Tanganyika


Tanganyika was a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania, that existed from 1961 until 1964. It first gained independence from the United Kingdom on 9 December 1961 as a state headed by Queen Elizabeth II before becoming a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations a year later. After signing the Articles of Union on 22 April 1964 and passing an Act of Union on 25 April, Tanganyika officially joined with the People's Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar on Union Day, 26 April 1964. The new state changed its name to the United Republic of Tanzania within a year.

History

Tanganyika originally consisted of the Tanganyika Territory, the British share of German East Africa, which the British took under a League of Nations Mandate in 1922, and which was later transformed into a United Nations Trust Territory after World War II. The next largest share of German East Africa was taken into Belgian trusteeship, eventually becoming present-day Rwanda and Burundi.
The Tanganyika Independence Act 1961 transformed the United Nations trust territory into the independent sovereign state of Tanganyika. The British monarch Elizabeth II remained head of state as Queen of Tanganyika and Tanganyika shared the Sovereign with the other Commonwealth realms. The monarch's constitutional roles were mostly delegated to the Governor-General of Tanganyika. The royal succession was governed by the English Act of Settlement of 1701.
Tanganyika adopted a new constitution in 1962 that abolished the monarchy, with the National Assembly drastically revising the new Constitution to favor a strong executive branch of government, namely a president. Tanganyika then became a republic within the Commonwealth, with Julius Nyerere as President of Tanganyika. After the Union of Zanzibar and Tanganyika, an interim Constitution amended from the 1962 Constitution became the governing document. Although meant to be temporary, the Constitutions remained effective until 1977.
The unification of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964 followed Nyerere's principle of Ujamaa which entailed a strong "territorial nationalism."