Easterly African migrations are centuries old, and histories are fragmented on account of their long duration of almost two thousand years. Indigenous systems of slavery and serfdom became entangled with chattel slavery, in which a captive was the legal property of his/her owner. Trade and religion became interwoven with voluntary migration and slavery in ways that make it difficult to disentangle them. Following the European intrusion into Indian Ocean commerce, the slave trade became a means of obtaining manpower to run imperial enterprises. Without a readily available supply of low-cost labour, the high-risk long-distance spice trade would have been impossible. Colonization was clearly an important phenomenon, which drew upon slave labour to perform myriad tasks from building roads and fortresses to serving as soldiers in the colonial armies. Quite apart from imperial demands, Africans also served as concubines, missionaries, administrators, entertainers, sailors, politicians and State-builders.  
Asians with African roots in Dubai, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Yemen have become more visible through the combined efforts of scholars, journalists, photographers and the media. These communities are guardians of their heritage and culture. The concept of community is problematic and has several definitions. The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage takes a community as meaning a network of people whose sense of identity or connectedness emerges from a shared historical relationship that is rooted in the practice and transmission of, or engagement with, their intangible cultural heritage (Curtis, 2010). Timothy Curtis, Chief of UNESCO's Living Heritage Entity as at late 2022, points out that communities themselves have been included as intangible heritage even though this represents a radical departure from previous heritage practices.