Acknowledgments
This book is the product of many decades of study, writing, and testing of ideas. Like most scholars of the Indian Ocean, I began my career as a student of one geographical subregion of that vast world, in my case of eastern Africa.
But from the very beginning my focus on the ivory trade and slavery drew me into the waters of the western Indian Ocean and to the shores of the Gulf, western India, and the islands of the southwest Indian Ocean. From the late 1990s I deepened my research on the forced dispersal of Africans into the countries that rim the western Indian Ocean and its islands. This interest caused me to read more deeply about the territories where Africans had been removed and where they still live today. Then, in 2005, I began to offer a lecture course at UCLA on the history of the Indian Ocean, and those lectures served as a starting point for this book. Thus committed, I read as widely and deeply as I could about the history of those societies that rim the eastern shores of the Indian Ocean so that I might achieve some semblance of balance in the coverage of my lectures.Not surprisingly, I have incurred many debts, both personal and scholarly, in arriving at this point in my career. First I must thank the late Richard Gray, who guided my 1966 dissertation at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and who encouraged me to follow the evidence that drew me from east central Africa out into the Indian Ocean. Next I should thank the Council of Research of the Academic Senate, the International Institute, the James S. Coleman Center for African Studies, and the Office of the Chancellor at the University of California, Los Angeles, for research and conference support that enabled me to expand my sense of the greater Indian Ocean and to meet so many international scholars who study this vast region.
The wonderful library resources at UCLA, including its Interlibrary Loan Service, enabled me to obtain the sources, both primary and secondary, that have made it possible to write this history. In particular I thank Ruby Bell-Gam, African studies bibliographer at the Charles E. Young Research Library, for her readiness to help me obtain books and articles whenever I made a specific request. Colleagues at UCLA who sustained me on this journey of discovery, whether by answering questions, pointing me to sources, discussing ideas, or providing me with a platform on which to present my work include Andrew Apter, Sebouh Aslanian, Judith Carney, Jacqueline DjeDje, Christopher Ehret, Andrea Goldman, Nile Green, Amy Catlin Jairazbhoy, Vinay Lal, Franqoise Lionnet, Ghislaine Lydon, Michael Morony, Merrick Posnansky, Ali Jihad Racy, Geoffrey Robinson, Michael Salman, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Richard Von Glahn, Willeke Wendrich, and William Worger. In particular, I must thank Allen F. Roberts for being my partner in a number of Indian Ocean initiatives at UCLA. Several of my graduate students have also made important contributions to my understanding of the Indian Ocean world: Matthew S. Hopper, Phoebe Musandu, Randall Pouwels, and Awet Tewelde Weld- emichael. I also want to thank the undergraduate students who endured my lectures and exams through four iterations of History 101 between 2005 and 2013. Their enthusiasm and their questions encouraged me to try to improve my teaching of Indian Ocean history.Beyond UCLA the network expands considerably. Most significantly I must thank Gwyn Campbell, whose interests overlap so much with my own. Gwyn’s organization of an important series of conferences at Avignon, France, marked a new initiative in Indian Ocean Studies. Now his leadership of the Indian Ocean World Centre at McGill University has created an important international space for Indian Ocean scholars. Equally, I want to thank Abdul Sheriff, both for his role as organizer of several Zanzibar International Film Festival conferences that provided an important venue for serious exchange of research, and for his critical collegiality over many decades.
