Scholarly article on 4'-NITROACETANILIDE 104-04-1 from

Journal of African History,  (), pp. –. Printed in the United Kingdom

#



 Cambridge University Press

‘

A NATION OF PORTERS’: THE NYAMWEZI AND THE

LABOUR MARKET IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY

TANZANIA



  . 

University of Toronto

F the beginning of the nineteenth century, Nyamwezi long-distance

trading caravans dominated the central routes through Tanzania, stretching

from Mrima coast ports such as Bagamoyo and Saadani to Ujiji on Lake

Tanganyika." Despite the inroads of Omani Arab and Swahili trading

enterprises from the middle of the century, the Nyamwezi maintained a

position of strength. In the second half of the nineteenth century, market

relations emerged as the dominant form of economic organization along the

central routes, although the market for many commodities was clearly

fractured by transport diﬃculties, and non-market relations frequently

substituted for weakly developed commercial institutions and tools. Most

caravan porters in nineteenth-century Tanzania were free wage workers, and

nearly all were clearly migrant or itinerant labourers.# The development of

a labour market for caravan porters was an early and signiﬁcant stage in the

"

Research for this article was aided by a Social Science and Humanities Research

Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship and a grant from the Associates of the University

of Toronto. Thanks to the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology and

members of the Department of History at the University of Dar es Salaam for assistance

during my research trip in –. Thanks also to Bill Freund and Hamshaveni Chetty

for commenting on versions of the paper, and also to the anonymous readers of this

journal for their helpful suggestions.

#

There is a small but signiﬁcant recent literature on pre-colonial porterage in Africa.

Of general importance is Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch and Paul E. Lovejoy (eds.), The

Workers of African Trade (Beverly Hills, ). For caravans in Tanzania, see Edward

A. Alpers, ‘The coast and the development of the caravan trade’, in I. N. Kimambo and

A. J. Temu (eds.), A History of Tanzania (Nairobi, ), –; Richard Gray and

David Birmingham (eds.), Pre-Colonial African Trade (London, ); John Iliﬀe, A

Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge, ); T. O. Beidelman, ‘The organization

and maintenance of caravans by the Church Missionary Society in Tanzania in the

nineteenth century’, International Journal of African Historical Studies,  (),

–; Abdul Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East

African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, – (London, ); Juhani

Koponen, People and Production in Late Pre-colonial Tanzania: History and Structures

$ $

(Jyvaskyla, ); Jonathan Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular

Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, ꢀ– (Portsmouth NH, London, Nairobi, Dar

es Salaam, ). The specialist literature on porters includes S. C. Lamden, ‘Some

aspects of porterage in East Africa’, Tanganyika Notes and Records,  (), –;

Robert Cummings, ‘A note on the history of caravan porters in East Africa’, Kenya

Historical Review,  (); Donald Herbert Simpson, Dark Companions: The African

Contribution to the European Exploration of East Africa (London, ); Stephen J.

Rockel, ‘Wage labor and the culture of porterage in nineteenth-century Tanzania: the

central caravan routes’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East,

 (), –; Stephen J. Rockel, ‘Caravan porters of the nyika: labour, culture and

society in nineteenth-century Tanzania’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, ).





 . 

transition to capitalism,$ which began in a period of violence and political

upheaval. Clearly, this has implications for how scholars should view broader

processes of economic transformation prior to the imposition of colonial rule,

which cut short a series of signiﬁcant indigenous innovations.%

The argument that porters were mostly wage labourers rests on evidence

that their labour was bought and sold according to ﬂuctuating labour market

conditions.& Market conditions in the second half of the nineteenth century

shows a broadly rising demand for porters, a demand that could only be met

if caravan operators oﬀered adequate wages and observed the customs

established within porter work culture. Thus, market conditions along the

central routes contributed to the development of a free wage labour,

characterized by a unique labour culture.'

The fortunes of Nyamwezi traders and porters were linked not just to

trends on the coast and changes in the international economy, but also to

adaptability in the face of these changes, and a favourable labour market.

Developments within the Nyamwezi domestic economy facilitated long

distance trade and migrant labour. Like colonial migrant labourers, porters

combined wage earning with continued access to household production on

the land. In Unyamwezi, increased cultivation of mbuga marshlands and the

adoption of white rice increased agricultural production, facilitating the

absence of a large proportion of the adult population.( Many Nyamwezi

porters used their earnings and proﬁts to invest in cattle and their farms, the

more successful paying for additional labour in the form of wives, slaves, and

client Tutsi cattle herders. In turn, access to these sources of labour made

porterage possible. Thus the nature of gender and other social roles were

crucial.) The ability of the Nyamwezi to compensate for lost labour gave a

particular coherence to the only partly monetized economy of nineteenth-

century Unyamwezi.

$

%

Iliﬀe, Modern History, , .

These innovations were clearly limited in many respects, and were hindered by the

very fact of the transportation problem. Nevertheless, there is evidence for the spread of

market relations in foodstuﬀs and the partial and uneven commercialization of agriculture

along parts of the central and northern routes. For introductory comments, see O. F.

Raum, ‘German East Africa: Changes in African tribal life under German administration,

–’, in Vincent Harlow and E. M. Chilver (eds.), A History of East Africa (

vols.) (Oxford, ), II, –. For north-east Tanzania and the northern route along

the Pangani Valley, see Helge Kjekshus, Ecology Control and Economic Development in

East African History (London, Ibadan, Nairobi, Lusaka, ), –; Koponen, People

and Production, –, –; Isaria N. Kimambo, ‘Environmental control and hunger

in the mountains and plains of nineteenth-century north-eastern Tanzania’, in Gregory

Maddox, James Giblin and Isaria N. Kimambo (eds.), Custodians of the Land: Ecology

and Culture in the History of Tanzania (London, ), –. Glassman, Feasts and Riot,

ch. , explores some of the implications of the commoditization of material things. For the

central routes, see John Hanning Speke, What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the

Nile (Edinburgh and London, ), ; Alfred C. Unomah and J. B. Webster, ‘East

Africa: the expansion of commerce’, in John E. Flint (ed.), The Cambridge History of

Africa ( vols.) (London, ), V, ; Rockel, ‘Caravan porters of the nyika’, –.

&

process, and wages.

It also depends on an analysis of bargaining and wage payments. See Rockel,

Caravan porters’, ch. , for discussions of bargaining, customary control over the labour

‘

' Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, passim.

Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, –; Sharon B. Stichter, Migrant Laborers (Cam-

(

bridge, ), –, –, , and passim.

For rice in pre-colonial Unyamwezi, see Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, , –.

)



        

.

K

ag

e

r

a

R

Lake Victoria

0

100

200

KARAGWE

Kilometres

Lake Natron

Mwanza

SUKUMA

Lake Eyasi

SUMBWA

MAASAI

HA

NYAMWEZI

Singida

VINZA

Ujiji

NYATURU

Tabora

Pangani R

Pemba

Island

.

MGUNDA

MKALI

Kilimatinde

GALLA

Pangani

Saadini

GOGO

Zanzibar

Island

a

Wami R.

k

MARENGA

e

Winde

T

MKALI

a

ZARAMO

n

g

KIMBU

a_n

y

i

k

a

Lake Rukwa

SAGARA

^R^u^fiji

Great Ruaha R.

R

.

INDIAN

OCEAN

LUNGU

Kilwa Kivinje

Map . Tanzania: ethnic groups and places mentioned in text.

A study in precolonial labour history, this article reassesses aspects of

Nyamwezi caravaning and the increasingly commodiﬁed labour market for

porters during the last decades of the nineteenth century. The next section

outlines some preconditions for Nyamwezi commercial expansion, followed

by a discussion of caravan organization at the peak of Nyamwezi success

during the s and s. The ﬁnal section analyzes the development of

the labour market, and shows that the expansion of the market was connected

to the persistence of Nyamwezi commercial operations.



    

Unyamwezi occupies a vast expanse of western Tanzania, beginning in the

east at Tura, where the ﬁrst caravans of the chiefdom entered after crossing

the Mgunda Mkali wilderness (now the Itigi Thicket), which lies between

Ugogo and Unyamwezi.* To the west, the Nyamwezi homeland extends to

Usaguzi, abutting the Malagarasi river; to the north, Unyamwezi includes

Kahama and Ukune, and to the south, Ugunda and Ugalla.

The Nyamwezi and related groups were alone among the peoples of the

interior to take advantage of the economic opportunities presented by the

Sagara migrations from their mountain homeland in eastern Tanzania."! For

the arrival of Sagara migrants during the eighteenth century with their

knowledge of the coast region indirectly stimulated Nyamwezi traders to

carry down their ivory and other goods. As Shorter puts it:

*

–’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, ).

For the Mgunda Mkali, see Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, –. For Ugogo in the

nineteenth century, see Carol Jane Sissons, ‘Economic prosperity in Ugogo, East Africa,



"

! See Aylward Shorter, Chiefship in Western Tanzania: A Political History of the

Kimbu (Oxford, ); Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, ch. .





 . 

Lake Victoria

200

0

100

Kagei

Kilometres

MSALALA

SUKUMA

SUMBWA

Shinyanga

USIHA

KAHAMA

UKUNE

HA

USONGO

NYAMWEZI

G

om

be R.

