Summary

While the history of slavery prior to the arrival of Europeans in the Indian Ocean is not well known, the practice of slavery did not decrease with their arrival. On the Comoro Islands, Europeans owned the plantations that required laborers (slaves). Following the abolition of slavery, those who worked on plantations gradually become landowners. Women became second-class kin in aristocratic families. Indeed, following abolition, they were no longer slaves, but they remained of a lower social status than those around them.

The Comoro Islands were initially settled in the 1st millennium bce, and slavery existed there long before the 18th century slave trade and the engagé (indentured servant) system of the French colonial period. The primary functions of slavery in the pre-European period were agriculture and domestic service, and slaves were of local as well as foreign origin. In the past, the slave trade had been conducted by Arabs; after the arrival of the Europeans, the British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese all participated in the slave trade. At the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, there were major raids by Malagasy slaveholders. Slavery thus swiftly increased with the arrival of the slave trade and colonialism.

The closest coastline to the Comoro Islands is that of Mozambique. Numerous Mozambicans migrated to the islands over the years, some to fill a need for labor in the agricultural economy and others to be traded, whether on the Arabian Peninsula or the French colonies of the Indian Ocean. These Africans of Mozambican origin are known on the Comoro Islands as makuwa. Their integration is synonymous with cultural and historical contributions to the country’s history, even though the official abolition of slavery throughout the 19th century is assessed in different ways. For the country today, the consequences of this painful history remain visible in both its social structure and daily behaviors.