19th Century: (The Nyamwezi — A People Who Did Not Exist Before the Commercial Dynamics of the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Dryland Grain Farmers Who Became the P…

19th Century: (The Nyamwezi — A People Who Did Not Exist Before the Commercial Dynamics of the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Dryland Grain Farmers Who Became the People of the New Moon, Dominating Trade Routes Between Buganda, Katanga, and Zanzibar Until Coastal Caravans Pushed Inland): The themes of local entrepreneurship and the fluidity of identities were most dramatically manifest in the Nyamwezi, who did not exist as a people before the commercial and political dynamics of the mid-nineteenth century. These dryland grain farmers were a loosely affiliated population group across western and northern Tanzania when they began traveling ever further afield, taking advantage of growing commercial opportunities — to people on or near the coast, they came from the west and thus became the people of the new moon. By the dawn of the nineteenth century, the Nyamwezi had developed trade routes linking Buganda at the north end of Lake Victoria, Katanga to the south, and Zanzibar at the coast, dominating this commercial network until the middle decades of the century when coastal traders began penetrating the interior with their own caravans. Many Nyamwezi became porters for wealthy Arab and Indian merchants, but conflict was inevitable — large coastal caravans strained local food supplies, and antagonism arose by the 1840s and 1850s over the establishment of customs duties by chiefs along the commercial highways.