Background
The beginnings of the Tanzanian people reach back to the beginnings of humans. Leakey discovered the 1.8 million year old skull of Austalopithecus boisei in 1959 making the Olduvai Gorge one of the birthplaces of humans (Fitzpatrick, 2005, p. 210). Evolving for many millennia until 8000 B.C.E. were the modern descendants of Tanzanians that were the Khoisan. These peoples eventually joined with the Cushitic that migrated from Ethiopia between 1000 and 3000 B.C.E. Around this time the Bantu from the Niger delta moved to the area and became the largest tribe in the region. Smaller groups of Nilotic speakers arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries who were the ancestors of the Maasai. These interior migrations were parallel to trade influenced developments along the costal areas and the Zanzibar archipelago. Greek, Persian, and Arabic traders established lively settlements for trade with India and China. Mixing with the Bantu, these groups began to form the foundation for Swahili culture (Fitzpatrick, 2005, pp. 17-19). Today there are 120 tribes in the 26 Tanzanian districts, with the Bantu remaining the largest. These tribes are identified by family name (Matei Mungaho, personal communication, September 14, 2007).
The largely untouched tribes in Tanzania were “discovered” by Europe in 1498 by Vasco de Gama while establishing trade routes with Asia and Portugal. The Portuguese were displaced by Omani traders, yet
Europe still fueled the slave trade for their plantations. Joahann Ludwig Kraph and Johannes Rebmann were German missionaries arriving in the mid-1800 followed by Anglican a Catholic missionaries. The interior of Tanzania was mapped by explorers seeking a route to the Nile River. Interest grew from Europe as colonialism in Tanzania grew as well.The Sultan of Oman had established control in Zanzibar while the British had operational control of most of the major ports in Eastern Africa in the late 1800’s. Meanwhile, Carl Peters was establishing a major trading group called the German East Africa Company. Working separately from the German government, Peters concocted treaties with local chiefs which were subsequently endorsed by the German government setting up the trading group as administrators in the Tanzanian interior. Since the British had control of the ports, it became necessary to define boundaries for the two major colonizing nations. In 1891, it was agreed to give the mainland control to Germany which then formed German East Africa and the Zanzibar Archipelago to the British where the Omani influence still remained.
Colonialism began to crumble after WWI. Shortly after the war, German East Africa came under British administration through the League of Nations mandate. By this time the seeds of unrest had begun in protest toward the harsh treatment found in the German era. Cooperatives sprang up to enhance economic trade between interior villages. Nationalist notions formed into the African Association in 1929 with a similar group establishing itself in Dar es Salaam. By 1948, these groups emerged as a political force and renamed itself to the Tanganyika Africa Association (TAA) (Fitzpatrick, 2005, p. 19).
In 1953, Julius Nyerere was elected president of the TAA which had again changed its name to the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). The independence movement gathered steam under the rally cry of uhuru na umoja (freedom and unity). By 1959, Britain agreed to internal self-government that rapidly turned to independence on December 9, 1962. Meanwhile, on Zanzibar the independence movement was generating between three competing parties: the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), the
Zanzibar and Pemba Party (ZPPP), and the Sultanate oriented party of Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP). Zanzibar became independent in 1963 after 73 years as a British protectorate. A tenuous agreement was reached between Nyerere and the Zanzibar leadership in 1964, thus forming the United Republic of Tanzania. A clear lean to toward socialism was made with the Arusha Declaration or 1967. By 1977, a one party system was established, joining the TANU and ASP into the Party of the Revolution, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) (Fitzpatrick, 2005, p. 20).
Tanzania’s leader through this time was Julius Kamrage Nyerere. He was commonly known as Mwalimu (teacher) acknowledging his professional background as a secondary school teacher trained in
Scotland. Fitzpatrick (2005)noted that Nyerere’s philosophy of socialism and self-reliance was expressed through the ujamaa (familyhood) system of “economic cooperation, racial and tribal harmony, and moralistic self-sacrifice” (p. 21). Among other accomplishments, Nyerere also established Swahili as the national language.
Nyerere was elected to a fifth and final term of office in 1980. Great dissatisfaction with the socialist experiment prompted Nyerere to resign and hand over power to Ali Hassan Mwinyi of Zanzibar in 1985. This marked a slow move toward a multi-party system that held the first open elections in 1995. Tensions between the governing parties of the mainland and Zanzibar flared amidst the chaos that elected CCM’s Benjamin Mkapa.
The 2000 elections sparked violent protests on Zanzibar and Pemba, but remained smooth on the mainland. Constitutionally restricted from running another term, Mkapa was replace by Ndugu Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete in 2005. Elections are held every five years and preparations are presently underway to reach a consensus with Zanzibar that will clam any potential for violent outbreaks in 2010.
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?