gold, animal skins, perfumes and slaves. Ptolemy, a Greek geographer from Alexandria (2nd century AD), describes these inhabitants as tall and dark-skinned. At the same time, a manual for commercial sailors, The Eritrean Sea Journey, mentions the presence of Arab traders settled on the coast and married to African women. Muslim influence became increasingly dominant, particularly in the 9th century. Interbreeding with the Bantu gave rise to the Swahili people and culture

In the Middle Ages, the Shirazi Persians settled massively on the coast and traded with the interior of the continent, taking their caravans up to the Great Lakes. They built Kilwa in particular in the south of the country, but ruins can be seen all along the coast, especially in Zanzibar and Pemba. The Shirazi Persians did not expect, at that time, the arrival of a competing foreign power, let alone one from so far away. Moreover, having easily imposed themselves on the African tribes, their buildings were much more palaces than fortresses.

The Ngoni, fierce warriors of Bantu origin, who came from southern Africa through present-day Zambia and were related to the Zulus and Xhosas of South Africa, brutally invaded the south of present-day Tanzania. They had time to crush some Bantu tribes, before being stopped in the east by the Yao and in the north by the Hehe, ethnic groups much stronger in number and just as gregarious. They are settled today on fertile lands, in the region of Songea, near the border with Mozambique, where they are mainly engaged in tea growing.

On the coast, in Zanzibar, Pemba and Kilwa, the Portuguese imposed themselves without difficulty. Portuguese navigators described the coast and the islands as impressive in their fertility and opulence. In 1587, the Portuguese, too few in number and too far from their bases, were massacred by the inhabitants of Pemba. Around 1690, Fatuma (a half-breed of Shirazi-African descent) became Queen of Zanzibar, but remained loyal to the Portuguese. The Portuguese were finally defeated eight years later by a fleet of 3,000 men sent by the Imam of Muscat (Oman), and had to retreat to Mozambique.

The latest settlement is due to the rather bellicose arrival of pastoralists and warriors from the Upper Nile (now Sudan), speaking Nilo-Saharan languages: the Tatog and the Maasai. Their weapons consist of a headache made from an acacia root, a spear and a long knife resembling the Roman swords (which colonized the Nile valley), completed with a buffalo skin shield. They are tall, have fine features, and a proud look. Their opponents call them Barabaig or Wamangati (the brave men). After having quite easily pushed back the peaceful populations, the Tatog and the Maasai clashed ferociously for the domination of Ngorongoro and Serengeti. The Tatog were finally pushed back to the south, to Mount Hanang (3,417m) between Arusha and Dodoma. The Wa-Arusha, who inhabited the town of the same name, are related to the Maasai, although they have become sedentary and cultivators, interbreeding with the Meru Bantu of this region.

This new colonization came from southern Arabia, especially from Oman. Slavery then reached its maximum extent. From that time until its official abolition in 1873, it is estimated that more than 1.5 million slaves were taken from the interior or captured on the coast (600,000 between 1830 and 1873), not counting those who died on the way. The needs of the Omanis in the Arabian Peninsula, in Zanzibar and Pemba, and in the islands colonized by the Europeans in the Indian Ocean (Moluccas, Seychelles, Mauritius and Reunion), were immense. A large official market was even opened in 1811 in Zanzibar. Two caravan routes arrived from the interior of the continent: one from the Zambezi basin, via the northern shores of Lake Nyasa (or Lake Malawi), as far as Kilwa; the other from Lake Victoria, via Tabora, as far as Bagamoyo (north of Dar es Salaam). In the 19th century, the first explorers and missionaries drew the attention of European states to the proportions taken by the slave trade in East Africa, and the sultans gradually had to give in to the Westerners. However, despite its official abolition, slavery continued illegally until the beginning of the 20th century, orchestrated by the Omanis who, despite the somewhat forced acceptance of British rules, continued to send slaves clandestinely to the Peninsula

German trading companies began to establish themselves in the country, signing agreements with the chiefs of certain local tribes (these were often friendship treaties signed in German with illiterate chiefs...). The German-English agreements of the Berlin Conference in 1886 gave birth to German East Africa (Deutsch Ostafrika), which included Tanganyika (including Kilimanjaro ceded by Queen Victoria to her nephew Kaiser Wilhelm), as well as Rwanda and Burundi. Zanzibar and Pemba, under British protectorate, remained in the hands of the sultans.

