Muslim Influence on Trade and Politics in the Lake Tanganyika Region

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Muslim Influence on Trade and Politics in the Lake Tanganyika RegionAuthor(s): Beverly BrownSource: African Historical Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3 (1971), pp. 617-629Published by: Boston University African Studies CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/216532 .

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MUSLIM INFLUENCE ON TRADE AND POLITICS IN THE LAKE TANGANYIKA REGION

Beverly Brown

During the early 1800s, East African coastal and Zanzibari trade inter- ests initiated pioneering efforts to establish direct, sustained economic contacts with the ivory-rich interior. In all likelihood the first exploratory probes ran along traditional regional trade lines and followed the lead of Nyamwezi traders .1 Although a detailed chronology of this commercial expansion has not yet been constructed, the inland penetration of Muslim traders from East Africa's littoral to a large lake region with abundant ivory resources was well documented

by the mid-nineteenth century.2

The first coastal caravans probably reached Lake Tanganyika before 1830, and by the 1840s several Arabs were trading there.3 As the number of Muslim merchants mounted, their commercial drive intruded more deeply into the lakeside societies' political and economic life. Responses to that encroach- ment were widely disparate. In Lake Tanganyika's northern reaches, African- Arab interaction followed a pattern of extremes, ranging from peaceful coexis- tence to ravaging warfare. For example, Ujiji experienced such intensive colo- nization that both rural onlookers and local residents regarded it as a Swahili town. In contrast, nearby Utongwe suffered a series of devastating conflicts that are still held in bitter memory; but farther north, Burundi successfully resisted any deep and lasting foreign penetration until the 1890s. In this paper, I want to ex- amine some aspects of those complex relationships that developed between Afri- cans and Muslim traders living along Lake Tanganyika's northern shores, particularly in the Ujiji area. It will be only a partial sketch. Lack of space and historical evidence prohibit a detailed portrayal of the politics and economies of this region.

1. See, for example, Andrew Roberts, "The Nyamwezi, " in Andrew Roberts, ed., Tanzania Before 1900 (Nairobi, 1963), 125-126, and Walter T. Brown, "Bagamoyo: An Historical Introduction," Tanzania Notes and Records [hereafter T.N.R.], 71 (1970), 75.

2. Some of this literature is reviewed in Sir John Gray, "Trading Expeditions from the Coast to the Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria before 1857," T.N.R., 49 (1957), 226-246.

3. W. D. Cooley, "Geography of N'yassi," Journal of the Royal Geographical Society [hereafter J.R.G.S.], 15 (1845), 207; J. Macqueen, "Notes on Afri- can Geography," J.R.G.S., 15 (1845), 371-376; Richard Burton, The Lake

Regions of Central Africa (New York, 1860), 374-376; Tippu Tip, Maisha ya Hamed bin Muhammed el Murjebi yaani Tippu Tip, W. H. Whitely, trans. (Nairobi, 1966), 17.

African Historical Studies, IV, 3 (1971) 617



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MUSLIM INFLUENCE IN THE LAKE TANGANYIKA REGION

Most early Muslim traders reached Lake Tanganyika by following a broad trunk route that stretched west from the Tabora area, crossed the Malagarasi River, and cut through Uvinza, Utongwe, and Ukaranga to Ujiji.4 This flourish- ing market center became the coastal merchants' major base for trans-lake expeditions that explored the western shore regions of Marungu and Uguha and struck into Urua. Some of those early trading parties ventured as far as Ka- zembe's domain and Katanga, but in later decades such southbound traffic usually skirted Ujiji by traveling via Ufipa through the Tanganyika-Nyasa corridor or across the lake to Marungu or Lungu.5 This south-north bifurcation of the trade routes became increasingly distinct during the 1870s. By that time, all the major caravans passing through Ujiji were bound west toward Manyema territory.6 This Congo rush brought boom times to the ivory trade and marked the culmina- tion of a remarkable commercial expansion from the East African coast.

In the west, that economic penetration owed much of its success to the scope and resiliency of inter-tribal trade relations along the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika. Commerce in salt, fish, copper, palm oil, and other goods was well developed; contacts between the eastern and western shores were long established; and the Goma's boat-building skills and the Jiji's seamanship were already legendary.7 Thus the coastal traders found a thriving lacustrine trade system that could meet the needs of their caravan traffic. Essential goods and services were provided, and imports such as porcelain beads and foreign cloths were absorbed.

