The Chagga States or Chagga Kingdoms also historically referred to as the Chaggaland (Uchaggani, in Swahili) were a pre-colonial series of a Bantu sovereign states of the Chagga people on Mount Kilimanjaro in modern-day northern Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. The Chagga kingdoms existed as far back as the 17th century according to oral tradition, a lot of recorded history of the Chagga states, was written with the arrival, and colonial occupation of Europeans in the mid to late 19th century. On the mountain, many minor dialects of one language are divided into three main groupings that are defined geographically from west to east: West Kilimanjaro, East Kilimanjaro, and Rombo. One word they all have in common is Mangi, meaning king in Kichagga. The British called them chiefs as they were deemed subjects to the British crown, thereby rendered unequal. After the conquest, substantial social disruption, domination, and reorganization by the German and British colonial administrations, the Chagga states were officially abolished in 1963 by the Nyerere administration during its third year as the newly independent nation of Tanganyika.
Etymology
The word Chagga an exonym, does not refer to the mountain; rather, it refers to the area around Kilimanjaro and the slopes where people live. The term's origin is unknown to linguists, but some theorize that it may have been the term used by speakers of Bantu languages (which includes Swahili) to describe the mountain's inhabitants. This theory would fit with the term's appearance in the early nineteenth century after the arrival of coastal caravan traders. Swahili is probably used similarly to the endonym, Wakirima "People of the Mountain" in Kichagga, to refer to the mountain and its inhabitants, but not to suggest any kind of social or political cohesion. But the word Chagga has no meaning among the people of the mountain.
The word was taken by European explorers who arrived on the mountain in the middle to end of the nineteenth century from their Swahili guides. A pioneer in this was Johannes Rebmann. He referred to both individuals as "Jagga" in his letters and journal entries. While mentioning the various kingdoms, he thought of the mountain as one social and cultural realm. He was followed by explorers like Karl Klaus von der Decken who visited in 1869, Charles New in 1871, Harry Johnston in 1886–7, Hans Meyer in1187, and William Abbott in 1888, and they all came to refer to the mountain as Kilimanjaro and the locals as Chagga.
The mountain was already referred to by the Swahili as "Kilima Ndsharo" (or "Dscharo"), "The Country of Dschagga," at the coast in the early 19th century. Rebmann said the mountains meaning from Swhaili is "Great Mountain" or "the Mountain of the Caravans" in 1848–1849, referring to the mountain that could be seen from a great distance and acted as a signpost for travelers. He and Krapf discovered that different adjacent peoples had different names for it: the Taita just reduced the coastal Swahili name to "Ndscharo." The Kamba termed it "Kima ja Jeu," or "Mountain of Whiteness." The Maasai dubbed it "Ol Donyo Eibor," or "White Mountain." It was simply referred to as "Kibo" by the Chagga themselves, particularly the Kilema and Machame. By 1860, Rebmann's German spelling of Kilimandscharo from 1848 to 1849 had adopted the anglicized name "Kilimanjaro".
The most striking illustration came from Johnston, who built a homestead on the slopes of the mountain and spent close to six months there. He described the kingdom in which he lived, Moshi, as one of many "Chagga states" on the mountain in his texts. He speaks to the mountain as if they are a single group, destined in the natural order of events to become politically unified, despite the division and animosity existing on the mountain.
The usage of a single name to describe Kilimanjaro sounded reasonable from a distance. The people spoke what was thought to be a dialect of the same language, lived on the same mountain slopes, engaged in the same types of agriculture, and shared many other cultural practices, spiritual beliefs, and social structures. Nevertheless, it also revealed a basic misunderstanding of Africa, based on the presumption that individuals could and ought to be divided into tribes, regardless of their individual histories and ideas about what constitutes diversity.