Slavery existed in the Sultanate of Zanzibar until 1909. Slavery and slave trade existed in the Zanzibar Archipelago for at least a thousand years. During the 19th century, the rise of large-scale clove and coconut plantations under Omani Arab rule led to a significant expansion of the slave system. By some estimates, enslaved people constituted up to two-thirds of the archipelago's population at its peak. 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 across the Indian Ocean to Oman in the Arabian Peninsula during the Zanzibar slave trade.
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 finally the end of slavery itself in 1909.
History It is unknown when slave trade from Zanzibar started, and it may have existed also before the Arabs arrived in the area in the 8th century.Mbogoni, L. E. Y. (2013). Aspects of Colonial Tanzania History. Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota. 165 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 Archipelago are known to have traded in ivory and slaves long before it became a part of Oman.Asian and African Systems of Slavery. (1980). Storbritannien: University of California Press. 77
In the 1690s, it finally became united with Oman in the Omani Empire (1696-1856).
Zanzibar slave trade
The slave trade consisted of a third of the income to the Sultanate alongside ivory and cloves.Asian and African Systems of Slavery. (1980). Storbritannien: University of California Press. p. 77 The slave dhows were often rented of commercial ventures, and their crew a mix of Arab-Swaihili free men and slaves, with the profit divided via an owner-Captain-crew share system.Asian and African Systems of Slavery. (1980). Storbritannien: University of California Press. p. 80
Northern slave route
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 were 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.Asian and African Systems of Slavery. (1980). Storbritannien: University of California Press. 77
The Arabian slaveships, dhow, were normally rented or were a part of a commercial enterprise, 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).Asian and African Systems of Slavery. (1980). Storbritannien: University of California Press. 80
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.Sheriff, A., Teelock, V., Wahab, S. O., Peerthum, S. (2016). Transition from slavery in Zanzibar and Mauritius: a comparative history. Senegal: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. 36
After 1867, the British campaign against the Indian Ocean slave trade was undermined by Omani slave dhows using French colors trafficking slaves to Arabia and the Persian Gulf from East Africa as far South as Mozambique, which the French tolerated until 1905, when the Hague International Tribunal mandated France to curtail French flags to Omani dhows; nevertheless, small scale smuggling of slaves from East Africa to Arabia continued until the 1960s.Miers, S. (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. Storbritannien: AltaMira Press. p. 25
Southern slave route
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 acquired 1625 slaves during his first two visits, which opened the "Southern route" from Zanzibar to French Mauritius, Réunion and Seychelles.Sheriff, A., Teelock, V., Wahab, S. O., Peerthum, S. (2016). Transition from slavery in Zanzibar and Mauritius: a comparative history. Senegal: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. 37
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 market
The slaves in Zanzibar were categorized as plantation laborers (shamba), house slaves, concubines (suria), craftsmen, coolies (wachukuzi) and day laborers (vibarua).Sheriff, A., Teelock, V., Wahab, S. O., Peerthum, S. (2016). Transition from slavery in Zanzibar and Mauritius: a comparative history. Senegal: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. 40
After introduction of a plantation economy, slaves were no longer merely exported via Zanzibar but the import of slaves to the Sultanate expanded because of the need for slave laborers for weeding, picking, drying and stemming on the clove and coconut plantations.McMahon, E. (2013). Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa: From Honor to Respectability. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 43-44
Slaves were affordable in Zanzibar, and every free man in Zanzibar was said to own slaves.Asian and African Systems of Slavery. (1980). Storbritannien: University of California Press. p. 84 In the 1850s, two thirds of the population on Zanzibar are estimated to have been slaves.Asian and African Systems of Slavery. (1980). Storbritannien: University of California Press. 77
Female slaves were generally more prioritized in the slave market in the Islamic world. The Zanzibar slave trade focused on children "the reason given by the dealers being that children were driven more easily, like flocks of sheep...",Mbogoni, L. E. Y. (2013). Aspects of Colonial Tanzania History. Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota. p.179 and particularly girls; while a "fresh boy" newly arrived from the mainland was sold for a price of 7-$15 in 1857, a girl between the age of seven and eight was sold for 10-$18 .Mbogoni, L. E. Y. (2013). Aspects of Colonial Tanzania History. Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota. p. 180
Female slaves
The slave market for women in the Sultanate followed the normal pattern in the Islamic world. Female slaves were sold for use as either domestic servants (ayahs) or for sex slavery as concubines.Mbogoni, L. E. Y. (2013). Aspects of Colonial Tanzania History. Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota. p. 166
Aside from the female slaves used as concubines in private harems, female slaves were also used for prostitution. While there were male prostitutes, there were very few or no free female prostitutes in Zanzibar.Mbogoni, L. E. Y. (2013). Aspects of Colonial Tanzania History. Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota. p. 180 The Islamic Law formally prohibited prostitution. However, since Islamic Law allowed a man to have sexual intercourse with his female slave, prostitution was practiced by a pimp selling his female slave on the slave market to a client, who returned his ownership of her after 1–2 days on the pretext of discontent after having had intercourse with her, which was a legal and accepted method for prostitution in the Islamic world.B. Belli, "Registered female prostitution in the Ottoman Empire (1876-1909)," Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2020. p 56
In 1844 the British Consul noted that there were 400 free Arab women and 800 men in Zanzibar, and the British noted that while prostitutes were almost nonexistent, men bought "secondary wives" (slave concubines) on the slave market for sexual satisfaction; "public prostitutes are few, and the profession ranks low where the classes upon which it depends can easily afford to gratify their propensities in the slave market",Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press. and the US Consul Richard Waters commented in 1837 that the Arab men in Zanzibar "commit adultery and fornication by keep three or four and sometimes six and eight concubines".Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press. Sultan Seyyid Said replied to the British Consul that the custom was necessary, because "Arabs won't work; they must have slaves and concubines".Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press.
The concubines were often treated harshly by the wives of their enslavers, who were claimed to have "[ruled] the concubines with a rod of iron".Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press. Sultan Barghash (r. 1870–1888) was only married to one wife, who made him the request to never acknowledging the children he had with his slave concubines as his own (meaning the women did not become umm walad and were not free after the death of their enslaver).Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press.
In his contemporary report A Report on Slavery and the Slave Trade in Zanzibar, Pemba, and the Mainland of the British Protectorates of East Africa from 1895, Donald MacKenzie noted that sexual slavery did not, in fact, result in many children, which necessitated the need for constant slave import:
Royal harem
The model of the royal harem of Zanzibar were similar to most royal harems at the time. Enslaved eunuchs were employed to guard and manage the affairs of the harem, while female slave maids were employed to see to the needs of the slave concubines, the wives and the female relatives.
The memoirs of Princess Emily Ruete provides valuable insight and description of the royal harem. Sultan Seyyid Said had three legal wives, but despite all his marriages being childless, he nevertheless had 36 children, who must thus have been born to slave concubines.Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press. The concubines were referred to as sarari or suria, and could be of several different ethnicities, often Ethiopian or Circassian.Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press. Ethiopian, Indian or Circassian (white) women were much more expensive than the majority of African women sold in the slave market in Zanzibar, and white women in particular were so expensive that they were in practice almost reserved for the royal harem.Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press. White slave women were called jariyeh bayza and imported to Oman and Zanzibar via Persia (Iran) and it was said that a white slave girl "soon renders the house of a moderately rich man unendurable".Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press. The white slave women were generally referred to as "Circassian", but this was a general term and did not specifically refer to Circassian ethnicity as such but could refer to any white women, such as Georgian or Bulgarian.Sex, Power, and Slavery. (2014). Grekland: Ohio University Press.