Omertà in Zanzibar
A Catalan slave trader in the Indian Ocean, between slave trade and imperial dynamics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18042/hp.49.06Abstract
Between 1856 and 1860, Bonaventura Mas i Calzada, captain of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, had been trafficking slaves in Zanzibar on behalf of Vidal Frères, the Marseille company of his cousin Antoni Vidal. Yet, thanks to his connections with France and Spain, he managed to consolidate his position in a Zanzibar that was connected with the slave world of La Réunion but also with that of Cuba, in the last throes of the Atlantic trade. Through the complex relationship between Mas and the Arab slave trader Salim Jubran, the governor of Lamu, and the British and French consuls, this article aims to show how Spanish businessmen, in the second half of the 19th century, managed to establish themselves in areas that were still not colonized, but that were experiencing very intense imperial dynamics. Vidal Frères got a significant presence in a rapidly expanding Zanzibar, at a time when East Africa was still dominated by the Omani aristocracy, but was increasingly linked to global trade.
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