Matthew S. Hopper’s research while affiliated with California State Polytechnic University and other places

This chapter explores how severe climatic events in the Western Indian Ocean influenced both the demand for slave labor in eastern Arabia and the supply of enslaved Africans in East Africa in the late nineteenth century. In particular, two cyclonic storms that hit the coast of Oman in 1885 and 1890 appear to have influenced demand for labor to revive Oman’s date industry, which was severely affected by both storms. The cyclones coincided with climatic events in East Africa that increased vulnerability to enslavement. These climatic events acted synergistically to create an environment conducive to a growth in the Indian Ocean slave trade despite Western political and diplomatic efforts to end it.

This history of the African diaspora and slavery in Arabia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries examines the interconnected themes of enslavement, globalization, and empire and challenges previously held conventions regarding Middle Eastern slavery and British imperialism. Whereas conventional historiography regards the Indian Ocean slave trade as fundamentally different from its Atlantic counterpart, this study argues that both systems were influenced by global economic forces. The book disputes the triumphalist antislavery narrative that attributes the end of the slave trade between East Africa and the Persian Gulf to the efforts of the British Royal Navy, arguing instead that Great Britain allowed the inhuman practice to continue because it was vital to the Gulf economy and therefore vital to British interests in the region. Slaves of One Master links the personal stories of enslaved Africans to the impersonal global commodity chains their labor enabled, demonstrating how the growing demand for workers created by a global demand for Persian Gulf products compelled the enslavement of these people and their transportation to eastern Arabia.

In this wide–ranging history of the African diaspora and slavery in Arabia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Matthew S. Hopper examines the interconnected themes of enslavement, globalization, and empire and challenges previously held conventions regarding Middle Eastern slavery and British imperialism. Whereas conventional historiography regards the Indian Ocean slave trade as fundamentally different from its Atlantic counterpart, Hopper's study argues that both systems were influenced by global economic forces. The author goes on to dispute the triumphalist antislavery narrative that attributes the end of the slave trade between East Africa and the Persian Gulf to the efforts of the British Royal Navy, arguing instead that Great Britain allowed the inhuman practice to continue because it was vital to the Gulf economy and therefore vital to British interests in the region. Hopper's book links the personal stories of enslaved Africans to the impersonal global commodity chains their labor enabled, demonstrating how the growing demand for workers created by a global demand for Persian Gulf products compelled the enslavement of these people and their transportation to eastern Arabia. His provocative and deeply researched history fills a salient gap in the literature on the African diaspora.

For four decades, football teams representing each of the Arab Gulf states have competed for the coveted regional football championship title in the Arabian Gulf Cup of Nations (Kass al-Khalij), the Gulf’s premier athletic contest. Each fall, thousands of spectators in national dress crowd stadiums to cheer on their national teams. Foreign observers of the competition frequently express surprise at the notable African appearance of a large number of the spectators and players at the contest. These observers may justifiably wonder whether the presence of Africans in the Gulf, which is visible at events like the Kass al-Khalij, stems from recent migrations from Africa, from long-standing patterns of intermarriage between Arabs and Africans through trade and colonization, or from a deeper history involving the slave trade. Those who know something of the region’s medieval history may also wonder whether Africans in the Gulf today may be descendants of participants in the famous Zanj slave revolt of Basra in the ninth century CE.

The conventional historiography claims that the East African slave trade came to an end in the 1880s as a result of the British Royal Navy's diligent patrols in the Indian Ocean. This paper argues instead that the slave trade from East Africa to Eastern Arabia endured long after the 1880s, in part because sustained demand for slave labor in Arabia and the Gulf–particularly in the lucrative pearl and date industries–remained high through the early twentieth century. The Royal Navy's celebrated antislavery campaign in the Indian Ocean was largely ineffective and was not the main factor in ending the slave trade. Instead, the East African slave trade came to an end mainly as a result of three factors beyond British control: (1) a raid by Portuguese forces against slave traders in Mozambique in 1902, (2) the development new sources of slave labor from neighboring Baluchistan, and (3) the collapse of Arabian date and pearl markets as a result of globalization and global depression.

