Pt.II: Colonialism, Nationalism, the Harem th-20th centuries”

Pt.II: Colonialism,

Nationalism, the Harem

19th-20th centuries”

Week 10:

Nov. 18-22 “Zanzibar – the ‘New Andalous’

Zanzibar: 19th-20th C.

(Zanzibar)


• Context: requires history of several centuries

• Emergence of ‘Swahili’ coast/culture

• 16th century with Portuguese conquests

• 18th century Omani political/military involvement

• 19th century Omani Economic presence


• Story ends with in late 19th century:

• British and German involvement

• Imperial political struggles

• Changing global economy

• Abolition of Slavery


• Story of the Swahili Coast

Ocean Trade:

Tied

East Africa into

Arabian and

Indian

Economies

From

Medieval

Period


• Emergence of ‘Swahili’:

Trade Winds

(Monsoons):

Changed

direction every

Six months

Traders forced

To remain on

East African

Coast


• Emergence of ‘Swahili’:

• Intermarried with African women, established

settlements

• Built mosques, created Muslim communities

• Emergence by 15th century: wealthy ‘Swahili City

States’ scattered along coast

• Language and culture embracing ‘Indian Ocean World’

Swahili Mosque: 19th-20th C.



Swahili Coast: 16th-17th C

• Portugal Creating ‘Ocean Empire’:

• Following on trans-Atlantic expansion

• Developed trade relations with West and Central Africa

• Goal: to recapture Indian Ocean and Asian (China)

commerce from Muslims

• Meant controlling East Africa

Portuguese in East Africa

Swahili Coast: 16th – 17th C.

• 1505: Portuguese successfully sacked Kilwa


• Established influence along most of coast, built

‘Fort Jesus’ (modern Mozambique)


• 1552: Portuguese Captured Muscat – Omani

Capital

Controlled from 1508 – 1650; taken by Persians – retaken by Oman 1741


• Portuguese activity drew Omanis into East Africa:

• Oman traded in Indian Ocean, as far east as China

• Muscat: principal centre for Indian Ocean Trade

• Controlled Arabian Sea

• Portuguese Presence: destroying commerce, basis of

Oman wealth

Portuguese in East Africa

• 18th Century: Oman…

• drove Portuguese from Muscat (1740-50)

• assisted several East African ‘Sultans’ (Swahili City States)

to do the same

• claimed control of the region re: rights to maritime trade

Omani Empire c.18th C

Had rebuilt power

(political, economic):

-at home

- at sea

by late 18th c.

Oman in East Africa: 19th C.

• Oman consolidated under rule of Sayyid Said bin

Sultan (1804-1856):

• concentrated on developing

economy, commerce

• made Zanzibar ‘second capital’

• concluded agreements Britain, France

• built up navy, secured Persian Gulf

[Father of Princess Sayyid Salme ‘Memoire

of an Arabian Princess’, Add’l. Rdg]


• Developed complex plantation economy, rooted in

trade to interior:

• invested in grain plantations on mainland (now Tanzania)

• expanded ivory, slave-trading network to interior

• Indian merchants provided credit for goods that moved as

far inland as (today) eastern Congo


Omani ‘Empire’ in East and Central Africa mid-19th Century


• Sayyid Said’s death (1856) posed succession

problem:

• dispute threatened Oman’s prosperity

• British Viceroy (India) mediated:

• 1861 Omani sultanate ‘divided’

- Oman, Muscat to one son

- Zanzibar, its ‘dependencies’ to the other

[see Bhacker, ‘Family Strife and Foreign Intervention’, Add’l Rdg]


Sayyid Majid bin said

became

Sultan of Zanzibar

(1856-70)


Followed by his brother Sayyid Bargash in (1870-88)


And Khalifa I bin Barghash And Sayyid Ali bin Said

(1888-90) (1890-93)


• Zanzibar was financial centre of empire:

• subsidy built into agreement (Zanzibar to subsidize Oman)

• Oman rejected terms but nevertheless, became

dependent ‘backwater’ for next century

• Zanzibar flourished: ‘the New Andalous’

[see Ghazal, ‘The Other Andalous…”, Resources]

Germany in East Africa: 19th C.

• During Sultan Bargash’s reign: Germans

successfully conquered mainland:

• British worried about Indian Ocean trade

• ‘traded’ for rights to territories of what became Kenya,

Zanzibar and Pemba

Germany in East Africa: 19th C.

