## Introduction  
This chapter outlines the story of a group of people known as 'Bombasees' (Burton, 1855, pp. 644-646), 'Bombayans' or most commonly 'Bombay Africans' (Harris, 1977, p. 52). This community had a unique nineteenth-century experience of capture and bondage in Africa, liberation at sea by the British Royal Navy, reuniting as an African community in British India and subsequently returning freely to Africa, where its members led numerous social and political reforms. These events distinguish the Bombay Africans from the much older and more firmly established Afro-Asian 'Sidi', 'Sheedi' or 'Seedi' communities which remained on the Indian subcontinent (Burton, 2006, pp. 253-257).