Page 67 - Volume 1_Go home mzungu Go Home_merged with links

Prelude to m’zungu colonisation of Africa

"Veni, Vidi,"

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The Arab Slave Trade

The Indian Ocean Slave Trade
" The Indian Ocean slave trade, sometimes known as the East African slave trade, was
multi-directional slave trade and has changed over time. Africans were sent as slaves to

the Arabian Peninsula, to the Indian Ocean islands (including Madagascar), to the Indian
subcontinent, and later to the Americas.

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Slave trading in the Indian Ocean goes back to 2500 BCE. Ancient Babylonians,
Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, and Persians all traded slaves on small scale across the

Indian Ocean (and sometimes the Red Sea).

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Exports of slaves to the Muslim world from across the Sahara desert and across the

Indian Ocean began after Muslim Arab and Swahili traders won control of the Swahili
Coast and sea routes during the 9th century (see Sultanate of Zanzibar). These traders
captured Bantu peoples (Zanj) from the interior in the present-day lands of Kenya,

Mozambique and Tanzania and brought them to the coast.

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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 have been estimated for slaves brought from Asia to the Philippines during the

Iberian Union (1580–1640).

The establishment of the Dutch East India Company in the early 17th century lead to a
quick increase in volume of the slave trade in the region; there were perhaps up to

500,000 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 c.
100,000–150,000 slaves 1620–1830. Indian and Chinese slave traders supplied Dutch

Indonesia with perhaps 250,000 slaves during 17th and 18th centuries.

The East India Company (EIC) was established during the same period and in 1622 one
of its ships carried slaves from the Coromandel Coast to Dutch East Indies. The EIC
mostly traded in African slaves but also some Asian slaves purchased from Indian,