Post by franklin on Apr 22, 2010 21:57:21 GMT -5
This is something that I don't know much about and the sources below are hardly a balanced view, Jesse Benjamin also has radical ideas and what he says also suggests that the Zanj rebellion could have been merchants because he talks about what great traders they were. Of course part of the Zanj rebellion were Zanj slaves but maybe it wasn't primarily a slave revolt. These really got me excited and I'd appreciate any more information
These are just old sources (note their are only two sources bellow the links are to different pages of those sources)
M. A. Shaban on the Zanj revolt:
page 101
books.google.com/books?id=Wkqlp-lHllcC&pg=PA101#v=onepage&q=&f=false
[All the talk about slaves rising against the wretched conditions of work in the salt marshes of Basra is a figment of the imagination and has no support in the sources.....The vast majority of the rebels were Arabs of the Persian Gulf supported by free East Africans who had made their homes in the region.....
page 102:
books.google.com/books?id=Wkqlp-lHllcC&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q=&f=false
(continued page 102)...If more proof is needed that it was not a slave revolt, it is to be found in the fact that it had a highly organized army and navy which vigorously resisted the whole weight of the central government for almost fifteen years. Moreover, it must have had huge resources that allowed it to build no less than six impregnable towns in which there were arsenals for the manufacture of weapons and battleships. These towns also had in their mammoth markets prodigious wealth which was more than the salt marshes could conceivably produce. Even all the booty from Basra and the whole region could not account for such enormous wealth. Significantly the revolt had the backing of a certain group of merchants who preserved with their support until the very end. Tabari makes it very clear that the strength of the rebels was dependent on the support of these merchants. M. A. Shaban page 108
books.google.com/books?id=Wkqlp-lHllcC&pg=PA108#v=onepage&q=&f=false
With remarkable efficiency and expedition the rebels swiftly established their control over most of the Persian Gulf coast, and extended it inland to secure their food supplies. Special vehemence was reserved for the port of Basra, which they practically destroyed. Their choice of sites for their own new towns and their meticulous knowledge of the intricate waterways of the region in addition to their great skill in naval warfare were all utilized to strangle the Basran economy and drive all the in-coming trade through their own channels. Wasit, the major bottle-neck on the way north to Baghdad, was completely cut off from any road or waterway leading south to the Gulf coast. Furthermore, the rebels occupied Kufa in order to secure the alternative inland route to the north. They expelled government forces from all these areas and easily withstood the onslaught of the successive expeditions that Muwaffaq sent against them. Realizing the grave dangers of this situation, he decided to mobilize all the financial and military forces against this audacious enemy…... ]
"Conceptualizing/re-conceptualizing Africa"
Jesse Benjamin
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA37&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
[Evidence from the East African Coast
The anchors of the economic connections between Nabatea and East Africa were the trades in spices and incense. “Cinnamon” and “Cassia.” In particular, were perhaps the most valued commodities during this period, and frankincense and myrrh were two of the most precious of the incenses, and, therefore, also among the most lucrative and significant trade commodities of the time. All of these have been shown or persuasively suggested to have passed through the East African region, either originating within its territories, or being transshipped along the coast or through various overland routes, themselves the subject of debate and mystery even today. However, when they are discussed at all, it is almost exclusively in the contexts of their destinations: the Roman Empire and/or Western Asia.
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA39&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
…The possibility that these spices reached Southern Arabia for transshipment north via India and/or neighboring regions of the subcontinent, seems intuitive but is in fact cast in doubt by its near total absence in contemporaneous literature, ships-logs, travel descriptions, navigation guides, ect. Miller marshals considerable evidence that cinnamon was instead transported directly across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar and the South Eastern African coastline, eventually reaching the fabled entrepot Rhapta, before being further transshipped to the “Cinnamon Coast” just below where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean. The trade was carried on in sewn, double outrigger boats known as mtepe, which were found throughout the coast in ancient times can still be seen in a modern variant, the wooden single or double outrigger maingalawa (ingalawa is the singular of this Swahili word). Miller (1969), and Allen (1993) even further, discuss the nature of secrecy and obfuscation used in trade during these times, in order to protect the sources of commodities, and to keep others at bay in their quests for circumvention. This helps to explain, as Allen (1993) put it, the “massive conspiracy by which all the Mediterranean consumers of cinnamon and cassia were for centuries deceived as to the real source of these products”…
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA41&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
....Historically, the bodies of water in this region, the contemporary “Red Sea” and “Indian Ocean,” were subject (often by outsiders) to a large number of designations, often rather indiscriminately, such as the Tethys Ocean, the Erythrean Sea, the “sea of the end of the world”, and so on. I have often questioned why the Indian Ocean should be termed exclusively “Indian,” instead of African, for example, or Indo-African, or Afro-Timorese. Like others, I also noticed the unmistakable imprint and legacy of British colonialism in the name we currently inherit. Chandra Richard De Silva (1999) recently published a short essay on this subject and the related problems of other East African historical erasures. His focus on neglected commerce and alternative sources of information complements the work of this essay and further shows the potentially turning tide of anti-colonial historiography.
