The Rise and Fall of Swahili States

by Chapurukha M. Kusimba

The Swahili civilization was a fascinating and complex system_a group of advanced cultures with large economic networks, international maritime trade, and urban sophistication. This book documents the growth of Swahili civilization on the eastern coast of Africa, from 100 B.C. to the time of European colonialism in the sixteenth century. Using archaeological, anthropological, and historical information, Chapurukha M. Kusimba describes the origins of this unique and powerful culture, including its Islamic components, architecture, language, and trading systems. Incorporating the results of his own surveys and excavations, Kusimba provides us with a remarkable African-derived study of the rise and collapse of societies on the Swahili Coast.

Genres: History, Africa

240 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 1999

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The common story of the swahili merchant cities is one of alien or at least separate society dependent on the exploitation of their more true African neighbors inland, they sought ivory, gold and slaves to use for their sinister plantations or export to Arabia hence they came. This narrative has been around since the 19th century and was a core part of German, french, British and Belgian colonial justification for occupation of east central Africa, to save Africans from these coast Arabs. This story has been preserved in several African states as it served a narrative of exploitation to be overcome but has had severe impact on the social fabric of life in Tanzania and Kenya in particular where the biggest of the Swahili states, Mombasa and Zanzibar are located.

M Kusimba, as an archaeologist and historian, sets out to challenge that notion primarily to counter this one of many narratives that dismissed any form of African life beyond the stereotypes of an unchanging tribal world but also to highlight cooperation, trust and accumulation of wealth and prosperity because of it. What M Kusimba brings is a narrative of gradual change that picks up speed as different social groups, foragers, pastoralists, farmers and fishers exchanged goods which led to marketplaces becoming permanent, allowing for elite merchants to emerge whose families built networks of trust, patronship, clients and foreign trade with the indian ocean network to which these African networks of trade contributed in its formation.

To M Kusimba it is also evident that Swahili culture is emblem of success both from the point of view of African entrepreneurship as it is of participation in global trade on Africa's own terms. He goes to great pains to list archaeological sites and finds of iron, pottery and textile production in the period leading up to the 1400's to counter the image of these Swahili cities as parasites leeching wealth and life out of Africa at behest of foreign greed. These were not mere trade entrepots but sites of production for both internal and external markets for both of whom they added much appreciated value, especially the iron as referenced in medieval Indian sources was much appreciated by the traders. The coast was dotted with all sizes of settlements taking up a similar role and part of networks that made a cultural and social cohesion stretching from southern Somalia to north Mozambique and up to the coast of Madagascar. Settlements of African origin and composition, this too is a point emphasized over and over again via archaeological, architectural, genetic, linguistic and funerary arguments.

This African Swahili culture however of valued trust networks ends with the coming of the Portugese and the Omani overlords. To M Kusimba the coming of these external overlords wrecked everything leading to the slavery, ivory and gold trade depots that were to be vilified for centuries. Although his argument for the destruction of the iron, pottery and textile production and disruption of the trust network is convincing as is the archaeological evidence of abandonment of many smaller Swahili settlements and conflict with nomad pastoral groups such as the Oromo; his insistence that Swahili culture ended here is not. I think that this is to hard a break to make as to say before this Swahili and afterwards not really Swahili. Yes off course it was different not denying that, but that would be like saying Poland has not has a culture for 200 years since the partition or Ireland has not had a culture since the 1500's and seems too a convenient an excuse to pardon the role Swahili traders had in the proliferation of slavery in eastern Africa in the 18th and 19th century.

If your looking to read up on the region's history and or the indian ocean trade network it is most definitively a worthwhile read, a bit dry in tone and style but a solid basis for further reading, reflection and debate.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was written by my former mentor / boss / advisor!