Imperial Powers and Humanitarian Interventions: The Zanzibar Sultanate, Britain, and France in the Indian Ocean, 1862–1905 9780367339739, 9780367770792, 9780429323232

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of figures
List of maps
List of tables
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
A note on translations
Introduction: Zanzibar or the dramatic encounterof imperialism and humanitarianism
PART I: The right of visit, the French flag, and the repression of the slave trade in Zanzibar
1. The repression of the slave trade: An impossible mission?
2. The French flag in the Indian Ocean: Myth or reality?
3. Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade: International law or imperial politics?
PART II: Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar: A troublesome relationship
4. A British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar: Sovereignty and imperial interference
5. The Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty: Humanitarian or imperial diplomacy?
6. The 1889 Zanzibar blockade: An international humanitarian intervention or an apogee of imperialism?
PART III: Zanzibar’s contribution to international law and humanitarian operations
7. The 1890 Brussels Conference: An apogee of imperial or humanitarian politic?
8. The Hague international arbitration: The end of an old controversy?
9. Anti-slave trade policies and the ‘Cause of Humanity’ or the shaping of a new humanitarian intervention theory in international law
Conclusion: abolitionism and humanitarianintervention; ‘ugly business behind great words’?
Select bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Imperial Powers and Humanitarian Interventions

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Zanzibar Sultanate became the focal point of European imperial and humanitarian policies, most notably Britain, France, and Germany. This book challenges the common presumption that those humanitarian concerns only served to conceal vile colonial interests. Bringing the repression of the East African slave trade at sea and the expansion of empires into a new light by comparing French and British archives for the first time, this work highlights how shifting and paradoxical the interactions of humanitarianism and imperialism were between 1862 and 1905 in the Sultanate. Looking at the impact of Zanzibar’s anti-slavery policies on international relations and international law, this book finally demonstrates that the emergence of the ‘humanitarian intervention theory’ in the second half of the nineteenth century was related to abolitionism and laid crucial legal foundations for the future defence of human rights throughout the twentieth century. Raphaël Cheriau is PhD in History and associate member of University College Dublin Centre for War Studies as well as the Paris-Sorbonne Roland Mousnier Centre.

Empires in Perspective Series Editor: Jayeeta Sharma, University of Toronto

This important series examines a diverse range of imperial histories from the early modern period to the twentieth century. Drawing on works of political, social, economic and cultural history, the history of science and political theory, the series encourages methodological pluralism and does not impose any particular conception of historical scholarship. While focused on particular aspects of empire, works published also seek to address wider questions on the study of imperial history. Outskirts of Empire Studies in British Power Projection John Fisher Liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia Edited by Gareth Knapman, Anthony Milner, and Mary Quilty The First World War, Anticolonialism, and Imperial Authority in British India, 1914–1924 Sharmishtha Roy Chowdhury Colonialism, China, and the Chinese: Amidst Empires Edited by Matthew P Fitzpatrick and Peter Monteath The Making of Modern Physics in Colonial India Somaditya Banerjee The Discourse of British and German Colonialism Convergence and Competition Edited by Felicity Rash and Geraldine Horan Imperial Powers and Humanitarian Interventions The Zanzibar Sultanate, Britain, and France in the Indian Ocean, 1862–1905 Raphaël Cheriau For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/Empires-in-Perspective/book-series/EMPIRES

Imperial Powers and Humanitarian Interventions The Zanzibar Sultanate, Britain, and France in the Indian Ocean, 1862–1905 Raphaël Cheriau

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Raphaël Cheriau The right of Raphaël Cheriau to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-33973-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-77079-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-32323-2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

For my wife Marianne as well as our sons Noam and Adam. To my friends of the Brenthouse years, Menderes and Amarjit. In memory of my parents Danielle Obled and Paul Cheriau.

Contents

List of figures List of maps List of tables Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations A note on translations Introduction: Zanzibar or the dramatic encounter of imperialism and humanitarianism

ix x xi xii xiv xv

1

PART I

The right of visit, the French flag, and the repression of the slave trade in Zanzibar

21

1 The repression of the slave trade: An impossible mission?

23

2 The French flag in the Indian Ocean: Myth or reality?

46

3 Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade: International law or imperial politics?

