The presence of microlithic tools attests to at least 50,000 years of human occupation of Zanzibar. A Greco-Roman text between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, mentioned this island as Menuthias. The islands became part of the historical record of the wider world when Persian traders discovered them and used them as a base for voyages between the Middle East, India, and Africa. Unguja, the larger island, offered a protected and defensible harbor, so although the archipelago offered few products of value, the Persians settled at what became Zanzibar City ("Stone Town") as a convenient point from which to trade with East African coastal towns.
They established garrisons on the islands and built the first Zoroastrian fire temples andmosques in the Southern hemisphere.
During the Age of Exploration, the Portuguese Empire was the first European power to gain control of Zanzibar, and retained it for nearly 200 years. In 1698, Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultanate of Oman, which developed an economy of trade and cash crops with a ruling Arab elite. Plantations were developed to grow spices, hence the term Spice Islands. Another major trade good for Zanzibar was ivory. The Sultan of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the East African coast, known as Zanj; this included Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, and trading routes that extended much further inland, such as the route leading to Kindu on the Congo River. Zanzibar was famous worldwide for its spices and its slaves. It was East Africa's main slave-trading port, and in the mid-19th century as many as 50,000 slaves were passing annually through the slave markets of Zanzibar.
Source: Wikipedia
.png)
0 comments:
Post a Comment