It is impossible now to accurately measure the economic impact of these foreign traders and goods. But amid the profusion of invigorating and disruptive influences, some general trends can be distinguished. Muslim merchants surely cannot be credited with introducing the ideas of long-distance trade or established markets to western Tanzania. However, the newcomers' dependence on Lake

Tanganyika's traditional trade network did stimulate expansion; the flow of goods increased, old routes were extended, markets were enlarged.

During the nineteenth century, Ujiji's economic life clearly exposed the articulation of long-distance trade and regional commerce. This community was originally a cluster of several villages that bordered the Luiche River's fertile valley and fronted some of the lake's richest fishing waters .8 The gradual co- alescence of Ujiji town began with a population and production expansion that must have occurred in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. At that

4. Macqueen, "Notes on African Geography," 372-373; "Notice of a Caravan Journey from the East to the West Coast of Africa," J.R.G.S., 24 (1854), 266-271; James Erhardt, "On an Inland Sea in Central Africa," Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, I (1855-1857), 9.

5. Burton, Lake Regions, 374; David Livingstone, The Last Journals of David

Livingstone (New York, 1875), 464; Hore to Whitehouse, Ulungu, 12 April 1880, Box 3, Folder 1/D, London Missionary Society Archives [hereafter L.M.S.]; Joseph Thomson, To the Central African Lakes and Back (London, 1881), II, 16-17.

6. Norman R. Bennett, "The Arab Power of Tanganyika in the Nineteenth Cen- tury" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Boston University, 1961), 41-42.

7. Robert Schmitz, Les Baholoholo (Bruxelles, 1912), 503; interview with Abedi Hatibu, Kigoma, 16 June 1969. The importance of staple goods such

619



BEVERLY BROWN

time small groups of Congolese villagers began to settle in the Kigoma-Bangwe- Ujiji area. Hard times on the western shore, the Luiche valley's reputation for

fertility, and the Jiji's pioneering trans-lake expeditions encouraged the migra- tion of Goma, Bwari, Holoholo, and Bembe families.9

At the same time, daily markets in southern Bujiji were attracting distant

goods and traders. The large market of Ugoi featured salt from Uvinza, iron from Uvira, palm oil from Burundi, firewood from the south, dried and fresh fish, pottery, and barkcloth, plus a variety of local produce such as bananas, tobacco, beans, cotton, and corn or cassava flour.10 Many of these imported goods were supplied by Jiji trading expeditions that coasted along the lake shores or made dry-season trips to the Uvinza salt springs.11

Some aspects of this commercial situation persisted with little change throughout the nineteenth century. Despite the arrival of foreign traders and imports, traditional goods, suppliers, and techniques endured, and these unchang- ing features have been described in several graphic accounts by explorers and missionaries .12 For example, V. L. Cameron pictured the Ujiji market as a

noisy, busy center

. . . attended by the people of Uguhha, Urundi, and many tribes dwelling on the lake. ... Women of Kawele and surround-

ing hamlets bring baskets of flour, sweet-potatoes, yams, fruit of the oil-palm -- which is here seen for the first time -- bananas, tobacco, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a great variety of vegetable products, besides pottery and huge gourds of pombe and palm-wine. The men sell fish -- both dried and fresh -- meat, goats, sugar- cane, nets, baskets, spear and bow staves, and bark-cloth.

The Warundi principally deal in corn and canoe-paddles, and from the island of Ubwari is brought a species of hemp . . . while Uvira furnishes pottery and ironwork; Uvinza salt, and various other places, large gourds of palm oil. Each vendor takes

up the same position daily, and many build small arbors of palm fronds to shelter them from the burning rays of the sun. 13

This portrait of the Ujiji market in 1874 is remarkably similar to both the traditional accounts and later descriptions of Ugoi. But changes did occur after the Muslim merchants' arrival. There was a difference in quantity and

as copper and fish in the extension of inter-tribal trade is discussed in Richard Gray and David Birmingham, eds., Pre-Colonial African Trade (London, 1970).

8. Interview with Jumbe Hamisi bin Mabuga, Simbo, 5 March 1969. 9. Interview with Rashidi bin Salum, Ujiji, 18 March 1969; interview with Ab-

dallah Hassan, Kigoma, 4 March 1969; interview with Alimassi Ruppeler (Mzee Msai), Ujiji, 10 July 1969.

10. Interview with Hasani bin Amedi, Bangwe, 27 July 1969. 11. Ibid.; interview with Mohamed bin Ndarusanze, Uvinza, 19 July 1969. 12. For a spaced sampling, see Burton, Lake Regions, 324-325; H. M. Stanley,

How I Found Livingstone (New York, 1872), 473-474; and E. C. Hore, Tan-

ganyika: Eleven Years in Central Africa (London, 1892), 70-71. 13. V. L. Cameron, Across Africa (London, 1885), 182-183.

