Slavery: when Zanzibar was the hub of the East African slave trade

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REPORTING. While in France, this May 10 is dedicated to the memory of the slave trade and its abolition, a look back at a dark episode in the history of slavery on the east coast of Africa.

By Marlene Panarain Zanzibar

Dn this room barely two meters high, accessible by a small staircase leading to the basement, the air is suffocating. A thin opening at the very bottom lets in warm, moist air. Sitting on the two blocks of stone on the right and on the left, you can only sit, your head curled up. For several centuries, however, at this place, nearly 75 people were crowded there. These men, women and children died there for several days before being sold on the slave market in Stone Town, the capital of Zanzibar. The archipelago, located off the coast of Tanzania, was for two centuries the center of the slave trade in East Africa. Donald Petterson, author of Revolution in Zanzibar: an American’s Cold War Taleestimates that between 40,000 and 50,000 slaves were…