The History of Tanzania
Pre-independence - Tanzania’s long coastline and its exotic islands – Zanzibar and Pemba, have been luring foreign traders, explorers to its shores for well over a thousand years. Little is known about Tanzania’s early or prehistory, though important early archaeological finds have been located in the Olduvai Gorge. Essentially though, ‘Tanganyika’ as the mainland was known before formal unification with its two islands – was largely unexplored by outsiders until the late 1700′s.

The first trading posts - on Tanganyika’s coast were set up by Arab traders as far back as the 1st Century AD with minimal intrusion and relatively peaceful relations between Arab and Swahili neighbours.
Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese - Following the arrival of navigator Vasco da Gama on Zanzibar’s shores in 1499, the Portuguese established trade posts of their own and over the next two hundred years, gradually came to dominate East Africa’s coastal routes.

Europeans made fewattempts to penetrate Tanganyika’s hinterlands until the late 1700′s, when excitement over the emerging slave trade raised French, Arab and Portuguese hopes about the economic possibilities of plundering Tanganyika. Traders soon shrugged off their initial fears about Tanganyika’s wild interior and the ripping out of the country’s ivory and slave resources began in earnest.

The arrival of the Sultan of Oman - The transport and trading of all this booty meant that both Tanganyika’s coast and its offshore island Zanzibar, soon became huge international trading posts for spices, slaves and ivory.

Amidst the vicious rivalries of 17th and 18th Century European mercantile, maritime and colonial expansion, Zanzibar’s location along major world trading routes made the island a particularly attractive and strategic tradingpost. By 1840, Zanzibar had become such an important trading hub, that the Omani Sultan moved his court to the island to keep ahead of Portuguese, French and now also British rivals.

Then the British - Fifty years of political and maritime wheeling and dealing ensued and, in 1890, Zanzibar was placed under the control of the British, who had already colonised Uganda and Kenya to the north.

This non-stop drawing and redrawing of colonial boundaries was occurring right across Africa – usually with little thought to the realities of geography or to the political or social organisation of the indigenous populations on the ground. Driven by commercial greed, territorial ambition and political rivalry, the European ‘scramble for Africa” culminated in the continent’s formal partition at the Berlin Conference in 1884-5.

…and the Germans - Back in mainland Tanganyika, European explorers were pushing their way into the heart of the country. The most famous of these, Livingstone and Stanley met at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika with that famous and oh-so British of phrases ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’ Though the slave trade was outlawed in the late 1870′s, Germany was still keen to get a piece of the Tanganyika’s spoils and after negotiating a string of trade-offs with the British, formally colonised the mainland in 1891.

and finally independence - Governed directly from Germany, Tanganyika underwent a decade of infrastructural development and yet more intensified trading until the outbreak of war in 1914. Despite the extraordinary efforts of General von Lettow-Vorbeck to maintain German control of East Africa, Tanzania was mandated back to the British by the League of Nations as part of post-war reparations settlements. Britain controlled Tanganyika and Zanzibar until their respective independence in 1961 and 1963 when Tanganyika, Zanzibar and Pemba united to create modern day Tanzania.

modern day Tanzania - Tanzania came to independence in 1961 with a severely underdeveloped economy and limited infrastructure. Under German rule, agricultural production had been largely geared towards the production of sisal, a purely industrial crop. British rule of some forty years then followed. Knowing however that, as a ‘mandate’ rather than a formal colony, Tanzania could technically declare independence at any time so perhaps as a consequence of this the Brits were reluctant to invest heavily in the country’s roads, communications or economy.

Tanzania’s first president - It was out of this sense of historic reluctance to give anything back to the country or to its people that Tanzania’s nationalist movements were first formed. In the mid 1950′s through to the early 1960′s, talk of independence and a shared sense of optimism – and anger – spread like wildfire across Africa. In what was one of Africa’s very few peaceful transitions to independence, Julius Nyerere, radical socialist, became Tanzania’s first President in 1961.

Villigisation - Nyerere embarked upon sweeping economic, social and political reforms aimed at redistributing wealth amongst Tanzanian’s, including nationalisation of the economy, the forced ‘villagisation’ of the rural population into communal villages and the promotion of high-yield seeds and modern irrigation schemes. For the first few years of independence, Tanzanians enjoyed a freedom and economic growth on their own terms that they had not enjoyed since the Portuguese first set foot on their land some 450 years before.

Economic decline - Despite direct funding from China for projects that included the impressive TAZARA railway, lack of sustained investment, corruption and resentment by ordinary Tanzanians soon resulted in the failure of many of these schemes.

Throw in one year-long drought and two oil crises and economically speaking, Nyerere certainly had his work cut out for him. His strong financial support for guerrilla independence movements in Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia, Uganda, South Africa the Comoros and Seychelles, though ideological motivated, did nothing to improve Tanzania’s financial status. Despite his best intentions, (and foreign aid between 1971-1981 of an incredible $2.7 billion) after twenty years of socialist rule, Tanzania had effectively become bankrupt , both mainland and Zanzibar, once one of Africa’s richest countries. In 1985 Nyerere fondly referred as father of the nation stepped down as President.

Rebuilding the economy - Since then, Nyere’s successors have accepted the realities of modern economics and with the help of World Bank and IMF assistance, attempted to rebuild Tanzania more in line with the demands of modern capitalism.

