176 Bethwell A. OgotSomali coast) to Egypt in ancient times and also that black slave soldiers from
East Africa were exported to Mesopotamia. He concludes that the slave trade
was a constant factor on the East African coast between A.D. 100 and 1498. *
A Chinese scholar, Tuan Ch'eng'shih, writing in the middle of the ninth cen-
tury, refers to slave exports from Po-pa-li which, according to Oriental scholars
such as Fredrich Hirth, J. J. L. Duyvendak and Paul Wheatey, is in Somalia.
According to a document dated 1119, most of the wealthy families of Canton
possessed African slaves.^5 Another Chinese writer, Chan Ju-kua, makes several
references to African slaves in his work published in A.D. 1226. He asserts, for
instance, that African 'are enticed by offers of food and then caught and carried
off from Pemba for slaves to the Ta-shi [Arab] Countries, where they fetch
a high price'.^8 The Arab book Adjaib al-Hind, written during the latter part of
the tenth century, stated that 200 slaves were exported from East Africa to
Oman annually and that 1,000 ships from Oman were involved in the trade
with East Africa.^7 R. B. Serjeant, using the Hadrami Chronicles, also confirms
that slaves were being exported from East Africa to Arabia before the Portu-
guese period.^8 East African slaves were also being imported into the Persian
Gulf, especially into Bahrain, between the tenth and twelth centuries.^9 The case
of India is much clearer. Substantial numbers of African slaves were reported
by travellers in the Middle Ages to be in Gujarat and the Deccan Areas. From
1459 to 1474, King Barbuk of Bengal possessed 8,000 African slaves.^10 Mathew
has argued that most of these slaves came from the present United Republic
of Tanzania.
Slaves continued to be exported from East Africa during the Portuguese
period to Arabia and the Persian Gulf. In 1631, for example, 400 Africans from
Mombasa were shipped as slaves to the market at Mecca.^11
It is thus clear that from at least the seventh century slaves were being
exported in small numbers from eastern Africa, stretching from Ethiopia and
Somali in the north to Mozambique in the south. They worked on the date
plantations in Basra, Bandar Abbas, Minab and along the Batinah coast;
in the pearl-diving industry in Bahrain and Lingeh on the Persian Gulf; as
slave soldiers in various parts of Arabia, Persia and India; as dock workers and
dhow crews in much of the Arab-controlled Indian Ocean; and as concubines
and domestic servants in Muslim communities throughout Asia.^12
The African exodus to Asia and the Middle East and the presence of
Africans in the eastern world is a crucial subject which can only be understood
by paying greater attention to the pre-1800 period. What were the specifics of
the Asian economic situation which created the need for slaves? Was there any
difference in status between African and non-African slaves? How did the
Islamic ideas on the institution of slavery affect the slave trade? Why is it
that today there are few socially or culturally separate Afro-Asian communities
in Asia? What was the impact of the African presence upon the indigenous