Caroline Nalule and Anna Nambooze The Bill that was published just prior to independence26, and which would later become the citizenship law for Tanganyika was all-inclusive of Tanganyika’s multiracial constituents and it effectively abolished the racial hierarchy under colonial rule. More shall be said about the Tanganyika Citizenship Act, 1961 in a later section. 2.1.2 Zanzibar Zanzibar was settled for many centuries by traders from the Arabian Peninsula. It was valuable for trade, particularly as the main slave market of the East African coast. From the sixteenth century, the Portuguese controlled the Indian Ocean, but were ousted by the Omanis in the mid1600s. Zanzibar became the Omanis’ ‘most important outpost of their empire’27 until 1856 when the then Sultan of Zanzibar broke all links with Oman28. In 1885, the Germans, having taken over German East Africa, attempted to take Zanzibar as well, which at the time had a British presence. In the scramble for the region, the Germans ceded their interest in Zanzibar by virtue of the Treaty of Heligoland and consequently, the British persuaded the Sultan of Zanzibar to approve of the British Protectorate on Zanzibar. In 1890, Zanzibar was declared a British protectorate29. Despite its status as a British protectorate, under the 1949 Order in Council, Zanzibar was treated as a protected state because at that time, it already had in place its nationality law. Thus subjects of the Zanzibari Sultan for purposes of British law were regarded as British protected persons by virtue of their connection with Zanzibar30. The Nationality and Naturalization Decree of 1911 formed the law on matters of citizenship in Zanzibar. It provided for the acquisition of Zanzibari citizenship by birth as essentially a child born in the Dominions of the Sultan to a Zanzibari father, or to parents unknown, or to an alien father born in the Dominions of the Sultan31. Furthermore, one could be a citizen by naturalisation having resided in Zanzibar for a period of three consecutive years32. There were other iterations of the nationality laws in Zanzibar such as the Nationality Decree of 1952 under which all persons born in Zanzibar after its enactment would become a citizen by birth. Furthermore one could become naturalised after three years of consecutive residence or five years of non-consecutive residence33. What is important to note, however, is that quite distinct from Tanganyika, Zanzibar, with its concept of subjecthood to the Sultan, and later nationality, had a better defined legal status of ‘citizenship’ prior to independence, although the term ‘citizenship’ would only be applied to Zanzibaris much later after Zanzibar’s union with Tanganyika. In the lead up to the independence of Zanzibar, local politics was largely racialized mainly between the Arabs and the Africans. The two major parties at the time were dominated by either of the races: the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) was mainly Arab dominated, while 26 Government Paper No. 4: Tanganyika Citizenship, also known as the Citizenship Bill –see Press Release, November 21, 1961, 593/NA/1, TNA. 27 Coulson, supra note 8 at p. 46. 28 History of Zanzibar, available at http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad52#ixzz62UxZV3Qn, accessed on 24 November 2019. 29 N Matthews (2016), The Zinjibari Diaspora, 1698-2014: Citizenship, Migration and Revolution in Zanzibar, Oman and the Post-War Indian Ocean: PhD Dissertation, Northwestern University, p. 111. 30 The 1949 Order in Council, section 12. See also, L Fransman, Fransman’s British Nationality Law, 3 ed (Bloomsbury Professional 2011), p. 1297; B Manby, Citizenship in Africa: The Law of Belonging, (Hart Publishing 2018) p. 63 31 The Nationality and Naturalization Decree, 1911, section 3. 32 Matthews, supra note 29, p. 127. 33 Ibid, p. 142. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/6 - © 2020 Author(s) 5