BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY: SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY IN OMAN :

Between 10 and 18 million Africans were enslaved by Arab Slave Traders and taken across the Red Sea the Indian Ocean and the Shara Desert between 1650 and 1900. The Arab Slave Trade as it was called the trading of slaves from East Africa through Arab lands boomed during the 19th century while under Oman rule, Zanzibar was a central hub of the African and Indian Ocean Slave Trade. The most infamous of the Omani Slavers was Tippu Tip a Zanzibar Omani, whose ruthless raids forced thousands of African into slavery. He conducted expeditions of 4000 men into the African interior, where village Chiefs would sell their people into slavery. Tip was also a trader in Ivory and became extremely wealthy through both tradesowned multiple plantations and 10,000 slaves.

The Omani adventure into Africa began when Omani Sultan Saif bin Sultan  decided to challenge the Portugues control of the western ocean by seizing their trading posts in 1690. The island stronghold of Zanzibar fell in 1699, it was nore secure than the mainland out posts and became the Omani main trading post for the Arab slave trade and the important market for supplying the wider middle east with African Slaves.