The Exile Sayyid Khalid bin Barghash Al-Busaidi in the Seychelles

By Julien Durup, a student of history

Sayyid Khalid bin Barghash Al-Busaidi was born in Zanzibar on 1874. The death of Saeyyid Hamid bin Thuwaini bin Said, the pro-British Sultan of Zanzibar, Pemba, Mafia, Lamu and also of a coastal strip on the mainland Africa, on 25 August 1896, caused an imediate struggle for the throne. The local leading families and business leaders along with the indigenous population backed the independent minded Sayyid Khalid, the grandson of the founding father of Zanzibar, as the pretender.

Khalid bin Bargash

Much to their dismay, the British who were opposed to that, had been suporting Hamoud bin Mohamed, a nephew of the ex-Sultan of Oman. Most of the senior British representatives in Zanzibar had unsympathetic opinions of Sayyid Khalid. (PJL Frankl: 2006: p.162). Sir Rennell Rodd found him impolite, and others said that he was iliterate in European Languages and that he was not suited for office in a British protected sovereignty. The populace saw this deliberate interference by the British as an insult to their customary rights and dignity and that was why they surported Sayyid Khalid. He also had the suport of the largest military force on the island. Late on the afternoon of 25 August 1896, Sayyid Khalid, occupied the palace and took control of the harbour, armed boats, and most of the capital (Zanzibar Town).

The British were enraged because, in accordance with a treaty signed in 1886, a condition for accession to sultanate was that the candidate obtained the permission of the British consul and not the populace, and they considered this a casus belli (cause for war). They began to prepare for war and imediatetly send a short ultimatum to Sayyid Khalid demanding that he ordered his forces to stand down and leave the palace. The ultimatum expired at 9 am on the 27th August, and by that time the British had gathered three cruisers, two guships, 150 marines and sailors, and 900 Zanzibaris in the in the habour area. Wheras Sayyid Khalid had about 3000 men recruited mostly from the civilian population with only a few artillery pieces and machine guns.

The British then refused to negotiate and would not communicate with Sayyid Khalid. Sayyid Khalid contacted the French, American and German consuls to seek their mediation, but all refused. Then he asked the Amercans to send the following message to the English Monarch:
“Queen Victoria, London. Hamed bin Thweni is dead. I have succeded to the throne of my foreathers. I hope friendly relations will continue as before. Khalid bin Barghash, Sultan”. The Americans never sent that message.

The British contigent was under Rear Admiral Harry Rawson, chiefly remembered for overseeing the Benin Expedition of 1897 that burned and looted the city of Benin. The British started their massive bombardment from the sea just after 9 am, thereby setting the palace on fire and destroying the defending artillery. The flag at the palace was shot down and the firing ceased at 9.40 am. That war which lasted only thirty-eight minutes, was known as the Anglo-Zanzibar War and was, according to the Guinnes book of records, the shortest war. Sayyid Khalid’s reign lasted only three days and his forces sustained roughly 500 casualties while only one British sailor was wounded. The bombarment of the civillian population did not instigate any serious investigation by Britain who had never showed any regret for using exessive forces against those who rightly opposed them.

The Sultan’s harem after the bombardment

After the cease fire Sayyid Khalid managed to evade the British forces and took refuge in the German Consulate with a few of his senior companions. The British demanded his released and surounded the consulate with soldiers and agents. He remaind there for thirty six days, then on 2nd October, in the early hours of the morning and during the high tide, the Germans arranged for a small boat to come alongside the seawall of the consulate. Sayyid Khalid was taken with his friends (without contact with the British-controlled areas) on board the Scotish-built steam/sail SMS Seeadler, (formerly the Pass of Balmaha), a German warship en route to Dar es Salaam which was then the capital of German East Africa and of which comprised, Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanganyika. There he lived as a Sultan for 20 years with the Zanzibari Sultanate’ flag over his house until World War I.

After the fall of Germany Sayyid Khalid’s status changed while the British were still persuing him. German East Africa territory was divided between Britian and Belgium. Later, in 25 June 1909, the Treaty of Versailles broke up the German East Africa territory again by giving the North-Western area to Belgium and Ruanda-Burundi. The small Kionga Triangle South of the Rovuma River was given to Portugal to become part of Mozambique and the remainder known as Tanganyika to Britain.

In 1916 the Afrikaner, Lieutenant-General Jan Christian Smuts, an advocator of racial segregation, took command of all British forces in East Africa. He mounted his troops for the capture of Sayyid Khalid. They could not find him in Dar es Salaam, however, files of his letters were found in Tabora and were given to Smuts. On 27 February 1917 Sayyid Khalid was arrested with two of his sons and three of his followers in the Rufiji delta 250 miles of Dar es Salaam.