UYUI

URAMBO

USAGUZI

VINZA

NYATURU

Tabora

Ujiji

.

asi ^R

gar

ala

M

UNYANYEMBE

Lake T

g

a

anganyika

ll

MGUNDA

MKALI

a

R

NGURU

UGUNDA

.

GALLA

KONONGO

KIMBU

Lake Rukwa

Map . The Nyamwezi and their neighbours.

The coming of the Nyitumba from Usagara was an event of the ﬁrst importance,

for they opened up a route linking the interior to the hinterland of the coast, and

ultimately drew the peoples of the interior to the coast in search of the new objects

of value they had brought.""

Equally, the Nyamwezi had long been operating caravans over shorter

distances as part of regional trade in items such as salt and iron."#

Signiﬁcantly, it was this experience that enabled them, and not other groups,

to take advantage of new opportunities.

The impact of migrations, the distribution of natural resources in western

"

" Shorter, Chiefship in Western Tanzania, .

), –; Andrew Roberts, ‘Nyamwezi trade’, in Gray and Birmingham, Pre-

# J. E. G. Sutton and Andrew D. Roberts, ‘Uvinza and its salt industry’, Azania, 

(

Colonial African Trade, –.



        

Tanzania, and the central position of the Nyamwezi in the regional trading

system, all became key factors leading to the rise of the caravan system."$ The

Nyamwezi were essentially cultivators, producing, among other crops,

grains, pulses, potatoes, pumpkins and tobacco. But because Unyamwezi is

somewhat more forested than neighbouring territories, inhabitants were able

to harvest forest products such as honey, to make baskets and wooden

utensils, and to hunt wildlife. Lacking iron ore and good quality salt, the

Nyamwezi exchanged their products for Sumbwa and Konongo iron, and

salt from the Uvinza pans. Other neighbours, especially the Gogo, Sukuma

and Ha, kept large cattle herds. The Nyamwezi exchanged their grain, bark

cloth, honey and other products for the cattle and hides of herders. The

fortuitous position of the Nyamwezi in the centre of the regional trading

system of western Tanzania made them ideal intermediaries. Moreover, the

organization of the gender division of labour, the absence at ﬁrst of large

herds of cattle, and the utilization of immigrant Tutsi and slave labour,"% left

them free to travel during the dry season when there was little work in the

ﬁelds. In contrast, the nature of the local economies of other peoples in

central and western Tanzania made it impossible for large numbers to be

absent at any one time.

The geographical location of Unyamwezi became even more important

when the main routes to and from the coast shifted during the s from the

Ruaha river line to the central route network through Ugogo and

Unyanyembe."& Location is inadequate in itself to explain the central role of

the Nyamwezi, but other trading peoples including the Yao, Swahili and the

Kamba, were all based in strategic positions for the caravan trade.

A secondary factor that may have encouraged long-distance travel and

caravan porterage was the prevailing condition of lengthy peace and

stability."' There is no evidence for attacks by outsiders until the mid-

nineteenth century, when parts of Ukimbu, Unyamwezi and Usumbwa were

invaded by the migrating Ngoni."( Prior to this, conﬂict was limited to

occasional small-scale raiding of one Nyamwezi chiefdom by another. In

"

$ Sutton and Roberts, ‘Uvinza’; Roberts, ‘Nyamwezi trade’; Unomah and Webster,

‘

(

East Africa: the expansion of commerce’, ; A. C. Unomah, Mirambo of Tanzania

London, Nairobi, Ibadan, Lusaka, ), –.

"

% For detailed discussion of these topics, see Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, ch. .

& See Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, ch. .

' This idea is borrowed from Unomah, Mirambo, . For the political history of the

Nyamwezi, see also R. G. Abrahams, The Political Organization of Unyamwezi

(

Cambridge, ); R. G. Abrahams, The Peoples of Greater Unyamwezi, Tanzania

London, ); Achim Gottberg, ‘On the historical importance of the crisis of the

Fundikira empire’, in W. Markov (ed.), Afrika-Studien (Leipzig, ), –; Andrew

Roberts, ‘The Nyamwezi’, in Andrew Roberts (ed.), Tanzania before (Nairobi,



), –; Norman R. Bennett, Mirambo of Tanzania, ?– (New York,

); Shorter, Chiefship in Western Tanzania; Alfred Chukwudi Unomah, ‘Economic

expansion and political change in Unyanyembe (c. –)’ (Ph.D. thesis, University

of Ibadan, ); J. B. Kabeya, King Mirambo (Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, ).

Little new has been published since the s in any language on the history of this very

important ethnic group.

"

( Known as the Watuta. See Elzear Ebner, The History of the Wangoni (Ndanda-

Peramiho, ), –; Shorter, Chiefship in Western Tanzania, –; Abdul M. H.

Sheriﬀ, ‘Tanzanian societies at the time of the partition’, in M. H. Y. Kaniki (ed.),

Tanzania Under Colonial Rule (London, ), .





 . 

contrast, peoples to the east, such as the Gogo and Sagara, were subject to

raiding by the Nyaturu and Maasai, and in the Sagara case, the Swahili. The

Nyamwezi were relatively immune because of their smaller cattle herds. To

the west, the Ha accepted Tutsi overlordship, but the Nyamwezi were left

alone. By the time of the Unyanyembe civil war in the s and the conﬂict

between Unyanyembe and Mirambo in the s and s, the caravan

system was long established.

Two other explanations for the emergence of travel and porterage as major

features of Nyamwezi economy and society must be rejected. Some scholars

refer to ‘recurrent severe famines in Unyamwezi’, which made it necessary

for the Nyamwezi to ﬁnd additional means of support beyond agriculture

and pastoralism.") On the surface this is a reasonable argument. There is

circumstantial evidence that famine in the homeland of the Kamba of Kenya

encouraged them to work as long-distance traders and porters from the late

eighteenth century."* In contrast, Unyamwezi is less prone to drought and

famine than many other parts of Tanzania, including regions along the

central routes.#! If famine did occur on a local scale, people travelled to less

aﬀected neighbourhoods to buy food. When the party bearing Livingstone’s

body to Bagamoyo passed through famine-aﬄicted Nguru (south-east

Unyamwezi), Jacob Wainwright recorded that ‘many travel to Ugunda to

buy seed corn for domestic use’.#" The numerous swamps in Unyamwezi

provide reservoirs of water not present to the same degree in, for instance,

Uzaramo, Usagara or Ugogo. If famine was the main reason the Nyamwezi

turned to long-distance trade and porterage in such numbers, then it has to

be wondered why other groups did not do so. The Zaramo, Sagara and Gogo

are closer to the coast than the Nyamwezi and were aﬀected by famine at

various times in their history. In the case of the Gogo it was the nature of

their economy, with its heavy emphasis on both livestock rearing and the

cultivation of millet, sorghum, maize, watermelons, pumpkins and other

crops, which made porterage unattractive.##

The second inadequate explanation relates to culture. The success of

Nyamwezi trading initiatives, which brought wealth and the taste for

adventure, ensured an important place for travel among Nyamwezi cultural

icons, and eventually resulted in porterage becoming embedded in Nyamwezi

"

) Abrahams, Political Organization of Unyamwezi, –; Bennett, Mirambo, . The

phrase is Bennett’s.

"

* D. A. Low, ‘The northern interior, –’, in Roland Oliver and Gervase

Mathew (eds.), History of East Africa ( vols.) (London, ), I, ; Robert J.

Cummings, ‘Aspects of human porterage with special reference to the Akamba of Kenya:

towards an economic history, –’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California,

Los Angeles, ), , –, –; Report of Sir A. Hardinge for the Year –,

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, C., m.f. .–, .

#

! Verney Lovett Cameron, Across Africa ( vols.) (London, ), I, ; also Richard

F. Burton, The Lake Regions of Central Africa (New York, ), .

#

" (Jacob Wainwright), ‘Tagebuch von Jacob Wainright u

$

ber den Transport von Dr.

Livingstone’s Leiche, . Mai –. Februar ’, Petermann’s Mittheilungen, 

(), . Wainwright was mission-educated and wrote the ﬁrst safari journal by an

East African.

#

# Carol Sissons tell us: ‘There was no way of integrating a travelling occupation, such

as long-distance trade during dry season months, with the demands of the agricultural

cycle’. See, ‘Economic prosperity in Ugogo’, .



        

culture. Society’s values encouraged the young to travel as traders or porters.

