The Arab Slave Trade off the east African coast is a little appreciated adjunct of the more pervasive trans-Atlantic slave trade that has tended in modern times to define the institution, and the period of its execution. In fact the Arab Slave Trade absorbed between 11 and 18 million black Africans during the period between 650CE and 1900CE, somewhat more than the estimated 14 million transported across the Atlantic mainly from the Gulf of Guinea, Congo and Angola.

In the latter portion of this period the main entrepot for the Indian Ocean trade (for the Portuguese were also deeply implicated from 1600CE onwards) was Zanzibar Island, then under the control of Omani Sultans. Secondary depots that served the main markets Zanzibar were situated at Kilwa, Lamu and Malindi, and for the Portuguese Mozambique Island and Quelimane at the mouth of the Zambezi River.

Many of the slaves captured and sold on the east coast were exported to Arabia, where a policy of only importing eunuchs ensured that no incumbent black population now exists in the region. Others were directed to Portuguese India, to the French Mascarene Islands, with a handful sold either at the Cape or continuing on to the new world.

The east African Slave Trade, as was the case with the west and central trades, deeply scarred the landscape of Africa, that lost the best and brightest of its human resources, a loss the consequences of which are still felt today. Tipu Tip, pictured above, was one of the most successful of the great east African slavers, an Arabised Swahili, he represented a class of hybridized Moslem natives who acted as middlemen for the offshore mariners and slave factors who were responsible for the overseas transport of large numbers of slaves. Tipu Tip operated throughout central Africa, at certain times aiding explorers such Henry Morton Stanley in his quest to navigate the Congo River to the Atlantic.

A journey in the footsteps of men like Tippu Tip penetrates deep into the lakes region of Malawi and Tanzania, and at its most adventurous touches the headwaters of the Zambezi and Congo Rivers. It also includes the coast from Mombassa in Kenya to the Paradise Islands of Mozambique.

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