Old Customs House

Customs officers moved here from the neighboring building by the harbor in nineteen twenty-eight. They worked here until nineteen eighty-seven, and the current name remains from that service. One branch of the sultan's family lived in the house earlier. Along the sea-facing side runs an iron veranda with posts and railings on several stories, and the ground floor is now occupied by the Zanzibar Stone Town Heritage Society, which preserves Stone Town's old building stock and repairs this house.

The iron veranda, stretching along the sea-facing facade over several stories, is dated to eighteen ninety-six and linked to a ceremony for which the family mansion became a sultan's house for one day.

Two days before it, Hamad bin Thuwaini, the sultan ruling Zanzibar, died suddenly. Khalid bin Barghash, a claimant seeking the throne for himself, occupied the palace complex and declared himself the new sultan. But Zanzibar was under a British protectorate, and the treaty required the British consul's consent for a change of ruler. Consul Basil Cave supported another candidate—Hamoud bin Mohammed, a relative of the late sultan who was ready to rule under British control.

Cave demanded that Khalid leave the palace. He refused and gathered armed supporters there. On the morning of August twenty-seventh, British ships opened fire. After roughly thirty-eight minutes, the palace was burning, the royal yacht had sunk in the harbor, and Khalid had fled to the German consulate. He was later sent into exile; the claimant never returned to Zanzibar.

Hamoud was brought to this house by the sea. Here, the British consul, Admiral Harry Rawson, and the commander of the Zanzibar forces, Lloyd Mathews, proclaimed him sultan to the salute of ships. Hamoud received the title, but British officials controlled the administration's key decisions. Eight months later, he signed a decree abolishing the legal status of slavery in Zanzibar and Pemba. Emancipation did not happen automatically: an enslaved person had to apply to a government institution, and owners were entitled to compensation in some cases. Many people remained in their former dependence for years.

There was no customs office in the house during this ceremony. It was built in the mid-nineteenth century as a residence for one branch of the sultan's family, while customs officers were based in the neighboring building by the harbor. They moved here only in nineteen twenty-eight—hence the current name. Customs operated in the building until nineteen eighty-seven, when the dilapidated premises had to be vacated.

The Zanzibar Stone Town Heritage Society is now based on the ground floor. Its staff run projects from here to preserve Stone Town and repair the house whose iron veranda once hosted the presentation of a sultan selected after thirty-eight minutes of gunfire.