IOR/R/15/1/225

The volume contains confidential correspondence related to specific cases of slavery. The key correspondents in the volume are the Political Resident of the Persian Gulf (a post occupied by six incumbents during the time frame covered), and Government of India and Foreign Office officials in India and London.

The contents of the volume can be categorised under the following sub-headings:

• Armenian Slaves – British reports and responses to the appearance of Armenian slave girls in Kuwait and Qatar in 1924. The Political Agent in Bahrain (Major Clive Daly) wrote to the Political Resident (Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Prideaux), stating that the women were likely 'sold by the Turks to the tribes as children' (folio 9), as part of the expulsion of women and children from the Armenian provinces in 1915/16. Fuller detail on this specific case can be found in the Bahrain Political Agency file IOR/R/15/2/124.
• Slavery in Hejaz/Nejd – Negotiations in 1926 between British officials in Jeddah and Ibn Saud [‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd], who had recently been recognised as King of the Hejaz/Nejd territories, on steps to be taken to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the King's realm. The Acting British Consul in Jeddah (Lancelot Oliphant) noted in 1926 that 'Ibn Saud’s attitude towards both the slave trade and domestic slavery in the Hejaz appears to be more enlightened than that of his predecessors' (folio 117). However, a major obstacle to an agreement over the slave trade was Ibn Saud's insistence of the difficulties involved in abolishing a longstanding and traditional practice, and Britain's refusal to accede to his request that the Political Agency in Jeddah abandon its right to slave manumission.
• Persia – Between 1928 and 1929, discussions took place between the Persian Gulf Political Resident (Sir Frederick Johnston until November 1928, Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Barrett thereafter) and Government of India and Foreign Office officials, on a potential redraft of Britain's 1882 slave trade treaty with Persia, which the latter, under the rule of Reza Shah, now rejected. Johnston's concern was that if it 'were not for this [the 1882] Convention slavery would recommence on the coasts of the Persian Gulf [... ] In Persian Baluchistan slavery is rife and it is only the constant watch we exercise which prevents its becoming more than an individual trade' (folio 151).