Then would follow a hideous night attack, a massacre of women and
children, and the taking prisoners of all able-bodied males. These
men, chained together in long lines, and each bearing a heavy tooth
of ivory upon his shoulder, would be whipped down to the coast. It
was only when they had carried the ivory there, and their work was
finished, that the idea presented itself of selling them as well as
the ivory. Later, these bearers became of equal value with the
ivory, and the raiding of native villages and the capture of men and
women to be sold into slavery developed into a great industry. The
industry continues fitfully to-day, but it is carried on under great
difficulties, and at a risk of heavy punishments. What is called
"domestic slavery" is recognized on the island of Zanzibar, the vast
clove plantations which lie back of the port employing many hundreds
of these domestic slaves. It is not to free these from their slight
bondage that the efforts of those who are trying to suppress the
slave-trade is to-day directed, but to prevent others from being
added to their number. What slave-trading there is at present is by
Arabs and Indians. They convey the slaves in dhows from the mainland
to Madagascar, Arabia, or southern Persia, and to the Island of
Pemba, which lies north of Zanzibar, and only fifteen miles from the
mainland. If a slave can be brought this short distance in safety he
can be sold for five hundred dollars; on the mainland he is not
worth more than fifteen dollars.
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