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African Archaeological Review, Vol. 21, No. 2, June 2004 (? 2004)
Chapurukha M. Kusimba1
African archaeology has primarily been concerned with precolonial Africa. Con
sequently, the archaeology of colonial and postcolonial Africa has been neglected,
in spite of thefundamental importance of how Africa s relationships with Eurasia
after 1488 shaped its history. Although the slave trade was an important aspect
of post-sixteenth century experiences of Africans, current research methodologies
make the archaeology of slavery in Africa nearly impossible because evidence of
the slave trade or slave quarters, cemeteries, areas,
slavery?including holding
shackles, and dungeons?can be interpreted in various ways. In this article I ar
gue that the archaeology of slavery and the slave trade in Africa is possible. Like
history and economics, archaeology is well placed to investigate slavery inAfrica
as it already does effectively in the Americas. Using the study of defensive rock
shelters in Southeast as an example, I propose that the systematic archae
Kenya
ology of slavery inAfrica is not only possible, but also should break new grounds
and develop an innovative methodology for studying slavery.
prenant les quarts, les cimeti?res, les camps, des cachots, et des donjons des
-
esclaves peut ?tre interpr?t? de diverses mani?res. Dans cet article, j'argue du
associate Curator, African Archaeology and Ethnology, Department of Anthropology, The Field
Museum 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 6060-52496.
59
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60 Kusimba
KEY WORDS: slavery, slave trade, warfare, precolonial Africa, East Africa.
INTRODUCTION
Slavery and the slave trade are ancient practices that can be traced back more
than two millennia inAfrica. For centuries, humans were part of the cargo in trade
conducted between Africa and Eurasia, along with ivory, gold, and other commodi
ties of legitimate trade (Alpers, 1975; Austen, 1989; Bulcha, 2002; Cooper, 1977;
Curtin, 1984; Freeman-Grenville, 1965; Kopytoff andMiers, 1977; Lovejoy, 2000;
Manning, 1982, 1990; Martin and Ryan, 1977; Ringrose, 2001; Thornton, 1992).
Enslaved and free Africans were present in Asia before the European conquest
and settlement of the Americas (e.g., DuBois, 1965; Harris, 1971, 1985, 1992).
Political independence spawned much interest in African history and the
role of oral traditions, ethnography, and archaeology in writing that history (e.g.,
Atieno-Odhiambo, 2001; Falola and Ajayi, 1993; Henige, 1974; Ogot et al, 2002;
Oliver and Fage, 1975; Schmidt, 1978, 1983, 1990, 1995; Vansina, 1965, 1990).
One of themajor research topics inAfrican history in the 1960s and 1970s was the
impact of slavery and slave trade on African societies (Beachey, 1976; Glassman,
1991,1995; Klein and Robertson, 1983; Kopytoff andMiers, 1977; Lovejoy, 2000;
Manning, 1982,1990; Mirza and Strobel, 1989; Rodney, 1969). The role of slavery
and the slave trade in the underdevelopment of Africa through depopulation and
warfare and the destruction of indigenous African technologies and economies has
been debated for many generations (C?saire, 1955 [2000]; Gates, 1998; Lovejoy,
2000; Manning, 1990; Mbotela, 1934; Rodney, 1969, 1971; Thornton, 1992).
In contrast to historians, research by East Africanist archaeologists has been
less prolific. With few exceptions (e.g., Donley, 1982, Donley-Reid, 1984, 1986),
archaeologists have devoted little effort to the study of the various dimensions
of slavery and the slave trade. What factors have contributed to archaeologists'
disinterest in a topic that, arguably, has great relevance for understanding the
origins of social and political inequality inAfrica?
John Alexander (2001) attributes archaeologists' silence to the difficulty of
recognizing material evidence for slavery in archaeological contexts. In his words,
archaeological evidence for slavery is a "near-impossibility, in the present state of
field techniques of recognizing chattel-slavery from material remains unassociated
with documentary evidence" (Alexander, 2001, p. 56). Our inability to integrate
field and laboratory techniques so successfully applied in other regions, to study
slavery and the slave trade in East Africa is deeply troubling for the discipline and,
on closer examination, It is crucial for East African
unsupportable. archaeologists
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 61
to enter into a debate that may explain the historical roots of the region's under
development. Notwithstanding Tim Insoll's almost complete omission of the role
of slavery in Islam in his Archaeology of Islam (1999), there is overwhelming
historical, oral, and eyewitness evidence for slavery's historical importance in the
Islamic world, including much of Africa. Within Islamic Africa, slavery was a
prominent cultural practice underpinned by a naturalizing ideology that ascribed a
subservient "stigma" (Allen, 1976, 1993; Benjamin, 2002; Cooper, 1981; Lodhi,
1974; Mirza and Strobel, 1989; Stigand, 1913). The slave trade and slavery cruelly
transformed the lives of African peoples, especially after the late fifteenth century,
moving them from independence to dependent relationships, the strong residues
of which persist into modern times (e.g., Coupland, 1938; Leys, 1975; Nafzinger,
1988; Nwulia, 1975; Rodney, 1971; Sheriff, 1987).
