45

NAVIGATING THE EARLY

MODERN WORLD
Swahili polities and the continental–
oceanic interface

Jeremy Prestholdt

Introduction
This chapter explores the socioeconomic and political reconfiguration of the Swahili world
from the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean until the relocation of the Sultan of
Oman-Zanzibar’s capital to eastern Africa in the nineteenth century. The early modern period
was one of upheaval and transition for Swahili-speakers. Swahili polities experienced sustained
violence and most lost both economic and political autonomy. External powers aggressively
pursued their interests in the Swahili world, which exacerbated local frictions and drew poli-
ties into multiple imperial spheres of interaction. Yet, Swahili-speakers to a degree shaped the
social and economic networks of the era. New or expanded networks linked Swahili polities
to other eastern African societies, regions well beyond the Indian Ocean basin and global intel-
lectual currents. These, in turn, contributed to a Swahili cultural renaissance and altered social
hierarchies in ways that would reverberate into the twentieth century.
Between the sixteenth and early nineteenth century Swahili polities, which included city-
states, tributaries and smaller communities, struggled to maintain control of eastern Africa’s
interface with the Indian Ocean region. New transoceanic political spheres enveloped most
Swahili polities. Portuguese aggression in the Indian Ocean forced Swahili polities into a colo-
nial political matrix wherein Lisbon, Goa and local Portuguese officials shaped the political and
economic lives of coastal residents. Portuguese colonial rule not only curtailed Swahili political
autonomy, it also constrained economic activities and diminished the wealth of entrepôts such
as Kilwa and Mombasa. However, local circumstances were never simply determined by the
interests and actions of external states. Swahili engaged in new social and economic relation-
ships beyond the control of exogenous powers, while conflicts within and between Swahili pol-
ities dramatically altered the political landscape. Exogenous powers, including the Portuguese,
Ottomans and Omanis, exploited these divisions to further their geopolitical interests, but the
socioeconomic and political interests of Swahili-speakers likewise shaped the course and con-
sequences of foreign interventions. Indeed, foreign and Swahili interests at times overlapped,
and Swahili actors exerted influence as the confidants of foreign agents or conduits of new
commercial relationships.

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The Omani presence in eastern Africa would compromise Swahili control of the all-
important continental–oceanic interface, limiting Swahili autonomy and contributing to the
rise of Zanzibar as an entrepôt and seat of power under Omani Busaidi rule. The concentration
of economic activity at Zanzibar reoriented the Swahili world, facilitating or strengthening
ties with the African interior, southern Arabia, South Asia, Europe and the Americas. Since
merchants from Muscat, Kutch, Gujarat and Bombay dominated these transoceanic networks,
Zanzibari rule brought a definitive end to Swahili control of the continental–oceanic inter-
face as well as the political autonomy of most Swahili polities. Nevertheless, Swahili polities
maintained multifaceted, reciprocal relationships with their continental neighbours. Swahili-
speakers also ventured well beyond the historical boundaries of the Indian Ocean. Intellectual
and spiritual impulses from the Hadramawt and Oman impacted literacy, social relations and
Islamic practice in the Swahili world (Bang, this volume). Interior societies pioneered routes
to the coast. During the nineteenth century an unprecedented number of slaves of mainland
origin integrated into coastal polities; in the process, they, along with other recent arrivals to
the coast, affected local social hierarchies and the Swahili language.

