Traders, big men and prophets: political continuity and crisis in the Maji Maji rebellion in Southeast Tanzania

This article places the origins of the Maji Maji rebellion in Southeast Tanzania within the context of tensions between coast and interior, and between ‘big man’ leaders and their followers, which grew out of the expansion of trade and warfare in the second half of the nineteenth century. Without discounting its importance as a reaction against colonial rule, the paper argues that the rebellion was driven also by the ambitions of local leaders and by opposition to the expansion of indigenous coastal elites. The crucial role of the ‘Maji’ medicine as a means of mobilization indicates the vitality of local politics among the ‘stateless’ people of Southeast Tanzania

Ichthyological Bulletin of the J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology; No. 50

The publication of a new phase of research on the fishes of the Okavango drainage starts with this account which gives the valid names and broad distribution patterns of all species known from the system. Eighty species and subspecies are recognised, of which at least two (Parakneria fortuita Penrith; Serranochromis gracilis Greenwood) are endemic. Notes on early collections, synonymy, taxonomic status and distribution are given. New synonyms are recognized under Aplocheilichthys hutereaui (A. schalleri), Aplocheilichthys johnstoni (Haplochilus carlislei) and Ctenopoma multispinis (Ctenopoma machadoi) respectively. Recently published taxonomic changes are incorporated including two genera (Mesobola and Afromastacembelus), a species Serranochromis (Sargochromis) gracilis and the re-allocated Amphilius uranoscopus. The Zambezian Hemichromis species is re-identified as H. elongatus. A number of unresolved taxonomic problems are pointed out and certain dubious records are excluded from the checklist. The Okavango has a diverse fish fauna with tropical affinities. Many fish species are poorly studied. Man-induced threats to the continued natural functioning of this complex and dynamic system, especially large-scale water abstraction, overgrazing, deforestation and biocide spraying to eliminate tsetse fly, make it imperative that studies on the nature and role of the fishes are continued.Rhodes University Libraries (Digitisation

History and biology of the reassigned Ruvu Weaver Ploceus holoxanthus

Ploceus holoxanthus was formally described by Karel Johan Gustav Hartlaub in 1891, based on specimens collected by Friedrich  Bohndorff, from Mtoni on the Kingani (now Ruvu) River, Tanzania. Reichenow (1904, p 91) and Zedlitz (1916) synonymized this taxon with African Golden Weaver P. subaureus, although Shelley (1905) and Hartert (1907) had recognized it as a new species. Sclater (1930) and other subsequent authors simply considered P. holoxanthus as a synonym of African Golden Weaver, and eventually it was not even listed as a synonym. In recent years, birds resembling P. holoxanthus have been increasingly photographed. Thus, this taxon was included in a recent phylogeny of the Ploceidae, which recognized P. holoxanthus as a valid species. This paper reviews the history of this taxon, lists all specimens, published references and photographs, and measurements. The nest and eggs are described for the first time. Keywords: Ploceus holoxanthus, Ploceus subaureus, Ruvu River, Mtoni, Bagamoyo, Zedlitz, Tanzani

A visual struggle for Mozambique. Revisiting narratives, interpreting photographs (1850-1930)

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD‘A Visual Struggle for Mozambique. Revisiting narratives, interpreting photographs (1850 – 1930)’ is a study that requires an engagement with the historiography of the Portuguese empire, with reference to Mozambique. This is initially to provide some context for the East African situation in which photography began to feature in the mid- to late 19th century. But the other purpose is to see what impact the inclusion of visual archives has on the existing debates concerning Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique, and elsewhere. The rationale for this study, therefore, is to see what difference photographs will make to our interpretation and understanding of this past. The central issue is the ‘visual struggle’ undertaken to explore and dominate the territory of Mozambique. Deprived of their ‘historical rights’ by the requirements of the Berlin Treaties that insisted on ‘effective occupation’, the Portuguese started to employ a complex of knowledge-producing activities in which photography was crucially involved. Constituting part of the Pacification Campaigns that led to the territorial occupation, photographic translations of action taken to control the different regions in fact define the southern, central and northern regions of the country. The chapters propose ways to analyze photographs that cover issues related to different forms of knowledge construction. The resulting detail sometimes diverges from expectations associated with their archival history, such as the name of the photographers and exact dates, which are often unavailable.1 In discussing processes of memorialization, the thesis argues that memory is fragile. The notion of ellipsis is applied to enrich the potential narratives of the photographs. The thesis reads them against the grain in search of counter-narratives, underpinned by the concept of ‘visual dissonances’, which challenges the official history or stories attached to the photographs. Besides a participation in the general debates about the work of photography in particular, this research is driven by the need to find new ways to access the history of Mozambique. Ultimately the project will facilitate these photographic archives to re-enter public awareness, and help to promote critical approaches in the arts and humanities in this part of southern Africa

