## Introduction  
We should regard no cause as contributing more directly to the first appearance of Africans in Asia generally or China in particular than the East African slave trade, whereby captives were ferried into bondage in the various littoral regions that border the Indian Ocean (Harris, 1971, pp. 5-6; Beachey, 1976, p. 2; Beachey, 1976, pp. 1-2; Filesi, 1972, pp. 21-22, 25). The origins of this trade in slaves extracted from along the lengthy expanse of the territories composing the East African coastline are quite ancient, extending back some four millennia, with a plausible prehistory extending back even further (Campbell, 2008, p. 21). However, as shown below, despite speculations about it having occurred for much longer, we can only reasonably regard the trafficking of Africans into China through this trade as a phenomenon having commenced not much earlier than the eighth century of the Common Era.  
By that time, many of the common and some of the uncommon conventions of slavery had long held sway in China. For example, exogenous (foreign) as well as endogenous (native) enslavement had been practiced from time immemorial, with some forms of the latter especially continuing even today. ${ }^{1}$ Yet, ironically,  
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[^0]:    1 See, for example, the 'open' versus 'closed' system as discussed in James L. Watson (1980, pp. 1-15).  
neither from the first occasion nor at any subsequent point were the Africans imported into and enslaved in China transported there principally by Chinese. Instead, there is a known and confirmable succession of groups that ferried Africans from west to east across the Indian Ocean into China and that profited thereby from their sale as slaves.