Ruled by a regime that had its origins in southern Arabia, Zanzibar built its prosperity on control of the East African ivory and slave trades during the nineteenth century, only to come under increasing Western pressure to abolish the slave trade and then the institution of slavery itself. It responded to that pressure first by outlawing the slave trade and, nearly one-quarter of a century later, abolishing domestic slavery.
The East African offshore island of Zanzibar had a long history of involvement in the slave trade. Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries Zanzibar was a powerful city-state with trade links to the Middle East, India, and other parts of Asia. During the mid-seventeenth century, the rules of southern Arabia’s Omani sultanate began involving themselves in the east coast of Africa, especially by providing coastal towns with naval support against the Portuguese. In 1840, Sultan Sa՚īd ibn Sulṭān moved his capital from Oman
The main commodities brought by caravans from the interior of East Africa to the coast were ivory
Meanwhile, Oman’s increasing trade attracted Western interest. In 1798, Great Britain and Oman established trade agreements. In 1833, the United States signed an amity and commerce treaty with Oman that gave the latter most-favored-nation privileges and established an American consulate in Zanzibar town. Britain followed with a similar treaty in 1839 and France in 1844. Along with Western trade came opposition to the institution of slavery.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, Britain concentrated its efforts to intercept slave ships along Africa’s western coast. The British then moved to help eradicate the slave trade on the other side of the continent. One of the first British consuls in Zanzibar, Colonel Atkins Hamerton
After Sultan
Anglican agents of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa
Zanzibar’s economy had already undergone a major transformation. During the 1830’s, cloves
Muslim slave traders marching their captives to the East African coast during the early 1870’s.
The end of slave exports in the 1873 decree was in some ways a natural development, but slavery on Zanzibar continued to flourish. Barghash’s decree had outlawed the import of slaves from the mainland, leaving only the slaves who had lived in Zanzibar and their offspring as legal under the law. However, it was difficult to enforce the ban on importing slaves, and the numbers of slaves on Zanzibar continued to increase. In 1895, a British official estimated that of the 200,000 inhabitants of the island, three-quarters were slaves.
In 1890, Great Britain established a protectorate over Zanzibar,
The impetus for a complete ban on slavery came in September, 1896, when France announced the abolition of slavery in Madagascar. During the previous month, Zanzibar’s Sultan Hamid ibn Thuwain had died. Khalid
The abolition of slavery in Zanzibar in 1897 was the final step in the century-long British effort to end Africa’s slave trade. However, even then, the issue of slavery was not fully resolved. Zanzibar’s emancipation decree required slaves to apply for their freedom and prove that they had both places to live and means of support. Moreover, a series of vagrancy laws were written into the decree to restrict the lives of newly freed slaves. Within the first year, only 10 percent of Zanzibar’s slaves had bothered to complete the paperwork. Other slaves negotiated for better working conditions and remained on their plantations.
The decree did, however, have a lasting effect on life in Zanzibar. Following years of prosperity, the early part of the twentieth century showed signs of struggle. The plantations at first suffered from labor shortages. Many switched from clove
The end of slavery on Zanzibar was a victory for several generations of abolitionists who had lobbied tirelessly against the institution. However, the 1897 decree did not apply to the coastal areas of the mainland under British control, where the effort to abolish slavery continued for another decade. In many areas the concern for slavery shifted to working conditions for free laborers.
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Bennett, Norman Robert. The Arab State of Zanzibar: A Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984. Comprehensive bibliography of Zanzibar, with many references to works on nineteenth century events. -
Cooper, Frederick. From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981. Examination of Zanzibar’s transformation from a slave economy to a wage-based economy. -
Depelchin, James. “The Transition from Slavery, 1873-1914.” In Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule, edited by Abdul Sheriff and Ed Ferguson. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1991. Essay on Zanzibar’s transition to a free economy that argues that the motivation for abolishing slavery in Zanzibar was economic, not humanitarian. -
Fair, Laura. Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001. Study of changes in Zanzibar after the legal abolition of slavery. -
Grant, Kevin. A Civilized Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884-1926. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis, 2004. Scholarly study, based on archival sources, of attempts by the British government and evangelical churches to end slavery and forced-labor practices in Africa during the first decades of its colonial involvement in the continent. -
Sheriff, Abdul. Slaves, Spices, and Ivory in Zanzibar. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1987. Broad economic history of trade in Zanzibar.
Congress Bans Importation of African Slaves
Slavery Is Abolished Throughout the British Empire
Slave Traders Begin Ravaging Easter Island
Thirteenth Amendment Is Ratified
Berlin Conference Lays Groundwork for the Partition of Africa
David Livingstone; Saՙīd ibn Sulṭān; Tippu Tip.