German East Africa Co. 19th C.

German East Africa c.1914

British in Zanzibar: 19th C.

• Sultan Sayyid Ali: had little choice

• Be destroyed by the Germans or…

• accept British Protection

• Formal British Protectorate established 1890

• Story of ‘harem’ caught up in history of Abolition efforts

Zanzibar (and Pemba) and adjacent coast

Harem on Swahili Coast: 19th C.

• Looking at ‘harem’ in Zanzibar, Lamu and

Mombasa: both Imperial and Household

• Imperial Harem: Zanzibar

• Bhacker article: story of Hilal, son of Sayyid Said – reflects

political, ‘moral’ role of harem

• ‘Memoir’: specific to Palace harem mid-19th century (Princes

b. 1844, writes of childhood years; leaves Zanzibar 1866) –

reflects ‘life’ in harem but also intrusion Europeans (women,

merchants, British… ultimately German merchant is her

‘downfall’)

Harem in Zanzibar: 19th C.

• Looking at ‘harem’ in Zanzibar, Lamu and

Mombasa: both Imperial and Household

• Household Harems:

• Zanzibar: presence concubines, eunuchs in context ‘slavery’

[Mackenzie, 1895, Resources – also notes trade in eunuchs];

concubinage as special aspect ‘abolition’ (Zanzibar, coast) [

Cave

• Lamu: harem as space, presence concubines [Donely ‘Life in

Swahili Town House’; Add’l Rdg.; also Romero, ‘Where have

all the slaves gone…?’, Resources]

• Mombasa (Kenya): seclusion,concubinage [McDougall,

‘Story of Bi Kaje’, Add’l. Rdgs.]

Zanzibar Women, Stone Town

•


• The Move to Zanzibar:

• Sayyid Said officially transferred his capital to Zanzibar in

1840

• Building to house new administration began as early as late

1820s

• One of first was Mtoni Palace (about 5-6km north of

Zanzibar town) built 1828-30

• [said to be] Home to Sultan, First Wife, “Secondary Wives”,

children and (supposedly) “hundreds of slaves”

Mtoni Palace

•


• Sultan Sayyid Said:

• Had no children by legal wives

• Maintained some 70 souriya (slave concubines): mostly

Circassian, Ethiopian

• Had 25 sons, unknown number of daughers

• Princess Salme one of them: born Mtoni Palace 1844

[‘Memoir’, Add’l. Rdg. Discussion Friday

* postponed* until Monday ]


• Sultan Sayyid Said: one of sons was Hilal

• 1844 Sultan disinherited Hilal

• One theory (based on British consular reports): this was

because Hilal “had violated his father’s harim” [Bhacker]

• Internal evidence (including ‘Memoirs’) suggests rumour

spread by an aunt promoting the case of her son

• Hilal born of Assyrian concubine who died in birth: no one

in harem to take up his case

•


• ‘Aunt’ was Indian woman from Malabar, concubine:

largely successful in pushing case for son Khalid

• “She was uncommonly tall, and possessed a great strength of

will combined with a high degree of common sense... during the

time that Khalid represented my father in his absence, it was

said that it was she who actually governed the country, and that

her son was only her tool. Her advice and counsel in all matters

concerning our family was considered quite indispensable, and

much depended always upon the decision she came to…”

[Bhacker 270]

• Importance of story: shows role of harem and influence of

Sultan’s concubines (umm al-walad)


• Successors to Sayyid Said all had harems:

• Sultan Barghash built Maruhubi Palace 1880-82: 4kms

north of Stone Town

• Said to have been built ‘for his harem’ (‘Second Wives):

50 acres of gardens

• Largely destroyed by fire 1899

Maruhubi Palace

•


• Sultan Barghash:

• Also built Beit al-Ajaib (“house of wonders”) 1883

• after 1890, harem moved there permanently

• Has covered walkways so harem women could move

from one building to another, unseen

• Sultans at the time said to have about 100 concubines

with Eunuchs to attend to them


Beit al-Ajaib or ‘House of Wonders’ [note covered passage ways on right


Mackenzie reported that

Sultan Hamid bin Thawayni

had 15 eunuchs to guard

his harem (1895)


• Household Harems in Zanzibar:

• Know much less: nothing from early century

• British efforts at abolition (more below) reveal what we do

know

• Reports/correspondence from c.1894-5


• Consul General Arthur Hardinge:

• In 1894, wrote concerns about abolition noting it would

cause grave social changes because every ‘every

householder is a slave holder’; losing slaves would

impoverish whole class…

“[and these] impecunious masters would release their

slave concubines into the streets; ‘incapable of work,’ the

concubines would drift into prostitution…”


• Donald Mackenzie (‘Report on Slavery’, 1895): Three categories of slaves:

• Domestic Slaves: principally composed of concubines,

male and female household Slaves, and eunuchs.