Lines upon a map: an analysis of the imposition of the western concept of dividing political space in Tanganyika, 1884-1961

This is a study of the international boundaries of Tanganyika: of the means by which they were implemented, of the effects upon the peoples of the region, and of the interaction between the two. Lines were indeed drawn on maps in Europe relating to the political division of Africa. This did not, however, bring about the boundaries in reality. For these lines to become tangible they had to be imposed. Policy differences became sharply demarcated and restrictions were applied, thereby making the boundary real. The effects were by no means entirely negative. Tax differentials and playing one colonial authority off against another allowed Africans to exploit the colonial partition of their continent. Many works have considered the making of Tanganyika with regard to the growth of a national consciousness and the campaign for independence. Little attention, however, has been paid to the making of Tanganyika as a territorial entity. This is the first substantive effort to fill that gap. This thesis assesses the role of colonialism in imposing the western system of political space upon Africa and Africans. It also considers the impact of the partition upon African political, economic and cultural systems before discussing the extent to which the actions of the European colonialists and African borderlanders influenced each other. Its conclusions have some relevance to colonial Africa as a whole but cannot be transfered automatically to the rest of the continent

Exploration into the hidden world of Mozambique’s sky island forests:new discoveries of reptiles and amphibians

We carried out a survey of reptiles and amphibians within Afromontane forest and woodland slopes of three inselbergs in northern Mozambique (Mount Mabu, Mount Namuli, and Mount Ribáuè). A total of 56 species (22 amphibians and 34 reptiles) were recorded during the current survey. Our findings substantially increase the number of herpetofaunal species recorded from these mountains (Mount Ribáuè 59%, Mount Mabu 37%, and Mount Namuli 11% of the total species), including one new country record and several putative new species. An updated checklist of the herpetofauna of these mountains is presented

The Arab power of Tanganyika in the nineteenth century.

Abstract: p. 260-262. Autobiography: p. 263. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University. Bibliography: p. 246-259.The purpose of this study is to describe the rise and fall of the Arab power in Tanganyika during the nineteenth century. The research for this topic was carried on in public and private centers for East African materials in Salem, Washington, London, Paris, Brussels, Zanzibar, Dar as-Salaam, Bagamoyo, and Kampala. Muslim Arabs and Persians established centers on the Tanganyika coast from 975 A.D., and perhaps even earlier. Not until the nineteenth century, however, did a significant penetration of the interior begin. Arabs soon visited most areas of Tanganyika, and went beyond into Central Africa. Three main routes through Tanganyika were used. The first went from the area opposite Zanzibar through central Tanganyika to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika and the regions to the west of it. The second route started at Kilwa and went to the Lake Nyasa area. The third left the northern coast of Tanganyika and led to Kilimanjaro, Lake Victoria, and the surrounding regions. The Arabs created settlements on these routes to facilitate their trading activities. Tabora and Ujiji, on the central route, were the two most important Arab posts. Few Arabs ever resided in these centers for long periods of time. A small group of Arabs, however, did become attached to each settlement. They organised their own system of government and were usually left with no regulation from their Sultan in Zanzibar, although they kept a loose relationship with him to enable trade to prosper. The Sultan accepted this arrangement; he had little military force to use in the interior of Africa even if he desired to play a more active role. The Sultan was interested in trade above all, and as long as profits continued to come to him, he took little interest in matters of administration. The Arabs in these centers had practically no interest in affairs unconnected with trade. They made no effort to set up new states or to spread Islam among the pagan Africans. In the 1870's European missionaries and explorers began to come to Tanganyika in ever increasing numbers. Such organisations as the London Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the International African Association, the White Fathers, the Holy Ghost Fathers, and the Universities' Mission to Central Africa founded stations in the inland regions. A study of the relationships of each of these groups with the Arabs before 1885 shows that the Arabs were willing to live in peace with the newcomers. The Arabs of Tanganyika remained interested in trade alone, and left the Europeans in peace as long as the Europeans did not try to interfere in their affairs. This peaceful relationship changed in 1885, when the Germans declared a protectorate over areas close to the coast. While they were extending this control along the coast, their ineptness and brutality caused a revolt of the Arabs. The latter, as always, were unable to organise a unified resistance, but they kept up a war for two years. When the Germans defeated the Arabs on the coast, they extended German influence into the interior. The Arabs of central Tanganyika, in the Tabora region, made peace at once. The Arabs settled around Lake Tanganyika were less receptive to European control. In the end, however, they were drawn into the Arab-Belgian conflict in the Congo and were crushed. Thus, at the beginning of 1894, the Arabs of Tanganyika were finished as a significant force. The remaining Arabs in the interior returned to the coast since trade no longer flourished. They left few influences behind to commemorate their half century of domination of the interior of Tanganyika

