Oman and Zanzibar Virtual Museum

Glass plates / photo negatives

Photographic glass plates (negatives) preceded photographic film as a capture medium in photography. The light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on a glass plate, typically thinner than common window glass, instead of a clear plastic film. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile films were increasingly adopted.

The same Ashkari soldier is also possibly found in a newspaper photo of 1905 guarding chained prisoners in Kilwa (see slide-show)

Description:

The ancient caravan routes took the slaves and products like ivory to the following coastal cities on the East African coast:

1. Kilwa
2. Bagamoyo
3. Mombassa (see slide-show for photo of Fort Jesus)

Zanzibar island was during the 19th century the steppingstone and depot for this trade. Most caravans were organised, resourced and funded from Zanzibar. Slaves were shipped with dhows to Zanzibar where they were sold on the slave-market. From Zanzibar slaves and ivory were transported to many different places e.g. Muscat and Sur in Oman but also to French colonies. Around 1890 Bagamoyo became the capital of the German DOAG colonial company.

To control the East African trade Western powers took control of the coastal cities over from the Omani Arabs. Initially this was done by the Portuguese in the 16th century. Then during the 17th century the Omani claimed back the cities and later in the 19th century  the Germans and British took control. The Portuguese mention that in the 16th century they built the large Fort Jesus close to the Arab city (Mombassa). Later during the 17th century the Omani conquered the large fort and drove the Portuguese away.

Before the Portuguese arrived the coastal cities were probably controlled by the Kingdom of Hormuz that was run by Persians and Omani Arabs. According to Omani tradition it was the Al Harthi  tribe that founded Mombassa many centuries ago.

References:

1. Slavernij en bevrijding in Oost Afrika in de 19e eeuw by Afrika museum Berg en Dal 2003.

Background to the treaty with Sohar:

Objective of the treaty is to:

• Prohibit the exportation of slaves from the coast of Africa in ships belonging to subjects of the Sheik of Sohar.
• Ensure that British ships have the right to check ships from Sohar if there are any slaves on board.  
• Ships carrying slaves will face severe penalties

Wendell Phillips in his Oman a History writes on page: 100:101:  "Sohar was severely damaged time and again by pirate raids from the beginning of the 19th century onwards. In 1819 a major naval battle took place between the British Navy and a pirate fleet off the coast of Sohar. This resulted in temporary peace but by 1829 the Sohar fort was scaled by ladders and seized by the ambitious Hamud bin Azzan, the son of Azzan bin Qais, the Imam Ahmed`s third son. In 1836 Sultan Said the Great blockaded the city by land and sea with indecisive results.  Before Sultan Said embarked for  Zanzibar, an English warship brought Hamud to Muscat where he was forcibly persuaded to hand over the rule of Sohar to his son Saif, along with his written and signed promise that he would not stir up strife against the Sultan or his children.  In 1849 Hamud renounced his recently adopted life of piety and asceticism long enough to hire his son´s confidential servant to murder his young master (Saif ) in bed.... Public mourning for his son´s dead was forbidden by his father. Hamud assumed power again only to be invited on a pleasure excursion by the Sultan´s son Saiyid Thuwainy, who in breach of faith  and hospitality rarely equalled  in the Arab history (in probable obedience to his father´s instructions) having stilled Hamud´s suspicions, faithlessly betrayed his guest and cousin on the shore near Shinas. Hamud was suddenly seized, bound and conveyed to the frigtate Faiz Allum for shipment to a dungeon in Jalali Fort in Muscat where he died"

From 1852 Sohar formed an integral part of Oman. In 1920 Sohar became again an independent Sultanate separate  from Oman:  The Sohar Sultanate lasted from 1920 until about 1932. In 1920, Sheik Ali Banu Bu Ali, a relative of Sultan Taimur bin Faisal, rebelled in the northern town of Sohar and proclaimed himself Sultan but was deposed by the British in 1932.