• Plantation/farm ‘shamba’ slaves and…

• Town labourers


• Gives idea of slave holdings among well-off

shamba holders:

• Abdallah ben Salam: owns 6 shambas with 3,000 Slaves

on each. He has 1 wife, 5 concubines, and 10 Slaves in

his harem. His wife owns 7 small shambas, 1,600 Slaves

• Tippu Tip [slave trader]: owns 7 shambas and 10,000

Slaves.

• Mohammed ben Salam: owns 3 small shambas with 250

Slaves. He has 15 Slaves besides for domestic purposes.


• Also has note on Eunuchs:

“In nearly all the dhows [small sailing ships] which have been

captured going north in these parts from time to time small

boys were found, mutilated for eunuchs for the harems in

Arabia. I am told that the mortality is very great among these

poor boys, who are operated upon by native doctors. The

Sultan op Zanzibar is said to have fifteen eunuchs to guard his

harem, but I could not learn that any other Arabs have them in

these islands…”

Harem in Lamu: 19th C.

• Lamu: ‘household harem’ revealed through

archaeological work [Donely]

• a famous 17th century Swahili utendi (poem)

'Lament to Greatness', spoke of a declining

Swahili urban civilization which had once

known "harem chambers" ringing with laughter

and the talk of slaves…

• 18th C. Lamu ‘life in a town house’: speaks of the

‘house’ as “physical metaphor of Swahili society”


“People considered to be inferiors (slaves) lived downstairs,

and the master and his family lived upstairs.1 Domestic slaves

were considered to be superior to those who worked on the

plantations and who did not live in the master's house. Female

domestic slaves (madada) lived on the ground floor of the

house. Any of these women could become a concubine,

souriya, of the master, which would bring her and her offspring

freedom. She would then live either upstairs or in a separate

house provided by her husband/master. This would be a step

in the direction of obtaining the status of the free-born

Waungwana. Several Waungwana informants told me that no

relative of theirs would ever live on the lower level of a two-

storey house. …”


“Great care must be taken to try to separate the material

culture related to each group when working on a Swahili two-

storey house site. Within each storey of the house the level of

each room is raised approximately 10 cm as one moves into

the darker and innermost room, the ndani. This is the location

of many rituals and is where the freeborn women must retreat

if a male stranger enters the house, which is rare even today.

The daka, a covered porch with stone benches, the lowest

and outermost area of the house, is associated with public,

male and secular business. Male slaves and Indian or Arab

traders came only to the daka, the area outside the valued

social space of the house. …”


“[While freee-born women]were limited in their access to

the mosque and were not allowed to go with a body to

the place of burial, within the seclusion of the house they

governed the social formation of the society. Most of the

rituals relating to birth, death and weddings were

organized by the Waungwana woman. These were the

practices that could cause and resolve discord within the

extended household.

Men spent little of the day within the female-dominated

house. One man, reported to be 96 years old, said that

he went out every day because it is 'unmanly' to spend

time at home. …”


• Article makes clear: Swahili households

contained ‘harems’:

• Issue of ‘space’ and ‘status’

• Physical seclusion

• Presence of slave concubines (and other domestic

slaves)

• Had ‘permanent’ place in household and some ‘social

mobility’ within it


• Abolition and the role of Harems and Concubines:

• 1822 Moresby Treaty: Oman agreed not to sell

slaves to Christian territories – little impact as

various Muslim markets continued to support trade

• After 1840: establishment Zanzibar as Oman

Capital, development clove and grain plantations –

became ‘African’ market



• 1873: agreed to make sea-borne trade illegal, close main

Zanzibar slave market

• Marketing took place clandestinely

• Slaves continued to be shipped by small dhows, ‘in

darkness’

• Story of ‘Rashid bin Hassani’ [Resources]



