Oman Drives the Portuguese from the Coast
After a long siege, Omani Arab forces captured Fort Jesus in Mombasa in 1698, ending nearly two centuries of Portuguese control of the Swahili coast. The shore now fell under the Sultanate of Oman.
Verisoph story dossier
The coast and the Sultan: how Britain leased Kenya's shore from Zanzibar
How Britain took the Kenyan coast without conquering it: the Omani sultanate of Zanzibar that ruled the Swahili shore, the ten-mile strip Britain leased from the Sultan and ran through a protectorate and a thirty-eight-minute war...
How Britain took the Kenyan coast without conquering it: the Omani sultanate of Zanzibar that ruled the Swahili shore, the ten-mile strip Britain leased from the Sultan and ran through a protectorate and a thirty-eight-minute war, and its cession to independent Kenya in 1963.
14 newly added in the last 14 days
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Seyyid Said Moves His Capital to Zanzibar
also in Slavery on the Kenyan coast
Sultan Seyyid Said of Oman moved his court from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1840, making the island the centre of an Indian Ocean empire. It was built on cloves, ivory, and slaves.
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Zanzibar's Clove, Ivory, and Slave Economy
Under the Busaidi sultans Zanzibar grew rich on clove plantations worked by slaves and on caravans that carried ivory and captives from the interior to the coast. Indian financiers, especially the customs-master firms, bankrolled the trade.
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The Canning Award Splits Zanzibar from Oman
When Seyyid Said died in 1856 his sons disputed the succession. In 1861 a British arbitration, the Canning Award, formally separated Zanzibar and its coast from Muscat and Oman, with Britain already the arbiter of the sultanate's affairs.
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Britain Presses Zanzibar to End the Slave Trade
Under pressure from Sir Bartle Frere and the Royal Navy, Sultan Barghash signed an 1873 treaty closing Zanzibar's slave market and banning the seaborne slave trade. It was an early lever of British control over the sultanate.
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The Anglo-German Agreement Divides East Africa
The 1886 Anglo-German Agreement carved the East African interior into British and German spheres. It recognized the Sultan of Zanzibar's authority over only a narrow ten-mile coastal strip.
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The Company Leases the Coastal Strip
also in Mombasa and the coast: port, strip, slavery and land
In 1888 the Imperial British East Africa Company obtained a concession to administer the Sultan's ten-mile coastal strip. Britain ruled the coast as the Sultan's agent rather than annexing it outright.
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The Heligoland Treaty Makes Zanzibar a British Protectorate
In the 1890 Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty Germany dropped its claims to Zanzibar in exchange for the North Sea island of Heligoland. Zanzibar, and with it the coast, became a British protectorate.
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The East Africa Protectorate Takes Over the Coast
also in Mombasa and the coast: port, strip, slavery and land
When the British East Africa Company failed, the Crown took over in 1895 as the East Africa Protectorate. It administered the coastal strip still in the name of the Sultan of Zanzibar.
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The Anglo-Zanzibar War
When a sultan Britain disliked took the throne in 1896, the Royal Navy bombarded the palace and installed a compliant ruler in about thirty-eight minutes. It is remembered as the shortest recorded war in history.
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Slavery Abolished in Zanzibar
In 1897 Britain abolished the legal status of slavery in Zanzibar. Former slaves had to apply for their freedom, and labour conditions on the plantations changed only slowly.
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The Ten-Mile Strip Stays the Sultan's
Even as the interior became the Kenya Colony in 1920, the ten-mile coastal strip remained nominally the sovereign territory of the Sultan of Zanzibar. It was leased to and administered by Britain, a legal fiction that lasted to independence.
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Mwambao: the Coast Asks to Stay Apart
also in Mombasa and the coast: port, strip, slavery and land
As independence neared, a coastal autonomy movement known as Mwambao argued that the strip's distinct history and Muslim identity meant it should not simply be absorbed into up-country Kenya. The claim was set aside, but coastal grievance over land and marginalization has recurred since.
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The Sultan Cedes the Coast to Kenya
also in Mombasa and the coast: port, strip, slavery and land
In 1963 the Sultan of Zanzibar gave up his sovereignty over the ten-mile strip, and it became part of the newly independent Kenya. It ended 275 years in which the coast was tied to Oman and Zanzibar rather than the interior.
Further reading
- Fort Jesus, Mombasa UNESCO World Heritage Centre cited in 4
- From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925 Frederick Cooper 1980 cited in 4
- Kenya Railways: History Kenya Railways Corporation cited in 4
- Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda Justin Willis 1993 cited in 4
- Sacred Mijikenda Kaya Forests UNESCO World Heritage Centre cited in 4
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