Slave Caves
Mangapwani is a village on the Tanzanian island of Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar. It is located on the northwest coast, 25 kilometres north of the Zanzibari capital of Stone Town.
The village’s name means “Arabian Shore” in Swahili. It probably dates back to the black-market slavery days of the 1840’s to 1880’s. The shoreline there contains numerous caves, some of which were used for holding slaves at that time. Among the caves is a popular attraction, the Coral Cavern, which is located two kilometres south of the village. The caves of Mangapwani were discovered by Joseph Thomas Last, a British explorer and missionary in East Africa in the 1870’s. There is also a famous slave chamber in Mangapwani, only 1.9 km away (3 min drive).