Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth Century East Africa: The Case of Waungwana Caravan Porters

Abstract

The nineteenth century East African caravan system was organised around the labour of itinerant caravan porters, most of whom were free wage labourers. However, a minority of the caravan labour force and a section of the populations of new market and caravan towns on the coast and in the interior were slaves or freed slaves known as Waungwana, or ‘gentlemen’. Waungwana caravan porters and retainers of Muslim traders were mostly coast-based, although many travelled for years in the far interior of Central and East Africa. To some degree the Waungwana were assimilated into Swahili culture, with its urban Muslim characteristics. Yet the Waungwana were from diverse origins across East Africa. They were also very mobile, and they were wage earning and often entrepreneurial. Paradoxically it is this very mobility and frequently great distance from the centres of Swahili culture that gave the Waungwana social and economic opportunities, status, and a role as cultural brokers. They were men of the world, and lived their lives alongside the free caravan personnel of the non-Muslim interior. Waungwana were able, therefore, to negotiate limitations to their slave status and enlarge a sphere of freedom for themselves. They were also founding inhabitants of the new centres of urban modernity along the caravan routes. The Waungwana perfectly illustrate multiple conceptions of ‘labour crossings’. First, they transcended the rather blurred boundaries between free and slave labour in nineteenth century East Africa. Second, they utilised space and mobility in a fluid way to negotiate the conditions of slavery and freedom. Third, they were partners in processes of transregional, transnational and supraethnic interactions in Central and East Africa.

Keywords:

• caravan porters
• East Africa
• itinerant wage labourers
• porterage
• slavery
• supraethnic
• transnational
• transregional
• Waungwana

Notes

As we will see, many Waungwana porters travelled far into the interior without necessarily receiving the approval of their owners.

See the useful discussions in Deutsch (2006:40–1) and Seesemann (2006:239–40). The ideas of uungwana on the coast gradually gave way to concepts of Arabness (ustaarabu) emanating from the Zanzibar-based Arab elite.

For Manyema slaves at the coast during the German period see Deutsch (2006:64); also Burton and Brennan (2007:26). Interviewees at Bagamoyo, Saadani and Mbwamaji mention residents of Manyema origin who intermarried with local people: Mzee Kitwana, Saadani, 13 March 2005; Ayubu Selemani, Mbwamaji, 29 June 2005; Ramadhani Abdala, Mbwamaji, 29 June, 2005.

In early colonial Buhaya in northwest Tanzania White Father missionaries described ‘Wangwana’ as ‘always in cahoots with a motley crew of social types – Indians, Baswahili, Muslims, Baganda – who engage in commercial practices’ (Weiss 2002:401). Weiss shows clearly how the disapproving White Fathers were obsessed with the disturbing examples of ‘independent and collective action’ that the Waungwana of Buhaya flaunted before the newly converted Haya Christians, who were expected to conform to their missionary mentors' views on the virtues of hard work without material gain. But note that the number of people claiming to be Waungwana increased in the early colonial period. Deutsch believes that this was a wider strategy to hide slave origins as slavery declined, and as the distinction between waungwana and washenzi diminished. See Deutsch (2006:231). However, it is unclear whether or not this applied to Buhaya.

For more detail see Rockel (2006) passim.

For more on various categories of wage and income earning slaves at the coast including the Waungwana, see Glassman (1988:97–101) and (1995:61–2); Deutsch (2006:71–4); Sunseri (1993:481–511) and (2002); and Cooper (1977).

Ngambu (more correctly Ngambo) is ‘the other side’ of Zanzibar's Stone Town, and home to much of the city's working class. Stanley's reference to the comparative ease of caravan life is somewhat self-serving, given his own very poor record as an employer.

For an early discussion of these themes see Burton ((1860) 1971:516–7).

Thus they must also be contrasted with the watoro, fugitive slaves of the coast regions, who were always under threat of re-enslavement or the violent dispersal of their communities. For the watoro of Kenya and southern Somalia see Morton (1990).

For elaboration of these ideas in relation to the Waungwana. For an interesting view of the vocabulary of servitude in coastal East Africa and the complex but changing array of status labels historically used in opposition to uungwana see Eastman (1994).

The comparison with the maritime world is valid, as I have argued elsewhere. Some Waungwana served as sailors in the Indian Ocean. Speke observed, ‘The life of the sailor is most … attractive to the freed slave; for he thinks, in his conceit, that he is on an equality with all men when once on the muster-rolls, and then he calls all his fellow-Africans “savages”’ (1864:xxviii).

Interview: Chief Abdallah Fundikira, Tabora, 4 July 2000; Roberts (1970:61); Roberts (1968:128); Coquery-Vidrovitch and Lovejoy (1995:15–6).

The first part of this section draws on Rockel (2006:49–52).

For the Ruaha route see Rockel (2006a:1–25).

Hamid bin Muhammed (Tippu Tip), Maisha ya Hamed bin Muhammed el Murjebi yaani Tippu Tip trans. and ed. WH Whiteley, 1974, Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam: East Africa Literature Bureau, 99 § 130, 13 § 2; Roberts (1970:50).

Journal of Richard P Waters, 24 June 1839, in Bennett and Brooks (1965:211); Guillain (1856:380); see also ‘A Visit to Zanzibar, 1844: Michael W. Shepard's Account’, in Bennett and Brooks (1965:263).

For the full story see Bontinck (1974). There is a brief discussion in Sheriff (1987:186–7). Said bin Habib's own account is in Bin Habeeb (1860:146–8).

‘Deceiving’ caravans refers to touting and sharp business practices once upcountry caravans arrived with their goods at the coast.