Networks and frictions

As we see throughout this volume, Swahili polities occupied an advantageous position at the
intersection of eastern African, Indian Ocean and Red Sea economic spheres. At the turn of
the sixteenth century Swahili-speakers maintained networks of commercial and social relation
facilitated by oceanic travel. These created a taut web of interaction within the ‘Swahili cor-
ridor’ from Barawa to Sofala, the Comoros Archipelago and northwest Madagascar (Horton
and Middleton 2000). Rather than harnessing large-scale forms of production, powerful Swahili
city-states such as Pate and Mombasa managed and profited from their favourable geographical
position. Although such polities claimed little territory, they benefited greatly as conduits for
eastern African consumer demands and extra-African demands for regional products.
Coastal residents travelled widely in the years before the Portuguese arrival and diverse
foreigners, from southern Arabia in particular, settled in Swahili polities. Merchants and sailors
from Kilwa, Malindi and Mombasa established themselves in Madagascar, Cambay and at least
as far as Malacca. Eastern African seafarers ventured south as well, perhaps even to the Western
Cape (Pires 1944: 46–7; Pouwels 2002: 408; Vernet 2015). Thus, the Swahili language was
spoken as far south as Inhambane in modern Mozambique (Theal 1964: 131). Swahili mer-
chants maintained a significant presence along the Zambezi River and on Sofala Island, a gold
emporium that paid tribute to the Sultan of Kilwa. To the west, Swahili merchants were scat-
tered deep into the Sofalan hinterland and Zimbabwe plateau (Gregson 1973; Newitt 1995;
‘Relação’). On the northern coast, the larger polities of Kilwa, Mombasa, Malindi and Pate
enjoyed regular and direct relations with both southeast Africa and distant Indian Ocean ports.
The most economically important among these distant port cities were those of Gujarat in
northwest India (Alpers 1976). Cambay, Diu and Surat supplied the Swahili world with the
largest share of cloth, which was the most important category of imported goods and critical to
local social and political relationships.
Throughout the early modern era Swahili polities placed a premium on commercial free-
dom and political autonomy (Vernet 2002: 109). Before the arrival of the Portuguese, a defin-
ing characteristic of the Swahili world was the open port (Sheriff 2010). Political elites collected
customs, but ports, under the control of autonomous or tributary polities, were generally open
to all. Ports served as re-export nodes for regional ivory, lumber, grains and other foodstuffs
(Pouwels 2002). Politically, the coastal region was a patchwork of polities that maintained

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autonomous ‘spheres of jurisdiction’, as one Patean would later explain, and close relationships
with mainland societies (Barendse 2009a: 115). Powerful city-states, such as Mombasa and
Kilwa, demanded tribute from other Swahili polities and islands. These states also depended on
the productive capacity of hinterland agricultural zones, including mainland economic partners
(Vernet 2004). To facilitate such relationships, powerful city-states frequently themselves paid
tribute – often in the form of cloth – to their mainland economic partners. Urbanites also
produced goods of high value, from transoceanic vessels to cotton and silk textiles. For exam-
ple, by unthreading Chinese and Gujarati silks, weavers in Pate maintained a supply of valu-
able silk thread from which they produced textiles celebrated throughout eastern Africa. Both
women and men across the Swahili world wore Pate cloth. It found eager buyers as far away
as the upper reaches of the Zambezi and later among Portuguese colonists. In the seventeenth
century, Pate cloth was so popular in the south that Portuguese merchants found it difficult to
conduct business on the Zambezi River without offering tribute in Pate goods to local rulers
(Santos 1891: 380).
Swahili royal lineages often dominated the political sphere, but hereditary heads of state,
both men and women, also belied a more diffuse political leadership. Councils or other civic
bodies frequently decided succession disputes, and in early-eighteenth-century Pate the sultan
shared power with an assembly consisting of his relatives and other aristocrats, councillors and
merchant elites (Barendse 2009a: 115). At Lamu a council of ward elders, or Yumbe, governed
the city-state for much of the early modern era (Pouwels 1991: 372). Patricians frequently
deposed hereditary heads of state as well. The wealth that a single merchant or upwardly mobile
mercantile lineage could accrue through overseas trade empowered a substantial stratum of
non-royal patricians to accumulate clientele and prestige, which they sometimes used to chal-
lenge hereditary rulers. Such power contests frequently turned violent. In this complex politi-
cal milieu of transoceanic networks and political volatility, territorial identities had significant
political salience. Both Swahili local histories and Portuguese observers recorded that while
diverse foreigners integrated into Swahili polities, the local lineage of any political aspirant was
a strong legitimating factor in claims to political power (‘Arabic History’: 85).
At the end of the fifteenth century, the fractured political landscape of the Swahili world mil-
itated against concerted resistance to Portuguese aggression. After the arrival of the Portuguese
in 1498, most Swahili polities were attacked, looted and subjugated. While Swahili polities
influenced and conquered their neighbours long before the early modern era, Europeans intro-
duced novel forms of domination and exploitation: colonisation, trade monopolies and a pass
system designed to regulate regional commerce. As elsewhere in the Indian Ocean region,
Portuguese administrators sought either to gain the allegiance of larger Swahili polities or install
client monarchs. In both instances they developed trade monopolies and extracted onerous
tribute (Pearson 1998; Alpers 2014). Portuguese interests were both strategic and economic.
Strategically, eastern Africa – Mozambique Island specifically – offered an important way-station
on the road between Portugal and India. Mozambique Island’s position was also opportune for
Portuguese efforts to extract maximum wealth from eastern Africa. Ideally located just above
the mouth of the Zambezi River and within the monsoon pattern, Portuguese administrators
focused their energies on Mozambique and the gold trade. As a result, they initially neglected
the northern Swahili world. When they did turn greater attention to northern polities in the
late sixteenth century, Portuguese authorities concentrated on drawing revenue in the form of
customs duties and tribute.
The Portuguese abolished the long-standing convention of the open port. Instead, they
regulated commercial vessels through a pass system, which channelled trade to Portuguese
customs houses and so generated revenue for the colonial administration. Additionally, the

