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This article examines the destiny of Swahili East Africa as the periphery of a world-system whose center was the Indian Ocean, the Europeans’ point of entry into the system. It analyzes the relations between the East African coast, with its continental hinterlands, and the Arabian, Persian, and Indian “cores” of a system that was characterized by exploitation, slavery, and ideological and political domination, but also by the exchange and diffusion of knowledge, textiles, writing, and Islam. The article thus reexamines the concepts of labor division, exchange value, money, capital, and so forth. It highlights the reactive and inventive capacity of Africa, which was hampered only by its remoteness from the great centers and by the lack of agricultural potential that elsewhere rendered possible a demographical leap and an autonomous upward leverage in power.