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 conj^ûuance
of this traffic it would involve them in
j.^ouble and lossess ; that they had better theresubmit
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 exouce
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 interference
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 British
consul there, and the feeling that tiiere was
always justice to be had where there Avas a British
consul, that induced a large number of our
Indian fellow-subjects to go and settle at Zanzibar,
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 increase
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 paying
these northern Arabs ; he Avas afraid of them ;
F 3 he
Maj. Gen.
P. Highy.
20 July
1871.
