CONFLICTED Podcast: "African Slavery: The Untold Story"
Host: Thomas Small
Guest: Martin Plaut, veteran BBC journalist & historian
Date: February 26, 2026

Episode Overview

In this captivating and deeply researched episode, Thomas Small sits down again with historian Martin Plaut to discuss the untold and often overlooked dimensions of African slavery, as covered in Plaut’s book, Unbroken: A 5,000-Year History of African Enslavement. The conversation dismantles simplistic, monolithic views of slavery, confronting its complex, global, and ongoing legacies. Together, they examine the historic roots of African slavery, its multifaceted agents (Africans, Arabs, Europeans, Asians), and the disturbing persistence of slavery on the continent today. The result is a nuanced and urgent call for historical reckoning and contemporary responsibility.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reframing the Narrative: Slavery Begins in Africa

[03:27] Martin Plaut:

• Most narratives about African slavery focus on the Atlantic trade, but Plaut emphasizes the need to begin the story in Africa itself.
• Slavery in Africa dates back to at least 2900 B.C. (rock etchings on the Nile), predating European involvement by millennia.
• Slavery was deeply woven into African societies, with agency and active participation by African rulers and communities:

  “The first indication of slavery in Africa is etched into the rocks on the Nile and goes back to 2900 B.C.... So it's a very, very different way of looking at it.... I begin from the perspective of the slaves.” — Martin Plaut [03:27]

2. The Structure and Endemic Nature of Slavery in Africa

[04:57] Martin Plaut:

• Slavery was a constant threat: raiding, kidnapping, and enslavement occurred locally, not just by foreigners.
• All groups, from Morocco to the Cape, participated in enslavement as conquerors and traders.
• Europeans and Arabs often acted as buyers, while Africans themselves conducted most of the enslavement.

3. The Ancient Trans-Saharan and Islamic Slave Trades

[06:05-10:39] Host and Plaut:

• The oldest and longest-lasting slave system linked sub-Saharan Africa with North Africa and the Islamic world, especially post-camel domestication and the Arab conquests.

• Treaties like the Bakt (7th century) institutionalized tribute of slaves across religious lines.

• Despite its scale and brutality, historical and academic memory of this system is overshadowed by focus on the Atlantic slave trade.

• Arab and Ottoman involvement was vast but remains under-studied, often due to lack of interest or deliberate archival suppression (e.g., by Saudi Arabia).

  “There’s almost no interest in looking at enslavement in Africa by the Arabic world and Arabic Scholars have done very little work on it... The response of the Saudi government to questions about this is to close the archive. They don’t want you to know.” — Martin Plaut [08:06]

4. Religious Law: Mitigations and Complicities

[10:39-14:43] Host and Plaut:

• Both Islamic and Christian law codes included slavery; both have internal debates on mitigation and virtue in manumission, but neither fundamentally abolished the practice.

• Some Islamic legal provisions did improve conditions somewhat, but the slave system remained entrenched and deadly.

• Christians likewise continued vast slave markets (e.g., Byzantium, Christendom) despite certain moral qualms.

  “If that is the one lesson I think I would take away … that is the lesson that everybody is involved. We are up to our elbows in the sweat and blood of slaves, all of us, and nobody is free of that…There is no such thing as good slavery.” — Martin Plaut [14:43]

5. Indian Ocean Routes, Zanzibar & Omani Slaving Empires

[15:16-20:52] Host and Plaut:

• The Indian Ocean was a dense network for trafficking African slaves eastward, predating and surviving beyond Atlantic slaving.

• Arab, Persian, Indian, even Chinese merchants traded for slaves, who served as labor, soldiers, and status symbols abroad (e.g., Malik Ambar’s rise in India).

• Zanzibar, under Omani rule, became a major slaving hub, with caravans reaching deep into Africa, crossing to the Atlantic in some cases.

  “The Omanis took as many slaves in the Indian Ocean area as all the other slavers did... Some of these caravans would take two to three years...and they then export it to Zanzibar... and from Zanzibar to Reunion, Arabia, and India.” — Martin Plaut [18:42]

• Slavery into Africa: Dutch settlements like Cape Town imported slaves from Bengal, Goa, and Indonesia, not just Malaysians.

  • Indian Ocean and Atlantic slave export numbers are comparable, each exceeding 12 million people. [21:26]

6. Ethiopia, Internal African Slavery, and Racial Hierarchies

[22:23-26:44] Host and Plaut:

• Ethiopia’s empires (Christian) wielded slavery as a tool of imperial dominance (e.g., targeting Oromo populations).
• Social stigma around slave descent persists, with marriage eligibility still checked for slave ancestry up to seven generations.
• Castration and the use of eunuchs led to high mortality rates; racial hierarchy within Africa echoed structures familiar from transatlantic slavery:

  “If you live in the highlands of Ethiopia ... they will check ... whether there’s any slave blood in your family back seven generations. That is how allergic people are ... to a slave.” — Martin Plaut [23:03]

7. The Sokoto Caliphate & The Scale of African Slave Societies

[26:44-32:11] Host and Plaut:

• In 19th-century West Africa, the Sokoto Caliphate had plantations, slave armies, and economies run on forced labor, paralleling the American South.