Michael Pearson is another long-time friend and colleague whose sharp critiques and exemplary commitment to Indian Ocean studies I value greatly. I am also grateful to Amy Catlin Jairazbhoy, Himanshu Prabha Ray, and Vijayalakshmi Teelock, each of whom invited me to coedit books with them that address aspects of Indian Ocean history. One peculiarity of working on slavery and abolition in this part of the world is that one receives invitations from organizers of conferences with an Atlantic focus to present a comparative perspective from the Indian Ocean. For these opportunities I thank Ana Lucia Araujo, David Blight, Michael Gomez, Robert Harms, and Paul Lovejoy. Indian Ocean conferences organized by colleagues in Western Australia have provided an important opportunity to present research at Perth and Fremantle since the late 1980s. Kenneth McPherson and Frank Broeze—both sadly departed—and Peter Reeves were instrumental in the original International Congress of Indian Ocean Studies jamborees, while Cassandra Pybus and James Warren were central for recent gatherings. Other opportunities were made possible by conferences or seminars at the Australian National University, Canberra; the CNRDS, Moroni, Ngazidja; Duke University; Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Rice University; Spelman College; the University of California, Berkeley and Irvine; the Universite de Paris 1; and the University of Pennsylvania.In addition to those individuals already named above, I want to thank the following colleagues and students whose scholarship, comments on my papers, friendship, and collegiality have made my experience so rewarding. To be honest, these individuals are too numerous to name, but I must single out Richard B. Allen, Philippe Beaujard, Lee V. Cassanelli, Abdin Chande, William Gervase Clarence-Smith, Timothy Denham, Jan-Georg Deutsch, Shihan da Silva Jayasuriya, Pier Larson, Pedro Machado, Roxani Eleni Margariti, Jonathan Miran, Jeremy Prestholdt, Haripriya Rangan, Anthony Reid, Patricia Risso, Hideaki Suzuki, Shawkat Toorawa, Megan Vaughan, Thomas Vernet, Iain Walker, Kerry Ward, and Nigel Worden.
At Oxford University Press I must express my gratitude to my editor, Nancy Toff, who has been both very supportive and most tolerant as I toiled at this book. Thanks, too, to her editorial assistants, Peter Worger and Gwen Gethner, and to senior production editor Gwen Colvin.
Finally, there is my family. My children, Joel and Leila; their spouses, Melissa Fahn and Adam Moore; and their children, Asa, Dimitri, and Jude. Above all, there is my partner of more than fifty years, my clearest critic and superb editor, Annie, whose perceptive reading helps to make my writing as clear as it can be.
I dedicate this book to my oldest brother, Paul J. Alpers. Paul did not live to see this book in print, but his own career as a superb scholar and teacher, albeit in a field quite different from my own, makes this the right moment to recognize his love and his life.
Pacific Palisades and The Sea Ranch May-July 2013
NEW OXFORD WORLD HISTORY
The New Oxford World History
GENERAL EDITORS
Bonnie G. Smith, Rutgers University Anand A. Yang, University of Washington
EDITORIAL BOARD
Donna Guy, Ohio State University Karen Ordahl Kupperman, New York University Margaret Strobel, University of Illinois, Chicago John O. Voll, Georgetown University
The New Oxford World History provides a comprehensive, synthetic treatment of the “new world history” from chronological, thematic, and geographical perspectives, allowing readers to access the world’s complex history from a variety of conceptual, narrative, and analytical viewpoints as it fits their interests.
Edward A. Alpers is research professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also taught at the Universities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the Somali National University, Lafoole. Alpers has published widely on the history of East Africa and the Indian Ocean. His major publications include Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa; Walter Rodney: Revolutionary and Scholar, coedited with Pierre-Michel Fontaine; Africa and the West: A Documentary History from the Slave Trade to Independence, with William H.
Worger and Nancy Clark; History, Memory and Identity, coedited with Vijayalakshmi Teelock; Sidis and Scholars: Essays on African Indians, coedited with Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy; Slavery and Resistance in Africa and Asia, coedited with Gwyn Campbell and Michael Salman; Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa, coedited with Benigna Zimba and Allen F. Isaacman; Cross-Currents and Community Networks: The History of the Indian Ocean World, coedited with Himanshu Prabha Ray; East Africa and the Indian Ocean. His current research focuses on slave trade and the dispersal of Africans in the Indian Ocean world.This page intentionally left blank
Chronological Volumes
The World from Beginnings to 4000 bce The World from 4000 to 1000 bce The World from 1000 bce to 500 ce The World from 300 to 1000 ce The World from 1000 to 1500 The World from 1450 to 1700 The World in the Eighteenth Century The World in the Nineteenth Century The World in the Twentieth Century
Thematic and Topical Volumes
The City: A World History Democracy: A World History Food: A World History Empires: A World History The Family: A World History Genocide: A World History Health and Medicine: A World History Migration: A World History Race: A World History Technology: A World History
Geographical Volumes
The Atlantic in World History central Asia in World History china in World History Japan in World History Mexico in World History Russia in World History The Silk Road in World History South Africa in World History South Asia in World History Southeast Asia in World History Trans-Saharan Africa in World History
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