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The Indian Ocean slave trade, sometimes known as the East African slave trade or Arab slave trade, was multi-directional slave trade and has changed over time. Africans were sent as slaves to the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
, to
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
islands (including
Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
), to the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
, and later to the Americas.


History


Early Indian Ocean slave trade

Slave trading in the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
goes back to 2500 BCE. Ancient
Babylonians Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. 1 ...
, Egyptians,
Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
, various Indian groups and
Persians The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian. ...
all traded slaves on small scale across the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
(and sometimes the
Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
). Slave trading in the Red Sea around the time of
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...
is described by
Agatharchides Agatharchides or Agatharchus ( grc-gre, Ἀγαθαρχίδης or , ''Agatharchos'') of Cnidus was a Greek historian and geographer (flourished 2nd century BC). Life Agatharchides is believed to have been born at Cnidus, hence his appellation. A ...
. Strabo's '' Geographica'' (completed after 23 CE) mentions Greeks from Egypt trading slaves at the port of
Adulis Adulis (Sabaean: ሰበኣ 𐩱 𐩵 𐩡 𐩪, gez, ኣዱሊስ, grc, Ἄδουλις) was an ancient city along the Red Sea in the Gulf of Zula, about south of Massawa. Its ruins lie within the modern Eritrean city of Zula. It was the e ...
and other ports on the Horn African coast.
Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...
's '' Natural History'' (published in 77 CE) also describes Indian Ocean slave trading. In the 1st century CE, ''
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' ( grc, Περίπλους τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς Θαλάσσης, ', modern Greek '), also known by its Latin name as the , is a Greco-Roman periplus written in Koine Greek that describes navigation and ...
'' advised of slave trading opportunities in the region, particularly in the trading of "beautiful girls for concubinage." According to this manual, slaves were exported from Omana (likely near modern-day Oman) and Kanê to the west coast of India. The ancient Indian Ocean slave trade was enabled by building boats capable of carrying large numbers of human beings in the
Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...
using wood imported from India. These shipbuilding activities go back to Babylonian and
Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...
times. Gujarati merchants evolved into the first explorers of the Indian Ocean as they traded slaves as well as African goods such as ivory and tortoise shells. The Gujaratis were participants in the slavery business in Mombasa, Zanzibar and to some extent in the Southern African region. Indonesians were also participants, and brought spices to Africa's shores. They would have returned via India and Sri Lanka with ivory, iron, skins, and slaves.After the involvement of the
Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
and
Sassanian Empire The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...
in slave trading in the 6th century AD, it became a major enterprise.
Cosmas Indicopleustes Cosmas Indicopleustes ( grc-x-koine, Κοσμᾶς Ἰνδικοπλεύστης, lit=Cosmas who sailed to India; also known as Cosmas the Monk) was a Greek merchant and later hermit from Alexandria of Egypt. He was a 6th-century traveller who ma ...
wrote in his '' Christian Topography'' (550 CE) that Somali port cities were exporting slaves captured in the interior to Byzantine Egypt via the Red Sea. He also mentioned the import of eunuchs by the Byzantines from Mesopotamia and India. After the 1st century, the export of black Africans from Tanzania, Mozambique and other Bantu groups became a "constant factor". Under the Sassanians,
Indian Ocean trade Indian Ocean trade has been a key factor in East–West exchanges throughout history. Long-distance trade in dhows and proas made it a dynamic zone of interaction between peoples, cultures, and civilizations stretching from Southeast Asia to Ea ...
was used not just to transport slaves, but also scholars and merchants.