Numerous nineteenth-century writers thus proposed a cultural explanation

for the Nyamwezi predilection for porterage. One described the Nyamwezi

as:

the professional transport agents of the East Coast. Not one of them was allowed

to marry before he had carried a load of ivory to the coast, and brought back one

of calico or brass wire. It was the tribal stamp of true manhood, at once making him

a citizen and warrior.#$

To reﬂect their heightened status, Nyamwezi men who had reached the coast

would often change their names to mark the signiﬁcance of their visit.#%

Other Europeans who visited Unyamwezi noted that youths would copy the

experienced men by walking around with mock loads.#& Such causal

explanations concentrating on culture have sometimes failed to distinguish

between outward expressions of the tendency towards migrant labour such

as cultural tropes or the personal search for gain, and underlying socio-

economic causes.#' This important distinction was made long ago in a classic

article by J. Clyde Mitchell.#( The origins of Nyamwezi long-distance

trading activities, porterage and attraction to migrant labour have more to

do with local economic and social dynamics than culture, political history or

geography. The Nyamwezi were only able to utilize the advantages they

possessed, described above, because of certain characteristics in the social

and economic structure of their homeland.#)



 , –

The organization of caravan labour was closely connected with the relations

of production in the porters’ home societies, and diﬀered on each of the main

route clusters.#* As economic, social and political change occurred in the

#

$ Alfred J. Swann, Fighting the Slave Hunters in Central Africa (London, ; st

ed., ), . Nyamwezi porters arriving at Zanzibar told Bishop Edward Steere that

they considered any of their compatriots who never undertook a journey to the coast as

a ‘milksop’. See Bennett, Mirambo, ; also Burton, Lake Regions, ; Roberts,

‘

Nyamwezi trade’, .

#

% C. T. Wilson and R. W. Felkin, Uganda and the Egyptian Sudan ( vols.) (London,



), I, .

#

& Paul Reichard, ‘Die Wanjamuesi’, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fu

W r Erdkunde zu

Berlin,  (), ; Bennett, Mirambo, .

#

' Jonathan Glassmam has recently written: ‘[Nyamwezi] caravan labour was seen not

as a way to earn a living, but as a way to prove one’s manhood’. Glassman, Feasts and Riot,

. See also Bennett, Mirambo, ; Unomah and Webster, ‘East Africa: the expansion of

commerce’, .

#

( J. Clyde Mitchell, ‘The causes of labour migration’, reprinted in Abebe Zegeye and

Shubi Ishemo (eds.), Forced Labour and Migration: Patterns of Movement Within Africa

(London, Munich, New York, ), –. It should be noted that long-distance

porterage was a speciﬁc kind of migrant labour, with important diﬀerences from the more

familiar migrant labour systems of the colonial period.

#

) As Helge Kjekshus points out, we must look to local factors as well as external forces

when considering the expansion of the caravan trade and porterage: Kjekshus, Ecology

Control, –. See also Koponen, People and Production, .

#

* Glassman makes a similar point, although he describes the contrast in terms of

struggles over culture, and identity politics in the coastal termini of the main routes:





 . 

interior and at the coast, the terms of caravan labour also changed, but within

a framework that was well established by the middle of the century, and

which was dominated by the cultural and other norms of the Nyamwezi and

their neighbours. Caravan culture, basically Nyamwezi in origin, inﬂuenced

people from the coast, just as up-country porters were exposed to the values

of ustaarabu or uungwana (coastal civilization). Nyamwezi social and cultural

norms prevailed because the peoples of the western interior pioneered the

caravan system and the majority of porters and caravans working the central

routes were Nyamwezi. Nyamwezi caravans had characteristics that in-

ﬂuenced other groups such as coastal Muslims.$! Nyamwezi inﬂuence on the

culture of caravan travel diminished only at the end of the nineteenth century

as the power of foreign employers, backed by the embryonic colonial state,

increased and as structural and political change associated with early colonial

rule undermined the independence and economic vitality of the peoples of

the western interior.

There was no single pattern of Nyamwezi caravan organization. For

porters, a range of options existed between occasional journeys and full-time

specialization. Nyamwezi caravans could be small-scale ventures of a dozen

or so traders and porters, or massive undertakings of a thousand or more

people. Many Nyamwezi entrepreneurs were members of the ruling class,

but lesser citizens, such as subordinate chiefs, hunters, medicine men and

ordinary people also operated trading caravans. Often the caravans were

formed by individuals carrying their own trade goods, and small employers

who hired just a few porters each. These numerous petty traders banded

together for protection and selected a caravan leader from among them-

selves.$"

Nevertheless, some common characteristics of caravan organization and

the division of labour among caravan workers can be identiﬁed. The pattern

for many porters of dry season travel, with agriculture being the priority

during the wet season, survived throughout the century and the reluctance

of most Nyamwezi porters hired at the coast to travel beyond their home

countries on the return journey remained typical. These points were much

commented upon by European travellers. Cameron, when in Uganda in

November , found it ‘impossible to obtain any pagazi…as they would

not leave home during the sowing season’. In , a mission caravan was on

its way to Lake Victoria. In December, near Nguru, the Nyamwezi porters

left the missionaries, having met the terms of their contract. It was

impossible to engage new porters as ‘the ﬁrst rains having fallen, the whole

population was employed in preparing the ground for sowing, and until all

Jonathan Glassman, ‘Social rebellion and Swahili culture: the response to German

conquest of the northern Mrima’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin–Madison,

), ch. ; Feasts and Riot, ch. .

$

! Glassman recognizes this, but in the context of his argument concerning the defence

of Nyamwezi autonomy against Swahili domination of the trade routes: Feasts and Riot,

–. I would argue that Nyamwezi cultural dominance in caravans working the central

routes long predated coastal economic domination.

$

" Burton, Lake Regions, ; James B. Wolf (ed.), The Central African Diaries of

Walter Hutley, – (Boston, ), ,  June ; Abrahams, Peoples of

Greater Unyamwezi, ; Unomah and Webster, ‘East Africa: the expansion of com-

merce’, ; Iliﬀe, Modern History, .



        

the seed was sown no men would engage as porters’. After the task was

ﬁnished a few weeks later, ‘several gangs’ of men signed up.$#

The pattern of small-scale enterprise remained common throughout the

century. In small chiefdoms such as Ndala, where there were no indigenous

traders as rich as those in Usumbwa, Unyanyembe or Urambo, caravans

remained co-operative aﬀairs of several small traders. A few weeks before

harvest, in April, a drummer would tour the villages, broadcasting the news

that a caravan would soon depart. Porters would then gather at the appointed

place. Some would have their own goods to trade at the coast or elsewhere.$$

Sheriﬀ suggests it was probably such small bands which used the northern

or Pangani valley route during the s, and perhaps earlier. The northern

Nyamwezi and Sukuma made similar journeys to Pangani in the s, but

during the s and s took their ivory instead to Saadani and Winde.$%

The survival of this tradition of small bands of traders and porters showing

the security problems they faced is suggested in a missionary’s record of an

encounter in the Marenga Mkali, the wilderness on the eastern edge of

Ugogo, in August :

About midday a number of Wanyamwezi travellers came into our camp looking

extremely excited, and told us a sad tale of murder and robbery. They said that

shortly before…they had been attacked by a number of predatory Wahehe…who

had killed their leader, and carried oﬀ two tusks of ivory and between thirty and

forty goats which they had been taking to the coast.$&

This caravan, given the circumstances and the small quantity of stolen goods,

probably consisted of a dozen or so individuals. A second option for porters

was employment for wages by some of the bigger Nyamwezi traders, or as a

personal service. A third was exercised by those intrepid individuals who

took nothing to the coast but joined a party hoping to ﬁnd paid work in a

returning caravan.$' An account from Usambiro in northern Unyamwezi in



 highlights the attraction for up-country porters of wage earning in

caravans leaving the coast:

$

# Cameron, Across Africa, I, ; Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, I, –. Similar

comments are in Richard F. Burton, Zanzibar, City, Island, and Coast ( vols.) (London,

), II, ; François Coulbois, Dix annees au Tanganyka (Limoges, ), ;

T

Mackay to Wright, Uyui,  May , Church Missionary Society (CMS) CA\;

Broyon to McGregor, Zanzibar,  Oct. , London Missionary Society (LMS), School

of Oriental and African Studies, London, \\D.

$

$ Francis Patrick Nolan, ‘Christianity in Unyamwezi, –’ (Ph.D. dissertation,

University of Cambridge, ), , –; Koponen, People and Production, , .

Philip Stigger, ‘The late nineteenth-century caravan trade and some of its modern

implications’ (unpublished paper, Simon Fraser University, n.d.), –, has accounts

of small-scale trade in northern Unyamwezi and Usukuma leading to participation in

caravans to the coast. The Nyamwezi and Sukuma share similar institutions and cultures.

$

% Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, ; Glassman, ‘Social rebellion’, ; Speke,

Discovery of the Source of the Nile, . Mackay reported meeting ‘many small caravans’

bound for the coast in mid : Mackay to Wright, Zanzibar,  Dec. , CMS

CA\.

$

& Robert Pickering Ashe, Chronicles of Uganda (London, ; st ed. ), .

$

' Graf von Schweinitz, ‘Das Tra

$

gerpersonal der Karawanen’, Deutsche

Kolonialzeitung,  (), ; Norman R. Bennett (ed.), From Zanzibar to Ujiji: The

Journal of Arthur W. Dodgshun – (Boston, ), , – May ; Nolan,

‘

Christianity in Unyamwezi’, , –.





 . 

