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'Précis on slave trade in the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, 1873-1905 (With a Retrospect into previous history from 1852) By J A Saldanha BA, LL B' [‎10] (18/126)

The record is made up of 1 volume (63 folios). It was created in 23 Jun 1906. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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10
appreDticeship in some older firm, he starts a shop of his own, with goods advanced on
credit by some larger house, and after a few years, when he has made a little money,
generally returns home to marry, to make fresh business connections, and then comes back
to Africa to repeat on a larger scale the same process.
With rare exceptions all these Indian traders are birds of passage. The houses they
belong to may be of old standing, and we met a few old men who had been in Africa all
their lives ; but they were exceptions. The Hindus never bring their wives or families
to Africa. The Bff^ras and Khojahs do frequently, but even they seem to have as little idea
of settling, or adopting the country for iheir own, as a young Englishman in Hong-Kong.
Of all these races it may be observed that they have been less affected than the upper
classes of Indians in general by Furopean education in India. All are so devoted to trade
that the boy goes into the counting-house as soon as he can read and write ; and, in the
case of the Khojahs, I am assured that the pontifical authority of Agha Khan has been
actively exerted to prevent any of his followers from attending an English school.
In Zanzibar itself the relation between the European or American House and the
" Banian Merchant of Indian extraction. " very much resembles that with which we are familiar in India. The European
merchant buys and sells with the aid and advice of a " Banian Merchant of Indian extraction. " who sometimes stands to
the foreign firm in a relation more like that of a partner than a mere broker Often a local commercial agent in the Gulf who regularly performed duties of intelligence gathering and political representation. , agent, or
go-between.
Away from Zanzibar the " Banian Merchant of Indian extraction. " or " Hindu " is more of a retail dealer, bartering
his import wares for country produce, which he sells wholesale at Zanzibar to the exporter.
In the outports and country marts he does little wholesale business, except by making
advances of import goods to adventurers going up the country, on engagements to be re-paid
by returns of up-country produce.
The Banians generally keep to the ports or within a short journey of the coast or
navigable parts of large rivers. 1 he trade with the far interior is almost exclusively in the
hands of Arab, or Arab half-castes, and Swahili or Coastmen, who push as rapidly as they
can across the first 2oo miles from the Coast, halting little by the way. Livingstone tells of
their having penetrated far beyond his furthest into Casembe's country ; he had found them
years before on the Upper Zambezi, and the Governor-General of Mozambique told me that
when he was at Koanda two or three years ago, two Zanzibar Arabs from Kilwa appeared in
Angola, about the same time that some natives sent from Loanda reached Ibo, on the east
coast, taking two years to go and return.
I may remark in passing that the stock in trade which we usually found in the Banians'
shops was as frequently of German or American as of English origin. The cotton fabrics
were English, American, or German, with smaller quantities of Indian or French. The best
hardware was English but much inferior in make, was of continental manufacture, coarse
crockery of German, brass and copper-ware of American make, beads, English and German
{ enetian ?) ; guns, old, of English make, new of German or French, some as low as io^. or
12^. each in retail price,
_ J 0 *" 1 ex l e f;f trade carried on by Indians.-^i the total extent of the trade which
passes throagh Indian hands, it would be difficult to form any reliable estimate. Dr. Kirk
* Vide Administration Report for 1870. shows* that the Zanzibar Customs House returns
, u i. . j t 1 ^ a ver y fallacious guide, nor will Indian or
English returns be a better index; for the German and American, the French, Arabian,
Persian, and Malagash trade, which comes direct, as well as the English and Indian trade,
passes through the same hands. '
Dr Kirk was. however good enough to show me the details of transactions of a single
Indian house whose affairs had been the subject of judicial investigation in his court. The
books showed a capital of about ^434,000 invested in loans and mortgages in East
Africa. Of this about ^60,000 had been advanced in various ways to the Sultan and his
family, a rather larger sum to Arabs in the interior of Africa, a somewhat smaller amount to
A. abs in Zanzibar and on the Coast, but the total of advances and loans to Arabs and
natives of Zanzibar, all slave-owners, and most of them slave-dealers, was little less than
£200,000. I his sum had been lent and advanced in various ways by loans, advances and
mortgages on every kind of property, real and personal, and on various kinds of Lcuritv
by advances of goods for trade, etc. Loans and advances to Europeans and Americans
were set down at about ^140,000 and those to Indians in Africa at about ^100,000.
i ,.'^ iese w e re African assets, and did not include stock in trade or the ram'fal fi,
aaas""-—-
SNSsTisaia-jisu'si

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Content

This volume is a summary of events, treaties and correspondence about the suppression of slavery and the slave trade in the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , curated by Jerome Anthony Saldanha, and printed in Simla in June 1906.

The volume is marked as secret and divided into chapters:

  • Measures for the suppression of slavery and slave trade in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , up to 1873 (ff 5-7);
  • Measures against traffic in slaves by Natives of India (ff 8-16);General measures taken for the suppression of Slave Trade from 1874 to 1905 (ff 16v-22);
  • Anti-Slave Trade Operations (ff 22v-30);
  • Runaway slaves at Gwadur (ff 31-34);
  • Trade in Baluchi slaves from Mekran to the Arab coast (ff 34-35);
  • Reception of fugitive slaves on board Her Majesty's ships of war and other British vessels (ff 35v-38);
  • Grant of protection to fugitive slaves on the Coast (ff 39-40);
  • Some questions of practice of courts (ff 41-45);
  • Miscellaneous questions and facts (ff 45v-48.

In Appendix, Reports on Slave Trade in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , 1852-1859 (folios 59-61).

Extent and format
1 volume (63 folios)
Physical characteristics

Foliation: the foliation sequence commences at the front cover, and terminates at the inside back cover; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. The volume also contains an original printed pagination sequence.

Written in
English in Latin script
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'Précis on slave trade in the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, 1873-1905 (With a Retrospect into previous history from 1852) By J A Saldanha BA, LL B' [‎10] (18/126), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/20/C246, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100023517342.0x000014> [accessed 29 March 2024]

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