Muslim slave trade in pre-colonial Africa
August 23: International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition
Arab slave traders once shipped hundreds of thousands of African slaves across the Red Sea. A dark and largely unknown chapter in the history of the Horn of Africa. Guest post by Volker Seitz.
On the night of August 22nd to 23rd, 1791, the uprising of African slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) against the European slave economy began. From this uprising emerged the state of Haiti, the first independent state in Latin America and simultaneously the first to be formed by former slaves. The Haitian Revolution also paved the way for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. To mark this event, UNESCO declared August 23rd as the International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, also known as World Day Against the Slave Trade, during its 29th Plenary Session in Paris in November 1998.
Guest author Volker Seitz reviews the book "The Horn of Africa," which describes the history of the slave trade in this region.
Below, I provide links to two of my own published articles on Muslim slave trade in Africa.
By Volker Seitz
The region known as the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia) has been suffering from various crises for many years, both historical and contemporary. The orientalist and long-time diplomat Alfred Schlicht lived in the Middle East for many years and is widely recognized as one of Germany's most knowledgeable experts. In his book, Das Horn von Afrika (The Horn of Africa), published by Kohlhammer, he paints a vivid, detailed picture of the region's history and politics. The expansion of Islam and the emergence of an Islamic empire had both direct and indirect consequences for the region. I found the chapter on slavery particularly insightful.
The slave trade played an important role in the Horn of Africa. Estimates suggest that 500,000 slaves were shipped across the Red Sea in the 19th century. The west and southwest of present-day Ethiopia, along with Sudan, were a prime target for slave hunters. Slaves were often employed as miners, porters, domestic servants, or in agriculture; women and girls were also used as concubines.
Muslim slave traders and slave owners
In fact, slave traders were primarily Muslims, who naturally maintained the best relations with buyer countries, which were also Muslim. The last slave caravan reached Djibouti in 1929. In Eritrea, the lucrative slave trade only ended under Italian rule. Even today - as I have reported from West Africa - people from the Horn of Africa live and work in neighboring countries under slave-like conditions; sometimes particularly serious cases come to light by chance.
Alfred Schlicht also addresses the case of the Russian national poet Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), whose great-grandfather, Abraham Ganibal (Hannibal), is said to have been brought from Africa to Istanbul as a slave by the Ottoman army in the early 18th century and then to Russia. Family tradition claims "Abyssinian" ancestry. Both Eritrea and Ethiopia claim him as their own, and statues of Pushkin in both capitals document this claim. This is also an expression of the rivalry between the Ethiopian region of Tigray and Eritrea.
Suez Canal increased importance of the coastal regions on the Horn
1869 was a fateful year for the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. With the opening of the Suez Canal, the Red Sea became an international waterway, an intercontinental transport route. The Bab al-Mandeb [Arabic for "Gate of Tears", note], the access to the Red Sea, the strait that forms the gateway to the Indian Ocean, came into the glaring light of great power interests. A faster connection between the Mediterranean and Europe on the one hand, and Africa and Asia on the other, had been created. The routes of the colonial empires had thus become shorter. As a result, the coastal regions on the Horn of Africa suddenly gained importance, not only for the European nations, but also for Egypt, through whose territory the Suez Canal runs at the dividing line between Africa and Asia.
At the turn of the 21st century, the region became an international hot spot of crisis, for example due to the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia and the disintegration of Somalia, which was plagued by Islamic terror.
Alfred Schlicht has written an excellent book with great care, extensive background knowledge, and analytical acuity. The language, form, and intellectual finesse make the book a pleasure to read. It is fluid, contains no sociological jargon, and requires no prior knowledge.
This text was first published in German on Achgut and translated by me. Volker Seitz was ambassador to Africa for the German Foreign Office for seventeen years. He is author of the bestseller Afrika wird armregiert (Africa is being governed into poverty), dtv, 11th edition 2021.
Guest posts do not automatically reflect the opinion of the blog owner.
Muslim slave trade in pre-colonial Africa
Even before Europe's colonial rulers divided up Africa, Africans hunted Africans and sold their captives to Muslim slave traders who exported them to the Arabian Peninsula or Persia or further. Historians speak of 1400 years, compared to 400 years of transatlantic slave trade. While the Europeans ruthlessly exploited their colonies, they also abolished …
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