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Portuguese Crown monopolised the trade in high-value items such as gold and ivory. Given the
wealth generated by these two trades, the southern coast, Sofala and Mozambique specifically,
remained the focus of Portuguese economic policy throughout the early modern period. While
the Estado da Índia attempted to manipulate regional trade, to a great degree the Portuguese
integrated into the pre-existing Indian Ocean economic system (Pearson 1998). More precisely,
Portuguese factors depended on Gujarati textiles and Swahili merchants to secure gold and
other African exports. Swahili merchants of Kilwa and Sofala received cloth on credit, often
by Luso-Indians, and took it far inland to the markets of Manyika, Butua, Tete and Sena. This
collaboration with Swahili patricians encouraged lax commercial policy enforcement. When
the punishment of Swahili merchant elites might damage Portuguese trade interests, Portuguese
factors and captains often chose to overlook the commercial transgressions of coastal merchants
(Silva da Rego 1962–1989, 2: 328).
Portuguese colonial rule reoriented the political landscape of the Swahili world. By the end
of the sixteenth century nearly all Swahili polities were subject to a single political entity: the
Portuguese Estado da Índia with its administrative centre in Goa. The Estado da Índia ruled
through local elites, ideally pliable sultans of their choosing. Yet Swahili political leaders also
influenced Portuguese colonial expansion. Malindi offers a case in point. After Vasco da Gama’s
bombardment of Mombasa in 1498, Malindi’s patricians saw the Portuguese as potential allies in
wresting the lucrative Gujarati trade from Mombasa. Thus, when Portuguese interlopers arrived
at Malindi in the wake of the Mombasa attack, the city-state offered its assistance and allegiance.
Thereafter, Malindians collaborated with Portuguese officials and drew upon Portuguese naval
power to further their commercial interests. For example, at Malindi’s request Portuguese offi-
cials ordered attacks on Angoche and Mombasa (Silva da Rego 1962–1989, 7: 133; Pearson
1998: 132). Through their alliance with the Portuguese, Malindians gained tribute in the form
of foodstuffs from the island of Pemba, the region’s principal supplier of rice. The Portuguese
also built a customs house in Malindi, which ensured that the city received a greater share
of regional commercial traffic. Most importantly, in the aftermath of the Ottoman attack on
Mombasa (see below), the Estado da Índia granted the Malindian sultan the Mombasan throne,
one-third of Mombasa’s lucrative customs revenues and the honorific title Brother-in-Arms to
the King of Portugal (Strandes 1961: 165).
Faza developed a close relationship with the Portuguese as well. The northern city-state
rebelled against Portuguese tribute in the sixteenth century, but Fazans later turned to the
Portuguese and Augustinian missionaries as a bulwark against powerful neighbours in the Lamu
Archipelago. In 1606 the Sultan of Faza, Bwana Mufama Luvali, gave a ‘considerable sum’ for
the construction of a Portuguese church and even ‘carried on his shoulders stones and mortar’
to build it. The Augustinians proved an expedient defence against regional aggressors. As the
sultan explained, ‘in the church I have walls which guard my city; and, in the Fathers, soldiers to
defend it’ (Freeman-Grenville 1974: 161–2). Luso–Swahili marriages also strengthened political
and economic partnerships, though such unions were infrequent. The most famous marriage
was that of Sultan Yusuf bin Hasan of Mombasa and Malindi – later renamed Dom Jerónimo
Chingulia – to a Portuguese woman while in Goan exile (Prestholdt 2001).
Yusuf bin Hasan’s story additionally highlights ways in which Portuguese administrators
undermined their Swahili allies. Soon after the Malindian royal house gained the Mombasan
throne, the Captain of Mombasa orchestrated the murder of Yusuf’s father – a rash action based
on rumours that he was planning a rebellion. Though a Portuguese tribunal later confirmed the
deceased sultan’s innocence, Yusuf was sent to Goa. There, missionaries groomed the young
prince to become a malleable figurehead. On his return to Mombasa, Yusuf witnessed the
restrictions placed upon even the most privileged Swahili leaders as well as the indignities they