1. "Oman a History" by Wendell Phillips published by Longman group Ltd 1971; Bombay Government selections  No XXIV 1856 p 230.
2. Vom Mittelmeer zum Perzischen Golf band II by Max von Oppenheim  page 327-328

The influential life of Tippu Tip

Tippu Tip lived between 1837-1905. His close business partner was Tharia Topan. His real name is Hamad bin Muḥammad bin Jumah bin Rajab bin Muḥammad bin Sa‘īd al Merjebi . His mother, Bint Habib bin Bushir, was a Muscat Arab of the ruling class. His father and paternal grandfather were coastal Swahili who had taken part in the earliest trading expeditions to the interior. He was famously known by the natives of East Africa as Tippu Tib possibly after the sounds that his many guns made. However Tippu Tib is mostly  interpreted as "He who Blinks"

He was the biggest slave and ivory dealer in East Africa. Later he  became a plantation owner and governor, who worked for a succession of sultans of Zanzibar. He led many trading expeditions into Central Africa, involving the slave trade and ivory trade. He constructed profitable trading posts that reached deep into Central Africa. He Also made big contributions to the European expeditions of Livingstone and Stanley. He called The Belgian King Leopold II his new Sultan. He helped and guided several famous western explorers including Livingstone and Stanley into the interior of East Africa. He therefore features in the works of Livingstone and Stanley. Even the British and the German commander von Wismann made keenly use of his influence in East Africa. After 1884 he lived in Singitini (in the Arab part of Kinsingani) and was Gouvernor of Kisingani. Between 1884 and 1887, El Murgebi claimed the Eastern Congo for himself and for the Sultan of Zanzibar, Bargash bin Said el Busaidi. In spite of his position as protector of Zanzibar's interests in Congo, he managed to maintain good relations with the Europeans. When, in August 1886, fighting broke out between the Swahili and the representatives of King Leopold II of Belgium at Stanley Falls, El Murgebi went to the Belgian consul at Zanzibar to assure him of his "good intentions" Although he was still a force in Central African politics, he could see by 1886 that power in the region was shifting.

In early 1887, Stanley arrived in Zanzibar and proposed that Tippu Tip be made governor of the Stanley Falls District in the Congo Free State. Both Leopold and Sultan Barghash bin Said agreed and on February 24, 1887, Hamed bin Mohammed el Murgebi accepted. In 1890 he returned to Zanzibar because of a legal trial against him initiated by the explorer Stanley because of the failed Rescue Emin Pacha expedition. The court in Zanzibar completely cleared Tippu Tip from the accusations by Stanly (in fact the expedition failed due to organizational problems and and conflicts of (western) characters, another minor detail was that Emin Pacha did not want to be rescued....) Tippu Tip  had built himself a trading empire that he then translated into clove plantations on Zanzibar. Abdul Sheriff reported that when he left for his twelve years of "empire building" on the mainland, he had no plantations of his own. However, by 1895, he had acquired "seven plantations and 10,000 slaves and had become one of the riches Africans of his time.

In December 1891 and March 1892 Tippu Tip sold 3800 male slaves and 800 women to the Congo free state. They were to be  freed but had to work as rail-road labourers and soldiers.

Tippu Tip wrote his memoirs in Swahili. These memoirs were translated and published by the German Heinrich Brode: first in a scientific magazine (parallel Swahili German) later it was published in German as a book.

In 1905 the newspaper Times mentioned the death of the notorious slaver Tippu Tip, but no mention was made of the huge contribution Tippu Tip made to the expeditions of Livingstone and Stanley. Nor his extremely important diplomatic contributions....

Another image of this  photo is illustrated on page 130 of reference 19 that describes the Winterton Africana collection (Album 62 item 1) The Coutinho brothers established one of the first commercial photographic enterprises on the island of Zanzibar, some time in the 1870s. Probably of Portugese origin, little is known of their lives. On the back a blue stamp "Coutinho Brothers Photographers Zanzibar" and in pencil written Tippu Tip.

First German edition of Tippu Tip's autobiography translated from Swahili into German by Heinrich Brode

