Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T10:02:10.546Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Competition and Ceramics on the East African Coast: Long-Term Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century History at the Swahili Port Town of Mikindani, Tanzania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2015

Matthew C. Pawlowicz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Swahili communities of the East African coast have often been characterized as middlemen, defined by their ability to navigate – often quite literally – the economic networks linking the African Interior and the Indian Ocean rim. Yet diversity has increasingly been recognized between Swahili communities. In this paper I add to the awareness and explication of Swahili diversity through comparative analysis of the archaeology of the southern Tanzanian town of Mikindani. In particular, I work to extend our knowledge of political and economic competition in East Africa backwards from the better documented nineteenth century. For Mikindani, its inhabitants’ changing abilities to access certain kinds of ceramics trace the competitive structures of this part of the coast and provide evidence for their success or failure in navigating a complex economic landscape.

Résumé

Les communautés swahili de la côte de l’Afrique de l’Est ont souvent été considérées comme des intermédiaires capables de naviguer – littéralement – sur les réseaux économiques entre l’intérieur des terres et les franges de l’Océan indien. On a cependant reconnu la diversité de ces communautés swahili. Dans cet essai, j’explique et approfondie nos connaissances sur cette diversité à partir d’une étude archéologique comparative de la ville de Mikindani en sud-Tanzanie. L’une de mes méthodes est de travailler à rebours depuis les sources plus riches du XIX-ème siècle afin de mieux comprendre les rivalités politiques et économiques en Afrique de l’Est. Dans le cas de Mikindani, les changements évidents dans la possibilité qu’avaient les habitants d’avoir accès à certains types de céramiques permettent de comprendre les structures compétitives passées dans cette partie de la côte. Ces sources permettent de mieux comprendre les succès et les échecs des communautés locales à naviguer le contexte économique complexe de l’époque.

