Sin, slave status, and the 'city': Zanzibar, 1865-c. 1930

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Periodical article

Title:	Sin, slave status, and the 'city': Zanzibar, 1865-c. 1930
Author:	Greenfield-Liebst, Michelle
Year:	2017
Periodical:	African Studies Review (ISSN 1555-2462)
Volume:	60
Issue:	2
Pages:	139-160
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Tanzania Zanzibar
Subjects:	freedmen missions urban history
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2017.81
Abstract:	The Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) missionaries equated urbanity with moral contagion, to which those with slave status were especially vulnerable. To the former slaves who came into contact with the mission, the growing commercial center of Zanzibar, and the coastal cultures it was associated with, were not only enticing, but also crucial to social and economic mobility. The mission's ex-slaves rarely enjoyed a special advantage though their connection to missionaries. Even for the missionaries' most treasured dependents, the advantages were ambiguous. However, the mission did facilitate the making of strong cohorts and ease the transition to town living. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]