# Zanzibari Claims to the Benadir (c. 1840)

URL: https://allhistories.com/somalia/timeline/1840-zanzibari-claims-to-the-benadir
Location: Merca, Lower Shabelle, Somalia
Themes: main-event

Following his intervention at Mogadishu in 1828, Sayyid Said bin Sultan of Oman increasingly focused on East Africa. In 1840 he moved his court from Muscat to Zanzibar, whose clove plantations and slave and ivory trade made it the commercial capital of the coast. From there he pressed his claims to the Somali towns of the Benadir. During the 1840s the sultan appointed walis, or governors, and customs collectors in Mogadishu, Merca, Barawa and later Kismayo, and small garrisons of Baluchi or Arab soldiers were stationed in some towns. Omani authority was largely nominal: the governors depended on the goodwill of local Somali notables, could not venture far inland, and were mainly concerned with collecting customs revenue on trade passing through the ports. The Geledi sultans and Hiraab imams continued to dominate the hinterland, though they exchanged gifts and letters with Zanzibar. After Said's death in 1856, the Canning Award of 1861 separated the Sultanate of Zanzibar from Oman, and Zanzibar inherited the Benadir claims. Sultan Barghash reinforced them in the 1870s, but the European partition of Africa reduced them to a strip of coastal towns that Zanzibar leased to Italy in 1892 and sold outright in 1905. At this point in the timeline (1840s), the Sultan of Muscat and Oman (Zanzibar) was Said bin Sultan (c. 1837 – 19 October 1856); the Sultan of the Majeerteen was Osman I 'Bah-Dir' (1815 – 1842); the Sultan of the Isaaq was Farah Guled (1808 – 1845); the Sultan of Geledi was Yusuf Mahamud Ibrahim (1828 – 1848).

## Why it matters
Zanzibar's nominal sovereignty over the Benadir ports shaped the legal basis of the colonial partition of southern Somalia.

Ruler at the Time: [Said bin Sultan](https://allhistories.com/somalia/rulers/said-bin-sultan)

Sultan of the Majeerteen: Osman I 'Bah-Dir'
Sultan of the Isaaq: Farah Guled
Sultan of Geledi: Yusuf Mahamud Ibrahim

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Sultanate of Zanzibar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Zanzibar)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — Zanzibar](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Zanzibar)
- [Wikipedia — Banaadir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banaadir)
- [Wikipedia — Clan Sultanates And The Scramble (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geledi_Sultanate)