• With establishment of Protectorate, issue of

‘slavery’ arose

• Early 1890s: reports largely sympathetic to ‘Arab’

perspective

• Arguments against abolition:

• Arab slave owners would flee to German territories, taking

slaves

• Or… slaves would flee ‘kind’ masters…

• Either way, would destroy local economy ‘and not benefit

anyone’


• After much debate (among British, between British

and Zanzibar): agreement reached

• April 6, 1897 -- Abolition Decree issued by Sultan

• Withdrew legal recognition from status of slavery

• Slaves desiring freedom had to bring ‘request’ to court

(presided over by Muslim judge)

• Authorized compensation for masters who could prove

‘economic hardship’ (would ensue…)

Noted Exception: Concubines …..


• Concubines could only be released from Harems

if they could prove mistreatment:

• More specifically:

“. According to the Ordinance of Emancipation,

'concubines shall not be deemed to be slaves ... and

nothing in this ordinance shall alter the law relating to...

the rights and duties of concubines';

but, if a concubine was mistreated and brought charges

against her master, she was free and no compensation

would be paid for her . . .

•


• Criticism of the legislation:

• Compensation clause: ‘like bribing a criminal to give up

his criminal acts…’

• Sanction of existing ‘harem’ which included slaves

• By September 1897, ‘Friends of the Anti-Slavery

Committee’ complaining that: ‘the Arabs’ were using

concubinage (permitted under the Decree) “as a cloak to

cover up slavery, kidnapping, outrage and cruelty”


• In Lamu: Romero notes that…

• For concubines who produced free children: ordinance

worked in their favour

• were treated as ‘wives’, children inherited (with other

children of master): emancipation would deprive them of

these gains

• in any case, in Lamu NO cases brought against masters

citing ill-treatment


• Exception of the Harem and Concubinage under

Abolition Decree 1897:

• When Decree of 1897 being discussed, rumour that

concubines were to be offered freedom raised

‘considerable feeling’

• British pledged to Arabs that “their family life should at that

time be left undisturbed”, a pledge fulfilled by the

exemption of concubines from the Decree

• Reveals extent to which that had been an issue in

negotiations – underscoring degree to which ‘harem’ and

‘concubines’ part of larger society, not only ‘Palace’


• 1907: "Abolition of the Legal Status of Slavery

Ordinance" established on Mainland

• Extended to Zanzibar: decline in number of slaves as

consequence of previous decrees, especially 1897

rendered objections almost moot

• Went further than previous ordinance in many respects

• BUT: faltered over issues of compensation for masters,

which was to continue until end of 1911 in limited

fashion…


• AND… Concubinage

[following drawn from Cave, 1909 – excerpts, Add’l Rdg; full

article in Resources]

• ‘regarded as a fundamental institution of Islam’

and is therefore seen by ‘Mohammedans’ on

personal level with ‘jealous eye’

• But: number of concubines declining as all

children born after 1890 are ‘free’ (and concubines

must be slaves…)

• Current concubines must be over 19 (implication…

and therefore of less attraction)


• Free Swahili women being taken into

concubinage illegally: further need for action

• Problem: women who had children with masters bore

‘free children’ and had rights to support (food, clothing,

housing, maintenance) and to inheritance from children

• To address this, “ and at the same time to preserve, in

so far as it was possible, Mohammedan family life, it

was provided that a legally-held concubine who

remained with her previous owner, or left him by mutual

consent or by his desire, should retain her legal rights,

although she would forfeit them if she left him against

his wish.


• Second Problem concerned the Child:

• a child born of a concubine who had been freed, and

who was therefore no longer lawfully held under the

Mohammedan Law, would be illegitimate and

consequently lose his rights of inheritance to his father's

estate.

• This injustice has been provided against in the new

Decree


• Third concerned the Master:

• Complaint that if concubine left without Master’s

permission, she would take children which were ‘his’

[this was seen as issue of respecting ‘Mohammedan

Law’]

• Addressed by conceding, “that a concubine who left her

late master without his consent would forfeit, in common

with her other privileges, the right to the custody of her

children of which he was the father.”