1. Tippu Tip H. Brode , Maisha  ya Hamed bin Muhammed El Murjebi, in Mitteilungen des Seminars für orientalische Sprachen  Abteilung III, Jahrgang V: p 175-277 und VI p1-55 1902/1903
2. Tippu Tip Lebensbild eines zentralafrikanischen Despoten - Nach seinen eigenen Angaben dargestellt" translated by  Dr. Heinrich Brode from Swahili into German and published by Wilhelm Baensch Berlin 1905
3. Brode, Heinrich. Tippoo Tib: The Story of His Career in Zanzibar & Central Africa. Translated by H. Havelock with preface by Sir Charles Elliot. London: Arnold, 1907
4. Leda Ferrant, Tippu Tip and the East African Slave Trade , St Martin´s press New York  1975
5. Heinrich Brode, Tippu Tip: The Story of his career in Zanzibar and Central Africa, The Gallery Publications, Zanzibar 2000
6. David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches , 1857
7. David Livingstone The Last Journals 1874
8. Stanley How I found Livingstone
9. Stanley through the dark continent 1879
10. Stanley The Congo and the founding of the free state
11. Stanley In darkest Afrika
12. Stanley My Kalulu, Prince, King and Slave
13. W.H. Ingrams Zanzibar Its History and People
14. F.B. Pearce Zanzibar, The Island metropolis of Eastern Africa 
15. Christiane Bird, The Sultan´s Shadow One family´s Rule at the crossroads of East and West, Random House New York 2010
16. Bennett, Norman Robert. Arab vs. European: Diplomacy and war in Nineteenth-Century Est Central Africa. New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1986.
17. Sheriff, Abdul. Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770-1873. London, Nairobi, Tanzania, Athens,OH: James Currey, Heinemann Kenya, Tanzania Publishing House, Ohio University Press, 1987
18. Wikipedia Tippu Tip
19. Abyssinia to zanzibar 1850S -1950S Catalogue of the photographic archive of the Winterton Africanan Collection published by Allsworth rare books London Item 62 no1.

Description:

Common print. Illustrated London News (March 1, 1873) copied from the book by capt. Sullivan. Contains sketches of five different types of vessels on a single sheet with text. 15 x 10 inches. The large dhow picture with many slaves stowed is particularly interesting. This is a "dhow variant" of the European slave-ship stowed with many slaves depicted by Brooke. That  illustration became iconic of the Atlantic slave trade and is known as "Brookes slave-ship" published by the Quaker publisher James Philips in 1789. Even more remarkable is that that print was not a realistic representation of a slave-ship but more a symbolic representation that proved to be of enormous iconic power in the fight against slavery.

1. 1873 Dhow chasing in Zanzibar waters and on the Eastern coast of Africa. Narrative of five years experiences in the suppression of the slave-trade (illustration bound after page 114.

Details of the slave treaty and link to the Nyangwe massacre

1. Rahir 2668;
2. Willems 1938;
3. Oman since 1856 by Robert Landen 1967 page 151;
4. Memoirs of an Arabian princess by Bibi Salme (Emily Ruete) published in English in 1888 by Ward and Downey in London (German edition two years earlier)
5. Slavernij en bevrijding in Oost-Afrika in de 19e eeuw, Afrika Museum Berg en Dal, 2003 pages 88-89
6. Osgood in Notes of Travel or recollections of Majunga, Zanzibar Muscat etc. published in Salem (USA)  1854  page 49: "Prior to the ratification of the last named treaty (1847) not less than  twenty thousand 'images of God cut in ebony" were annually brought to island of Zanzibar for traffic and service, and at the present time the importations will fall but very short of that number. They are brought in small dows or garbs of fifteen or twenty tons burden, in each of which a drove of hundred or more are usually stowed one upon the other, men, children and women in one promiscuous bulk. It often happens that several days are required to effect a passage to the island. Meanwhile, all nourishment being cruelly denied them, many perish before arrival. But shame ! burning shame on the race of uncivilized and untutored man!

           What cares the merchant for that crowded hold!

           The voyage pays if half the slaves are sold

            What boots it in that dungeon of despair

            How many beings gasp and pant for air!

            How many creatures draw infected breath,

            And drag out life, aye, in the midst of death?"

Upon unloading the vessel the bodies of the dead are thrown overboard, to drift about the harbour and on to the beach etc.

Details about the slave market in Zanzibar 

The slaves were partly used on Zanzibar itself (clove plantations) and mostly exported to Muscat, India, Persia, Arab counties, but also to Portuguese and French colonies.

The former Slave Market is located on the eastern side of Zanzibar Stone Town, within short walking distance of the main market. Today, the Anglican Cathedral stands on the location of this historical site. Following the closure of the Slave Market by Sultan Barghash in 1873, missionaries bought the site and built the Anglican Cathedral (Cathedral Church of Christ) on this location and freed slaves helped with its construction under the guidance of Bishop Edward Steere (who also designed it) The church is made of coral stone. The altar of the cathedral supposedly stands on the spot of the whipping tree. A window is dedicated to Dr. Livingstone, an important initiator of the abolition of (East African) slavery. The church's crucifix is made from the wood of a tree in Zambia, under which the heart of Livingstone is buried. Despite the abolishment of slave trade in 1873, slaves continued to be kept for many years. Even the slave trade continued on a small scale for many years.

