Zanzibar Revolution with Tanganyika to form the new nation of Tanzania, an act judged by contemporary media to be an attempt to prevent communist subversion of Zanzibar. The revolution ended 200 years of Arab dominance in Zanzibar, and is commemorated on the island each year with anniversary celebrations and a public holiday. The Zanzibar Archipelago, now part of the Southeast African republic of Tanzania, is a group of islands lying in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Tanganyika. It comprises the main southern island of Unguja (also known as Zanzibar), the smaller northern island of Pemba, and numerous surrounding islets. With
Sultanate of Zanzibar furthered the country's progress toward abolishing slavery. According to the 16th-century explorer Leo Africanus, the native inhabitants of the Zanzibar (Zanguebar) sultanate were for the most part pagans with curly hair and a black complexion. However, the denizens of the northernmost Zanzibar kingdom of Malindi were Muslims of an almost white complexion, with some pagan black inhabitants among them. Until 1884, the Sultans of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the Swahili Coast, known as Zanj, and trading routes extending further into the continent, as far as Kindu on the Congo River. That year, however, the Society for German Colonization