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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean to 1800: Reviewing Relations in Historical Perspective
Author:Pouwels, Randall L.ISNI
Year:2002
Periodical:International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:35
Issue:2-3
Pages:385-425
Language:English
Geographic terms:Indian Ocean
East Africa
Subjects:Swahili
history
ethnic groups
History and Exploration
international relations
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3097619
Abstract:For at least 2000 years trade goods have passed with the monsoons between African and Asian ports. While these regions have shared an ocean highway that has facilitated such material exchanges, differences in their respective hinterlands have made Arabia, Persia and India exporters of finished wares and Africans suppliers of primary commodities. For East Africa, the periodic arrivals of Asian settlers had significant social and ideological consequences. This article assesses these connections in detail, especially as they affected East Africans. It gives an overview of the first contacts and the Swahili emergence, c. 100-950, patterns of contact and coastal development, c. 950-1200, commercial expansion in the late Middle Ages, c. 1200-1500, and new patterns of contact after the appearance of the Portuguese, c. 1500-1800. It argues that past scholars of the East African coast committed a serious error in believing that Swahili civilization was fundamentallly outward looking and 'Arab' in its origin. New 'standard' interpretation places Africans at the beginning of Swahili civilization late in the first millennium as well as at the core of its subsequent development. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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