620




scale -- more goods, more traders, new tastes. There was also a crucial structural difference. Traders at Ujiji's market abandoned barter and adopted a bead currency based on a cloth standard. 14 Neither the chronology nor the exact nature of this major economic alteration is known. According to the evidence of later events, it is safe to assume that Arab and Swahili traders actively encouraged this change. For example, in 1881 Mwinyi Kheri, a leader of Ujiji's Muslim community, shifted the market place closer to his home and attempted to revise several market practices, including the Jiji methods of pricing.15 His program's mixed success reveals both the coastal merchants' interest in rationalizing and regulating town commerce and their inability to dictate economic change.

This shift from barter to the use of currency must have been halting. When Richard Burton arrived in 1858, the economy seems to have been in a state of transition. His report noted two important indications of economic change. Beads -- particularly mzizima, nili, same same and sofi -- were in wide demand, but no exclusive standard or currency was used in the market. 16 Since most

goods could be exchanged for beads, there were established rates of exchange. For example, one shuka of kaniki could be exchanged for fifteen to twenty-five kete of the white sofi (at that time, one kete contained fifty-five to sixty beads), and one shuka of merikani for thirty to thirty-five kete. Any broken or worn sofi were rejected by the traders .17 By 1874 these beads had become the regular currency in Ujiji's market. Rates of exchange, based on a cloth standard, were set each morning, and "money changers" enjoyed a profitable daily business .18

This use of money indicates a major economic transformation in Ujiji. The community's rapid advance from a small-scale, multicentric economy with peripheral markets toward a "peasant,

" market-dominated economy may be measured by its adoption of a currency and its increasing sensitivity to supply and demand. As in some other cases where currency materials were introduced through external trade, sofi beads circulated via both commercial transactions and non-commercial reciprocal and redistributive exchanges .19 But barriers still remained, and the beads never became a general purpose money. They were primarily market currency and their value fluctuated steeply in response to market changes. The arrival of a large caravan with hundreds of porters and ample stocks of cloth and beads always generated numerous exchange adjust- ments and profiteering schemes .20

Despite periodic shifts, there seems to have been a general inflationary trend during the years between 1870 and 1890. In 1876 Stanley noticed that

14. Ibid., 183. 15. Hutley to Thompson, Ujiji, 21 June 1881, Box 4, Folder 2/B, L.M.S. 16. Burton, Lake Regions, 326, 530. 17. Ibid., 325, 530. One shuka was a two-yard length of cloth. Merikani was

unbleached calico. 18. Hore, Tanganyika, 71; Cameron, Across Africa, 183. The sofi continued to

be used as currency in the market and by Indian shopkeepers during much of the German colonial period. Interview with Hassanali Bandali, Kigoma, 5 March 1969.

19. George Dalton, '"Primitive Money," American Anthropologist, 67, 1 (1965), 60.

20. Hore, Tanganyika, 72.

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BEVERLY BROWN

market prices on some articles had increased as much as one hundred per cent since his first visit in 1871 .21 These mounting prices were accompanied by changing rates of exchange. E. C. Hore reported that in 1878 one doti of satini or Manchester calico could be exchanged for nine to eleven rafundo of sofi, but in 1888 the rate had decreased to three or four mafundo.22 In part, these higher market prices and lower rates of exchange were a response to increasing demands and less certain supplies. But the change was not entirely automatic nor

primarily due to a rapid increase in the quantity of sofi. Stanley believed that the Jiji traders instituted these hikes in an attempt to eliminate the competition of Wangwana, who had been making large profits as middlemen.23 Such manipu- lated inflation must have been particularly painful for men who were divorced from the land and dependent on cloth and bead wages paid by their Arab and Swa- hili employers.

Although sofi pricing represented a crucial move toward a market- oriented economy, it occurred within a very narrow sphere. Like many other forms of early money, its application and its acceptance were limited. Expen- sive commodities, such as ivory and slaves, were not priced in sofi, but were

usually interchanged or exchanged for cloth, piastres, or occasionally guns -- a type of exchange that was also common in Tabora and Congo trade centers.24 Visitors who studied the Ujiji trading system noted that sofi served as the market's small change, whereas cloth became the medium of exchange for expensive bulky purchases.25 Although sofi facilitated the transfer of goods and services and opened opportunities for exchange in Ujiji, the use of a standard currency did not spread around the lake or even into the town's immediate environs.26 Tran- sient traders moved easily between Ujiji's organized market and barter situa- tions. In fact, barter remained the dominant transactional mode of commercial

exchange throughout most of the lake region.

