Famine and Social Change during the Transition to Colonial Rule in Northeastern Tanzania, 1880-1896

The Zigua-speaking cultivators of northeastern Tanzania experienced a prolonged ecological and subsistence crisis between 1880 and 1940.1 Devastating famines which occurred in 1884-1885, 1894-1896, 1898-1900, 1907-1908, 1916-1918, 1925 and 1932-1935 punctuated this period of declining food security. Even during the years when widespread famine did not occur, localized or seasonal food deficits developed. Though the cycle of severe recursive famines was broken by increased food imports after the Second World War, its effects linger on in Tanzania's Handeni District. The population of Handeni has never truly recovered its security from food scarcity; periodic hunger and seasonal or childhood malnutrition have beset cultivating communities ever since. Indeed, because it is in large part attributable to the long-term ecological impact of the 1880-1940 crisis, the persistence of chronic hunger in Handeni may be regarded as the direct legacy of the famine period. The famines of the 1880-1940 era are crucial events in the

Archaeology · Colonial rule · Colonialism · Development economics · Economics · Ethnology · Famine · Geography · Political science · Social change · Tanzania · African history and culture studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law

• Cyclones, Drought, and Slavery

  Open Access•Matthew S Hopper•Natural Hazards and Peoples in…•2016

  Incluir item

• Trypanosomiasis Control in African History

  Open Access•James Giblin, James L Giblin•The Journal of African History•1990

  Incluir item

• Environmental Decline and Ecological Response in the Upper Senegal Valley, West Africa, from the Late Nineteenth Century to World War I

  Open Access•Andrew F Clark•The Journal of African History•1995

  Incluir item

• African Historical Demography in the Years since Edinburgh

  Open Access•Dennis D Cordell•History in Africa•2000

  Incluir item