A drum was sent out into all the villages round about…The drummer, on such

occasions, would usually return with a crowd of followers – some anxious to carry

loads to the coast – others wishful simply to follow in the…train, as a pro-

tection…The men who did no work paid their own way down-country by selling

tobacco or spades [hoes] of their own manufacture…The main object of porters

and followers alike was to get to the coast and to carry back a load for which usually

good wages were paid.$(

During the period from about  to , the Nyamwezi also operated

much larger caravans, representing the commercial status of the members of

the trading elite of Unyanyembe and other large chiefdoms. Burton describes

the formation of such a caravan:

In collecting a caravan the ﬁrst step is to ‘make’, as the people say, a khambi, or

kraal. The mtongi, or proprietor of the goods, announces, by pitching his tent in the

open, and by planting his ﬂag, that he is ready to travel; this is done because among

the Wanyamwezi a porter who persuades others to enlist does it under pain of

prosecution and ﬁne-paying if a death or an accident ensue. Petty chiefs, however,

and their kinsmen, will bring with them in hope of promotion a number of recruits,

sometimes all the male adults of a village, who then recognize them as headmen.

Once the porters were assembled and all was ready, the mtongi oversaw the

allocation of loads.$) The more powerful chiefs, as members of the vbandevba

(Kinyamwezi: merchant elite) could mobilize a huge work force, drawing on

their status as chief, rich trader and warlord. In , Mirambo sent a

caravan to the coast in the charge of his uncle and chief commercial agent

Mwana Seria, which numbered some , porters. They carried  large

tusks to buy cloth, guns and powder, and another twenty ‘ﬁne’ tusks as a

present for Sultan Barghash. Soon after the return of this caravan, Mirambo

despatched several ivory trading caravans to Buganda, Karagwe, Usukuma,

Katanga, Manyema and other places, indicating his large resources of trade

goods and manpower. In September, he still had suﬃcient porters available

to send a ‘large’ ivory caravan under Mwana Kapisi to Unyanyembe and the

coast.$* Such large caravans of Nyamwezi porters were almost certainly

organized according to the model adopted by the Irish caravan leader and

trader Charles Stokes, who successfully managed columns of ,–,

porters during the s and early s. Stokes was unique among

Europeans in East Africa in the ease with which he could attract porters,

largely because he learnt and applied the methods of the Nyamwezi and

Sukuma. Among the northern Nyamwezi and Sukuma he gained a good

reputation, partly through his marriage to Limi, cousin of chief Mtinginyi of

Usongo, and partly because of his demonstrated belief in non-violent

caravan management and racial equality. He was thus able to gain access to

the labour resources of Usongo, ‘a land of porters’, and other parts of

$

( Alfred R. Tucker, Eighteen Years in Uganda and East Africa (London, ), .

) Burton, Lake Regions, –; Richard F. Burton, ‘The lake regions of Central

$

Equatorial Africa’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,  (), –;

Cummings, ‘A note on the history of caravan porters’, .

$

* Southon to Thompson, Urambo,  Apr. , LMS \\B; Griﬃth to Thompson,

Uguha,  July , LMS \\C; Copplestone to Thompson, Uyui,  Sept. , LMS

\\A; Roberts, ‘Nyamwezi trade’, , n. . Mwana Kapisi’s caravan only got as far as

Uyui. For more on Mwana Seria, see Stokes to Lang, Uyui,  Dec. , CMS

GA\.



        

northern Unyamwezi.%! The future Bishop of Uganda encountered Stokes’

caravan at Saadani in July :

Away from the sea…some , Wanyamwezi porters were encamped. These men

had come down to the coast, under the leadership of Stokes, and would each carry

back a load weighing some seventy pounds. They were mostly ﬁne, stalwart-

looking men. Some had brought their wives, who cooked and carried the cooking

utensils and food – often no light burden…Many [of the porters] were swaggering

about in…a few yards of white calico…Others had cloth…wrapped about their

heads as a turban or folded round their waists as a loin-cloth. Others, again, were

simply clad in skins. All apparently were armed with spears, bows and arrows, or

antiquated muzzle loaders…

These , porters…were divided into ﬁfteen camps and companies. For

instance, there had been assigned to us for the porterage of our loads some 

Wasukuma. These men were in [the] charge of a nyampara, or head-man, named

Simba…Under him were ﬁve or six subordinates who had charge of companies.

Four or ﬁve, or a larger number…messed together. These smaller companies also

had each its head. It was each man’s duty in turn to cook for his fellows, draw water

and fetch ﬁrewood.

Thus the whole caravan was organized…%"

As Tucker noted, after the merchants the most important caravan oﬃcers

were the wanyampara, literally ‘grandfathers’.%# The origins of the name and

function clearly lie in the political structure of Nyamwezi, Kimbu and

Sukuma chiefdoms. Northern Unyamwezi and Usukuma, according to the

missionary C. T. Wilson, were divided into numerous districts, each ruled

by a chief or monungwa. Under the monungwa were several ‘lesser chiefs’ or

banyampara. ‘It is under these niamparas’, he wrote, ‘that the porters or

pagazi go down to the coast to engage in caravans going up into the

interior’.%$ Wilson was actually describing sub-districts of chiefdoms

governed by batemi; nyampara is most correctly rendered as ‘elder’.%% We

have accounts from central Unyamwezi and Ukimbu of the role of

wanyampara as members of chiefs’ councils.%& It is unlikely, however, that it

%

! Anne Luck, Charles Stokes in Africa (Nairobi, ), , –, , , –, ,





; Nicholas Harman, Bwana Stokesi and his African Conquests (London, ), ,

–, –; Blackburn to Lang, Uyui,  July , CMS GA\ (quote). Stokes

wrote soon after his ﬁrst wife’s death, thankful to be on safari, that he was ‘quite at home’

with his ‘wild boys’. Stokes to Lang, Kulehi camp,  July , CMS GA\; Luck,

Charles Stokes, .

%

" Tucker, Eighteen Years, –. Tucker implies that it was Stokes who had created

this system. In fact, this ordered arrangement was typical of most caravans, whether

Nyamwezi, Sukuma, or coastal. The cloth noticed by Tucker was probably a portion of

the porters’ advance wages.

%

# I use the Swahiliised wanyampara. In the original political context in Usukuma, for

example, the correct term is banamhala.

%

$ C. T. Wilson, ‘A journey from Kagei to Tabora and back’, Proceedings of the Royal

Geographical Society,  (), ; also quoted in Achim Gottberg, Unyamwesi.

Quellensammlung und Geschichte (Berlin, ), .

%

% C. F. Holmes and R. A. Austen, ‘The pre-colonial Sukuma’, Journal of World

History,  (), , state that a banamhala was ‘an advisory council of village elders’,

subject to the authority of ng’wanangwa (pl. banangwa), who was subject to the mtemi.

%

& Copplestone to Hutchinson, Uyui,  Mar. , CMS GA\; Tabora

Stationschef, ‘Beantwortung des Fragebogens’ (), in Gottberg, Unyamwesi, –.

The author wrote that the position was only open to senior males, and that a mnyampara





 . 

was the same individuals sitting on chiefs’ councils who regularly went on

safari, as they are described as ‘elders’ or ‘elderly’. Rather it seems that the

title and authority was transferred to inﬂuential caravan headmen, who may

later have become council members. The title was also used in caravans of

coast-based porters, and was therefore accepted in a multi-ethnic en-

vironment, where its original meaning was lost. This is the implication of

Raum’s statement, ‘the leaders of the porters, the wanyampara, were self-

made men of great physical strength endowed with moral stamina and a sense

of justice. Famous leaders spent their best years on the caravan paths,

passing from one expedition to another’.%' Here, then, we have a clear

example of how the caravan culture of the Nyamwezi and related peoples

penetrated to the coast and dominated other caravans, albeit in modiﬁed

form.

The mganga, or traditional doctor and diviner, another important caravan

oﬃcial, acted as advisor and provided ritual protection against the dangers of

the road. Important diviners were sometimes also ivory merchants, and

organised their own caravans.%( Waganga advised unsuccessful itinerant

traders to carry out the ‘gourd of travel’ ritual to improve their fortune.%)

Apart from protecting caravan personnel, the mganga also ritually cared for

the ivory. Ivory tusks were ensured safe arrival at the coast after they had

been ritually marked with spots, lines and ﬁgures. The mganga carried only

a light load ‘in view of his calling’.%*

The fourth important caravan functionary was the kirangozi&! (plural:

virangozi), the guide or leader on the march. The kirangozi was usually

elected by the porters; he was not necessarily from a special rank or section

of society.&" Any individual with experience and some standing among the

porters, and with good knowledge of the road, could be chosen. The

kirangozi had no substantial power; the position was more a matter of

honour and status, with a few more opportunities for personal gain than

were available to regular porters. According to Burton, he had to ‘pay his

followers to acknowledge his supremacy’ and purchase ‘charms and

prophylactics’ from his mganga. While on the march the kirangozi preceded

the porters, who would be ﬁned if they stepped ahead of him. His work was

to lead the caravan along the correct route, and mark oﬀ the paths which

stragglers were not to take. This was done with leaves or sticks or by drawing

had ‘several villages under him’. In Ukimbu the elders making up the council of the

chiefdoms were known as ivanyaampala. In Usumbwa they were banyampara. See

Shorter, Chiefship, , –.

%' Raum, ‘German East Africa’, .

), ; Nolan, ‘Christianity in Unyamwezi’, ; Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory,

.