But the infusion of new commodities and the acceleration of trade throughout this area encouraged the acceptance of new exchange media. Although no

foreign beads or cloth ever matched salt in easy, widespread salability -- more than any other product, it came the closest to being Lake Tanganyika's currency -- there were sections where these new goods became very important in local

21. H. M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent (London, 1890), 327. 22. Hore, Tanganyika, 71-72. This drop was observed by Storms in 1883. See

E. Storms, "Voyage A Oudjidji," Fonds Storms, III, 11, Archives du Musee

Royal du Congo Belge, Tervuren. One doti was equal to two mashuka or ap- proximately four yards. One fundo of beads was equal to ten makete.

23. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, 327. 24. Thomson, To the Central African Lakes and Back, II, 90; E. C. Hore, "On

the Twelve Tribes of Tanganyika," Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, XIII (1882), 9; Hermann Wissmann, Unter Deutscher Flagge quer durch Afrika von West nach Ost (Berlin, 1889), 235.

25. Thomson, To the Central African Lakes and Back, II, 90; Storms, "Voyage a Oudjidji," Fonds Storms, III, 11, Archives du Musee Royal du Congo Belge, Tervuren.

26. Hore, "On the Twelve Tribes," 9; Jane F. Moir, A Lady's Letters from Central Africa (Glasgow, 1891), 46-47.

622




economies. For example, Robert Schmitz claimed that as the Holoholo switched from the use of bark and raphia cloth to European cloth, the doti of calico re- placed pieces of raphia cloth and copper ingots as their principal medium of exchange.27 During this same period, the samesame beads became a popular medium of commercial exchange in the northeastern corner of the lake, at Uzige. By the 1880s, they could procure a whole range of market goods: one chicken was valued at one kete, one sheep at fifteen kete, and one pot of beer at five.28 Such shifts, even multiple shifts, were not unusual in the lake region or the Congo during the nineteenth century. Although these adoptions rarely marked a major transformation in the local subsistence economy, they did signal a

widening pattern of trade relations and external contacts. In the lake region, spheres of exchange shrank in number and expanded in scale. As the barriers lowered, more goods, services, and labor were obtainable through market transactions. For the first time, some Holoholo became caravan porters or organized private trading expeditions to Unyanyembe and the east coast.29

In Ujiji economic change was much more extensive. Commercial competition, the adoption of a regular currency, and established rates of market exchange reveal the rapid pace of Ujiji's transformation. Long-distance caravan traffic and the local commercial activity of Muslim merchants were crucial stimulants to this transition. The conjunction of outside commerce with traditional regional trade activity also produced numerous incentives for economic specialization. The coastal traders' demand for professional boatmen, lake

guides, carpenters, and other artisans encouraged a proliferation of skills and

occupations.30 As a result, it also triggered the emergence of Lake Tangan- yika's first local trading entrepreneurs: the Jiji. These fishermen were noted for their skilled boatmanship, their extensive commercial contacts around the lake, and their ranging fishing expeditions that sometimes lasted as long as two months .31 Thus they were well suited to the Muslim traders' needs and soon became popular guides and sailors in the mixed crews of those merchants' dhows .32

That type of work required frequent long absences from town. But it also opened new economic opportunities for the Jiji sailors, since they could always conduct personal trade ventures while on assignments for their merchant-

27. Schmitz, Les Baholoholo, 75, 503. In 1880 Hutley noted that cloth and blue beads were "the currency employed by the Waguha [Holoholo]." See Hutley to Whitehouse, Plymouth Rock, 20 February 1880, Box 3, Folder 1/B, L.M.S.

28. Francois Coulbois, Dix ann6es au Tanganyika (Limoges, 1901), 80. 29. Hutley, "Uguha and its People," Box 3, Folder 3/B, L.M.S.; Hutley to

Whitehouse, Uguha, 20 February 1880, Box 3, Folder I/B, L.M.S. 30. Hore, Tanganyika, 72; Moir, Letters from Central Africa, 47. 31. Hore, "On the Twelve Tribes, " 11; Hermann Wissmann, My Second Journey

through Equatorial Africa from the Congo to the Zanzibesi in the Years 1886 and 1887 (London, 1891), 256.

32. E. C. Hore, "Voyage in the Calabash, " Journal 2: Central Africa, 5, L.M.S.; Wissmann, Unter Deutscher Flagge, 234. The crews were usually a mixed group of Wangwana, slaves, and Jiji.

