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Chagga states

Chagga States and Kingdoms
Uchaggani (Swahili)
c.1600–6 December 1963
Location of Chaggaland c.1891
Location of Chaggaland c.1891
Map of Kilimanjaro showing 15 of the largest states as of 1964
Map of Kilimanjaro showing 15 of the largest states as of 1964
Official languagesChagga
Common languagesChagga & Swahili
Religion
African traditional religions & Sunni Islam
Demonym(s)Chaggan
GovernmentMonarchy
Mangi (King) 
History 
• Established
c.1600
• Disestablished
6 December 1963
Area
• Total
518[1] km2 (200 sq mi)
Currencybarter
Today part of Tanzania
PersonMchaga
PeopleWachaga
LanguageKichaga
CountryDchaga

The Chagga States or Chagga Kingdoms also historically referred to as the Chaggaland[2] (Uchaggani, in Swahili) were a pre-colonial series of a Bantu sovereign states of the Chagga people on Mount Kilimanjaro in modern-day northern Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania.[3] The Chagga kingdoms existed as far back as the 17th century according to oral tradition,[4] a lot of recorded history of the Chagga states, was written with the arrival, and colonial occupation of Europeans in the mid to late 19th century.[5] On the mountain, many minor dialects of one language are divided into three main groupings that are defined geographically from west to east: West Kilimanjaro, East Kilimanjaro, and Rombo. One word they all have in common is Mangi, meaning king in Kichagga.[6] The British called them chiefs as they were deemed subjects to the British crown, thereby rendered unequal.[7] After the conquest, substantial social disruption, domination, and reorganization by the German and British colonial administrations, the Chagga states were officially abolished in 1963 by the Nyerere administration during its third year as the newly independent nation of Tanganyika.[8]

Mount Kilimanjaro sketch c.1899 in Chaggaland (Hans Meyer)
  1. ^ Stahl, Kathleen (1964). History of the Chagga people of Kilimanjaro. London: Mouton and Co. p. 22. ISBN 0-520-06698-7.
  2. ^ von Clemm, Michael. "12. Trade-Bead Economics in Nineteenth-Century Chaggaland." Man, vol. 63, 1963, pp. 13–14. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2797613. Accessed 10 Apr. 2023.
  3. ^ Yonge, Brian. "The rise and fall of the Chagga empire." Kenya Past and Present 11.1 (1979): 43–48.
  4. ^ Vansina, Jan. "Once upon a Time: Oral Traditions as History in Africa.” Daedalus, vol. 100, no. 2, 1971, pp. 442–68. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024011. Accessed 10 Apr. 2023.
  5. ^ Iliffe, John (1979). A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 59. ISBN 9780511584114.
  6. ^ Bender, Matthew V. “BEING ‘CHAGGA’: NATURAL RESOURCES, POLITICAL ACTIVISM, AND IDENTITY ON KILIMANJARO.” The Journal of African History, vol. 54, no. 2, 2013, pp. 199–220. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43305102. Accessed 11 Apr. 2023.
  7. ^ "Chagga people- history, religion, culture and more". United Republic of Tanzania. 2021. Retrieved 2023-04-08.
  8. ^ Chiefs (Abolition of Office: Consequential Provisions) Act of 1963 53 (PDF). Republic of Tanganyika. 6 December 1963.
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