%( John Hanning Speke, Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (New York,



%

) F. J. Lake, ‘The organisation of ancestor worship’, –, Nzega District Book,

Tanzania National Archives, Dar es Salaam. See Glassman, ‘Social rebellion’, , for a

brief discussion of religious ritual on caravans working the northern routes.

%

* Burton, Lake Regions, –, .

&

! Also kilangozi or kiongozi. Compare with -ongoza (Kiswahili): to drive forward,

carry on vigorously, lead.

&

" Although a missionary described his kirangozi as a ‘Wanyamwezi chief’, and Wilson

believed he was usually chosen from among the wanyampara. Southon to Whitehouse,

Lagula, Ugogo,  Aug. , LMS \\D; Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, I, .



        

a line across them. Sometimes porters were lost who ‘walked on

mechanically, never noticing these signs, and were only brought to their

senses by arriving at a strange village many miles out of their way’. The

kirangozi might also negotiate hongo (taxes, fees) with chiefs along the route.

Despite his responsibilities, he was the butt of abuse ‘for losing the way, for

marching too far or not far enough, for not halting at the proper place, and

for not setting out at the right time’. His perquisites included better rations,

a lighter load, and sometimes the attendance of a slave.&# At the beginning of

the journey he was entitled to a goat ‘to make the journey prosperous’, and

perhaps other presents.&$ According to Unomah, the oﬃce was similar to that

of the ﬂag bearer of the Unyanyembe army, especially in the use of ritual

implements, including a small drum.&% A kirangozi at the head of a caravan

made a powerful statement:

The dignitary is robed in the splendor of scarlet broadcloth…with some streamers

dangling before and behind: he also wears some wonderful head-dress, the spoils

of a white and black ‘tippet-monkey’ [colobus monkey?], or the barred skin of a

wildcat…or the gorgeous plumes of the crested crane. His insignia of oﬃce are the

kipungo or ﬂy-ﬂapper, the tail of some beast, which he aﬃxes to his person as if

it were a natural growth, the kome, or hooked iron spit, decorated with a central

sausage of parti-coloured beads, and a variety of oily little gourds containing snuﬀ,

simples, and ‘medicine’ for the road, strapped around his waist.&&

Men such as these were clearly professional porters, familiar with caravan life

and possessing a deep knowledge of the roads.&'



        

In an inﬂuential work, Abdul Sheriﬀ argues that by late in the third quarter

of the nineteenth century, African traders in the interior had little scope for

advancement as their societies were increasingly undermined by the logic of

capital. By the early s, the Nyamwezi trading elite had been reduced by

forces emanating from the international trading economy and competition

from coast-based merchants. Labour was transferred from the productive

sectors, especially subsistence agriculture, to trade, porterage and hunting,

‘

thereby developing, and in some instances overdeveloping, the more

backward and secondary sectors of the economies of the African interior’.&(

The combined eﬀect was to reduce Unyamwezi to the status of a labour

reserve, ‘a foretaste of the colonial situation’, and the Nyamwezi to ‘a nation

of porters’.&)

&

# Burton, Lake Regions, ; Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, I, ; Swann, Fighting the

Slave-Hunters, . For the election of a kirangozi, see Burton, Lake Regions, –. For

a somewhat diﬀerent account of the functions of virangozi in coastal caravans, see

Glassman, ‘Social rebellion’, .

&

$ Speke, Journal, . Burton is incorrect when he says that a present was optional at

the end of a journey. His evidence on wages and customary payments is unreliable given

his own failure to pay his porters according to their agreement with the British consul in

Zanzibar.

&% Unomah, ‘Economic expansion’, –.

&& Burton, Lake Regions, .

&

' For more on the characteristics of professional porters, see Rockel, ‘Caravan

porters’, –, and Rockel, ‘Wage labour and the culture of porterage’.

&( Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, . &) Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, .





 . 

Sheriﬀ’s phrase is not inappropriate; the Nyamwezi did dominate the

caravan labour force, and a large proportion of young Nyamwezi males were

absent from home on long caravan journeys.&* However, a reassessment of

how and why this came to be so is overdue. We need to consider the role of

the Nyamwezi from an up-country perspective, rather than through the

distorting prism of coastal society, and reintroduce the porter as an economic

actor.'! Sheriﬀ’s analysis ignores longer-term trends and important evidence

concerning the nature of the caravan system and the role of the Nyamwezi

within it. In addition, the chronology of decline needs re-examination. The

Nyamwezi trading elite were vigorous performers until well after Sheriﬀ

suggests, and their decline was due more to the onset of colonial rule and

associated economic changes in the s than to the earlier incorporation of

the Zanzibari commercial empire into the world economy. Nyamwezi

merchants successfully competed with coastal and foreign traders into the



s, and were only weakened when the combined forces of intervention by

the colonial state and structural change in the mainland economy initiated a

new phase in the East African ivory trade. Nyamwezi and other African

traders were eventually undermined by increased penetration up-country of

foreign traders, the construction of the railway in British East Africa, the fall

of ivory prices, and the gradual imposition of restrictive regulations on their

caravans by the German authorities on the mainland and the British in

Zanzibar. In addition, European employers of caravan labour were

increasingly able to utilize the coercive authority of the new colonial state.'"

If the Nyamwezi were ‘a nation of porters’, this does not automatically imply

a greater degree of labour exploitation, or degradation of their homeland.

The concentration by historians on the supply side of the labour market'#

has therefore resulted in an inadequate understanding of its dynamics.

Commodiﬁcation of caravan labour was part of the gradual spread of market

relations along the central routes. The continuing vitality of Nyamwezi trade

and the burgeoning demand for porters at the coast led to a rapid expansion

of the labour market during the s and s.

Market centres, caravan termini and re-supply points were increasingly

places where the labour requirements of caravan leaders were met.'$ As

Nyamwezi traders expanded their operations and sent caravans on

increasingly lengthy journeys across most of East and Central Africa their

activities contributed to the general expansion of demand for porters,

especially from within their own societies. However, the supply of porters on

the market was not always dictated by demand. At certain times political or

&

* Probably more than one third during the dry season, representing several tens of

thousands. For a short discussion of numbers, see Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, .

'

! As has been done for peasants and pastoralists in Tanzanian environmental history.

See Maddox et al., Custodians of the Land.

'

" In German territory from the late s Africans needed permits to take caravans

to the coast. Further restrictions on elephant hunting, trading and ﬁrearms acquisition

were imposed in the early years of the twentieth century. See Stigger, ‘The late

nineteenth century caravan trade’, –. Enforcement of ﬁrearm regulations was

probably spotty until after Maji Maji. See Juhani Koponen, Development For Ex-

ploitation: German Colonial Policies in Mainland Tanzania, – (Helsinki and

Hamburg, ), . For further discussion, see Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, –.

'

# Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, –.

'

$ For recruitment practices, see Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, –.



        

environmental factors dominated decision making, so that during times of

warfare in the interior, for instance, fewer caravans took to the roads, despite

good prices for ivory at the coast. From about the middle of the century a

large body of caravan porters emerged who travelled year in and year out,

often moving from one caravan to another, and who, after ending a journey,

were open to other engagements in exchange for wages and rations. These

specialist porters provided a large part of the labour requirements of caravans

travelling the central route. For many Nyamwezi the caravan trade continued

to be lucrative until after the imposition of colonial rule, and caravan

porterage was a good way for a young man to accumulate wealth in order to

buy a gun, build up a cattle herd or otherwise improve his fortunes.'% The

continuing high demand for Nyamwezi porters can be seen in the numerous

contemporary accounts of Nyamwezi trading activities and caravans on the

road, as well as reports of labour shortages at the main termini.

Many Nyamwezi, attracted to the travelling life and a steady income,

joined the caravans of coastal traders. Even before the founding of Tabora by

entrepreneurs from the coast in , their Nyamwezi counterparts travelled

‘

in large numbers’ to the Arab depot of Isanga in Ukimbu to do business,

and Nyamwezi youths followed them and oﬀered to work as porters for the

Arabs and carry loads to the coast or to Unyanyembe.'& Some years later, in

September , Burton and Speke met a large caravan of  Nyamwezi

porters, apparently employees of four Arabs. They encountered another in

October, about , strong, under the command of slaves of Salim bin

Rashid, an Arab trader based at Unyanyembe.'' Fifteen years later, when

Tippu Tip travelled to Urua in the eastern Congo, he took with him about

 Nyamwezi porters, and Nyamwezi continued to work for him along the

Lualaba river.

Other coastal traders operating west of Lake Tanganyika in the s, such

as Jumah Merikani, also employed Nyamwezi gangs on a permanent basis.'(

At the coast, especially in the middle decades of the century when demand

for labour was increasing but recruitment facilities were not yet well

established, porters were hired directly from among the thousands of

Nyamwezi who arrived each year. Even this was not enough to ensure

suﬃcient porters for coastal entrepreneurs and madiwan (public oﬃcials)

seduced by the tempting opportunities in the far interior. The result was that

procurers or ‘touts’ were sent up to  kilometres or more inland to

'

% For a brief discussion of personal motivations, see Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, –.