In a recent review of Casson’s (1989) new translation of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, Horton (1990) takes the opportunity to comment again on several of the translation-based debates surrounding the various versions of the Periplus, originally written in Greek. One such debate concerns the dating of the document itself, and is resolved in part by recourse to the geopolitics of the time. Among his proofs that the Periplus was written in the middle of the first century A.D, Horton
(next page)
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA42&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
has shown that the Nabatean King Malichus II, who ruled from A.D. 40 to 70, was indeed the Malichus mentioned in the Periplus as ruling then in Petra. Many had previously argued that the Periplus was penned in the middle of the last century B.C. On Nabatean chronology in general, one might consult Negev’s (1982( charts of silver content in coins during monarchical reigns across the early, middle, and late Nabatean periods, as well as his later work (1986). Of course, the Periplus, like many ancient documents, likely represents an amalgamation of testimonies and accounts that may well span back further than its moment of final documentation, but we see clearly here that this Greek trading guide reflected a well defined set of trading and cultural relationships between extremely distant regions of the ancient world, and certainly between huge stretches of Eastern Africa, Nabatea, and the Mediterranean world.....
....Miller points out that frankincense and myrrh which were so central to Nabatean commerce during the first two of its three major periods (Negev 1986), did not, as Herodotus and Starbo stated, derive from “no other country than Arabia.” In fact, “frankincense came also from Africa, and Africa was the main source of myrrh” (Miller 1969:103). Further, we see that Egypt under successive pharaohs and Dynasties, from 3000 to 1000 B.C., continuously maintained direct and/or indierect ties with the land of Punt, a term amorphously descriptive of much of the land to the south of various Egyptian writers, but perhaps most specifically referring to the modern Somali coast (Miller 1969)...
Page 44
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA44&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
....Drusilla Houston (1926, especially pp.128-132) had seen frankincense and Myrrh as African-Arabian products of world significance in trade. Houston has also offered a still unchallenged explication of the Himyarite’s origins and importance, in the region of present day Yemen, and refererred to Alexander the Great’s views on the unparalleled stature of ancient Oman, which she says was “inferior to no country” and “a harbor of the ancient commerce.” While she did not question south western Arabia as the production point of the coveted incenses, she did amass some evidence to argue that this area was under Black African control and culture, something which fits well with the fact that African lands were responsible for much of the wealth in this trade.]
These are just old sources (note their are only two sources bellow the links are to different pages of those sources)
M. A. Shaban on the Zanj revolt:
page 101
books.google.com/books?id=Wkqlp-lHllcC&pg=PA101#v=onepage&q=&f=false
[All the talk about slaves rising against the wretched conditions of work in the salt marshes of Basra is a figment of the imagination and has no support in the sources.....The vast majority of the rebels were Arabs of the Persian Gulf supported by free East Africans who had made their homes in the region.....
page 102:
books.google.com/books?id=Wkqlp-lHllcC&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q=&f=false
(continued page 102)...If more proof is needed that it was not a slave revolt, it is to be found in the fact that it had a highly organized army and navy which vigorously resisted the whole weight of the central government for almost fifteen years. Moreover, it must have had huge resources that allowed it to build no less than six impregnable towns in which there were arsenals for the manufacture of weapons and battleships. These towns also had in their mammoth markets prodigious wealth which was more than the salt marshes could conceivably produce. Even all the booty from Basra and the whole region could not account for such enormous wealth. Significantly the revolt had the backing of a certain group of merchants who preserved with their support until the very end. Tabari makes it very clear that the strength of the rebels was dependent on the support of these merchants. M. A. Shaban page 108
books.google.com/books?id=Wkqlp-lHllcC&pg=PA108#v=onepage&q=&f=false
With remarkable efficiency and expedition the rebels swiftly established their control over most of the Persian Gulf coast, and extended it inland to secure their food supplies. Special vehemence was reserved for the port of Basra, which they practically destroyed. Their choice of sites for their own new towns and their meticulous knowledge of the intricate waterways of the region in addition to their great skill in naval warfare were all utilized to strangle the Basran economy and drive all the in-coming trade through their own channels. Wasit, the major bottle-neck on the way north to Baghdad, was completely cut off from any road or waterway leading south to the Gulf coast. Furthermore, the rebels occupied Kufa in order to secure the alternative inland route to the north. They expelled government forces from all these areas and easily withstood the onslaught of the successive expeditions that Muwaffaq sent against them. Realizing the grave dangers of this situation, he decided to mobilize all the financial and military forces against this audacious enemy…... ]
"Conceptualizing/re-conceptualizing Africa"
Jesse Benjamin
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA37&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
[Evidence from the East African Coast
The anchors of the economic connections between Nabatea and East Africa were the trades in spices and incense. “Cinnamon” and “Cassia.” In particular, were perhaps the most valued commodities during this period, and frankincense and myrrh were two of the most precious of the incenses, and, therefore, also among the most lucrative and significant trade commodities of the time. All of these have been shown or persuasively suggested to have passed through the East African region, either originating within its territories, or being transshipped along the coast or through various overland routes, themselves the subject of debate and mystery even today. However, when they are discussed at all, it is almost exclusively in the contexts of their destinations: the Roman Empire and/or Western Asia.