Anglican church in Zanzibar (on the location of the old slave market)

Photo taken by J. Sturtz (1888-1890)

References :  Osgood in Notes of Travel or recollections of Majunga, Zanzibar Muscat etc. published in Salem (USA)  1854  page 50: "When in saleable condition of body the slaves are besmeared with oil, decorated with gold and silver trinkets, and taken to the slave bazaar, an open square about three fourths of a mile from town-centre, where they are offered for sale by auction, in lots or singly. At this human cattle-show, these dull pictures of despair are lashed and goaded into a transient show of life and animation, and made to walk and run and prove their strength as chattels for the service of their fellow men etc..

Page 51: If slaves are sold, their ornaments are removed before they are delivered to their purchasers. Some more fortunate than others of their fellow sufferers, are purchased by Arabs who are remarked for the kind treatment of their slaves, and who, owning generally more slaves than they areable to keep constantly employed, require but small service and allow them a moiety of all wages they may earn etc. Some of the most intelligent of the male slaves are adopted into the families of their Arab masters, educated well, employed as clerks, and often raised to high offices of trust. It by no means unfrequently happens that a lapse of a few years finds him who was entered a poor emaciated slave at the custom house, paying at the same place the required duties on the haggard subjects of his own cruel traffic"

Description:

High resolution photo of British marine staff searching an Omani ship for slaves or weapons. The photo is taken from a British War-ship before the Omani coast.Very rare photo.  Size 10 by 15 cm. Very high resolution photo. Rare photo of such an ocean going dhow (named boom) being searched by the British Navy. In fact all photos of ocean going dhows in the 19th century are rare.

1.  "Gun Running and the North West Frontier" p 50 etc. published in 1911 (Omani smuggling guns through Baluchistan to rebels)
2. "Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar waters" published in 1873 (British Navy searching for slaves being smuggled by the Arabs from the 1870´s onwards in the seas before Oman and Zanzibar)
3.  "vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf " by Max Oppenheim in Berlin 1900 (p320 below) mentions: "Unlangst wurde die aus gewehren bestehende aus England stammende Ladung eines grosses Englischen schiff s in den gewassern von Maskat konfisziert nachdem England, Persien und Indien im jahre 1898 einen vertrag wegen unterdruckung der ausfuhr von waffen und munition von Maskat nach den indsichen und perzischen hafen abgeschlossen haben"
4. On Omani ship types used in the slave trade and smuggling see The London illustrated news item below and Tribute to Oman 1994 (Year of heritage) p 42-55 The end of the Boom years" which discusses "dhow building at Sur" and the types of "Dhows" used in Oman in the past. and the next item in our website.

The eccentric Belgian Nicolas Tobback

The very eccentric Nicolas Tobback (1859-1905) was the resident on behalf of the Congo free-state in Kisangani (Stanley falls)  This photo was probably taken during a visit in Bagamoyo.

From 1886 the Congo Free State was making agreements with Zanzibari for workers and offering commissions to its Belgian agents for "redeemed slaves" that could be used as soldiers. Nicolas Tobback  bought and freed 2000 such slaves from Zanzibari at Stanley Falls alone.  

Sugar-cane is grown on Zanzibar. On the photo we see sugar-cane being processed and cooked to to produce sugar-cane-juice. The popular juice is still being drunk in Zanzibar and Oman today. The Ostrich looking on in the background and hoping to get some leftovers.

Production of sugar-cane juice Zanzibar

Detail of the above photo with the Ostrich looking on

All the workers wear the same cloths and a metal badge with numbers on a string around their neck. It is very likely that these badges are the proof that the person is a free man! Ref 1 confirms this practice in East Africa.  Ref 2 and 3 show a photo with slaves freed up by Nicolas Tobback in Kisingani that also have a badge around their necks.

If anyone knows more about these metal badges  in Zanzibar let us know!!! 

Military campaigns produced large number of captives who were then declared liberated as state soldiers and missionary orphans. Catholic missionaries were actively involved in ransoming slaves and turning them into converts and workers. So probably the people above are freed slaves involved in a work training programme by missionaries, which may also explain why they are clothed identical.

1. Government and labour in Kenya page 4: "A register of freed slaves was kept, each slave being given a brass badge with its registered number on it as proof of his freedom"
2. Slavernij en bevrijding in Oost-Afrika in de 19e eeuw. Historische en hedendaagse aspecten, Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal Netherlands 2003: See photo on page 44 1.17 shows a group of freed slaves also wearing a metal token around their necks! They were freed by the eccentric Belgian Toback (for more details see next reference)

These slaves in Kisingani purchased and freed by Nicolas Tobback from his personal money are also wearing a metal token around their necks.

