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20-03-2015, 05:04

Zanzibar: Trade: Slaves, Ivory

For the last two millennia, the East African coast has been part of a far-flung commercial system spanning vast areas of the Indian Ocean. Until the nineteenth century the role of the coast was confined mainly to trade and was concerned less with the production of goods. The Roman Empire may well have satisfied its demand for ivory partly in eastern Africa, with the assistance of southern Arabian merchants. After the collapse of Rome, China and India emerged as customers for ivory in the seventh century. Exactly when slaves became an essential factor in commerce is not known. Several scholars regard the rebellion of African slaves in Iraq between 868 and 892 as evidence that slaves were already being exported from East Africa at this time; others, however, doubt that these slaves were of East African origin.

Only at the beginning of the eighteenth century did Zanzibar enter the scene as an important trading center with supraregional significance, dealing in ivory from the hinterland; slaves from southern Tanganyika, Malawi, and Mozambique; and gold from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. By this time Oman was starting to replace Portugal as a hegemonic power in this part of the Indian Ocean, and the coastal towns, including Zanzibar, soon came under the control of the Omani rulers. Oman was already a full-fledged mercantile state by around 1700, and slaves were needed for its date plantations and for its army; these were acquired at various towns along the East African coast.

Around 1770, a labor-intensive plantation economy developed in the French possessions Mauritius and Reunion, which led to an unprecedented increase in demand for slaves. The second half of the eighteenth century thus saw the emergence of Zanzibar in particular as a trading center for slaves, though Kilwa and Mozambique Island were the main collecting points for slave transportation from the hinterland. Kilwa lies on the edge of the monsoon area; thus, navigating a large sailing ship there could be difficult at times, so that slaves had to be transported from Kilwa to Zanzibar partly in small boats. At Zanzibar the slaves were exchanged for imported goods, which in turn were redistributed throughout East Africa. The Napoleonic Wars, however, interrupted this lucrative trade. The result was the economic collapse of Oman, so that some of the rich Omani merchants moved to Zanzibar. In 1804 Sayyid Sa’id ascended the throne of Oman, and in the coming years he was forced to confront the strong opposition to slave trade on the part of the British, who represented the new hegemonic power in the region. The British pressure on Sayyid Sa’id resulted in a series of treaties from 1822 on, in which Sa’id agreed first to the restriction and finally to the official abolition of slave trading. The loss of profits from the slave trade forced the Arabs of Zanzibar to develop new sources of income after 1830—notably, the cultivation of cloves on large plantations. This again fueled the demand for slaves, since the plantations’ heavy manpower needs could not be met by the recruitment of free laborers alone. Dodging the treaties against slavery, an average of perhaps 10,000 to 15,000 slaves annually were brought to Zanzibar in the 1830s and 1840s, only part of which were meant for export. The demand continued to mount toward the end of the 1850s, in part because the mortality rate among the plantation slaves was very high. The antislavery pressure by the British remained rather ineffective, partly because it was concentrated mainly on the Atlantic slave trade, but probably also because a flourishing and cost-effective clove-raising economy netted the British obvious advantages.

Under Sa’id’s successor Majid the slave trade continued to grow between 1859 and 1872, with the import reaching an average of some 20,000 to 25,000 slaves annually. Majid’s successor Bargash further encouraged the import of slaves, particularly because of cholera epidemics raging among the slave population. By 1870 the British had brought their antislavery campaign on the Atlantic coast to a successful conclusion and could now turn to the Indian Ocean. The pressure upon Bargash became so strong that by 1877 the slave trade had collapsed, though the most basic need for plantation slaves could still partially be met by smuggling. In 1890 Zanzibar became a British protectorate. The British now had direct influence on the sultan’s policy, so that the slave trade was effectively wiped out by the turn of the century.

Before the nineteenth century the main customer for ivory was India, and the demand was relatively light. Only around 1820 did the demand begin to grow, as the prosperous bourgeoisie in the United States and Western Europe came to desire fancy articles made of ivory. The raw material was routed by preference via Zanzibar, where customs duties were kept low. The ivory came from areas controlled by Zanzibar, such as the hinterlands of Mombasa, Lamu, or Kilwa, where it was taken in hand by Arabian middlemen. Increasingly, however, traders of the Nyamwezi tribe began bringing ivory tusks all the way to the coast, which had been hunted particularly around Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika. Ivory from this area was subject to a heavy tax at Zanzibar, so as to encourage Arabian traders to penetrate these territories for themselves and to drive the Nyamwezi away from the ivory trade. Their increasing economic power enabled the Zanzibarians, from the 1860s on, to send well-equipped caravans all the way to Unyamwezi, which ultimately led to their seizing the monopoly on the intermediate trade.

The ivory from Lake Victoria was carried across the Kilimanjaro region to Pangani and Mombasa. Along this route a network of Swahili-Arabian trading posts was established, linked directly with Zanzibar. During the 1870s and 1880s European companies began to appear in the East African interior, and tried to interrupt the supply of ivory to Zanzibar by diverting it to their own trading posts. At the beginning of the 1880s Sultan Bargash had to summon all his influence to prevent Africans and Arabs from selling their ivory to European competitors. What he could not anticipate was the partition of East Africa between Britain and Germany. This meant the end of his control over the ivory transshipment ports and thus the loss of most of his customs revenues.

Reinhard Klein-Arendt

See also: Livingstone, David; Malawi: Long-Distance Trade, Nineteenth Century; Slavery: East Africa: Eighteenth Century; Slavery, Plantation: East Africa and the Islands; Tanganyika (Tanzania): Nyamwezi and Long-Distance Trade.

Further Reading

Bennett, Norman R. A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar. London: Methuen, 1978.

Cooper, Frederick. Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977.

Gray, John Milner. History of Zanzibar. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.

Martin, Esmond Bradley, and Chryssee Perry Martin. Cargoes of the East. London: Elm Tree, 1978.

Said-Ruete, Rudolph. Said bin Sultan. London: Alexander-Ouseley, 1929.

Sheriff, Abdul. Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770-1873. London: James Currey, 1987.



 

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