The Death of Captain Brownrigg and the Decline of Planters’ Rule in Pemba*

This article deals with the crisis of relations between Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar and the Omani Arab settlers on the island of Pemba in the early 1880s. The author examines the problem in three contexts, the first of which is the sultan’s relationship with Great Britain, whose regional policy was based on the anti-slavery campaign. His compliance gained Sultan Barghash British protection, elevating him to the status of a local sub-imperial power broker. The sultan’s policy incurred the wrath of both slave traders and Arab planters from Pemba, making Sultan Barghash even more dependent on Britain. The second is the ideological influence of the Omani “Imamate” party on Pemba. Despite its removal from power in 1871, it continued to question lay rule in Oman and the Sultanate of Zanzibar and to propagandize among Arab settlers. The third context is the internal socioeconomic structure of the Omani diaspora in Pemba and the tensions it faced due to the region’s economic and political transformations. We cannot reduce the origins of radical thinking in the Omani community to political and economic factors, as its members never broke ideological or social ties with their home country. However, the disruption of the system of tribal alliances among the Omani diaspora and the very structure of the planter society weakened its political response to the anti-slavery measures. Sources for this paper include both published and archival material; among the latter is a detailed report on the Pemba slave owners dating from 1875.