Muslim Indian Ocean slave trade

Exports of slaves to the Muslim world from the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
began after Muslim
Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
and Swahili traders won control of the Swahili Coast and sea routes during the 9th century (see
Sultanate of Zanzibar The Sultanate of Zanzibar ( sw, Usultani wa Zanzibar, ar, سلطنة زنجبار , translit=Sulṭanat Zanjībār), also known as the Zanzibar Sultanate, was a state controlled by the Sultan of Zanzibar, in place between 1856 and 1964. The Su ...
). These traders captured
Bantu peoples The Bantu peoples, or Bantu, are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. They are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Souther ...
(Zanj) from the interior in the present-day lands of
Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...
,
Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
and
Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
and brought them to the coast. Bethwell A. Ogot, ''Zamani: A Survey of East African History'', (East African Publishing House: 1974), p. 104 There, the slaves gradually assimilated in the rural areas, particularly on the
Unguja Unguja (also referred to as "Zanzibar Island" or simply "Zanzibar", in grc, Μενουθιάς, Menuthias – as mentioned in The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'') is the largest and most populated island of the Zanzibar archipelago, in Tanza ...
and
Pemba Pemba may refer to: __NOTOC__ Places * Pemba Island, in Tanzania * Pemba, Mozambique Pemba is a port city and district in Mozambique. It is the capital of the province of Cabo Delgado and lies on a peninsula in Pemba Bay. The town was found ...
islands. Muslim merchants traded an estimated 1000 African slaves annually between 800 and 1700, a number that grew to during the 18th century, and 3700 during the period 1800–1870.Copied content from
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
; see that page's history for attribution.
William Gervase Clarence-Smith William Gervase Clarence-Smith is Professor of the Economic History of Asia and Africa at SOAS, University of London. He received an M.A. from Cambridge, a DipPol from the University of Paris and a Ph.D. from London University. Clarence-Smith is t ...
writes that estimating the number of slaves traded has been controversial in the academic world, especially when it comes to the slave trade in the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
and Red Sea. When estimating the number of people enslaved from East Africa, author N'Diaye and French historian Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau estimate 8 million as the total number of people transported from the 7th century until 1920, amounting to an average of 5,700 people per year. Many of these slaves were transported by the Indian Ocean and
Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
via Zanzibar. This compares with their estimate of 9 million people enslaved and transported via the Sahara. The captives were sold throughout the Middle East and East Africa. This trade accelerated as superior ships led to more trade and greater demand for labour on
plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
s in the region. Eventually, tens of thousands of captives were being taken every year. Slave labor in East Africa was drawn from the ''Zanj'', Bantu peoples that lived along the East African coast.F.R.C. Bagley et al., ''The Last Great Muslim Empires'', (Brill: 1997), p. 174 The Zanj were for centuries shipped as slaves by Muslim traders to all the countries bordering the Indian Ocean. The
Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
and
Abbasid caliphs The Abbasid caliphs were the holders of the Islamic title of caliph who were members of the Abbasid dynasty, a branch of the Quraysh tribe descended from the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib. The family came to ...
recruited many Zanj slaves as soldiers and, as early as 696, there were revolts of Zanj slave soldiers in Iraq. A 7th-century Chinese text mentions ambassadors from Java presenting the Chinese emperor with two ''Seng Chi'' (Zanj) slaves as gifts in 614, and 8th- and 9th-century chronicles mention Seng Chi slaves reaching China from the
Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
kingdom of Sri Vijaya in
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
. The 12th century Arab geographer al-Idrisi recorded that the ruler of the
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
n island of
Kish Kish may refer to: Geography * Gishi, Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, a village also called Kish * Kiş, Shaki, Azerbaijan, a village and municipality also spelled Kish * Kish Island, an Iranian island and a city in the Persian Gulf * Kish, Iran, ...
"raids the Zanj country with his ships and takes many captives." According to the 14th century Berber explorer Ibn Battuta, the sultans of the Kilwa Sultanate would frequently raid the areas around what is today
Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
for slaves. The
Zanj Rebellion The Zanj Rebellion ( ar, ثورة الزنج ) was a major revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate, which took place from 869 until 883. Begun near the city of Basra in present-day southern Iraq and led by one Ali ibn Muhammad, the insurrection invol ...
, a series of uprisings that took place between 869 and 883 AD near the city of
Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...
(also known as Basara), situated in present-day
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
, is believed to have involved enslaved Zanj that had originally been captured from the
African Great Lakes The African Great Lakes ( sw, Maziwa Makuu; rw, Ibiyaga bigari) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the second-largest fresh water lake in th ...
region and areas further south in East Africa. It grew to involve over 500,000 slaves and free men who were imported from across the Muslim empire and claimed over "tens of thousands of lives in lower Iraq". The Zanj who were taken as slaves to the Middle East were often used in strenuous agricultural work. As the
plantation economy A plantation economy is an economy based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few commodity crops, grown on large farms worked by laborers or slaves. The properties are called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cash ...
boomed and the Arabs became richer,
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
and other manual labor work was thought to be demeaning. The resulting labor shortage led to an increased slave market.
It is certain that large numbers of slaves were exported from eastern
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
