Potted History

Tanzania may or may not be the cradle of mankind, but certainly some of the earliest evidence of human/hominid presence can be found in and around the Tanzanian savannah. The footprints of our ancestors1 can be seen in the museum at Olduvai - the signs of passage of a small group of hominids, preserved in the mud and estimated at 3.7 million years old were found at Laetoli. Other remains found in the region by the Leakeys and their helpers include one of the most famous hominid skulls, Zinth. A few million years passed, and the area was inhabited mainly by hunter- gatherers, a lifestyle still followed by a small population of Sandawe living hear Lake Eyasi. At around 1000BC, Bantu farming peoples began to move into the area from the west, followed later by Nilotic pastoralists from the north. On the coast, there were very early Arab influences, bringing Islam into the area from around 800AD.

The control of the coast had passed to the Portuguese by the early sixteenth century and then back again to Omani Arabs, based in Zanzibar, during the nineteenth century. The influence of traders and particularly slave traders moved inland as this commerce began to grow in economic importance. Millions of slaves transited through Bagamoyo on the Tanzanian coast, onto Zanzibar and then death or forced labour on plantations. In the opposite direction came many of the explorers and missionaries of central Africa - Livingstone, Stanley and the rest. Tanzania did not escape the wave of colonisation in the nineteenth century, becoming part of German East Africa2 and then integrating the British empire as Tanganyika after the first world war. Independence came to mainland Tanzania in 1961 and then to Zanzibar in 1964 after a bloody revolution leading to the overthrow of the Omani Arabs.

The first president of Tanzania at independence was Julius Nyerere, still widely revered in Tanzania, and known as the teacher3. Nyerere put the country on a course towards 'African socialism'. This was based on self-reliance, and the village unit or 'ujamaa'4. Unfortunately the creation of these units involved considerable displacement of the population, which was not popular. Equally unfortunate was that African socialism didn't really work in economic terms any better than the Russian version. What is undeniable, however, was that this period, and Nyerere in general, did a great deal to cement Tanzania as a nation, and avoid the kind of inter-tribal or religious feuding that has bedevilled other areas of Africa. Tanzanians are very proud of this unity and stability.