IOR/R/15/1/143, ff 300-314

The letter relates to a number of points concerning the slave trade in the Persian Gulf. Kemball reports on his failure to retrieve those slaves recently imported into the Persian domains of Charrack [Bandar-e Chārak] and Kelat, and proposes new measures to identify and punish those guilty of trading slaves. Kemball reports that the woman from Socotra, recently imported into Persia was traded by subjects from territories falling under the responsibility of the Imam of Muscat, and that he has accordingly contacted the Imam concerning the case. Kemball also suggests that the previous two years’ emphasis on the import of slaves into Persia has been to the detriment of the suppression of the slave trade on the Arab coast, and proposes measures to intercept next season’s slave trade from Africa off the Arabian coast.

The following enclosures are included with Kemball’s letter:

1) The copy of a letter (folios 302-05) from Kemball, to William Taylour Thomson, His Majesty’s Chargé D’Affaires at the Court of Persia, Tehran, dated 12 January 1854. The letter discusses the failure to retrieve the slaves imported into Bandar-e Chārak and Kelat, and the fines to be handed out to these deemed to bear responsibility for the import of the slaves.

2) Letter no.29 of 1853/54 (folios 306-10) from Lieutenant D R Daker, Commanding the Honourable Company’s Brigantine Tigris, to Commodore George Robinson, Commanding Officer Persian Gulf Squadron, dated 12 December 1853. The letter is a report of Daker’s trip to Bandar-e Chārak and Kelat to ascertain the whereabouts of the imported slaves, which included interviews with the shaikh of Bandar-e Chārak, the slave woman from Socotra, the son of the shaikh of Kelat, and the nakhuda of a boat which had imported slaves from Zanzibar. The list of slaves imported by the nakhuda is included with the letter (folio 310).

3) A rough copy of letter no.2 of 1854 (folio 309) from Robinson to Kemball, undated, the original of which was probably used as a covering letter for Lieutenant Daker’s report. Robinson’s letter refers to the ‘useless’ attempts to find out the whereabouts of the slaves at Bandar-e Chārak and Kelat, which were met with equivocal statements and denial.

4) The translated substance of a letter (folios 311-12) from Mulla Ahmed, British Agent at Lingah [Bandar-e Lengeh], to Kemball, dated 22 December 1853. The letter is a report of Ahmed’s investigations at Bandar-e Chārak and Kelat with Lieutenant Dakers, and includes as an enclosure a statement made by Abdul Hadee, who confesses to the importation of thirty-one slaves.

5) The translated substance of a letter (folios 313-14) from Mulla Ahmed, to Kemball, dated 23 December 1853. The letter is a report of Ahmed’s investigations at Bandar-e Chārak, and include a statement of the names of those people for whom slaves were landed, totalling thirty slaves altogether.