4
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE SELECT COMMITTEE
Hon.
C. Vivian.
lO July
1871.
have calculated it at 20,000 L a year, but I make
out, unless Dr. Kirk has included also the sale
of slaves, that in 1867-8 he must have got about
56,000 1. by the tax upon slaves, that is to say,
270,000 dollars ; whether that included the sale of
slaves as well as the tax, I do not know.
38. According to that Report the value of a
slave in the interior appears to be only a few
yards of cloth?—Yes; at Zanzibar he is worth
from 17 to 25 dollars.
39. What is his value on the coast of Arabia ?
—I believe about 60 dollars ; but it must vary.
40. At what season of the year is the trade
most active in Zanzibar?—From January to
March is the time when the northern Arabs
generally come down ; then I think they go up
again in March and April, and again in August
and September.
41. Mr. K.mnaird.~\ Is the trade carried on
generally, by the same set of people ?—Yes ; it is
a regular trade ; where they come from and who
they are you will hear better from Mr. Churchill,
but they are evidently old hands at the trade.
42. Chairman^ You told us that the slaves
were principally exported to Muscat in the first
instance?—Yes, and to ports in the Persian Gulf,
and they go from there in small craft to the
highest market.
43. Do the slave dealers come principally from
the northern parts of Arabia ?■—Yes.
44. What measures have Her Majesty’s Government
taken to deal with these evils, and to
suppress the slave traffic?—They obtained first
of all the limitation I have already described to
you ; they found out when these Arabs principally
came down from the north, and they obtained
from the Sultan of Zanzibar his declaration that
no export of slaves should take place between the
prohibited periods.
45. Was not that at the cost of recognising a
legal traffic in slaves during a certain time of the
year?—No doubt we have always recognised the
fact of slavery being a legal institution at Zanzibar.
Zanzibar consists partly of the mainland and
partly of the Islands, and the sovereign has always
claimed the right of transporting domestic slaves
from his possession on the continent to his possessions
on the islands.
46. Waiving for a moment the question of the
propriety of that local slave trade, that is a very
small proportion of the slave trade, which we are
here inquiring into ?—Yes, it is under the cloak
of that that these northern Arabs have managed
to carry their slaves to the north ; they are protected
as long as they are within those limits,
whether they are there for legal or illegal purposes.
47. Have our Government proposed to enter
into a new treaty with the Sultan of Zanzibar,
and if so, to what effect, and with what result ?—
They proposed on the 16th of June last year to
enter into a treaty to the following effect : To
limit the shipment of slaves from the mainland
to one point only on the African coast ” (it now
extends over 350 miles of coast), “ namely.
Dar Selam, and to prohibit entirely their export
from any other places.” To make Zanzibar
the only port for the reception of slaves
shipped from Dar Selam, but with liberty to
transport them thence to Pemba and Mombaza
only” ; (those two being the other islands which
want slaves also, we did not wish to prohibit
them from transporting them to those other
islands ; we only wished that all slaves should be
taken to Zanzibar, and from there shipped to the
other islands, so as to have a double check upon
them.) “ Imports of slaves to any other place, or
which have not come through Zanzibar, should
be declared illegal, and liable to seizure. That
the number of slaves exported from Dar Selam
to Zanzibar, and thence to Pemba and Mombaza,
shall be strictly limited to the actual requirements
of the inhabitants of those places, to be
annually settled by mutual consent between the
Sultan and the British agent ; such number to be
gradually decreased, so as to cease altogether
within a certain time. That every vessel engaged
in the transport of slaves shall be liable to capture,
unless she is provided with a proper pass
from the Sultan, which shall be valid only for one
voyage, and with distinctive marks on her hull
and sails, a heavy penalty being attached to any
piracy of these passes or marks. That the public
slave markets at Zanzibar shall be closed. That
the Sultan shall engage from the date of the treaty
to punish severely any of his subjects who may
be proved to be concerned, directly or indirectly,
in the slave trade, and especially any attempt to
molest or interfere with a liberated slave. That
the Kutchees and other natives of Indian States
under British protection, shall be forbidden, alter
a date to be fixed by the Government of India,
to possess slaves ; and that in the meantime they
shall be prevented from acquiring any ffieslf slaves.
Lastly, the treaty should contain a stipulation,
providing for the eventual entire prohibition of the
export of slaves from the mainland.
48. That is not yet a treaty ?—No ; Mr.
Churchill was engaged in pressing it upon the
late Sultan when he died.
49. Has it been pressed upon the present Sultan
?—We have sent out instructions to press it
upon the present one, but pending this Committee
nothing more has been done.
50. Mr. Kinnaird.'\ The Foreign Office is
waiting the result of this Committee to take further
action?—That I do not know : I say we
have not done anything more pending the inquiry
of this Committee. There is a new Sultan
now, and our proposals have been pressed upon
him.
51. Mr. Crum-EicmgMr. Churchill has not
been stopped in negotiating this treaty in a
friendly way with the Sultan?—It is Dr. Kirk
now who is acting in place of Mr. Churchill ; on
the contrary. Dr. Kirk has received instructions
to press the same terms upon the Sultan, but the
time and the mode of his doing it are left to his
discretion.
52. Chairman.^ Have Her Majesty’s Government
invited the co-operation of foreign powers in
checking the slave trade ?—They have ; they
have invited the co-operation of France, of
Persia, and of Turkey.
53. Not Portugal?—No; I think it appears by
a report amongst the last slave trade papers, that
there is no slave trade at all on the Portuguese
shore, or hardly any ; it stops at Cape Delgado, I
think. Slavery is abolished now in Portugal entirely.
54. Would you say there was any slave trade
carried on from Zanzibar, under any flag except
the Arab flag?—Yes; we had a representation
that there was a slave trade carried on under the
French flag; we have not got a right to search
French vessels ; if we have strong suspicions that
a vessel sailing under the French flag is engaged
in the slave trade, we can examine her papers,
and
