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Family strife and foreign intervention: causes in the separation of Zanzibar from Oman: a reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

M. Reda Bhacker
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Extract

The nineteenth-century rise of Zanzibar under the ruling Albusaidi Dynasty of Oman owed its origins primarily to the solid foundations of commercial activity laid down in Muscat in the preceding century. In the subsequent development of the Omani economy, in Omani territories in both Arabia and Africa where the dictates of the Omani political/tribal system did not allow for any centralization of authority, local communities and tribal groups resisted the domination of the Albusaidi rulers as they strove to bring under their own control the benefits of burgeoning trade.

The opposition of the major Omani groups in East Africa, the Mazāri‘a of Mombasa and the Banū Nabhān of Pate, to the Albusaidis and the eventual success of the Omani rulers in dismantling and neutralizing this opposition are fairly well documented. However, the sustained challenge of Hilāl b. Sa‘īd to the reign of his father Sa‘īd b. Sulṭān, the Albusaidi ruler of Oman and Zanzibar and their dependencies from 1806 to 1856, has hitherto been neglected, despite the fact that Hilāl's resistance in East Africa was the greatest internal threat to Sa‘īd after that posed by the Mazāri'a and had dire consequences for the subsequent course of Oman's history. The conflict between father and son set in train a course of events that led inexorably to the 1861 British-sponsored dismemberment of Oman into two Sultanates, one in Arabia and the other in East Africa.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 269 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1991

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References

1 See Bhacker, M. R., ‘Roots of domination and dependency: British reaction towards the development of Omani commerce at Muscat and Zanzibar in the nineteenth century’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Oxford, 1988Google Scholar.

2 ibid., introduction; Khazanov, A. M., Nomads and the outside world (Cambridge, 1983), passimGoogle Scholar.

3 For the Mazāri‘a and Banū Nabhān opposition see b., al-Amīn. ‘Alī al-Mazrū‘ī, ‘Ta'rīkh wilāyat al-Mazāri'a fī Ifrīqīya al-sharqīya’, n.d., MS in the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture [MNHC], MuscatGoogle Scholar.

4 Muḥammad Ibn Ruzayq, Ḥumayd b., ‘al-Fatḥ al-mubīn fī sīrat al-sādat al-Ālbūsa’ īdīyīn’, Cambridge University Library MS, Add. 2892, facsimile edition (Muscat, MNHC, 1977), 541Google Scholar; al-Fārsī, , Ālbūsa‘īdīyūn ḥukkām Zanjbār, [translation of the Kiswahili original (1942)], Muscat, MNHC, 1981), 15Google Scholar; London, Public Record Office [PRO], FO/54/3, Hennell to Bombay, 31 July 1840.

5 PRO/FO/54/6 and India Office Records [IOR], L/P&S/5/501, sa‘īd b, Sulṭāan to Aberdeen, 6 Rajab 1260 = 23 July 1844.

6 IOR/V/23/45; Miles, S. B., ‘Biographical sketch of the late Seyyid Sa'eed-Bin-Sultan Imam of Muscat’, in Muscat Administṛation Report for 1883–4, 34Google Scholar; Nicholls, C., ‘The Swahili coast—politics, diplomacy and trade on the East African Littoral, 1798–1856’ (London: George, Allen and Unwin, 1971), 274Google Scholar; Kelly, J. B., Britain and the Persian Gulf (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 534Google Scholar.

7 al-Fārsī, , Albūsa‘īdīyūn ḥukkam Zanjbār, 15–16Google Scholar; Guillain, C., Documents sur l’histoire, la géographie et le commerce de la côte orientate d'Afrique (Paris, 1856), I, 228Google Scholar; Said-Ruete, E., (tr.), Memoirs of an Arabian Princess (London, 1886), 139Google Scholar.

8 Said-Ruete, 35; see also IOR/V/23/45; Miles, 34; and al-Fārsi, 16–17.

9 al-Fārsī, loc. cit.

