From Malawi, Toto drove across across Southern Tanzania to the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean. Zanzibar is one of the world's "spice islands" and also played a key role in the sad history of African slavery.
Zanzibar is now famous for its white sand beaches and clear blue water, which brings many tourists to visit. In the 1700s and 1800s it was a prime stop for all the ships sailing between Europe, the Middle East, India, Asia and Africa. Despite being off the coast of Africa, Zanzibar was ruled by the Sultan of Oman. A "sultan" is an Arabic king. Oman is a country near Saudi Arabia and Yemen, which isn't that far away from Zanzibar, as you can see on your map.
At the time, the locals grew lots of spices that other countries wanted to use in their cooking. The farmers on Zanzibar still grow these today. Whenever you eat cloves, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg or other spices, there is a good chance they were grown on Zanzibar.
Back in the 1800s, the Arab farmers used African slaves to pick and process all those spices, not unlike how America at the time used black slaves to harvest cotton and other crops in the South. Slavery happens when one group of people take away the freedom, rights and dignity of another, just so that the unfortunate people can do free work for them. Today we realize that slavery is against the human rights that everyone deserves, but many years ago, that wasn't the case. Back in the 1800s and earlier, slavery was a big business, sadly, and its East African trading hub was Zanzibar. It is an awful and tragic history, but one that's worth learning so that it's not forgotten or repeated.
At the time, Arab "slavers," who made a business out of capturing and selling slaves, would travel deep into East Africa to capture black men, women and children. Sadly the chiefs of these African tribes and villages would often sell members of their own tribe or their captured enemies to these slavers. Imagine one day you're living with your family and the next day you're being marched with chains around your neck with other innocent neighbors towards an unknown coast. Here's a picture of a sculpture by the old slave market in Zanzibar. The same chains in the sculpture were actually used around the necks of marching slaves back then. Often the slaves were forced to carry heavy elephant tusks taken from elephants hunted for their ivory. (Ivory is the white material, like the enamel of your teeth, that makes up the tusks of elephants.)
Once at the coast, the slaves were crowded into the bottoms of boats and shipped to Zanzibar. Some slaves didn't even survive this far, as they were often underfed, but the unlucky ones who did survive were held in terrible cells, like a dungeon. A couple of these cells are still in Zanzibar today. Here's a picture of me in one of them. Can you believe that up to seventy men, women and children were crowded into these cells for up to three days while they were waiting to be sold as slaves? Many died of suffocation, since the narrow windows behind me were the only source of fresh air. When the tide came in, the bottom of the cell often flooded with sea water. There were no toilets, so the whole place must have stunk and been a horrible experience for those innocent Africans who made it to this point.
Once removed from this dungeon, the weakened slaves were tied to a post and whipped in front of the buyers. The buyers paid more for stronger slaves, so the slavers cruelly whipped the slaves to show how strong they were. This only shows us how cruel and inhuman the slavers were, since the slaves would have been very strong if they'd been fed and treated well. But slavers didn't even treat them like fellow human beings, which is one of the things that happens when slavery is allowed.
Historians estimate that around 50,000 slaves a year passed through Zanzibar's slave market towards the end of the slave trade. Most slaves sold in Zanzibar went to the Middle East, India and to Zanzibar itself for the spice plantations. Some went to America, although most of the slaves in America, South America, and the Caribbean came from West Africa. The hub of the trade for slaves in the US during the 1820s was Salem, Massachusetts.
In exchange for slaves, ivory and spices, the Arabs received bleached American cotton cloth called "Merekani" (pronounce it and you will hear that it sounds like 'America'), guns, beads, and metal wire. America and Europe used the ivory for billiard balls, piano keys, combs and knife handles. Fortunately for elephants, all those things are made with plastic today.
So how did all this awful trade in humans end? Well, remember the Scottish missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in chapter 17, who "discovered" Victoria Falls? As he explored the interior of Africa, he came across these long, terrible caravans of captured slaves being marched towards Zanzibar. He was so appalled by the treatment of his fellow human beings that he returned to Great Britain and started a movement to stop the slave trade. In 1873 the British took over Zanzibar and left the Sultan of Oman as the local ruler, as long as he agreed to outlaw slavery. At the time Britain was a very powerful country with a strong navy, so they were able to take over Zanzibar. Unfortunately Dr. Livingstone died of malaria in Zambia one month before slavery and the slave trade was outlawed in Zanzibar.
Dr. Livingstone is buried today in the Westminster Abby in London, which is reserved as an honor for famous UK citizens. His heart, however, was removed and buried under a tree in Zambia, as they said that "his heart belonged to Africa."
Fortunately today everyone in this region knows that slavery was a terrible thing. As many of the citizens of Zanzibar are descendants of former slaves, they want the visitors coming to enjoy their beautiful beaches and tasty spices to leave also knowing something about the history of slavery. This way we can all prevent this unacceptable treatment of other humans from ever happening again. After all, many countries, including the US, were involved in this human tragedy.
