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3 - The East Coast, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
H. Neville Chittick
Edited by
Roland Oliver
H. Neville Chittick
Affiliation:
British Institute in Eastern Africa
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Summary

The eastern coast of Africa looks out over the Indian Ocean, which, though vast, is comparatively easily navigated. Consequently there has been much contact over the past two thousand years among the peoples who inhabit its shores. This, coupled with similar climatic and ecological conditions in most of the surrounding coastal lands, has resulted in a considerable degree of cultural homogeneity, particularly marked in the western part of the ocean. Communication between the African coast and the interior was, on the other hand, difficult.

Voyages in this part of the Indian Ocean would have been facilitated by the pattern of the monsoon regime, the winds blowing from a north-easterly direction towards East Africa for half the year, and from the south-west for the other half. This renders voyages by sailing ship from the Persian Gulf and north-western India particularly easy; those from Aden and the Yemen are rather more difficult. To the south, the South Equatorial Current facilitates voyages from the Far East to Africa, and the return is assisted by the monsoonal drift setting to the east between that current and India, together with predominantly westerly winds in this region.

The main motive for voyages to East Africa was trade, but the pressure of population in the arid lands bordering the northern margin of the Indian Ocean provided a stimulus to migration. In the traditions of the coast, religious persecution figures as the reason for migrants leaving their homelands in the Persian Gulf, but it is probable that the attractions of well-watered lands, coupled with the prospect of wealth and a comfortable life in an agreeable environment, played at least as great a part.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Africa
, pp. 183 - 231
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1977

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