'Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf. Vol I. Historical. Part II. J G Lorimer. 1915' [‎2489] (1006/1262)

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slaves on board a British private vessel lying in a foreign harbour was
not justifiable without the intervention of the authorities of the country
to which the port belonged, that failure to bring the slaves to be
adjudicated on within the jurisdiction of the adjudicating court was a
serious error, and finally that a slave did not absolutely obtain his freedom
by having been on board a British private ship, and that, if such a slave
returned to the country of his master, where slavery was recognised, the
British Government could not properly insist upon his being liberated
or held to be free. No clear decision was reached as to the jurisdiction
of the Masqat court in the case; but the Law Officers apparently inclined
to the view that, under the then recent Slave Trade (East African
Courts) Act of 1879, the jurisdiction of the Masqat Consul need not
be called in question.
In May 1887, a British armed naval camp having been formed near
Ras Madrakah on the South-Eastern Coast of 'Oman in support of anti-
slaving operations, an African slave was received there as a fugitive by
the Commander of H.M.S. "Osprey, ^ carried to Masqat, and
finally liberated. The Government of India ruled, with reference
to this case, that the grant of protection to a fugitive slave at such a
camp, without the cognisance of the Sultan of ''Oman or of the British
political authorities, was irregular.
In May 1896 Lieutenant Beville, Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. at Masqat, having
received information that a Sur vessel carrying slaves was in the
vicinity of Masqat, and there being at the time no British vessel of war
upon the station, put to sea in a boat and captured her himself with 28
slaves on board ; the dealers and crew were handed over to the Sultan
of 'Oman, by whom they were punished, and the slaves were variously
disposed of. The opinion of the legal authorities on this case was that
the seizure was irregular, inasmuch as it had been made neither by an
officer commanding a vessel of the British Navy and so empowered under
treaty to take action, nor by an officer otherwise specially empowered
In 1897, a question having been asked in the House of Commons
regardino- the surrender of slaves to their owners by British officers at
Masqat and elsewhere, the existing practice in the Gulf was investigated
under the orders of the Government of India. The result showed that
slaves imported into Trucial 'Oman or Bahrain after 1847^ or into the
; Oman Sultanate after 1873 were treated as entitled to their freedom
and were granted manumission certificates by the British authorities,
but that those imported at earlier dates, or subsequently born in slavery
in the countries mentioned, were returned to their masters ; at Masqat,
however, slaves imported before 1873 were occasionally liberated, when
it was shown that they had been badly treated, or when no mastei
appeared within a reasonable time to claim them ] and both in Bahiain
and at Masqat, in returning a runaway slave to his owner, the latter
was required to sign an agreemen t binding himself to treat the slave
* It seems doubtful however, as recently pointed out by Major Cox, the Political
Resident in the Gulf, whether British officials are rea ly entitled, conformably with
treaties, to insist on the liberation of slaves imported into either of these regions
before the Enga-ement of 1866 ; vide text of that Engagement and of the Agreement
of 1847.
Has Madra
kah caee,
1887.
Case of a
seizure by
the Political
Agent at
Masqat,
1896.
General prac
tice as to the
manumission
of slaves by
the British
political au
thorities in
the Persian
Gulf, 1897-
99.