[2] Following the passage of the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, the Indian indenture system developed to replace slave labour in British and other European colonies.

Of the original 32,000 contracted laborer's, after the end of indentured service about 6,700 stayed on to work as dukawallas,[Note 1] artisans, traders, clerks, and, finally, lower-level administrators.

Indians in Zanzibar founded the one locally owned bank in all of the African Great Lakes, Jetha Lila, which closed after the Revolution when its customer base left.

In 1972, Idi Amin gave the nearly 80,000 Ugandans of Asian (mainly Indians) descent 90 days to leave the country, so an expulsion was set in effect.

Some 27,000 Ugandan Indians moved to Britain, another 6,100 to Canada, 1,100 to the United States, while the rest scattered to other Asian and European countries.

In 1992, under pressure from aid donors and Western governments, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni simplified a then 10-year-old law letting Asians reacquire lost property.

Continued fighting in western Uganda between hundreds of rebels and troops in June 2000, and politically motivated ethnic violence in Mombasa that claimed more than 40 lives in August 2000, gave credence to these concerns.

The Trinidadian West Indies author's 1979 book remains the best-known literary work in English addressing the Indian experience in East and Central Africa.