& Burton dated the innovation of Nyamwezi porters hiring themselves out to coastal

traders travelling the central route to ‘a few years ago’, i.e. a few years before –.

Previously, ‘servile gangs’ hired at the coast or Zanzibar had been used, and these were

still employed on the routes leading from the northern Mrima to the Maasai country and

beyond, and the southern roads to Lake Nyassa. See Burton, Lake Regions, ; Unomah,

‘

Economic expansion’, .

'

' Burton, Lake Regions, , . It is possible that many members of these caravans

were independent traders who had joined the larger group for security.

'

( Hamid bin Muhammed (Tippu Tip) (ed. and trans. W. H. Whitely), Maisha ya

Hamed bin Muhammed el Murjebi yaani Tippu Tip (Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam,

), , , , , , ; Henry Morton Stanley, Through the Dark Continent (

vols.) (Toronto, London, ; orig. pub. London, ), II, , and passim; Cameron,

Across Africa, I, . In this region the opportunities for plunder and trade probably

outweighed wage incentives.





 . 

persuade downward Nyamwezi caravans to divert to their particular village,

both to secure porters and to proﬁt from the visitors’ ivory sales and

purchases of cloth, beads and other goods. ‘When they [porters] are rare’,

Burton wrote, ‘quarrels take place among the several settlements, each

attempting a monopoly of enlistment to the detriment of its neighbours, and

a little blood is sometimes let’.')

The trend toward the hiring of porters accelerated during the s. This

was the period during which massive ivory exports to the United Kingdom

from East Africa began, in addition to the existing large trade in Indian re-

exports from East Africa, and exports to the United States and elsewhere.'*

In addition, some Nyamwezi traders may have found that the discriminatory

duties on ivory levied at the coast by the Zanzibari sultanate from , and

the advantages accruing to the coast traders because of easier access to capital

and market information, hindered their own trading activities.(! Given the

established and rising demand for cloth, guns and other goods in the interior,

more Nyamwezi took up regular wage work as hired caravan porters, both for

coastal traders and the Nyamwezi vbandevba.

However, for much of this period it is clear that Nyamwezi caravan-

operators remained competitive. Burton believed that a ‘far greater’ number

of caravans of up-country traders than Arabs plied the central routes. During

a visit to Bagamoyo in , a French missionary noted that Nyamwezi

porters worked both for coastal traders and organized their own caravans.("

Nyamwezi caravans were probably more numerous than those of coastal

traders until at least , later than has been realized. In June and July



, when missionary Roger Price travelled from Saadani to Mpwapwa, his

party met almost daily ‘a goodly number’ of ivory caravans bound for Winde

and Bagamoyo, and presumably Saadani. He emphasized the dominance of

Nyamwezi and other caravans from the interior, noting that ‘these were all

purely native caravans’. In , another missionary travelling up-country

met numerous Nyamwezi caravans en route over a two month period. In the

same period he noted just one large Arab-led caravan, and its porters were

also Nyamwezi.(#

'

) John Hanning Speke, ‘On the commerce of Central Africa’, Transactions of the

Bombay Geographical Society,  (), ; Speke, Journal, ,  Oct. ; Burton,

‘

Lake regions’, , ; Lake Regions, , –, . For similar activities of ‘couriers’

in the Kilwa Kivinje area and ‘touts’ in Uzigua, see David Lawrence Horne, ‘Mode of

production in the social and economic history of Kilwa to ’ (Ph.D. thesis, University

of California, Los Angeles, ), ; James L. Giblin, The Politics of Environmental

Control in Northeastern Tanzania, – (Philadelphia, ), –.

'

* Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, Appendix C, ‘Ivory imports into the United

Kingdom, –’, –.

(! Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, –.

(

" Burton, Lake Regions, ; Glassman, ‘Social rebellion’, –.

(

# Roger Price, Report of the Rev. R. Price of His Visit to Zanzibar and the Coast of

Eastern Africa (London, ), , ; Wolf, Central African Diaries, – ( May), 

(

 May),  ( and  June),  ( June),  ( June). The ﬁrst of these was not an

ivory caravan but one of work seekers. In another entry Hutley notes that at the Kidete

river, on the road to Mpwapwa, ‘several caravans…passed during the day, some going in

and others coming out’. There is no indication here whether these were Nyamwezi or

Swahili\Arab caravans. Wolf, Central African Diaries, –,  Apr. . Note that

Price and Hutley used the same route from Saadani to Mpwapwa. The situation may have

been diﬀerent on the Usagara road. See also Nolan, ‘Christianity in Unyamwezi’, .



        

This evidence should be compared with that presented by Sheriﬀ.($

Sheriﬀ argues that the ability of the Nyamwezi to compete against coastal

traders was undermined by the early s, and hence they were forced to

work for others.(% This led to a reduction in the number of Nyamwezi

caravans and an enlargement of the available labour force: ‘The Nyamwezi

had become a nation of porters, and their country a labour reserve, a foretaste

of the colonial situation’.(& There are several problems with this hypothesis.

In the ﬁrst place it does not account for the many Nyamwezi who worked on

a wage basis for other Nyamwezi. Second, the direct evidence which Sheriﬀ

cites for the reduction in Nyamwezi caravans comes from Cameron’s account

of his journey in –. But Cameron was travelling during the period of

hostilities between Mirambo and Unyanyembe (–), and caravan traﬃc

from west of Unyanyembe had been greatly disrupted, as British Consul

Kirk noted in March : ‘On enquiry I satisﬁed myself that this year it is

quite impossible to obtain a large number of Unyamwezi pagazi or porters,

few having come down owing to the interruption of the Ivory trade’.(' Kirk

was referring to the situation at the coast, but conditions were much the same

at Tabora.

Early in , Murphy, Cameron’s companion, reported: ‘In October last

we were…unable to move from want of porters, the whole surrounding

country being ﬁlled, if not with Mirambo’s men, with at least imaginary

robbers and allies of his, which prevented the Wanyamwezi from oﬀering

themselves’. Cameron himself found that ‘not a soul would follow me’ when

he attempted to pass through to Ujiji on the direct road from Unyanyembe.((

The situation had been the same during  and . From July to

September , Stanley was not able to advance beyond Unyanyembe in his

(

$ Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, –.

the extent of Arab power in Unyamwezi: see ‘Economic expansion’. This is a slightly

diﬀerent issue, but still relevant.

% As long ago as , Alfred Unomah’s work radically revised prevailing ideas about

(

& Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, ; also quoted in Glassman, Feasts and Riot, .

Glassman goes further than Sheriﬀ when he writes (p. ) that the central routes

‘

would…become notable for a high degree of Arab control and for the exclusion of

upcountry people from all but the most menial of roles’. See also p.  where Glassman’s

argument is virtually identical to Sheriﬀ’s. Both writers ignore the continuing importance

of Nyamwezi and Sumbwa commerce along the routes to Katanga.

(

' Kirk to Major E. Smith, Private Secretary to Sir Bartle Frere, Zanzibar,  Mar.



, Cameron Papers, VLC \, Royal Geographical Society (RGS), London. See also

Murphy to Kirk, Bagamoyo Camp,  Apr. , Cameron Papers, VLC \, RGS, and

Walter Thaddeus Brown, ‘A pre-colonial history of Bagamoyo: aspects of the growth of

an East African coastal town’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University, ), . Murphy

believed that there were, in fact, suﬃcient Nyamwezi porters in Bagamoyo, but they were

demanding excessive wages and the entire amount in advance, rather than just the usual

instalment. In addition, the porters he succeeded in hiring quickly deserted, and others

were seized by Arabs because they were ‘Mirambo’s’ men. These conditions probably

reﬂected the insecurity of the time.

(

( Murphy to Sir B. Frere, Zanzibar,  Mar. , VLC \, RGS; Cameron, Across

Africa, I, –. On numerous occasions Cameron points to the disruption of trade and

the diﬃculties and dangers of travelling in western Unyamwezi as a consequence of the

war. For instance, of Ugunda in Jan.  he wrote: ‘In consequence of the disturbances

between Mirambo and the Arabs, trade had suﬀered much and the whole country was

very unsettled’. See Across Africa, , , –, , –,  (quote), .





 . 

quest for Livingstone because of the war. Few caravans were moving,

Nyamwezi porters were not procurable and it was only by hiring thirty

Waungwana (coast based Muslim slave or ex-slave porters) at triple rates that

the expedition could continue. In June , Livingstone also cited war as

the cause of diﬃculty in hiring porters.() Thus, there may well have been

fewer Nyamwezi caravans on the road at this time, but this was not typical.

In addition, Sheriﬀ presents several circumstantial arguments for the

decline of the Nyamwezi merchant class, which are seen as having

contributed to a larger wage labour pool. The ﬁrst (and best) concerns the

diﬀerential tariﬀ structure at the coast which discriminated against ivory

carried down by Nyamwezi caravans.(* But Sheriﬀ does not give ﬁgures for

the proportion of ivory registered at customs which were subject to various

levels of duty, so it is diﬃcult to say that this policy put Nyamwezi caravans

out of business. His second argument – that coastal entrepreneurs had much

greater access to credit and capital than their Nyamwezi counterparts – is

overstated. This advantage must have been partly oﬀset by the lower costs of

the latter.)!