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BEVERLY BROWN

employers. With their knowledge of the lake region, their special skills, their good relations with most shoreline communities, and their Ujiji base, these townsmen were in an ideal position to profit from a life of trade. They bought cheap and sold dear. The usual practice was to export salt, palm oil, goats, cloth, and beads from Ujiji to small villages on the western lakeshore where they procured ivory, slaves, and local products which were then shipped to Ujiji and sold for two to three times their original value .33 The profits were substantial. For example, in 1884 ten to fifteen liters of palm oil from Masanse could be obtained locally for one-half doti of cloth, in Ujiji the price doubled, and farther south in Marungu the exchange value quadrupled .34 Faced with these opportunities, some Jiji rnust have become full time middlemen, completely abandoning fishing for commerce. Although Muslim trading activity on the lake stimulated their enterprising ventures, the Jiji townsmen had long been familiar with long- distance trade. Their entrepreneurship resulted from a conversion of what had once been a subsidiary commercial activity into a regular, professional pur- suit. 35

The forces altering Ujiji's local economy were affecting the lacustrine trade system as a whole. The result was a conjunction of old trade patterns, new demands, and new habits of exchange. Throughout the century, traditional economic relations persisted. This can be seen in reports of the Rua exchanging copper and oil with the Holoholo at Mtowa, of Bembe transporting fish to Burundi markets, of the Vinza carrying salt to Karema where it was traded to the Rungu, and the Bwari exchanging loads of millet for palm oil. 36 These staples -- salt, palm oil, and dried fish -- retained their prime position in the lacustrine trade network, despite the injection of new overseas commodities. Economic expansion hinged on meeting the continued need for such basic goods and the new external demand for ivory and slaves.

Although domestic slavery was an old institution in the lake area, there is scant evidence of any long-distance slave trade until the coastal merchants' arrival. But as Ujiji's alien Muslim community expanded and prospered, the town became a major slaving center, and by 1858 it was labeled "the great slave-mart of these regions ."37 In 1879 Hore estimated that most of the resident Arab

33. 20 Aoat 1887, "Diaire de Kibanga (1884-1893)," Archives de la Maison des Peres Blancs, Rome [hereafter P .B.R.]; Hutley, "Uguha and its People, " Box 3, Folder 3/B, L.M.S.; Cameron, Across Africa, 192-193; Victor Giraud, Les Lacs de l'Afrique equatoriale (Paris, 1890), 522; Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, 362.

34. E. Storms, "Journal de la station de Mpala, " Fonds Storms, I, 1, Archives

du Musee Royal du Congo Belge, Tervuren. 35. Gray and Birmingham have suggested that the emergence of African entre-

preneurship followed a generally similar pattern in many areas of Central Africa. The Jiji experience is a good example on a reduced scale. R. Gray and D . Birmingham, "Some Economic and Political Consequences of Trade in Central and Eastern Africa in the Pre-colonial Period," R. Gray and D. Bir-

mingham, eds., Pre-Colonial African Trade (London, 1970), 14. 36. 12 Avril 1888, "Diaire de Kibanga (1884-1893)," P .R.B.; 3 Decembre 1886,

"Kibanga Diaire (uin 1883-Juillet 1889), " P B .R.; Cameron, Across Africa,

241; Schmitz, Les Baholoholo, 42; Jerome Becker, La Vie en Afrique (Brus- sels, 1887), II, 312; Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, 362.

37. Burton, Lake Regions, 318.

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MUSLIM INFLUENCE IN THE LAKE TNANGANYIKA REGION

traders owned twenty to one hundred slaves, who were put to work as household laborers, porters, crewmen, and fieldhands.38 This figure probably mounted

during the 1880s as the Manyema commerce flourished and disruption in the lake

region furnished a new supply of slaves. By that time, the Arab and Swahili merchants in Ujiji numbered somewhere between twenty-four and sixty, so the enslaved population must have exceeded one thousand.39 But a high fatality rate, due primarily to the sweeping ravages of smallpox, continually reduced their ranks. During the late 1880s, H. Wissmann reported that a working slave rarely survived more than a year in Ujiji, and in 1894 Lieutenant Sigl repeated Arab es- timates that at least eighty per cent of the Manyema slaves in Ujiji died of fever, dysentry, and smallpox.40 As a result, the demand for slaves remained high.

