ABSTRACT
The East African slave trade has attracted much less attention from both professional historians and popular writers than has its West African counterpart. The reasons for this are not difficult to find. Most of the people who have written about the slave trade have been European, or American, or Afro-American, people whose relevant historical traditions link them intimately and overwhelmingly with West Africa. West Africa was the great reservoir for the Atlantic slave trade; East Africa entered that story only as a single, final chapter. Where the Atlantic Ocean provided the world setting for the West African slave trade, the Indian Ocean was the stage for the East African slave trade. Consequently, relatively few Western writers have been concerned with the latter, as it only marginally forms part of their heritage. Even more regrettable is the fact that the major work which has been done to date on the East African slave trade is not at all satisfactory .