Sheriﬀ’s third argument is that there was a drop in ivory exports from

Tanganyika because of the destruction of elephant herds. This is based

on a comment by an American trader at Zanzibar concerning ivory from

Unyamwezi, and ﬁgures for ivory exports from Zanzibar and then German

East Africa. There may have been a reduction in ivory produced in

Unyamwezi, but in the second half of the century Nyamwezi ivory traders

no longer relied on sources from their own country. Sheriﬀ’s export ﬁgures

from Zanzibar show an annual average during the s of , tusks each

weighing over ﬁve pounds, with a drop to an annual average of , tusks

exported from German East Africa during the early s.)" The problem

with this evidence is that like is not compared with like. As Sheriﬀ himself

shows so well, a large proportion of Zanzibar’s exports in the s came

from beyond the borders of the future GEA. One would expect that the

export ﬁgures from GEA would show a reduction compared with exports

from Zanzibar in the s, because of the smaller territory available for

exploitation. Some ivory sold by Nyamwezi traders must have passed

through British territory, or even down the Congo, and that should also be

taken into account.

There are diﬃculties with Sheriﬀ’s other arguments. He suggests that

Nyamwezi traders responded to their declining position in three ways: by

(

) Norman R. Bennett (ed.) Stanley’s Despatches to the New York Herald, –,

– (Boston, ), ; Simpson, Dark Companions, ; David Livingstone (ed.

H. Waller), The Last Journals of David Livingstone (New York, ), ,  June ;

the war continued through the dry season: , ,  and  June; ,  July.

(

* Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, , –, .

)

! Charles Stokes gave Smith, Mackenzie and Co. of Zanzibar a quote of MT$ per

load to transport goods to Msalala in northern Unyamwezi for the Emin Pash relief

expedition. The quote was based on the cost of hiring Nyamwezi porters. The usual

charge using coastal porters was MT$. See Smith, Mackenzie and Co. to Gray, Dawes

and Co., Zanzibar,  Oct. , Box , Mackinnon Papers, School of Oriental and

African Studies, London. The diﬀerence is partly explained by the heavier loads carried

by the Nyamwezi, and perhaps by Stokes’ special relationship with them, which was

equivalent to that of a large Nyamwezi trader.

)" Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, –, , n. .



        

engaging in commercial agriculture, by migrating to distant regions to

establish new policies or to aid existing rulers, or by turning to porterage on

a professional wage-earning basis. The ﬁrst option can be seen as a symptom

of success rather than failure. As Sheriﬀ himself notes, numerous wealthy

coastal traders including Tippu Tip also invested in plantations, either at the

coast or around Tabora.)# There is little evidence that either subsistence or

commercial agricultural production in Unyamwezi was undermined by

labour migration.)$ The agricultural labour force in Unyamwezi does not

appear to have been diminished by the absence of large numbers of porters.

On the contrary, porterage and trade helped to mobilize and sustain a large

back-up labour force in precisely the most commercialized regions of

Unyamwezi from which a high proportion of Nyamwezi males migrated

along the caravan routes. The second of Sheriﬀ’s options, migration, often

occurred during early periods of successful trading activity.)% To summarise,

the vbandevba were undermined, but this occurred later, and was more

closely related to colonial conditions than are the reasons suggested by

Sheriﬀ.

My argument, in contrast, is that the Nyamwezi elite and smaller traders

continued to operate their own caravans well into the s, and provided

employment at the same time that many young Nyamwezi men were working

for coastal traders and Europeans. During the late s and s there

were still many Nyamwezi and Sukuma caravans visiting the coast. In ,

at the start of the uprising against the Germans, Nyamwezi caravans were in

Bagamoyo, and another ‘large Nyamwezi caravan’ was diverted to Dar es

Salaam with its ivory. Even during the ﬁghting, a large Sukuma caravan with

great quantities of ivory, cattle and goats entered Bagamoyo.)& In October



, the survivors of Stanley’s Emin Pasha expedition met a Nyamwezi

caravan , strong on the eastern edge of Unyamwezi. In June , a

German traveller returning to the coast encountered a large Nyamwezi

caravan numbering about , in Ugogo, then another ‘great Wanjamwesi

caravan’ under the German ﬂag, followed by several others in the Marenga

Mkali.)' Another traveller wrote of the Nyamwezi from his experience in



–:

The energies of the people are…absorbed in travel, and they trade in ivory, copper

wire, salt, honey and so forth, over the whole of central Africa, frequently

)

# Sheriﬀ, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, .

parties of Nyamwezi carried surplus grain to Ugogo, hundreds of kilometres to the east

through the Mgunda Mkali, while Gogo travelled in the opposite direction to seek relief

in Unyanyembe. See Annie Hore, To Lake Tanganyika in a Bath Chair (London, ),

$ In –, during the severe famine in eastern and central regions of Tanzania,

, , .

)

% The early examples in Rockel, ‘Caravan porters’, –, are clear evidence.

)

& Rochus Schmidt, Geschichte de Araberaufstandes in Ost-Afrika (Frankfurt a. Oder,



), , ; Brown, ‘A pre-colonial history of Bagamoyo’, ; Walter Thaddeus

Brown, ‘Bagamoyo; an historical introduction’, Tanzania Notes and Records,  (),

. Brown’s source is H. F. von Behr, Kriegsbilder aus dem Araberaufstand in Deutsch

Ostafrika (Leipzig, ), . See also Glassman, Feasts and Riot, , –.



)

' A. J. Mounteney Jephson (ed. Dorothy Middleton), The Diary of A. J. Mounteney

Jephson: Emin Pasha Relief Expedition – (Cambridge, ), ,  Oct. ;

Carl Peters (trans. H. W. Dulcken), New Light on Dark Africa (London, ) , ,

.





 . 

journeying in large caravans, and being absent from home for two years or more.

These expeditions are generally commanded by Arabs…But very frequently

voluntary associations are formed every spring, a drummer beating up recruits

from village to village, which journey down to the coast or into the interior.)(

And in June , a missionary met in the Mgunda Mkali wilderness ‘a huge

native caravan – fully a thousand people…all carrying up to what seemed

their utmost capacity’. The description of their loads suggests a Nyamwezi

or Sukuma caravan.)) Hundreds of smaller Nyamwezi and Sukuma caravans

arrived at the coast during these years.)*

There is further evidence that is ambiguous: it is not clear whether the

caravans in question were led by Nyamwezi or Swahili or Arab traders.

Travelling up-country in July , William Stairs, the commander of a

Belgian caravan, mentioned in his diary that huge quantities of ivory were

being carried to the coast. When four days from Bagamoyo, he wrote:

Considerable quantities of very ﬁne ivory tusks are now on their way towards the

coast, coming from Unyamwezi…This morning, we saw almost ﬁfteen hundred

ivories ﬁle past which will net the Germans , dollars [Maria Theresa Thaler]

thanks to export duty.

At Morogoro, eleven days later, he wrote: ‘A huge caravan overburdened

with ivory passed through our camp’.*!

A closer look at the local level illustrates the vitality of both big and small

Nyamwezi traders during the late s and early s. During the early



s in northern Unyamwezi, the insecure political conditions in the region

between Uyui and Msalala chiefdoms persuaded many Nyamwezi caravan

operators from the Kahama and Shinyanga areas to move east to new bases

in Usiha, east of modern Shinyanga in Sukuma territory. As well as relative

stability, Usiha had the advantage of its location on the routes from northern

Unyamwezi to the coast, and to Mwanza and Kagei on Lake Victoria. Philip

Stigger describes the initiative as an apparent ‘general movement of

independent Nyamwezi traders’, who included well-established entre-

preneurs such as Ndekeja Holo of Kahama and Mlabu of Lohumbo.*" From



, numerous smaller operators, including the sons of chiefs, became

)

( J. A. Moloney, With Captain Stairs to Katanga (London, ), .

) Ashe, Chronicles of Uganda, .

* See examples in William G. Stairs, ‘De Zanzibar au Katanga: journal du Capitaine

Stairs (–)’, Le Congo Illustre

T

,  (), ,  July ; Janina M. Konczacki

(ed.), Victorian Explorer: The African Diaries of Captain William G. Stairs, –

(Halifax, N.S., ), –,  July ; and the discussion in Brown, ‘A pre-colonial

history of Bagamoyo’, –; Brown, ‘Bagamoyo: an historical introduction’, .

*

! It is probable that the porters were Nyamwezi and Sukuma because, when at

Bagamoyo previously, Stairs had commented on the ‘numerous close columns of

Wanyamwezi’ which arrived virtually every day. The issue was complicated because by

this time Nyamwezi caravans carried the German ﬂag. See Konczacki, Victorian Explorer,

,  July ; ,  July; ,  July; ,  Aug; Moloney, With Captain Stairs, .

*

" Stigger, ‘Late nineteenth-century caravan trade’, –. Compare with the account of

political instability in Usiha itself in Holmes and Austen, ‘Pre-colonial Sukuma’, ,

. Holmes and Austen discuss Shinyanga and western Usiha, but the main caravanserai

was in Negezi in eastern Usiha. For the Lake Victoria route, see C. F. Holmes, ‘Zanzibari

inﬂuence at the southern end of Lake Victoria: the lake route’, African Historical Studies



(), –.



