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Appendix 4: Notes on Places and Peoples
Aden | southern Arabian port; British used it as a coaling station |
Bagamoyo | most important town on coast opposite Zanzibar in the nineteenth century |
Buganda | powerful state in the upper Great Lakes region in the nineteenth century |
Bombay | headquarters of the British East India Company |
Kamba | Bantu-speaking people of central Kenya; important ivory traders |
Kilwa | Swahili trading town on southern coast of Tanzania; prosperous until sacked by the Portuguese (1505); its trade revived in the late eighteenth century and declined again with the rise of Zanzibar |
Malindi | Swahili trading town on coast of Kenya and Mombasa's rival |
Mauritius | Indian Ocean island (Mascarene group); important station on the route to India; the Dutch (1598-1710), French (1722-1810), and British (1810-1968) occupied it; the French called it Ile de France |
Mombasa | Swahili trading town on coast of Kenya and Kilwa's rival; Portuguese stronghold until Omanis expelled them from Fort Jesus (1698); resisted Omani domination; slave villages produced grain; now Kenya's major port (also serving Uganda and Rwanda) |
Muscat | port on the Gulf of Oman; held by the Portuguese from 1508 to 1648, then under Persian princes until it became the capital of Oman in 1741 (under the Busaidi dynasty) |
Nyamwezi | Bantu-speaking people of central Tanzania, involved in regional trading networks and the caravan trade (its real pioneers) |
Reunion | Indian Ocean island (Mascarene group); settled by the French (1642) and a post of the French East India Company; now an overseas department of France |
Swahili | Bantu-speaking people of the East African coast, living in towns and villages; a Muslim and maritime people; also their language (more properly Kiswahili) which has many Arabic loanwords; Swahili is now the official language of Kenya and Tanzania |
Yao | Bantu-speaking people trading in the hinterland of Kilwa as far southwest as Lake Malawi |
Zanzibar | large island with a deep harbor; Oman's most loyal East African possession (2200 miles from Oman) until it became independent in 1856; also the name of the main town ( the older part is often called Stonetown); it became part of Tanzania in 1964 |