77

PART II

Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar: A troublesome relationship 4 A British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar: Sovereignty and imperial interference

99 101

viii  Contents 5 The Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty: Humanitarian or imperial diplomacy?

118

6 The 1889 Zanzibar blockade: An international humanitarian intervention or an apogee of imperialism?

134

PART III

Zanzibar’s contribution to international law and humanitarian operations

151

7 The 1890 Brussels Conference: An apogee of imperial or humanitarian politic?

153

8 The Hague international arbitration: The end of an old controversy?

173

9 Anti-slave trade policies and the ‘Cause of Humanity’ or the shaping of a new humanitarian intervention theory in international law

193

Conclusion: abolitionism and humanitarian intervention; ‘ugly business behind great words’?

217

Select bibliography Index

227 246

Figures

1.1 Vessels used in the Zanzibar slave trade (The Illustrated London News, 1 March, 1873, 208). With permission of the Mary Evans Library 1.2 Rescued East African slaves taken aboard H.M.S. Daphne from a dhow, November 1868. With permission of the British National Archives (BNA, FO 84/1310; January–June 1869; 193) 1.3 A pinnace rescues a wrecked dhow full of slaves (The Illustrated London News, 27 February 1869, 216). With permission of the Mary Evans Library 1.4 ‘Capture of a slave Dhow by the boats of H.M.S. Lyra on the west coast of Madagascar’ (The Illustrated London News, 5 January 1867, 13). With permission of the Mary Evans Library 3.1 Honoré Daumier, ‘Les philanthropes du jour’ (Le Charivari, 6 December 1844). Coll. Collectivité Territoriale de Martinique – Archives – 15FI 140. Used by permission of the Collectivité Territoriale de Martinique 3.2 A photograph of children ‘rescued’ from the slave trade by G. L. Sulivan. With permission of the British National Archives (BNA, FO 84, 1310, January–June 1869, 191)

29

30 37

39

85

89

Maps

1.1 Slave caravans and slave hunters (from R. W. Beachey, The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa: A Collection of Documents, London: Rex Collings, 1976, 133) 1.2 East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean (from R. W. Beachey, The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa: A Collection of Documents, London: Rex Collings, 1976, 133)

25

33

Tables

1.1 Slave captures in the Indian Ocean according to the reports sent by Royal Navy officers to the British Treasury and published in the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers 2.1 Number of dhows under French colours which visited Zanzibar harbour between 1851 and 1903 according to the Zanzibar French Consular Archives (MAE, CADN, 748 POA 132) 2.2 Estimated number of dhows sailing from Zanzibar in the nineteenth century according to J. L. Miège and the British Consul General in Zanzibar in 1893 2.3 Number of dhows registered in 1897 in Zanzibar according to the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau for the repression of the slave trade 2.4 Estimate of cases of slave trade under the French flag according to French and British consular authorities in Zanzibar, 1858–1903 2.5 Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean 4.1 Number of cases adjudicated by the Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar, 1867–1884 7.1 The Zanzibar dhow trade in 1899 according to the archives of the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau 7.2 The dhow trade in Zanzibar in 1912 according to the archives of the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau

