The slave trade in the Indian Ocean 191slavery had spread despite the recommendation of the Koran, it was still agreed
that only non-Muslims could be forced into slavery. The result was not the
disappearance of the slave trade, but an extension of the distances travelled by
the traders and captives as the non-Muslim territories became more and more
remote. All in all, the slave trade was one of the major activities of the Muslim
merchants in the Indian Ocean. Their best outlets were in the Near East,
which they reached by way of Yemen and the Persian Gulf. (C. Cahen, 1970).
It may be that the decline in the exportation of slaves from Malaysia and the
Indonesian Islands at the end of the Middle Ages caused an increase in the slave
trade along the coasts of East Africa for the markets of Islam. The strong
position held by Muslim traders in all the ' South Seas ' towards the middle
of the fifteenth century, after China gave up her maritime policy in the Indian
Ocean, is another factor weighing in favour of this hypothesis (Labib, 1972).
What was the extent of the slave traffic up to that time in the trade
between Africa and China? This is a difficult question to answer. Exchanges
seem to have been controlled by Indonesian intermediaries and appear to have
been considerable, judging by the number of Chinese porcelain pieces discovered
by East African archaeologists. The slave traffic, however, is scarcely mentioned
in the records. In the eighth century, two Negro slaves were shown to the
Emperor of China, and in the twelfth century inhabitants of Canton were
using African slave labour. The seven naval expeditions carried out by the
eunuch admiral Cheng Ho—the first began in 1405 and the last ended in 1433—
attracted considerable attention. They stopped briefly at points along the East
Indies, the Persian Gulf and a number of ports on the east coast of Africa,
including Brava and Malindi. The exploit became a favourite topic in Chinese
popular literature, but the ruling classes found these prestige operations
launched by the emperor unnecessary and ruinous (Wang Gungwu). Were
African slaves brought back by the Chinese ships on that occasion? It seems
reasonable to put the question.
The African slave trade to India was on a larger scale and is better known.
When the Muslims conquered the valley of the Ganges in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, a ' slave dynasty ' held power for some time. In the thirteenth
century, from Ceylon to Gujarat, Ethiopian slaves known as habshis or siddis
were much sought after. They served as soldiers and sailors. There is a record
of the arrival in India of a large number of slaves from East Africa in the
fifteenth century. A number of them rose to responsible positions, and some
even to high office. For instance, in Bengal where the sovereign owned 8,000
African slaves, King Fath Shah tried to get rid of the most influential ones.
In return, they killed him. From 1486 to 1493, two slave soldiers of African
origin ruled over Bengal. Under the succeeding sovereign, who was an Asian,
the Africans had to take refuge in Deccan (Keswani, 1974).
To take stock of the fifteenth century which, in the Indian Ocean, some-