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frequently suffered. Rights to customs duties and inherited honours could be quickly rescinded
and overbearing Portuguese officials freely dispensed with Crown policies favourable to Swahili
patricians. Therefore, in 1631, the sultan rebelled, renounced Christianity and reclaimed the
name Yusuf bin Hasan. With Musungulo allies from the city’s hinterland, Sultan Yusuf regained
control of Mombasa and entreated all Christians to convert to Islam. ‘Now we have our freedom
and our law’, he explained to a relative who was reluctant to give up Christianity (Freeman-
Grenville 1980: 85). The rebellion soon spread well beyond Mombasa, but after appealing to
the Ottomans and holding off a Portuguese counter-attack, Yusuf fled to Arabia and then to
Pate, Madagascar and Ndzwani (Anjouan). As further conflict between Portuguese forces and
multiple Swahili polities ensued, Yusuf bin Hasan retreated to the Red Sea where he likely per-
ished (Strandes 1961: 169–71, 183–9; Mbuia-João 1990; Vernet 2005: 198–205).
Yusuf bin Hasan’s overtures to the Ottoman Empire reveal another dimension of transoce-
anic relations in the early modern era. Specifically, Yusuf hoped that his request would encour-
age the Ottomans to reprise their assaults on Portuguese colonial possessions in East Africa. The
Ottomans offered Sultan Yusuf little more than a flag, but Ottoman interest in East Africa was
once much greater. In the 1580s the Swahili world became part of a renewed Ottoman geopo-
litical initiative that aimed in part to dismantle Portugal’s Indian Ocean empire. With control of
the Red Sea and a naval base in Yemen, Ottoman strategists in Mocha turned their attention to
East Africa. Setting out from southern Arabia in early 1586, commander Mir Ali Beg travelled
down the Swahili coast and gained the allegiance of most polities before returning to Yemen.
Subsequent Portuguese reprisals encouraged several Swahili political leaders to send emissaries
to Mocha requesting Ottoman military aid. When a second Ottoman fleet ventured down the
Swahili coast it mounted an audacious assault on Mombasa. After capturing the city, Ottoman
forces under Mir Ali Beg constructed a tower at the seafront and armed it with siege cannon.
Yet, in a surprising turn of events, Zimba raiders allied with the Portuguese and forced the
Ottomans from their stronghold. With the defeat of the Ottomans, Portuguese officials fortified
Mombasa, completing the seemingly impregnable citadel of Fort Jesus in 1596 (Casale 2010:
163–78). The Portuguese presence across the Swahili world nevertheless remained minimal, and
Portuguese military strength would depend on Swahili support for the next century.
While Swahili–Ottoman efforts to eject the Portuguese failed, Omani aid proved more
decisive. After a long and bitter war, Omanis regained Muscat from the Portuguese in 1650.
Thereafter, Oman became an influential maritime power in its own right. This would have
long-term repercussions for the Swahili world as several polities turned to Oman for assis-
tance. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the Swahili coast became a central focus
of Omani efforts, though Swahili leaders were not universally supportive of Omani military
intervention. Indeed, as Thomas Vernet (2002) has shown, many political elites continued to
assist the Portuguese Crown and this exacerbated tensions between Swahili polities. Pate pro-
vided a base for Omani operations, and the resulting alliance paid great dividends for the city-
state. With the Omani intervention the Portuguese were expelled from the Lamu Archipelago
and, from the 1660s, Pate dominated the northern coast. Additionally, Pate’s ability to expand
the trade in slaves from Madagascar and ivory from the northern mainland – the latter exported
to Surat through Omani merchants – brought renewed prosperity to the city-state (Vernet
2002: 97, 2009: 47).
In the second half of the seventeenth century Swahili–Omani forces attacked Portuguese
installations as far south as Mozambique Island and slowly regained much of the coast. This
period of conflict culminated in the 1696 siege of Mombasa, the final Portuguese stronghold
on the northern coast. The siege itself was a complicated affair that evidenced regional rival-
ries and Swahili efforts to control the continental–oceanic interface. Frustrated by Portuguese

