Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Pratapa Rudra (R. 1289–1323): the demise of the regional kingdom
- 2 Muhammad Gisu Daraz (1321–1422): Muslim piety and state authority
- 3 Mahmud Gawan (1411–1481): Deccanis and Westerners
- 4 Rama Raya (1484–1565): élite mobility in a Persianized world
- 5 Malik Ambar (1548–1626): the rise and fall of military slavery
- 6 Tukaram (1608–1649): non-brahmin religious movements
- 7 Papadu (fl. 1695–1710): social banditry in Mughal Telangana
- 8 Tarabai (1675–1761): the rise of Brahmins in politics
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section"
- References
5 - Malik Ambar (1548–1626): the rise and fall of military slavery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Pratapa Rudra (R. 1289–1323): the demise of the regional kingdom
- 2 Muhammad Gisu Daraz (1321–1422): Muslim piety and state authority
- 3 Mahmud Gawan (1411–1481): Deccanis and Westerners
- 4 Rama Raya (1484–1565): élite mobility in a Persianized world
- 5 Malik Ambar (1548–1626): the rise and fall of military slavery
- 6 Tukaram (1608–1649): non-brahmin religious movements
- 7 Papadu (fl. 1695–1710): social banditry in Mughal Telangana
- 8 Tarabai (1675–1761): the rise of Brahmins in politics
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section"
- References
Summary
The slaves of this kingdom [Damot, in Ethiopia] are much esteemed by the Moors, and they do not let them go at any price; all the country of Arabia, Persia, India, Egypt, and Greece, are full of slaves from this country, and they say they make very good Moors and great warriors.
Father Francisco Alvares (1523)FROM “CHAPU” to “MALIK AMBAR”
An Ethiopian slave known to history as “Malik Ambar” was already seventeen years old in 1565, the year of the Battle of Talikota. If that date signaled the beginning of a slide into near-oblivion for the city of Vijayanagara, for the Ethiopian it heralded the dawn of an extraordinary career. His original name was not, of course, Malik Ambar, for malik means “king, ” conceptually quite distant from a slave. In his native land he was known as “Chapu,” a name that suggests an origin in the Kambata region of southern Ethiopia.
Born in 1548, Chapu as a youth had fallen into the hands of slave dealers operating between the Ethiopian highlands and the coasts of eastern Africa. He might have been captured in war, or he might have been sold into slavery by his impoverished parents. In any event, he joined streams of other Ethiopians–known in the Arab world as “Habshis”–who turned up in slave markets in the Middle East, there to enter élite households as servants or, as in Chapu's case, to be re-exported to the Deccan plateau to meet that region's insatiable demand for military labor. Chapu thus appears to have been sold and resold several times after his initial entry into slavery. A contemporary European source relates that he was sold in the Red Sea port of Mocha for the sum of eighty Dutch guilders.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Social History of the Deccan, 1300–1761Eight Indian Lives, pp. 105 - 128Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
References
, Ethiopia and the Red Sea (London, 1980).
, The Book of Government, or Rules for Kings: the Siyar al-muluk, or Siyasat-nama of Nizam al-Mulk, trans. , 2nd edn. (London, 1978).
, “Recollecting Africa: Diasporic Memory in the Indian Ocean World,” African Studies Review
43, no. 1 (April 2000)Google Scholar
. The Prester John of the Indies: a True Relation of the Lands of the Prester John, being the Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520. Translated by . Revised and edited by and . 2 vols. Cambridge, 1961.
, Futuhat-i 'Adil Shahi, composed 1640–43 (British Library, Persian MSS. Add 27)
, Habshi-Sklaven, Sidi-Fakire: muslimische Heiligenverehrung in westlichen Indien (Berlin:
Das Arab Buch, 1995);
, “The Portuguese Slave Trade from Mozambique to Portuguese India and Macau and Comments on Timor, 1750–1850: New Evidence from the Archives,” in Camoes Center Quarterly
6 and 7, nos. 1 and 2 (1997)Google Scholar
and , ed. and trans. Some Records of Ethiopia, 1593–1646: being Extracts from The History of High Ethiopia or Abassia by Manoel de Albeida. London, 1954.
and ., “The Siddis of Junagadh: Some Aspects of their Religious Life,” Human Science
33, no. 2 (1984): ”37;Google Scholar
, “A Slave's Quest for Selfhood in Eighteenth-century Hindustan,” Indian Economic and Social History Review
37, no. 1 (2000).Google Scholar
, Africans in India: from Slavery to Royalty (Delhi, 1995);
. Malik Ambar: a Biography Based on Original Sources. Calcutta, c. 1933.
