by John Broich
3 For the British in the Persian Gulf generally, including the slave trade there, the Great Game, Banian supremacy in various markets, customs farming in Muscat, and the pearl industry, James Onley, ‘Indian Communities in the Persian Gulf, c. 1500–1947’, in Lawrence G. Potter, The Persian Gulf in Modern Times (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 231–66, particularly 254–6. For the pearl diving industry and slavery, Jerzy Zdanowski, Slavery and Manumission: British Policy in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in the First Half of the 20th Century (Reading, Berkshire: Ithaca, 2013), 75–6. For Pelly generally see Frederic Goldsmid, ‘Obituary, General Sir Lewis Pelly’, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, New Monthly Series, 14 (1892),416–21. Details come from a letter from Lewis Pelly to Colomb of 24 Apr. 1869, British Library India Office Records Mss Eur F126/42, ff 28–9, in which Pelly uses the word ‘row’ and mentions his suspicion of Russian or French prodding in Tehran. For the details of the Persian Gulf chief’s complaint to Persian Gulf political resident Lewis Pelly, see correspondence between Pelly, Heath and Colomb between April and July 1869 in House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1870 [C.141] Class B, East coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters, 86–90.
4 For Colomb and the Dryad’s time at Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), including his delight at seeing anything green, see Colomb, Slave-catching, 284–95. Other details come from Dryad’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9913. Forte’s log mentions rockets fired from shore, National Archives ADM 53/ 9931. The text of Heath’s orders to Colomb is at House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 8 Feb.-15 Aug. 1876, vol. 28, Fugitive Slaves, 177, and, as copied by Heath himself, 10 Oct. 1869, Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40.
5 For Heath finding that Colomb had fully answered Pelly’s objections, see House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1870 [C.141] Class B, East coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters, 89–90. Kirk’s complaints about the interpreters in Heath’s squadron and Heath’s response are preserved in Leopold Heath to Secretary of the Admiralty, 31 July 1869, Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. The enclosures containing Kirk’s complaints appear much later in this large volume. For Madagascar consul Pakenham’s frustration with Heath’s squadron, see the same source, communications between Pakenham, Heath, and others, on pp. 18–30. For Heath’s intention to speak to the escaped captives taken to Seychelles aboard the Nymphe, and Heath’s pointing out to Pakenham the unabated trade to Madagascar, see the same source, Heath to the Admiralty, 22 Sept. 1869 (referring to his activities in July), on p. 92. And see, for Heath’s further words for Pakenham, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 8 Feb.-15 Aug. 1876, vol. 28, Fugitive Slaves, 180. Details of the departure and weather come from Forte’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9931.
13. ‘Swell his sail with thine own powerful breath’
1 Moses D.E. Nwulia nicely paints the picture of the French officer arriving at the court of the sultan from Réunion in Britain and Slavery, 31; other details come from his ch. 2, pt. 3. For more on the engagés system generally, and the number carried to French islands in the 1850s, see Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 181. For an early eyewitness to the French ‘free emigrant labour’ scheme, see Lyons McLeod, Travels in Eastern Africa, vol. 1 (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1860), 120–5 and elsewhere. For Livingstone, see David and Charles Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi, 623.
2 On the frequency of dhows flying French colours and being un-searchable, see George Sulivan to Leopold Heath, 11 Oct. 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. Details of this period of hunting off Mafamade Island come from Daphne’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9582. They also come from a report on this period sent by Sulivan to Heath, 11 Oct. 1869, as cited above, which includes his thought that the dhow passed him in darkness. Geographical details about Mafamade and the surrounding area come from James Horsburgh, The India Directory, or, Directions for Sailing to and From the East Indies, vol. 1 (London: W.H. Allen, 1852), 258–9, and, with additional details about the appearance of the island, Alexander George Findlay, A Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Ocean, 3rd ed. (London: Richard Holmes Laurie, 1876), 358. Other details of the hunt off Mafamade, including Sulivan’s familiarity with the island and his memory of dysentery sweeping the Castor come from Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 214–15. With regard to enemy fire and the armaments of slavers, see HMS Star’s experience in taking fire and finding significant weaponry on board a slaver in Walter de Kantzow’s letter of May or June reported in Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1 Oct. 1869, 271. De Kantzow is not named, but his identity is easily detected based on the locale of the capture and the total of captives taken off the dhow, 236, later published in official reports. For the disappearance of crewmembers from Lyra near the River Antonio, Parliamentary Papers vol. LXXV (Feb.-Aug. 1866) 37, Slave Trade, 85–6.