; the best evidence for this is the magnitude of the Zanj revolt in Iraq in the 9th century, though not all of the slaves involved were Zanj. There is little evidence of what part of eastern Africa the Zanj came from, for the name is here evidently used in its general sense, rather than to designate the particular stretch of the coast, from about 3°N. to 5°S., to which the name was also applied.
The Zanj were needed to take care of:
the Tigris-Euphrates delta, which had become abandoned marshland as a result of peasant migration and repeated flooding, could be reclaimed through intensive labor. Wealthy proprietors "had received extensive grants of tidal land on the condition that they would make it arable."
Sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus '' Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalk ...
was prominent among the products of their plantations, particularly in Khūzestān Province. Zanj also worked the salt mines of
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
, especially around
Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...
.
Their jobs were to clear away the nitrous topsoil that made the land arable. The working conditions were also considered to be extremely harsh and miserable. Many other people were imported into the region, besides Zanj. Historian M. A. Shaban has argued that rebellion was not a slave revolt, but a revolt of blacks (''zanj''). In his opinion, although a few runaway slaves did join the revolt, the majority of the participants were Arabs and free Zanj. If the revolt had been led by slaves, they would have lacked the necessary resources to combat the Abbasid government for as long as they did. In Somalia, the Bantu minorities are descended from Bantu groups that had settled in Southeast Africa after the initial expansion from Nigeria/Cameroon. To meet the demand for menial labor, Bantus from southeastern Africa captured by Somali slave traders were sold in cumulatively large numbers over the centuries to customers in
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
and other areas in
Northeast Africa Northeast Africa, or ''Northeastern Africa'' or Northern East Africa as it was known in the past, is a geographic regional term used to refer to the countries of Africa situated in and around the Red Sea. The region is intermediate between North ...
and
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
.Gwyn Campbell, ''The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia'', 1 edition, (Routledge: 2003), p. ix People captured locally during wars and raids were also sometimes enslaved by Somalis mostly of Oromo and
Nilotic The Nilotic peoples are people indigenous to the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Among these are the Burun-sp ...
origin.Bridget Anderson, ''World Directory of Minorities'', (Minority Rights Group International: 1997), p. 456.Catherine Lowe Besteman, ''Unraveling Somalia: Race, Class, and the Legacy of Slavery'', (University of Pennsylvania Press: 1999), p. 116. However, the perception, capture, treatment and duties of both groups of slaves differed markedly. From 1800 to 1890, between 25,000 and 50,000 Bantu slaves are thought to have been sold from the slave market of
Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islan ...
to the Somali coast. Most of the slaves were from the Majindo, Makua, Nyasa, Yao, Zalama, Zaramo and Zigua ethnic groups of Tanzania, Mozambique and
Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeas ...
. Collectively, these Bantu groups are known as ''Mushunguli'', which is a term taken from ''Mzigula'', the Zigua tribe's word for "people" (the word holds multiple implied meanings including "worker", "foreigner", and "slave").Refugee Reports, November 2002, Volume 23, Number 8 During the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century, slaves shipped from Ethiopia had a high demand in the markets of the Arabian peninsula and elsewhere in the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
. They were mostly domestic servants, though some served as agricultural labourers, or as water carriers, herdsmen, seamen, camel drivers, porters, washerwomen, masons, shop assistants and cooks. The most fortunate of the men worked as the officials or bodyguards of the ruler and emirs, or as business managers for rich merchants. They enjoyed significant personal freedom and occasionally held slaves of their own. Besides European,
Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Anthropology *Anything from the Caucasus region ** ** ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region * * * Languages * Northwest Caucasian l ...
, Javanese and Chinese girls brought in from the Far East, "red" (non-black) Ethiopian young females were among the most valued concubines. The most beautiful ones often enjoyed a wealthy lifestyle, and became mistresses of the elite or even mothers to rulers. The principal sources of these slaves, all of whom passed through Matamma, Massawa and
Tadjoura Tadjoura ( aa, Tagórri; ar, تاجوراء ''Tağūrah''; so, Tajuura) is one of the oldest towns in Djibouti and the capital of the Tadjourah Region. The town evolved into an early Islamic center with the arrival of Muslims shortly after the ...
on the Red Sea, were the southwestern parts of Ethiopia, in the Oromo and
Sidama The Sidama ( am, ሲዳማ) are an ethnic group traditionally inhabiting the Sidama Region, formerly part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. On 23 November 2019, the Sidama Zone became the 10th regional st ...
country. Both non-Muslims and Muslims in Southeast Asia during the end of the 19th century bought Japanese girls as slaves who were imported to the region by sea. However, the buying of Chinese girls in Singapore was forbidden for Muslims by a Batavia (Jakarta) based Arab Muslim Mufti, Usman bin Yahya in a fatwa because he ruled that in Islam it was illegal to buy free non-Muslims or marry non-Muslim slave girls during peace time from slave dealers and non-Muslims could only be enslaved and purchased during holy war (jihad). A Chinese non-Muslim man had a female concubine who was of Muslim Arab Hadhrami Sayyid origin in
Solo Solo or SOLO may refer to: Arts and entertainment Comics * ''Solo'' (DC Comics), a DC comics series * Solo, a 1996 mini-series from Dark Horse Comics Characters * Han Solo, a ''Star Wars'' character * Jacen Solo, a Jedi in the non-canonical ''S ...
, the Dutch East Indies, in 1913 which was scandalous in the eyes of Ahmad Surkati and his Al-Irshad Al-Islamiya. In Jeddah, Kingdom of Hejaz on the Arabian peninsula, the Arab king Ali bin Hussein, King of Hejaz had in his palace 20 Javanese girls from
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
(modern day
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
).


