Table Of ContentTHE SLAVE TRADE
OF
EASTERN AFRICA
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This study was originally intended to cover
the slave trade»on the East African coast in
the nineteenth century. The ramifications
of this trade however led to an ever-
widening field of research, embracing
most of Eastern Africa and extending into
the Middle East: a much larger world than
originally contemplated, and one in which
there is a singular lack of written sources
on the slave trade.
A blanket silence has covered the history of
the slave trade on the eastern side of the
African continent. The self-reproach and
polemics, the political and ideological
interest which characterizes so much of the
writing on the West African/Atlantic slave
trade, finds no comparable fertile field in
which to flourish on the eastern side of the
Continent. There is here no ideological or
political cause to serve by such an
approach, no lingering bitterness. It is
difficult today, when surveying the Eastern
African scene, to visualize the dimensions
and reality of the slave trade, which
dominated so much of the life of that world
in the nineteenth century.
In this book, an estimate is made of the
total number of slaves exported from
Eastern Africa in the nineteenth century.
It is based on incommensurate data and
appropriate averages; it is no more than
tentative, and open to suppression and
quantitative exactitude. But to be within a
substantial percentage, whether 10, 20,
30%, minus or plus, of the real number is
no more or no less than has been done for
the West African/Atlantic slave trade with
its infinitely more copious documentation
and tabulated data.
This is one of the first studies to treat the
subject of the Eastern African trade at an
overall level and it is hoped that it will help
to stimulate further and detailed research
at a regional level.
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«• VA. INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOOT
The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa
R. W. Beachey
13 ^
$3*/-
Published in the USA 1976 by
Harper & Row Publishers, Inc
Barnes & Noble Import Division
ISBN 0-06-490326-5
© Rex Codings Ltd 1976
* \X
Typeset by Malvern Typesetting Services
and printed in Great Britain
at the University Printing House, Cambridge
(Euan Phillips, University Printer)
Contents
PREFACE vii
1. From Antiquity to the Coming of the Portuguese 1
2. The Southern Slave Trade on the East African Coast 11
3. The Northern Slave Trade based on Zanzibar 37
4. The Anti-Slave Trade Patrol on the East African coast in
the Nineteenth Century 67
5. The Clarendon Committee 1869: Select Committee
1870/71: the 1873 Treaty 94
6. Egypt and the Sudan 121
7. Northeast Africa and the Middle East 148
8. The Slave Trade in the Interior of East/Central Africa 181
9. The Last Phase of the Anti-Slave Trade Campaign 220
10. Sir Arthur Hardinge and the Abolition of Slavery 242
RECOUNT AND SUMMARY 260
NOTES 263
BIBLIOGRAPHY 298
MAPS 308
INDEX 311
122791
CMC If' 1 ft IQ7ft
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my thanks to the Colston Society for permission to
reproduce a Paper delivered at the Colston Symposium, University
of Bristol, in 1973, and which appears in Chapter IV of this book
substantially as presented there.
My deep gratitude is expressed to Professor G. S. Graham for
reading the manuscript and for many helpful and shrewd
comments; and to Dr G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville for allowing me to
draw on his intimate knowledge of the East African and South
Arabian coasts and for expert assistance in providing maps for this
book.
Preface
This study was originally intended to cover the slave trade on the
East African coast in the nineteenth century. The ramifications of
this trade however led to an ever-widening field of research,
embracing most of Eastern Africa and extending into the Middle
East: a much larger world than originally contemplated, and one in
which there is a singular lack of written sources on the slave trade.
In contrast to the flow of monographs, Ph.D. theses and books, a
veritable mountain of literature, that exists for the West
African/Atlantic slave trade, a blanket of silence has covered that
on the eastern side of the African continent. The self-reproach and
polemics, the political and ideological twist given to so much of the
writing on the West African/Atlantic slave trade, finds no
comparable fertile field in which to flourish on the eastern side of the
continent. There is here no ideological or political cause to serve by
such an approach, no lingering bitterness. It is difficult today, when
surveying the Eastern African scene, to visualize the dimensions and
reality of the slave trade which dominated so much of the life of that
world in the nineteenth century.
In a brief recount and summary at the end of this book, an
estimate is made of the total number of slaves exported from Eastern
Africa in the nineteenth century. It is based on incommensurate
data and approximate averages; it is no more than tentative, and
open to supersession and quantitative exactitude. But to be within a
substantial percentage, whether 10, 20, 30%, minus or plus, of the
real number is no more or no less than has been done for the West
African/Atlantic slave trade with its infinitely more copious
documentation and tabulated data.
The main merit of this study, I would hope, is that it may
stimulate further research into the slave trade of Eastern Africa at
the regional level. As far as I know, this is the first attempt to treat
with it at an overall level. It is a starting point.
