IOR/F/4/1990/88112

This item consists of copies of correspondence, consultations, memoranda, and minutes cited in, or enclosed with, political and secret letters from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai]. The main correspondents are: the Government of Bombay; Stafford Bettesworth Haines, Political Agent at Aden; Reuben Aslan, the Native Agent at Muscat; Captain Atkins Hamerton, Agent at Muscat on a mission to Zanzibar; Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Robertson, Officiating Resident in the Persian Gulf. It is the first in a series of two items on the trade in enslaved people (the other is IOR/F/4/1990/88113).

The item concerns primarily concerns information about the mechanisms of the trade in enslaved people across the whole of the Gulf, including Persia, detailing:

• The routes travelled
• Numbers of enslaved people transported
• The nationalities of traders
• The value of the trade
• The nationalities, prices, gender ratio, ages, and treatment of the enslaved people.

The item also discusses:

• The specific role of boats from Scinde [Sindh] exporting enslaved people from Muscat to Scinde
• The possibility of persuading the Ameer of Scinde [Mir Nasir Khan Talpur] to issue a proclamation prohibiting the trade in enslaved people
• The possibility of the Imam of Muscat [Sayyid Sa’id bin Sultan Al Bu Sa’id] forbidding Joasmee [al-Qawasim] boats from visiting his African possessions to try to curb the trade in enslaved people
• The case of the Kallah Kassaim [Qal’ah Qasim], which imported enslaved people into Muscat and changed her flag from the British flag to the Imam of Muscat’s depending on her circumstances
• Proposed measures to prevent export of kidnapped children from the territory of the Nizam of Hyderabad [Mir Farqunda Ali Khan]
• The rescue of enslaved Somali men and women from Rasul Khyma [Ra's al-Khaymah]
• The rescue of enslaved Indian women from Muscat
• Reports of a delegation sent by the Imam of Muscat to London to object to the East India Company’s insistence on ending the trade in enslaved people
• Extent of the trade in kidnapped children at Hyderabad, and the enforcement of the laws concerning the trade
• Depositions of those connected with the cases of alleged slavery, including the case of Hajee Mahomed [Haji Muhammed], who was found to have multiple Abyssinian children in his house.

The item includes a contents page and the title page of the item contains the following references: ‘Draft 227, P.C. [Previous Communication] 3822A, [Season 18]43’, ‘Collection No 11’.