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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ON SLAVE TRADE (EAST COAST OF AFRICA). 81 ]204. ■^-Tliey slavery ^^bour. Are there any coffee plantations there ? have been nearly all deserted ; since was put a stop to they have had no 1205. Chairman.l All they want is labour then?—Yes, there are 37 islands of different sizes ; some of them are large, and in those they could employ a great many emancipated slaves. Major Gen. C. P. Pigby, 25 July 1871. Captain Philip Colomb, r.n., called in; and Examined. ^ 1206. Sir J. 1: OU were employed for considerable time on the East Coast of :^lHca in the suppression of the slave trade ?— ^es. 1207. ill you state the dates between which Joii were so employed?—Between November and May 1870. 1208. Did you visit all the ports along the Coast?—Not many ports on the African coast. Y'^as employed on the African coast a little, and ^Iso on the Madagascar coast, but chiefly on the ^cast of Arabia. 1209. Did you capture many slavers ?—I cap- six. 1210. Where did you capture them ?—One I ^^ptured in the Persian Gulf, which, I believe, ^Vas very rarely done, the remainder I captured the coast of Arabia, near lias lYadiaka, 700 Diles from Aden. 1211. IVere they all vessels which had come ^^'cin the neighbourhood of Zanzibar?—All ex- ^ept the one captured in the Persian Gulf. 1212. M here had she come from?—She had Coine from the south-eastern corner of the golf, ^^d was crossing to the Persian coast. 1213. She had nothing to do with the East .Cast of Africa slave trade ?—No, except in so she was one of the local slave traders which Y^Ty slaves, originally from Africa, from the ®Cuthern coast of the Persian Gulf to the northern 1214. Have you any suggestions to make to Committee with regard to the best mode of ^Ppressin^ the slave trade on the East Coast of B^ca ?—dhe slaves come from various points tong the coast of Africa, but they are all j ''CRtually concentrated at Pas el Hadd, and by Y' icg a sufficient force there to intercept them, it to me that the trade could be almost entirely jY'bped; to do that, it would be necessary to a considerable force, some six or eight ships probably from 1,000 to 1,200 tons, each ship "Ging well supplied with steam pinnaces or ..Cam launches. Large ships by themselves at . point would be of no avail whatever, because slave vessels hug the shore as they come and long before any boat can reach them gj^cy run ashore and succeed in landing their YY® ’ care nothing about the destruction W dhow so long as they land their cargo. It ^jOuld be necessary in intercepting the trade at point, to keep your steam launches anchored P Y'^tler weigh close in shore so as to interpose a g ^ 'between the beach and the vessels; then, in N ^ Ciase, every dhow which appeared would lu - V ^owmr her sail and give herself up without ^ fi’ouble. lhat is the chief point as to the vYl cy^^ient of the force, but one great disad- Gf which the officers commanding the ships to f] ®flCîadron labour under is this, that on going m .cc station they are not supplied w ith infor- to what had gone before; you are in command of a ship with orders to sup- slave trade, and you have no infbrma- ^lio-l ^'^‘^.^cver as to how to suppress it; you ^ cf course have provided yourself with some of the Blue Books, but you were not sup plied with them, and you were left to gather such hearsay information as you could get from your brother officers; in fact, about the time you w ere leaving the station you were beginning to acquire a knowledge of Avhat you might do. Then the naval officers are entirely in the hands of their interpreters ; they can do nothing with out them ; and, so far as I understand, the inter preters are not to be depended on ; generally speaking, their knowledge of the language is imperfect, and it is only by examining and cross- examining them very diligently that you can really get correct information. 1215. Are better interpreters to be obtained? —I believe not at present, but no doubt in a very short time, if they were properly paid, we could on tain them. 1216. Am I right in taking the result of your evidence to be that you think it desirable that the officers should be employed on the station for a longer period, so that they might gain local ex perience ?—No ; because I do not think that most men can stand more than three years of that sort of work in that climate, but I think that they should have supplied to them the information which has been collected by their predecessors. 1217. You do not anticipate that more active measures or a more numerous squadron in the neighbourhood of Zanzibar would have any ma terial effect in reducing the slave trade ?—I do not think it would have so material an effect as dealing with the ports of debarkation. I would not say it wmuld have no eflect, but it would not have a material effect. 1218. Did you find great difficulty owing to the fact that the home trade in slaves at Zanzibar being legal, the foreign slave trade to the Per sian Gulf, wms able, under the cover of that, to evade the action of the cruisers ?—I think that made the greatest difficulty. I think that threw a great barrier in the way of dealing with the trade about Zanzibar. I think the whole state of things would be altered if all slave trade to and from Zanzibar were made illegal. 1219. Do you think it possible to stop it alto gether by naval operations so long as that mode of evading it is open to the Arab dhows?—No ; but I should say that I doubt whether it would be possible to stop it altogether by any forcible measures. I think the stoppage of it altogether must be done by dealing with the authorities at the ports of embarkation and at the ports of de barkation by means of treaties. 1220. Would you anticipate any great advan tage from treaties?—Yes, because I think when armed with a treaty the naval force can act more efficiently. The treaty does not act so much directly as indirectly by keeping the people in fear. I would not trust altogether to the moral force of treaties in those cases, but treaties give the naval officers a great deal more power than they otherwise would have. 1221. What did you do with those dhows which you captured?—AVe destroyed them im mediately. Captain P. Colomb, K.N. Ml 1222. All

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