The newcomers encountered strong resistance from several ethnic groups, in particular the Hehes from the Iringa area and the Nyamwezis towards Tabora. In 1894, they allied themselves with a powerful Arab, Rumaliza, who had been defeated in the Congo by the Belgians and settled in Ujiji (on Lake Tanganyika) before being driven out by the Germans. In 1894, several thousand soldiers under the command of von Prince besieged the stronghold of Kalenga. The Mkwawa chief was able to escape, however, and led a guerrilla war for four years. The confrontations continued until, hunted and starving and feeling that his people's cause was lost, Mkwawa committed suicide in July 1898 in the Ruaha. His head, for which there was a price, was cut off by a German and taken to the Bremen Ethnological Museum in Germany, where it was kept with 200 others, including 53 from the Deutsch Ostafrika, until it was returned in June 1954, thanks to the efforts of the British Governor Twining. Von Prince died in Tanga in 1914

In 1897 the great epidemic of rinderpest began, decimating the herds of most of the pastoralist ethnic groups, especially the Maasai, and causing severe famine. From 1905 to 1906 another great revolt took place, south of Dar es Salaam, known as the maji maji, in which the tribes of southern Tanganyika took part, armed only with bows and spears. It is very violently repressed: 75,000 people die, many of them from starvation, following the scorched earth policy carried out by the Germans, who burn fields and granaries. All the leaders were executed. The head of Songea, the Ngoni chief who gave his name to the town, was sent to Germany, as was that of Mkwawa, but was never found. The Germans built two railway lines: the line from Tanga (in the north of the coast) to Moshi (at the foot of Kilimanjaro), completed in 1911, and the central line from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika, which first reached Tabora in 1914. During the First World War, in 1916, the Allies recaptured Tabora, until then the war capital of the Germans.

The period from 1919 to 1961 was one of relatively important economic development. Infrastructures were built (bridges, roads, schools, hospitals, etc.) and crops were cultivated to better feed the population (corn, cereals) and to export (coffee, cotton, sisal). Traditional African society was then disrupted by the arrival of Christianity and capitalism which, by monetizing exchanges, also changed inter-tribal relations. Some, including the Maasai, remained resolutely outside this evolution. Families of settlers settled and invested in large plantations, many Greeks, from the beginning of the 1920s, and Indo-Pakistani builders. Moreover, by having the country administered by people from outside, the risk of the emergence of a desire for independence on the part of a locally created elite, or the domination of one ethnic group over the others, was limited. At the end of the British administration, many of them turned to commercial activities.

In 1953, Julius Nyerere, a teacher born in 1922, who had completed his higher education in Edinburgh, converted to Catholicism and rallied to independence and socialist ideas, took over the leadership of the TAA at the age of 31, which he transformed into the Tanganyika African National Union, under the slogan 'Uhuru na Umoja' (Freedom and Union). After winning the elections with flying colours, he obtained the independence of Tanganyika from Great Britain on 9 December 1961, without shedding a drop of blood. In 1962, he became the first President of the Republic. On December 10, 1963, Zanzibar obtained its independence, but remained controlled by two parties initiated by the British, all within a constitutional monarchy headed by the Arab Sultan of Oman. Created in 1957, the Afro Shirazi Party, which represents the majority of the inhabitants of the archipelago, including the descendants of slaves and workers in the fields and docks, has won the most votes in every election, without ever coming to power. In January 1964, its leader Karume, who was quite radical, unleashed a bloody revolution which resulted in about 10,000 deaths in Zanzibar, mainly among conservative Arabs and Indians. Three months later, on April 26, 1964, Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged into a single, sovereign state, which was to be called the United Republic of Tanzania.

