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The Difficult Approach to Port Zanzibar
Striking mid-nineteenth century manuscript chart of the waters surrounding Port Zanzibar, on Unguja off the coast of Tanzania.
The chart lays out the many small islands and obstructions in the approach to Port Zanzibar from the west. It is drawn on an Admiralty-issued log page and is based on an Admiralty chart made during the surveying voyage commanded by William Fitzwilliam Owen from 1822-6.
The chart shows sounding depths, channels, and sandbars—including the tricky Harp Sands, which are exposed at low tide. Port Zanzibar, or Shangany, is to the east, with the coast of Madagascar outlined.
The southernmost island in the Zanzibar group is Chumby Island, three miles west-southwest of Booya Point. Near to this is the Lily Shoal, here marked as “Lily struck.” The Lily did indeed strike in 1842, suggesting this chart is from ca. 1850, after the wreck but before the printed chart was updated in 1873 with the Lily Reef.
Such a chart was especially necessary for, as A Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Ocean points out, “Pilots do not usually come off to ships approaching Zanzibar, but will probably do so if you obtain anchorage outside one of the passes and make the signal for one.” Indeed, the chart shows several of these passes in the Zanzibar Channel, including South Pass (here “Southern Channel”), near the aforementioned Chumby Island, and the French Pass between Chango and Kebandiko in the north.
Such manuscript survivals like this are rare.
The surveying voyage of the Leven and the Barracouta
The voyage from which this chart was derived is one of the great surveying expeditions of the early-nineteenth century. The Leven and the Barracouta spent 1822-1826 recording the coasts of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula; they surveyed 30,000 nautical miles and created hundreds of charts, including the one on which this is based.
The voyage was under the command of Captain William Fitzwilliam Owen. As a young officer, Owen served at the battle of the Glorious First of June (1794) and later commanded a fireship that was part of Nelson’s attempt to ignite the French navy at Boulogne. In 1803, in command of the Seaflower, Owen began hydrographic work while in the Maldives.
His next few posts were all in the Indian Ocean until, in 1815, he was sent to Ontario to survey the Great Lakes. His good work there recommended him for another surveying expedition, this time along the east coast of Africa. The Admiralty appointed him to the Leven, with the Barracouta also under his command, a ship in which he had previously served. The initial officer in charge on the Barracouta died in 1823; it was taken over by Owen’s first lieutenant, Alexander Vidal, who had served under Owen in the Great Lakes.
Over the course of four surveying seasons, the ships ranged the east coast of Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, Madagascar, and several Indian Ocean islands. The crews became very ill and half of each ship’s complement died. Owen also patrolled for slavers and set up an unsanctioned protectorate in Mombasa, where the Masrai rulers agreed to abolish slavery if Owen helped them to lift a siege by the Sultan of Oman. From 1825, the ships began a slow return to England, covering the west coasts of Africa as they went.
In addition to the many Admiralty charts that resulted from the voyage, Owen wrote A Narrative of a Voyage to Explore the Shores of Arica, Arabia, and Madagascar (1833). A lieutenant serving on the same expedition, Thomas Boteler, also published an account of those years.
Zanzibar
People have likely lived on Unguja, also known as Zanzibar, for 20,000 years. Bantu speakers settled there in the first centuries CE. Swahili traders arrived in the ninth century CE, turning the island into an important Indian Ocean hub.
European influence began with Vasco de Gama’s arrival in 1498. The Portuguese incorporated the archipelago into their empire in 1504; they maintained at least nominal controlled over the islands for two centuries, although their exertion of power there was lax at best. This ended in 1635 when the Portuguese built a fort on Pemba, the other larger island in the archipelago, after the Sultan of Mombasa had several Portuguese traders killed in 1631. This also marked the period when the Portuguese began to appoint European governors.
This led the Swahili elite of Zanzibar and nearby Mombasa to seek out Omani aristocrats for their help in driving out the Portuguese. In 1698, Zanzibar began to be influenced by the Sultanate of Oman, a relationship that lasted until the early-nineteenth century. Then, the Sultan Said bin Sultan moved his capital to Stone Town, the center of Port Zanzibar. His will ceded Zanzibar to the first Sultan of Zanzibar, which went to one of his sons, and named another son the Sultan of Oman and Majid. However, the brothers quarreled, allowing for the intervention of Charles Canning, the Earl of Canning and then Viceroy and Governor-General of India.
This indicates British interest in Zanzibar. In the 1880s, both Britain and Germany decided they wanted parts of the Swahili coast, which Zanzibar ruled. In October 1886, a British-German border commission created the Zanj, a ten-nautical-mile strip on the continental coast. From there, they increased their control inland, while the Arab elite of Zanzibar controlled the islands seen here. Port Zanzibar at this time was a major hub for the spice trade and for the slave trade. However, the British forced the subsequent sultans to eventually abolish slavery.
In 1890, Zanzibar officially became a British protectorate. When Sultan Khalid bin Barghash ascended to rule, as the sultans still maintained local control as a protectorate, the British responded in a bellicose fashion. They bombarded the palace on August 27, 1896; the Zanzibaris declared a cease-fire 38 minutes later, making the Anglo-Zanzibar War the shortest in history.