Tabora

Region

The city of Tabora in Tanzania has about 127 887 inhabitants and is situated at an altitude of 1241 m approximately 1140 km from the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania's interior. In the 19th century Tabora was a key trading post for the East African caravan trade. With the construction of the railway during the German colonial period, this significance was lost. Today is the regional capital Tabora Tabora, the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Tabora, home of the Western Province of the Moravian Church of Tanzania ( Moravians ), and an Anglican diocese.

History

Foundation

Tabora was in the 1820s, founded as a trading post of two Indian merchants, Mzuri Musa and his elder brother. They chose the place near some extensive scattered settlements in the center of the area which was inhabited by the Nyamwezi. The Nyamwezi are a Bantu- speaking ethnic group who maintained a brisk caravan trade culture in the East African inland and probably had already sent in 1800 caravans also to the coast of the Indian Ocean.

The Indian traders who were driven by the search for ivory in particular, soon followed by other merchants on the Swahili coast. Over the following decades, Tabora and the adjacent settlements to the node and most important trading center for the booming caravan trade between the coast and the hinterland. From here, broke caravans to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika, the Congo, the Great Lakes region and to Buganda on, slaves for the cloves plantations of Zanzibar and Pemba, ivory and rubber for export to Europe and America coast were taken to, copper wire, beads, substances and firearms as payment flows in the region.

After 1860, the Sultan of Zanzibar appointed political representatives among the residents in Tabora Arabs and Swahili, who acted as representatives of the Zanzibar Arabs and as a negotiating partner with the local Nyamwezi rulers. The Arabs promoted the integration of the settlements, on the whole, however, their number was small and their influence on regional policy were often overestimated traveler and in the research literature. Their leaders had quite local influence; the well-known Arab traders Hamed bin Muhammed el Murjebi ( called Tippu Tip ) reported in his memoirs that his father was married to the daughter of the ruler of Unyanyembe Fundikira and even the respect enjoyed as a local ruler.

The town grew rapidly, in 1871 he already had about 5,000 inhabitants. Economic center of the market was in Tabora, but the place retained the village character by the coexistence of various settlements, of which Kazeh and Kwihara are most frequently mentioned in travel reports. Only between about 1860 and 1880 Tabora prevailed as a term for the settlement conglomerate.

German colonial period

On August 1, 1890 Emin Pasha joined with the leading Arabs of Tabora called a protection agreement on Tabora and the entire region of the Nyamwezi, called by the Germans Unjanjembe, from. This contract was in two respects unlawfully: On the one hand, he annexed - at least on paper - a large part of the African hinterland of the German Empire, on the other hand were the Arabs, who, although possessed large land holdings in Tabora, not a signatory to the other residents the region. But in fact changed, apart from a military base, over which the flag of the Empire was hoisted, in Tabora to the railway construction from 1908 relatively little. The city was by their distance from the coast far from the colonial centers of power, the area was in spite of some military actions of the colonial troops as difficult to control, taxation, could be put into hardly and were not even raised to the part.

Economically, the most remote from the coast Tabora was of no interest to German settlers to the construction of the railway. Economic pillar remained the caravan trade. 1895 were among the approximately 15,000 inhabitants of 23 Arabs, Indians 3 and 40 Swahili with their families. Most of the inhabitants of Tabora were employed in agriculture, in addition to the own needs especially food to equip the caravans were produced. Many men continued to work as a carrier or endowed itself caravans from. The goods remained in the first two decades of colonial rule largely the same.

Nevertheless, the city was envisaged as a possible capital because of its central and strategic position of Secretary of State Bernhard Dernburg, but probably could not be enforced because of the low proportion of Europeans among the residents.

With the completion of the central railway from Dar es Salaam to Tabora on July 1, 1912 was a fundamental structural change. Goods traffic was allocated to the rail and the caravan trade almost came to a halt immediately. Numerous German trading companies were established, in 1913 there were already 26 German companies, including four restaurants and a pharmacy. Agriculture remained - unlike in the Usambara area - in local hands. Depending on a company the protection force and the police were stationed here.

Unlike as in many colonial towns and such as in Dar es Salaam was established in Tabora during the German colonial rule not own a European quarter, which was bordered by a green belt of the residential areas of the local population, but the dwellings of the Europeans were distributed almost throughout the city.

Belgian and British colonial

1916 Tabora was occupied by Belgian colonial troops under the command of General Charles Tombeur ( Tombeur de Tabora ) after fierce fighting and formally belonged from 1920 to the - renamed Tanganyika - British colony. The German inhabitants were deported across through Africa to France. The economic recovery, which had announced in Tabora in recent years, the German colonial period through the railway construction, but not continued after the takeover of the British colonial administration.

In 1928 the railway line from Tabora to Mwanza was opened on Lake Victoria, which did not lead to a revival of the economy to Tabora. Much more then, many goods that used to be run via Tabora, transported via the railway line to the Lake Victoria and by the Kolonia Kenya to the port on the Indian Ocean. Also known as 1940 in the vicinity diamonds were discovered, it changed not much.

In 1925, the Central Government Boys Secondary School established in Tabora, which was designed as a training ground for future management staff and was later referred to as the Eton of Tanganyika. From 1937 this school visited, the future first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere.

Economy

  • Agriculture (tobacco, corn, wine and honey)
  • Textiles

The closest

The city has streets, a small airport and a railway station, which lies on an important railway junction. From Tabora is a trail to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika, another route to Mwanza on Lake Victoria and a further distance of the capital Dodoma to Dar Es Salaam on the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, there is a railway line in the southern district town Mpanda. The city is by car so far only via dirt roads from the north and east distance.

Climate chart

Sons of the city

  • The late President Julius Nyerere visited the school in Tabora
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