28

50 51 51 56

58 109 166 167

Acknowledgements

First of all I would like to thank William Mulligan and Olivier Grenouilleau for guiding me not only through my PhD thesis between 2013 and 2017 but also while I was writing this book. Without their steadfast and continuous support throughout all these years, this book would never have been written and published. Above all, I thank them for giving me enough confidence in my abilities to engage academic research and writing. I most value the fact that they always suggested me to take my own path when looking at the history of anti-slavery, imperialism, and humanitarian intervention. As a result, mistakes and errors which could be found in this book are of course mine, and mine alone. I would like as well to express my sincere gratitude to Claire Laux, Géraldine Vaughan, Seymour Drescher, David Richardson, Robert Gerwarth, and Jacques Frémeaux for taking part in the defence of my PhD thesis in 2017. Their remarks and comments have all been decisive for the development of this book. I am also grateful to Sue Peabody, Geoff Hall, Christian Mueller, and Jiang Jie for encouraging me to take part in conferences while I was in the very first stage of the writing process. I should also thank University College Dublin Centre for War Studies as well as Paris Sorbonne Université Roland Mousnier Centre for kindly accepting me as an associate member. In addition, I would like to thank Cyrille Aillet, not only for his great friendship, but also as for his enlightened expertise on the history of Oman and Ibadism. Last but not least, I would like to thank the editors of Routledge, Jennifer Morrow, Dana Moss, Tanushree Baijal, Robert Langham, and Max Novick for supporting this project and making publication possible. My thanks also goes to Jayeeta Sharma series editor of Empires in Perspective and, finally, to Nancy Rebecca for her wonderful editing job on the manuscript. As I am writing these words, I also have a thought for all the librarians I have met in this long journey across the archives of the Quai d’Orsay at Nantes and La Courneuve, the Service Historique de la Marine in Lorient, the National Archives in Kew, the British Library in London, or Rhodes House in Oxford. Their patience and kind advices have allowed me to find

Acknowledgements xiii my way out of the vast maze of archival resources they are passionately taking care of. I owe as well an enormous debt to all the historians, past and present, who dedicated their lives to the study of Zanzibar, East Africa, the Indian Ocean, slavery, abolitionism, imperialism, and humanitarianism. Without their works I would never have been able to conduct my own research and write this book. My small contribution stands on the giant shoulders of their writings. Of course, it is needless to say that without the love of my family and friends, particularly my wife, Marianne, and my sons, Noam and Adam, I would never have completed this odyssey which led me through Dublin, London, Oxford, Paris, Nantes, Lorient, and Shanghai …

Abbreviations

ANOM Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix en Provence. IOR Indian Office Records, British Library, London. MAE CADC Ministère des Affaires étrangère, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de La Courneuve. MAE CADN Ministère des Affaires étrangère, Centres des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes. RHO Rhodes House, Bodleian Library, Oxford. SHML Service Historique de la Marine de Lorient. TNA The National Archives, (former Public Record Office PRO), Kew, London.

A note on translations

All translations from French to English were done by the author.

Introduction Zanzibar or the dramatic encounter of imperialism and humanitarianism

The history of Zanzibar in the nineteenth century has attracted the interest of many historians, as the island was one of the places in the world where two major historical forces – humanitarianism and imperialism – converged most dramatically. Although the case of Zanzibar has, of course, its specificities, it is a most relevant entry into the study of these two elements that decisively shaped the world in the nineteenth century. As John Darwin highlighted nearly 15 years ago in his seminal article revisiting Robinson and Gallagher’s grand theory on the Scramble for Africa, ‘Of the various theatres of British intervention in Africa after 1880, it is East Africa which has usually been seen as the locus classicus of imperial grand strategy, and the uncluttered playground of the official mind’.1 Building on Darwin’s idea that ‘the volcanic force of anti-slavery ideology swept ministers and officials willy-nilly into new commitments: in West Africa, Brazil and the Atlantic’, J. F. Gjersø more recently argued as follows: ‘Britain’s anti-slave-trade policy needs to be fully acknowledged, with regard to Britain’s raison d’être for establishing a formal presence’ in East Africa between 1885 and 1895.2 The spectacular encounter of imperialism and humanitarianism that took place in East Africa, and Zanzibar in particular, can be best illustrated by the legendary meeting of Henry Morton Stanley with Dr. David Livingstone near Ujiji on 10 November 1871. 3 It was thought that the great Dr. Livingstone was lost, or even worse, that he had died in the ‘Heart of Darkness’ as popular culture in Europe or the United States then caricatured Africa to the point that Joseph Conrad chose it as the title of his famous novel published in 1899.4 The famous missionary had vanished at some point in the year 1866 in the Manyema country, on the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika. This region was not only allegedly famous for its ‘cannibalism’ – Una-Ma-Nyema meant ‘cannibals’ according to Victorian explorers – but it also had a reputation for being a great haven for ‘Arab slave traders’. Owing to this combination of popular stereotypes, Livingstone’s disappearance was a great opportunity for the printing industry. The public worldwide was eager to read the story of the ‘good old Doctor Livingstone’ who had disappeared while ‘crusading’ against the slave trade in ‘the dark heart’ of Africa. Livingstone was an icon of the

