In 1501, the Safavids proclaimed themselves the new rulers of the Iranian plateau establishing Shi'ism as a "state" religion and a "new" economic and political order. The Safavid "new order," however, was an impossibility without the slaves, forced urban and rural labor, and periodic population transfers. This paper examines the changes in slave labor practices and slave trading in Iran from 1500 to 1900. The establishment of an Islamic empire did little to diminish the numbers and uses of slaves in Iranian society and economies. Indeed, slaves and the peddling trade in slaving greatly expanded during and after the Safavid rulers assumed power. By the nineteenth century, shortages of Iranian peasant labor, the expansion of land holdings in Central and Southern Iran, and the boom in Iran's trade through the Persian Gulf altered the older slave trade in several signi cant ways in particular the numbers, ages and usages of African slaves. Between 1840 and 1880, Iran's participation in the Indian Ocean trade surpassed all previous slave-trading practices including the pre-Safavid era. While religion and politics are much in vogue today when discussing Iran, it is equally important to understand Iran in terms of its economies and societies. Indeed, Iran's contemporary political economy has been examined by several researchers (Bakhash 1989; Halliday 1979; Katousian 1981), and a few works have focused on Iran's social history, such as the history of its labor forces (Ladjevardi 1985). However, the history of Iranian slave labor (ghulaman, 'abidan, badigan, and kanizan) remains a perplexing void in Iran's historiographica l landscape. While there is continuous evidence of "habashi" or "Abyssinian" or "zangi" servants in middle and upper-class Iranian families and among pastoral clans from the early 1500s to the beginning of the twentieth century, there are few if any researched articles or dissertation s on the subject of slaves, slave trade, trade routes, collection stations, creditors, or slavery for the medieval, early modern or modern periods of Iranian history. Slaves and slave trading in Iran have been recorded in written texts as early as the third century AD era of
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . Boston University African Studies Center and Board of Trustees, Boston University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Historical Studies. Historians still know little beyond the occasional references by the Arab and Persian geographers about the medieval commercial relations between the Persian Gulfl and East Africa. Until now questions relating to the extent of the trade and its importance for the commercial centers of Siraf, Kish (Qays, Qais, Kais), and Hurmuz (Ormuz, Hormuz) have remained unanswered.2The problems of the social and political complexions of these Persian Gulf emporia, the "stone-cities" of East Africa and their populations, the migratory patterns of the Indian Ocean peoples, and the "Shirazi Movement" to the East African littoral are indeed complex.3 Nevertheless, a clearer understanding of some of the more basic problems is now possible due to the recent archaeological investigations at Siraf, Kilwa, and the Lamu Archipelago4 and the research of Iranian historians on the Persian Gulf, its trade, geography, and history.5 A review of the evidence so far compiled is now in order.
Yesterdays they changed my room. Am I completely cured now? Will I be free to leave next week as the superintendent promised? Have I been sick at all? For one year, they wouldn't give me a pen and paper which I wanted more than anything else. I always thought about the many things I would write once they gave me a pen and paper. Yesterday, without asking, they brought me paper and a pen...something I longed for so much...something I waited for so long. But what's the use? Since yesterday, I have been able to write nothing, no matter how hard I try. It's as though someone were holding me back, as though my arm were paralysed. Now, as I read over the garbled lines which are etched into the paper, the only words I can make out are... “three drops of blood.”
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