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In the 19th century, Long-distance trade and commercial colonization by Tipu Tib, an Oman immigrant to East Africa

author:Storyteller Hokusai

#历史开讲 #

As a typical representative of Swahili-Arab merchants, Tipu Tib used the resources accumulated by the network of immigrant relatives to engage in long-distance trade in East Africa, organically combining the slave trade, ivory trade and clove trade, using slaves as inexhaustible labor for transporting ivory and growing cloves, based on the slave trade, moving inland with the "ivory frontier", opening up trade routes west of Lake Tanganyika to eastern Congo, forming alliances or wars with African chiefs. They built their favorable terms of trade and business empires.

At the same time, Tipu Tib also entered politics from business, as a port city controlled by Sultan in Zanzibar, and used the inland as an agent for raw material production, interacting with European explorers, missionaries, and European dignitaries.

In the 19th century, Long-distance trade and commercial colonization by Tipu Tib, an Oman immigrant to East Africa

The rise and fall of Tip's personal career was closely related to the process of European partitioning of Africa, and as Europe became more and more deeply involved in African affairs, Arab-European relations shifted from peaceful competition to fierce confrontation, and eventually Tip's commercial empire, the East African slave trade, and the national fortunes of the Zanzibar Sultan state were passively changed.

Long-distance trade and commercial colonization by Omani immigrants

Tipu Tib, born Ahmed bin Muhammad, had a long full name indicating his paternal line, and Arab ancestry was an important social capital at the time. Tipp Tib was his nickname and was used as his activities expanded and his deeds became widespread.

One said that because his eyes would twitch nervously, he was called the "blinking man"; He may also be described as a vague and ungullible duplicity, but he himself does not like this statement. He attributed the name given to him by locals who fled to Ulungu as an onomatopoeia for rapid-firing gunfire and a fear of his sharp gunfire.

In the 19th century, Long-distance trade and commercial colonization by Tipu Tib, an Oman immigrant to East Africa

After the punished porter, he received the title "leopard", which means to go around like a leopard. There is also a theory from Livingston, who claimed to be a collector of wealth after Tipp Tib defeated and confiscated the treasure of Natama, the ruler of Itawa, in 1867. Tipu Tibb was very fond of the various versions that were circulating, partly reflecting his attempt to behave arrogantly in front of Europeans and his desire to establish prestige with Africans.

Tip's special family background provided him with a natural advantage in the long-distance trade in East Africa, which was based on the slave trade. Tipu Tib was born in Swahili, Zanzibar, his father Mohammed bin Juma Murjabi was Oman-Arab, his mother was a pure Muscat Arab, and his grandmother was an African slave purchased from the coastal region of Tanganyika and later became a concubine, so he has Oman-Nyanmuvich ancestry and can be used as an example of Oman-Arab immigration, "diaspora" to the East African coast, and integration with the natives.

In the 19th century, Long-distance trade and commercial colonization by Tipu Tib, an Oman immigrant to East Africa

Unlike Hindus, who went to East Africa alone to "pan for gold," Oman-Arabs often emigrated to East Africa with their wives to carry out long-term settlement-style trade. These Oman-Arabs often married a pure Arab, used the prestige of the wife's family network to obtain start-up funds for trade, and used the assets of the family as collateral to obtain the goods needed for long-distance trade. Bint Salem, from a wealthy family in Muscat, was the wife of Tipp Tib and the mother of his eldest son, Saif, who would eventually take over the family business, just as Tipp Thib had taken over from his father, thus guaranteeing the continuation of Arab ancestry and wealth.

Many of Tip's concubines came from gifts from inland chiefs. During the long-distance trade, some of the concubines would accompany them, while the rest remained at his headquarters and in the various settlements, responsible for managing the affairs of the settlements, performing similar functions to the domestic slaves there. In addition to having Arab wives, these Arab immigrants would also marry natives as concubines for specific purposes. Tipu Tib's father married Karonde, daughter of Fendi Kira, chief of Tabora, and gained widespread influence in the Tabora region. Because in Nyanmwizi, the chief's wife had as much power as the chief, Tipu Tib's father was able to mobilize resources in the Tabora area, a practice that was also emulated by Tipu Tib.

In the 19th century, Long-distance trade and commercial colonization by Tipu Tib, an Oman immigrant to East Africa

This form of symbiotic relationship between long-settled foreign immigrants and natives emerged in the history of East Africa in the 19th century. The kinship networks and alliances created by such marriages were the cornerstone of migrant merchants engaging in long-distance trade to reduce resistance and risk, as well as a guarantee of creditworthiness in exchange for loans from creditors, and the basis for Tip's transformation from a liquid "merchant" to a stable "sitting merchant" and a local ruler after his father's inheritance of his father's business in Tabora.

As a third-generation immigrant from Oman to East Africa, Tipu Tib leveraged his kinship network resources in cross-cultural trade, including paternal, matrilineal, sibling, descendant kinship networks, and strategic marriages with local people. Of course, the Arab merchants of the same generation and the entourage of domestic slaves who acted as agents were also an extension of this broad concept of kinship networks. Immigration status gave Tipu Tieb start-up capital, cronies, and security on trade routes to use for long-distance trade and as a starting point and springboard for building a business empire.

In the 19th century, Long-distance trade and commercial colonization by Tipu Tib, an Oman immigrant to East Africa

In addition, the high risk of engaging in the long-distance trade in slaves and ivory also led merchants to choose to transform into plantation owners after commercial success, and reduce the risk with diversified economic choices. But from Tip's later travels, the pattern of Arab merchant migration was still dominated by mobility, leading American newspapers to call him "a capable African 'nomadic' tycoon."

His settlements such as Tabora, Ujigi, and Nyangwe were a lever for expansion inland in the face of scarce supplies of coastal resources. Tipu Tibb's main activity was to carry out five long-distance trades. It began with travel to the southern and southwestern areas of Lake Tanganyika, followed by a gradual move north, establishing a base in Kasongo, on the Lualaba River, on the upper Congo River. With the exception of the last collaboration with Stanley to rescue Emin Pasha, the rest of the trek was mainly to collect ivory, following the 18th-century practice of relying on a relay system to complete segmented journeys, with caravans of Pargassi and slaves transporting ivory back to the coast.

In the 19th century, Long-distance trade and commercial colonization by Tipu Tib, an Oman immigrant to East Africa

In the thirties and forties of the 19th century, the Arabs intervened in the traditional trade routes previously run by African peoples and perfected the industrial chain into a highly organized trade activity with international participation and division of labor: Africans acted as porters, Indians provided funds, Baloch served as guards, and Swahili-Arabs acted as organizers. Porters were mostly free-wage wage earners of the Nyanmwitsi and a few were Wanwana, and the lines and proportions between them were blurred, and mixed use of labour was the norm.

In the 19th century, Long-distance trade and commercial colonization by Tipu Tib, an Oman immigrant to East Africa

This was followed by a sense of professional honor and labor culture in the East African caravan trade. But this form of modern free labor and the reciprocal relationship formed by wage slaves using long-distance trade as an opportunity to "create their own identity", engage in class mobility, and participate in local ethnic activities in trade activities are often obscured by colonialism and abolitionism as "false inventions of black ivory" in order to create the image of Arabs who created the criminal system of combining ivory and slave trade.

When both goods arrived on the coast, they were taxed and paid for by bulky precious metals, so there was no cost savings in slave transport. At the same time, the slave trade routes in its heyday did not coincide with areas rich in ivory reserves. At that time, the main slave trade routes were from Lake Nyasa to Kilwa and from Lake Tanganyika-Tabora to Bagamoyo.

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