Ujiji

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Ujiji
Swahili House in Kasingirima Ward, Ujiji.jpg
Swahili house in Ujiji
Tanzania relief location map.svg
Archaeological site icon (red).svg
Shown within Tanzania
Location Kigoma-Ujiji District,
Kigoma Region,
Flag of Tanzania.svg  Tanzania
Coordinates 4°54′40″S29°40′30″E / 4.91111°S 29.67500°E / -4.91111; 29.67500
TypeSettlement
History
Founded18th Century
Cultures Manyema, Jiji, Ha, Swahili and Arab
Site notes
ConditionEndangered
OwnershipTanzanian Government
ManagementAntiquities Division, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism [1]
Architecture
Architectural styles Swahili
Official nameUjiji Historic Town
TypeCultural

Ujiji is the oldest town in western Tanzania and is located in Kigoma-Ujiji District of Kigoma Region. [2] Originally a Swahili settlement and then an Arab slave trading post by the mid-nineteenth century nominally under the Sultanate of Zanzibar, [3] the town is the oldest in western Tanzania. In 1900, the population was estimated at 10,000 and in 1967 about 41,000. [4] The site is a registered National Historic Site. [5]

Contents

History

The "Ujiji Sultanate" in the mid-nineteenth century Omani Empire 2.png
The "Ujiji Sultanate" in the mid-nineteenth century

Historically the town that is now Ujiji was the home of the Jiji people. The settlement has close connections with the Swahili community of Buyenzi north of Lake Tanganyika in Burundi. [6] Ujiji is the place where Richard Burton and John Speke first reached the shore of Lake Tanganyika in 1858. It is the site of the famous meeting on 10 November 1871 [7] when Henry Stanley found Dr. David Livingstone, and reputedly uttered the famous words “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Livingstone, whom many thought dead as no news had been heard of him for several years and who had only arrived back in Ujiji the day before, wrote “When my spirits were at their lowest ebb, the good Samaritan was close at hand, for one morning [my servant] Susi came running at the top of his speed and gasped out, ‘An Englishman! I see him!’ and off he darted to meet him. The American flag at the head of the caravan told of the nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, baths of tin, huge kettles, cooking pots, tents, etc., made me think, ‘This must be a luxurious traveller, and not one at his wits’ end like me.’” [8]

A monument known as the "Dr. Livingstone Memorial" was erected in Ujiji to commemorate the meeting. There is also a modest museum. There is a former slave route near the market. In 1878, the London Missionary Society established their first missionary post on the shore of Lake Tanganyika at Ujiji. Some in Burundi claim the location of the famous meeting is a few miles south of the former capital Bujumbura. However, the Livingstone-Stanley Monument in Mugere actually marks a visit the two men made 15 days later on their joint exploration of northern Lake Tanganyika.[ citation needed ]

Liwaliate of Ujiji or sometimes known as the Sultanate of Ujiji was a vassal state of Omani Empire and then Zanzibar Sultanate in Ujiji town established in 1830s under the auspices of Arab oligarchs of Ujiji town during slave trade.


Related Research Articles

The modern-day African Great Lakes state of Tanzania dates formally from 1964, when it was formed out of the union of the much larger mainland territory of Tanganyika and the coastal archipelago of Zanzibar. The former was a colony and part of German East Africa from the 1880s to 1919 when, under the League of Nations, it became a British mandate. It served as a British military outpost during World War II, providing financial help, munitions, and soldiers. In 1947, Tanganyika became a United Nations Trust Territory under British administration, a status it kept until its independence in 1961. The island of Zanzibar thrived as a trading hub, successively controlled by the Portuguese, the Sultanate of Oman, and then as a British protectorate by the end of the nineteenth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Livingstone</span> British colonialist and missionary to Africa (1813–1873)

David Livingstone was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, and an explorer in Africa. Livingstone was married to Mary Moffat Livingstone, from the prominent 18th-century Moffat missionary family. Livingstone came to have a mythic status that operated on a number of interconnected levels: Protestant missionary martyr, working-class "rags-to-riches" inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of British commercial and colonial expansion. As a result, Livingstone became one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tippu Tip</span> Slave trader

