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Who colonized Tanzania?

East Africa — the powers that ruled Tanzania, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Tanzania?

Germany, then Britain. German East Africa was established in 1885 and crushed the Maji Maji rebellion; Britain took the territory as Tanganyika after 1919, and independence came in 1961, uniting with Zanzibar in 1964.

The Maji Maji rebellion of 1905–07 was suppressed by burning crops across southern Tanganyika, producing a famine that killed far more people than the fighting.

Reference

Who ruled Tanzania, and when

before 1885
Swahili city-states, Omani Zanzibar, interior polities
1885–1919
German East Africa
1919–1961
British Tanganyika (mandate)

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Germany, Britain
Independence
9 December 1961 (Tanganyika)
Maji Maji deaths
Estimates range from 75,000 to 300,000, mostly from induced famine
Two empires
German rule to 1919, then British mandate
Zanzibar
A separate Omani then British protectorate until 1963

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1885

    German protectorate declared.

  2. 1905–07

    Maji Maji rebellion; German scorched-earth response causes mass famine.

  3. 1919

    Territory transferred to Britain under League of Nations mandate.

  4. 1961

    Tanganyika independent.

  5. 1964

    Union with Zanzibar forms Tanzania.

Context

What the record shows

Britain inherited the territory as a League of Nations mandate — colonial rule with an oversight paperwork trail attached.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised Tanzania?
Germany from 1885 to 1919, then Britain as the Tanganyika mandate until 1961.
What was the Maji Maji rebellion?
A broad 1905–07 revolt against German forced cotton cultivation, suppressed by a scorched-earth campaign that caused a famine killing tens to hundreds of thousands.
When did Tanzania become independent?
Tanganyika on 9 December 1961; the union with Zanzibar creating Tanzania followed in 1964.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Tanzania

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.