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA39&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
…The possibility that these spices reached Southern Arabia for transshipment north via India and/or neighboring regions of the subcontinent, seems intuitive but is in fact cast in doubt by its near total absence in contemporaneous literature, ships-logs, travel descriptions, navigation guides, ect. Miller marshals considerable evidence that cinnamon was instead transported directly across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar and the South Eastern African coastline, eventually reaching the fabled entrepot Rhapta, before being further transshipped to the “Cinnamon Coast” just below where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean. The trade was carried on in sewn, double outrigger boats known as mtepe, which were found throughout the coast in ancient times can still be seen in a modern variant, the wooden single or double outrigger maingalawa (ingalawa is the singular of this Swahili word). Miller (1969), and Allen (1993) even further, discuss the nature of secrecy and obfuscation used in trade during these times, in order to protect the sources of commodities, and to keep others at bay in their quests for circumvention. This helps to explain, as Allen (1993) put it, the “massive conspiracy by which all the Mediterranean consumers of cinnamon and cassia were for centuries deceived as to the real source of these products”…
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA41&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
....Historically, the bodies of water in this region, the contemporary “Red Sea” and “Indian Ocean,” were subject (often by outsiders) to a large number of designations, often rather indiscriminately, such as the Tethys Ocean, the Erythrean Sea, the “sea of the end of the world”, and so on. I have often questioned why the Indian Ocean should be termed exclusively “Indian,” instead of African, for example, or Indo-African, or Afro-Timorese. Like others, I also noticed the unmistakable imprint and legacy of British colonialism in the name we currently inherit. Chandra Richard De Silva (1999) recently published a short essay on this subject and the related problems of other East African historical erasures. His focus on neglected commerce and alternative sources of information complements the work of this essay and further shows the potentially turning tide of anti-colonial historiography.
In a recent review of Casson’s (1989) new translation of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, Horton (1990) takes the opportunity to comment again on several of the translation-based debates surrounding the various versions of the Periplus, originally written in Greek. One such debate concerns the dating of the document itself, and is resolved in part by recourse to the geopolitics of the time. Among his proofs that the Periplus was written in the middle of the first century A.D, Horton
(next page)
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA42&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
has shown that the Nabatean King Malichus II, who ruled from A.D. 40 to 70, was indeed the Malichus mentioned in the Periplus as ruling then in Petra. Many had previously argued that the Periplus was penned in the middle of the last century B.C. On Nabatean chronology in general, one might consult Negev’s (1982( charts of silver content in coins during monarchical reigns across the early, middle, and late Nabatean periods, as well as his later work (1986). Of course, the Periplus, like many ancient documents, likely represents an amalgamation of testimonies and accounts that may well span back further than its moment of final documentation, but we see clearly here that this Greek trading guide reflected a well defined set of trading and cultural relationships between extremely distant regions of the ancient world, and certainly between huge stretches of Eastern Africa, Nabatea, and the Mediterranean world.....
....Miller points out that frankincense and myrrh which were so central to Nabatean commerce during the first two of its three major periods (Negev 1986), did not, as Herodotus and Starbo stated, derive from “no other country than Arabia.” In fact, “frankincense came also from Africa, and Africa was the main source of myrrh” (Miller 1969:103). Further, we see that Egypt under successive pharaohs and Dynasties, from 3000 to 1000 B.C., continuously maintained direct and/or indierect ties with the land of Punt, a term amorphously descriptive of much of the land to the south of various Egyptian writers, but perhaps most specifically referring to the modern Somali coast (Miller 1969)...
Page 44
books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA44&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
....Drusilla Houston (1926, especially pp.128-132) had seen frankincense and Myrrh as African-Arabian products of world significance in trade. Houston has also offered a still unchallenged explication of the Himyarite’s origins and importance, in the region of present day Yemen, and refererred to Alexander the Great’s views on the unparalleled stature of ancient Oman, which she says was “inferior to no country” and “a harbor of the ancient commerce.” While she did not question south western Arabia as the production point of the coveted incenses, she did amass some evidence to argue that this area was under Black African control and culture, something which fits well with the fact that African lands were responsible for much of the wealth in this trade.]