10 Said-Ruete, 139–40; al-Fārsī, 16.

11 PRO/FO/54/7, Hilāl b. sa‘īd to FO, 20 November 1845; PRO/FO/54/9, Hamerton to Willoughby, 14 April 1845.

12 PRO/FO/54/10, sa‘īd b. Sulṭān to FO, 9 February 1846.

13 IOR/L/P&S/5/405, Agent at Muscat to Bombay, 3 October 1850; Ylvisaker, M., Lamu in the nineteenth century: land, trade and politics (Boston, 1979), 82Google Scholar; sa‘īd b. Sulṭān was never elected as an Ibāḍūī Imām but most contemporary European consular reports erroneously refer to him with that religious title; for the way sa‘īd came to power see Bhacker, M. R., ‘Roots of domination and dependency’, ch. ivGoogle Scholar.

14 Guillain, C.Documents, III, 450Google Scholar.

15 ibid.

16 Bennett, N. R. and Brooks, G. E. (ed.), New England merchants in Africa, (Boston, 1965), 482–3Google Scholar.

17 Zanzibar Archives [ZA], Zanzibar, AA3/8 Hamerton to Bombay, 5 November 1849; IOR/L/P&S/5/405, Agent at Muscat to Bombay, 27 May 1850.

18 IOR/L/P&S/5/405, Agent at Muscat to Bombay, 27 May 1850; for the Wahhabi incursions see al-Rashid, Z. M., Su'udi relations with Eastern Arabia and ‘Uman, (London: Luzac, 1981)Google Scholar.

19 ZA/AA3/8, Hamerton to Bombay, 4 September 1852 and 18 April 1854; for the duration of Sa'Tīd b. Sulṭān's visits to East Africa, see Bhacker, M. R. ‘Roots of domination and dependency’, table 3, p. 138Google Scholar.

20 Guillain, , Documents, III, 454Google Scholar.

21 ibid.

22 ibid; and ZA/AA3/8, Hamerton to Bombay, 23 July 1851.

23 Said-Reute, , Memoirs, 139–40Google Scholar.

24 Guillain, , Documents, III, 454Google Scholar.

25 Three of the most prominent examples are Coupland, R., ‘The exploitation of East Africa, 1856–1928 (London: Faber, 1939), Part 1Google Scholar; Kelly, J. B., Britain and the Persian Gulf (Oxford, 1968), ch. xiiGoogle Scholar; Sheriff, A., Slaves, spices and ivory in Zanzibar (London: Currey, 1987), ch. viGoogle Scholar.

26 For the full text of Sa‘īd's will see Bhacker, ‘Roots of domination and dependency’, Appendix 3Google Scholar.

27 ibid.; see also Appendix 2 for text of Sa‘īd's letter to Aberdeen.

28 ZA/AA3/18 and IOR/L/P&S/507, Coghlan to Anderson, 4 December 1860.

29 IOR/L/P&S/5/501, Hilāl b. Muḥammad quoted in Rigby to Anderson, 4 April 1859.

30 ZA/AA12/2, Hamerton to Clarendon, 10 November 1856; IOR/L/P&S/5/501, Rigby to Anderson, 4 April 1859.

31 ZA/AA3/11, Hamerton to Bombay, 15 November 1854.

32 On the Banvanis, see Bhacker, , ‘Roots of domination and dependency’, 144–5 and ch. xiiGoogle Scholar.

33 sa‘īd, b.al-Mughayrī, ‘Alī, Juhaynat al-akhbār fī ta'rīkh Zanjbār [hereafter Juhayna] (Muscat, MNHC, 1978), 199Google Scholar.

34 Juhayna; according to al-Mughayrī, Barghash was undoubtedly on board but ‘Abdallāh b. Sālim's presence can only be inferred from the fact that he was a constant companion of sa‘īd b. Sulṭān, was in Muscat with Barghash prior to Sa‘īd's death andin Zanzibar after his death.

35 Said-Ruete, , Memoirs of an Arabian princess, 40Google Scholar; al-Fārsī, , Ālbūsa‘īdīyūn ḥukkām Zanjbār, 17Google Scholar; ZA/AA12/2, Barghash b. Saīd to Elphinstone, 31 March 1860.

36 al-Fārsī, 85; for a similar account see Said-Ruete, 108.

37 ZZ/AA12/2, Hamerton to Clarendon, 10 November 1856; Said-Ruete, 108.

38 ZA/AA/12/2.

39 ibid.

