19th Century: (Eastern Africa’s Contrasting Commercial Trajectory: The Emergence of Military States and Charismatic Rulers Where Atlantic Africa Saw Warrior…

19th Century: (Eastern Africa’s Contrasting Commercial Trajectory: The Emergence of Military States and Charismatic Rulers Where Atlantic Africa Saw Warrior Elites Undermined, the Yao as Notorious Raiders for Captives, and a Violently Creative Era of New Economic and Political Forms): East African societies, like their counterparts in western and central Africa, were profoundly affected by trade, though in a contrasting direction. While Atlantic Africa in general saw the undermining of warrior elites, eastern Africa witnessed their emergence, with the appearance of military states and charismatic rulers who sought to control trade routes and benefit from commerce. Access to trade served to undermine extant ruling elites and social forms, and the nature of the commerce itself meant increased levels of violence, insecurity, and upheaval across swathes of the central-eastern African interior. Some peoples, notably the Yao of southern Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique, became notorious raiders for captives. The central-eastern African interior was less commercially developed than West Africa, notwithstanding the increasingly complex regional trading networks that emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Low population densities inhibited the growth of sophisticated commercial systems, although the interlacustrine zone was an important exception. Nonetheless, across the entire region, the African response to long-distance trade was dynamic and interventionist. As in the Atlantic zone, this was a violently creative era, involving new economic and political forms and a revolution in military affairs.