‘File 5/65 I Question of disposal of emancipated slaves and proposal to check traffic between Muscat, Oman ports and Zanzibar’ [‎13v] (37/200)

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the IGth February last, that slaves liberated in Turkish Arabia A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. should
be sent to British East Africa.
lam to transmit to you a copy of a despatch on the subject from
Air. Ilardinge in which he enumerates various ways in which the
sla\es in question might be employed, and I am to request that, in
O 111 ^ /k before lEer Majesty s Secretary ot State for India in Council,
you will state that Lord Salisbury concurs generally in the remarks
therein contained.
I am, however, to observe that those liberated slaves who express a
desire to leave Arabia will have to choose to which part of British East
Afiiea 01 of the Zanzibar dominions they desire to be sent, and which
kind of life they wish to follow.
It should at the same time be pointed out to them that they will be
subject to the same contract laws as free labourers, and that, should
t iey^ at any time refuse to maintain themselves, it may have to be
considered whether they should not be sent back to the place whence
they were brought.
The Under Secretary of State
for India,
I am, &c.,
F iiancis B ertie.
Enclosure in No. 3.
Mr. A. H. Ilardinge to the Marquis of Salisbury.
, r ^ so - ' (s 3. Zanzibar.
My Lord, 24th April 1897.
I have communicated to Sir Lloyd Mathews the contents of
^ oui Loidship s Despatch No. 46, oi the 22nd of February last, as I knew
that the Zanzibar Government were desirous of procuring labour for
their plantations; and he has now informed me that he would be
prepared to find employment in the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba for
any emancipated slaves whom the Indian Government may be willing
to send here, in moderate numbers, from Turkish Arabia A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. .' If fifty or
so were sent here at a time, and provided they were able-bodied and
\\illiii^ to work, Sir Lloyd would give them holdings on the Government
estates at Duiiga (Zanzibar) and Eas Tundawa (Pemba).
In return for their holdings, which would be as much as they could
cultivate, they would be expected to give eight hours' labour gratis for
three and one half days in the week on the estate, and for the remaining
three and one half days they would be permitted to cultivate their
holdings entirely for their own benefit, or if they worked for Government
to receive the regular wage of a free labourer according to the market
rate. They would also receive at the commencement of each clove
season a suit of clothes each, representing about ten days' wages, and
regular rations during the picking of the clove crop, and at the feast at
the end of llamadan (the Eed el Futr) a gratuity equivalent to a week's
pay each. Extra pay would also be given for extra piece-work This
arrangement, which Sir Lloyd Mathews finds after some failures is
beginning to answer fairly well, though it can hardly, from the landlords
view, be pronounced a complete success on his own private estate at
Ivoani, and is about to be introduced into the Government plantations
is being imitated by the Sultan, who has ordered the other landowners
since the publication of the Decree of the 6th instant, to endeavour to
carry it out as far as is practicable throughout the islands, and it is
probably as favourable to the interests of the agricultural labourer as
any system in vogue elsewhere.
I I these emancipated slaves were averse to an agricultural life, and
preierred to earn money, supposing them to have the abilities requisite