In 1993, when the government of newly independent Eritrea asked citizens to complete applications for national identity cards, people in Massawa listed their qabila ("tribe") as Masawwi'ī ("Massaawn"). The sense of a common identity shared by residents of this Red Sea town is a legacy of its commerce-oriented, urban disposition as well as their self-conception as inhabitants of a distinctly Muslim space. Red Sea Citizens is an excellent, detailed study of this port town at the historical meeting point of the Red Sea, Arabia, the Nile Valley, and the Ethiopian plateau. Massawa was occupied by Ottomans, Egyptians, Italians, British, and Ethiopians before Eritrea gained its independence in 1993, but the author deftly avoids locating the city within any imperial or nationalist narrative. He seeks, in Prasenjit Duara's words, to "rescue history from the nation" (Chicago, 1997) and also, he adds, to rescue history "from empire" (16). Red Sea Citizens joins a growing revisionist historiography of the Horn of Africa that aims to relocate regions and societies previously perceived as marginal in a literature that has remained, until recently, statecentric. The book makes extraordinary use of archival sources in Tigre, Arabic, Italian, French, and English, ranging from registers of real estate transactions and charitable religious endowments to colonial documents, and to marriage, divorce, child-custody, manumission, and death records. The author also incorporates oral histories from more than fifty informants whom he interviewed in Eritrea in 2000 and 2001. With the perspective of time, it appears that his oral research seized on a limited window of opportunity. When Miran returned to Massawa eight years later, the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea had diminished much of the life and population of the city, with many of its residents leaving to seek a better life abroad. One member of a prominent family with well-known and established origins in Arabia asked Miran if his research had uncovered any documents "confirming" the family's Arabian heritage in order to support an application for citizenship to Saudi Arabia. Red Sea Citizens is divided into five chapters with an introduction, several maps, more than thirty illustrations, and a helpful glossary. In early chapters, Miran examines the relative autonomy of Massawa and its surrounding region before the 1850s. Ottoman forces conquered Massawa in 1557 and subsequently appointed representatives of a local family of Balaws as nā'ibs (deputies) in a form of indirect rule; this lasted until the early 1850s, when Massawa was gradually brought under direct Ottoman and Egyptian rule, followed by Italian colonialism. The nā'ibs used marriage alliances with local chiefs and wealthy merchants to establish their ascendency, and they used their authority to spread Islam and control trade routes. Subsequent chapters examine Massawa's cosmopolitan, polyglot, and also distinctly Islamic identity, with its strong Sufi brotherhoods. Miran also examines the 'Ad Shaykh holy family (a perceived Mahdist threat to Italian colonialism in the 1880s) as well as the expression of Islam in Massawa's sacred spaces. Among the most important contributions of this book is its discussion of Massawa's role in the global and regional economy. The author argues convincingly that, with respect to trade, the growing penetration of Europe in the Indian Ocean was not disruptive. Instead, the transformation of indigenous trade networks was characterized by "continuity, adaptation, and adjustment," as demonstrated by the success of merchant-entrepreneurs. Massawa's residents became connected to the hinterland through caravan routes and the wider world economy through its port. Local merchants and pearl fishers engaged global markets while resisting colonial meddling. (Chapter 2 includes a fascinating and original discussion of pearling in the Dahlak archipelago.) Miran also demonstrates how the commodification of the regional economy transformed social relations among Massawa's inhabitants. Red Sea Citizens would be a welcome addition to advanced courses in urban, African, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, or world history. Miran is careful to explain that his sources do not permit him to expand on Massawa's significant role in the slave trade, which is not a focus of this study. This original and thoroughly researched book breaks new ground and makes valuable contributions to a growing field.

This paper examines the economic conditions that generated demand for slave labor in Arabia in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The existing historiography has tended to emphasize a cultural or religious basis for slavery in the region, ignoring the expanding global markets for Arabian commodities that fueled demand for slave labor. This paper argues that growing markets for Arabian pearls and dates in Europe and North America helped drive the slave trade from east Africa to eastern Arabia and the Gulf. Globalization helped spread Arabian commodities to markets around the world but ultimately helped destroy the Gulf's most important export markets when industrialized states replaced Gulf pearls and dates with products of their own.

In the late nineteenth century, the experienced a massive expansion of its leading industry, pearling. Although pearls from the Gulf had circulated regionally to markets in and the for centuries, in the late nineteenth century a global pearl craze ignited a surge in pearl production that transformed the Gulf economy. As demand for pearls in Europe and North America soared, the value of pearl exports from – the Gulf’s primary export center—increased more than eight times in the twenty years between 1885 and 1905, and then nearly doubled again in the following ten years. Many of the divers who made this transformation in production possible were African or of African descent and many were slaves. Enslaved Africans accounted for a third or a half of the annual diving crews, and the pearl boom accompanied a growth in the African Diaspora in the Gulf. By the close of the nineteenth century, slave ships from carried an overwhelming majority of young males. The British Empire, which attempted to control of the Gulf littoral, faced a dilemma of how to address the issue of slavery when much of the region’s economy depended on slave labor, and some of the countries that were the biggest consumers of Gulf pearls were the most vocally opposed to slave labor. Then, just as suddenly as the pearl boom emerged, it collapsed in the face of Japanese cultured pearls, and many enslaved divers were cast out to fend for themselves. Drawing on archival research in the and field research in the Gulf, this paper examines the global forces that led to the rise and demise of the Gulf’s pearl boom between the 1880s and 1920s and the role of African divers and their families in the Gulf economy.

Résumé Cet article examine des témoignages d’esclaves affranchis retrouvés dans les archives de l’amirauté britannique, dans celles des consulats ou des cours de justice de l’océan Indien occidental. À la différence des récits mieux connus concernant la traite atlantique, ces documents sont généralement brefs et ne sont pas directement produits par les esclaves africains eux-mêmes. Bien que difficiles à analyser, en raison de multiples strates de transcription, traduction et représentation, ces sources importantes permettent de mettre un visage sur les individus qui furent pris dans la tourmente de la traite en Afrique de l’Est au XIX e siècle. Ces témoignages font entendre la voix des Africains réduits en esclavage et fournissent des informations importantes sur les conditions de la capture, les déplacements des captifs, et certains aspects de la vie en esclavage. Nous montrons que ces sources sont d’une immense valeur en dépit de leurs limites, parce qu’elles nous offrent le meilleur aperçu dont nous disposons sur l’expérience vécue des Africains, hommes, femmes et enfants, qui furent victimes de la traite en Afrique de l’Est.

This article examines freed slave testimonies found in British admiralty, consular, and court records from the Western Indian Ocean. Unlike the better known accounts from the Atlantic slave trade, these documents are generally brief and not generated by enslaved Africans themselves. Although complicated by layers of transcription, translation, and representation, these important sources nevertheless put a face on the individuals who were caught up in the vicious whirlwind of the slave trade in nineteenth-century eastern Africa. These testimonies preserve elements of the voices of enslaved Africans and reveal valuable information about the process of enslavement, the journey taken by the enslaved, and some dimensions of slave life. We argue that these sources are immensely valuable in spite of their structural limitations because they give us our best insights into the lived experiences of the African men, women and children who became victims of the slave trade from East Africa.