Epilogue:
While in Tanzania, I traveled to Zanzibar with my friend, Joseph. His
grandmother was captured as a slave near Mt. Kilimanjaro back in 1873 and
was sent to Zanzibar. She was ultimately lucky, as the British outlawed
slavery while she was in one of the slave-holding cells pictured above,
and so she was freed before she was sold. Her youngest daughter is
Joseph's mother, and Joseph is his mother's youngest child. As his
grandmother lived to well over one hundred years old and also lived with his
family, Joseph heard many of her stories about when she was a slave and
then freed. (It is African tradition for the parents to live in their old age with their youngest child.)
Joseph's beloved grandmother told him that she and
her younger brother and sister were working in their family's fields in
the valley when members of a rival clan within their tribe took them
hostage and sold them into slavery. She said they were chained around
the neck and ankles and made to march to the ocean carrying elephant
tusks. Joseph said the slaves on the caravan were fed mangoes. To this
day he said you can fly over Tanzania and see the old slave caravan
routes marked by trails of mango trees, since the slaves threw their
mango pits along the path while they marched.
When the caravan
arrived to the port town of Bagamoyo, the slaves were put in dhow boats
to Zanzibar. Bagamoyo means "lay my heart down". The slaves, many of
whom had never seen the ocean, believed they left their heart on the
land as their bodies were loaded onto the boats to be sold as slaves in
Zanzibar.
Joseph also told us his grandmother's stories of being
held captive in the small slave-holding cells while waiting to be sold.
She told Joseph that "the water came in and out" of the cells. This was
the ocean tides. The captives cleaned themselves with the ocean water
and also drank it. As the cells had no toilets, the water was surely
quite dirty (even clean ocean water will make you sick). She told Joseph that many slaves died. She added that the
conditions in the cells were so horrible that the slaves would endure
terrible whippings on the slave trading post rather than be sent
back down into the cells. As I mentioned above, the slave buyers would
only buy slaves strong enough to endure a fierce whipping to prove to
these cruel owners that the slave was strong. If the slave could not
bear the beating, he or she would not be sold and would be sent back
down into the cells and most likely die.
Joseph
said when his grandmother and her two siblings were freed, they were
turned over to Christian missionaries who took them back to the
mainland from the island of Zanzibar. They were separated there in the
chaos. The missionaries asked Joseph's grandmother where she was from,
and she pointed North and said "from there". The missionaries
recognized her tribal language as being from the Northern mountains but
incorrectly sent her to a slave refugee camp in Kenya instead of to her
town near Kilimanjaro, in what is now Tanzania. Years later her brother
came with a warrior from their tribe to find her in Kenya and took her
back home. They needed a warrior to cross Masaai land as the Masaai
tribe were fierce fighters. When she returned, she married this
warrior, who is Joseph's grandfather.
As one of the last surviving slaves from Zanzibar, Joseph's grandmother was often
interviewed by Dar es Salaam University in Tanzania to record her stories first
hand before she died in the 1970s. I felt honored to be able to
hear them and share them with you as told by her to her youngest
grandson.
Travel Questions about Zanzibar:
- Zanzibar is an island that's part of the country of Tanzania. In which ocean will you find Zanzibar?
- Why is Zanzibar called a "spice island"?
- Define the term "sultan."
- What did the slaves have to carry with them as they were marched in chains towards the coast?
- How many slaves were held in the small cell in which Toto took the photo?
- After one to three days in the cells, what did the slave traders do to the slaves?
- Back in the 1800s, the Arabs of Zanzibar traded slaves, ivory and spices for what?
- Which Scottish missionary was responsible for convincing the British government to take over Zanzibar to outlaw slavery and the slave trade in 1873?
- Where is his body buried today? Where is his heart buried and why?
- Why do the people of Zanzibar teach visitors about their place in the history of slavery instead of hoping everyone just forgets about this sad era in history?
Global Citizen Questions on Zanzibar:
- Draw a picture of one of your favorite foods that contains spices grown in Zanzibar.
- There are many islands in the world that are called "spice islands." Do a cybersearch to find the name of another spice island. Write a paragraph on where it is located and which spices they grow.
- Write a paragraph on how you think you would have felt if you were captured as a slave in East Africa in the 1800s. Describe the experiences you would have likely had.
- The United States and many other countries have a history of slavery and involvement in the slave trade. Research your country's involvement and write an essay about this history.
- Dr. David Livingstone is an important European figure in African history. Research more about him and write a paper about this interesting man.
- Arab traders used ships called Dhows to said around Zanzibar. There
have a unique triangular sail like this. Draw a picture of you sailing
a Dhow in the Indian Ocean.
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