Nyassa-Sklavin in Zanzibar

Nyassa-Sklavin

Photographer unknown
Albumen print
Zanzibar, 1896

After 1897, newly freed people, many of whom had come from the east and central African mainland, immediately embraced new fashions that reflected their shifted status. Prior to abolition, unfree Zanzibari women working in the city or countryside would have signaled their position as slaves by wearing inexpensive white merikani cloth wrappers or the indigo-dyed cloth, kaniki. After abolition, women immediately choose to buy kanga, cloths printed with lush colors and bold graphics. Free women could choose cover their heads and shoulders with ornately folded turbans in public, a sign of Muslim propriety previously the prerogative of Zanzibar’s elite women.