{{Short description|Colonial resistance fighter from modern-day Tanzania}} {{Multiple issues| {{More citations needed|date=November 2020}} {{One source|date=November 2020}} }} {{Infobox person | name = Al Bashir ibn Salim al-Harthi | image = File:Buschiri bi Salim.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Al-Harthi with freedom fighters during the revolt in German occupied East Africa. | birth_date = c. 1840{{r|iliffe}} {{flag|Sultanate of Zanzibar}} | birth_name = Al Bashir ibn Salim al-Harthi | death_date = {{death date and age|1889|12|15|1840|8|24|df=y}} | death_place = Pangani, Tanga Region, German East Africa | death_cause = Execution by hanging }} '''Al Bashir ibn Salim al-Harthi''' ({{langx|ar|البشير بن سالم الحارثي}}) (c.1840 - 15 December 1889), was a wealthy merchant and slave-owning plantation owner of Omani Arab and Oromo parentage (from his mother's side)<ref name=":0">[http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0007/000746/074683eo.pdf "East Africa: diplomacy and defiance", Henry Mwanzi, ''UNESCO Courier'', May 1984, page 30]</ref> who is known for the Abushiri Revolt against the German East Africa Company in present-day Tanzania.<ref name="iliffe">{{cite book | last=Iliffe | first=John | title=A modern history of Tanganyika | publisher=Cambridge University Press | publication-place=Cambridge New York | year=1979 | isbn=0-521-22024-6 | oclc=3868821 | pages=93–97 | quote=''Their leader was Abushiri, some forty years old, son of an Arab father and Galla mother, who had traded around Lake Tanganyika and fought against Mirambo before settling as one of the slave-owning sugar planters of the Pangani estuary.'', p. 93}}</ref> He is credited with uniting local Arab traders and African tribes against German colonialism.
Beginning on September 20, 1888, insurrections led by Abushiri attacked German-held trading posts and towns throughout the East African territory. The German trading company, unable to control the uprising appealed to the government in Berlin for assistance. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck dispatched 34-year-old Lieutenant Hermann Wissmann as ''Reichskommissar'' to the colony.{{r|iliffe}} Wissmann along with a combination of German, Sudanese and Shangaen soldiers formed the core of the first ''Schutztruppe'' in the region. With naval assistance they bombarded coastal towns which allowed for German re-occupation. Also the Navy set up a blockade to deny shipments of arms and supplies to reach the rebels.
Al Bashir's forces were able to capture most of the towns along the Tanganyika coast and even took the explorers Hans Meyer and Oscar Baumann hostage.{{cn|date=November 2021}} Nevertheless, towards the end of 1888, much of his alliance with the local tribes had collapsed, and he was forced to hire Arab mercenaries to defend his stronghold at a fortress near Bagamoyo.{{r|iliffe}} After Abushiri accepted a truce with the Germans, troops led by Wissmann attacked the fortress on May 8, 1889, resulting in 106 Arab deaths.{{r|iliffe}} Abushiri escaped and was able to persuade members of the Mbunga tribes to continue with the rebellion.{{r|iliffe}} He was then able to lead new assaults on Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo. However, superior German firepower was able to repulse these attacks, and the African tribesmen soon deserted Abushiri.
A Zigua headman captured Abushiri and turned him over to the Germans, who hanged him on 15 December 1889{{r|iliffe}} at Pangani<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ofcansky |first=Thomas P. |title=Historical dictionary of Tanzania |last2=Yeager |first2=Rodger |date=1997 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-3244-2 |edition=2 |series=African historical dictionaries |location=Lanham, Md. |pages=45}}</ref>
== Early life == '''Al Bashir ibn Salim al-Harthi''' was born in 1840 in the Sultanate of Zanzibar he was a wealthy merchant and slave-owning plantation owner of Omani Arab and Oromo parentage (from his mother's side)<ref name=":0" /> his father was Salim al-Harthi.
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == * [http://www.savageandsoldier.com/articles/africa/GermanWars.html Colonial Wars of Imperial Germany]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abushiri}} Category:1840s births Category:Sultanate of Zanzibar people Al Bashir, ibn Salim al-Harthi Category:German people in German East Africa Category:People executed by Germany by hanging Category:People executed by the German Empire Category:19th-century executions by Germany Category:Executed Tanzanian people Category:Tanzanian revolutionaries Category:Executed revolutionaries Category:19th-century Arab people Category:Arab slave owners Category:19th-century Omani people Category:19th-century merchants Category:Tanzanian people of Omani descent Category:19th-century owners of plantations Category:African slave owners Category:Arab slave traders