2  Introduction Victorian age. He embodied England’s moral values and the belief that Europe had the duty to spread commerce, civilisation, and Christianity as he had himself famously declared at Cambridge in 1857. Above all, Livingstone was the most famous humanitarian of his time, and his books, conferences, or letters made him one of the most popular figures of his age, as his 1874 national funeral at Westminster Abbey attested. 5 As a missionary, Livingstone had crucially contributed to binding abolitionism with the imperial ‘civilising mission’.6 Further, it is through him that the British public interest in the anti-slavery movement was revived and directed towards the East African slave trade.7 If well told, the story of Livingstone’s disappearance would therefore have a tremendous impact on public opinion and eventually yield great profits, either economic for the press or political for government leaders. It was not a complex story to write as Livingstone had himself paved the way for his own myth in declaring: ‘if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slaving should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of the Nile’.8 He was on his last voyage and thus had publicly pledged to solve the two grand causes of his age: finding the Nile sources and ending the slave trade. In 1871, Livingstone had shown no sign of life for 5 years. Rumours of his death had even reached Europe on several occasions. However, the prestigious Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and the British government had failed to rescue him. The public was outraged, and the popular press was keen to underline the fiasco of the ruling elite. Therefore, when Henry Morton Stanley finally ‘found’ Livingstone, it quickly made headlines worldwide.9 In contrast with the British establishment, Stanley was an outcast and a complete outsider. Unlike Livingstone, he was not a missionary or a geographer. He was no saint either. He was more of an adventurer, a sort of nineteenth-century ‘conquistador’. As Joseph Conrad put it in Heart of Darkness, Stanley was one of those ‘hunters for gold or pursuers of fame’.10 He had been sent to Africa by the American tycoon James Gordon Bennett – the owner of the New York Herald Tribune – to find the old Doctor dead or alive. Bennett wanted Stanley to find Livingstone to boost the fame and sales of his newspaper. Bennett wanted the story to hit the globe. In early November 1871, Stanley found Livingstone and told his encounter with style: ‘Dr. Livingstone I presume?’ These famous words were printed a billion times around the world, and Stanley quickly became a household name. His encounter with Livingstone was then integrated in the pantheon of Western popular culture.11 Stanley was the very incarnation of this new wave of imperialism, which brutally swept across Africa between the 1880s and the First World War. Conversely, Livingstone symbolized the old abolitionist movement and its ‘noble crusade for humanity’.12 Put together, these two characters became a cornerstone of popular imperialism.13 Stanley and Livingstone’s iconic encounter was a historical moment. After their glorious meeting, it became

Introduction 3 increasingly difficult to dissociate imperialism from humanitarianism. Through the Scramble for Africa, prominent political leaders in Europe – Leopold II the Belgian Monarch, the German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, the French statesman Jules Ferry, and the British Prime Minister Marquess Salisbury – increasingly associated the abolitionist discourse with the necessity of colonial expansion before public opinion and international law.14 Today, most historians, such as Jacques Frémeaux, Françoise Vergès, Henri Médard, Claire Laux, or Jean François Klein, underline that ‘repression of slavery was, in Africa, a major argument in favour of [colonial] conquest’.15 Indeed, ‘abolitionism contributed to a discourse of freedom which colonialists and imperialists sought to appropriate’ as Robin Blackburn emphasized.16 Stanley can be said to have opened a new chapter of European penetration into Africa. He did not solve a geographical mystery, or end the slave trade or spread Christianity. He was there to stimulate and capture the imagination of his contemporaries, make them rave about the wonders – one among them being Livingstone – hidden in the ‘heart of darkness’. Stanley heralded an age where European societies would be told that they had to conquer Africa if they wanted to get their share of the riches this new ‘El Dorado’. It was now the age of empires, and Stanley embodied the spirit of his ‘New Imperialism’ as historians labelled it.17 In rescuing Livingstone, Stanley not only captured the European public opinion but also stimulated European leaders’ appetite for imperial expansion, King Leopold II especially. The King of Belgium was dreaming of an empire, and after hearing of Stanley’s discoveries, he decided that he should build one in the heart of Africa. By the 1885 Berlin Conference, King Leopold II succeeded in making the Congo Free State, his private property, officially acknowledged by the international community partly in the name of ‘civilisation’ and anti-­slavery.18 Therefore, Leopold’s Congo illustrates particularly well how the abolitionists’ discourse, promoted earlier by Livingstone, had been opportunistically seized by imperialist leaders and integrated into the so-called European ‘civilising mission’ to find a convenient humanitarian justification to colonial expansion in Africa.19 Looking at the history of Zanzibar in the second half of the nineteenth century, this book intends to draw new perspectives on the interactions that bonded humanitarianism and imperialism together. It neither gives praise nor is an indictment of imperialism through the study of humanitarianism. In pointing out the paradoxes and failures of humanitarianism, it does not aim to castigate imperialism either. Indeed, as James Mc Douglas stressed, ‘the history of empire is not about pride – or guilt’.20 Following Marc Bloch’s words, this book wishes to point that ‘for [a too] long time the historian was seen as a judge of Hell in charge of dispensing … a praise or a blame’. 21 This work, therefore, tries to portray humanitarianism and imperialism in stressing all the historical consequences of their relationship. As Serge Gruzinski rightly noted for the Americas in the sixteenth century,