Coastbound caravans from Manyema or Ujiji-based trading parties work-

ing along the lake's western shore, particularly in Marungu, regularly supplied the central caravan route with slaves. But only a small percentage of these

Congolese captives reached the east coast. Most of the slaves died, escaped, or were purchased en route, and many never made it beyond Ujiji.41 Despite high losses and the Arab merchants' primary interest in the ivory trade, slave

dealing occasionally offered substantial profits. Just as cloth prices mounted as one moved west, slave and ivory prices increased as one moved east. There was a fifty to one hundred per cent difference in costs between Ujiji and Tabora. In the early 1880s, a slave procured for five piastres in Marungu sold for fifteen piastres in Ujiji and thirty piastres in Tabora.42 Likewise, a length of cloth that cost five to six piastres in Tabora sold for nine to ten piastres in Ujiji.43

Africans in the northern Lake Tanganyika region responded to this new commerce by altering their traditional trading behavior to embrace the exchange of ivory and slaves. But the slave trade, although thriving, remained small scale at that end of the lake and was not attended by the social breakdown and violence occurring in the eastern Congo or farther south in Marungu and Lungu. Most of the slaves sold in Ujiji were provided by Arab and Swahili traders com-

ing from those regions, but Africans in the lake area were also actively involved in the procurement and transport of slaves. For example, the Jiji journeyed as far south as Marungu to barter palm oil and salt for slaves, 44 and frequently coasted along the eastern shore where they traded corn, palm oil, and goats for slaves. In those parts, a slave could be procured for two goats in the mid- 1870s. This meant that the Jiji were making immense profits, since a goat could be purchased in Ujiji for the equivalent of one shuka of cloth and a slave

38. Hore to Mullens, Ujiji, 16 April 1879, Box 2, Folder 1/B, L.M.S. 39. Coulbois, Dix Annees, 68; Louis Jalla, Du Cap de Bonne Esperance au Vic-

toria Nyanza (Florence, 1905), 75. 40. Wissmann, Through Equatorial Africa, 246; "Ujiji," Le Mouvement Geo-

graphique (4 Fevrier 1894), 14. 41. Cameron, Across Africa, 306; Wissmann, Through Equatorial Africa, 246. 42. Becker, La Vie en Afrique, I, 221; Storms, "Le Tanganika: quelques par-

ticularites sur les Moeurs Africaines," Bulletin Societe Royale Belge de

Geographie, X (1886), 195-196. 43. Hore to Whitehouse, Uyui, 30 November 1880, Box 3, Folder 4/A, L.M.S.;

Dromaux A Superieur, Karema, 17 Mars 1888, C 17-28, P.B.R. 44. Hore, "Voyage to the South," Journals, 3, 21, L.M.S.; 12 Avril 1888,

"Diaire de Kibanga (1884-1893)," P .B.R.; Giraud, Les Lacs, 522.

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BEVERLY BROWN

could be sold in Ujiji for twenty doti.45 Similar though less lucrative trading opportunities existed on the opposite shore, where the Goma began to exchange slaves and ivory for goods they had always valued, such as salt and goats. In a similar fashion, the Rua supplemented their traditional exportation of oil and copper through Uguha.46 Higher prices on the Ujiji market also created an in- flux of larger trans-lake trading parties from the west. The occasional coales- cence of small family trade groups into major expeditions was vividly illustrated

by a British missionary's description of one hundred Bwari arriving in town to

exchange slaves and ivory for salt and cloth.47

By all reports, the Jiji were the most important local participants in that east-west commerce, and their involvement as middlemen deepened in the 1870s as their trading ventures stretched to the lake's southwestern reaches. Although local political figures, such as the abateko (local elders), were actively engaged in lake commerce and frequently backed trading expeditions, the Jiji commercial expansion does not seem to have been centrally directed or tightly organized.48 Whoever their sponsor, most trading parties were composed of boatmen living in the same neighborhoods or villages, and they usually followed the same basic

trading pattern. On long voyages, a number of boats traveled together; the Jiji did not engage in overland transport or inland trade, except for journeys to Uvinza's salt springs; and these middlemen, though frequently practicing the slave trade and usually owning one or two domestic slaves, never procured other Jiji or Ha for sale as slaves in the external trade. They were active, long- absent itinerant traders, carrying both the staple goods of the traditional trade and the new goods of the coastal caravan commerce to innumerable small vil-

lages fringing the eastern and western lake shores. Their commercial enter-

prise became an essential factor in the expansion of Lake Tanganyika's trading networks and in the multiplication of links between the old and new trade.

These links were particularly strong at centers such as Ujiji and Uvira -- two crucial nodal points in the lake region's trade system. Whereas Ujiji gained importance from its central geographical position, fertile environs, and

potential to expand, Uvira became a major mart because it was backed by an

ivory rich hinterland.49 In 1858 Burton portrayed this area as the "great northern depot for slaves, ivory, grain, bark cloth and ironware," which were ex-

changed for brass and copper coil bracelets, salt, beads, tobacco, and cotton cloth.50 That description remained true for the next three decades. To the coastal merchants, Uvira was a vital trade settlement -- preeminence there was essential to achieving economic and political power in the lake region.

