Stone Town - History

History

The first stone houses in Stone Town were probably built in the 1830s, gradually replacing an earlier fishing village. At the time, the Zanzibar Archipelago was controlled by the Sultanate of Oman.

In 1840, Sultan Said bin Sultan moved his seat from Muscat, Oman, to Stone Town, which thus entered an era of quick development as the new capital of the Sultanate of Oman and Zanzibar. In 1861, as a consequence of a war of succession within the Omani royal family, Zanzibar and Oman were separated, with Zanzibar becoming an independent sultanate under Sultan Majid bin Said.

In the 19th century Stone Town also flourished as a trading centre. It was especially renowned for the commerce of spices (mostly cloves) and slaves. Around middle of the century, the sultanate had a close relationship with the British; David Livingstone, for example, is known to have stayed in Stone Town in 1866 while he was preparing his final expedition into the interior of East Africa. In the same period, several immigrant communities from Oman, Persia and India formed as a consequence of the town's intense commercial activity.

In the last decades of the century, the Sultans of Zanzibar gradually lost their possessions in mainland East Africa to the German Empire and the United Kingdom. In 1890, with the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, Zanzibar itself became a British protectorate. In 1896, a sudden rebellion of the Zanzibari Omanis against the British rule led to the Anglo-Zanzibar War, which is remembered as the shortest war in history: the Sultan surrendered after 45 minutes of naval bombardment of Stone Town by the Royal Navy.

During the period of British protection, Stone Town remained a relatively important trading centre, although the British gave privileges to Mombasa and Dar es Salaam as their trading stations in East Africa. The slave trade was abolished in 1897.

In 1964, Stone Town was the theater of the Zanzibar Revolution that caused the removal of the sultan and the birth of a socialist government led by the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP). Several refugees, especially Arabs and Indians, escaped the island as a consequence of the revolution. When Tanganyika and Zanzibar combined to form Tanzania, Stone Town kept its role as a capital and government seat for Zanzibar, which was declared to be a semi-autonomous part of the new nation.