4  Introduction ‘the history of the colonial conquest … cannot be reduced to a destructive clash between good Indians and bad Europeans’ – or vice-versa. 22 This is the case with the history of empires in nineteenth century Africa; although this certainly does not mean that the ‘foundational role of violence in the process of empire building’ and its ‘astonishing brutality’ should ever be undermined. 23

Zanzibar and the history of humanitarian intervention in the nineteenth century This book intends to bring a new light on the interactions of humanitarianism and imperialism in linking them to the study of humanitarian interventions in Zanzibar between 1862 and 1905. Taking the path opened by Gary J. Bass, Brendan Simms, D. J. B. Trim, Michael Barnett, Davide Rodogno, Fabian Klose, Bronwen Everill, Josiah Kaplan, and many others, this work will contribute to historicise further the concept of humanitarian intervention in the history of international relations.24 Indeed, the history of humanitarian interventions has only become a new branch of contemporary historiography in the past 20 years, whereas it had been previously ‘treated as a subject without history’. 25 This history reflects the recurrent debates in international relations around humanitarian intervention, the right or the duty to intervene, and the Responsibility To Protect (R2P) since the end of the Cold War; particularly after the genocides in Rwanda (1994) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995) as well as Western interventions in Kosovo (1999) or Libya (2011). 26 In this context, humanitarian principles happened to be a source of polemic since they have served as a justification for war or contributed to label some military interventions as ‘just wars’.27 The expression of ‘humanitarian imperialism’ has thus become highly popular among scholars in the first decade of the twenty-first century to describe humanitarian interventions in the 1990s and early 2000s.28 Looking at the operation Restore Hope led in Somalia in 1992, journalist Aidan Hartley commented as follows: ‘I saw it [the humanitarian intervention] as a new civilising mission, similar to the imperialism of my British forebears’. 29 Like Hartley, most academics, and the public in general, now look at humanitarian interventions with great suspicion. A growing number of people see it as a convenient veil for brutal power politics.30 Notably, these debates probably have a certain kind of influence over the mind of historians looking at humanitarian interventions in the past. This is why this book intends to draw new historical perspectives over these controversies. Thanks to the historians who dedicated their research to the history of humanitarian interventions, we can now acknowledge that humanitarian interventions were also a central aspect of the nineteenth century, as it appeared with the case of Greece in 1827, Syria in 1860–1861, Bulgaria in 1876, Cuba in 1898, or the Philippines in 1899.31 In 1910, Antoine Rougier, a French law professor, defined ‘l’intervention d’humanité’ (humanitarian