        

associated with Ndekeja, and local Sukuma attached their caravans to those

of the powerful trader. One of Stigger’s informants travelled with Ndekeja’s

great caravan to the coast in about :

He left Mwadui with two castrated goats and nine companions who had cattle,

sheep and goats. They met Ndekeja, a tall, thin, rather dark man who wore nothing

on his head but was dressed in a rich, multi-coloured, fringed cloth, at the

assembly point. By the time the caravan left, it contained a thousand or more

people, escorted by rugaruga, thirty of whom were armed with muskets.*#

As such records show, eastern Usiha quickly became an important centre

sending many caravans to the coast.

The crucial factor driving the expansion of the labour market was the high

demand for labour rather than surplus supply originating from impov-

erishment of interior peoples. As trade boomed, there was a parallel massive

increase through the century in the demand for carriers. As the ivory frontier

was pushed back into the furthest parts of the interior, the routes lengthened,

caravans spent more time on the march and caravan journeys became more

protracted aﬀairs. More and more regions and peoples were drawn into the

orbit of the Zanzibari commercial empire. In addition, the second half of the

nineteenth century was the age of European expansion in East Africa. The

demand for porters further increased from the early s as expeditions and

caravans of European explorers and missionaries competed both with local

traders and with each other for labour.*$ During peak periods, experienced

porters could pick and choose among the numerous caravans leaving the

coast. In some years, coastal and interior towns were almost cleared of

porters as demand outstripped supply. Recruitment ‘agencies’ emerged in

coast towns, a tendency which matched specialization in other aspects of the

caravan business. This was particularly the case at Bagamoyo. ‘The whole

and sole occupation here is preparation for journeys to the interior’, wrote a

missionary in , for ‘everywhere the signs of a large pagazi business are

apparent’.*% Porters were able to ﬁnd work easily, either individually or

through a popular headman by registering with recognized recruitment

agents.

The high demand for labour at Bagamoyo in the dry season of  was

described by the agent for the trading house, Boustead, Ridley and Co.:

‘Although an immense number of Wanyamwezi have come to the coast this

season, they have all been hired at high rates, some very large caravans of

traders having been dispatched’.*& In Tabora as well, porters were reported

*

# Stigger, ‘Late nineteenth-century caravan trade’, –. According to Holmes and

Austen, Stokes’ Sukuma name was Ndokeji, suspiciously similar to Ndekeja. It is possible

that the two caravan leaders have been confused in tradition. See Holmes and Austen,

‘The pre-colonial Sukuma’, . I accept Stigger’s account given his extensive research

in Usiha. A contemporary of Ndekeja and another important caravan leader operating

from Usiha was Telekeza. See Schmidt, Geschichte de Araberaufstandes, , ; Peters,

$

New Light on Dark Africa, –; von Schweinitz, ‘Das Tragerpersonal der Karawanen’,

; Franz Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, ), –.



*

$ Bennett, From Zanzibar to Ujiji,  (ed. n.); Frederick Cooper, From Slaves to

Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, –ꢀ

(New Haven, ), .

*

% Bennett, From Zanzibar to Ujiji, ,  Aug., ; Beidelman, ‘The organization

and maintenance of caravans’, .

*& Muxworthy to Thompson, Zanzibar,  July , LMS \\D\





 . 

to be ‘scarce’ because of the large number of caravans on the road.*' In

Zanzibar the situation was often the same. The drain of labour away from the

island caused considerable consternation among Arab plantation owners,

who petitioned the Sultan to prevent European travellers from ‘inducing

slaves to run away’ and shipping them clandestinely.*( As a European

traveller described the state of the labour market in early :

The African Association on the Congo had drained oﬀ the very best porters in the

town. Several large caravans, missionary and otherwise, had just left for the

interior, so that there was hardly a good porter to be had…To cap the situation,

two large caravans were about to be organized for the interior, one for Victoria

Nyanza, and another for Karema.*)

These comments do not even take into account the demand for labour

created by Arab caravans. Again, in June , Stairs heard ‘of a great dearth

of men’ in Zanzibar resulting from the large number of caravans leaving for

the interior. Around the same time another traveller was told, ‘there were no

porters to be had, even at Zanzibar, so many caravans had been equipped for

the Germans as well as for the IBEA Co., and for some private expeditions

that had combined to drain the country of available porters’.** Thus, for many

years, demand far outstripped supply. More rarely, there was a surplus of

porters at Bagamoyo, as during the dry season of . Then, pagazi were

unusually cheap and plentiful. ‘Some men’, wrote a missionary, ‘have even

despaired of getting work and are building and planting and will stay here till

next season’."!!





Modern historians have paid scant attention to evolving labour systems

associated with increasing commercialization, at an intermediate stage

between those of pre-capitalist times and those imposed under colonial

capitalism. Nyamwezi porters and traders working the central caravan routes

developed a unique form of such labour organization, which became the

model for coastal and foreign-led caravans alike. Adapting cultural forms

that had emerged in earlier regional trade, and utilizing indigenous social and

political features, the Nyamwezi model remained the basis for caravan

organization until the early colonial period. Up-country traders and porters

were makers of their own destiny, and were not hapless casualties of change.

*

' Wolf, Central African Diaries, ,  Mar. .

( Bennett, From Zanzibar to Ujiji, –,  Jan. .

) Joseph Thomson, Through Masai Land (London, ; st ed. ), . See also

Stokes to Lang, Zanzibar,  Mar. , CMS GA\; Kathryn Barrett-Gaines,

‘

–

Travel writing, experiences and silences. What is left out of European travelers’ accounts

the case of Richard D. Mohun’, History in Africa,  (), . For similar comments

referring to various recruitment centres, see Henry Morton Stanley, How I Found

Livingstone (London, ), ; Bennett, From Zanzibar to Ujiji, –,  May ;

Mackay to Wright (?), Uzigua,  Dec. , CMS CA\; O’Flaherty to Hutchinson,

Mpwapwa,  Oct. , CMS GA\; Hore to Thompson, Zanzibar,  June ,

LMS \\C; Hore to Thompson, LMS Camp, Makwui,  July , LMS \\D;

Wolf, Central African Diaries, ,  June .

*

* Konczacki, Victorian Explorer, ,  June ; May French-Sheldon, Sultan to

Sultan (London, ), . The shortage of porters at Zanzibar reﬂects the general labour

market for porters at the coast, and the demand for both Waungwana and Nyamwezi.

"!! Bennett, From Zanzibar to Ujiji, ,  Aug. .



        

They proactively shaped the economy and culture of both pre-colonial and

early colonial Tanzania, rather than merely reacting to outside forces and

demands.

Nyamwezi porters found their labour and skills in high demand as the

ivory and associated trades expanded, and labour became increasingly

commodiﬁed. At the same time, the Nyamwezi trading elite remained strong

competitors until signiﬁcantly later than has been realized. Together,

Nyamwezi traders and porters were able to ride the nineteenth-century

economic boom. From the s, porters also took advantage of the labour

requirements of imperial agents and missionaries. The market for caravan

labour was therefore characterized by a massive expansion in demand.

Economic changes, the projection of European military power, state regu-

lation, railway construction and deskilling ultimately undercut Nyamwezi

enterprise, and suggest a diminution of the bargaining power of porters. But

up until the s at least, successful adaptation to wage labour and

innovation at home and on the road shows that the Nyamwezi grasped

market opportunities and were able to manage economic transformation.





The nineteenth-century ivory trade in Tanzania and surrounding countries, and

European imperialist and missionary activities on the mainland in the second half

of the century, created an expanding demand for long distance caravan porters.

Along the central caravan routes between the Mrima Coast and Lake Tanganyika,

most traders and porters were Nyamwezi, or from related groups in western

Tanzania. The prevalence of the Nyamwezi was related to unique structural

features of their domestic economy and society that made it possible to take

advantage of new opportunities, rather than a cultural predisposition towards

travel and adventure, as some historians have claimed. Nyamwezi caravans

provided a model of organization with a unique labour culture that dominated the

central routes, and was followed by caravans originating at the coast. According to

recent histories, Nyamwezi and other up-country traders were undermined by the



s through competition from coastal caravan operators, exposure to the world

capitalist system, and changes in the international market for ivory. In this view,

the Nyamwezi were progressively impoverished and increasingly relied on wage

work for others. In contrast, there is evidence to show that the Nyamwezi remained

vigorous traders into the early colonial period, while many of them also sought

wage work for coastal, European and local caravan operators. The development of

a labour market for caravan porters, which was partly connected to the success of

Nyamwezi trading ventures, was crucial in the transition to a more market-based

economy along the main central caravan routes. The expansion of Nyamwezi

porterage was related to a massive expansion of the labour market, as the overall

demand for labour increased at the same time that long distance trade remained

viable. Explanations for the eventual decline of up-country traders and porterage

must therefore be sought through analysis of change in the early colonial political

economy.

Article Doi

DOI: 10.1017/S0021853799007628

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Article abstract of DOI:10.1017/S0021853799007628

Full text of DOI:10.1017/S0021853799007628

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