Four months later, on 22nd June , he was escorted with his entourage on board the SS Ingoma en route for Sayyid Khalid’s exile on Saint Helena Island. Arriving in Durban they boarded the SS Berwick Castle of the Union-Castle Line, for their final destination. On arrival in Saint Helena, Sayyid Khalid and his followers, 17 of them, including three political exiles from Kenya, were kept in military custody in the Jamestown Barracks under very strict conditions of the Royal Marines. Other previously famous deportees to Saint Helena were, the Corsican Napoleone di Buonaparte (Napoleon Bonaparte) in 1815; three Zulu Chiefs and their entourages in 1890, a few died there, and Salomon the son of a chief was born on the island and later became a chief in South Africa; six thousand Boer prisoners in 1900, including General Pieter Arnoldus Cronjé. The last group were three political prisoners from Bahrain who were banished there in 1957 for commiting no crime against the British.

The weather conditions and the lack of Muslims on the island did not suit Sayyid Khalid. He rquested to be moved to his relatives in Oman or to his property in Dar es Salaam, but was refused by Alfred Milner the Secretary of State. However, in January 1921 Milner (who was the chief author of the Balfour Declaration of 1817) decided at the end of his mandate to inform the Governor of the Seychelles of his intention to send Sayyid and his entourage to the Seychelles. At that time the Seychelles had no Governor, the Chief Justice P E Petrides was in charge. He immediately sent Sergeant-Major Hardwicke to Durban to meet the depotees. Hardwicke was the officer in charge of the political prisoners from Gold Coast (Ghana) Uganda, Nyasaland, and Somaliland who were already in the Seychelles. The deportees left Saint Helena at the end of April 1921 after four years of exile and Sayyid Khalid, with 17 relatives including Mosslin bin Hassen the interpretor and 3 political Kenyan exiles, left Saint Helena for the Seychelles. They boarded SS Cawdor Castle; en route to the Seychelles, they stopped at Durban and were taken on the SS Karagola to the Seychelles.

Karagola-01

SS Karagola

They arrived at Port Victoria on 3rd July 1921, with one additional relative who was born in September 1920 in Saint Helena. They were confined at Anse Etoile, on the property of Charles Médéric Savy near the present police station on the sea side of the road. It was situaded a few steps from Sultan Mahmood Ali Shirreh and his entourage (political deportees from Somaliland) who were staying on the mountainous side of the road opposite the old police station.

Sayyid Khalid’s entourage that arrived in the Seychelles was as follows:

Sayyid Khalid bin Barghash Al-Busaidi, 44 years old and his two wives:Yeka, 23 years old.
Panya, 23 years old.
Barash bin Khalid, 25 years old, the first son of Sayyid Khalid, born in Zanzibar.
Fatuma, 21 years old wife of the above.
Said bin Khalid, 23 years old, the second son of Sayyid Khalid, born in Zanzibar.
Sahira, 23 years old, wife of the above.
Majet, the 12 years old son of Sayyid Khalid, born in Dar es Salaam.
Ali, the 9 years old son of Sayyid Khalid, born in Dar es Salaam.
Rahib, the 6 years old son of Sayyid Khalid, born in Dar es Salaam.
Saleb bin Ali, the 63 years old servant of Sayyid Khalid.
Ali bin Nasser, the 34 years old servant of Sayyid Khalid.
Musa bin Athem, the 36 years old servant of Sayyid Khalid.
Noblo, the 16 years old daughter of Sayyid Khalid.
Zobera, the 33 years old wife Musa bin Athem.
Akbari, the 63 years old aunt of Sayyid Khalid.
Meye, a female infant born in Saint Helena.
A female child born on 19 February 1920 in Saint Helena.
And the following three Kenyan deportees: Sebe M’baruk, 51 years old.
Ayyub M’baruk, 53 years old brother of the above.
Kizik Ziman, 52 years old.
Moslin bin Haasan, the Interpretor, of 16 years of age.

The above list of the deportees seemed to have a discrepency with that of Saint Helena in that there they were more of them, and it may be that some died there. The three Kenyan deportees are almost unknown in the Seychelles, and little is known about them. Sebe Mbaruk and Ayyub Mbaruk were the sons of Sheikh Mbaruk, bin Rashid bin Salim al-Mazru i, who lead the “Mbaruk Rebellion” against the British. Kizik Ziman was a follower of his two sons.

The Imperial British East Africa Company came into force in 1888. A lease treaty was signed between the Sultan of Zanzibar and Britain for Britain to take control of ten miles coastal strip. Valued at £200 000, Britain never paid any money but used the £200 000 as a loan from the Sultan and they had to pay about £6.000 interest per year. That treaty later met with resistant from the “Mbaruk Rebellion” which lasted for years. Sheikh Mbaruk secretly went to the German occupied territory, after many failed attempts by the British forces to arrest him. In their hunt for Sheikh Mbaruk the British burned and looted all the villages where they thought he was hiding.

