294 Joseph E. Harris
effects of miscegenation and the appearance of mulattos on relations between
Afro-Asians and Asians and how do these groups perceive Africa and Africans?
What is the ethos of Afro-Asian communities T
We know that some Africans liberated in Asia returned to Africa. But
to what extent? For what reasons? And with what effects? This subject is in
great need of research. My own work has revealed links between present-day
families in Kenya and Africans liberated from slavery in India. Descendants of
liberated Africans have been pioneers in Kenya as teachers, preachers, jour-
nalists, trade unionists, and politicians since the last quarter of the nineteenth
century;^8 and there is some indication that a somewhat similar situation
developed in Tanganyika and Zanzibar (now the United Republic of Tanzania),
and possibly Ethiopia. While those examples may not compare in scale with
Sierra Leone and Liberia, they share with their West African counterparts a
link with the slave trade and slavery and had a similar local impact. Further-
more, such a study may produce results of surprising importance.
Let me now conclude with a personal experience. While conducting
research among repatriated Africans in Kenya I discovered two rather obscure
small books of highly significant relevance for the study of the slave trade in
East Africa.^9
Both works are about Yaos; Chengwimbe in Rempley's book and
Mbotela by Mbotela; both were in the Lake Malawi area and provide physical
and historical continuity for the slave trade because they experienced the first
stage of the capture and sale in East Africa, the subsequent sea voyage, eventual
abolition, and repatriation. One of them, Chengwimbe, also experienced free-
dom and education in India prior to repatriation. These two cases, therefore,
are especially valuable in that they reveal the personal insights of victims of
the slave traffic and also because they help to illustrate some of the broad
generalities so common in studies of the slave trade, especially for East Africa.
Indeed, the whole story of the slave trade and repatriation in Kenya become
more vivid and real as one follows Chengwimbe and Mbotela, and their
descendants, through their experiences of the slave trade, freedom, repatriation
and nation-building in Kenya.
In sum, we know much about the slave trade and its consequences, but
the need for continued investigation, critique, and publication remains sub-
stantial.Notes- 'Black American Diasporic Relations'. I would like to make this observation on the
American diaspora. When Africans liberated Haiti in 1804, that country emerged
as a symbol and rallying point for the evolving black identity in the American
hemisphere. Whites in the United States were fearful that the Haitain example
would spill over into the United States and blacks began to establish Haiti and its