Zanzibar, Tanzania, consisting of two larger coral islands, Zanzibar and Pemba, and more than 20 adjacent islets – was an important shipping port for fresh water and food supplies and trade in East Africa, becoming the largest slave market in the region and the last in the world to close in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A small number of sites have been preserved to remember this bloody history.
25 March is the International Day in Memory of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
On February 23, at the St. Monique Museum in Zanzibar, Tanzania, tourists visit the crypt that was once used to hold slaves. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This photograph of freed slaves taken on February 23 at the East African Slave Trade Pavilion in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This is a Feb. 23 photograph of the prison that was once used to hold slaves on the island of Chang Valley, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This is a February 23 photograph of the crypt used for slaves at the St. Monique Museum in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This photograph of a slave was taken on February 23 at the East African Slave Trade Pavilion in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This is a Feb. 23 photograph of the prison that was once used to hold slaves on the island of Chang Valley, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This is a Feb. 23 photograph of the prison that was once used to hold slaves on the island of Chang Valley, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This is a Feb. 23 photograph of the prison that was once used to hold slaves on the island of Chang Valley, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This Christ Cathedral and the Slave Sculpture (bottom right) taken on February 23 in Zanzibar, Tanzania. The site of Christ Cathedral was once the largest slave market in Zanzibar. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This is Changgu Island (also known as Prison Island) photographed in Zanzibar, Tanzania, on February 23. The island was historically used as a slave captivity. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This is the East African Slave Trade Pavilion photographed February 23 in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This is a Feb. 23 photograph of the prison that was once used to hold slaves on the island of Chang Valley, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Jianghui
This is a sculpture of a slave taken on February 23 in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xie Hao