A Divisible Sovereignty: The Imperial British East Africa Company, the Crown, and the Sultanate in the Competitive World of Nineteenth-Century Eastern Africa

Chapter 1 explores the hybrid origins of the colonial state, which brought together the corporation and multiple sovereigns, private capital and a series of publics, through an exploration of the expansion and decline of the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEA) at the turn of the century. Guided by the prudent logic of “sound finance,” the Crown and the Sultanate of Zanzibar authorized the firm to take up the task of administering the territory, an occupation that was geared toward establishing a revenue regime and securing corporate profits. Central to this project: the construction of roads. In pursuing corporate sovereignty, the IBEA deployed myriad infrastructural attachments to tie people and their futures to the road. Within a few years it became clear that the IBEA had failed in realizing its goals, leading to conflicts that pit sovereign against sovereign, heralding the IBEA’s unraveling.