European Indian Ocean slave trade

Slave trade also occurred in the eastern Indian Ocean before the Dutch settled there around 1600 but the volume of this trade is unknown. European slave trade in the Indian Ocean began when Portugal established Estado da Índia in the early 16th century. From then until the 1830s, c. 200 slaves were exported from Mozambique annually and similar figures has been estimated for slaves brought from Asia to the Philippines during the
Iberian Union pt, União Ibérica , conventional_long_name =Iberian Union , common_name = , year_start = 1580 , date_start = 25 August , life_span = 1580–1640 , event_start = War of the Portuguese Succession , event_end = Portuguese Restoration War , ...
(1580–1640). Japanese slave girls were still owned by India based Portuguese (Lusitanian) families according to
Francisco De Sousa Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name ''Franciscus''. Nicknames In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed "Paco". San Francisco de Asís was known as ''Pater Comunitatis'' (father of ...
, a Jesuit who wrote about it in 1698, long after the 1636 edict by Tokguawa Japan had expelled Portuguese people. The establishment of the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
in the early 17th century lead to a quick increase in volume of the slave trade in the region; there were perhaps up to slaves in various Dutch colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries in the Indian Ocean. For example, some 4000 African slaves were used to build the Colombo fortress in Dutch Ceylon. Bali and neighbouring islands supplied regional networks with slaves 1620–1830. Indian and Chinese slave traders supplied Dutch Indonesia with perhaps slaves during 17th and 18th centuries. The
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
(EIC) was established during the same period and in 1622 one of its ships carried slaves from the
Coromandel Coast The Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coastal region of the Indian subcontinent, bounded by the Utkal Plains to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Kaveri delta to the south, and the Eastern Ghats to the west, extending over an ...
to Dutch East Indies. The EIC mostly traded in African slaves but also some Asian slaves purchased from Indian, Indonesian and Chinese slave traders. The French established colonies on the islands of Réunion and
Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...
in 1721; by 1735 some 7,200 slaves populated the Mascarene Islands, a number which had reached in 1807. The
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
captured the islands in 1810, however, and because the British had prohibited the slave trade in 1807 a system of clandestine slave trade developed to bring slaves to French planters on the islands; in all – slaves were exported to the Mascarane Islands from 1670 until 1848. In all, Europeans traders exported – slaves within the Indian Ocean between 1500 and 1850 and almost that same amount were exported from the Indian Ocean to the Americas during the same period. The slave trade in the Indian Ocean was, nevertheless, very limited compared to slaves exported across the Atlantic. Some 200,000 slaves were sent in the 19th century to European plantations in the Western Indian Ocean.


