Lake Tanganyika : Commercial Frontier in the Era of Long-Distance Commerce, East and Central Africa, C.1830-1890
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Gooding, Philip (2017) Lake Tanganyika : commercial frontier in the era of long-distance commerce, East and Central Africa, c.1830-1890. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/24341 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this PhD Thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This PhD Thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this PhD Thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the PhD Thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full PhD Thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD PhD Thesis, pagination. i Lake Tanganyika: Commercial Frontier in the Era of Long-Distance Commerce, East and Central Africa, c.1830-1890 Philip Gooding Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2017 Department of History SOAS, University of London ii Declaration for SOAS PhD thesis I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the SOAS, University of London concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Signed: Philip Gooding Date: 06 February 2017 iii Abstract This thesis uses Lake Tanganyika as a case study to analyse long-distance commerce in East and Central Africa during the period c.1830-1890. This era is loosely demarcated by the arrival of traders from the Indian Ocean Coast to the lakeshore at its beginning, and the imposition of European colonial rule at its end. Its central argument is that the shores of Lake Tanganyika represented a frontier region in this spatial and temporal context. The nature of this frontier was intimately tied to Lake Tanganyika’s specific environmental characteristics. People migrated to and across the lake for protection and because of the commercial opportunities that were available to those who did so. This promoted cultural exchange, political instability, and commercial opportunity – themes that are common in other analyses of frontiers, borderlands, and other large bodies of water. The development of the frontier was tied to the ways in which lakeshore populations and long-distance traders encountered each other within the context of the lakeshore environment. The results of these encounters led to the emergence of distinct cultural forms. These were expressed via a collective demand for certain commercial goods in an integrated lakeshore market, pervasive religious beliefs and rituals, and types of settlement that re-shaped the lakeshore’s position in relation to elsewhere in East and Central Africa. The coalescence of these cultural forms may be regarded as the development of a ‘frontier culture’ that set the lacustrine region apart from nearby landward regions. Such a focus on cultural exchange sheds new light on the encounter between long- distance traders and other interior populations, which is often understood in terms of economic transactions and political upheaval. The Lake Tanganyika case study, therefore, allows for the addition of a cultural layer to some of the prevailing perspectives regarding long-distance commerce in East and Central Africa. iv Contents iii. Abstract. iv. Contents. v. Acknowledgements. vii. Glossary of Terms and a Note on the Translation of East and Central African Words. xi. List of Maps. 1. Chapter 1: Lake Tanganyika as a Nineteenth-Century Frontier. 48. Chapter 2: Lacustrine and Long-Distance Commercial Networks. 96. Chapter 3: The Lacustrine and Long-Distance Economies. 127. Chapter 4: Lacustrine Craft: Canoes, Dhows, and Iron Boats. 170. Chapter 5: Labour: “Complex and Conflicting Gradations of Servitude.” 219. Chapter 6: Settlements of Power: The Effects of ‘Proto-Urbanism’ on the Lakeshore. 258. Conclusion. 261. Bibliography. v Acknowledgements I am indebted to two organisations and a great many individuals for the completion of this thesis. I am thankful to the Wolfson Foundation for funding this thesis and providing numerous opportunities to build networks amongst my peers. I am very privileged to be a member of the first cohort of Wolfson scholars. I am also thankful to the School of Oriental and African Studies for accepting and nurturing me since I enrolled as a first-year undergraduate student nearly eight years ago. In 2008, I was lucky enough to enrol in an undergraduate course at SOAS entitled Introduction to the History of Africa. This was my first year at university and it was taught by Dr. Richard Reid. Since then, the now Prof. Reid has marked countless of my essays, supervised two of my dissertations, and read innumerable drafts of this thesis. I hope to be able to pass on the inspiration, time, and patience he has given me to someone else in the future. Also deserving of special thanks at SOAS are my tutors John Parker and Marie Rodet, as well as William Clarence Smith. John and William, especially, have been wonderful sources of information, encouragement, and guidance. I would also like to thank Gwyn Campbell and everyone at the Indian Ocean World Centre (especially Peter Hynd for proof-reading this thesis at a critical stage of its development), Hannah Whittaker, Geert Castryck, Stephen Rockel, and Karin Pallaver for welcomes, ideas, friendships, and kind words. I am thankful to numerous people who aided me with my fieldwork in 2013-2014. Hamisi Hababi in Ujiji and Fabrice Munezero in Burundi were better and kinder research assistants than I could ever have hoped to have had before I arrived in East Africa. Hababi and Fabrice, please pass on my thanks also to all the wonderful men and women who you introduced me to and who divulged their histories to me. Thanks also to Ivy Gathambo and Désiré Kathihabwa for translating the fruits of these interviews into English. Also, thanks to Chris, Lou and everyone else at Lake Shore Lodge in Kipili, whose hospitality picked me up vi when I was at one of my lowest ebbs. Finally, special thanks also go to Fritz Stenger and François Richard at the White Fathers’ archive, Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi and Tom Morren at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, and everyone at the SOAS special collections, Zanzibar National Archives, and the Royal Geographical Society for going out of their way to accommodate me at their libraries and archives. I also have numerous family members to thank. To Mum, Dad, Mike, and Ruth, Granny, Grandma, and Grandads (x2), thank you for the support, encouragement, proof- reading, and meals in times of need throughout my time at university. And finally (and most importantly), thanks to Émilie, my wife, who I met in Summer 2012, and who married me on a beach in Zanzibar the following year. Little did she know at the time that being my wife would involve becoming a proof-reader, translator, and source of emotional support along the rocky road that is doctoral research. She often joked that it was not just me doing this thesis, but ‘us,’ given how much it has impacted both of our lives over the last four years. In reality, this was not far from the truth. vii Glossary of Terms and a Note on the Translation of East and Central African Words For the most part, I have taken out all Swahili prefixes, such as m and wa, that determine the nature of the object as well as singularity and plurality. These are replaced by English terms that achieve the same function. The one exception to this rule is the use of ‘U’ as a prefix in the names of regions. This allows for a linguistic distinction when discussing the region and when discussing objects or people from that region. In most cases, describing an article as from a region is achieved by dropping the U prefix. Thus, a canoe made in Ugoma is a ‘Goma canoe’ and a person from Ujiji is a ‘Jiji person,’ or, simply, ‘Jiji.’ Manyema, Marungu, Bemba, the Mrima, and Itawa are the only regions that this thesis refers to that do not have this U prefix in any of the primary or secondary sources. In such instances when these regions are discussed, attempts are made to make the distinction between their articles and their geographical spaces especially clear. Using terminology in this way is consistent with current historical trends in the interior of East and Central Africa. For example, people from Buganda are now usually referred to as the Ganda, rather than the Baganda, while people from Unyamwezi are now usually referred to as the Nyamwezi, rather than the Wanyamwezi. However, it is understood by the author that such patterns are not reflective of trends on East Africa’s Indian Ocean Coast. For example, ‘freeborn’ or ‘gentlemen’ residents of the coast during the nineteenth century are still usually referred to as wangwana, rather than ngwana. This means that, when ‘the wangwana’ is written, it literally translates as ‘the the ngwana.’ Similarly, writing ‘an mngwana’ to denote one freeborn person or gentleman literally translates as ‘an an ngwana.’ I seek to avoid the cumbersome nature of such translations by using current methods of translation from the interior. Given that this thesis pertains primarily to a region that is in the interior, this seems appropriate.