The Urban History of a Rural Place

Pemba, the northernmost of Tanzania's three major offshore islands that include Zanzibar (Unguja) and Mafia, has been considered a peripheral, largely rural place in later Swahili historiography, the agricultural "breadbasket" of nearby Mombasa and other Swahili coastal towns and regions (Figure 1). This image derives from the post- 1500 period, when Pemba Island was indeed the location of much agricultural and arboricultural production for export to the mainland and to international markets, and when European accounts of the area begin. Older historical sources concerning Pemba do not abound. But those that do exist suggest a different history in which Pemba was a …