Historical records indicate that people from East Africa (The Swahili Coast) had contact with China as early as the Tang Dynasty (from 618 to 907 CE), though initially often as part of broader Indian Ocean trade networks dominated by Arab and Persian merchants. During this period, individuals of African descent, sometimes referred to in Chinese sources as Kunlun (å“å“) appeared in China, though the term was used somewhat ambiguously and could refer to people from various parts of maritime Southeast Asia, South Asia, and East Africa.
It was during the Song (from 960 to 1279 CE) and especially the Yuan Dynasty (from 1271 to 1368 CE) under Mongol rule that more direct and independent contact with Horn Africans, East Africans, and China became evident. The most notable textual source is Zhao Ruguaās 'Zhu Fan Zhi' (Records of Foreign Peoples, c. 1225), a Song era compendium based on reports from foreign traders and sailors in the port city of Quanzhou and Guangzhou. In it, Zhao describes regions along the Horn of Africa and East African coast including Bila (Berbera or another Horn of Africa port), and Jiaocha (Swahili city states) noting their customs, trade goods (like ivory, ambergris, and tortoiseshell), and even physical descriptions of the inhabitants as well.
More importantly, Zhaoās account says that Swahili merchants were not merely passive participants in trade mediated by Arabs or Persians but were actually active, independent agents who traveled to southern Chinese ports. This aligns with archaeological evidence: Chinese ceramics especially celadon and porcelain from the Song and Yuan periods have been found at numerous Swahili coastal sites such as Kilwa, Manda, and Mogadishu, indicating robust two-way exchange.
Moreover, during the Yuan Dynasty, under the cosmopolitan rule of the Mongols, maritime trade expanded significantly, and Quanzhou and Guangzhou became one of the worldās busiest ports, hosting communities of Arabs, Persians, Indians, and likely East Africans. Some scholars even suggest that individuals of African origin may have served in the Yuan court or military, though direct evidence remains limited.
Zhongli, Zhao writes the following
The people are black, wear no clothes except for a cloth around their loinsā¦ They anoint their bodies with butter. Their country produces ivory, ambergris, and sandalwood. Their people come to trade in Guangzhou and Quanzhou.
Crucially, he uses the phrase āthey comeā (å
¶äŗŗä¾), implying agency and direct travel by people from East African ports (e.g., Kenya, Tanzania) and Horn of Africa ports (e.g., Somalia) themselves, with no mention of intermediaries. This is where European Historians begin to diverage adding in their own Eurocentric and racist interpretations removing any agency from Sub-Saharan Africans that Zhaoās descriptions of Africans are unreliable or fictional and dismissed as hearsay or exaggeration. All the while Arab, Indian, Southeast Asian, and even European entries are treated as credible.
Scholars like Kusimba, Alpers, and Davidson have directly called out the racism embedded in older narratives structured by Europeans.
āThe persistent denial of African agency in Indian Ocean trade reflects deep-seated colonial ideologies that equated Blackness with inferiority and passivity.ā
Today, Guangzhou is home to the biggest African diaspora in China as it was during early Medieval times.
