HISTORIA YA TANZANIA NA MAADILI – KIDATO CHA TANO – FULL NOTES
To view the Notes for Form One, click the following links below:
1. DHANA ZA HISTORIA, UTAMBULISHO NA MAADILI YA TAIFA
2. MCHANGO WA HISTORIA NA URITHI KATIKA MAENDELEO
3. FURSA ZA UWEKEZAJI ZITOKANAZO NA VIVUTIO VYA KIHISTORIA NA URITHI
4. JAMII ZA KITANZANIA KABLA YA UKOLONI
5. UHUSIANO WA JAMII ZA KITANZANIA NA JAMII ZINGINE
6. MIFUMO YA KIHISTORIA NA MAADILI KABLA YA UKOLONI
7. NGUVU YA UKOLONI KATIKA KUJENGA MWELEKEO MPYA WA JAMII
8. MCHANGO WA UKOLONI KATIKA MFUMO WA MAADILI YA KITANZANIA
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Pre-History of Tanzania
The greatest part of the known history of mainland Tanzania has been pieced together from the oral tradition of tribal story-telling, explorers’ tales and archaeological remains, although written records exist dating back to the 1st century AD describing trade and lifestyles on the islands and coastal regions.
Fossil evidence has also been found of life many thousands of years earlier, including some of the earliest known evidence of proto-human ancestors, various types of hominid, which earned Tanzania the strange accolade of perhaps being ‘The Cradle of Mankind’.
Africa is geographically ancient. This vast and diverse continent is thought to have once been a major component of the Gondwanaland supercontinent that drifted apart in the Mesozoic period, 150 – 100 million years ago.
The ancient rock strata of Tanzania have retained a historical record of buried evidence, only now partially revealed by time and science. Petrified dinosaurs, such as the giant Brachiosaurus and tiny Kentrosaurus, were found on Tendaguru mountain in the region of Lindi in southeast Tanzania in 1912, (now removed to the Natural Museum of Humboldt), and one of the oldest known examples of bipedal hominids, immortalised in a set of fossilised footprints, were found at Olduvai Gorge in Northern Tanzania.
German East Africa Company
After the Arabs, the Portuguese and the French marked their presence in Tanzania, the country became a place of interest for German forces. In the wake of its colonial expansion to increase its market, the country turned its attention toward Tanzania. The first invasion conducted by the Germans resulted in the surrender of many Tanzanian chiefs due to their lack of modern warfare technology.
Apart from this, the land was already ravaged by the world’s biggest colonialist, Great Britain. After the German invasion, the land was divided equally between the British and Germans per the Anglo-German Agreement of 1886. The Germans tried to follow British expansion methods and got into trouble because of a Muslim uprising in the region they held. However, this was brought under control with the help of the British.
Soon, the German government realized the ineffectiveness of the German East Africa Company and brought the territories under its control. Though communication was initially an issue, the formation of the railway helped matters. Along with local plants, sisal, a fibrous plant, was introduced to the country, which led to the formation of the country’s most valuable business. Schools were built in the country to help with the shortage of educated and skilled labor.
In the previous chapter we discussed the development of different types of means of subsistence, based on both the continuing expansion of new technologies such as agriculture, animal husbandry, and metal working. Communities specialised in foraging, keeping domestic livestock, and agriculture primarily based on the particular environments in which they lived. This chapter explores the development of socio-political orgnisations in Tanzania. The first section provides a general account of different types of socio-political organisations while the second section provides details, for different parts of the country, of specific sociopolitical organisations that developed in the pre-colonial period. We argue that the…
While trade had reached deep into the interior of East Africa for centuries from the Swahili settlements on the coast, its intensity remained low until the late 18th century. The rapid expansion of demand for tropical goods and for labour to produce them increased this intensity throughout the region. The Omani Sultanate eventually based in Zanzibar became the agent for this increase. Large trade caravans left from the coast intent on bringing back ever more amounts of ivory and increasingly captives to work as slaves on plantations on the East African coast, on islands in the Indian Ocean, and even…
A commodity is a product produced primarily for sale. It is differentiated from a product produced mainly for consumption or use. Communities that existed in Tanzania between 1000 and 1800 A.D produced commodities mainly for consumption in order to survive. Food crops as millet, sorghum, bananas, beans and sweet potatoes, for example, were produced for consumption. In modern Tanzania, cash crops like cotton, coffee and sisal are commodities because they are produced for sale. Of course, food crops can also function as commodities if a market for them exists, but in times when human porters served as the main means…
The cradle of mankind
Tanzania is home to some of the oldest human settlements on earth. Fossils found in and around Ol Duvai Gorge in northern Tanzania (an area often referred to as “The Cradle of Mankind”) include Paranthropus bones thought to be over 2 million years old. Also in Ol Duvai are the oldest known footprints of the immediate ancestors of humans. Known as the Laetoli footprints, they are estimated to be about 3.6 million years old.
The hunter-gatherers are replaced by the Cushitic, Bantu and Nilotic peoples
10,000 years ago, Tanzania is thought to have been populated by hunter-gatherer communities, probably Khoisan speaking people. Between three and six thousand years ago, they were joined by Cushitic-speaking people who came from the north and introduced basic techniques of agriculture, food production, and later, cattle farming.
About 2000 years ago, Bantu-speaking people began to arrive from western Africa and developed ironworking skills and new ideas of social and political organization. Later, Nilotic pastoralists arrived and continued to migrate to the area until the18th century.
The early coastal history
Travelers and merchants from the Persian Gulf and Western India began visiting the East African coast early in the first millennium CE and by the beginning of the second millennium CE the coastal Swahili towns were conducting a thriving trade between Africa and the other countries that bordered the Indian Ocean. From c. 1200 to 1500 CE, the town of Kilwa, on Tanzania’s southern coast, became the centre of what was termed the “golden age” of Swahili civilization. Islam was practiced on the Swahili coast as early as the eighth or ninth century CE.[
