The Sultan of Zanzibar

A carte-de-visite portrait of Barghash bin Sa’id, Sultan of Zanzibar (reigned 1870-1888).

The son of Sa’id bin Sultan, Barghash was the last Sultan to retain a measure of true independence from European control. During his reign he encouraged the expansion of trans-continental trade, which reached Uganda and the Congo. He replaced the clove plantations, destroyed by a hurricane, and he continued the policy of his father and brother of dependence on, and in the last resort, submission to the will of the British. In 1872 he was obliged to prohibit the slave trade. In 1885, abandoned by Britain, he was forced to surrender large areas of the mainland, over which he had exercised paramount authority, to Germany, and in 1887, he handed over administration of what was later to become the Kenya coast to the Imperial British East Africa Company.

Photographed by Maull and Company of London.