An introduction to the history of East Africa. 3104-WH15ER-MPAW-OG

The lectures concern the area of what are now Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. The lecturer will focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. The period before 1800 will be addressed as long as it is necessary for understanding more recent processes and events. The lectures will cover politics, economy, society, culture as well as contacts with the outside world. The lectures devoted to the pre-colonial history (until 1888) will concentrate on the transformation of the polities and economies of the region, large-scale migrations, long-distance caravan trade, and the international context of the political developments. Special attention will be paid to the Sultanate of Zanzibar and the ways it shaped the realities of the interior. The resistance and the adjustment to the colonial order as well as modernisation of the African life and its consequences will be the central points of the lectures covering the period 1888-1960. While the region in the colonial period will be treated as totality, the independent states that emerged after 1960 will be addressed separately as they chose different paths of development.

Introductionary remarks. The world of the Swahili: the East African coast in the Middle Ages (until ca. 1500)

- Sources for East African history – archeology, linguistics, ethnology, architecture, art, written sources (indigenous and western), oral tradition
- Historical geography of East Africa: the world of interior and the world of the Indian Ocean: climate, soils,ecology, transport and communication, patterns of settlement
- Ethnology
- Modes of subsitence
- The origins of the Swahili culture and its spread
- The role of the Middle Eastern immigrants
- The main town centers
- Political traditions of the Swahili states

2. Early Modern era: the periods of the Portuguese and Omani domination (until ca. 1800)
- The Portuguese conquest of East African coast
- The role of the coast in the Portuguese maritime empire
- Patterns of domination
- African resistance
- The Omani challange and the end of the Portuguese rule
- The state of the Mazru'i in Mombasa (until 1837)
- Political developments in Oman and the Indian Ocean region in the 18th century
- European presence in the region during the 18th century

3. Political history of the Muscat-Zanzibar state and the Sultante of Zanzibar in the 19th century
- The Bu Sa'idi dynasty in Oman
- Sayyid Sa'id Al Bu Sa'idi and his conquest of the East African coast
- The international status of the Muscat-Zanzibar state
- The split of Muscat and Zanzibar and its consequences
- The process of abolition of the slave trade
- The local administration and the judicial system. Authonomy of the local communities
- The military forces of Zanzibar
- The evolution of state and society

4. The trade of East Africa in the 19th century and its place in the economy of Zanzibar. The evolution of town culture
- The structure of the international trade of Zanzibar
- The Maritime and caravan trade: organization, financing, profitability, infrastructure
- The network of caravan routes
- Customs system and tariffs
- Ethnic structure of Zanzibar
- Religion
- Urban architecture and town space
- Rythms of urban life
- Fashion

5. Interior in the 19th century: political processes
- Chiefdoms and states – classification
- The acephalic peoples
- The Political evolution of trading groups
- The control over caravan routes
- The immigrant groups and their impact on the indigenous peoples
- Fugitive slaves' communities
- Political patronage

6. Plantation economy and slavery
– The map of the East African slave trade
- The ethnic structure of slavery
- The history of clove plantations in Zanzibar and Pemba
- Plantation economy on the mainland
- The structure of slavery, the living conditions of slaves
- The Zanzibar slave market
- The legal status of slaves in the Muslim communities
- Slavery in the non-Muslim societies

7. The states of the Interlacustrine Region in the 18th and 19th century
– Specifics of the Great Lakes region societies
– The origins and evolution of the region's states (according to the older and new theories)
- The role of the descent groups in the states' organisation; social stratification in the second half of the 19th century
- The status of the ruler (on examples of Kigeri Rwabugiri of Rwanda, Mutesa I of Buganda and Kabbarega of Bunyoro)
- The economic foundations of state organization
- The role of religion in the political life
- Army

8. Odkrycie Afryki i 'globalizacja’ w XIX w.
- Christian Missions and their status in East Africa
- Strategies of evangelisation
- The problem of freed slaves and fugitives in the misions
- The African converts
- Exploration. The main personalities and their travels
- The race for the Nile sources
- The consequences of the exploration

9. Scramble for Africa, the forms of African collaboration and resistance
- The first colonial initiatives of the 1870s and 1880s
- The Berlin Conference
- The German annexations
- Delimitation of colonial borders
- The first stage of colonialism: Imperial British East Africa Company and Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesselschaft
- The Anti-German uprising of 1888-1889,
- The three revolutions in Buganda (1888)
- The British Protectorates and German East Africa
- The colonial governments until 1914
- White settlement
- Anti-colonial movements: Mbaruk al-Mazru'i's uprising, Maji Maji, Nyabingo
- The social consequences of colonisation

10. Colonialism in East Africa until 1950
- World War I in East Africa and its consequences
- The colonial states under British administration: Kenia, Tanganyika, and Uganda
- The concepts of indirect rule and native authority
- The problems of colonial societies: education, land alienation, urabnisation, ethnic tensions, class formation
- Classification of African political movements

11. Kenia after 1950
- The Mau Mau uprising and the election of 1957
- KANU, KADU, and the constitutional negotiations
- Self-government and independence
- The Kenyatta period
- The authoritarian rule of Daniel arap Moi until 1991
- The return of the political pluralism

12. Tanganyika and Zanzibar after 1950
- The formation of nationalist movements
- The independendence of Tanganyika and Zanzibar
- Zanzibar revolution of 1964; The political union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika
- Declaration of Arusha and the turn to the left
- Ujamaa: the fiasco of an African socialism
- The proces of democratisation until 2000
- Political Islam in Tanzania

13. Uganda after 1950
- Social tensions and Baganda separatism
- Political eclectism of independent Uganda
- Milton Obote's coup and the first period of his rule
- Idi Amin's dictatorship
- The second period of Obote
- The fall of Obote; Museveni and the National Resistance Movement
- The turn towards democracy and liberal economy
- Lord's Resistance Army

14. Rwanda and Burundi after 1950
- „Hamitic theory” and its impact on colonial societies
- „Revolution” in Rwanda, the fall of monarchy, and the independence
- The First and Second Republics in Rwanda
- The rule of the Tutsi in Burundi, the fall of monarchy
- Ethnic cleansings and genocide in Rwanda and Burundi before 1994
- The Tutsi and Hutu in Diaspora
- The intrusion of Rwanda Patriotic Army. The civil war 1990-1994
- Arusha agreement
- The genocide in Rwanda in 1994
- The victory of RPF
- The civil war in Burundi until 2000

Metody dydaktyczne:

Visual presentations, short source texts will be assigned and discussed during lectures

Spoken English is required