<P> In 1698, Zanzibar became part of the overseas holdings of Oman after Saif bin Sultan, the Imam of Oman, defeated the Portuguese in Mombasa, in what is now Kenya . In 1832 or 1840, Omani ruler Said bin Sultan moved his court from Muscat to Stone Town on the island of Unguja . He established a ruling Arab elite and encouraged the development of clove plantations, using the island's slave labour . Zanzibar's commerce fell increasingly into the hands of traders from the Indian subcontinent, whom Said encouraged to settle on the island . After his death in 1856, two of his sons, Majid bin Said and Thuwaini bin Said, struggled over the succession, so Zanzibar and Oman were divided into two separate realms . Thuwaini became the Sultan of Muscat and Oman while Majid became the first Sultan of Zanzibar, but obliged to pay an annual tribute to the Omani court in Muscat . During his 14 - year reign as Sultan, Majid consolidated his power around the local slave trade . His successor, Barghash bin Said, helped abolish the slave trade in Zanzibar and largely developed the country's infrastructure . The third Sultan, Khalifa bin Said, also furthered the country's progress toward abolishing slavery . </P> <P> According to the 16th - century explorer Leo Africanus, the native inhabitants of the Zanzibar (Zanguebar) sultanate were for the most part pagans with curly hair and a black complexion . However, the denizens of the northernmost Zanzibar kingdom of Malindi were Muslims of an almost white complexion, with some pagan black inhabitants among them . </P> <P> Until 1884, the Sultans of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the Swahili Coast, known as Zanj, and trading routes extending further into the continent, as far as Kindu on the Congo River . That year, however, the Society for German Colonization forced local chiefs on the mainland to agree to German protection, prompting Sultan Bargash bin Said to protest . Coinciding with the Berlin Conference and the Scramble for Africa, further German interest in the area was soon shown in 1885 by the arrival of the newly created German East Africa Company, which had a mission to colonize the area . </P> <P> In 1886, the British and Germans secretly met and discussed their aims of expansion in the African Great Lakes, with spheres of influence already agreed upon the year before, with the British to take what would become the East Africa Protectorate (now Kenya) and the Germans to take present - day Tanzania . Both powers leased coastal territory from Zanzibar and established trading stations and outposts . Over the next few years, all of the mainland possessions of Zanzibar came to be administered by European imperial powers, beginning in 1888 when the Imperial British East Africa Company took over administration of Mombasa . </P>

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