Background
Zanzibar period 1862-1886
The name Dar es Salaam means ‘haven of peace’ and was chosen by the founder of the city, Seyyid Majid, Sultan of Zanzibar. The harbour is sheltered, with a narrow inlet channel protecting the water from the Indian Ocean. An early British visitor in 1873, Frederic Elton, remarked that “it’s healthy, the air clear – the site a beautiful one and the surrounding country green and well-wooded.”
Despite the natural advantages it was not chosen as a harbour earlier, because of the difficulties of approaching through the narrow inlet during the monsoon season and there were other sites, protected by the coral reef, along the Indian Ocean coast that were used instead. However, Majid decided to construct the city in 1862 because he wanted to have a port and settlement on the mainland, which would act as a focus for trade and caravans operating to the south. Bagamoyo was already well established, but local interests there were inclined to oppose direction from Zanzibar, and the new city was a way of ensuring control from the outset.
Construction began in 1865 and the name was chosen in 1866. Streets were laid out, based around what is now Sokoine Drive running along the shoreline to the north of the inner harbour. Water was secured by the sinking of stone wells, and the largest building was the Sultan’s palace. An engraving from 1869 shows the palace to have been a substantial two-storey stone building, the upper storey having sloping walls and a crenellated parapet, sited close to the shore on the present-day site of Malindi Wharf. In appearance it was similar in style to the fort that survives in Zanzibar . To the southwest, along the shore, was a mosque and to the northwest a group of buildings, most of which were used in conjunction with trading activities. One building that survives is the double-storeyed structure now known as the Old Boma, on the corner of Morogoro Road and Sokoine Drive. The Sultan used it as an official residence for guests, and in 1867 a western-style banquet was given for the British, French, German and American consuls to launch the new city. Craftsmen and slaves were brought from Zanzibar for construction work. Coral for the masonry was cut from the reef and nearby islands. A steam tug was ordered from Germany to assist with the tricky harbour entrance and to speed up movements in the wind-sheltered inner waters. Economic life centred on agricultural cultivation (particularly coconut plantations) and traders who dealt with the local Zaramo people as well as with the long-distance caravan traffic.
Dar es Salaam suffered its first stroke of ill-luck when Majid died suddenly in 1870, after a fall in his new palace, and he was succeeded as Sultan by his half-brother, Seyyid Barghash. Barghash did not share Majid’s enthusiasm for the new settlement, and indeed Majid’s death was taken to indicate that carrying on with the project would bring ill-fortune. The court remained in Zanzibar. Bagamoyo and Kilwa predominated as mainland trading centres. The palace and other buildings were abandoned, and the fabric rapidly fell into decay. Nevertheless the foundation of a Zaramo settlement and Indian commercial involvement had been established.
Despite the neglect, Barghash maintained control over Dar es Salaam through an agent (akida) and later a governor (wali) and Arab and Baluchi troops. An Indian customs officer collected duties for use of the harbour and the Sultan’s coconut plantations were maintained. Some commercial momentum had been established, and the Zaramo traded gum copal (a residue used in making varnishes), rubber, coconuts, rice and fish for cloth, ironware and beads. The population expanded to around 5000 by 1887, and comprised a cosmopolitan mixture of the Sultan’s officials, soldiers, planters, traders, and shipowners, as well as Arabs, Swahilis and Zaramos, Indian Muslims, Hindus and a handful of Europeans.
German period 1887-1916
In 1887 the German East African Company under Hauptmann Leue took up residence in Dar es Salaam. They occupied the residence of the Sultan’s governor whom they succeeded in getting recalled to Zanzibar, took over the collection of customs dues and, in return for a payment to the Zaramo, obtained a concession on the land. The Zaramo, Swahili and Arabs opposed this European takeover, culminating in the Arab revolt of 1888-1889, which involved most of the coastal region as well as Dar es Salaam. The city came under sporadic attack and the buildings of the Berlin Mission, a Lutheran denomination located on a site close to the present Kivokoni ferry, were destroyed. When the revolt was crushed, and the German government took over responsibility from the German East Africa Company in 1891, Dar es Salaam was selected as the main centre for administration and commercial activities.
The Germans laid out a grid street system, built the railway to Morogoro, connected the town to South Africa by overland telegraph, and laid underwater electricity cables to Zanzibar. Development in Dar es Salaam involved the construction of many substantial buildings, and most of these survive today. In the quarter of a century to 1916, several fine buildings were laid out on Wilhelms Ufer (now Kivukoni Front), and these included administrative offices as well as a club and a casino. Landing steps to warehouses, and a hospital, were constructed on the site of the present Malindi Wharf and behind them the railway station. Just to the south of Kurasini Creek was the dockyard where the present deep-water docks are situated. A second hospital was built at the eastern end of Unter den Akazien and Becker Strasse, now Samora Avenue. The post office is on what is now Sokoine Drive at the junction with Mkwepu Street. A governor’s residence provided the basis for the current State House. The principal hotels were the Kaiserhof, which was demolished to build the New Africa Hotel, and the Burger Hotel, razed to make way for the present Telecoms building. The area behind the north harbour shore was laid out with fine acacia-lined streets and residential two-storey buildings with pitched corrugated- iron roofs and first-floor verandas, and most of these survive. Behind the east waterfront were shops and office buildings, many of which are still standing.