In contrast to East Africa, the archaeology of slavery is an established field in
the Americas, and to some extent, in Southern andWest Africa. In the Americas,
excavations of slave quarters, maroon villages, and burial
plantations, grounds
have greatly improved understandings of enslaved Africans' experiences in the
New World (e.g., Agorsah, 1990, 1993; Andrews and Fenton, 2001; Ferguson,
1992, p. 35; Orser, 1990, 1996; Orser and Funari, 2001; Singleton, 1985, 1995,
1999, 2001). In Southern Africa, the pioneering efforts by Garlake et al (e.g.,
Newitt and Garlake, 1967) have been augmented by attempts to reconstruct the
daily life of South Africans during the early years of European colonization (e.g.,
Hall, 1993; Schrire, 1995). South African archaeologists have invested their efforts
into investigating the composition and life histories of enslaved and other peoples
in bondage. They have reconstructed migration patterns using isotopic analysis of
bones and teeth (Cox etal, 2001; Cox and Sealey, 1997;Morris, 1992; Sealey etal,
1993, 1995). Acknowledging the violence and dehumanizing practices that often
accompanied slavery and colonization, South African scholars are investigating
the vexing and divisive question of ethnocide and genocide of indigenous and
enslaved peoples (e.g., Cox et al, 2001; Morris, 1992). Archaeological research
in South Africa is providing incontrovertible proof of the violent nature of African
encounters with Europeans (Ross, 1983; Shell, 1994).
InWest Africa, engaging anthropology, history, ethnography, archaeology,
and oral traditions in reconstructing and writing the recent African past is a well
established tradition (Agbaje-Williams, 1978, 1983, 1991; Andah, 1995; Holl,
1990, 1995, 2000, 2003; Stahl, 2001). The impact of trans-Atlantic slave trade,
colonial expansion, and trade included migration, resettlements, warfare, and
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62 Kusimba
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 63
female household slaves (e.g. Wilkie, 1995). Open revolt or fleeing were overt
forms of resistance (Glassman, 1983, 1991, 1995; Morton, 1990).
Perhaps the oldest known document that alludes to East Africa (ca 50 AD),
the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, provides glimpses of an extensive trade network
that had already existed for over a thousand years between India, Persia, Egypt, and
East Africa (Casson, 1989, p. 11). The tenth century scholar Al-Mas'udi wrote that
the "best ambergris is that found in the islands and shores of the Zanj sea," and "it is
from this country that come tusks weighing up to fifty pounds and more" (Freeman
Grenville, 1962, p. 14-15). Although he described the people of "Zanj" in detail,
he does not mention slavery as being a prominent part of commerce. Early Chinese
sources are among the few that suggest the exporting of enslaved East Africans. Yu
yang-tsa-tsu (ca 860) and Chu-fan-chih (ca 1266), while maintaining that themain
products of the East Coast were ivory and ambergris, also mentioned the kidnap
ping and selling of women and children from the Berbera coast (Somalia), Mada
gascar, and/or Pemba to foreign traders (Hirth and Rockhill, 1911, p. 128, 129).
Early written documents gave priority to the more lucrative and legitimate
trade items and mention slave trade in passing. While reporting that iron was the
primary object of trade and source of their [Mombasa andMalindi] biggest profits,
Al-Idrisi (AD 1099-1165) mentioned that foreign merchants would lure children
to their ships with dates and kidnap them (Jaubert, 1975, p. 56, 58). Like Al-Idrisi
and Al-Masudi, Ibn Battuta did not discuss slave trade as a major component of
trade by East Africa merchants (Dunn, 1986).
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64 Kusimba
Like Arab sources, European documents rarely refer to slaves and the slave
trade during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. However, one German traveler,
who accompanied Francisco d'Almeida toMombasa and Kilwa, observed inKilwa
"more black slaves than white Moors" and inMombasa all the 500 archers were
"negro slaves of the white Moors" (Freeman-Grenville, 1965, p. 107, 109). Tom?
