first century A.D., when the writer of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea1 visited Mombasa and described trading stations along the coast to which Arab traders from the northern shores of the Indian Ocean brought wheat, sugar, cotton and china in exchange for slaves and ivory, rhinoceros horn, tortoiseshell and cinnamon. Early trading activity was based upon the seasonal reversal of winds in the Indian Ocean and upon the use of Arab sailing dhows; and because only the most rudimentary port facilities were needed, there existed a large degree of flexibility in terms of port sites. No fundamental change took place in this trade pattern until the nineteenth century when several factors combined to produce an acceleration and a reorientation of trade. In the earlier years of the century, African traders were moving increasingly to the coast, and Arabs penetrating farther inland from their base at Zanzibar; later European exploration and administration presented new necessities and opportunities for trade. Thus, the coastlands which for centuries past had been, in trading terms, nothing more than the western shore of the Indian Ocean,2 on the outer fringes of maritime circulations, became the maritime faqade of a developing region of considerable economic potential. This new orientation involved a crystallization of the formerly fluid pattern of port sites, as rail links were built inland and investment in port facilities grew, and the coming of the age of steam navigation also made possible the utilization of harbours hitherto neglected by the dhows. Five ports handling ocean-going vessels have emerged during the past 75 years to serve the needs of East Africa today: Mombasa, Tanga, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam and Mtwara (Fig. I). Although there are important variations between the five seaports in terms of situation and site conditions, and in terms of facilities and traffic levels, they have shared many common features during their modem growth. This paper is concerned with the analysis of the development of these terminals within the framework of the 'Anyport' technique. The situation of the East African port group as a whole is generally advantageous, and site conditions at individual terminals do not present any insuperable obstacles to physical expansion, in the context of the functional framework within which each port now operates and is likely to continue to operate in the foreseeable future. The conditions of land and water situation which now favour the growth of the seaports have largely arisen during the last Ioo years; developments on both the landward and seaward sides, in transport and in economic and political geography, have now intensified and enormously widened the significance and relationships of the seaports, so that they no longer lie in a backwater but maintain links with major seaports in all the inhabited continents. The East African coast is equipped with several good natural harbours, where adequate shelter and deep water close inshore remove that dependence upon tidal fluctuations which so rigidly restricts shipping manceuvres in many

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/621755.pdf

The sisal industry of East Africa

East African Seaports: an Application of the Concept of 'Anyport'

Land use planning and resource assessment in Tanzania : a case study

Sisal growing spread rapidly in East Africa during the 1920s and 1930s to become one of the most important export crops in both Kenya and Tanganyika. The sisal industry nevertheless suffered severely from the low prices and erratic commodity markets which characterized the depression. Producers blamed the merchants and merchants blamed the market, but the sisal growers began increasingly to look for ways to bring marketing under their own control in the hope of securing a better return. During the Second World War, state control over the sisal trade enabled producers, through their powerful growers' associations, to exert a greater influence over marketing than ever before. They used this and the dramatic wartime change in market conditions, firstly, to improve the price paid them by the Ministry of Supply and, secondly, to try to consolidate their control over marketing after the war when government purchase ended. In this way they were actively supported by the Colonial Office but vigorously opposed by the London-based merchants and their client growers in East Africa. After a long struggle the independent producers failed to gain the complete control they wanted, but nevertheless considerably strengthened their own hand and reversed a trend towards greater metropolitan control over the sisal industry which had developed during the thirties. Producers could not single-handedly stabilize the market for their commodity, but through concerted action they were able to improve their return from it. The study raises questions about the assumptions behind both liberal and Marxist interpretations of imperial trade and shows that in the case of one of East Africa's most important exports relations between producers and traders were more complex than has been assumed.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/EC35F50CD84226ADDACCA7EF2E246EF3/S0021853700028486a.pdf/div-class-title-the-east-african-sisal-industry-1929-1949-the-marketing-of-a-colonial-commodity-during-depression-and-war-div.pdf

The East African Sisal Industry, 1929–1949: The Marketing of a Colonial Commodity During Depression and War

This paper examines the different bodies of knowledge produced about and by sisal plantation workers in Tanzania under colonialism and after independence. I take as my focus the labor category manamba, whose semantic field is rife with absences and contradictions. By examining the different modalities, agents and types of knowledge produced about and by sisal workers, I argue that the contradictions and absences of manamba reflect what David Scott calls “the dense field of operations” on the plantations. The multiple knowledges produced constituted on the one hand the modus operandi of organizing and regulating labor, while on the other they comprised the tactic workers deployed to subvert not only capitalist authority but also patriarchal structures of domination.

The sisal industry of East Africa

Citations

East African Seaports: an Application of the Concept of 'Anyport'

Land use planning and resource assessment in Tanzania : a case study

The East African Sisal Industry, 1929–1949: The Marketing of a Colonial Commodity During Depression and War

Codifying Manamba: History, Knowledge Production and Sisal Plantation Workers in Tanzania

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