1840s–1870s: (Arab Intervention in Nyamwezi Politics — Firearms and Commercial Advantage Used to Back One Chief Against Another, the Civil War in Unyanyembe …

1840s–1870s: (Arab Intervention in Nyamwezi Politics — Firearms and Commercial Advantage Used to Back One Chief Against Another, the Civil War in Unyanyembe in the Early 1860s, and Tabora Transformed into a Military Garrison): As conflict escalated, coastal merchants sought increasingly to involve themselves in Nyamwezi politics — relatively straightforward given the fragmented character of those politics — backing one clan against another or taking up the cause of the politically disaffected, who were willing to accept comparatively well-armed patronage. Through possession of firearms and the promise of commercial advantage, Arabs interfered in chieftaincy disputes and began to wield considerable power within chiefdoms. The process was exemplified by Unyanyembe, on the main highway between the lakes and the coast, where civil war in the early 1860s saw heavy-handed Arab intervention as merchant-adventurers backed first one mtemi then another in pursuit of the best commercial arrangement. The Arab community secured control of Tabora, which took on the character of a military garrison, especially as regional warfare sparked by sociopolitical breakdown and reconstruction became more intense in the 1870s.