Pires, the Portuguese ambassador to China described the Indian Ocean trade in
the early sixteenth century. From the ports of Zeila and Berbera, he noted, Arabs
obtained gold, ivory, and slaves (Freeman-Greenville, 1962, p. 125). A Franciscan
Friar, who visited Mombasa in 1606, mentioned a boat arriving from Zanzibar
with some slaves (Freeman-Grenville, 1962, p. 155). An English trading captain
noted that the governor of Mombasa, Johan Santa Coba, would send small boats
to Kilwa, Pemba, Zanzibar, and Mozambique to obtain gold, ambergris, elephant
teeth, and slaves, apparently for himself (Freeman-Grenville, 1962, p. 190). Even
when slaves are mentioned as part of cargo, their importance relative to ivory, gold,
and iron was minimal.
The European demand for enslaved East Africans is symbolized by Monsieur
Morice's treaty with the King of Kilwa inAD 1776, inwhich he promised Morice
1000 slaves annually (Freeman-Grenville, 1965, p. 191; Gray, 1956; Nwulia,
1975). European demand for ivory and plantation labor affected communities
as far as Central Africa and set in motion human and elephant depopulation
(Alpers, 1975; Beachey, 1986; Newitt, 1987; Ringrose, 2001; Schweinfurth, 1874;
Thorbahn, 1979). As early as AD 1770 slaves destined for the French plantation
in their colonies were being procured from Nyasaland [Malawi] (Alpers, 1975;
Nwulia, 1975; Sheriff, 1987, p. 159). Although Europeans initially confined their
presence inAfrica to coastal regions between the sixteenth tomid-nineteenth cen
turies, their slave trading enterprise affected all African communities. Interestingly,
Thornton (1992, p. 125) downplays the European impact by stating that the de
velopment of slavery in its most repugnant forms was more a product of active
African participation and desires for economic expansion because Europeans pos
sessed no means, either economic or to compel African leaders to sell
military,
slaves. This interpretation is not shared by many historians and has been widely
criticized (e.g., Blaut, 1993a; Depelchin, 1999).
Before the eighteenth century, interior and coastal trade networks dealt in
legitimate items such as ivory, gold, beeswax, cloth, and beads (Horton, 1996;
Horton and Middleton,
2000; Kusimba, 1999a; Kusimba and Kusimba, 2001,
2004; Middleton, 1992; Mutoro, 1998; Mutoro and Abungu, 1993; Pearson, 1998;
Pouwels, 2000). Subsistence agriculture, herding, and collecting were the predom
inant ways of making a living. Neville Chittick (1969, p. 108-109) argued, "Goods
were brought to the coast by people from the interior; there is hardly evidence of
expeditions inland until the nineteenth century." However, several hinterland com
munities such as the Taita, Hadzabe, Iraqw,Makonde, and Oromo became victims
of slave raiding and ethnic warfare for control of trading routes (Bagshawe, 1925;
Obst, 1912). Others, like the Yao, Makua, Nyamwezi, and Akamba transformed
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 65
themselves into professional ivory and slave hunters, raiders, and traders (Alpers,
1969,1975; Klein and Robertson, 1983; Lovejoy, 2000; Mutoro, 1998; Robertson,
1997). Ivory trade with overseas markets introduced guns toAfrican societies that
helped facilitate slave raids as well as "trade goods that sometimes sharpened
the appetite of Africans for additional slave raiding and trading" (Nwulia, 1975,
p. 103). Alpers (1975, p. 63) argues that before the middle of the sixteenth cen
tury, Kilwa had no need to obtain its ivory from the interior through the Yao ivory
traders or to organize caravans to look for ivory. The Yao and Nyamwezi became
professional ivory merchants whose need for porters also fueled slave raiding. Obst
(1912) reported warfare between Hadza, Isanzu, Maasai, and Iraqw. The Isanzu
would take Hadza women and children as war captives. It is possible that Isanzu
were capturing Hadza for slave trade, since the slave trade route passed through
Hadza country. According to Obst, the Isanzu began to interact peacefully with
the Hadza once the elephants became rare.
2Martin and Ryan (1977) estimate that between 1780 and 1896 424,100 slaves from East Africa were
transshipped to Arabia, Iran, and India. However, during the same period 833,000 were retained on
the East Coast of Africa working on plantations and in elite households, Austen (1989) contends that
during the nineteenth century alone, 313,000 East Africans from the Kenya and Tanzanian coasts were
transshipped to Arabia, Iran, and India.
