2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Trading towns of the east African coast to the sixteenth century
Published in:
History of Africa
There have been periodic references to Indian Ocean trade in earlier chapters of this book. Most of these have concerned trading contacts between Egypt, the Red Sea coast and Aksum/Ethiopia on the one hand, and the states of the Persian Gulf and western India on the other. This chapter is concerned with the origins and growth of Swahili trading towns along much of the east African coastline and their contribution to the further development of Indian Ocean trade.