The Red Sea Slave Trade in Yemen

Yemen’s economy was long driven by the Indian Ocean trade, but a darker engine fueled its coastal cities. This episode explores the Red Sea slave trade, where enslaved Africans from the Horn of Africa and East Africa were brought to Sanaa, Aden, and Mocha for labor and domestic service. We look at how the Zaydi Imamate regulated manumission, why Johann Ludwig Burckhardt documented these networks in the early nineteenth century, and how the Hadhrami diaspora participated in this complex system. From the coffee ports of al-Makha to the highland markets, we trace the routes that connected Yemen to Zanzibar, Java, and Sumatra, examining the legal and social structures that sustained it.

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