Economically, the country still relies heavily on its agriculture which accounts for half of its GDP, provides 85% of exports and employs 80% of the work force – all this on the 4% of Tanzania’s land climatically or topologically suitable for commercial cultivation. However, over the last decade, industrial production has increased significantly (particularly the development of oil and gas exploitation), as has the extraction of minerals – above all, gold and tanzanite a rare gemstone only found in Tanzania.

2. The Graf von Geotzen
The German steamship, the Graf von Geotzen – has a long and unusual history, despite having spent much of its life underwater or in pieces. Built in Germany in 1913, the steamer was soon dismantled and sent by ship to Dar Es Salaam in order to strengthen Germany’s naval muscle in its bid to dominate rising European military tensions in East Africa.

Arrival at Lake Tanganyika - After being transported by train to the port of Kigoma, the various bits of the von Goetzen were reassembled and the ship fitted with a four-inch gun. The 800-ton steamer then sailed to Lake Tanganyika where it joined the small team of tugs and barges that dominated the inland waters. The Germans had sunk the only Allied boat on the lake in August 1914, and now, with war declared, were enjoying absolute control of Lake Tanganyika.

Not so the Allies, who, without secure access to the lake, had to travel huge additional distances to supply outposts and to move men to conflict hotspots. As well as ferrying troops and supplies around uninterrupted, the Graf von Goetzen was also used to launch a number of successful lightning raids on British, South African and Belgian troops. Pretty soon, regaining control of the lake became a strategic priority for the Allies.

The arrival of Mimi and Toutou – In June 1916, in another military manoeuvre that virtually defies belief, two four-ton British boats, the Mimi and Toutou were dragged several hundred kilometres through dense Congo jungle by traction engines and quietly launched on Lake Tanganyika’s shores. From here they staged a surprise attack on the German gunboat Kingani, which they successfully captured and then used to strengthen the attack on the Graf von Goetzen.

…and now Onto the lake bed…and off again -
It was the von Groetzen’s Captain however who finally put the ship under, scuttling the steamer before the Allied forces could get their hands on her. The ship lay on the lake floor until 1924 when the British, now firmly in control of Tanganyika refloated her and named her the Liemba. Thanks to the wonders of ‘vorsprung durch tecnik’ and the purity of Lake Tanganyika’s waters, despite six years underwater, the steamer’s engines were still in perfect working condition. With only three overhauls since it resurfaced, the Liemba has gone on to star in The African Queen and now ferries cargo and passengers and links communities up and down Lake Tanganyika, the world’s second deepest lake. Following the cessation of hostilities in the Congo in 1997 the Liemba was also used to ferry over 75,000 refugees from camps in Tanzania’s Kigoma region back to the Congo.

Still plying the lake - Some 90 years after its initial construction, the passenger ship-cum military gunboat-cum UN ferry is still alive and well. If you are staying at Greystoke Camp in Mahale you’ll hear her go past in the middle of the night, on Wednesdays going south and Sundays going north – it’s worth getting up to watch her lights go past in the night far out on the lake and thinking of her extraordinary role in Tanzania’s recent history.

3. Livingstone & Stanley
Explorers – One of Tanzania’s most famous missionaries-cum-explorer was Dr David Livingstone, the first European to cross the continent from the Zambezi to Luanda on the West Coast. A Scottish missionary and student of medicine, Livingstone travelled to Tanzania and beyond, converting the natives to Christianity and later, and much more famously, in the search for the source of the mighty Nile.

Livingstone and Stanley - Discovery of Victoria Falls. Strong faith, a deep commitment to stamping out the slave trade and a genuine belief that European imperialism would benefit the people of Africa took Livingstone back to Africa on three separate expeditions. His first, ‘the Missionary Travels’ were primarily about converting the ‘godless’ natives of southern Africa but he also managed to stumble upon the Zambezi River in 1851 and the Victoria Falls in 1855 before making his way to the east coast at Quelimane, Portuguese East Africa, in 1856. He returned to England that same year to write about his travels and to stir public debate around the moral issues of the slave trade, advocating “Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation” as the clear alternative.

Livingstone disappears - Livingstone’s second, government sponsored anti-slavery expedition from 1858-63, led him up the Zambezi and on to Lake Nyasa at its head. In 1866 he was back for a purely exploratory outing – on the trail of the Nile’s elusive starting point. Control of this would enable the British to better protect their territorial assets in Egypt. Shunning the company of Europeans who he found irksome, Livingstone, his African support team including his devoted guide and friend, Chuma disappeared into the interior without a word and were given up for dead by worried fans back home.

Stanley on Livingstone’s trail - Such was the frenzied press reporting of Livingstone’s daring-do and dramatic disappearance that The New York Herald paid Welsh-American journalist Henry Morton Stanley handsomely to go forth and recover the intrepid explorer. Stanley worked very differently to the Scot, was motivated instead by dreams of fame and fortune and was accompanied through Tanganyika by 200 well-armed African porters. He set out in March 1871 and found “Dr Livingstone…..I presume?’ sick with fever at Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika on November 3rd.

Livingstone had been busy - had discovered lakes Mweru and Bangweula and had reached the Lualaba tributary of the Congo River. Though he refused to return to Europe with Stanley, the two journeyed up the north end of Lake Tanganyika together for four months before Stanley headed back to London -