[Letters on the suppression of the slave trade in Zanzibar].Zanzibar and other places, 1838-1937.
From the hands of sultans: letters from the Sultanate of Zanzibar during the suppression of the slave trade, penned by the likes of Sultan of Muscat and Oman, Said bin Sultan, and his successors in Zanzibar. These successors include Bargash bin Said (ca. 1837-88), Khalifa I bin Said (ca. 1852-90), Ali bin Said (ca. 1854-93), Hamad bin Thuwaini (ca. 1857-96), and Khalifa II bin Harub (1879-1960), alongside letters by Sulaiman bin Hamad, close advisor to Said bin Sultan, and by the Sultan of Anjouan. The correspondence is rounded out by English letters from the Zanzibar observers and administrators of the British Empire.
Dated 1838 CE, the letter from the Lion of Oman is a note in the Sultan's own hand. Translated in English below the Arabic, the translator notes that the above was "signed by his Highness" and "the above written by His Highness." The Sultan was assuring his correspondent at the US consulate that a sea captain of the "U.S. Sloop of war" who desires to visit him is welcome anytime.
In the latter half of the 19th century, the discourse turns to the suppression of the slave trade and to the correspondence required in running a sultanate, which increasingly ran hand-in-hand. A British observer and personal friend of Said bin Sultan, Atkins Hamerton, dashed off a hurried note informing the powers at be of potential slave ships to be intercepted at Aden. Another from 1864 declares "Since the recent order of His Highness [i.e., Sultan Majid bin Said (ca. 1834-70)] prohibiting the transport of slaves during the monsoon the aspect of Zanzibar has become quite altered; slave vessels which formerly passed daily under the windows of my house are now never seen, the slave market is almost empty".
The Arabic correspondence includes a business agreement between the Imam of Muscat and George Graham of Liverpool, possibly to do with a mining project, and much of the daily business of sultans: Bargash bin Said orders the protection of a harried subject, Ali bin Said orders dues paid by the Witu Company, Khalifa bin Said orders Governor Abdullah bin Hamad to sort out a difficulty with a debtor, and Hamad bin Thuwaini tells the same governor that he will have to wait for his requested boats.
A unique archive which spans the business of sultans, enslaved persons, British colonial officials, and Arab administrators, tracing the final days of the slave trade on the shores of East Africa and Arabia.