IOR/F/4/2580/153772

This item consists of copies of correspondence, minutes, memorandum, resolutions, and consultations cited in, or enclosed with, an extract of a Political Letter from the Government of Bombay to the East India Company Court of Directors, 20 July 1854. The enclosures are dated 2 November 1853-July 1854. It is the eighth in a series of twelve items about the ‘slave trade’ [trade in enslaved people].

The correspondents are: the Government of Bombay; Captain Arnold Burrowes Kemball, Resident in the Persian Gulf; Heskeel bin Yusoof [Khawājah Ḥizqīl bin Yūsuf, also referred to as Khojeh Hiskale in the item], Agent at Muscat; Arthur King Corfield, Senior Magistrate of Police, Bombay; and John Theodore Zorn, Secretary to African Asylum.

The item concerns an enslaved Soomalee [Somali, also rendered as Somalee] girl, called Fatma [Fāṭimah, also rendered as Fatima] who was brought to Muttrah [Matrah]. Kemball decides to send Fatma to Bombay [Mumbai], where she is placed under the charge of the African Asylum. There is discussion regarding whether she will remain there or join her relations in Aden.

The item contains a table of contents (ff 782-783), and the title page (f 781) contains the following references: Draft Number ‘1045/54’, ‘Collection No. 8 of No. 49 of 1854’ and ‘Examiner’s Office’.