Chapter 4 examines relationships within coastal trader communities, focusing on Omani and Swahili populations. It traces the existence of factions whose roots lay in historical developments on the coast, and then sheds light on power shifts between them across coastal and inland regions. It argues that despite there being a ‘pioneer ethic’ that in some ways bound coastal traders, there was always an ‘undercurrent’ of competition and conflict, which became more robust as the period went on. Unlike at the coast, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, this ‘undercurrent’ was often manifested in violence. This was a symptom of the recency of coastal traders’ arrival in the region, a lack of formal institutions from the coast that followed them inland, and the highly competitive nature of ivory trading. Violence between coastal traders on the shores of Lake Tanganyika was the surface manifestation of deeper tectonics whose roots lay in the Indian Ocean World’s littoral core.

This chapter builds upon the previous one by examining how the town’s residents reacted to the arrival of newcomers who behaved more aggressively and could resort to their own means of military support: first the representatives of the Zanzibari sultanate, who arrived in the 1840s to oversee the caravan trade, and then the French Catholics, who established their first mainland mission in Bagamoyo in 1868. Both case studies reveal struggles which demarcated the social boundary between insiders and outsiders, wenyeji and watu wa kuja. While people could develop their own sense of attachment to a place regardless of how earlier settlers might view them, it did not mean that the newcomers could behave in ways antagonistic to established convention. Power in Bagamoyo rested in local hands; to succeed in the town, one had to respect the interests and institutions of the community. Thus, newcomers to Bagamoyo had to become localized, meaning they had to adapt to local customs and become accepted by the local inhabitants. As we saw in Chapter 1, the Indians and upcountry Africans respected established customs, even as they introduced ones of their own. For those who flouted local interests, the repercussions were often violent