South Asian entrepreneurs in the automotive age: negotiating a place of belonging in colonial and post-colonial Tanzania

This article examines the integral role that South Asians fulfilled in the history of motorized road transportation in Tanzania during the twentieth century. Drawing on oral and archival evidence, it argues that the expansion and success of inter-regional, commercial, automotive transportation in southern Tanzania during the British colonial era depended upon the efforts of the region’s Indian commercial community. The Amin family, in particular, created one of the most successful road transportation firms in the territory, called the Tanganyika Transport Company Ltd. or Teeteeko. As national discourse shifted in opposition to entrepreneurial autonomy and African-Asian relations deteriorated following Tanzanian independence, the Amins struggled to retain their status as respected capitalist entrepreneurs and public servants. Situated at the intersection of the automotive and business histories of Tanzania, the history of Teeteeko offers unique insights into the contradictory ways in which automobile ownership helped to shape conceptions of South Asian identity, entrepreneurship, and belonging in colonial and postcolonial Tanzania.