• Jihad and religious distinctions served as tools for justifying mass enslavement, manipulating definitions of “Muslim” to circumvent restrictions.

  “...there were about the same number of slaves in the Sokoto Caliphate as there were in the United States [in the 1860s].” — Martin Plaut [31:59]

8. White Slavery & Barbary Pirates

[32:25-37:46] Host and Plaut:

• The Barbary Corsairs, under Ottoman auspices, enslaved millions of Europeans, keeping a system of galleys and harems running for centuries.
• “Going Turk” was a phenomenon of out-of-work European sailors joining Barbary fleets, even leading to technological upgrades of pirate ships:

  “They go so far north, they go to Newfoundland, they go to Canada, and they attack the United States operating in the Caribbean. And the very beginning of the United States Navy... comes from this, because the Barbary pirates posed such a threat.” — Martin Plaut [35:17]

9. Slavery’s Contemporary Survival in Africa

[39:51-42:16] Host and Plaut:

• Chattel slavery is not merely historical: Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, Libya—millions are still owned, traded, or exploited today.
• UN reports estimate 200,000 people in Morocco alone are chattel slaves. Despite this, organizations like the African Union and Arab League avoid confronting contemporary slavery.

  “These are people who are bought, sold, and owned or inherited. ...Has anybody done anything about it? Have they? Heck.” — Martin Plaut [39:51]

• Global memory—especially via bodies like UNESCO—remains more comfortable commemorating past Atlantic slavery than confronting ongoing realities.

10. The Politics of Memory & Responsibility

[42:16-43:59] Host and Plaut:

• Politicized, “black-and-white” narratives, often on the left and in “woke” circles, flatten the real global, multiracial, and multifaceted history of slavery.

• This focus, by dividing victims and perpetrators by color or hemisphere, actually robs humanity of a sense of shared historical guilt—and thus, shared purpose for abolition.

  “Every human being and every human society and every human civilization is equally implicated in the abomination of African slavery. So this should be bringing us together, not dividing us.”— Thomas Small [42:16]

11. Hope and Human Resilience

[43:59-45:43] Martin Plaut:

• Plaut ends with an uplifting story: Oromo child slaves freed by a British captain were brought to South Africa, and their descendants—painstakingly documented—went on to join the anti-apartheid struggle.

• Neville Alexander, the grandson of one such Oromo slave, stood with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island.

  “She (his grandmother) stopped speaking English or Afrikaans... she returned to Oromia, the Oromo language. And he (Neville Alexander) used to ask his mother about this and she said... ‘don’t worry, she’s speaking to God.’” — Martin Plaut [45:43]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Universal Guilt:

  "We are up to our elbows in the sweat and blood of slaves, all of us, and nobody is free of that." — Martin Plaut [14:43]

• On the Blind Spots of Academia & Memory:

  "There's almost no interest in looking at enslavement in Africa by the Arabic world and Arabic Scholars have done very little work on it." — Martin Plaut [08:06]

• On the Present:

  "These are people who are bought, sold, and owned or inherited. It's a completely different system... Has anybody done anything about it? Have they? Heck." — Martin Plaut [39:51]

• On Human Solidarity:

  "Nobody gets off scot free in this story. Every human being and every human society ... is equally implicated in the abomination. So this should be bringing us together, not dividing us." — Thomas Small [42:16]

Important Timestamps

• 03:27: Origins of slavery in Africa, predating Europeans
• 06:05: Trans-Saharan & Islamic slave trades explained
• 08:06: Academic neglect of Arab and Ottoman slaving
• 14:43: Universal involvement in slavery; there is "no such thing as good slavery"
• 18:42: Zanzibar & Indian Ocean routes; Omani slaving empire
• 23:03: Slavery, caste, and heritage in Ethiopia
• 31:59: Sokoto Caliphate slavery parallels the US South
• 35:17: Barbary pirates, “going Turk,” and the birth of the US Navy
• 39:51: Slavery’s ongoing realities in Africa today
• 42:16: Critique of politicized “black and white” narratives of slavery
• 45:43: Neville Alexander’s story: From Oromo slavery to anti-apartheid resistance

Tone and Closing Reflection

Throughout the episode, the conversation is frank, historically rigorous, and morally searching—yet never slips into despair. The hosts aim to foster unity through the honest confrontation of human history, and Plaut offers both a challenge and a gesture of hope. The guest’s calm, encyclopedic delivery and the host’s probing curiosity combine for a deeply engaging, sometimes troubling, ultimately enlightening discussion.

Recommendation:
Martin Plaut’s Unbroken: A 5,000-Year History of African Enslavement is praised as an essential corrective to incomplete narratives—“almost a life changing experience,” in Thomas Small’s words [46:16]. For anyone seeking to understand not just the past but the present of slavery, and the path toward genuine reckoning, this episode and book are indispensable.