Chapter 20
Zanzibar
Due to its strategic location in the Indian Ocean off of the East Africa coast, the Zanzibar Archipelago, particularly the main island Unguja have had a rich and troubled history. In the most remote times it had been a trading post of Persian, Arab, Indian, Indonesian and even Chinese merchants.
As a consequence of a journey of Vasco da Gama in the early sixteenth century it became part of the Portuguese empire that considered the islands as an outpost of their colony of Mozambique. Eventually it fell under the power of the Sultanate of Oman until one of the sultans decided to move directly his capital to Zanzibar. This new Sultanate colonized vast stretches of the mainland coast until 1886 after a treaty between England and Germany- the colonial powers of the time i