For an account of slave soldiers in North Africa and the Mediterranean see Hunwick and Trout Powell (2002:139–43).

In West Africa the Tirailleurs are a well-documented case of a colonial army founded on the employment of slave and ex-slave soldiers. See Echenberg (1986:311–33) and (1991). A recent collection on slave soldiers is Brown and Morgan (2006).

It is not clear whether this amount was to be divided equally between Ramji and his ‘sons’, as would have been usual. The terms were later the subject of a dispute between Burton, the government of Bombay and British consul Captain Rigby. See Rockel (2006:215, f.n. 78 for sources). For more on such agreements see below; also Rockel (2006:91).

In similar fashion, Waungwana employed by the London Missionary Society at Ujiji objected ‘greatly’ to agricultural work, ‘which they say belongs to slaves’. Hore to Mullens, London Missionary Society (LMS), School of Oriental and African Studies, London 2/1/A, 10 January 1879.

Sidi Bombay is a well-known figure in the nineteenth century travel literature. Among others see Burton ((1860) 1971:431–2); McLynn (1990:137); Simpson (1975:11–12, 192, and passim).

For the mid-century spatial reconfiguration of the central caravan routes, especially the northward shift from the Ukutu, Ruaha River (Uhehe) and Ukimbu corridor, so that they instead traversed Ugogo via Mpwapwa to reach Tabora (Kazeh) see Rockel (2006a).

Also see Decle (1898:319) for Waungwana porters purchasing six Manyema children each for the purposes of profit making. For more on caravan women and children see Rockel (2006:117–30) and (2000:748–78).

It is difficult to decide if French-Sheldon's slightly flippant account misrepresents the hardships represented by the slaves of the waungwana, or whether they also saw an improvement in their relative status and freedom by going on safari.

See the caravan muster list in Speke (1864:553–4). Speke uses ‘Wanguana’ (Waungwana) to refer to freed slaves and watumwa to refer to all categories of slaves. As we have seen, this is not strictly correct, as it ignores the various gradations of slave status and draws an arbitrary line between slave and free.

‘Confidential slaves’ also represented their masters at the important trading centre of Iendwe in Ulungu at the south end of Lake Tanganyika, while their masters had their main residences at Tabora. Also see Thomson (1968:16–7).

For more on caravan organisation, its hierarchies, social order, and labour culture, see Rockel (2006).

For utani see Rockel (2006:198–208).

For kwiwanza see Rockel (2006:207–8).

Interview: Ramadhani Abdala, Mbwamaji (Gezaulole), 29 June 2005.

Interview: Samhani Kejeri, Bagamoyo, 29 March 2005.

See examples in Rockel (2006a).

Glassman (1995:74–8) has dealt comprehensively with the northern route.

Even this must be qualified as in the East African caravan business some slaves earned high status.

A porter list dated September 1888 includes details of wage rates and advance payments for a large caravan leaving Zanzibar. The identified slave porters were engaged according to the same terms as other porters. See ‘Men engaged for Masai Caravan’, Notebook, ‘Stanley's Expedition’, Zanzibar Museum.

For the porter list see ‘Royal Geographical Society's East African Expedition 1879: Draft of Agreement with Porters at Zanzibar’, Alexander Keith Johnston, Jr., Corr. 1870–80, RGS; copy of contract with a list of 128 names dated 17 May 1879 in AA9/10, Consular Records, Zanzibar National Archive; printed in Rotberg (1971:307). For slave porters handing over part of their wages, usually half, to their owner see Muxworthy to Southon, Zanzibar, 28 June 1880, LMS 3/4/E; Last (n.d.:14); Swann ((1910) 1969:31); Bin Hassani (1963:99–100, 103). In some cases, however, the owner was less generous and seized a greater part of the slave's wages. See Parke (1891:285), 18 October 1888; OL McDermott to Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 22 January 1890, MacKinnon Papers, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, Box 94, File 56.

Muxworthy to Wookey, Zanzibar, 28 June 1880, LMS 3/4/E. Dr Kirk was the British consul in Zanzibar and Captain Mathews was commander of the Sultan's forces.

Stokes to Lang, 26 July 1884, CMS G3A6/01; Hore (1886:60–3).

Joseph Thomson reported that GA Fischer's caravan was thus crippled: ‘As it is he has to march large numbers in chains and then once he is fairly into the country it will be found that he will have to march when they please, and stay when they please and that in his own caravan he will be simply helpless.’ (Thomson to Bates, Zanzibar, 26 February 1883. Thomson Corr. 1881–1910, Royal Geographical Society, London).

In the same year, American traveller May French-Sheldon made a personal arrangement with the Sultan, in which the latter supplied ‘volunteer’ slave porters for her journey to Mombasa and then Maasailand. See French-Sheldon (1892:91, 96, 102–3).

Zanzibar and East Africa Gazette (ZEAG), 26 April 1893:10 (reprinted from The Times).

For a general discussion of porter motivations see Coquery-Vidrovitch and Lovejoy (1995:17–8).

ZEAG, 26 April 1893:10 (reprinted from The Times). My italics. Holmwood's assertion that slave status had little impact on the professionalism of caravan porters is borne out by the case of slave porters in the Merina kingdom. See Campbell (1980:341–56).

German officials blamed much of this behaviour on Manyema porters, originally from the Congo, who due to their foreign and typically slave origins perhaps felt little compassion for East Africans. Yet it was European-led caravans that did most of the damage. Michael Pesek (In Press) has done important work on the violence of the early colonial state in German East Africa; see also his Koloniale Herrschaft in Deutsch-Ostafrika: Expeditionen, Militär und Verwaltung seit 1880 (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 2005).