Tippu Tip, or Tippu Tib, real name Ḥamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Jumʿah ibn Rajab ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al Murjabī, was an Afro-Omani ivory and slave owner and trader, explorer, governor and plantation owner. He worked for a succession of sultans of Zanzibar and was the Sultan of Uterera, a short-lived state in Kasongo, Maniema ruled by himself and his son Sefu who was an emir of the local WaManyema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stone Town</span> Town in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Stonetown of Zanzibar, also known as Mji Mkongwe, is the old part of Zanzibar City, the main city of Zanzibar, in Tanzania. The newer portion of the city is known as Ng'ambo, Swahili for 'the other side'. Stone Town is located on the western coast of Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago. Former capital of the Zanzibar Sultanate, and flourishing centre of the spice trade as well as the Indian Ocean slave trade in the 19th century, it retained its importance as the main city of Zanzibar during the period of the British protectorate. When Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined each other to form the United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar kept a semi-autonomous status, with Stone Town as its local government seat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bagamoyo</span> Capital of Bagamoyo District, Pwani Region

Bagamoyo is a historic coastal town and capital of Bagamoyo District in the Pwani Region of Tanzania. Much of the settlement was founded at the end of the 18th century, though it is an extension of a much older Swahili settlement, Kaole. It was chosen as the capital of German East Africa by the German colonial administration and it became one of the most important trading ports for the Germans along the East African coast along the west of the Indian Ocean in the late 19th and early 20th century. Bagamoyo lies 75 kilometres north of Dar-es-Salaam on the coast of the Zanzibar Channel, across from the island of Zanzibar. The town hosts Bagamoyo Historic Town, that is a National Historic Site of Tanzania. In 2011, the town had 82,578 inhabitants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kigoma Region</span> Region of Tanzania

Kigoma Region is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The regional capital is the city of Kigoma. Kigoma Region borders Kagera Region, Geita Region, Katavi Region, Tabora Region, DRC and Burundi According to the 2012 national census, the region had a population of 2,127,930, which was higher than the pre-census projection of 1,971,332. For 2002–2012, the region's 2.4 percent average annual population growth rate was tied for the fourteenth highest in the country. It was also the sixteenth most densely populated region with 57 people per square kilometer. With a size of 45,066 square kilometres (17,400 sq mi), the region is slightly smaller than Estonia.

Unyamwezi is a historical region in what is now Tanzania, around the modern city of Tabora to the south of Lake Victoria and east of Lake Tanganyika. It lay on the trade route from the coast to Lake Tanganyika and to the kingdoms to the west of Lake Victoria. The various peoples of the region were known as long-distance traders, providing porters for caravans and arranging caravans in their own right. At first the main trade was in ivory, but later slaving became more important.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manyema</span> Ethnic group from Kigoma Region of Tanzania and eastern DRC

Manyema (WaManyema) (Una-Ma-Nyema, eaters of flesh) are a Bantu ethnic group, described in the past as powerful and warlike, in the African Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa and Central Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mikindani</span> National Historic Site of Tanzania

Mikindani is a historic coastal town located in Mtwara-Mikindani District of Mtwara Region in Tanzania. The name comes from the Swahili word mikinda which means "young coconut trees". Therefore, the term "Mikindani', literally means "the place where there are young coconut trees" in old Swahili language. Mikindani is part of the city of Mtwara and is governed by the Mtwara Mikindani Municipal Council. The site is a registered National Historic Site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Livingstone–Stanley Monument</span> Monument in Burundi

The Livingstone–Stanley Monument at Mugere marks a location where explorer and missionary Dr David Livingstone and journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley visited and spent two nights on 25–27 November 1871 in Burundi. It is 12 km south of the largest city and former capital Bujumbura, overlooking Lake Tanganyika. In French, it is referred to as La Pierre de Livingstone et Stanley. Some Burundians claim the location is where the famous first meeting of Livingstone and Stanley took place, at which the latter uttered the famous words "Dr Livingstone, I presume?".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Morton Stanley's first trans-Africa expedition</span>

Between 1874 and 1877 Henry Morton Stanley traveled Central Africa east to west, exploring Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and the Lualaba and Congo rivers. He covered 7,000 miles (11,000 km) from Zanzibar in the east to Boma at the mouth of the Congo in the west. The expedition resolved several open questions concerning the geography of Central Africa, including identifying the source of the Nile, which he proved was not the Lualaba and is in fact the source of the Congo River.

Muhammad bin Khalfan bin Khamis al-Barwani, commonly known as Rumaliza, was an Arab trader of slaves and ivory, active in Central and East Africa in the last part of the nineteenth century. He was a member of the Arabian Barwani tribe. With the help of Tippu Tip he became Sultan of Ujiji. At one time he dominated the trade of Tanganyika, before being defeated by Belgian forces under Baron Francis Dhanis in January 1894.

