Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar. Abdul Sheriff

Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar - Abdul Sheriff


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thesis.

      Bibliography: p.

      Includes index.

      1. Zanzibar Commerce History 18th century.

      2. Zanzibar Commerce History 19th century.

      3. Slave-trade Tanzania Zanzibar History.

      4. Spice trade Tanzania Zanzibar History. I. Title.

      HF3897.S54 1987 382′.096781 87–12339

      ISBN 0-8214-0871-2

      ISBN 0-8214-0872-0 (pbk)

      Typeset in 10/11pt Baskerville by Colset Private Limited, Singapore

      ISBN 978-1-78204-777-3 (James Currey ePub eISBN)

      ISBN 978-1-78204-978-4 (James Currey ePDF eISBN)

      ISBN 978-0-8214-4021-6 (Ohio University Press eISBN)

       To Suhail

       Contents

       Preface

       Illustrations

       Maps, Graphs and Tables

       Abbreviations

       Glossary

       Currency and Weights

       Introduction: The Commercial Empire

       One: The Rise of a Compradorial State

       The mercantile civilisation of the Swahili coast

       Portuguese intervention

       The transformation of Oman

       The subjugation of the Swahili coast

       Conclusion

       Two: The Transformation of the Slave Sector

       The northern slave trade

       The French slave trade and the re-subjugation of Kilwa, 1770-1822

       The genesis of the slave system of production in Zanzibar, 1810-1840s

       The development of the slave system on the northern coast

       Three: Commercial Expansion and the Rise of the Merchant Class

       The ivory trade to the end of the eighteenth century

       The genesis of the Indian mercantile class

       The expansion of foreign trade

       The dynamo of merchant accumulation

       Conclusion

       Four: The Structure of the Commercial Empire

       The entrepôt

       Economic dependence

       The capital: planter town or commercial centre?

       Five: The Hinterland of Zanzibar

       The southern hinterland

       The northern hinterland

       The core of the commercial empire

       The moving frontier

       Where the flag did not follow trade

       Six: The Empire Undermined

       The subordination of the Indian merchant class

       The dismemberment of the Omani kingdom

       The nationalist reaction: accession of Barghash

       The slave trade under attack

       ‘I have come to dictate’

       Conclusion

       Appendices

       A: Bombay trade with East Africa, 1801/2–1869/70

       B: Prices of ivory and merekani sheeting, 1802/3–1873/4

       C: Ivory imports into the United Kingdom, 1792–1875

       Sources

       Index

       Preface

      The publication of a book so many years after the completion of the doctoral thesis on which it is based requires an explanation, if not an apology. African historiography has been going through such rapid changes since the coming of independence from colonial rule in the early 1960s that any extended piece of research has had to contend with strong intellectual eddies if not outright contrary currents. History has become one of the battlegrounds for contending ideological forces trying to interpret the past in terms of the present, and vice-versa. The perspective depends very much on one’s vantage point, not only in geographical terms between Africa and the Western metropoles, but even more importantly in philosophical terms.

      The research for the thesis was done in the late 1960s partly in the United States, France and India, but largely in London which has a well-established scholarly tradition and unrivalled research facilities. I owe to Professor Richard Gray, who supervised the thesis, as well as other scholars at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, an enormous debt in initiating me into what may be termed the SOAS school of African history which has obtained its fullest expression in the Cambridge History of Africa.

      Halfway through my research I went to the University of Dar es Salaam to teach for a year, and I found myself in the middle of an intense philosophical debate on the nature of African history, reflecting the changes that Africa was then going through. It had already given rise to what came to be called the Dar es Salaam school of nationalist


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