African Entrepreneurship Records

  Chapter 51 Tanga Port

   December 14, 1866. Tanga region.

  Under the scorching sun, the East African colonial managers wearing straw hats are using whips to supervise the natives working on the construction site.

  The natives were in groups of four, carrying huge stones with bare hands, and slowly stacking them on the shore.

  Immigrants use a wheelbarrow to transport the sand and cement to the shore, add water and mix well, and use it to fill the gaps between the stones after laying.

  Here is a newly built pier, all made of stones, which have been polished to be smooth and firm.

   Not far away, immigrants and natives used shovels, picks and other tools to expand the bay along the coast. Thousands of people worked together, and the scene was quite spectacular.

  This construction site is located in Tanga City, Tanzania later, and the port of Tanga is under construction in the colony.

  Tanga Port, the original historical 1889 German East African colonial military port, the northernmost seaport after Tanzania’s independence, the second largest port in Tanzania, and the sisal processing and trading center.

  Currently, this is the land leased by the East African colony from the Sultanate of Zanzibar to prepare for the construction of a port for the colony's own use.

  Before, this was just a barren bay in the Sultanate of Zanzibar.

  Tanga Port is adjacent to Tanga Bay in the east. The coastline is relatively tortuous, and the high-quality bays are relatively dense, with an average water depth of 17 meters. The eastern sea area has Pemba Island as a sea barrier, and there are no strong winds and waves in the sea area.

  Tanga area blows southeast wind from December to February next year, and southwest wind from April to October. The highest average temperature in January is 32 degrees, and the lowest average temperature in July is 20 degrees. There is little fog all year round and the sea surface has a wide view.

  Tanga Port is about 120 kilometers away from Manda Town, the nearest town in the upper coastal area, and has become the newest northern stronghold in the upper coastal area of ​​the East African colony.

  The reason why the port is located here is that in addition to the natural conditions suitable for the construction of the port, the main reason is that starting next year, the East African colonies will penetrate into Kenya.

  At present, the East African colonies have roughly mastered the Tanganyika region, especially those more important transportation nodes and places that are more fertile and have sufficient water sources, have been included in the colonies' pockets.

  However, Tanganyika has a vast area, and there are still large and small indigenous tribes between the East African colonial strongholds. At present, the East African colonies have no ability to clean up these indigenous tribes.

  The main reason is that there is no place to arrange these natives. The best way is to sell them to businessmen in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, followed by some projects in the colony to digest part of them.

   But this is just a drop in the bucket. The Arabs’ demand for slaves is limited after all, and since the East African colonies were opened up, the inland East African colonies have packaged a large number of indigenous populations to the Sultanate of Zanzibar, causing market saturation.

   Until now, the price of slaves has remained low, and industries that used to make huge profits have played the trick of making small profits but quick sales.

  Since the Arab businessmen can't digest it, the East African colonies can only find a way to get these indigenous people away.

  Because of the tightness of the ships, most of the ships can only be used to arrange immigration, and are temporarily unable to pack these indigenous people overseas.

  So the East African colonies could only temporarily drive out some indigenous tribes. Even so, the East African colonies still accumulated a large number of indigenous labor forces.

  Since this is the case, the East African colonies can only use them to carry out some major projects, except for reclaiming farmland, building roads, and digging canals.

  The biggest project this year is the construction of Tanga Port. At the same time, the road from the port to Manda Town in the upper coastal area uses a large number of indigenous people.

  After the extensive use of indigenous captives, Tanga Port has first seen its scale. The docks and warehouses have been built, and a seventeen-meter-high lighthouse has been built at the port.

As a key port for the import and export of East African colonies in the future, Ernst imported a batch of artillery from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, loaded it from Trieste, bypassed the Strait of Gibraltar and the long African coastline, and arrived at the port of Dar es Salaam ashore.

   It was sent to Tanga after being dragged by horses, and now these artillery are used to erect defensive forts in the north and south of the port area.

  Construction in Tanga Port At the same time, Ernst prepared to build the first factory in the colony, the sisal processing factory.

   Ernst specially imported a batch of hemp stripping machines from France and shipped them to East Africa for assembly.

  As the current dominant commodity in the East African colonies, sisal is very profitable. In order to further increase the value of sisal, the export of sisal raw materials is changed to export of finished and semi-finished products.

The sisal processing factory selects and organizes the sisal planted in the East African colony, and sends it into the machine to complete the processes of rolling, filtering residue, cleaning, drying, etc., and finally the workers arrange the hemp, straighten the hemp, draw the sliver, and then spin it. Yarn, weaving and other processes.

  The finished products are hemp rope and canvas, as well as semi-finished fiber products for primary processing.

  Sisal is a coarse fiber, so it is not suitable for textile fabrics.

  However, sisal has a fine texture, strong toughness, salt and alkali resistance, and is not easily corroded by sea water. Before the birth of chemical fibers, it was the best material for ship cables.

  At the same time, sisal is also widely used in fishing nets, canvas, mine cables, hemp ropes for various purposes, sacks...

   It is also used as the raw material for fine paper, such as nautical charts and banknotes.

  So the sale of sisal is not a problem. There are also sisal plantations in other parts of the world, among which Brazil and Southeast Asia are relatively large.

  The establishment of a sisal processing plant in Tanga Port will help to enhance the competitiveness of the East African sisal industry in the world in the future.

  Sisal itself is a relatively drought-tolerant and barren-tolerant plant. In addition, the climate in East Africa is very suitable for sisal planting. Farmers basically don’t need to take care of it after planting sisal in the ground.

  The labor cost in the current colony is quite low, coupled with the support of machinery, the cost of sisal fiber produced by the sisal factory in the East African colony is extremely low.

  The current workers in the factory are all immigrants, and a total of three factories have been established, all near Tanga Port.

  With the roar of the machine, the workers put the stacked sisal leaves into the machine, and the rollers rolled on the sisal leaves and were broken up.

  Workers use wooden sticks to wrap the sisal into **** at the outlet, put them in the pot for rinsing, and then take them out to dry.

  Finally, the sisal fibers are straightened out by hand and used to twist into hemp rope or become canvas in the next factory.

  The finished and semi-finished sisal products produced will be exported overseas at the nearest port of Tanga, and will be shipped back to Europe by the merchant ships of the East African colonies or the Portuguese and Dutch merchant ships passing along the coast.

  Tanga Port has become a sisal processing and trading center. At the same time, the characteristic products of the colony, such as cloves, pyrethrum, and cinchona bark, can also be exported through Tanga Port.

  The materials needed by the colony can also be transshipped here, especially for the penetration of Kenya next year.

  Starting directly from Tanga Port, you can enter Kenya not far north. At that time, immigrants transported from overseas can go ashore directly in Tanga, and after distribution, they will be directly transported to various parts of Kenya.

   Compared with going ashore directly from Dar es Salaam port, it will save a lot of manpower and material resources.

  Of course, the immigrants who will subsequently develop Tanzania will land at the port of Dar es Salaam to fill the blank area of ​​the colony in Tanzania, while the immigrants going to Kenya will choose to land at the port of Tanga.

  (end of this chapter)