British period 1916-1961
In the 45 years that the British administered Tanganyika, public construction was kept to a minimum on economy grounds, and business was carried on in the old German buildings. The governor’s residence was damaged by naval gunfire in 1915, and was remodelled to form the present State House. In the 1920s, the Gymkhana Club was laid out on its present site behind Ocean Road, and Mnazi Moja (‘Coconut Grove’) established as a park. The Selander Bridge causeway was constructed, and this opened up the Oyster Bay area to residential construction for the European community. The Yacht Club was built on the harbour shore (it is now the customs post) and behind it the Dar es Salaam Club (now the Hotel and Tourism Training Centre), both close to the Kilimanjaro Hotel Kempinski.
As was to be expected, road names were changed, as well as those of the most prominent buildings. Thus Wilhelms Ufer became Azania Front, Unter den Akazien became Acacia Avenue, Kaiser Strasse became City Drive. Other streets were named after explorers Speke and Burton, and there was a Windsor Street. One departure from the relentless Anglicization of the city was the change of Bismarck Strasse to Versailles Street – it was the Treaty of Versailles in 1918 that allocated the former German East Africa to the British.
The settling by the various groups living in the city into distinctive areas was consolidated during the British period. Europeans lived in Oyster Bay to the north of the city centre, in large Mediterranean-style houses with arches, verandas and gardens surrounded by solid security walls and fences. The Asians lived either in tenement-style blocks in the city centre or in the Upanga area in between the city and Oyster Bay, where they built houses and bungalows with small gardens. African families built Swahili-style houses, initially in the Kariakoo area to the west of the city. Others were accommodated in government bachelor quarters provided for railway, post office and other government employees. As population increased, settlement spread out to Mikocheni and along Morogoro Road and to Mteni to the south.
Independence 1961-present
For the early years of independence Dar es Salaam managed to sustain its enviable reputation of being a gloriously located city with a fine harbour, generous parklands with tree-lined avenues (particularly in the Botanical Gardens and Gymkhana area), and a tidy central area of shops and services. New developments saw the construction of high-rise government buildings, most notably the Telecoms building on the present Samora Avenue, the New Africa Hotel, the massive cream and brown Standard Bank Building (now National Bank of Commerce) on the corner of Sokoine Drive and Maktaba Street, and the Kilimanjaro Hotel on a site next to the Dar es Salaam Club on Kivukoni Front.
But with the Arusha Declaration of 1967 , many buildings were nationalized and somewhat haphazardly occupied. The new tenants of the houses, shops and commercial buildings were thus inclined to undertake minimal repairs and maintenance. In many cases it was unclear who actually owned the buildings. The city went into steady decline, and it is a testament to the sturdy construction of the buildings from the German period that so many of them survive. Roads fell into disrepair and the harbour became littered with rusting hulks.
The new government changed the names of streets and buildings, to reflect a change away from the colonial period. Thus Acacia became Independence Avenue, the Prince of Wales Hotel became the Splendid. Later names were chosen to pay tribute to African leaders – Independence Avenue changed to Samora, and Pugu Road became Nkrumah Street. President Nyerere decided that no streets or public buildings could be named after living Tanzanians, and so it was only after his death that City Drive was named after Prime Minister Edward Sokoine.
Old Dar es Salaam was saved by two factors. First, the economic decline that began in the 1970s meant that there were limited resources for building new modern blocks for which some of old colonial buildings would have had to make way. Second, the government decided in 1973 to move the capital to Dodoma. This didn’t stop new government construction entirely, but it undoubtedly saved many historic buildings.
In the early 1980s, Dar es Salaam reached a low point, not dissimilar from the one reached almost exactly a century earlier with the death of Sultan Majid. In 1992 things began to improve. Colonial buildings have now been classified as of historical interest and are to be preserved. Japanese aid has allowed a comprehensive restoration of the road system. Several historic buildings, most notably the Old Boma on Sokoine Drive, the Ministry of Health building on Luthuli Road and the British Council headquarters on Samora Avenue, have been restored or are undergoing restoration. Civic pride is returning. The Askari Monument has been cleaned up and the flower beds replanted, the Cenotaph Plaza relaid, pavements and walkways repaired and the Botanical Gardens restored. Very usefully, new signposts are a feature throughout the city, which not only clearly show the street names but places of interest, hotels, and major institutions such as banks or embassies. The main road into Dar es Salaam – the 109 km branch road off the Arusha– Mbeya road that neatly dissects the middle of the country – was for years a ribbon of potholed and broken tar. But this too has been upgraded into super-smooth highway thanks to foreign aid.
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