3 Details for Daphne’s hurry to Mayotta come from Daphne’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9582. Insight into Jumah Jin (bin Moosa, not to be confused with the Jumah bin Moosa who served on Dryad) come from British Library IOR L/PS/9/48 Secret Letters Received from areas outside India, ‘Evidence of Juma bin Moosa’, a statement given in regard to the HMS Star affair, burning the dhow of Vizier’s sister, 3 May 1869, 1–2. Also for Jumah Jin, see Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 247–50. For Sulivan’s belief that he was not intercepting slavers in the Mozambique Channel because they were hiding behind the French flag, and for his broaching it with the governor of Mayotta, see George Sulivan to Leopold Heath, 11 Oct. 1869 in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40.
4 For the experience of Nymphe stalking off the coast of north-west Madagascar and navigating to Majunga, see Nymphe’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9548. The appearance of the approach to the fort comes from Colomb, Slave-catching, 327–28. On Meara’s talk with authorities at Majunga, including his belief that the Malagasy did secretly carry on the trade and force silence on their people, and also his encounter with Africans at Boyanna Bay, Madagascar, see Edward Meara to Leopold Heath 29 Oct. 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40.
5 Details of Heath’s thinking at the moment of writing to Pakenham from Seychelles, having received the sworn depositions from Ferejd and Malbrook, come from Heath to Pakenham, 14 Aug. 1869, in House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 8 Feb.-15 Aug. 1876, vol. 28, Fugitive Slaves, 180. In the same source, pp. 180–1, are the depositions themselves of Ferejd and Malbrook. Other details come from Forte’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9931.
14. ‘Stand upon the foaming shore’
1 Gwyn Campbell, ‘Madagascar and the Slave Trade, 1810–1895’, 213 and elsewhere. For the Indians dominating the financing of the slave trade to Majunga, see his ‘Madagascar and Mozambiques in the Slave Trade of the Western Indian Ocean’, in William Gervase Clarence-Smith, ed., The Economics of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century (Abingdon: Routledge, 1989), 172, 185 and elsewhere.
2 For Colomb’s period in the town of Majunga, see Colomb, Slave-catching, 318–46. This includes his thought that Meara had exposed the Majunga authorities since they did not bother reporting the illegally imported Mozambican captives until after he found them out. This is also suggested at pp. 307–8. For some additional details about the chase that occurred while Colomb hosted Governor Ramasy, see Colomb’s report on this cruise to Commodore Heath, 1 Oct. 1869, Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. Additional information about Dryad, including the material of its decks, come from Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1860–1905 (New York: Mayflower, 1979), 55–6; Colomb’s love of the Malagasy language is documented at p. 306. Data for Midshipman Gerard Brooke come from Dryad’s Establishment Book, National Archives
ADM 115/290, and his service record, National Archives ADM 196/38/175. More details from the period at Majunga come from mid-September 1869 entries in Dryad’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9913.
