Chapter 5 Archives - The Killing Age

Map 5.1. East Africa in the nineteenth century

Our knowledge of the East African slave trade is not nearly as well-developed as it is for the Atlantic. This map shows the movements of peoples into the Indian Ocean and from the interior to the coast and north to Egypt.

back to images & maps This map illustrates the overland and overseas routes taken by enslaved peoples in nineteenth century East Africa. Our understanding of enslavement in this region is not nearly as detailed as it is for the Atlantic world. However, we know that enslavement expanded dramatically in this period, utterly transforming vast areas […]

Ch. 5.2 The Nile slave district

This map illustrates the routes of slaves as they moved from East Africa to Egypt.

back to images & maps The Nile slave district The great bulk of historical scholarship on slavery has focused on the transport of millions of enslaved people across the Atlantic Ocean. But there were other slave trades, including one moving from East Africa and the Sudan to Egypt. These routes are ancient, but they dramatically […]

Ch5.1. Chokwe Gun Pipe

This Chokwe gun pipe from the twentieth century demonstrates the material and symbolic importance of weapons to this West-Central African people.

back to images & maps Ch5.1. Chokwe Gun Pipe Ch5.1. Chokwe Gun Pipe. Metropolitan Art Museum, New York. This precisely rendered gun points to how Western weapons came to occupy an important place in African societies and cultures. The Chokwe rose on the militarization and commercialization of West-Central Africa—slaves, ivory, and rubber. Legendarily violent, early […]