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trade policies, a faction of Mombasan merchant elites and allied Mijikenda leaders orchestrated
the siege with aid from a coalition of Omani, Patean, Bajuni, Somali and Galla militants. The
defenders were likewise a diverse group that included Malindian, Fazan, Bajuni and other resi-
dents of Mombasa assisting a small Portuguese garrison. As the siege extended into 1697, com-
mand of Fort Jesus passed to a majority female militia under the leadership of a Fazan prince.
But after nearly 33 months Mombasa fell to the combined Swahili–Omani forces (Freeman-
Grenville 1980; Strandes 1961).
The end of Portuguese rule offered Omani strategists an entrée into the wider eastern
African coastal region. Like earlier Portuguese administrators, Omanis sought both politi-
cal power and economic access in East Africa. The Omani sultanate placed garrisons in Pate,
Mombasa, Zanzibar and Kilwa. Soon, local Omani administrators such as the Mazrui dynasty
in Mombasa exerted significant influence in commercial affairs. They gained unprecedented
control over the trade in Gujarati cloth and ivory, while the sultanate embargoed towns that
remained under Portuguese control. As with the Portuguese, Omani policies had the effect of
limiting Swahili political autonomy and commercial freedom (Vernet 2002, 2005). At the turn
of the eighteenth century, therefore, Swahili polities faced a familiar quandary. While some
remained divided on the issue of Omani influence, Omani rule became a significant catalyst
for regional cooperation. Where resentment ran highest, as in Kilwa, patricians turned to the
Portuguese for assistance. Ultimately, even Oman’s erstwhile ally, the Sultan of Pate, peti-
tioned Goa for armed intervention against the Omani garrisons. Oman was also wracked by
internal conflict. Two decades of civil war between Yarubi and Busaidi lineages divided Oman
and Omani Arab factions in eastern Africa (Vernet 2002: 102–8; Strandes 1961: 242–3). This
insecurity and appeals to the Estado da Índia, which resulted in a treaty with Pate, occasioned
a Portuguese return in 1728. However, the Portuguese soon broke the terms of the new treaty
and were again ejected, this time without aid from Oman (Barendse 2009a: 119, 121–2). For
the next three decades Swahili polities on the north coast maintained near complete political
and commercial autonomy. But by the middle of the century this autonomy was again under
attack. With the end of the Omani civil war in 1749 and the consolidation of Busaidi power
in Oman, the sultanate turned its attention to the Swahili coast once again. Ultimately, the
Busaidis’ greatest investments would be made in the small island of Zanzibar (Bhacker 1992;
Sheriff, this volume).

Autonomy and subjugation

Swahili polities under Portuguese and Omani rule struggled to maintain control of the all-
important continental–oceanic interface. In the autonomous Comoros Islands different cir-
cumstances obtained. The islands were ideally situated to benefit from the shifting currents
of global trade. The islands’ position between markets in north-western Madagascar and the
eastern African coast delivered great wealth to Comorian merchants who transhipped goods
and slaves through the archipelago. Moreover, the Comoros Islands acted as emporiums for
western Indian, southern Arabian, Persian Gulf and eastern African merchants (Anon 1789:
12; Jones 1807: 93; Ovington 1976: 51–2; Alpers 2001). From the mid-seventeenth century
the Comoros also became a preferred refreshing station along the sea-lanes between Cape
Town and Asian ports. Ndzwani in particular benefited from the needs of European merchant
fleets. More precisely, new trade routes offered a lucrative vent for local and Madagascan pro-
duce such as meat, fruits, vegetables and grains. Patricians in Ndzwani delivered provisions to
European ships at great profit and so began to reorient production for European vessels (Ross
and Holtzappel 1986: 311).

