I’ve been working a lot harder on my suntan during the last few days than my writing, I’m ashamed to say. The beach here is just too irresistible. After my usual breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and lashings of coffee I wander barefoot in the white sand to find my shady hammock for the day. I’m slowly working my way through the hotel’s impressive collection of books. However, I am pleased to report that a fascinating conversation I had in the bar on Monday night led to my second visit to Stone town.
This time I planned a proper itinerary and it was an altogether different experience to my first visit, which was what I would call more of a sensual introduction. I had my inspiring conversation with a couple called Craig and Amelia who have come here from Washington on their honeymoon. Craig told me he believes his ancestors were almost certainly trafficked as slaves from Zanzibar, initially to India. We decided we wanted to visit some of the slave-related sites.
After dinner I surfed the web for info relating to the rise of the slave trade, and discovered that Zanzibar used to be the centre of commercial and political power in Africa, all thanks to the riches made from the slave trade. It began with the ruling Omani Arabs, (who built the Old Fort and most of the mansions and palaces in Stone Town) who needed cheap slave labour for their date plantations in Oman. As it was against the laws of Islam to enslave Muslims, they began to import African slaves through Zanzibar to Oman and soon European governments began to import slaves to their colonies too. In the 19C over a million Africans were sold to colonial masters in Zanzibar alone! It wasn’t until the explorer David Livingstone, wrote about the horrors of the slave trade, and the stuffy Victorians began to feel guilty, the British government finally took action to try to stop it. I also discovered that when Livingstone visited Zanzibar in 1866 he nicknamed it ‘Stinkibar’! Apparently because of the stench from the town beach, which was being used as a general dumping ground and sewer.
I managed to convince Craig and Amelia to set off at 8am to avoid the heat. We packed a flask of coffee and some bananas to keep us going. The driver dropped us off in Kelele Square in the Shanghai district. It’s name means ‘noisy’ after its original function as a slave market. It was hard to imagine the peaceful square thronging with frightened slaves and shouting traders as we wandered in the early morning sunshine. Equally as difficult to imagine was the terrible suffering concealed inside the walls of the infamous mansion on the right side of the square known as Mambo Msiige (Inimitable Thing). When the building was constructed by a rich Arab merchant in 1850, he ordered that slaves should be entombed alive in its walls to ensure the building would remain strong – a practice too hideous to comprehend.
I wanted to see Tippu Tip’s House, a ruthless slave trader, supposedly the richest and most powerful on the East African Coast, so we headed south of the square down a quiet and leafy street bizarrely named Suicide Alley. (I can’t find anything in my guide books to explain the name.) The huge carved front door and black and white marble steps – a sign of Tippu Tip’s wealth were still magnificent, but the rest of the house (which is privately owned) looked as if it had seen much better days. After years of trading in slaves and ivory, Tippu Tip owned 7 plantations on Zanzibar and 10,000 slaves. He was so influential, he even helped David Livingstone with supplies and route planning when he came to Zanzibar. As I mentally filled the street with bustling slaves and the sound of Tippu Tip’s voice barking orders from his house, I could hardly believe that a few weeks ago I was sipping a cocktail in Africa House around the corner unaware of all the history surrounding me.
Kelele Square was the town’s first slave market but in the 1800’s it moved to the East side of town where you can visit the chambers in which the slaves were kept before market day. We’d asked our driver to wait so he dropped us off in what is now the courtyard of the Anglican Cathedral. We joined a small group of people at the entrance to the chambers and paid the guide Tsh2000 for a tour. It was chilling to listen to him talk about what the slaves went through here. The two dank and dark chambers were claustrophobic and depressing with five foot high ceilings. The slaves were stacked in there like sardines, fifty men to one room, seventy-five women and children in the other, bound by neck manacles to one chain, fixed in the centre of each room. If they hadn’t died of disease or suffocation before market day owners might prepare the slaves for market to fetch a better price by putting kohl around their eyes or rubbing oil into their skin. I wondered for the hundredth time how human beings can be capable of inflicting this kind of suffering on their fellow kind.
The Anglican Cathedral is actually built on the site of the slave market and a red circle next to the altar marks the spot of the whipping post used to test the slaves’ resilience. Our guide also pointed out two memorials to David Livingstone: a stained glass window and a wooden crucifix carved from the wood of the tree under which his heart is buried in Zambia. Confronted with such sobering reminders of one of the worst crimes against humanity we stood for a long time afterwards in the square with our own thoughts, in front of the deeply moving memorial statue of a family of slaves standing chained together in a pit, awaiting their fate. I suddenly felt exhausted and realised it was 1pm so I suggested finding some shade and refreshment. The cathedral isn’t really near any restaurants so we decided to head back to Shangani and have lunch on the terrace of the Serena Inn, (supposedly where Livingstone stayed) where much discussion about the days’ events and the history of the slave trade ensued. Breathing in the sweet breeze coming in from the waves washing against the shore, I wished that Livingstone could see Stone Town as it is now and perhaps rethink his nickname too!