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![[M'Simbati sulatanate flag according to photo]](../images/t/tz_msim1.gif)
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by Jarig Bakker, 06 Feb 2003
M'Simbati is an island or peninsula in southeastern Tanzania. In 1959 Mr.
Latham Leslie-Moore, a retired civil servant, declared the secession of
the "Sultanate of M'Simbati" from the then colony of Tanganyika. He designed
a flag for this "Sultanate", which was flying over his house, until the
"secession" was suppressed in 1962 by Tanzanian government troops.
There is a black and white photograph of the flag on p. 80 of the article
"The White Sultan" by Charles Miller which appeared in the Saturday Evening
Post on 20 April 1963. See also an article in The Flag Bulletin,
No. 204
(2002) by Dr. Whitney Smith.
Chrystian Kretowicz, 06 Feb 2003
The information you give on the website is not entirely correct. My parents
as well as good friends of ours in Mikindani knew Mr. Leslie-Moore reasonably
well, and my wife and I with our friends actually spent a night with him in
January 1965. He was a real eccentric and his story is rather more interesting
than you indicate on your website.
Leslie-Moore wrote to the Tanzanian government in jest, asking for the
independence of Msimbati to be recognised by President Julius Nyerere, who had a
good sense of humour, and replied that whilst the Tanzanian government could not
officially recognise the sultanate, Tanzanian government officials would not
step onto his "island" without Leslie-Moore's permission, provided that
Leslie-Moore invariably granted such permission. A very neat solution which
Leslie-Moore appreciated! He was also not permitted to hoist his flag unless the
Tanzanian flag was hoisted on the same flagpole and was above his (he didn't
like that).
He was never evicted from his "sultanate" but took ill. The Tanzanian government
felt that because of his illness it could no longer ensure his welfare and
therefore deported him to England, where he later died.
Whilst we were on Msimbati, Leslie-Moore showed us the correspondence with the
Tanzanian government as well as earlier correspondence with colonial governors
of Tanganyika (two of them, Lord Twining, who, as a
fairly junior colonial civil servant had worked with Leslie-Moore, who was an
agricultural officer in the colonial civil service, and his successor, whose
name I forget), and also to the United Nations, with a reply signed by the then
Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold.
John Bottern, 25 Nov 2005