Tanzania - History

According to evidence at Olduvai Gorge and in the Manonga Valley, Tanzania may be humanity’s place of origin. Around AD 500 Bantu peoples, the ancestors of the majority of the modern population, began entering the area. Arab coastal settlement and the introduction of Islam took place between AD 800 and 900. Around AD 1200 the Omanis settled in Zanzibar; in collaboration with some of the coastal peoples of the mainland, they set up a slave trade, with parties of slavers raiding communities in the interior and driving people to local markets at such inland centres as Tabora. From there, they would be sold on to major centres at the ports. The sultanate of Kilwe enjoyed a period of prosperity in the 14th and 15th centuries but the coastal towns suffered a decline thereafter, with the arrival of Portuguese adventurers (though there was little Portuguese settlement).

In 1884 Dr Karl Peters journeyed into the interior to acquire territory, through treaties with chiefs, on behalf of the German emperor. In the late 1880s Germany took over the area from the coast to (and including) Ruanda and Urundi, calling it the Protectorate of German East Africa. There was rather sparse German settlement: the people objected to being ‘protected’. In 1905–06 there was an all-out rebellion, which was put down by a strategically engineered famine, leading to about 200,000 deaths.

At the time, Britain was concerned with the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, which were declared a British Protectorate in 1890. In 1919, the League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to administer part of German East Africa, now known as Tanganyika. (Belgium, with a similar mandate, took over the administration of Rwanda and Burundi.) In 1946 Tanganyika became a UN trust territory.

A legislative council was set up in 1926. It was enlarged in 1945 and restructured in 1955 to give equal representation to Africans, Asians and Europeans, sitting as 30 ‘unofficials’ with the 31 ‘officials’. In 1954, a schoolteacher, Julius Nyerere, founded the Tanganyikan African National Union (TANU), which promoted African nationalism and won a large public following. The colonial authorities responded with constitutional changes increasing the voice of the African population while reserving seats for minority communities. Elections were held in 1958–59 and again in 1960. The result was overwhelming victory for TANU, which by this period was campaigning for independence as well as majority rule. The new government and the UK agreed at a constitutional conference to full independence for Tanganyika in December 1961. Zanzibar achieved independence in 1963 as a separate country.

Tanganyika became a republic in December 1962, one year after achieving independence, and the direct presidential election brought the TANU leader, Julius Nyerere, to the presidency. In 1965 the constitution was changed to establish a one-party system. Meanwhile, in Zanzibar, the Sultan was overthrown in a revolution in January 1964, the constitution was abrogated and the country became a one-party state under the Afro-Shirazi Party. In 1967 Nyerere made the Arusha Declaration, unveiling his political philosophy of egalitarianism, socialism and self-reliance.

In April 1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar united as the United Republic of Tanzania. In 1977, the two ruling parties merged to form the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). Ali Hassan Mwinyi succeeded Nyerere in 1985.

Presidential elections were held every five years from 1965 with, under the one-party system, the electorate voting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a single presidential candidate. In general elections (held at the same time as the presidential elections) the choice was between two candidates put forward by the CCM. Pressure for reform grew within United Republic of Tanzania, and among international donors. The government responded with constitutional changes that permitted opposition parties from 1992 and so brought in a multiparty system, under which parliamentary and presidential elections were held in October 1995 and contested by 13 political parties.