The variety of goods and transactions offered by the Ujiji and Uvira markets reveal the complexity of long-distance trade in eastern Central Africa. Al-

though ivory and slaves could be procured for beads and cloth in many areas, it was often more profitable for the Muslim merchants to engage in a triangular

45. Cameron, Across Africa, 192-193. 46. 12 Avril 1888, "Diaire de Kibanga (1884-1893)," P.B.R.; 3 Aoft 1888, "Ka-

rema," I, P.B.R.; Griffith to Whitehouse, Uguha, 28 August 1880, Box 3, Folder 2/D, L.M.S.

47. Hutley to Whitehouse, Ujiji, 19 October 1879, Box 2, Folder 2/B, L.M.S. 48. Hore, "Voyage to the South," Journals, 3, 21, L.M.S. 49. Hore, "On the Twelve Tribes," 13. 50. Burton, Lake Regions, 354.

626




or multiple- staged trade. So they frequently became involved in the staple commerce of the interior -- trading cloth for Katanga copper, copper for ivory, beads for salt and palm oil, salt for slaves. 51 Thus a complex commercial network was established on the exploitation and linkage of several traditional re-

gional trade systems.

Before the 1880s, the political consequences of this economic expansion were localized and limited. Economic change did not result in the destruction of basic political structures nor in a thrust toward empire-building. But conflict was not unusual. Since the Muslim traders cultivated alliances in this region, there were innumerable power plays, shifting allegiances, and armed confrontations. At the same time, numerous village and regional chiefs gained a new measure of power and wealth by charging hongo (a type of toll or tribute exacted from travelers and caravans), sponsoring trading expeditions, or controlling the use of boats. 52 All this was small scale aggrandizement.

The greatest strains developed in areas bordering Muslim merchant set- tlements, trade outposts, or heavily traveled caravan routes. Here the chances for conflict were high, given the propensity of slaves to escape, Wangwana to raid and forage for food, and Arabs to protect their presumed right of passage. Although there were frequent forced retributions and occasional efforts to establish some controls, these alien Muslims made no coordinated effort to exercise governmental authority during the early years of their commercial activity on Lake Tanganyika. But in some areas, they were deeply entrenched at a very early stage in political affairs.

Ujiji was the first lakeside community to feel the political impact of the Muslim traders' commercial drive. During the nineteenth century, they accu- mulated tremendous influence in this town, but they never attempted to subvert the chiefly authority or to destroy the local political system. Throughout these

years, they maintained strong alliances with a succession of abami at Nkalinzi, nurtured good relations with abatware (district chiefs) and abateko, and guaran- teed a regular northward flow of tribute goods and hongo to the umwami's high- land village. 53

But the locus of power did shift southward toward the Swahili and Arab traders as their wealth and numbers increased. Eventually leaders of the Mus- lim community acquired both de facto and de jure political authority in Ujiji and

throughout the southern portion of Bujiji. Swahili traders such as Mwinyi Kheri, Mwinyi Hassani, and Akida Tayari achieved those initial gains.54 During the course of Mwinyi Kheri's long forty-year residency in the lake region, he

51. Hutley, "Uguha and its People," Box 3, Folder 3/B, L.M.S.; 14 Septembre 1895, "Karema, " II, P .B.R.; Schmitz, Les Baholoholo, 575; Macqueen, "Notes on African Geography,

" 373. 52. 12 Avril 1888, "Diaire de Kibanga (1884-1893)," P .B.R.; Hore, "Voyage to

the South," Journals, 3, 21, L.M.S.; Burton, Lake Regions, ch. 14. 53. Interview with Alimassi Ruppeler, Ujiji, 15 July 1969; interview with Abedi

Hatibu, Kigoma, 18 May 1969; Kigoma District Book, III, National Archives, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

54. Kigoma District Book, III, National Archives, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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became the chief Muslim authority in both Uvira and Ujiji. Despite an apparent six-year political eclipse after Mohammed bin Saleh's return to Ujiji in 1869, Mwinyi Kheri's accumulation of power accelerated rapidly in the 1860s and 1870s when he assumed numerous judiciary and advisory powers, forged a matrimonial alliance with the local chief's family, and enlarged his contacts with Uvira.55 In 1880 Barghash, evidently at the instigation of the British, recognized Mwinyi Kheri as the liwali of Ujiji, Uvira, and Uguha. Such late recognition, though occasionally useful, neither significantly influenced this Swahili leader's policy in the lake region nor substantially contributed to Zanzibar's influence in the interior .56

