IOR/F/4/1958/85478

This item consists of copies of correspondence, minutes, and consultations, cited in, or enclosed with, political and secret letters from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai]. The main correspondents are: the Government of Bombay; Captain Atkins Hamerton, British Agent at Muscat; the Court of Directors of the East India Company; the Foreign Office; the Imaum of Muscat [Imam of Muscat, Sayyid Sa‘īd bin Sulṭān Āl Bū Sa‘īd]. It is the first in a series of three items concerning the trade in enslaved people (the others are IOR/F/4/1958/85479 and IOR/F/4/1959/85480). The enclosures to the letters are contained in the following items.

The item concerns:

• The rescue of enslaved children and their subsequent placement in households or in a trade at Aden or Bombay, or their return home
• The prevalence of the trade in enslaved people at Lingah [Bandar-e Lengeh] and Zanzibar
• Discussions of how frequently women and children were kidnapped from India and enslaved and sold at Zanzibar, and whether the Imaum of Muscat’s ships were involved
• Discussions of how involved the Imaum of Muscat was in importing enslaved people to India
• The difficulties of enforcing treaties abolishing the trade in enslaved people, and in persuading the Imaum of Muscat to agree to such treaties
• The system of importing free labourers from Zanzibar to Mauritius and the British attempts to persuade the Imaum not to permit this system because it was often used to perpetuate slavery
• The case of the Joshua Carroll, a ship seized by the British on suspicion of it being a slaving ship, and the claims of the company which chartered it that it was engaged in legitimate trade to transfer free labourers to Mauritius
• The request of the Nawaub of Sucheen [Nawab of Sachin, Ibrahim Mohammad Yakut Khan I] that the British return a dancing girl whom he had accused of theft and who had taken refuge at Surat
• Attempts of Neer Nusseer Khan of Sinde [Amir Nasir Khan Talpur] to persuade the British to pardon one of his officials who had been imprisoned for attempting to import nine children on his behalf.

Affairs of the English brig Maria:

• Captain Turner’s apology for confining one of the Imaum’s seaman in the Maria
• The false accusation of mate of the Maria of murder
• The Imaum’s attempt to use the Maria to obtain the inheritance of a man who died at Tamatava [Toamasina, Madagascar].

The item includes a contents page and the title page of the item contains the following references: ‘Draft 596, P.C. [Previous Communication] 3593, [Season] 1842’ and ‘Examiner’s Office’.