V
ON SLAVE TRADE (EAST COAST OF AFRICA).
The following is a Return of the number of slaves exported through the
Custom-house at Kilvva between 1862 and 1867, distinguishing those sent to
Zanzibar from those shipped to other places :—
Year.
1862- 63
1863- 64
1864- 65
1865- 66
1866- 67
Zanzibar.
13,000
14,000
13,821
18,344
17,538
Elsewhere.
5.500
3.500
3,000
4,000
4.500
76,703 20,500
20,500
Total Exports from KUwa*!^
in Five years - -j
- 97,203
From a despatch of Dr. Kirk, dated 1st February 1870, it appears that
14,944 were exported from Kilwa in the year ending 23rd August 1869. But
besides those passed through the Custom-house at Kilwa, numfcrs are exported
from other places on the coast.
Such IS the extent to which the exportation of slaves takes place from the
.^uizibar territory on the East Coast of Africa. It has also been shown that
Inhere the slave trade still exists from the Portuguese territory to the Island of
Madagascar, and that slaves are still imported into Turkish ports in the Red
Sea, General Rigby having recently seen fresh importations even in the civilised
port of Suez. It must not, however, be thought that those who are taken captive,
great as the numbers are, represent in any degree the total number of the sufferers
from this iniquitous traffic. Such is the fearful loss of life resulting from this
traffic, such the miseries which attend it, that, according to Dr. Livingstone and
others, not one in five, in some cases not one in ten, of the victims of the slave
hunters ever reach the coast alive.
The slaves when liberated from the dhows have been sent of late years to
Aden and Bombay, being maintained there at a heavy cost to the Imperial
Exchequer. In time past some have been landed at the Seychelles, a dependency
of the Mauritius, Ihe climate in these islands is said to suit them exactly,
and the inhabitants to be anxious for emancipated slave labour. Every variety
of tropical product grows there in the greatest abundance.
Measures have at various times been adopted by the Government of this
coimtr\^ to control and check the trade, but hitherto with but partial successlo
control tne trade, treaties have been made with the Sultan of Muscat with
Bie iriendiy Arab chiefs on the Arabian coast, and with the Shah of Persia.
The treaties with the feultan of Muscat are acknowledged to bo binding upon
the Sultan of Zanzibar who has issued orders accordingly, and they prohibit the
export of ^aves from Atrica, as well as their import from Africa into Asia, Arabia
the Red Sea, or Persian Gulf, but permit the transport of slaves to and fro
between Kilwa, Zanzibar, and any coast port up to Larnoo, which is the northern
limit of the Sultan ot Zanzibar’s dominions.
See Appendix for
list of Treaties.
lesult of the treaties, as far as the Sultan of Zanzibar is concerned is
that not only are the slave traders enabled to rendezvous in great numbers
Zanzibar, but the dhows, often so laden that the deck is entirely covered with
fn 2' Side by side, and so closely packed that it is impossible for them
nrovirW ^ilwa to Zanzibar, and then starting afresh, and
ür tEo i ^ proper clearances for Lamoo, are enabled to make the first half
ot the journey north unmolested by British cruisers.
420. a g .
