The documented operational record of the East Africa Squadron shows around 1,000 dhows captured and approximately 12,000 Africans freed from slavery over the course of its operations.
These figures are smaller than those of the West Africa Squadron, which freed over 150,000 people across sixty years. The difference reflects the different nature of the two operations. The Atlantic slave trade moved enslaved people in large numbers on purpose-built ships. The Arab trade used smaller vessels, with fewer people per dhow, spread across a vast ocean area that was harder to patrol with the resources available.
Individual ships racked up significant records. HMS Dryad captured seven slave dhows in a single tour of duty. HMS London, operating as the depot ship off Zanzibar from 1873, had consistent success through a combination of direct interception and the diplomatic and military pressure it helped project on the Zanzibar Sultanate.
The 12,000 figure represents only those directly freed by the squadron’s interceptions. It does not capture the much larger number whose enslavement was deterred or prevented by the sustained naval presence, or the effect of the treaties the squadron’s presence enabled Britain to negotiate. The closure of the main Zanzibar slave market in 1873, achieved through treaty pressure backed by naval force, was itself a significant intervention in the scale of the trade.
The Arab slave trade moved an estimated nine million Africans across the Indian Ocean and trans-Saharan routes over its full history. The East Africa Squadron was a late intervention in a trade of enormous scale. The fact that it freed fewer people than the West Africa Squadron does not diminish what it achieved. It adds to the picture of a country that chose, at considerable cost, to use its military power to fight slavery on more than one front.