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66 Kusimba
resettlement. Family life was transformed as slave takers often targeted the most
physically healthy and economically productive for enslavement. Starving, law
less refugees raided their neighbors for cattle and food. Large-scale abandonment
of farmsteads, villages, and towns for a new, more precarious way of life became
the order of events inmuch of nineteenth century East Africa. For example, in his
travels in Tanganyika [Tanzania] and Nyasaland [Malawi], Dr. David Livingstone
(1880, p. 56) reported numerous coast-bound slave caravans. He also reported
several cases of captives unable to continue the march to the coast being killed
by their captors. Near Lake Nyasa [Malawi], he met aWaiyau chief who sup
plied Arab caravans with slaves: "They almost depopulated the broad fertile tract,
of some three or four miles between the mountain range and the Lake, along
which our course lay. Itwas wearisome to see the skulls and bones scattered about
everywhere (Livingstone, 1880, p. 97-98)." MacDonald (1882, p. 76) reported
4,000 people confined on an island in Lake Chirwa, in southern Malawi, hav
ing been "obliged to live there for protection from slavers (MacDonald, 1882,
p. 76)."
The fear and insecurity that loomed in East Africa minimized legitimate ex
change, making warfare for procurement of slaves, livestock, and food inevitable.
However, the degree of social disintegration associated with slave trade has been
underestimated. Oral accounts of Kenyan communities attribute the violence to
theMaasai. Bolstered by missionary reports of theMaasai menace, these accounts
have been uncritically accepted to the point where alternative hypotheses for as
sessing the causes of regional instability have never fully been addressed (Kraph,
1860; Lugard, 1968; New, 1874; Thomson, 1885).
Slave and cattle raiding had forced Tsavo and Taveta peoples to move to
fortified localities in the hills and mountains (Bravman, 1998; French-Sheldon,
1892; Merritt, 1975; Wray, 1912). Migration and relocation created subsistence
insecurities and made people vulnerable to famine and disease. The Mwakisenge
famine that had occurred in Taita in the 1880s reported by Hobley (1895) is a
case in point. Taita to Taveta, Pare, and Ukambani,
Starving emigrated Chagga,
only to find their residents similarly afflicted. Parents reportedly sold children
into slavery for food. People starved to death in houses, on roadsides, in gardens,
everywhere and were left unburied for no one had strength to dig graves; the
number of bodies was too numerous to be disposed by hyena or other scavengers.
Sagala area inTsavo was one of the earliest and hardest hit areas. People killed one
another in competition for food and many Sagala emigrated to Giriama for relief.
Abandoned settlements reverted to wilderness. At the end of the famine, after the
rains returned, only 1000 of the estimated 10,000 Taita people survived (Merritt,
1975, p. 100-112; Strayer, 1971; Wray, 1912).
Societal disruptions caused by the slave trade, cattle raiding, and persis
tent droughts weakened pre-existing regional networks of interaction, exchange,
and crisis management. Insecurity confined people within ethnic boundaries
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 67
(Bagshawe, 1925; Fadiman, 1982; Forsbrooke, 1960; Gillman, 1944; Obst, 1912;
Weatherby, 1967). Subsistence economies based on farming and pastoralism de
clined. In some cases, smaller ethnically related communities were compelled to
aggregate into large groups strong enough to construct large fortified settlements
equipped with perimeter walls and encircled with moats, thus restraining trade
and economic welfare. The Taita people's response to these crises was to abandon
village settlements in the plains for the hills, where they remained isolated well
into the early twentieth century.
The Tsavo area is located 150 kilometers inland from Mombasa and was a
major stopping point of caravan trade. It consists of large well-watered hills, the
Taita, Sagala, and Kasigau, and arid plains (Fig. 1). It was home to a mosaic of
ethnic groups including Taita and Akamba agropastoralists, Oromo pastoralists,
andWaata hunter-gatherers. These groups were interconnected by relationships of
trade and intermarriage.3
Tsavo's oral accounts discuss waves of migration, settlement, in
peoples
termarriages, interregional trade, [local economic] interdependence, and warfare
among various Tsavo whose descendants now claim the area as their home
peoples
land (Bravman, 1998; Jackson, 1972; Kusimba and Kusimba, 1998-2002; Merritt,
1975; Morton, 1978; Stiles, 1980, 1981, 1982).