15. ‘Traitors ensteep’d to clog the guiltless keel’
1 For the slave trade bureaucracy and Wylde, see Keith Hamilton, ‘Zealots and Helots: The Slave Trade Department of the Nineteenth-Century Foreign Office’, in Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807–1975 (Eastbourne: Sussex, 2009), 31–4. I cannot quite agree with my colleague Dr Hamilton in the credit that he gives Wylde for stimulating action on the east coast. I believe that he and Dr Huzzey, in his excellent Freedom Burning, draw far too direct a line between Wylde and ultimate results in the form of the Frere mission. For more on Wylde, see his memo of 31 Mar. 1869 in National Archives FO 84/1310 in which he promotes the idea of a single port of debarkation from the mainland for captives bound for the Zanzibar slave market. He proposes a slow abolition of the trade over a course of years with the sultan of Zanzibar being compensated for the loss in taxes on slave imports. Meanwhile, he was both against a larger naval presence on the coast and confident that enforcing existing treaties at the points of sale would work. Wylde based much of his confidence that the east coast trade would eventually be eliminated on the fact that the west coast trade had been ultimately stopped. But that was over the course of decades and was to some important degree because of historical changes at the points of sale on the other side of the Atlantic. The evidence suggests Wylde was slow to come around to the idea of the total prohibition of the trade at sea, following Heath and the squadron’s officers who came to that conclusion far earlier then he did. See Howell, The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 88. Ch. 3 of Huzzey’s Freedom Burning is also an excellent source for the growth and operations of the abolitionist bureaucracy in London and includes Palmerston blaming the Admiralty for sending only its slowest tubs to do suppression work. For Wylde’s extreme statements about the squadron acting practically like vigilantes, and his belief that Heath’s ships would make them ‘come to grief’, see his letter to H.C. Rothery, 28 July 1869, inviting Rothery to join the inter-departmental committee to write new orders for the suppression of the east coast slave trade, National Archives HCA 36/5. The Foreign Office received Bombay’s concerns and those of Russell at Aden around late May 1869, Admiralty to Clarendon, 24 May 1869, in National Archives FO 84/1310. Those reports seem to have convinced Wylde that the Navy was out of control; see his memo of 27 May 1869 in National Archives FO 84/1310, 263–5.
2 Details for Heath’s visit to Zanzibar and subsequent trip to Aden come from Forte’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9931. Dr John Kirk related this conversation about leaving suspect slavers in charge of governors along the coast in a letter to the government of Bombay: Kirk to C. Gonne, 24 Aug. 1869, British Library IOR L/PS/9/48, Secret Letters Received from areas outside India, 1–3. The same letter reveals that this is when Kirk revealed to Heath that he had ruled against Edward Meara and the Nymphe’s officers in the Keonga dhow case. And more information about Heath’s confrontation with Kirk and Heath’s ongoing conflict with the Foreign Office, Arthur Otway in particular, comes from Heath to Secretary of the Admiralty, 22 Sept. 1869, which is copied in full in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40, n.p, and as an extract in House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1870 [C.141] Class B, East coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters, 92–4. This source includes the evidence that the dhow in question carried enslaved Africans, equipment, and an expired pass. On Kirk’s concern with the reputation of Britain in those waters, see a letter of the same month to the Foreign Office on the subject of the Keonga incident: Kirk to Earl of Clarendon, 8 Aug. 1869, in the same issue of Parliamentary Papers, p. 53. On Kirk ordering the restoration of the slaves that came off the suspect dhow, see Edward Meara to Secretary of the Admiralty, 27 July 1870, in Foreign Office, British and Foreign State Papers, 1870–1871 (London: William Ridgeway, 1877), 360–1. For the new rumours of Livingstone being seen, see John Kirk to C. Gonne, Sec. to Government, Bombay, 31 Aug. 1869, British Library IOR L/PS/9/48, Secret Letters Received from areas outside India.
16. ‘Vouch with me, heaven’
1 For the division of the finders’ fee paid to Portuguese officials by engagés dealers, see McLeod, Travels in Eastern Africa, 306. For other details in this section, see Nwulia, Britain and Slavery, 32–3. A description of Epidendron Island comes from Alexander George Findlay, A Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Ocean, 3rd ed. (London: Richard Holmes Laurie, 1876), 357. Details of target practice at Epidendron Island and the chase of the Portuguese schooner come from Daphne’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9582. George Sulivan to Leopold Heath, 11 Oct. 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. For Sulivan’s belief that the Arab slavers absorbed the blame for the Portuguese slave trading, see Dhow Chasing, 230. Further details about the capture of the schooner, the children on board, and Sulivan’s thinking and suspicions come from both Dhow Chasing, 231–2 and George Sulivan to Leopold Heath, 11 Oct. 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40; Sulivan’s awareness of the increased scrutiny placed on the squadron comes from a kind of warning circulated among the squadron by Leopold Heath, namely Kirk’s complaint about poor interpreters leading to allegedly false seizures, signed by all captains on the station, 6 May 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. In the same source there is a circular sent by Heath and signed by all of the squadron’s captains except Sulivan, repeating the Admiralty’s admonition to take captures into a port with a Vice-Admiralty judge in it whenever possible; Heath to squadron, 5 Jun. 1869. Far more direct would have been recent conversations with Captain De Kantzow, though there is no documentary evidence for these.