The Muslim community's political advance in Ujiji coincided with the town's emergence as a major center on the great caravan route from the east coast to the Congo. But these traders' primary concern was commerce, not politics. Ujiji's wealthier, permanent Arab and Swahili residents, such as Said bin Habib el Afifi, Abdullah bin Suliman, Mohamed bin Gharib, Said bin Majid, and Mohamed bin Khalfan (Rumaliza), usually divided their business activities between occasional expeditions to Manyema, trade on the western shore and in Uvira, and lucrative trans-lake caravan ferry operations. Such enterprises de-

pended on several thousand slaves and Wangwana, who became new settlers in Ujiji and thus contributed to the town's rapid economic growth and population boom.

In the throes of a transition from village life to town life, Ujiji's com-

munity experienced ample social discord despite the mutually profitable accord between traders and Jiji political leaders. The old social order began to collapse while deep economic and cultural fissures still divided old and new residents. Historical group animosities seem to have coalesced during those years. This was particularly apparent in the case of the Jiji, who became increasingly defen- sive as the Wangwana newcomers threatened their economic position and the

community peace. Stanley sensed this competition in 1876, and London Mission-

ary Society representatives witnessed numerous confrontations during the 1880s.57 The angriest conflict occurred in 1881 when Tippu Tip passed through town en route to Tabora. Hundreds of his porters spilled out of Ujiji into the cultivated countryside of nearby Ruanda, where they stole and burned crops. The porters were driven back, but the area remained in turmoil for days .58

Although there would be future flare-ups in the town's market place and streets, this was as close as the Jiji ever came to massively resisting the Muslim pres- ence.

55. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, 329; Cameron, Across Africa, 180; interview with Hasani b. Amedi, Bangwe, 27 July 1969.

56. Norman R. Bennett, "Mwinyi Kheri, " in N. Bennett, ed., Leadership in Eastern Africa (Boston, 1968), 163.

57. 12 Mars 1886, "Diaire de Notre Dame de Mpala (1885-1889)," P.B.R.; Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, 327; Hutley to Whitehouse, Ujiji, 7 November 1880, Box 3, Folder 3/D, L.M.S.

58. Interview with Alimassi Ruppeler, Ujiji, 15 July 1969; Hutley to Thompson, Ujiji, 28 February 1881, Box 4, Folder 1/C, L.M.S. A different version is reported by Tippu Tip, Maisha ya Hamed, 93.

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But in other regions, a strong reaction mounted against the intrusion of these traders. During the early 1880s, there was a coincidence of resistance efforts in many areas -- porters were killed, goods or slaves stolen, or exces- sive hongo was levied in Utongwe, Ubwari, Burundi, and Uvinza. These blows

against the organization and profits of the caravan trade triggered a major shift in Arab policy on Lake Tanganyika. Before this time the Muslim traders had made few efforts to integrate their economic activity or exercise a unified political command over the lake region. But in 1881, they began buttressing their political and economic position. The decision to impose a pax arabica seems to have been made by Mwinyi Kheri and Rumaliza, with the initial support of Tippu Tip.59 There is no reason to suspect that it was Zanzibar-inspired or anti- European in direction.

During the next eight years, the traders launched armed campaigns against Uvinza, Burundi, Masanse, Ubwari, Utongwe, and Ukaranga in an at-

tempt to secure the major caravan approaches to the lake, to expand their trade contacts in the north, and to establish cooperative political authorities within the

perimeter of their trade zone. Chiefs were deposed, tribute was collected, certain "protectorate powers" were claimed, and Wangwana outposts multiplied around the lake. But like so many violent attempts to establish peace, these ex-

peditions seemed to generate more conflict. 60 Due to the delaying action of local resistance and the subsequent German and Belgian advances, the Arabs' politico- economic drive was never consummated. By 1896 they had lost control of all their power bases in the lake region. But military defeat did not erase the pres- ence of Muslims who continued, through their commercial activity, their social

positions, and a new tide of proselytization, to influence trade and politics in the Lake Tanganyika region.

59. 26 Juin 1881, "Massanze Diaire (1880-1883)," P .B.R.; Tippu Tip, Maisha ya Hamed, 95.

60. Accounts of the various campaigns may be found in "Massanze Diaire

(1883)," P.B.R.; Chronique Trimestrielle (uillet, 1890), 541-543; Tippu Tip, Maisha ya Hamed, 99-101, 119; Kigoma District Book, III, National Archives, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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Documents

Muslim Influence on Trade and Politics in the Lake Tanganyika Region