The Taita accounts also show them in the Tsavo area
agropastoral arriving
during the fifteenth century (Bravman, 1998; Merritt, 1975). Numerous accounts
discuss how the Taita dealt with crises in their new homeland. Informants repeat
edly describe unending tales of droughts, famine, diseases, alliance building, social
disruptions, warfare, and enslavement (Kusimba and Kusimba, 1998-2002). The
Taita relationship to their hunter-gatherer neighbors, theWaata, was based upon
institutions of blood brotherhood and probably sisterhood. Individuals signed an
oath in a blood ritual administered by amganga (shaman), and witnessed by several
members of the groups (see also Herlehy, 1984). Like other Tsavo groups the Taita
supplied ivory, skins, and precious stones to the Coast. They maintained inland
markets and ensured trader security in their territories. These markets were often
located along permanent streams and could have supplied fresh water, vegetables,
fruits, and other services to long distance caravan traders. also served as
They
collection centers for traders and their goods from further inland.
3This paper is primarily concerned with the Taita peoples for whom primary ethnohistorical and
archaeological research has been carried out by the author.
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68 Kusimba
Informants related incidents of slave raids against Sagala, Ngolia, and Kasigau
Taitas during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The alleged slave takers
were mainly Arab and Swahili, but Akamba and European dealers were also impli
cated. Informants narrated accounts of Coastal traders capturing people by deceit.
They would convince the community elders and chiefs to find them porters, who
never returned to their villages. One informant recalled an incident he witnessed
as a child when Coastal traders would come to the Rukanga market to trade cloth
in exchange for elephant tusks. When there were no tusks, traders would request
children instead. He felt that the Coastal traders cheated them. "A human being
exchanged for cloth!" They did not realize they were selling their children for cloth
(see Alpers, 1975). Another informant recalled stories from his father about Arab
and Swahili dealers.
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 69
They would come to Kasigau to trade and pretend they just wanted elephant
tusks and rhino horns. The Arab traders would ask for porters to help carry it, at
least part of the way to the coast. After trekking with ivory to a certain distance,
the convoy would be ambushed and the Kasigau shackled in a chain gang and
marched to the coast. This happened to all the Kasigau communities. The com
munity initially suspected that a party of Maasai warriors ambushed their people
on their way home, so they didn't take any action against the Arabs (Kusimba and
Kusimba, 1998-2002).
The Taita elders interviewed shared many accounts of relatives who left either
voluntarily or in the employment of Arab and Swahili caravans; none returned.
Thus, narratives of the local peoples potentially reveal a complex history of inter
group social relations characterized by cooperation, conflict, and enslavement. Our
recent archaeological excavations atMount Kasigau detailing the extent and nature
of conflict during the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries support informants'
accounts.
Tsavo's prominent inselberg, Mount Kasigau, has been inhabited for over
12,000 years (Table I). Almost every aspect of the ecology and even the shape of
the mountain itself have been affected by human activity. While some areas have
been intensively modified, the presence of low intensity activities such as grazing
ensures that no part of the mountain is free from human and natural impact.
The variation in landform, environment, and human activity in and around
Kasigau has created varied types of archaeological sites. Many were inhabited con
temporaneously; rockshelters characterized by ephemeral occupational evidence
or more substantial architectural features, terrace sites with space for both housing
and and sites both at the base and on top of the mountain. Pre
agriculture; open-air
viously archaeology in the area was limited toRobert Soper's 1960's description of
three sites (Soper, 1965). We located more than 40 sites, mapped, and extensively
excavated eight rockshelters [B7,9, 20,28, and 31, Kl, 4, and 5], a terrace [29B],
and an iron-smelting site [K7] (Fig. 2).
Preliminary surveys revealed that a ring of rock shelters, the majority of
which were fortified with dry stone architecture, surrounding Kasigau (Fig. 3).
Closer examination of fortified shelters revealed that their locations had clear se
curity implications. First, the shelters themselves were small and could hold only
a handful of individuals. Second, while not easily visible from down the hill, they
afforded excellent views of the surrounding landscape. People and large wildlife
could be seen from several miles away. Third, they could be easily defended but
they were difficult to approach from the bottom of the hill. In short, location on
rocky surfaces, often at the edge of cliffs, afforded excellent scouting advantages
and short-term shelters but they were not particularly suitable for long-term oc
for humans or livestock. The construction of these shelters, however
cupation
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with
coast Some
trade
trade
trade Regular trade
Relationship
No trade
No
trade
Some Frequent
Residences villages
clusters
rockshelters,
Open
villages
and on
terraces,
pastoral
villages
and
camps
villages
Large
and
homesteads,
pastoral
villages
and migration
relocation
and
campsfortification,
Rocksheiter
Open-rockshelters,
caves,
Open
rockshelters
Open
rockshelters pastoral
camps
Neolithic Period
Stone
Late
Age Colonial
Age
(BP)
Time 5000-3000 2000-1000
3000-2000
500-100
12000-5000 1000-500
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 71
ETHIOPIA
20 -Front
Bungule View
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(RCYBP)
dates
C14
70-380
70
?
