Mangapwani Slave Chamber

A square underground cell cut from coral rock, built around 1880 to conceal human cargo.

Built by the prosperous slave trader Mohammed Bin Nassor Al-Alwi, the chamber was an important transit point after the abolition of the slave trade in 1873, used between about 1880 and 1905 to hide people pending their sale. Boats from Bagamoyo unloaded on a secluded beach separated from the main Mangapwani beach by coral outcrops; the dirt path from that beach to the chamber still exists today.