SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR by Allen Sangree

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 20, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 12.

SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR.

By Allen Sangree

[Allen Sangree, in Ainslee’s.]

AND yet the anti-slavery societies cry wildly that slavery must be eradicated at Zanzibar, and the civilized world, between wars, re-echoes the cry, so the British consul and his officers work industriously to that end. It is not an easy task, either, with the number of cruisers supplied. The territory to be watched is so wide that the consul could make use of a small fleet, instead of which he usually has one ship. When I was there last summer, the Barossa had the station, but two days after she sailed north to Mombassa, a courier rushed into the consulate to report that two dhows with twenty girls had slipped away to Arabia under cover of a moonless night, and there was no ship to make pursuit.

It is this sea-borne traffic that is most difficult to suppress. Just now (in December), when the south-west monsoon sweeps the Indian Ocean, it is active. The lean dhows from Muscat steal along the coast, and, concealed in many a creek and river mouth, wait for their agents inland to bring them a cargo. Then, seizing a moment when the war ship is engaged elsewhere, they slip out and dart eastward. The favorite girls are those captured from the Masai and the Boran Gallas, whose charms appeal to Arabian Moslems somewhat as those of the Circassian women do to the Turks. The Borans are particularly renowned for their beauty, and a slave thief will risk his life to obtain one. This tribe, which occupies the northernmost district of the protectorate, is altogether swathed in romance. White men have never reached its capital, where the stockade of the royal palace is said to be of pure ivory. The Boran warriors are the only ones in Africa who fight on horseback, and such is their valor that they have time and again repulsed the fierce Somalis from the border.

The Masai girls are considered the equals of their Boran sisters in attractiveness, but not in refinement; the latter, rumor has it, practise the rites of Abyssinian Christianity and the lost arts of centuries past. The Masai girls are easier to capture, and are, therefore, more common. The tribe was formerly celebrated for its vast flocks and herds, but a devastating famine some years ago left it almost destitute. The warriors thereupon began a system of raiding on all sides, and another fierce tribe, the Wakikuyu, took advantage of their absence to descend on the Masai, kill off the old men, and steal all the women and girls. These are now being disposed of at comparatively low rates to local Arab or Swahili middlemen, who retail them at a big profit.