• Last concern addressed the oft-repeated issue of

‘immorality’: this generated a lengthy response of

which the following is the essence

“The extent to which concubines will take advantage of

the new Decree to leave their masters is at present only

a matter of conjecture, but in this connection it is to be

observed that the total number of existing legally- held

concubines cannot be a very large one, and that there

appears to be a strong probability of a majority of them

remaining in the harem, either in pursuance of their

personal inclinations, or in view of the disabilities which

they would otherwise incur. …


…Even admitting, however, that the number of those

who elect to start a new life will assume considerable

proportions, it by no means follows that they will lead a

life of immorality; the value of a woman in the Swahili

marriage market is rather enhanced than diminished by

the fact that she has been an inmate of an Arab harem,

and, as there can be no lawful concubine who is not

approaching twenty years of age, and a native of the

tropics matures very early, there cannot be more than a

minority of these women to whom a life of immorality

would still be open.”

[see Cave ‘Excerpt, 1909’, Add’l. Rdgs.]

•

Harem in Mombasa: 20th C.

• Household ‘harems’: colonial Mombasa

Story of

Bi Kaje wa Mwenye Matano

-born c.1890 to poor

Muslim man from Mombasa

and his concubine

[oral history collected

early 1970s by

Margaret Strobel]


• Household ‘harems’: colonial Mombasa

• confirms concubinage not restricted to elites/middle

class

• “Swahili”: emphasized distinctive culture – sees

Omanis as ‘outsiders’

• Tells story of ‘Faida’: slave given to her father (one of

two) along with farm, by woman who raised him


• Story of Faida: my father took her as concubine

“He secluded her; she did not have to go out. …She had

a child, but it died. So, she lived with my father and

when the child died, Faida had no work. My father

didn’t live with her anymore. By our custom, if you

make a person a concubine and then want to let her

go, you should marry her off. You look for another

husband and marry her off. If she is not married

because you, her master, didn’t find a husband for her,

if she stays unmarried and then gets another man, if

she gets pregnant and delivers a child, it must be

yours. …

•


• Story of Faida: my father took her as concubine

…My father said, “I made her a concubine, she had a

child. When she delivered, the child died.” My father

didn’t want her again.

She built a house for herself and lived there…. Then

my father found a person named Msengesi, a slave of

people from Zanzibar. He returned and married Faida.

They stayed here in town. He didn’t build a house; they

rented other people’s houses and lived in them. She

had no children. … ”

•


• Bi Kaje also spoke to ‘seclusion’: buibui

• This is ‘veiled’ long, long-sleeved garment

worn by women today

• Bi Kaje explains that when she was a child,

when secluded women went out, slaves

carried a moving tent around them

• Another idea of ‘taking seclusion’ into public

• With decline in slavery, women developed a

‘seclusion’ specific to the person that did not

require ‘company’ and slave assistants


For several views of the buibui:

http://www.africaimagelibrary.com/page/2?search=bui+bui

http://www.africaimagelibrary.com/page/2?search=bui+bui


• Slaves integral to ‘family’: special status of second, third

generation slaves mzalia – note role of seclusion

• ““Among us, if a person is an mzalia once or twice [that

is, in terms of generations] you treat them like your own

child, if you like. … they say: two times an mzalia and

their father is a freeborn man. But they keep the slave

name because the grandmother was purchased [she is

speaking of a particular slave history here]. We say you

let them free. You write, “This person is free. He is

neither my slave nor anyone else’s. I will not make him

serve.” Now you have set him or her free; he or she is a

freed slave, an mzalia of the lineage, and is not a person

to be ordered about… You seclude her [if a female] like

your own child …”


• Bi Kaje’s Story:

• Confirms continuing of domestic ‘harems’ and

concubinage well into colonial era

• But, at same time, some ‘modernisations’:

‘shopping’ was issue (like Huda Shaawri)

• That said, no mention of eunuchs: would seem

they were specific to Arab/Omani use (not

Swahili)


• Conclusion:

• Issue of ‘harem’ and concubines clearly significant

negotiating point in context of Abolition Politics

• While assumed to be largely one of ‘royalty’ (Palace

Harem), in fact embraced elite Arab and upper class

Swahili

• Looking at impact ‘colonial rule’ through prism of

harem reveals gendered discourse at heart of

negotiations •

•


• Conclusion:

• Subsuming protection of ‘harem/concubinage’ to

‘promises to respect Islam’ allowed for longevity of

slavery, albeit one constantly shifting to adjust to

changing society [‘Bi Kaje’]

•

Documents

Pt.II: Colonialism, Nationalism, the Harem th-20th centuries”