SLAVE TRADE - ZANZIBAR.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Correspondence with British Representatives and Agents Abroad, and Reports from Naval Officers and the Treasury, Relative to the Slave Trade: 1882-83. First edition of this valuable collection of official papers, over half of which concerns Admiralty patrols and slavery cases in the Zanzibar region. Many items of correspondence were sent by or to the influential Arabist Samuel Barrett Miles (1838-1914), the political agent and consul-general. Records show only the British Library's copy.For Britain, curtailing the slave trade in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea was a means to consolidate control over the region. In 1873, it signed anti-slaving treaties with the Sultan of Muscat and, after blockading Zanzibar, Sultan Barghash bin Said al-Busaidi (r. 1870-88). Throughout the 1870s, the Admiralty bolstered its naval presence. Textual and statistical memoranda from Miles and others reported encounters by patrolling vessels with slaving dhows and fugitive slaves, the seizure and destruction of vessels, and legal proceedings. An important moment was the lethal encounter, in December 1881, of HMS London with a dhow flying French colours. As related by Rear-Admiral Gore Jones (Commander-in-Chief, East Indies Station) to the Secretary of the Admiralty, "no one [on London] was expecting action, and all were personally unarmed... The Arabs instantly fired, and then rushed on board." London's captain, Charles Brownrigg, "fought like a lion" but was fatally stabbed through the heart (pp.

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