East Africa and the Indian Ocean

Abstract

There had been ancient slave routes within and from East Africa, and a slave trade in that vast region continued down to the modern era. A trade in slaves had thrived between ancient Egypt and African societies to the south: we know for example of African slaves in Alexandria in the second century AD. Slaves were shipped between Somalia and Egypt. Others were transported eastwards from Africa to Arabia and even on to India. This slave trade from East Africa had accelerated with the spread of Islam and with the consequent establishment of Arab slave posts along the East African coast. Thus, when Europeans first sailed into the region in the late fifteenth century, they encountered existing slaving systems and slave communities much as they had in West Africa. They also found slavery much further afield (Map 83).

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