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In the early eighteenth century Ndzwanians forged a particularly strong relationship with
English visitors. To appeal better to passing English merchantmen, Ndzwanians learned English,
took English names and wore diverse English apparel. By the middle of the eighteenth century
English was widely spoken in the island’s largest town, Mutsamudu, and Ndzwanians had taken
a keen interest in British geopolitics (Plumer 1769). English orientalist William Jones was aston-
ished by the questions about world affairs put to him by Alawi, a member of the Ndzwanian
royal house. Alawi queried Jones on the independence of the United States, ‘the powers and
resources of Britain, France, Spain, and Holland, the character and supposed view of the Emperor;
the comparative strength of the Russian, Imperial, and Othman [Ottoman] armies; and their
respective modes of bringing their forces to action’ (Jones 1807: 90). Much as Malindians
courted the Portuguese and Pateans appealed to Omanis, Ndzwanians parlayed their business
relationships with the English into multiple forms of assistance. Most important, Ndzwanians
requested military aid. Threatened by Malagasy raids and a rebellion on neighbouring Mwali
Island in the early nineteenth century, Ndzwanians received support both from British India and
transiting English ships (Prior 1819: 54; Liszkowski 2000; Prestholdt 2007).
In Ndzwani and elsewhere in the Swahili world, migration from Oman, Hadramawt and
other southern Arabian regions had substantial political, cultural and social impacts (Pouwels
2002). Southern Arabian male migrants usually married into Swahili lineages and so developed
regional familial networks. In the process, they often gained social capital and prestige, though
tensions with established lineages were not unusual. At Mombasa, the Mazrui family integrated
into Swahili society and established hereditary control over both Mombasa and Pemba in the
eighteenth century. After becoming effectively autonomous in the second half of the century,
they resisted Busaidi suzerainty into the 1830s. Similar to the Mazruis, the Nabahani of Pate,
patrilineal descendants of Omani immigrants who arrived in East Africa as early as the fifteenth
century, drew on their commercial success and social capital to gain control of the sultanate
in the late seventeenth century. Under Nabahani leadership, Pateans extended their influence
beyond the Lamu Archipelago as far as the central Swahili coast (Tolmacheva 1993; Pouwels
2000; Vernet 2005). The eighteenth century was thus a period of renewed prosperity for Pate,
Lamu and other northern cities as attested by elaborate coral construction, detailed plasterwork
in mosques and homes, and voluminous imported porcelain (Horton and Middleton 2000).
Commerce and religious circuits often coincided and complemented each other. Pate, for
instance, became a hub for learned religious figures, usually sharif, or descendants of the Prophet,
hailing from the Hadramawt and Barawa (Brava). Pate was thus a crucial node linking the
Arabian Sea, the southern Swahili coast and the Comoros (Pouwels 1987: 37–42; Vernet 2002,
2009; Bang 2003, this volume). Swahili interest in Hadrami intellectual currents encouraged
religious scholars and healers to settle in many Swahili polities. Religious elites of Hadrami
Alawi lineages such as the Jamal al-Layl founded branches of their Sufi order, the Alawiyya,
across East Africa. They encouraged local literacy and scholarship, and so gained followers and
prestige as far south as Ngazidja (Grande Comore). These groups affected both social practices
and law. In some instances, they joined or even superseded royal lineages (Pouwels 2002:
419–22, 405). Moreover, the intellectual currents and wealth of the eighteenth-century and
early nineteenth-century northern coast contributed to a Swahili ‘renaissance,’ or period of
remarkable cultural productivity (Allen 1990). It would, for instance, be the apex of classical
Swahili poetry defined by the work of Patean and Mombasan poets such as Seyyid Ali bin Nassir
(1720–1820), Mwana Kupona (d. 1865) and Muyaka bin Haji (1776–1840).
Omani political power and the influence of southern Arabian scholars also contributed to an
increasing Arabisation of Swahili culture and language. Telling in this regard was the introduc-
tion of terminology that valorised Arab identity. The term uungwana was formerly used across