Nyerere proclaimed the doctrine of African-style socialism until the 1980s. He nationalized banks, insurance companies, industries, large farms and decentralized the administration. The Arusha Declaration was based on the principle of Ujamaa, a mixture of traditional African solidarity, the affirmation of common ownership of property, respect for community decisions and the moral obligation of each person to work. The Human Resource Deployment, in 1974, obliges all inactive men from the cities to work in the countryside by granting them land. Based on the Chinese model, 800 collective villages were created. From 1973 to 1976, 9 million people were displaced as families. As a result, agricultural production plummets and manufacturing production does not take off

In 1967, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania joined forces to form the East African Community. But, little by little, differences appeared between socialist Tanzania, linked to China, and Kenya, linked to the West. Tensions were so high during the Cold War that the border was closed from 1977 to 1983. The border crisis with Uganda (the dictator Amin Dada had invaded a strip of Tanzanian land at the time, triggering a war towards Bukoba), the oil crisis and the fall in the price of coffee led to a dramatic shortage of consumer goods. The country suffered a catastrophic trade deficit. In April 1972, Sheikh Abeid Karume, President of Zanzibar, was assassinated. In 1977, in a climate of separatist desire, growing corruption and economic suffocation, the Afro Shirazi Party (Zanzibar) and TANU merged to form the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), or Party of the Revolution, thus consolidating the union of the Republic. The party holds the reins of power, both nationally and locally, and its apparatus is impressive: one delegate for every ten households. This control and repression, during which the country suffered a few political prisoners, was undoubtedly the cause of the failure of Nyerere's generous policy

Political cooperation with China also includes an economic component, which is reflected in the construction of the Tazara (Tanzania Zambia Railway) from Dar es Salaam to Zambia in 1975. Tanzania's per capita GNP ranks it among the eight poorest countries in the world. Apart from the tourism sector and some international aid programmes, there has been very little direct Western investment. Realizing the lack of effect of his economic policy, Nyerere reversed the dirigiste measures implied by the Ujamaa in the 1980s. In 1985, after having remained in power for 24 years, Nyerere did not stand for re-election.

Along with Senegal's Senghor, he is one of the few African heads of state to have chosen to retire, and not to have enriched himself by taking advantage of his powers. Until his death, he was affectionately called mwalimu ("the master") by many Tanzanians, and renowned for his great simplicity. A late proponent of social capitalism, defending peace, health, education and national cohesion first and foremost at the end of his career, the difficulty for him was to find a valid economic model for a traditional economy, which in the 1960s had only sisal and only 120 university graduates at independence. In foreign policy, Nyerere took positions based on the unity, freedom and independence of African countries, which gave Tanzania a diplomatic dimension in East Africa. Renowned for his pacifism, Nyerere had the great merit of establishing and maintaining peace in the country. Tanzania is probably one of the most stable countries in Africa.

No doubt under pressure from international donors, the first multiparty elections were held in 1995. The former single party won by a landslide. Benjamin Mkapa was elected president

John Magufuli, nicknamed tingatinga (bulldozer in Swahili), the CCM candidate, was elected to lead the country in 2015 and 2020. President Magufuli stepped up measures against corruption and the waste of public money, dismissing 10,000 civil servants appointed with false diplomas in 2017. Another measure: the traceability of money generated by national parks. His opponents point to authoritarian excesses such as the misuse of the law against cybercrime to muzzle social networks, or media legislation deemed liberticidal. His high-profile denial of Covid-19 attracted international attention just before his sudden death in 2020, officially from a heart attack, but from Covid-19 according to the opposition. His vice-president Samia Suluhu Hassan replaced him at the head of the country, in a climate of stability in Tanzania.

The woman who was John Magufuli's vice-president before his death, then head of a transitional government until new elections are held in 2021, becomes Tanzania's first female president. Not only a woman, but also a native of Zanzibar, this is a first! The country's stability is still a top priority.

In October 2022, a great fire devastated part of Kilimanjaro's precious vegetation. You'll see for yourself if you take the Machame route, and on the way down from the summit too. There were no casualties, however, and the vegetation is gradually re-growing in this part of the summit forest at 4,000 m altitude.

2023 is considered the hottest year in Tanzania's history due to global warming.