"ملف ٥/ ١٩٣ II (ب ٣٨) الرق في الخليج" [ظ‎‎١‎٤] (٤٧٥/٣٣)

2
Khan is said to be the person chiefly engaged in the traffic, but the Persian
Government have hitherto been unable, or unready, to take effective action
against him.
(c) Owing to drought resulting in the failure of the date gardens, and a
consequent incapacity to support its population, interior Oman has of late years been
disposing of its slaves to the Trucial Coast and to the Batinah.
Is there 'positive Proof that fresh Slaves are still being imported into Arabia, and
what Measures of Control are being, or can be, taken to impede such
Traffic f
In July 1928 information was received that a dhow was carrying slaves from
Bunji to the Oman coast, but His Majesty's navy did not succeed in intercepting it
In December 1928 the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf informed the senior
naval officer of the Persian Gulf that a slave dhow and slaves had been seized at
Debai. H.M.S. “ Lupin " proceeded to Debai, where, acting in con junction with the
political agent at Shargah and with the approval of the Political Resident,
the three local sheikhs, Said of Debai and Sheikhs Juma and Haskir,
were invited aboard H.M.S. “Lupin," and their responsibility for assisting
His Majesty’s Government to suppress the slave trade was impressed upon them.
Subsequently, the dhow was burned. At the time of capture it carried ten slaves, but
six of them, with the owner of the dhow, escaped into the interior.
On the 12th July, 1928, the senior naval officer, interpreter, assuming the role of
a well-to-do Arab stranger, asked the master of a dhow where he could buy a
concubine. From subsequent conversation it emerged that a certain Birkhat Khan,
referred to above, exported slaves from the Mekran, shipping them one or two at a
time to the Arab coast, and that he always had a few available. The nakhoda (dhow
master) offered to arrange all the details of the transaction.
When at Shargah, in July 1929, the senior naval officer was stopped by a
Baluchi woman, who complained of the kidnapping of her three boy children, and
later on the same day he saw at the house of the residency agent three Baluchi men
who had been kidnapped on the Mekran coast and had been liberated by the residency
agent. These men were subsequently repatriated to Bandar Abbas.
From the evidence accumulated during his visits, the senior naval officer was
convinced that slave trading from the Mekran coast existed, that there was some
traffic from Africa and some kidnapping in the Arab villages of free-born Baluchis.
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Measures of Control.
As shown above, Persian Baluchistan and the Mekran coast are the principal
sources of supply of slaves imported into the north-east parts of Arabia. The
Persian Majlis recently abolished slavery throughout Persia by ordinance, but in
the districts in question the Shah's writ does not run, and the ordinance is
disregarded with impunity. The tribal chiefs in these districts obtain their supplies
of slaves partly by kidnapping, partly by accepting the children of their debtors in
part payment of their debts, and partly by working on the credulity of the Baluchis,
whose intellectual standard is extremely low, telling them that they can go as
“free men” to Arabia, where they will earn high wages. The slaves from the
Mekran coast are landed chiefly in the territory of the Sultan of Muscat or in the v
territories of the Trucial sheikhs. Both His Highness and the sheikhs are bound by
anti-slavery treaties, but they, themselves, all own slaves, and a violent death would
probably be the result of an attempt on their part to enforce on their subjects and
dependents their anti-slavery engagements. The residency agent at Shargah, Khan
Bahadur Isa Latif, O.B.E., does manage to secure the release of a few slaves, perhaps
a dozen, each year, but any really active interference on his part would most likely
result in his being murdered. As it is, he carries his life in his hands, and it is
certain that no British officer could live on the Trucial Coast without strong military
support.
In considering measures of control it should be remembered that, owing to the
strict watch kept by His Majesty's navy, the trade is no longer carried on as it used
to be with big dhows bringing large numbers of slaves from Africa, but is confined to
small dhows which carry from time to time, among other passengers, two or three
persons who, while actually slaves, may or may not realise their condition, or who
realising it, may possibly not admit it for fear of punishment should they, as migB
easily happen, be enslaved again. A few slaves may be brought in the large dh<?ws