Beyond Borders: A History of Mobility, Labor, and Imperialism in Southern Tanzania

This dissertation analyzes the gradual transformation of southern Tanzania from a thriving precolonial frontier into an impoverished, peripheral borderland during the twentieth century by examining the region’s history of mobility– from long-distance caravan networks to the expansion of motorized road transportation. It argues that southern Tanzania’s real and perceived peripheralization began as a consequence of colonial warfare in the early 20th century, particularly the First World War. Poverty and famine defined the Ruvuma borderland of southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique in the aftermath of the war due to the wide-spread use of modern weaponry, scorched earth tactics, forced conscription, and raiding by colonial armies. The Portuguese and British colonial administrations neglected the Ruvuma borderland during the interwar era because the region lacked adequate manpower, environmental conditions, and transportation infrastructure to produce and export large quantities of cash crops that imperial markets prioritized. The failure of colonial development schemes attempted in southern Tanzania after the Second World War, particularly the East African Groundnut Scheme, propagated and engrained negative stereotypes of the region as being incapable of “development.” Southern Tanzania’s dilapidated transportation infrastructure served as a persistent symbol, symptom, and justification for the region’s isolation and impoverishment throughout the colonial and postcolonial eras. While examining the reasons behind and adverse consequences of the colonial and national states’ failures to construct all-weather roads in southern Tanzania, this dissertation argues that the region’s road transportation history provides an alternative narrative of local initiative and prosperity. Since the second millennium C.E., inhabitants of the Ruvuma borderland utilized their mobility to improve their lives and relocate in response to famines, droughts, warfare, and exploitative authority. The introduction and expansion of motor vehicle transport during the 1920s and 1930s offered a valuable avenue for local populations to pursue socioeconomic opportunities within and beyond the peripheral borderland. Although colonists intended for automobiles to serve as “civilizing” and “modernizing” technologies, African producers and migrant laborers living in proximity to the main and district roads in southern Tanzania appropriated motor vehicles to pursue advantageous labor and commercial markets. While some Africans associated roads and automobiles with forced labor practices and the loss of migrant laborers’ autonomy, others perceived them as pathways and tools for socioeconomic advancement. Rather than examining automobility from the standard perspective of African-European relations, this dissertation also explores Asian contributions. It argues that Indian entrepreneurs, wholesalers, and retailers were the driving force behind the expansion and success of road transportation in southern Tanzania between the 1920s and 1960s. One road transportation firm, in particular, spearheaded the growth of an Indian-dominated transportation sector in the south during the late colonial era – the Tanganyika Transport Company Ltd. or Teeteeko. In the postcolonial period, automobiles became important tools that Indian businessmen utilized to contest anti-Asian national discourse portraying them as exploitative parasites. The Indian community in southern Tanzania tried to prove its value and allegiance to the nation by offering their vehicles in support of neighboring anticolonial struggles, humanitarian relief, and nation-building operations. Although their efforts ultimately failed, the Indian transportation sector left a lasting impact on southern Tanzania’s socioeconomic landscape. African drivers and mechanics, meanwhile, utilized their technological knowledge and social networks to find and retain high-paying, high-status jobs during the economically turbulent decades of the 1970s and 1980s. In the end, this dissertation argues that southern Tanzania remained a dynamic region whose multiethnic population utilized their mobility to pursue socioeconomic opportunities locally, regionally, and internationally. Southern Tanzania’s roads became physical manifestations and symbolic representations of the region’s impoverishment and peripheralization, as well as its vitality and innovation in the face of neglectful or exploitative state authority.History, Department o

The Partition of Africa

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