Tanzania

The Central Slave and Ivory Trade Route

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  • Randi Thomsen
  • Svein Elias

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  • Jeanne OGrady
The Central Slave and Ivory Trade Route comprises remains of this 19th century trade network at 6 locations. These are Bagamoyo, Mamboya, Mpwapwa, Kilimatinde, Kwihara and Ujiji Bagamoyo. The remains include Arab forts, slave trade related buildings in Stone town, graveyards, churches founded by missionaries who fought against the Slave Trade.

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Full Name
The Central Slave and Ivory Trade Route (ID: 2095)
Country
Tanzania
Status
On tentative list 2006 Site history
History of The Central Slave and Ivory Trade Route
2012: Incomplete - not examined
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2011: Incomplete - not examined
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2010: Incomplete - not examined
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2006: Added to Tentative List
Added to tentative list
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UNESCO
whc.unesco.org
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UNESCO.org

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First published: 17/09/22.

Randi Thomsen

The Central Slave and Ivory Trade Route

The Central Slave and Ivory Trade Route (On tentative list)

The Central Slave and Ivory Trade Route by Randi Thomsen

Visit July 2022

Bagamoyo is one on several sub-sites in the tentative site of “The Central Slave and Ivory Trade Route”. It is now a small town, 1,5 hours north of Dar es Salam. We booked a trip by car with driver through our travel agent.

It is a historical town with ruins of early settlement from 1300 century (Kaole), but the town is more famous for its part in slave trades. This was the end of the Central Slave Route with slaves from the area around Lake Tanganyika, Kongo, Uganda. The journey by foot, chained and with little food and water, lasted up to 6-8 months. Many of them never made it all the way to Bagamoyo. Here they were examined and stored. The strongest were sent to slave market in Zanzibar, the rest to plantations along the shore. In late 1800 the trade was abolished by various countries, but trade was secretly going on until 1920’s when it was totally abolished in Tanganyika. 
The abolition of slavery took a long time and had many consequences both for the slaves with no skills and for the plantation owners without their cheap labourers. It is just recently that descendants of slaves were treated with equal rights. They had a long way to go to be accepted, and our guide told us there is still a shame to be offspring of slaves.

We visited the old Caravan Serai Museum. This used to be the house were the traders …

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