170 ?25-1000
100380
25 70-5330
?
70 207
40-300
70
? 170
70-240
70
?
date
No
yet dates
No
yet
Site
IL
Table
Clusters
Taita
Interaction
the
of
Sphere
beads
Hillslope
Site
cluster
type Plains
Settlements
Mound
Agropastoralist Inselberg
Posts Activity
Economic
Forager-Food
Producer Trading Specialized
Intensive
Rocksheiter
Occupations Fugitive
Stockade
Villages Settlements
Sites
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 73
sites clearly bear out the area's economic and cultural diversity. Evidence of herd
ing, contact with the Coast, and technological specialization varies among con
temporaneous habitations. Second, sites with dramatically different characteristics
and contents are found very close to each other. Site clusters at the southern end
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74 Kusimba
Alliances kept ethnic boundaries fluid and minimized competition and con
flicts that impacted both the cultural and ecological landscape of the region. With
out the compliance of hinterland peoples who, after all, produced the bulk of
wealth-creating products needed for the international market, the "big men" of
the Coast would not have successfully acquired their wealth (Kusimba, 1999a,b).
The Coastal elite, being aware of their weaker bargaining position, formed al
liances with their nearest rural counterparts in order to secure access to the rural
products they needed for external markets (Nicholls, 1971). Rural peoples in turn
formed networks of alliances with each other to enable the securing of those items
(Kusimba and Kusimba, 2004; Mutoro, 1998; Pearson, 1998; Robertson, 1997).
For example, the Taita and Akamba formed blood brotherhoods with theWaata.
Through these fictive ties, the former received hunting poisons and magic for
increasing their success at elephant hunting. Some Waata became clients of the
militarily powerful Oromo in exchange for protection and hunting access (Hobley,
1895). Taita and Oromo pastoralists intensified production of milk, butter, and agri
cultural produce to benefit from regional trade. Thus, in the Tsavo region, terraced
rain-fed agriculture, iron production, and pen feeding are the clearest examples of
agricultural intensification. Conversely, the decline in agricultural intensification
suggests a reversal of fortunes that archaeology can witness.
Fortified rockshelters are a striking feature of the Kasigau Hills. They testify
to the disruptive effects of slave trade and warfare in Taita (Kusimba, 2004).
Below I discuss three shelters B28, B31, and B20 and interpret their significance
in understanding precolonial upheavals in Taita.
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 75
A2, contained large amounts of desiccated animal dung, layered in thick heaps.
Several large pieces of wood hammered into the ground were used to tether the
animals. Only a handful of cultural artifacts including charcoal, bones, and shell
were recovered inA2 but these were minimal compared to those recovered at Al
and themidden outside. Excavations at themidden revealed slightly large densities
of bones mostly of bovids and ovicaprids. Three radiocarbon dates of 170 ? 70,
180 ? 70, and 240 ? 70 [BP] placed the site into the seventeenth and nineteenth
centuries.
B31 is a rocksheiter enclosure located up a steep slope about 5 min walk west
of B28. Located at the top of an almost vertical 20 m slope, the shelter is formed
by one large rock leaning into another, creating a triangular opening. The interior
is 9 x 8 m with a ceiling height of 1.75 m. The entrance consisting of vertical
stone slabs supported by two large Y-shaped wooden beams remains in place.
The interior is divided into two roughly equal sections by a fence of interlocked
sticks.
The exterior wall of the shelter has collapsed inmany areas, scattering the rock
and wooden beams about the entrance. The wooden beams used in the masonry
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76 Kusimba
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 77
obtained from the vines and wood holding the dry stone wall were dated to 207 ?
40, 290 ? 70, 300 ? 70 BP, placing the date of construction of the dry wall in the
late sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries. The final phase of rocksheiter use
was recent and was exclusively used as a goat/sheep pen.
Excavations also revealed a detailed process of dry stone construction. This
involved the digging of a foundation and erecting a wooden frame with termite
resistant hardwood beams that were secured with twine. rocks were then
Large
placed along the wooden frame. Smaller rocks were fitted into the gaps. Finally,
wet soil was used as mortar to secure the wall. The resulting structure was a
clay
strong, nearly impenetrable, aesthetically beautiful enclosure.