, ed. Pieter Van den Broecke in Azië. 2 vols. The Hague, 1962.
, “The Relation of the Slave and the Client to the Master or Patron in Medieval Islam,” International Journal of Middle East Studies
2 (1971).Google Scholar
, ed. Early Travels in India, 1583–1619. New Delhi, 1968.
. A New Account of East India and Persia, being Nine Years' Travels, 1672–1681. Edited by . 2 vols. London, 1912.
, Cultural Archaeology of Ahmadnagar during Nizam Shahi Period (1494–1632) (Delhi, 1986).
, Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and High Roads to Empire, 1500–1700 (London and New York, 2002).
, “War, the Military, and the Environment: Central India, 1560–1820,” in Natural Enemy, Natural Ally: toward an Environmental History of Warfare, ed. and (Corvallis OR, 2004).Google Scholar
, The African Presence in Asia: Consequences of the East African Slave Trade (Evanston, 1971);
(Emperor). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, or Memoirs of Jahangir. Translated by , edited by . 1909–14. 2 vols. Reprint. Delhi, 1968.
“Inscriptions of the Sidi Chiefs of Janjira.” Epigraphia Indica, Arabic and Persian Supplement (1966).Google Scholar
, “Economic Aspects of the Eighteenth-century Atlantic Slave Trade,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750, ed. (Cambridge, 1990) –93.Google Scholar
. Mughal and Other Indian Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library. 2 vols. London, 1995.
. Iqbal-nama-yi Jahangiri. Extracts translated and edited by and in History of India as Told by its Own Historians. VI
8 vols. Allahabad, 1964.Google Scholar
, The Siddis of North Kanara (New Delhi, 1978);
, “The Ethiopian Diaspora to India: the Role ofHabshis and Sidis from Medieval Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century,” in The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, ed. and (Trenton
NJ, 2003).Google Scholar
, A Social History of Ethiopia: the Northern and Central Highlands from Early Medieval Times to the Rise of Emperor Tewodros II (Trenton NJ, 1992) –12.
, The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century (Lawrence
NJ, 1997) –53.
, Slavery and Social Death: a Comparative Study (Cambridge MA, 1982).
. The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires: an Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512–1515. Translated by . 2 vols. London, 1944. Reprint. New Delhi, 1990.
, “On Salt and Salt Gathering in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Journal of The Economic and Social History of the Orient
27, no. 3 (October 1984).Google Scholar
, “The Identity of Siddis in Karnataka,” in Relevance of Anthropology: the Indian Scenario, ed. and (Jaipur, 1991);Google Scholar
, “Ethiopia in the Geographical Representations of Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe,” in Cultures of the Indian Ocean, ed. and (Lisbon, 1998).Google Scholar
, African Dispersal in the Deccan (New Delhi, 1996);
, “A Few Unnoticed Facts about the Early Life of Malik Amber,” Proceedings, Indian History Congress
5 (1941).Google Scholar
. New History of the Marathas. 3 vols. Bombay, 1971.
. House of Shivaji (Studies and Documents on Maratha History, Royal Period). 3rd edn. Calcutta, 1955.
. Life and Times of Malik Ambar. New Delhi, 1968.
. The Kingdom of Ahmadnagar. Delhi, 1966.
The Life and Work of Malik Ambar. Delhi, 1978.
, Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270–1527 (Cambridge, 1972) ;
and , eds., Slave Elites in the Middle East and Africa: a Comparative Study (London and New York, 2000).
. “Journal, May 1615 to Feb. 1616.” In , De opkomst der Westerkwartieren van de Oost–Indische Compagnie (Suratte, Arabië, Perzië). The Hague, 1918.Google Scholar
, “‘The World's Oldest Trade’: Dutch Slavery and Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of World History
14, no. 2 (2003): –77.Google Scholar
. al-Hind: the Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Vol. 2: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th–13th Centuries. Leiden, 1997.
, “Parenda: an Historical Fort,” Annual Report of the Archaeological Department of His Exalted Highness the Nizam's Dominions (1921–24).Google Scholar
- 2
- Cited by