3. Source of this photo: Koninklijk Museum van het leger en de Krijgsgeschiedenis Brussel: Fotoarchief Tobback doos "Congo Belge avant 1900"; "Een groep slaven omstreeks 1890 in Kisingani vrijgekocht door de Belg Tobback. Zowel koloniale agenten als slaveneigenaars  kregen een premie voor elke bevrijdde , in dienst van de Kongo Vrijstaat  tewerkgestelde slaaf"

The East African slave and ivory trade during the 19th century were linked. Initially slaves and later other carriers were used to transport ivory in caravans from the interior of East Africa to the coast.  This antique photo in our collection shows the giant elephant tusks known as the Kilimonjaro Tusks in front of an antique Omani / Zanzibar door. The Kilimanjaro Tusks remain the largest tusks ever recorded and decorated the entrance to the American compound in Zanzibar known as the "Ivory House" or Nyumba Pembi in 1898. The Kilimanjaro Tusks weighed 237 and 225 lbs, and were bought by E.D. Moore early in the 20th century, and eventually found their way into the Victoria and Albert Museum in England.

These Tusks are said to have belonged to an Elephant bull captured on the slopes of the Kilimonjaro by an Omani  hunter who had trailed it for weeks. They were sold in Zanzibar in 1898, when this photo was taken by the photographer A.C. Gomes & Co

 WMD 'karamojo' Bell's 1923 book 'The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter' he mentions a tusk in the 'South Kensington Museum':  "On our arrival at Mani-Mani we were met by one Shundi--a remarkable man. Karirono by birth he had been captured early in life, taken to the coast and sold as a slave. Being a man of great force of character he had soon freed himself by turning Mohammedan. Thence onward fortune had smiled upon him until at last he was, the recognised Tajir (rich man) of all the traders. Having naturally the intelligence to recognise the value of bluff and from his primitive ancestors the nerve to carry it off, he was at this time the greatest of all traders. Just as he had been a leader while slave-raiding was the order of the day, so now he led when ivory had given place to slaves as a commodity. One other thing that makes him conspicuous, at any rate, in my mind, and that he had owned the slave who who had laid low the elephant which bore the enormous tusks, one of which now reposes in the south Kensington museum. These tusks are still, as far as we know, a world record in size. The ones in London scales 234 lb. or thereabouts. According to Shuundi his slave killed it with a muzzle-loader on the slopes of Kilimanjaro"

A reduced and coloured copy of this photo was used as a postcard by Gomes during the 1905-1907 period.

Richard Burton (ref 3 page 86)  writes regarding Omani / Zanzibar doors: "Koranic sentences on slips of paper fastened to the entrances and an inscription cut into the wooden lintel, secure the house from witchcraft, like the crocodile in Egypt. Whilst a yard of ship's cable drives away thieves. The higher the tenement, the bigger the gateway, the heavier the padlock, and the huger the metal studs, which nail the door of heavy timber, the greater is the owner's dignity. All seems ready for a state of siege. Even the little square holes pierced high up in the walls, and doing duty as ventilators are closely barred. "

References: 

1. W.D.M. Bell The wanderings of an Elephant hunter 1923 London Offices of Country Life Ltd First Edition 1923  Bell was a Scottish adventurer, big game hunter in East Africa
2. Uwe Rau; Mwalim A. Mwalim. Doors of Zanzibar,  HSP Publications 1998. The door of the above antique photo was not listed in this beautiful book with many masterpieces of Omani / Zanzibari woodcarving.
3. Richard Burton, Zanzibar: City, Island and Coast, Tinsley Brothers, London. two volumes.
4. The Early postcards of Zanzibar by P.C. Evans East Africa Study Circle 2005

References:

1. Slavernij en bevrijding in Oost-Afrika in de 19e eeuw, Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal 2003

Description:

Chained convicts at work on a boat. This postcard with the title "convicts at work" was issued in 1904 by Pereira de Lord photo artist in Zanzibar. See Ref 2. The photo was probably taken earlier than in 1904. Again the same chains and and collars used on these workers unloading a ship were previously ere previously used for slaves.

1.  The Early postcards of Zanzibar by P.C. Evans East Africa Study Circle 2005 page 71

Below you find a You-tube film regarding the slavery history of Zanzibar: