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You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Swedish. (February 2024) Click for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Swedish article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 283 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Swedish Wikipedia article at :sv:Slaveri i Zanzibar; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|sv|Slaveri i Zanzibar}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Slavery existed in the Sultanate of Zanzibar until 1909. Slavery and slave trade existed in the Zanzibar Archipelago for thousands of years. When clove and coconut plantations became a big industry on the islands, domestic slavery expanded to a point where two thirds of the populations were slaves. Zanzibar was internationally known as a major player in the Indian Ocean slave trade, where slaves from the Swahili coast of Eastern Africa were trafficked accross the Indian Ocean to Oman in the Arabian Peninsula.

During the 19th-century, Britain conducted an international abolitionist campaign against the Sultanate and restricted and eventually abolished the slavery and slave trade in Zanzibar via a number of treaties between 1822 and 1897, resulting in the end of the slave trade and finnally the end of slavery itself in 1909.

Historyedit

It is unknown when slave trade from Zanzibar started, and it may have excisted also before the Arabs arrived in the area in the 8th-century.^[1] During the middle ages, the Zanzibar Archipelago became a part of the Swahili culture and belonged to the Kilwa Sultanate, which was a center of the Indian Ocean slave trade between East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula during the middle ages, and the islands of the Zanzibar Arcipelago are known to have traded in ivory and slaves long before it became a part of Oman.^[2]

In the 1690s, it finnally became united with Oman.

Zanzibar slave tradeedit

Northern slave routeedit

Zanzibar was united with Oman in the Omani Empire (1696-1856), and the history of its slave trade was therefore intimately linked with the history of Oman. Slaves from the Swahili coast was transported via Zanzibar to Oman, and from Oman to Persia and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East. Together, Zanzibar and Oman dominated the Indian Ocean slave trade during the 18th- and 19th-century. This continued after the union between Zanzibar and Oman was broken in 1856 and the Sultanate was split in the Sultanate of Zanzibar (1856-1964) and the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman (1856-1970).

After the unification of Zanzibar and Oman, slaves became the biggest industry of Zanzibar alongside ivory and clove.^[3]

The Arabian slaveships, dhow, was normally rented or a part of a commercial enterprice, with an Arab and Swaihili crew, partially or fully enslaved, in which the profit was shared between the owner, the captain and the crew (the enslaved crew members having to give half of their salary to their enslaver).^[4]

The numbers of the slave traffic is not known, but one estimation is that about 2250 slaves were trafficked between Zanzibar and the Arabian Peninsula between 1700 and 1815.^[5]

Southern slave routeedit

The French islands in the Indian Ocean initially imported their slaves from Portuguese Mozambique and from Madagascar, but in 1775 the first French slave trader visited Zanzibar and aquired 1625 slaves during his first two visits, which opened the "Southern route" from Zanzibar to French Mauritius, Réunion and Seychelles.^[6]

Mauritius and Seychelles became British colonies in 1815, and the British ended the legal slave trade to those islands. In 1848, France abolished slavery on French Réunion.

Slave marketedit

The slaves in Zanzibar was categorized in plantation laborers (shamba), house slaves, concubines (suria), craftsmen, coolies (wachukuzi) and day laborers (vibarua).^[7]

In 1828 the sultan ordered his (Arab) subjects on Zanzibar to grow a certain proportion of clove; and since the original inhabitants of the islands, the shirazi, had converted to Islam and was therefore not legitimate to enslave, the growing clove industry resulted in a big import of slave labor.^[8] The sultan's order resulted in a plantation economy centered on clove and coconut plantations on particularly Unguja, Pemba and the mainland of the Sultanate, which resulted in a booming slave import for domestic use in the Archipelago, from which most slaves had previously been sold on rather than kept on the islands.^[9]

In the 1850s, two thirds of the population on Zanzibar are estimated to have been slaves.^[10]

Activism against slavery and slave tradeedit

The British restricted the Zanzibar slave trade by a number of treaties from 1822. In the Moresby Treaty of 1822, the Zanzibar slave trade was prohibited from the South and East, and by the Hammerton Treaty of 1845, it was restricted to the north as well.^[11]

In the 1873 Frere treaty with the British, Sultan Turki signed a treaty that obliged Zanzibar to ende the import of slaves from the mainland to the islands.^[12] This included "slaves who were destined for transport from one part of the Sultan's dominion to another, or using his land for passing them to foreign dominions. Anyone found involved in this traffic would be liable to detention and condemnation by all British Naval Officers and Agents, and all slaves entering the Sultan's dominions should be freed."^[13] In practice, however, the slave trade continued, though at a reduced level.

After the Frere treaty, the British navy patrolled the Sea between the East African mainland and the Zanzibar Archipelago to stop the slave trafficking between the mainland and the archipelago.^[14] The Frere treaty did not stop the slave trade, which continued as illegal smuggling.^[15]

After British pressure, in 1890 the sultan of Zanzibar banned the buying and selling of slaves within the borders of Zanzibar, and inheriting slaves from any other than the children of a slave owner; slavery as such was not banned, but excisting slaves were given the right to buy their freedom, and the children of slaves born after 1890 were to be born free.^[16]

Abolitionedit

After British pressure, the sultan banned slavery in 1897.^[17]

After abolition, the Slavery Commissinoners court was founded staffed with British officials, to receive and enforce the manumission applications of the former slaves.^[18]

The 1897 decree has been referred to as the abolition of slavery on Zanzibar, however, it was in fact not the abolition of all slaves, since concubines (sex slaves) were explicitly excluded from abolition. The British viewed the question of the concubines as too sensitive to meddle in, and decided to exclude them from manumission. ^[19] The British excluded the concubines by officially classifying them as wives rather than slaves, but did gave them the right to apply for manumission on the grounds of cruelty and abuse from their enslaver.^[20]

In 1909, the British finnally forced the sultan to include the concubines in the abolition, which signified the final and actual abolition of slavery in Zanzibar.^[21]

Galleryedit

• 
  Slave Holding Cell with Manacles.
• 
  A site of the former slave market in Mkunazini area.
• 
  Contemporary Engraving of Zanzibar Slave Market.
• 
  Slave boat, 1869

See alsoedit

Referencesedit