40 ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 17 February 1859; al-Fārsī, 37, 85.

41 ZA/AA12/2, Mājid b. sa‘īd to Coghlan, 14 October 1860; IOR/L/P&S/5/501, Rigby to Anderson, 4 April 1859.

42 ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 14 April 1859.

43 For Mājid's debts and financial difficulties, see Bhacker, , ‘Roots of domination and dependency’, ch. xiGoogle Scholar.

44 ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 14 January 1859.

45 For examples of these loan agreements, see Juhayna, 200.

46 The Mutiny broke out at Meerut on 10 May 1857 and continued until the end of June 1858, see Spear, P., A history of India (London, 1965), vol. II, ch. xiGoogle Scholar.

47 IOR/L/P&S/9/38, Rigby to Russell, 1 July 1861.

48 ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 17 February 1859; Juhayna, 200.

49 ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 1 August 1858.

50 ZA/AA2/2, Jones to Jenkins, 25 February 1859.

51 ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 4 April 1859; IOR/L/P&S/5/446, Rigby to Anderson, 4 April 1859.

52 Juhayna, 200–1.

53 ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 22 March 1859.

54 ibid.

55 ZA/AA12/2, Barghash b. sa‘īd to Elphinstone, 31 March 1860 and Bombay to Rigby, 29 September 1859.

56 All merchants originating from India, even those regarding themselves as Omani ‘nationals’, were treated by British authorities as being under British jurisdiction, see Bhacker, , ‘Roots of domination and dependency’, passimGoogle Scholar.

57 ZA/AA2/2, Jones to Jenkins, 25 February 1859.

58 ZA/AA2/2, H. H. Syed Soweynee Imam of Muscat [sic] to Captain Felix Jones, 24 Safar 1276 [= 22 September 1859],

59 ZA/AA3/I8, Coghlan to Anderson, 4 December 1860.

60 ZA/AA2/2, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf [PRPG] to Bombay, 11 April 1859.

61 see Bhacker, , ‘Roots of domination and dependency’, ch. xiGoogle Scholar.

62 ZA/AA12/2, Mājid b. sa‘īd to Coghlan, 14 October 1860.

63 Juhayna, 201; IOR/L/P&S/5/501, Rigby to Anderson, 19 April 1959.

64 IOR/L/P&S/5/501, Thuwaynī b. sa‘īd to Sulaymān b. Ḥamad quoted in Rigby to Anderson, 25 April 1859.

65 IOR/L/P&S/5/501, Rigby to Anderson, 25 April 1859.

66 ibid.; ZA/AA12/2, Mājid b sa‘īd to Coghlan, 14 October 1860; one important personality ranged against Majīd was Ṣāliḥ b. ‘All, leader of the influential ḥārthī tribe of Oman.

67 Juhayna, 203; IOR/L/P&S/5/501, Rigby to Anderson, 14 April 1859.

68 ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 9 October 1859.

69 ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 21 October 1859; for the 1859 rebellion, see Bhacker, ‘Roots of domination and dependency’, ch. xiiGoogle Scholar.

70 Bennett, and Brooks, (ed.), 1965, New England merchants in Africa, p. 518, n. 142Google Scholar.

71 IOR/L/P&S/5/507, Coghlan to Bombay, 4 December 1860.

72 ibid., the emphasis is in the original; ZA/AA2/2, PRPG to Thuwaynī, 28 October 1859.

73 IOR/L/P&S/5/507.

74 Juhayna, 204; ZA/AA12/2, Rigby to Bombay, 29 October 1859.

75 IOR/L/P&S/5/447, Cruttenden to Anderson, 24 September 1859; ZA/AA2/2, Thuwaynī b. sa‘īd to Jones, 24 Safar 1276 [= 22 Sept 1859].

76 For the text of the Canning Award see IOR/L/P&S/5/507.

77 ZA/AA2/4 & IOR/L/P&S/5/507, Thuwaynī b. sa‘īd to Lord Canning, 15 May 1861 and Mājid b. sa‘īd to Rigby, 29 June 1861.

78 See note 56 above.

79 Bartle Frere quoted in Kelly, , Britain and the Persian Gulf, 696Google Scholar.