2 For George Sulivan’s return to Mozambique Island to condemn the Portuguese Schooner bearing enslaved children, see Daphne’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9582. George Sulivan to Leopold Heath, 11 Oct. 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40, for a number of details including the governor of Mozambique saying that the ‘free’ children ‘belonged’ to the Indian merchant and especially for his thinking about taking the schooner to the Cape of Good Hope, and Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 231–2. For physical details of the town, see William Devereux, A Cruise in the Gorgon (London: Bell and Daldy, 1869), 62.
3 On the failure of Churchill’s initiative to divest Kutchees of their slaves and Kirk’s requirement to publish news otherwise in August 1869, see John Kirk to Sec. Government, Bombay, 16 Aug. 1869, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1870 [C.141] Class B, East coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters, 54. Word that the British community at Zanzibar understood that the Omani slavers who battled the Nymphe’s crew walked free comes from H.A. Fraser, William Tozer and James Christie, The East African Slave Trade, and the Measures Proposed for its Extinction: As Viewed by Residents in Zanzibar (London: Harrison, 1871), 53. Dr Christie writes that the identities of the slavers in question were common knowledge in the town.
4 Details of the crossing to Mauritius come from Dryad’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9913. Examples showing Colomb’s strong sense of his own coolness, dispassionateness, lack of sentimentality are many in his memoir, but see for good examples, Slave-catching, 265, 270, 279–82. See these pages and 271, 274, 277, too, for the experience of having the Africans on board the Dryad. In the same source on p. 280 Colomb states that he did not need to draw on sentimentality to take the right action in fighting the slave trade. For Colomb’s acknowledgement of and rejection of sentimental views of Royal Navy sailors, see P.H. Colomb, ‘The Evolution of the Blue Jacket’. For another example of ‘mother-henning’, this one from the Nymphe before Meara took command, see Letters of Bishop Tozer and His Sister, 169. For the arrival at
Mauritius and Colomb’s sense that it was ‘European’ and thus to his prejudiced mind ‘civilised’, see Slave-catching, 346–50.
5 For British outrage at French and Portuguese hypocrisy, see Nwulia, Britain and Slavery, 33–4. Details come from Deryck Scarr, Slaving and Slavery in the Indian Ocean (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998), 68–74 and elsewhere, and his History of Seychelles since 1770 (London: Hurst, 1999), ch. 3. See also Richard B. Allen, ‘Maroonage and its Legacy in Mauritius and in the Colonial Plantation World’, Outre-mers 89 (2002), 131–52; and his Slaves, Freedmen and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 136–51 and elsewhere; and for details including the fact that indentured servants to Mauritius were members of a slave caste, see his ‘Slaves, Convicts, Abolitionism and the Global Origins of the Post-Emancipation Indentured Labor System’, Slavery & Abolition 35 (2014), 328–48. See also Clare Anderson, ‘Convicts and Coolies: Rethinking Indentured Labour in the Nineteenth Century’, Slavery & Abolition 30 (2009), 93–109. For details including the rate of indentured labourers’ successful court cases on Mauritius in the 1860s, see Alessandro Stanziani, ‘Debt Labour and Bondage: English Servants Versus Indentured Servants in Mauritius, from the Late Eighteenth Century to Early Twentieth Century’, in Gwyn Campbell and Alessandro Stanziani, eds., Bonded Labour and Debt in the Indian Ocean World (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 75–86. For other details including the protests against ‘apprenticeship’, see Moses D.E. Nwulia, ‘The “Apprenticeship” System in Mauritius: Its Character and Its Impact on Race Relations in the Immediate Post-Emancipation Period, 1839–1879’, African Studies Review 21 (April 1978), 89–101. On the welcome reception of the deposited refugees on Seychelles, see Mahé merchants’ petition of 24 November 1869 to Leopold Heath in National Archives, East India Slave Trade Records, 1869, ADM 127/40. On the welcome reception African refugees received in Mauritius, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1871 [C.340] Class B, East Coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters, 8.