Type
Material Culture and Commerce in Precolonial Africa
Information
History in Africa , Volume 42 , June 2015 , pp. 335 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abungu, George H.O., and Mutoro, Henry, “Coast-Interior Settlements and Social Relations in the Kenya Coastal Hinterland,” in: Shaw, Thurston, Sinclair, Paul, Andah, Bassey and Okpoko, Alex (eds.), The Archaeology of Africa: Foods, Metals and Towns (New York: Routledge, 1993), 694–704.Google Scholar
Alpers, Edward A., Ivory and Slaves: Changing Pattern of International Trade in East Central Africa to the Later 19th Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).Google Scholar
Beaujard, Philippe, “East Africa, the Comoros Islands and Madagascar before the Sixteenth Century: On a Neglected Part of the World System,” Azania 42 (2007), 15–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, Norman R., A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar (London: Methuen, 1978).Google Scholar
Chami, Felix A., The Tanzanian Coast in the First Millennium AD: An Archaeology of the Iron-working, Farming Communities (Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, 1994).Google Scholar
Chami, Felix A., “A Review of Swahili Archaeology,” African Archaeological Review 15–3 (1998), 199–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Decker, Emile, and Thevenin, Christina, Guide de l’amateur des faïences de Sarreguemines (Sarreguemines: Association des Amis du Musée de Sarreguemines, 1998).Google Scholar
de Vere Allen, James, Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture and the Shungwaya Phenomenon (London: James Currey, 1993).Google Scholar
Dias, Antonio Jorge, Os Macondes de Mocambique, Volume I, Aspectos Historicos e Economicos (Lisbon: Centro de Estudios de Anthropologia Cultural, 1964).Google Scholar
Duarte, Ricardo, Northern Mozambique in the Swahili World (Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, 1993), 53–78.Google Scholar
Fleisher, Jeffrey B., “Viewing Stonetowns from the Countryside: An Archaeological Approach to Swahili Regional Systems, AD 800–1500,” PhD dissertation, University of Virginia (Charlottesville, 2003).Google Scholar
Fleisher, Jeffrey B., “Housing the Market: Swahili Merchants and Regional Marketing on the East African Coast,” in: Garraty, Christopher P. and Stark, Barbara (eds.), Archaeological Approaches to Market Exchange in Ancient Societies (Boulder CO: University Press of Colorado, 2010), 141–159.Google Scholar
Freeman-Grenville, G.S.P., The East African Coast: Select Documents from the First to the Earlier Nineteenth Century (London: Clarendon, 1962).Google Scholar
Glassman, Jonathon, “The Bondsman’s New Clothes: The Contradictory Consciousness of Slave Resistance on the Swahili Coast,” Journal of African History 32–2 (1991), 277–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, John, “Mikindani Bay before 1887,” Tanganyika Notes and Records 28 (1950), 29–37.Google Scholar
Gray, John, The British in Mombasa, 1824–1826 (London: MacMillan and Co, 1957).Google Scholar
Hantman, Jeffrey, “Between Powatan and Quirank: Reconstructing Monacan Culture and History in the Context of Jamestown,” American Anthropologist 92–3 (1990), 676–690.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, Mark, Shanga: The Archaeology of a Muslim Trading Community on the Coast of East Africa (London: British Institute in East Africa, 1996).Google Scholar
Horton, Mark, and Middleton, John, The Swahili: Social Landscape of a Mercantile Society (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).Google Scholar
Johnson, Gregory A., “Aspects of Regional Analysis in Archaeology,” Annual Review of Anthropology 6 (1977), 479–508.Google Scholar
Johnston, P.H., “Mtwara Bay,” Tanganyika Notes and Records 24 (1947), 61–65.Google Scholar
Killick, David, “Agency, Dependency, and Long-Distance Trade: East Africa and the Islamic World, ca. 700–1500 CE,” in: Falconer, Steven E. and Redman, Charles L. (eds.), Polities and Power: Archaeological Perspectives on the Landscapes of Early States (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009), 179–207.Google Scholar
Kingdon, Zachary, A Host of Devils: The History and Context of the Making of Makonde Spirit Sculptures (London: Routledge, 2002).Google Scholar
Kirkman, James S., Fort Jesus: A Portuguese Fortress on the East African Coast (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974).Google Scholar
Kusimba, Chapurukha M., The Rise and Fall of Swahili States (Walnut Creek CA: AltaMira, 1999).Google Scholar
Kwekason, Amandus, “Pre-Early Iron Working Sedentary Communities on the Southern Coast of Tanzania,” in: Pwiti, Gilbert, Chami, Felix A. and Radimilahy, Chantal (eds.), Settlements, Economies and Technology in the African Past (Dar es Salaam: African Archaeological Network, 2007), 20–40.Google Scholar
Kwekason, Amandus, Holocene Archaeology of the Southern Coast of Tanzania (Dar es Salaam: E&D Vision Publishing, 2011).Google Scholar
LaViolette, Adria, “Swahili Cosmopolitanism in Africa and the Indian Ocean World, A.D. 600–1500,” Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 4–1 (2008), 24–49.Google Scholar
Liebenow, J. Gus, Colonial Rule and Political Development in Tanzania: The Case of the Makonde (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971).Google Scholar
Lightfoot, Kent, “Culture Contact Studies: Redefining the Relationship between Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology,” American Antiquity 60–2 (1995), 199–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lightfoot, Kent, Martinez, Antoinette and Schiff, Ann M., “Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California,” American Antiquity 63–2 (1998), 199–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazrui, Al-Amin bin Ali Al, The History of the Mazrui Dynasty of Mombasa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Mazrui, Alamin M., and Shariff, Ibrahim N., The Swahili: Idiom and Identity of an African People (Trenton NJ: Africa World Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Mitchell, Peter, African Connections: An Archaeological Perspective on Africa and the Wider World (Walnut Creek CA: AltaMira, 2005).Google Scholar
Pawlowicz, Matthew C., “Archaeological Exploration of the Mikindani Region of the Southern Tanzanian Coast,” Nyame Akuma 72 (2009), 41–52.Google Scholar
Pawlowicz, Matthew C., “Finding Their Place in the Swahili World: An Archaeological Exploration of Southern Tanzania,” PhD dissertation, University of Virginia (Charlottesville, 2011).Google Scholar
Pawlowicz, Matthew C., “Models of the Swahili Past: The Archaeology of Mikindani, Southern Coastal Tanzania,” Azania 47–4 (2012), 486–506.Google Scholar
Pawlowicz, Matthew C., and LaViolette, Adria, “Swahili Historical Chronicles from an Archaeological Perspective: Bridging History and Archaeology, and Coast and Hinterland, in Southern Tanzania,” in: Schmidt, Peter R. and Mrozowski, Stephen A. (eds.), The Death of Prehistory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 117–140.Google Scholar
Pawlowicz, Matthew C., “Review of Ceramics from Tanzania, Malawi and Northern Mozambique with Implications for Swahili Society,” African Archaeological Review 30–4 (2013), 367–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, Michael N., Port Cities and Intruders: The Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal in the Early Modern Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Pouwels, Randall L., “Oral Historiography and the Shirazi of the East African Coast,” History in Africa 11 (1984), 237–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Keith R., Iron Age of Northern Malawi: An Archaeological Reconnaissance (Lilongwe: Malawi Government Ministry of Education and Culture, 1982).Google Scholar
Schmidt, Peter R., and Walz, Jonathan R., “Re-representing African Pasts through Historical Archaeology,” American Antiquity 72–1 (2007), 53–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Peter R., and Mrozowski, Stephen A. (eds.), The Death of Prehistory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Smith, Carol A., “Economics of Marketing Systems: Models from Economic Geography,” Annual Review of Anthropology 3 (1974), 167–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spear, Thomas, “The Shirazi in Swahili Traditions, Culture and History,” History in Africa 11 (1984), 291–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strandes, Justus, The Portuguese Period in East Africa (Kirkman, James S. [ed.]) (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1961 [1899]).Google Scholar
Velten, Carl, Prosa und Poesie der Suaheli (Berlin: published by the author, 1907).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vernet, Thomas, “La première traite française à Zanzibar: le journal de bord du vaisseau l’Espérance, 1774–1775,” in: Radimilahy, Chantal and Rajaonarimanana, Narivelo (eds.), Civilisations des mondes insulaires (Madagascar, canal de Mozambique, Mascareignes, Polynésie, Guyanes). Mélanges en l’honneur du Professeur Claude Allibert (Paris: Karthala, 2011), 477–521.Google Scholar
West, Harry G., Kupilikula: Governance and the Invisible Realm in Mozambique (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005).Google Scholar
Weule, Karl, Native Life in East Africa: The Results of an Ethnological Research Expedition (New York: D. Appleton and Co, 1909).Google Scholar
Wilson, Thomas H., and Omar, Athman Lali, “Archaeological Investigations at Pate,” Azania 32 (1997), 31–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Henry T., “Trade and Politics on the Eastern Littoral of Africa, AD 800–1300,” in: Shaw, Thurston, Sinclair, Paul, Andah, Bassey and Okpoko, Alex (eds.), The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals, and Towns (London: Routledge, 1993), 657–671.Google Scholar
Wynne-Jones, Stephanie, “Urbanization at Kilwa, Tanzania AD 800–1500,” PhD dissertation, Cambridge University (Cambridge, 2005).Google Scholar
Wynne-Jones, Stephanie, “Creating Urban Communities at Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania, AD 800–1300,” Antiquity 81 (2007), 368–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar