SLAVE MARKET AND ANGLICAN CHURCH MUSEUM

This visit is one of Stone Town's highlights, and a must for all those who want to experience the emotion and symbolism it represents. It is accompanied by a local guide.

The slave market. The visit begins with the horrifying discovery of a large dungeon, used to "store" prisoners before their sale on the great slave market of Mkunazini, finally closed in 1873, where the nearby Anglican church now stands. Crammed into a few square meters with no air or light, nearly fifty men waited for their fate to be decided between wealthy merchants trading with each other, many dying of suffocation or exhaustion, waiting for the tide to come in and clean up the excrement accumulated on the floor... The same goes for the women - terrifying. Irons have been symbolically added here to make the visit more powerful, but it's traumatic enough when you imagine this bunker where thousands of people died. Outside, a memorial was erected by Swedish artist Clara Sörnäs in 1998. Real irons that were used here to hold slaves' necks, ankles and wrists captive have been installed on statues. Numerous, well-documented explanatory panels in English provide the keys to understanding the scale and horror of the slave trade in Zanzibar, which irradiated East Africa from the Great Lakes to the Swahili coast, mainly destined for Oman and the Arabian Peninsula.

The church. This Anglican basilica, built between 1873 and 1880, has the distinctive feature of integrating Gothic and Arab influences in its ornamentation, and is one of the earliest examples of a Christian church in East Africa. Its spire soars into the Stone Town sky. Reverend Father Arthur West and an Indian merchant Jariam Senji bought the site after the abolition of slavery to celebrate the event, then gave their share to Bishop Ed. Steere, who oversaw the church's construction. The first service was held at Christmas 1877, when the roof was not yet complete. The altar stands exactly where the whipping post used to be. It is said that the sultan of the time donated a clock, on condition that the height of the holy place did not exceed that of his palace. Symbolically, one of the crosses was made from wood taken from the tree that grew on the grave of explorer and missionary Livingstone, an ardent defender of the abolition of slavery.