A Scottish antiques auction has ignited fierce condemnation after listing 18th-century neck shackles explicitly linked to the East African slave trade, sparking an intense global debate on historical artifacts and moral complicity.

The commercialization of historical trauma has taken center stage in Scotland, where the impending sale of iron neck shackles used during the mass enslavement of African people in Zanzibar has drawn intense outrage and accusations of profound ethical bankruptcy.

This controversy strikes at the absolute heart of how modern society handles the physical remnants of atrocities. For Kenya, Tanzania, and the wider East African Swahili coast, the Omani-Arab slave trade is a deep, generational historical wound. Seeing the literal instruments of this torture auctioned to the highest bidder in Europe feels to many like a grotesque continuation of the exploitation that once ravaged the continent.

The Artifacts in Question

The heavy iron neck shackles, securely dated to approximately 1780, are the centerpiece of a highly controversial auction titled "Challenging History" run by Cheeky Auctions in Tain, Ross, in the Scottish Highlands. Valued at roughly £1,000 (approx. KES 165,000), they represent the brutal Omani-Arab dominated trade that decimated East African populations before ending following intense African resistance and British pressure in the late 19th century.

Auctioneer Marcus Salter defended the sale, arguing that the items are sensitive artifacts meant to shock people into confronting the ugly, unvarnished realities of history, rather than purposefully causing offense. He claimed that donating them to a museum might result in them being hidden in archives forever.

Accusations of Profiteering

Critics, human rights advocates, and politicians vehemently disagree with this commercial justification. Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations, unequivocally stated that treating these objects as mere collectors' items should be looked at in absolute horror.

She argued powerfully that trading in such items means individuals are continuing to directly profit from the slave trade centuries after its legal abolition. Nigel Murray, a local Scottish resident who reported the listing, stated he would boycott the auction house permanently, highlighting growing consumer disgust at the monetization of human misery.

The East African Connection

The shackles originate from the trading hubs of Zanzibar, the notorious epicenter of the East African slave trade. Millions of East Africans, including countless individuals from the Kenyan interior, were violently marched to the coast in heavy chains exactly like these before being shipped across the Indian Ocean.

• The heavy iron shackles are verified and dated to 1780.
• The estimated auction value is set at £1,000 (approx. KES 165,000).
• The Omani-Arab trade involved immense human suffering across the entire Swahili coast.

A Demand for Repatriation

For modern East Africans, the commodification of these chains is deeply triggering and fundamentally offensive. It raises profound, urgent questions about the ethics of repatriation: should these artifacts be forcibly returned to East Africa to serve as solemn memorials and educational tools, rather than remaining in European auction houses as macabre novelties?

"We cannot erase the horrifying sins of the past, but we must decide whether we honor the victims by memorializing their suffering in museums, or insult their memory by auctioning their chains for a quick profit," a Kenyan historian remarked on the scandal.