The Arab Sultanate of Zanzibar and Expansion of Slave Trade in East African Coast

The East African slave trade flourished greatly from the second half of the nineteenth century when
Said bin Sultan Sayyid Saïd bin Sultan al-Busaidi ( ar, سعيد بن سلطان, , sw, Saïd bin Sultani) (5 June 1791 – 19 October 1856), was Sultan of Muscat and Oman, the fifth ruler of the Busaid dynasty from 1804 to 4 June 1856. His rule commenced fol ...
, an Oman Sultan, made Zanzibar his capital and expanded international commercial activities and plantation economy in cloves and coconuts. During this period demands for slaves grew drastically. The slaves were needed for local use mainly to work in plantations in Zanzibar and for export. Sultan Seyyid (seyyid is an Arabic title for Lord) Said made deliberate efforts to "revive old Arab-caravan trade" with mainland Africa which became major source of slaves. Said bin Sultan took six main initiatives which facilitated growth and expansion of his commercial empire. He firstly introduced a new currency “Maria Theresa Dollar” to supplement the exiting “Spanish Crown” which simplified commercial activities. Secondly, he introduced a harmonized 5% import duty for any merchandises entering into his empire. He nevertheless abolished export duties. Thirdly, he took advantage of Zanzibar and Pemba fertile soil to establish plantation of coconut and cloves. Fourthly, he revitalised and extended the "old Arab-caravan trade" with mainland East Africa in search of slaves and ivory. In addition, he signed “commercial treaties with western capitalist countries such as the United States of America in 1833, with Great Britain in 1839 and France in 1844. Finally, he invited Asian communities which dealt with financial matters.


Geography and transportation

From the evidence of illustrated documents, and travellers' tales, it seems that people travelled on
dhow Dhow ( ar, داو, translit=dāwa; mr, script=Latn, dāw) is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Typically spo ...
s or '' jalbas'', Arab ships which were used as transport in the Red Sea. Crossing the Indian Ocean required better organisation and more resources than overland transport. Ships coming from Zanzibar made stops on
Socotra Socotra or Soqotra (; ar, سُقُطْرَىٰ ; so, Suqadara) is an island of the Republic of Yemen in the Indian Ocean, under the ''de facto'' control of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, a secessionist participant in Yemen’ ...
or at Aden before heading to the
Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...
or to India. Slaves were sold as far away as India, or even China: there was a colony of Arab merchants in Canton. Serge Bilé cites a 12th-century text which tells us that most well-to-do families in Canton, China had black slaves. Although Chinese slave traders bought slaves (''Seng Chi'' i.e. the ''Zanj'') from Arab intermediaries and "stocked up" directly in coastal areas of present-day Somalia, the local Somalis—referred to as ''Baribah'' and ''Barbaroi'' (Berbers) by medieval Arab and ancient
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
geographers, respectively (see ''
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' ( grc, Περίπλους τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς Θαλάσσης, ', modern Greek '), also known by its Latin name as the , is a Greco-Roman periplus written in Koine Greek that describes navigation and ...
''),Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi, ''Culture and Customs of Somalia'', (Greenwood Press: 2001), p. 13 and no strangers to capturing, owning and trading slaves themselvesHenry Louis Gates, ''Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience'', (Oxford University Press: 1999), p. 1746—were not among them. One important commodity being transported by dhows to Somalia was slaves from other parts of East Africa. During the nineteenth century, the East African slave trade grew enormously due to demands by Arabs, Portuguese, and French. Slave traders and raiders moved throughout eastern and central Africa to meet this rising demand. The Bantus inhabiting Somalia are descended from Bantu groups that had settled in Southeast Africa after the initial expansion from Nigeria/Cameroon, and whose members were later captured and sold by traders. The Bantus are ethnically, physically, and culturally distinct from
Somalis The Somalis ( so, Soomaalida 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒆𐒖, ar, صوماليون) are an ethnic group native to the Horn of Africa who share a common ancestry, culture and history. The Lowland East Cushitic Somali language is the shared ...
, and they have remained marginalized ever since their arrival in Somalia.cite web , url=http://webdev.cal.org/development/co/bantu/sbpeop.html , title=The Somali Bantu: Their History and Culture – People , publisher=Cal.org , accessdate=21 February 2013 dead link, date=May 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yesL. Randol Barker et al., ''Principles of Ambulatory Medicine'', 7 edition, (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins: 2006), p. 633


Towns and ports involved


See also

*
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
*
Indian Ocean trade Indian Ocean trade has been a key factor in East–West exchanges throughout history. Long-distance trade in dhows and proas made it a dynamic zone of interaction between peoples, cultures, and civilizations stretching from Southeast Asia to Ea ...
* Slavery in Africa


References

{{Africa in topic, Slavery in 25th-century BC establishments History of the Indian Ocean slave Slavery in India Slavery in Iran African slave trade Slavery in Asia Slavery in Oman fr:Traite négrière dans le sud-ouest de l'océan Indien