Nathaniel Mtui was a Tanzanian historian of Chagga origin born in 1892 in the mtaa of Mshiri in Marangu, Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania.

[1] Nathaniel Mtui attended the Lutheran Mission school in Ashira from 1902, receiving instruction primarily from native teachers as well as missionaries Johannes Schanz, Friedrich Stamberg, and Bruno Gutmann, who taught him singing and scripture.

During the British occupation Nathaniel was hired by Major Dundas, paying him 16 shillings for each full note book wrote about the Chaggan people.

His work was recommended by Johannes Schanz to Bruno Gutmann, who commissioned Mtui to collect oral historical traditions from southern and south-eastern Kilimanjaro between 1913 and 1919.

Gutmann preserved nine of these notebooks, which provide significant insights into the history of the Marangu chiefdom and other regions in central and eastern Kilimanjaro.

It began as a cooperative association with the goal of buying and sharing spray equipment, but it swiftly developed into an organization that markets African coffee and serves as the political arm of the mountain's growers.

The KNPA vigorously lobbied the British run Moshi district office to defend their water rights, protect their coffee privileges, and give more land for the development of homesteads.