The Swahili coast () is a coastal area of East Africa, bordered by the Indian Ocean and inhabited by the Swahili people. It includes Sofala (located in Mozambique); Mombasa, Gede, Pate Island, Lamu, and Malindi (in Kenya); and Dar es Salaam and Kilwa (in Tanzania).Kemezis, K., 2010. East African City States (1000-1500). Blackpast.org. Available at: <https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/east-african-city-states/> [Accessed 23 April 2020]. In addition, several coastal islands are included in the Swahili coast, such as Zanzibar and Comoros.
Areas of what is today considered the Swahili coast were historically known as Azania or Zingion in the Greco-Roman era, and as Zanj or Zinj in Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese literature from the 7th to the 14th century.Felix A. Chami, "Kaole and the Swahili World," in Southern Africa and the Swahili World (2002), 6.A. Lodhi (2000), Oriental influences in Swahili: a study in language and culture contacts,, pp. 72-84 The word "Swahili" means people of the coasts in Arabic and is derived from the word sawahil ("coasts").
The Swahili people and their culture formed from a distinct mix of African and Arab origins. The Swahili were traders and merchants and readily absorbed influences from other cultures. As a result, the Swahili coast has a distinct culture, demography, religion, and geography."Contagion of discontent: Muslim extremism spreads down east Africa coastline," The Economist (3 November 2012) Historical documents including the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and works by Ibn Battuta describe the society, culture, and economy of the Swahili coast at various points in its history.
History In the pre-Swahili period, the region was occupied by smaller societies whose main socioeconomic activities were pastoralism, fishing, and mixed farming.LaViolette, Adria. Swahili Coast, In: Encyclopedia of Archaeology, ed. by Deborah M. Pearsall. (2008): 19-21. New York, NY: Academic Press. Early on, those living on the Swahili coast prospered because of agriculture helped by regular yearly rainfall and animal husbandry. The shallow coast was important as it provided seafood. Starting in the early 1st millennium CE, trade was crucial. Submerged river estuaries created natural harbors while yearly monsoons winds helped trade. By the 10th century, ethnic Somalis had settled along the northern Swahili coast, particularly in areas adjacent to the Lamu Archipelago. Later in the 1st millennium there was a migration of Bantu people. The communities settling along the coast shared archaeological and linguistic features with those from the interior of the continent. Archeological data has revealed the use of Kwale and Urewe ceramics both along the coast and within the interior parts, showing that the regions had a shared way of life in the Late Stone and Early Iron Ages.
From the earliest times of which there is any record the African seaboard from the Red Sea to an unknown distance southwards was subject to Arabian influence and dominion. At a later period the coast towns were founded or conquered by Persian and Arabs who, for the most part, fled to Southeast Africa between the 8th and 11th centuries on account of the religious differences of the times, the refugees being schismatics. Various small states thus grew up along the coast. These states are sometimes referred to, collectively, as the Zanj empire. However, it is unlikely that they were ever united under one ruler.
According to Berger et al., this shared way of life began to diverge at least around 13th century CE (362). In the wake of trading activities along the coast, Arab merchants would pour scorn on non-Muslims and some African practices. This attitude of scorn allegedly pushed African elites to deny connections to the interior and to claim descent from Shirazis and to have already converted to Islam. The interactions that ensued led to the formation of the unique Swahili culture and city-states, especially those facilitated by trade.Berger, Eugene, et al. World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500. University of North Georgia Press, 2016.
At the zenith of its power in the 15th century, the Kilwa Sultanate owned or claimed overlordship over the mainland cities of Malindi, Inhambane and Sofala and the island-states of Mombassa, Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafia, Comoro and Mozambique (plus numerous smaller places).
The voyage of Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, and society in the Indian Ocean world. The Portuguese gained control of the Island of Mozambique and the port city of Sofala in the early 16th century. Vasco da Gama having visited Mombasa in 1498 was then successful in reaching India thereby permitting the Portuguese to trade with the Far East directly by sea, thus challenging older trading networks of mixed land and sea routes, such as the spice trade routes that used the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean. Initially, Portuguese rule in Southeast Africa focused mainly on a coastal strip centred in Mombasa. With voyages led by Vasco da Gama, Francisco de Almeida and Afonso de Albuquerque, the Portuguese dominated much of southeast Africa's coast, including Sofala and Kilwa, by 1515.
The Portuguese were able to wrest much of the coastal trade from Arabs between 1500 and 1700, but, with the Arab seizure of Portugal's key foothold at Fort Jesus on Mombasa Island (now in Kenya) in 1698 by Omani ruler Saif bin Sultan, the Portuguese retreated to the south.
Omani ruler Said bin Sultan (1806–1856) moved his court from Muscat to Stone Town on the island of Unguja (that is, Zanzibar Island). He established a ruling Arab elite and encouraged the development of clove plantations using the island's slave labour. As a regional commercial power in the 19th century, Oman held the island of Zanzibar and the Zanj region of the Southeast African coast, including Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.
When Said ibn Sultan died in 1856, his sons quarrelled over the succession. As a result of this struggle, the empire was divided in 1861 into two separate principalities: Sultanate of Zanzibar and the area of "Muscat and Oman".
Until 1884, the Sultans of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the Swahili Coast, known as Zanj. 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 (now Kenya) 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 suppressed by the Kaiserliche Marine and heralded the end of Zanzibar's influence on the mainland.
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.
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 increase 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 of coastline stretching from the River Jubba via Mombasa to German East Africa which were leased from the Sultan. 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 1891, after it became apparent that the German East Africa Company could not handle its dominions, it sold out to the German government, which began to rule German East Africa directly. During World War I German East Africa was gradually occupied by forces from the British Empire and Belgian Congo during the East Africa Campaign, although German resistance continued until 1918. After this, the League of Nations formalised control of the area by the UK, who renamed it "Tanganyika". The UK held Tanganyika as a League of Nations mandate until the end of World War II after which it was held as a United Nations trust territory.
On 23 July 1920, the inland areas of the East Africa Protectorate were annexed as British dominions by Order in Council.Kenya (Annexation) Order in Council, 1920, S.R.O. 1902 No. 661, S.R.O. & S.I. Rev. 246. 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 wide coastal strip (with the exception of Witu) remained a Protectorate under an agreement with the Sultan of Zanzibar.Agreement of 14 June 1890: State pp. vol. 82. p. 653 That coastal strip, remaining under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar, was constituted as the Protectorate of Kenya in 1920.Kenya Protectorate Order in Council, 1920 S.R.O. 1920 No. 2343, S.R.O. & S.I. Rev. VIII, 258, State Pp., Vol. 87 p. 968
In 1961, Tanganyika gained its independence from the UK as Tanganyika, joining the Commonwealth. It became a republic a year later.
The Colony of Kenya came to an end in 1963 when an ethnic Kenyan majority government was elected for the first time and eventually declared independence.