Zanj - History of Zanj

History of Zanj

The Zanj traded extensively with Arabs, Persians and Indians, but according to some sources only locally since they possessed no ocean-going ships. According to other sources the heavily-Bantu Swahili peoples already had seafaring vessels with sailors and merchants trading with Arabia and Persia and as far east as India and China. Through this trade, some Arabs intermarried with local Bantu women, which eventually gave rise to the Swahili culture and language -- both Bantu in origin but significantly influenced by foreign elements (e.g. clothing, loan words, etc.).

Prominent settlements of the Zanj coast included Shungwaya (Bur Gao), as well as Malindi, Gedi, and Mombasa. By the late medieval period, the area included at least 37 substantial Swahili trading towns, many of them quite wealthy. However, these communities never consolidated into a single political entity (the "Zanj Empire" being a late nineteenth-century fiction).

The urban ruling and commercial classes of these Swahili settlements was occupied by Arab and Persian immigrants. The Bantu peoples inhabited the coastal regions, and were organized only as family groups. The term 'shenzi' used on the East African coast and derived from Swahili "zanji" referred in a derogatory way to anything associated with rural blacks. An example of this would be the colonial term a "shenzi" dog, referring to a native dog.

The Zanj were for centuries shipped as slaves by Arab traders to all the countries bordering the Indian Ocean. The Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs recruited many Zanj slaves as soldiers and, as early as 696 AD, we learn of slave revolts of the Zanj against their Arab masters in Iraq (see Zanj Rebellion). Ancient Chinese texts also mention ambassadors from Java presenting the Chinese emperor with two Seng Chi (Zanji) slaves as gifts, and Seng Chi slaves reaching China from the Hindu kingdom of Sri Vijaya in Java.

The term "Zanj" apparently fell out of use in the tenth century. However, after 1861, when the area controlled by the Arab Sultan of Zanzibar was forced by the British to split with the parent country of Oman, it was often referred to as Zanj.. The sea off the south-eastern coast of Africa was known as the "Sea of Zanj" and included the Mascarene islands and Madagascar. During the anti-apartheid struggle it was proposed that South Africa should assume the name 'Azania' to reflect ancient Zanj.