44 - Slave Wills along the Swahili Coast

Summary

Pemba is a small island located in the Indian Ocean of the coast of eastern Africa and was part of a British protectorate during the early twentieth century. Pemba and its more famous sister island of Zanzibar are mostly Islamic. Islam dominated people's lives, and masters generally converted their slaves to Islam. According to customary understandings of Islamic law on Pemba, even if the Muslim dies without having left a will, their body should be handled with respect. This chapter presents a list of four documents, which constitute a small sample of the probate records and wills of former slaves on the island of Pemba. While the wills themselves are brief, they offer important insights into the religious beliefs and communal networks of former slaves. Moreover, they allow us to see how former slaves negotiated their ongoing relationships with their former masters and each other.