Maharashtra

Africans mostly from the Swahili Coast were brought to the coastal towns of Maharashtra in Gujarati and Arab dhows as part of the Indian Ocean World slave trading network. After slavery was formally abolished, the British patrolled the Indian Ocean to check the slave trade and monitored vessels owned by Gujarati and Arabs. Enslaved Africans so rescued were taken to a shelter a few miles away from Bombay near Nasik called “African Asylum,” which was established by Christian missionaries. A significant number of Africans also settled in Bombay in places such as Dongri and worked in the maritime industry as sailors, coal trimmers, firemen, or dock workers. Some Africans who were captured by British authorities from slaving ships visiting Western Indian ports such as Surat and Bombay were taken as domestic servants by local costal elites, while some served in the British military or police force. While majority of the Bombay Africans were relocated to Kenya as part of the British repatriation system that was in place, some chose to stay back in India. In the contemporary times, Sufi shrines dedicated to African saints hidden in the by-lanes of Mumbai maintained by local Sidi families serve as a reminder of the African presence in coastal Maharashtra.