Barghash bin Said of Zanzibar

Barghash was a son of Said bin Sultan and contested Majid's rule of Zanzibar. In 1859 he led an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow his half-brother and was sent into exile in Bombay. After Majid's death he became sultan and oversaw major building and administrative projects in Stone Town.

His later reign was marked by growing European pressure and treaties restricting the slave trade. Trade Wind uses the genuine 1859 succession crisis as part of its plot, but the novel's private alliances and romantic consequences are fictional. Accounts should distinguish Barghash's failed rebellion from his later record as ruler.