THE INDIAN COMMUNITY AND ITS ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IN ZANZIBAR DURING THE 19th CENTURY

The Indians were considered the main category working in trade in Zanzibar during the reign of Sultan Saeed Bin Sultan, the founder of the modern state of Zanzibar (1806-1856). The Indian traders got the appreciation and respect of Saeed Bin Sultan and they were allowed to work in trade in the region and he treated them as local traders in order to establish a commercial empire. Hence most of the Indian traders came during his rule, and in 1835, as the case with others, they came with the seasonal wind. The Indian traders were Muslims and Hindu, but they didn’t consider Zanzibar as their homeland, they used to travel to India and come back. Among them, the Moslem Bahara became prominent, most of them were rich traders, who lived in Zanzibar and took it as their homeland. The Indian traders succeeded in supporting the economics of Zanzibar and financing the Arab commercial projects and developing the internal trade. Some of them succeeded in possessing large farms of cloves. And because of their commercial activity and their economic status they succeeded in establishing an excellent social position and they taught their children reading and writing. On the other side Britain encouraged the Indians to migrate to Eastern Africa because of its need for the technical Indian working class and handcraft to make use of their experience. Hence the important role of the Indian merchants in the trade of Eastern Africa came.