on and composed mainly of perishable materials.
Sultanate of Zanzibar
Although there were Arabs in Zanzibar and the remainder of coastal East Africa both before and after the Portuguese, the political situation was far different.
The older settlements prior to the arrival of the Portuguese are quite distinct from the later lordship of Oman and Maskat.... When the Portuguese arrived in 1498 they found on the coast a series of independent towns, peopled by Arabs, but not united to Arabia by any political tie. Their relations with these Arabs were mostly hostile, but during the sixteenth century they firmly established their power, and ruled with the aid of tributary Arab sultans. This system lasted till 1631, when the Sultan of Mombasa massacred the European inhabitants. In the remainder of their rule the Portuguese appointed European governors, who were apparently most distasteful to the natives, for they invited the Arabs of Oman, who now appear on the scene for the first time, to assist them in driving the foreigners out.
In 1698, Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultanate of Oman.
In 1832, or 1840 (the date varies among sources), Said bin Sultan moved his capital from Muscat, Oman to Stone Town in Zanzibar City. After Said's death in June 1856, two of his sons, Thuwaini bin Said and Majid bin Said, struggled over the succession. Said's will divided his dominions into two separate principalities, with Thuwaini to become the Sultan of Oman and Majid to become the first Sultan of Zanzibar. The brothers quarreled about the will, which was eventually upheld by Lord Charles Canning, Great Britain's Viceroy and Governor-General of India.
Until around 1890, the sultans of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the East African coast, known as Zanj, which included Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, and trading routes extending much further inland, such as the