Interestingly, like B28 and B31, this site lacked cultural artifacts revealing its
intermittent use. Thus, the partially fortified section served multiple functions: (1)
as a courtyard for household activities including cooking and milking and (2) as
a convenient area for holding livestock including cattle. Grass and other fodder
would be stowed in this area. Finally, it was an excellent area for resting and even
sleeping. The dung deposits in both enclosures reveal the intensity of pen feeding
that was carried out at the site during the final phase of site occupation.
How may we interpret the archaeological data recovered from B20, B28, and
B31? The most obvious uses of the enclosure are for pen feeding of goat and/or
sheep. This was especially true during the final occupational phase. The large piles
of desiccated dung within the enclosures and outside show later rocksheiter uses
that can mask the initial intention for fortification. As discussed above, our survey
showed that Kasigau appears to have been surrounded by a ring of fortified rock
shelters. Fortification dates only to approximately 300 BP. Based on historical and
oral traditions, this was a time when the European and American demand for East
African ivory and slaves increased (Alpers, 1975; Mutoro, 1998; Pearson, 1998;
Ringrose, 2001; Robertson, 1997; Sheriff, 1987; Spear, 1978, 1981; Thorbahn,
1979). Much of the ivory destined for South Asia was initially exported through
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78 Kusimba
ff
0
M 400000
ff
IU
300000
S 200000
r o 100000
a
x
IU
0 1507 1754 1881
>
Years1507-1881
Fig. 4. East African Ivory Exports, 1507-1881.
the Portuguese controlled ports of Sofala. However, a decline in ivory from the
Southeast African hinterland and the increasing distance for procuring ivory in
the eighteenth century forced these ports to increasingly turn to metal and cattle
exports (Newitt, 1987).
To meet the shortfall, traders turned their attention to the East African coastal
hinterland resulting into the Northern Coasts gradually becoming the main sup
pliers of ivory after 1750 (Coupland, 1938, 1968; Newitt, 1972, 1987; Thorbahn,
1979, p. 101, 284, 285; Ylvisaker, 1982). The coastal demand, particularly from
the Indian subcontinent was a significant enough factor for changing the ecologi
cal and cultural landscapes of the northern hinterlands (Kusimba and Bronson, in
press; Oka et a/., in press).
Thorbahn's basic analysis5 of the ivory trade data from archival records seems
to suggest that the volume of ivory trade substantially increased, despite relative
instability in the Indian subcontinent following the collapse of "Islamic Peace"
(Gupta, 1987; Naqvi, 1972; Pearson, 1998; Prakash, 1998). Om Prakash (1998)
suggested that Indian merchants (as well as others) circumvented political barriers
to stay in business using a number of strategies ranging from bribing officials, to
secret business deals, and smuggling (Fig. 4; Oka et ai, in press).
51 am grateful to Barbara Thorbahn for making the Late Frederick Peter Thorbahn's field and archival
notes available to me.
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 79
The scant archaeological evidence recovered bolsters the hypothesis that the
shelters were only used intermittently and for specific purposes. I draw several
inferences from these data. First, Kasigau people had prior experience in dry
stone architecture that they applied in rocksheiter fortification. The scanty material
evidence contrasts with the intensity of labor. For example, B20 and the as yet to
be excavated Rl were located on a very steep cliff and required considerable labor
input to construct. Mobilization of labor in these projects required strong leadership
and cohesion. Fortified rocksheiter use was shortlived (i.e.,
community relatively
from the mid-eighteenth to late-nineteenth century). They were used largely as
goat/sheep pens in the twentieth century. Therefore, it is probable that rocksheiter
fortification was a response to specific circumstances and was constructed for
defensive functions as "maroons" or refugia towhich people and livestock retreated
when threatened by enemies.
Informant and historical accounts discussed above show that eighteenth and
nineteenth century East Africa was punctuated by insecurity and instability that
was a consequence of slave trade, warfare, and climate change. Slave raiding
and warfare caused widespread insecurity that affected legitimate regional trade
and alliance networks. Climatic changes, especially prolonged droughts, caused
widespread food shortages leading to regional famine (Kusimba, 2004). These
crises often resulted inwidespread famine-related diseases that spread very quickly
through the land as people and livestock emigrated in search for food and pasture
or were moved as slaves (Watts, 1997).
Oral and historical accounts and archaeological data provide multiple lines of
evidence that support the hypothesis that rocksheiter fortifications inKasigau were
defensive. First, the labor invested does not justify their use primarily for penning
goat/sheep. However, once they were fortified, their use gradually evolved to serve
multiple purposes, including protection for people and livestock and pen feeding.
Their location in hard to reach but easily defensible areas coupled with their thick
walls would have discouraged even the most determined enemy.