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the Swahili world to capture patrician ideals of the ‘civilised’ person, connoting one who was
free and of local birth with an understanding of the cultural norms of urban life. However, in
the nineteenth century this term was incrementally replaced with ustaarabu, literally Arabness.
While the new term similarly connoted a free, urbane and thus ‘civilised’ person, it explicitly
associated this ideal with Arab culture. For elites of immediate Arab descent in Zanzibar, pos-
sessing Arabness became a prestige claim that located ‘civilisation’ in Arab genealogies. After the
Busaidi conquest of the coast, this ideal spread well beyond Zanzibar (Pouwels 1987, 2002).
Intellectual currents, fashion and changing social ideals evidenced Arab influences, but other
trends affected Swahili society as well. For instance, mainland East Africans contributed greatly
to regional economic expansion in the eighteenth century. New caravan routes pioneered by
Maravi, Yao and other groups of the south-eastern interior linked the Lake Malawi region
with the coast (Biginagwa and Mapunda, this volume). For example, beginning in the sixteenth
century Yao traders pioneered new roads to the coast. They expanded these in the eighteenth
century and so breathed new life into the Kilwa region. From the end of the century, Swahili
also began to ply these routes. Though ivory would be eastern Africa’s most common high-
value export, the early modern period saw an increase in cowrie exports from Zanzibar and
Ndzwani and a burgeoning trade in slaves. Swahili merchants took a central role in the exporta-
tion of eastern African and Malagasy slaves. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries,
Swahili, Arab and other merchants delivered Malagasy slaves to the East African coast and
southern Arabia. In part, as a result of this demand for slaves, Pateans and others from the Lamu
Archipelago settled in north-western Madagascar (Alpers 1975; Vernet 2009).
Though the slave trade from Madagascar declined in the eighteenth century, Omani demand
for agricultural labour continued to rise and slave merchants turned to Kilwa. Demand at
Kilwa would come from other quarters as well. The establishment of sugar and coffee plan-
tations on the French islands of Mauritius and Reúnion brought slave traders to Kilwa and
further south to Mozambique Island. This trade was augmented by demand from Madagascar,
Gujarat the Western Cape and Brazil. As slave-trading networks expanded well beyond earlier
scales, Zanzibari elites likewise drew on this new market (Freeman-Grenville 1965; Alpers
1975; Hopper 2015). Direct trade between Mozambique Island and Makua-speaking northern
Mozambique, and from Kilwa to Lake Malawi, acted as conveyer belts, bringing human cap-
tives and ivory to the coast and delivering consumer goods, notably Gujarati and Kutchi cloth,
to the interior. In the context of the slave trade, Indian, Portuguese and Swahili merchants
managed eastern Africa’s increasingly complex interface with distant world regions and socie-
ties, from Oman and western India to Zanzibar, Reúnion, Cape Town and Brazil (Sheriff 1987;
Alpers 2005; Allen 2008).
Indian capital and commercial relations with western India would stimulate the regional
economy, encourage greater migration and cement Busaidi rule at Zanzibar. Indian cloth mer-
chants, particularly Gujarati Vaniya from Diu and Daman, negotiated the continental–oceanic
interface. As Pedro Machado (2009, 2014) demonstrated for the southern Swahili coast and
Portuguese Mozambique in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Gujarati Vaniya
cloth merchants, with information supplied by local interlocutors, regularly relayed shifts in
African demand to manufacturers in Gujarat. Weavers then made adjustments to cloth designs
and sent the desired articles the following trading season. Indian capital from Kutchi and other
sources underpinned Busaidi commercial interests as well. From the late eighteenth century
the Busaidi Sultan of Oman began more fully to exploit economic opportunities in eastern
Africa. Zanzibar became the commercial hub of the Busaidis (Sheriff 1987). Just as important,
enterprising regional traders seeking cloth, beads and brass wire pioneered caravan routes to the
coast. As Stephen Rockel (2006) has shown, Nyamwezi merchants expanded an older trade in

