1840 |
Seyyid Said moves the Omani capital to Zanzibar; price of ivory at Zanzibar is nearly MT$30. |
1840s |
Coastal traders, using Ujiji as a base, cross Lake Tanganyika to obtain ivory and slaves in eastern Congo. |
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Nyamwezi traders operate in areas west of the corridor between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi. |
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Arab traders reach Buganda; expansion of Buganda's fleet of canoes on Lake Victoria. |
1844 |
Commercial treaty between Oman and France. |
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Germans establish trading post on Zanzibar; Germans develop export of cowries shells (carrying them by sea to West Africa) |
1845 |
British treaty with Zanzibar bans shipment of slaves beyond Brava (on the coast of Somalia); it does not go into effect until 1847. |
1846 |
Church Missionary Society builds a mission near Mombasa. |
1850s |
Coastal traders establish headquarters at Tabora, in the center of a Nyamwezi chiefdom, and begin to meddle in Nyamwezi politics. |
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Msiri (Nyamwezi trader southwest of Lake Mweru) creates a trading and raiding state; he makes contact with Angolans and trades in two directions, exchanging ivory and copper for firearms. |
1855 |
British merchant ships employ 10,000 to 12,000 "lascars" (60% from India, the rest from Malaysia, China, Arabia, and East Africa). |
1857 |
Richard Burton and John Speke follow trade route from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika; Speke reaches southern shore of Lake Victoria. |
1858 |
British consul at Zanzibar confiscates 8,000 slaves belonging to British Indian subjects. |
1860s |
Peak of the East African slave trade: 23,000 slaves a year from the East Coast; this is an average that includes inividuals exported from the East Coast who were retained on Zanzibar and inividuals exported directly from Kilwa. |
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About 6,000 Indian merchants are living in Zanzibar. |
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Tippu Tip establishes himself on upper Lualaba River in eastern Congo; his well-armed bands hunt elephants and raid villages. |
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Mirambo (Nyamwezi chief) uses ruga-ruga to dominate the trade route between Tabora and Ujiji, demanding tolls from passing caravans. |
1860-63 |
John Speke and James Grant take western route around Lake Victoria; in Buganda they find the source of the Nile; they follow the Nile downstream through southern Sudan and Egypt. |
1862 |
Sultan Majid of Zanzibar settles internal disputes; he is recognized by Britain and France (France had supported his brother, Barghash. |
1866 |
Sultan Majid begins work on a new port called Dar es Salaam. |
1868 |
Holy Ghost Fathers (Roman Catholic missionaries) establish a settlement for freed slaves at Bagamoyo. |
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Price of ivory at Zanzibar is MT$60/frasila. |
1869 |
Opening of the Suez Canal; steamships pass through Red Sea to Indian Ocean; subsequent increase in number of steamships visiting Jidda. |
1870 |
Sultan Majid dies; Barghash, the new sultan, is a close friend of John Kirk (British agent, appointed British Consul in 1873). |
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London is now the single largest marketplace for African ivory. |
1871 |
Henry Morton Stanley finds David Livingstone at Ujiji, but cannot persuade him to leave; Livingstone wants to explore the Lualaba (he thinks it's a tributary of Nile, but it's not). |
1871-75 |
Fighting between Mirambo and a coalition of Arabs and Nyamwezi from Tabora seriously disrupts the ivory trade; Sultan Barghash sends large force to Tabora; it cannot not defeat Mirambo. |
1872 |
Hurricane destroys clove trees on Zanzibar; clove prices rise. |
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British steamship company (now operating all over the Indian Ocean) sets up a mail service between Zanzibar and Aden. |
1873 |
Price of ivory at Zanzibar is nearly MT$90. |
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David Livingstone dies near Lake Bangweulu (far from the Nile). |
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Sultan Barghash signs treaty making the slave trade illegal from any part of his dominion; he closes Zanzibar's slave market. |
1874-77 |
Henry Morton Stanley's trip across Africa (from Zanzibar to Buganda, then following the Congo river to the Atlantic coast). |
1875 |
Stanley's famous letter to New York Herald, urging Christian missionaries to come to Buganda (Protestants arrive in 1877, Catholics in 1878). |
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Church Missionary Society settlement for freed slaves at Freretown. |
1876 |
Sultan Barghash makes slave caravans illegal; export trade slows to a trickle (last slaving dhow is seized in 1899); raids continue on mainland. |
1879 |
Leopold II of Belgium gives Stanley the task of using the Congo waterway to penetrate the interior of central Africa. |