In the Seychelles Sayyid Khalid did not complaint for the lack of Muslims or Mosque on the Islands like he did in Saint Helena but he said that the weather did not suit him. However, his constant complaints was the lack of money for his maintainances. In Saint Helena he had more generous daily rations including butter, meat, tea etc... including one pint of beer or stout. He does seemed to have complained about the latter. The First World War took the Seychelles into an economic turmoil; even the reformer Sir Eustache Edward Twisleton-Wyckham-Fiennes (the former private secretary of Winston Churchill), Governor of the Seychelles 1918-1921, found it difficult to cope. The Seychelles produce could not be exported due to lack of shipping. Chief Justice Petrides who had replaced Fiennes found it more difficult to cope with the extra burden and cost for the upkeep of the new group of deportees.

To save money he kept them on the same rented property allocated to the Sultan of Somaliland. That property was near the beach and had a small river and a lot of coconut and fruit trees. However, he found it difficult to find money to finance the recruitment of a new policeman to look after new deportees. Zanzibar was slow in sending money and Petrides had to advance Sayyid Khalid for him to buy food. The authorities in Zanzibar wanted Khalid to maintain himself by selling his property in Dar es Salaam and Petrides did not ask the authorities in Kenya to pay for Sayyid Khalid’s upkeep. Then it was suggested that Zanzibar should pay 200 Rupees per month for the upkeep; however, they refused and paid only 150. Petrides soon found out that the two elder sons Sayyid Khalid had a fair knowledge of English. To save money he sent Moslin bin Haasan the interpretor back to Dar es Salaam. However, he did not any money to the two sons of Sayyid Kahlid who acted as interpretor.

After many complaints and requests to Winston Churchill, the Secretary of State, Sayyid Khalid asked to be sent back to Dar es Salaam. Churchill finally agreed for Sayyid Khalid and his entourage (exculding the three Kenyans,) to be moved to Kenya. They left on 12 April 1922 on bord the SS Taroba. Whereas the Kenyans left a year later on the same month, to be interned in Dar es Salaam and we do not known if they were ever set free.

SS Taroba in Port Victoria, Mahé

During his 5 years of exile in Mombasa the British never allowed Sayyid Khalid to visit his homeland or Dar es Salaam. He died on the 15 of March 1927 in Mombasa at 53 years of age. Thus ended the life of the three days Sultan (who wanted to maintain a true independence from European control) who spent thirty years in exile.

Sayyid Khalid and his entourage were banished to the Seychelles as other previous political prisoners by the British under the “Colonial Prisoners Removal Act 1869”. This Act prescibed that prisoners may be removed from one colony to another for purposes of punishment. Legally, Sayyid Khalid, Sebe Mbaruk, Ayyub Mbaruk, and Kizik Ziman, were not subjects of the British Crown. They could have been technically British-Protected persons. If they were subjects of the Crown, why it is that they were never charged or convicted and habeas corpus did not apply to them?

Seychelles connection with Zanzibar goes back before the arrival of Sayyid Khalid. In around 1908 Julien Durup left the Seychelles to work as an agricultural adviser to Sultan Sayyid Ali bin Hamud Al Busaid and later to Sultan Sayyid halifa bin Harub Al-Busaid, the longest reigning monarch of Zanzibar. Seychellois were much invovled in the early vanilla cultivation on the island. Breadfruit Artocarpus altilis was introduced there by a Seychellois and the breadfruit is known there as “Shelisheli”.

Finally it was in January 1964 that James Thregarthen, a Seychellois sea captain, saved the lives of the last Sultan of Zanzibar, Sayyid Jamshid bin Abdullah Al Said, and members of his cabinet from the hands of the brutal Ugandan born ex-policeman John Gideon Okello, the self proclaimed Field Marshall.

Ref.

James R Brennan: 2008. Lowering the Sultan’s Flag: Sovereignty and Decolonization in Coastal Kenya.
William McAteer: TO BE A NATION: 2008, pp.41-43
R Dorsey: 1900, Bombardment of Zanzibar,
Kevin Patience: 1900, Zanzibar the Shortest War in History.
Heinz Schneppen: 1999, Sayyid Khalid bin Barhash, Three days as Sultan-Thirty years in Exile.
Zanzibar Courage: A longer look at the Shortes War. www.zanzibarhistory.org
P J L Franki: 2006, The Exile of Sayyid Khalid Bin Bargash al Busa’idi.
John Calais: ‘Note on Political Deportees Sent to the Seychelles’, item XXVII p. 59, F/2.14 Vol. II, Seychelles National Archives.
Political Exiles: C/SS/2 Vol. VII. Seychelles National Archives.
Cynthia Brantley : 1981, The Giriama and Colonial Resistance in Kenya, 1800-1920.