Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade (East Coast of Africa); together with the proceedings of the Committee, minutes of evidence, appendix and index

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 832922498

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-79587

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade (East Coast of Africa); together with the proceedings of the Committee, minutes of evidence, appendix and index

Place of publication:: [London]

Publisher:: [The House of Commons]

Year of publication:: 1871

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XXIV, 242 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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45 ON SLAVE TRADE (EAST COAST OF AFRICA). Lord Palmerston instructed Colonel panierton to inform the Imaum, “that the traffic slaves carried on by his subjects was doomed . destruction ; that Great Britain was the chief ffistrument in the hands of Providence for the ^ccoinplishment of this object; that it is useless these Arabs to oppose what is written in the ;Pook of Fate ; that if they persisted in the con- j^ûuance of this traffic it would involve them in j.^ouble and lossess ; that they had better there- submit to the will of Providence, and abandon this traffic, cultivate their soil, and Engage in lawful commerce.” I have always peen of opinion that that was the proper view to 57,5. Nothing having been done to carry that for a good many years, do you think it ^^'ould still have the same effect^—We might ^'^cll say to the Sultan we have left it to you to up to the treaties, and to abolish this horrible ^^^an stealing ; you have not done it, we do not you are wilfully and knowingly keeping up bis slave trade, but it has been, chiefly through •6 instrumentality of the English Government, ^^^ppressed in every other country in the world, and we will no longer allow you Arabs to be an ^^ception. 576. We have no treaties with them which b^'ohihit man-stealing altogether?—No, but we ^pould simply say we will not allow this ; I think • ® Arabs quite understand that way of putting I often said to the Sultan, You Arabs come ^''vn liQre because you find a very pleasant and ^^Pile country preferable to your own barren eserts, but that does not give you any right to ^populate half Africa, and to go and steal the Population and sell them. . 577. You consider we should be justified in ^P^oyfering with a strong arm in the interior of ^fi'ica to prevent the stealing of the natives ?— A %eans of an efficient squadron you would be ^0 so to check the trade that in a few years it • be given up ; we could not interfere in the oterior. ^78. We cannot interfere with anything except foreign slave trade ?—No. gj 579. They are entitled to take any number of necessary for their own use under our j P^by?—Yes, as long as that treaty is in ex- ouce the slave trade will be carried on to a ^ptain extent. 'j80. You think it is absolutely necessary to a new treaty?—Yes; I think there could ^0 more favourable occasion for proposing a çjj treaty than the present ; we are under no j^^hgations to Syed Burgash. It may be said that ^ rinder obligations to us, for I sent him under ^^di@h protection to Bombay ; he certainly was Pt there as a state prisoner, but he was well gg^^^^bed, and probably by his being sent there I is 1 iÜG- The Arabs now see that slavery ^^^^Jished throughout the United States of ^eioTu^^ j the Portuguese, their own nearest ^^'^ru-s, who carried it on in a most shameful I way, have abolished it now by law, and ^or 1 might very well say to the Sultan, as the • ^ ^imerston says here, “ Great Britain is ^/^^^Wrnent of Providence, and it is written of Fate that the slave trade shall 581^^^^^ means of stopping it.” have been told that there is aT much between other countries and Zan- ^ith^ liiere used to be ; the trade is principally o ® Germans and the French, is it not?— I think the French trade has died out very much ; the Germans have a large trade, and so have the United States ; I think, if possible, the best course to adopt would be to induce all the foreign nations that have consuls there to join our Government in putting down the slave trade ; I do not see why they should not, and I think it most likely that they would. 582. Would not it be almost necessary to get them to join with us ?—Yes ; very great mischief has been done, and very great mistrust has been instilled into the minds of the Arabs by foreign merchants ; they are all very jealous of our inter ference with the slave trade". 583. Do you think the Sultan could hold his own now without the profits which he derives from the exportation of slaves ?—His profits on slaves, compared with his other means, are the merest trifle. The means of the present Sultan are very much greater than what his father and his broiher had. Old Syed Seeed had to keep up his territories in India and in the Persian Gulf, in addition to Zanzibar, and he always had to be on his guard against the encroachments of the Wahabahs. The commander of Her M ajesty’s ship “ Imogene,” which visited Zanzibar in 1834, stated that up to that time there was no trade at all scarcely. It only came to be anything like a place of trade after the late Imaum transferred his own residence there, accompanied by the British consul. It was the presence of the Bri tish consul there, and the feeling that tiiere was always justice to be had where there Avas a Bri tish consul, that induced a large number of our Indian fellow-subjects to go and settle at Zanzi bar, and they have created the trade. I think, up to the year 1838 or 1840, the revenue the Sultan derived from customs at Zanzibar Avas only 50,000 croAvns a year. In 1859, the farm of the customs Avas 196,000 dollars. In 1870, in the latest return from Dr. Kirk, it is 310,000. Therefore, in 10 years, the revenue Avhich the Sultan got from his customs Avas increased by 114,000 dollars, or, in English money, about 24,000/. 584. Mr. Does that include slaves? —I never could understand Avhether the customs master included the slaves; I do not think he did, because the profits from the slaves Avent into the private purse, as it Avere, of the Sultan. At any rate, the trade is so greatly increased that, at the loAvest estimate, he is getting uoav 24,000 /. more per annum from the customs revenue than he did in 1859-60. in the previous 10 years the increase Avas quite as much. The customs are farmed to an Indian Banyan for five years at a time, and almost every five years there is an in crease in the same ratio. ÑotAvithstanding that the customs master pays over this large amount, I happened to make the Avill of the old customs master, and he left 3,000,000 dollars in hard cash. Old Syed Saeed, the father of the late Sultan and the present Sultan, though he had an immense establishment, and a family of over 20 children, left, I do not know the exact amount, but it must haAm been several millions of dollars. As far as the resources of the Sultan go, they are ample to keep up the Government there. 585. You think he is not at all dependent on the sum he receives from slaves?—Not in the slightest degree ; he has large estates in Zanzibar Avhich are becoming every year more productive. The late Sultan Avas put to great expense in pay ing these northern Arabs ; he Avas afraid of them ; F 3 he Maj. Gen. P. Highy. 20 July 1871.

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