Informants' accounts of migration to the top of the Mount Kasigau during
the century to escape raids by slave seekers and cattle rustlers were
eighteenth
confirmed by the recovery of a large settlement on the mount top during the 2002
season. One informant stated that once their ancestors settled on the mountaintop
they began to exploit its sweet water and fertile soils over the dry plains, which
teemed with tsetse flies and slave raiders. Scouts used rockshelters to survey the
movement of caravans. Whenever they were attacked, a handful of archers used
these shelters to disrupt the enemy advance while the scouts warned the community
up the hill to prepare for war. Even if the raiding party reached the settlements up
the hill, they would still have had to fight their way down with their loot. In both
cases, the Taita were likely to have an upper hand in the event of an attack.
In sum, fortification was likely responsive to coastal slave raiding and cattle
rustling. Before the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Kasigau were active
participants in the trade networks, as suppliers of resources for the traders and
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80 Kusimba
their cargo. Excavations coupled with oral accounts suggest a shifting scenario in
the nature of relationships between Kasigau and the Coast. Increased raids from
better-armed and numerically superior enemies, especially after 1800, compelled
the Kasigau people to abandon their homesteads in the plains for the security of
the hills.
Slave trade and slavery devastated African people and reconfigured the so
cial, technological, and political economy of African polities. Despite attempts
to rewrite African history and equitably apportion blame on slavery, it remains
clear that enslavement and transshipment of African people toAsia and the Amer
icas depopulated the African continent, fostered instability, and contributed to the
economically crippling wars of post-sixteenth century Africa (Klein, 1993). Slav
ery and the slave trade inspired warfare, caused widespread insecurity, mobility,
and exposed people to famine and disease. Enslaved people also spread diseases
amongst themselves and those among whom they now settled (Bagshawe, 1925;
Obst, 1912; Watts, 1997). Internal trade and interaction networks were severely
weakened, as were networks of alliance. These crises weakened the competitive
ness of African economies and paved the way for foreign takeover and control of
the African political economy by the nineteenth century.
To what extent may archaeologists contribute to the study of slavery inAfrica?
can tell us of responses to enslavement, and
Archaeology everyday experiences,
the processes of change and exchange between masters and their slaves (Singleton,
1995). Research in South Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America has
clearly demonstrated archaeology's ability to reconstruct the of en
experiences
slaved persons. Archaeologists have successfully shown covert and overt means
through which enslaved peoples recreated their identities (Agorsah, 1990, 1993;
Funari, 1999; Orser and Funari, 2001; Price, 1979; Singleton, 2001; Webster,
1999). Pottery and bead analyses in household, field, and burial contexts have re
vealed rich data showing enslaved peoples' attempts to sustain their own cultures
and values and/or to distinguish themselves from their masters' culture altogether
(Ferguson, 1992; Orser, 1994; Singleton, 1999; Stine et al, 1996; Young, 1996).
Isotope analyses on remains of enslaved persons can enable us to chart migra
tion patterns of the trade and reconstruct individual histories of enslaved persons
with precision previously impossible (e.g. Cox et al., 2001; Sealey et al., 1995).
Archaeology in concert with other allied subdisciplines can now demonstrate the
personal histories of life in bondage, show individuals' adjustments to new dietary
requirements, the nature of work performed, and how both affected their natural
health and longevity. These data are a powerful means for addressing the vexing
issues of the dehumanization of the enslaved persons, which was so necessary for
justifying slavery (Morris, 1992, 1996; Ross, 1983; Shell, 1994).
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Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa 81
Turning to East Africa, there are many areas in which these studies can be
undertaken, for both chattel slavery and resistance to enslavement. The Omani
Arabs introduced chattel slavery on the East Coast of Africa in the eighteenth
century. Resistance to slavery began even earlier on the Coast, and developed in the
interior as raids and wars for slaves intensified. During the seventeenth to nineteenth
century, the construction of fortified, defensive settlements in the East African
interior was most likely a response to prevailing insecurity. Settlement fortification
was a regionwide phenomenon (Chittick, 1965; Fadiman, 1982; Jackson, 1948;
Lofgren, 1967; Perham, 1979; Scully, 1969, 1979; Spear, 1978; Sutton, 1965;
Wandibba, 1972;Weatherby, 1967). Many of these settlements developed along the
trade routes (Gillman, 1944; Wakefield, 1870). Accounts show these settlements
as responses to regional instability caused by the slave trade and exacerbated by
climate change. Settlement aggregation and fortification and abrupt settlement
abandonment common in post-sixteenth century Africa can be fruitfully studied
archaeologically to understand post-sixteenth century African experiences.
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