Slave Trade Profiteers in the Western Indian Ocean

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction: Slave Traders and the Western Indian Ocean

   • Hideaki Suzuki

   Pages 1-18

3. The Slave Trade in the Nineteenth-Century Western Indian Ocean: An Overview

   • Hideaki Suzuki

   Pages 19-40

4. Resistance of Transporters and Insufficiency of the Indian Navy’s Suppression Prior to 1860

   • Hideaki Suzuki

   Pages 41-57

5. “They are Raising the Devil with the Trading Dows:” Reconsidering the Royal Navy’s Anti-Slave Trade Campaign from the Slave Trader Perspective

   • Hideaki Suzuki

   Pages 59-72

6. Chains of Reselling: Reconsidering Slave Dealings Based on Slaves’ Own Voices

   • Hideaki Suzuki

   Pages 73-96

7. The Transformation of East African Coastal Urban Society with Regard to the Slave Distribution System

   • Hideaki Suzuki

   Pages 97-113

8. Consulate Politics in the Scramble after Sa‛īd: How Did the British Consulate Secure Superiority over the Sultan of Zanzibar?

   • Hideaki Suzuki

   Pages 115-139

9. 1860: The Rigby Emancipation and the Rise of the Indian Resident Nationality Problem

   • Hideaki Suzuki

   Pages 141-165

10. Beyond the Horizon: The Agency of Dhow Traders, L’Acte de Francisation and International Politics in the Western Indian Ocean, c. 1860–1900

    • Hideaki Suzuki

    Pages 167-187

11. General Conclusion: Slave Trade Profiteers

    • Hideaki Suzuki

    Pages 189-194

12. Back Matter

    Pages 195-224

    PDF

This book examines how slave traders interacted with and resisted the British suppression campaign in the nineteenth-century western Indian Ocean. By focusing on the transporters, buyers, sellers, and users of slaves in the region, the book traces the many links between slave trafficking and other types of trade. Drawing upon first-person slave accounts, travelogues, and archival sources, it documents the impact of abolition on Zanzibar politics, Indian merchants, East African coastal urban societies, and the entirety of maritime trade in the region. Ultimately, this ground-breaking work uncovers how western Indian Ocean societies experienced the slave trade suppression campaign as a political intervention, with important implications for Indian Ocean history and the history of the slave trade.

• the slave trade in the nineteenth century western Indian Ocean
• Royal Navy and slavery
• 19th century abolitionism
• slavery in the Gulf and Eastern Africa
• human trafficking in 19th century
• British suppression campaign
• history of Indian Ocean trade
• Abolition of the slave trade in Zanzibar
• françisation
• Indian trade in 19th century

“This is an important study on the concrete forms abolitionism took in the western Indian Ocean. Not just debates and claims, not just masters, slaves and former slaves but the interplay between labor, work, markets and people form the core of Suzuki’s analysis. Intermediaries play here a crucial, although neglected role before and after the abolition. Their origins, background, networks and profits are detailed in this path-breaking study. A must-read for all those who are interested in past and contemporary forms of bondage and trafficking.” (Alessandro Stanziani, Professor of Global History, EHESS and CNRS Paris, France)

“In this highly original book, Hideaki Suzuki probes received assumptions about the slave trade and its suppression in the nineteenth-century western Indian Ocean. Based on prodigious research in a wide variety of archives, he meticulously demonstrates how the interaction of Indian, Arab, British, French, and American actors affected the operation of the slave trade and determined the constraints caused by abolition. Linking economic, political, and imperial history across the entire region from western India to the Swahili coast, Suzuki brings an impressive new voice to the study of the Indian Ocean.” (Edward A. Alpers, Research Professor, Department of History, UCLA, USA)

• Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan

  Hideaki Suzuki

Hideaki Suzuki is Associate Professor of Global History of Exchange at Nagasaki University, Japan, and Research Associate at the Indian Ocean World Centre at McGill University, Canada.