THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF TRADE
1. Local Trade.
2. Regional trade
1. LOCAL TRADE
Local trade was the exchange of goods between people who were living in the same geographical area.
Though it was conducted among the people who belonged to the same region or locality but it was conducted communities that produced different goods. For example, the cultivators and pastoralists, blacksmths and fishers and the like. For example, the Maasai being pastoralists developed a trade contact with the Chagga and Nyakyusa agriculturalists.
IMPACTS OF LOCAL TRADE
(the consequences of local trade)
1. Increase of interaction among the people within the same area, this interaction was later strengthened by intermarriage and other social relations arising from trade.
2. Through local trade, the requirements of the communities such as tools, weapons, foodstuffs and medicinal herbs were met.
3. Local trade enabled communities to access new products. People could get the commodities that they did not produce. For the Maasai got grains from agricultural societies similarly the cultivators got animal products (milk, animal hides, and meat) from the pastoralists.
4. Improvement of transport routes, this was due to the fact that, the communities travelled frequently to trade.
5. Emergency of important market routes. For example, the Maasai of Western Kilimanjaro and Loitokitok had border market every ten days.
6. Expansion of production. This was due to the fact that, trade created market to the extent that even when surplus was produced, the communities would still get a market for it.
REGIONAL TRADE
Regional trade refers to trade between two distinct geographical regions. This trade involves a larger geographical area and a wider variety or goods compared to local trade. It was a form of exchange of goods that was done by the people who lived in the east, central, west and northern African societies.
They were several forms of regional trade: Long Distance Trade.
Effects (implications) of long distances trade in east Africa (regional trade)
Political effects:
1. The rise and development of some chiefdoms and kingdoms, especially those which had main trading people such as the Nyamwezi, the Yao, Buganda and Kamba.
2. Decline or fall of weaker societies was the negative effect because those societies were frequently ruined by slave traders.
3. The rise of towns such as Khotakhota, Karonga, Ujiji, Klema, Kazembe, Tabora and Kilwa.
4. Growth of Kiswahili language among the dwellers who were influenced by the Arabs and Swahili traders.
5. Exploitation of African resources for example Ivory, animal hides, beeswax, timber, minerals and slaves
6. The rise of a class of a rich merchant, example of these merchants were such as Chief Mirambo, Msiri, Mtarika, Nyungu ya Mawe, Tippu Tip, Mataka, Machemba, Kivoi and the like.
7. Spread of Islam in the interior of East Africa, E.g in Tabora, Ujiji, Kalema and the like.
8. Insecurity emerged in the weaker societies where slave traders captured people as slaves and took them to the coast.
9. The number of people decreased in areas where slaves were captured
10. Hunger and famine emerged in many societies
