The Other Slave Trade: Abolition in East Africa and the Indian Ocean in the 19th Century

Talk: Most of us know a lot about the transatlantic slave trade, and the triangle that took goods from Europe to West Africa, slaves from there to North and South America, and goods such as sugar, cotton and tobacco back to Europe. In this talk Stuart Laing takes us far from Marlborough to give an account of what is often called the ‘Arab Slave Trade’, about slaves taken from East and Central Africa and traded to the Gulf, the Red Sea, Persia and even India. Britain was active in securing an end to this trade, although slaves, being the descendants of slaves, continued to be found in Arab households until well into the 20^th century. The lecture concludes with remarks on the labour market in the Gulf today.

Speaker: Stuart Laing had a first career in the British Foreign Service, serving in Saudi Arabia, Prague and in Cairo. and then as Ambassador in Muscat (2002-05), and later in Kuwait (2005-08). He was Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (2008 – 2018) and now researches, lectures and writes on Mediterranean, Arab and East African history. He is co-author of a book on Omani-British history, Unshook Till the End of Time, and has published a biography of Tippu Tip, the Arab-African ivory trader.