IOR/R/15/2/1857

The file contains correspondence and other papers related to over thirty manumission applications heard at the Political Agency in Bahrain. The manumission statements for each slave are included in the file, along with related follow-up correspondence exchanged between the Bahrain Agency and other British officials (including the Adviser the Government of Bahrain, Charles Dalrymple Belgrave, and the Residency Agent in Sharjah). All of the manumission cases included in the file are straightforward in nature. Some applications were made by previously manumitted slaves who required a new manumission certificate (for example, where their owners had destroyed their certificate). Other slaves had travelled from the Trucial Coast for hospital treatment, and taken advantage of the close proximity of the Agency to claim manumission. The slaves requesting manumission came from a wide variety of places in the Gulf, including Bahrain, Qatar, Muscat, the Trucial and Batinah Coasts, Basra, and Al Jubail in Saudi Arabia.