Shambaa people

Its native name, Shambaai, literally translates to "where bananas thrive," and the locals used it to distinguish it from the nearby nyika, or dry plains.

Since it was frequently fatal to the young and crippling to their seniors, it was probably a significant population growth restraint and another reason why people preferred the highlands.

The dichotomy between cultivated land and the wilderness of the nyika and the mountain rainforest that they had been clearing for generations was important to Shambaa views of civilization.

Although the men of a single village were remarkably self-sufficient in their daily activities, the early Shambaa's religion mandated frequent meetings and communal drinking, feasting, and dancing.

[11] The Masai people migrated to Tanzania from the north, probably in the early to late 1700s, and this contributed significantly to the development of more centralized political structures by the Sambaa.

Because of the risk of Masai raids and violence, settlement on the lower slopes became more precarious, and even in the highest areas, centralized towns were helpful for defense.

[12] The Mbughu, an immigrant Cushitic pastoralist group, threatened the small clan-chiefdoms that Shambaa had initially established since their tribal structures were incompatible with the local cultivators' organization.

The monarchy aimed to undermine the strength and morality of the clans, but lineages arbitrated internal conflicts and assumed collective responsibility for their members.

The majority of the previous immigrants to Usambara were small-family groups from Zigua, Pare, and Taita, and they assimilate into Sambaa culture quite easily.

After he died in 1862 a civil war broke out over the succession, fueled by competition for the new wealth that the caravan trade in the Pangani valley had brought to the region.

[18] The Kilindi originally arrived in the Usambara, which was in disarray due to the start of recent Masai raids and the inflow of a sizable number of immigrants from a foreign culture.

The political structure of Usambara was reorganized with the arrival of Kilindi rule, but daily religious and customary practices remained unchanged.

These took place in the northeast between the 1870s and 1880s, when the Pare of Mbaga assaulted a colony of slave traffickers at Kisiwani in the modern-day Same District and the Mbugu of Gare in Usambara killed a Kilindi leader.

The Kiva insurrection of 1869, which had its roots in the breakdown of the Shambaa state spurred on by long-distance trade, was the fourth and most significant popular movement.

[36] The insurgents were the Bondei people, who were subdued and assimilated into the Shambaa kingdom at the beginning of the nineteenth century and lived in the plains east of Usambara.

Kimweri, who ruled a conservative kingdom from a mountain capital far from the trade routes, was hesitant to see the value of firearms, but his border chiefs welcomed them and gained allies from outside the country.

Upon reaching Mazinde, Semboja learned that the German East African Company was encroaching on the coast, and an Arab by the name of Abushiri had declared war on them at Pangani.

Due to their patience and willingness to wait, the Germans were able to annex Usambara without firing a shot, reversing the outcome of the Shambaa civil war.

A ritual authority gave Shambaa kings a lot of power, and the character of preexisting religious organizations affected how people generally reacted to Christianity.

The enormous, luxuriant fields of the crop found in Usambara equally delighted Krapf's colleague J. J. Erhardt, who visited the region in 1853, and the explorers Burton and Speke, who arrived in 1857.

In addition to bananas, the Shambaa cultivated maize (Zea mays), taro (Colocasia esculentum), , various types of beans (including Phaseolus sp.

[63] The highlands had a diverse range of crops, both generally and in specific fields, and the Shambaa were aware of numerous regional variants within certain species or botanical groups.

There is no evidence that bananas have ever been exported, but maize, beans, and sweet potatoes in particular were cultivated in excess of local demand and subsequently sold outside the highlands.

There is no proof that the rulers of the Shambaa state regulated or even had an interest in the extra-regional commerce in foodstuffs, with the exception of modest fees levied at some of the bigger marketplaces.

While thousands of African sisal estate workers in the Pangani River Valley relied on Usambara corn and beans for their daily needs, the highland food helped supply urban enclaves at Tanga and Mombasa.

Even after 1930, when coffee and other cash crops started to interest the populace and the government, between 15 and 20 tons of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) and comparable amounts of maize and beans were still exported by train from Usambara each month.

These circumstances exist naturally in Bumbuli, although at relatively drier Vuga and Mlalo, large irrigation works were necessary to hydrate the banana groves.

It is reasonable to draw the conclusion that factors such as population pressure, agricultural suitability, and nutritional similarities contributed to the quickening of the transition to a new cultigen that would not have been so well received otherwise.

The crop was being strongly promoted by the government as a famine reserve by the 1930s, and it is noteworthy to note that there is no indication in Usambara that farmers were reluctant to produce it.

By contrast, in the adjoining plains communities of Korogwe and Handeni district police encountered varying degrees of hostility and apathy in their attempts to force residents to produce the crop.