Slavery in East Africa

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the banning and eventual abolishing of slavery in Africa had enormous social, political and economic impacts in both East and Western colonial states. It also looks at the development of wage-labor and the influence of abolition on plantations as well as the political effects felt in Brussels and the parliaments of Britain, Germany and Italy.

From the Paper:

"Emancipated slaves created many social difficulties within East African communities. Slaves themselves, their owners, merchants, colonialists and family groups were all affected by the abolition. "Slaves were the major component of wealth of the indigenous property-owning classes of the East coast" and thus the abolition served to confuse many of the local hierarchies. Slaves often found the transition from slave to free-man difficult, particularly given that the condition of "free" demanded them to return to their kin group. Therefore whilst slaves who left their masters were independent, they fared little better than when en-slaved and many, wishing to return to their masters expressed disappointment at being unable to do so."

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