Through the Sahara or the Indian ocean: Countless East Africans for many centuries by Arab Muslims, were sold in the Middle East. But talk about too little, experts say.
Zanzibar is today regarded as the preferred travel destination of East Africa: white-sand beaches, crystal clear water and Hotels, which bring tourists from all over the world, a vacation to Dream of. Long ago, the dark past, the Paradise, 200 years ago is still overshadowed is forgotten. At that time, the island group that is today a semi-Autonomous state of Tanzania, was regarded as the centre of the East African slave trade. Here, it was on one of the colorful markets in addition to valuable commodities such as ivory and coveted cloves before: one of hundreds of slaves.
From Eastern Europe to North Africa
The sale of African slaves to back in the ancient documents. To Routine, he was in the seventh century of our era, when Islam gained strength in North Africa seven centuries before Europeans explored the continent, ten centuries before the West Africans were sold across the Atlantic to America. Already at that time, sold to Arab Muslims in North and East Africa prisoners of Africans in the Middle East. There, she worked as a field worker, a teacher or a harem guard, which is why the castration of male slaves was common. Muslims, however, – African – were allowed to according to Islamic law principles are not to be enslaved.
Africans were captured in Africa, were sold as slaves in the East
“First of all, the Arab Muslims in East and Central Europe and took white slaves to sell them to Arabia,” explains our Interview, the Senegalese-born author Tidiane N’diaye in the DW. “But the stronger military Power in Europe, ended the Islamic Expansion, and there was now a shortage of slaves, looked at the Arab Muslims massively to black Africa.”
Slavery – not a new concept in Africa
“Slavery existed in virtually all civilizations,” says N’diaye. So also in Africa, before settlers came from outside: In the Central East Africa fought amongst ethnic groups such as the Yao, Makua, and Marava each other, all the peoples in the Interior of the continent, trading with people, which they had captured by wars. So Arab Muslims met on pre-existing structures that facilitated the purchase of slaves for their purposes.
“Slavery was part of various African cultures,” explains Abdulazizi Lodhi, Professor Emeritus of Swahili and African linguistics at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. “When it came to the Export, were tribal Africans themselves are the main players. In many African societies, there were no prisons, so that people who were caught, were sold.”
On Prison Island, Zanzibar, were slaves held prior to their shipment caught
Slave Stronghold Of Zanzibar
From the age of 17. Century of the slave trade in East Africa took to properly ride. More and more traders from Oman a settled in Zanzibar, the Islands, due to the large trade on the Swahili coast an increasingly important role in international trade and, consequently, in the slave trade. So the then-largest slave market in East Africa was created.
How many Africans were sold in the East and to North Africa – there are only rough estimates, the divergent part far. It also has to do with the high losses of: Scientific research come to the conclusion that about three out of four slaves died even before they arrived on the market, and you should not be sold. The causes of Hunger, disease or exhaustion, were after long trips. Author N’diaye of 17 million Africans: “most of The people still have the so-called TRANS-Atlantic trade of the Europeans in the New world in the views. But in reality, the Arab-Muslim slavery was much bigger: eight million Africans were brought from East Africa via the Trans-Saharan Route to Morocco or Egypt. A further nine million were deported to regions in the Red sea or the Indian ocean.”
A slave market in Zanzibar, on a representation from 1878
The spice of the slaves
A number that can not understand Lodhi. “17 million? How is that going to work if the total population has not be in Africa at the time, possibly even 40 million? These statistics were not collected at that time.” And the old reports were part methodologically doubtful: David Livingston have been calculated, a Scottish missionary and Explorer of Africa, that every year, 50,000 slaves in the markets of Zanzibar had been. “Not even today, 50,000 people could live on Zanzibar. The Figures are neither Hand nor foot,” said the Tanzanian Professor.
Not all slaves were brought to Egypt or Saudi Arabia. From 1820 cultured Omani settlers on Zanzibar cloves in order to serve the growing demand on the world market. Quickly a plan emerged days, slaves could be at the nearby slave market purchased. From 1839 to 1860, the quantity exported rose carnations according to the American historian Frederick Cooper, from 565 to 12,600 kg. Zanzibar’s character changed: from the centre of the slave trade to a center of the slave attitude, the infamous figures brought forth as the legendary slave trader Tippu-Tip.
The end of slavery?
At the end of August 1791, a slave revolt that drove the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, the slave system and colonialism in Africa, significant progress began in what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. But it was only in 1873 by Sultan Seyyid Barghash of Zanzibar signed under the pressure of great Britain a Treaty, the areas of the slave trade in his Dominion permanently illegally made, however, has not been set, this first effectively. Until 1909, the slavery was abolished in East Africa final.
In December 2017 Diaspora and organizations protested in Pretoria against the slaves and human trafficking in Libya
From an actual end, however, could be no speech, so the author N’diaye: “it is estimated that Today there are still almost 40 million people worldwide in slavery.” In Africa there are hundreds of thousands. “In Mauritania, they say they have abolished slavery, but in reality has not changed the Situation in North Africa much. Young people are enslaved against their will to do forced labour and are sexually exploited.” From Libya there were reports of organized slave markets, also in Tanzania, a case was uncovered a few years ago of slavery, so Lodhi: “They found a Mine in a remote area, where 50 to 60 boys were forced to work. They were not paid and lived in a Camp of Armed guards.”
The impact of the slavery that existed in East Africa, not to be seen today as strong as the severe economic consequences of the colonization of Africa by the West, so N’diaye. “The economies of many of these countries is dominated today by the West, and discuss African intellectuals.” However, N’diaye calls for the open to on the spoken had to be, what happened over the centuries in East Africa. “Most of the African authors have been published from a religious solidarity is not a book about the Arab-Muslim slave trade. There are 500 million Muslims in Africa, and as it pushes prefer to the West of the fault, instead of talking about the past crimes of the Arab Muslims,” criticized N’diaye.