Africa is the classical country of the slave-trade. Egypt and Ethiopia furnished a certain number of slaves to ancient Greece, and at Rome there was a regular importation of slaves, some of whom were brought from Africa. [Ingram, pp. 19, 38.] Herodotus speaks of slaves sent to ancient Egypt as tribute from Ethiopia. [Ingram, p. 268.] That in later times the African slave-trade, carried on by Arabs in East Africa and by Europeans in West Africa, assumed enormous proportions, need scarcely be said. In the later half of the 19th century the Mohammedan East still received a large supply of slaves from Africa. Ingram remarks: The principal centres from which in recent times the supply has been furnished to Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Arabia, and Persia, are three in number. 1. The Soudan, south of the Great Sahara, [411] appears to be one vast hunting-ground. Captives are brought thence to the slave-market of Kuka in Bornu . . . . Negroes are also brought to Morocco from the Western Soudan, and from Timbuktu . . . . 2. The basin of the Nile, extending to the great lakes, is another region infested by the slave trade . . . 3. There has long been a slave-trade from the East African coast. The stream of supply came mainly from the southern Nyassa districts by three or four routes to Ibo, Mozambique, Angoche, and Kilimane. Madagascar and the Comoro Islands obtained most of their slaves from the Mozambique coast . . . . There are other minor branches of the trade elsewhere in Africa. Thus from Harar in Somaliland caravans are sent to Berberah on the coast, where there is a great annual fair. The slaves are collected from the inland Galla countries, from Guragwe, and from Abyssinia, the Abyssinians being the most highly esteemed. [Ingram, pp. 224, 225, 230-233. On the African slave-trade, see also Ratzei, Anthropogeographie II (1891), pp. 386, 387.]
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 09:57:33 +0000
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