Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 24.3
Colonial heritage problems in Stone Town, Zanzibar
The city of Zanzibar has a complex urban form resulting
from an extreme diversity of cultural origins. Early
wooden shelters on irregular plots were replaced by coral
limestone houses after Sultan Seyyid Said moved his
administrative headquarters here in 1832. A range of
imposing public and private buildings were constructed
as the town grew on the fruits of the slave trade, together
with trade in gold, ivory and spices, in the nineteenth
century (Figure 24.2). The major cultural influences were
Arab, Indian traders, Europeans and particularly the
British following the closure of the slave market in 1873.
The native Swahili and mixed-blood islanders, together
with descendants of African slaves, were hardly
represented in the Stone Town but occupied the
neighbouring Ngambo district. Thus the Old Town
contained no relics of the Swahili culture.
An African revolution in 1964 overthrew the sultan
and resulted in the flight of the Arab and Indian
population, severe economic decline, and the
abandonment and decay of many of the Stone Town's
buildings. Some were confiscated by the new
government and used to rehouse people from the
temporary slum buildings of the Ngambo. But this
increased population density had neither the skills to
maintain stone buildings nor the money to hire those
skills; the government was also unable to invest in the
area. Buildings collapsed as joists rotted. Despite their
cultural and colonial overtones, some of the public
buildings were occupied by the new administration.
After fifteen years, the government became concerned at
Figure 24.2
Zanzibar, showing
key conserved buildings in
black.
Source:
McQuillan 1990, figure 18.3
