IOR/R/15/1/199-234

Although the British Government abolished slavery in its colonies in 1807, it only sought to abolish the slave trade in and around the waters of the Persian Gulf. The treaties signed with the sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf in the mid-nineteenth century, which turned them into British Protectorates [see Aitchison, Treaties and Engagements Relating to Arabia and the Persian Gulf, reprinted 1987], prohibited the trade in arms and slaves.

The first major international slave trade treaty was the General Act of the Brussels Conference, ratified in 1890/91. It was designed to end the slave trade between East Africa and the Persian Gulf. The League of Nations Slavery Convention (1926) outlawed the practice of slavery outright.

Difficulties policing human trafficking in such a remote area, a deep-rooted social acceptance of slave ownership, and the reliance of the Persian Gulf's major industries on slave labour, made the British imposition of an immediate and outright abolition of slavery impracticable. To that end, Britain's policy through the period covered by the slavery subject files, was one of a programme of continued suppression of the maritime trade, combined with native intelligence networks, diplomacy and military action against the Gulf shaikhdoms, and a system of British manumission.