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salt and iron across central Tanzania to include the Swahili towns of the central coast. By the
early nineteenth century, Nyamwezi and others facilitated vast networks of exchange linking
the Lakes Region and the Indian Ocean littoral.
Sultan Seyyid Said extended the Oman-Zanzibari sultanate across most of the Swahili
world, developing an alliance with Lamu’s patricians and taking the last major polity, Mazrui-
controlled Mombasa, in 1837 (Pouwels 1991). The new sultan marginalised hereditary rulers,
including Zanzibar’s Mwinyi Mkuu, and installed Busaidi governors (liwali) in each princi-
pal Swahili city. As the Busaidis consolidated their control, the sultan banned many foreign
merchants from direct trade with mainland ports. At the same time, he made Zanzibar a free
port and attracted regional trade and investment. Zanzibar-based firms, most of which were
subsidiaries of western Indian financial houses, began offering generous lines of credit, which
brought more cash into circulation, fuelled coastal trading ventures to the interior, and stimu-
lated agricultural production for export. In an effort to expand clove production on Zanzibar
and Pemba, in the early decades of the nineteenth century Zanzibaris imported unprecedented
numbers of slaves from the mainland. By 1840 Zanzibar exported its first significant cargoes of
cloves. Urban Zanzibaris imported slaves as well, including domestic slaves from as far afield as
Ethiopia, India and the Caucasus. Thus, in the first half of the nineteenth century, Zanzibar’s
slave population grew exponentially, and as diverse newcomers, both enslaved and free, altered
Zanzibar’s demographics, an increasingly rigid social hierarchy defined social relations (Cooper
1977; Sheriff 1987; Prestholdt 2008).
The Busaidis developed new global trade initiatives in the nineteenth century. Sultan
Seyyid Said sent vessels to Bombay, Canton, London and Marseilles. In 1840 he sent his flag-
ship, the Sultana, on a trade mission to New York City laden with Zanzibari cloves, eastern
African ivory, Yemeni coffee, Omani dates and Persian carpets. As Zanzibar became the
entrepôt of eastern Africa, the sultan moved his court from Muscat to the island. Zanzibar’s
economic vitality similarly attracted seasonal and permanent migrants from other Swahili
cities, the Comoros, Madagascar, southern Arabia, Kutch, Gujarat, Bombay and elsewhere.
The Busaidis instituted unprecedented religious freedoms at Zanzibar. As a result, the island
became a centre for both Sunni and Ibadi scholarship (Bang 2003; Ghazal 2010). Finally,
southern Arabians, mainland Africans and other recent arrivals to Zanzibar relied on Swahili
as a lingua franca (Ruete 1993). As new residents took on the language and other elements
of coastal culture, the Swahili spoken at Zanzibar (Kiunguja) incorporated new loanwords,
notably from Arabic. While in earlier centuries the language was rarely spoken beyond the
coast and the lower Zambezi Valley, the rapid expansion of caravan highways between the
lakes and coastal polities would make Swahili an important language of regional exchange in
the nineteenth century.

Conclusion
The fall of Mombasa in 1837 and the arrival of the sultan’s court in Zanzibar marked the end
of Swahili political and commercial autonomy. Foreign intervention and regional contests for
position defined the early modern period as one of shifting allegiances and recurring conflict.
The Swahili world was a battleground among the expansionist states of Portugal, the Ottoman
Empire and Oman. At the same time, Swahili political elites used foreign powers to leverage
factional interests and maintain some degree of control over the continental–oceanic inter-
face. Malindi’s elite entreated the Portuguese for assistance, Mombasans turned to the Ottoman
navy, Pateans appealed to the Sultan of Oman and Ndzwanians petitioned the British Crown.
Yet, such efforts met with mixed results. While some Swahili elites profited from relationships

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with exogenous powers, Portuguese commercial restrictions taxed Swahili polities and Omani
administrators developed self-interested trade policies.
As other political entities absorbed Swahili polities, the ability of Swahili actors to control
the continental–oceanic interface foundered. Indeed, while Swahili polities continued to inte-
grate diverse foreigners, the rough seas of the early modern era rendered the Swahili world of
the early nineteenth century far different from that of the fifteenth century. It would no longer
be a series of independent polities but rather a patchwork of cities under the sovereignty of an
exogenous monarch. Swahili-speakers were integrated into the economic currents of a fully
global marketplace, affecting and affected by new interfaces but constrained by the economic
dictates of a powerful state. This pattern would continue in the modern era as European colonial
states and postcolonial nations dominated Swahili polities. In most cases, these entities negoti-
ated regional–global interfaces with minimal regard for Swahili interests. Yet, even as Swahili
polities lost their struggle to maintain control of eastern Africa’s continental–oceanic interface,
the Swahili world of the nineteenth and early twentieth century continued to integrate diverse
migrants and radiate new cultural trends, perhaps to a greater degree than ever before.

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