Postage stamps and postal history of Zanzibar Postage stamps and postal history of Zanzibar This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Zanzibar. Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous part of the United Republic of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises most of the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The islands were once governed by the Zanzibar Sultanate, a sovereign state with a long trading history within the Arab world. In 1964 it united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania. Any Indian stamps or covers used in Zanzibar between 1854 and 1876 are rare. A post office under Indian administration provided postal services from late
History of Zanzibar Somaliland. Zanzibar was famous worldwide for its spices and its slaves. During the 19th century, Zanzibar was known all over the world in the words of Petterson as: "A fabled land of spices, a vile center of slavery, a place of origins of expeditions into the vast, mysterious continent, the island was all these things during its heyday in the last half of the 19th century. It was the Africa Great Lakes' main slave-trading port, and in the 19th century as many as 50,000 slaves were passing through the slave markets of Zanzibar each year. (David Livingstone estimated that 80,000