Lake Uniamési or the Uniamesi Sea was the name given by missionaries in the 1840s and 1850s to a huge lake or inland sea they supposed to lie within a region of Central East Africa with the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baraka, Democratic Republic of the Congo</span> Town in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Baraka, also known as Bala'a, is the main city and metropolitan center of the Fizi Territory located in the South Kivu Province in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Baraka is bordered by the Lweba River to the north, the Mutambala River to the south, Lake Tanganyika to the east, and the Lu'e River, Efuma Mountain, and Makundu Mountain to the west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mainland Tanzania</span> Overview of the mainland region of Tanzania

Mainland Tanzania refers to the part of Tanzania on the continent of Africa; excluding the islands of Zanzibar. It corresponds with the area of the former country of Tanganyika.

The Goma, who also refer to themselves as Al ghamawiyyun in Arabic, are a tribe in the Kigoma Region in western Tanzania. They are a contingent of the Bantu tribe who are more commonly found in Tanzania and present-day Democratic Republic of Congo who migrated from the western shore of the Lake Tanganyika in Democratic Republic of Congo with origins from Sudan. They are the first group of the Bantu tribe to ever cross the Lake Tanganyika and also the first group to reside in the Urban District of Kigoma as its inhabitants. Following the Wagoma were Niakaramba (Kwalumona) from Cape Karamba and then Wabwari from Ubwari peninsula. The Kwalumona merged within Wabwari, identified themselves as Bwaris and settled north of Wagoma in Kigoma before resettling in Ujiji and its environs, where they formed a tribal Confederacy in Ujiji known as Wamanyema. The Wagoma crossed the lake early due to their invention of dug-out canoes mitumbwi ya mti mmoja curved from Mivule trees of Ugoma mountains from western shore of the Lake.

The Jumbes of Nkhotakota were a dynasty of Swahili Arab traders based in Nkhotakota, on the western shore of Lake Malawi. They were running an East-West caravan trade, exchanging cloths from the Swahili coast for ivory and slaves. They introduced the Muslim faith and culture in the Nkhotakota area and were the first to grow rice and coconuts in the region.

Mwene Mbonwean Sultanate of Ujiji or Busonga is a subnational Monarchy in Ujiji town, Kigoma Region, western Tanzania. The seat of the local Sultanate is Busaid which was called so from the name of the dynasty of both the Zanzibar Sultanate and Oman which once ruled Ujiji under Arab-Swahili Liwalis, the post Arab name of Busaid for Ujiji proper is still used by the locals as "Busaidi".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Historic Sites of Tanzania</span> List of National Heritage Sites of Tanzania

National Historic Sites of Tanzania is an official list of places in Tanzania that have been designated as National Historic Sites as per the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism of Tanzania under the Antiquities Division. The list is not complete and is currently being updated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Livingstone's Tembe</span> National Historic Site of Tanzania

Livingstone's Tembe or David Livingstone Museum, Tabora is a national historic site next to the village of Kwihara located in Tabora Urban District of Tabora Region. The home was constructed in 1857. David Livingstone lived there for a portion of 1871. The explorer Henry Morton Stanley stayed there for three months later that year in the hopes that the Arabs would vanquish Mirambo, the illustrious ruler of the Nyamwezi tribe, and reopen the route to Lake Tanganyika. After Mirambo won, Stanley had to use Mpanda to get to Ujiji. The following year, Stanley and Livingstone came back to the Tembe, jointly. It is currently a museum and has some authentically carved Swahili doors, a few letters sent by David Livingstone, and details about the slave trade.

References

  1. "Antiquities Division" . Retrieved 21 Jul 2022.
  2. Takwa, Esther (2023-04-13). "Ujiji, a port with historical significance - Daily News" . Retrieved 2023-09-23.
  3. Bennett, Norman Robert (1961). "The Arab power of Tanganyika in the nineteenth century". Boston University. hdl:2144/10700 . Retrieved 2023-05-16.
  4. Brown, Beverly Bolser. UJIJI: THE HISTORY OF A LAKESIDE TOWN, C. 1800--1914. Boston University Graduate School, 1973.
  5. "Antiquities Sites" (PDF). Retrieved 21 August 2022.
  6. Croucher, Sarah, and Stephanie Wynne-Jones. "Slave Routes in Western Tanzania: A preliminary report on survey in Tabora and Ujiji." African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter 9.4 (2006): 18.
  7. "Stanley Meets Livingstone". Smithsonian. Retrieved 2019-02-12.
  8. Livingstone, David (1875). The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death. Hartford, CT: R.W. Bliss & Company. p. 317. ASIN   B003YJF3QK. republished by Qontro Classic Books (12 July 2010)