Introduction 5 intervention) as ‘the theory according to which the acts … of a government …, when contrary to the laws of humanity, give rise, for one or more foreign states, to a right to intervene’.32 Following Rougier and his contemporaries, we should stress that all the legal debates surrounding humanitarian intervention in the nineteenth century, including anti-slavery operations as such, show that it truly was an age where humanitarian questions mattered. However, if humanitarian interventions and the right to intervene were then discussed by lawyers and legal experts, it does not mean that these concepts had the same meaning that we give them today. Therefore, it is crucial to historicise these concepts to be able to understand their complexity, both in past and present, without falling into the trap of anachronism.33 This is an aspect that this book wishes to contribute to examining human rights, imperialism, and sovereignty in the nineteenth century following the path opened by Martti Koskenniemi or Antony Anghie.34 Examining the history of Zanzibar in the second half of the nineteenth century is a good occasion to step into a rich chapter of humanitarian history. Indeed, humanitarian intervention can also be studied through the use of imperial force, which Britain mobilised around this island during the second half of the nineteenth century when her government decided to put an end to the Indian Ocean slave trade. As a result, imperialism and humanitarianism were repeatedly confronted in Zanzibar waters. This book will emphasize how important this struggle against the slave trade was, not only for Britain, France, and Zanzibar during the Scramble but also for the structure of international relations throughout the late nineteenth century and the future foundations of international law in the twentieth century.35 Studying anti-slavery operations in Zanzibar will help the reader to understand the nature of the ideological, political, legal, and economic questions raised by the actions of the Royal Navy and its officers. These questions were relevant not only in the sphere of Zanzibar, Oman, France, and Britain but also to world politics. Looking at the ideology and the practice of anti-slavery and following the recent publications of Fae Dussart, Amalia Ribi Forclaz, Olivier Grenouilleau, Matthew S. Hopper, Richard Huzzey, Alan Lester, William Mulligan, Maeve Ryan, or Padraic X. Scanlan, this book will shed a new perspective on the process that led to the implementation of humanitarian action in international relations.36 Examining Zanzibar between the 1862 Anglo-French declaration on Zanzibar’s Independence and the 1905 Hague Arbitration on the Muscat Dhow Case will eventually allow us to understand the exact circumstances in which anti-slavery led to military or diplomatic interventions and the consequences it had on global politics. Beyond the spectacular encounter of humanitarianism and imperialism, Zanzibar represents a major historical field regarding many other important issues. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Western powers had there several economic, strategic, scientific, or religious interests.37 First, the island represented approximately 80% of the world’s production

6  Introduction in ivory, gum copal, and cloves.38 Second, the Oman Sultanate and its Zanzibar counterpart were strategically attractive. To Britain, they were a key to the control of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, maritime areas that Her Majesty needed to secure India.39 To France, they also represented an important tactical advantage as French colonies were established in La Réunion, Mayotte, and Nossi-Bé. Further, France was competing with Britain to maintain influence in this part of the world.40 Above all, Zanzibar was not only a major gateway for all European geographical or scientific explorations in Africa, such as the famous quest for the Nile sources led by Speeke, Burton, and Livingstone shows, but also the place where all missionary, humanitarian, or imperial activities started. Inextricably entangled in all these elements, the Indian Ocean slave trade was prominent and captured the attention of contemporaries and historians alike. When Sultan Seyyid Saïd developed clove plantations in the 1840s, both on the island and the coast, the slave trade then surged on a tremendous scale.41 In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Zanzibar Sultanate became the greatest slave market in East Africa and the Indian Ocean, if not of the whole world. Approximately 15,000–25,000 slaves were entering the island each year in the 1860s, most of them ‘to supply the needs’ of the plantations either on the island or the continent.42 It is now estimated that ‘the number of East Africans in the Indian Ocean slave trade reached … 1,618,000 in the nineteenth century … (about half of that number were sent overseas, with the other half retained on the East African coast)’.43 As the Atlantic slave trade faded in the wake of the American Civil War (1861–1865), the island quickly raised the interests of European abolitionists, among which Livingstone was pre-eminent. Historians, essentially, followed their path.

Zanzibar at the crossroad of the historiography of abolitionism and imperialism Owing to all these characteristics, Zanzibar became a focus of historical research. It allowed scholars to participate in the broader debate on the nature of imperialism and humanitarianism as well as the factors that led to the Scramble for Africa.44 In the 1960s, influential colonial historians like J. D. Fage or Henri Brunswick presented British imperialism in East Africa as a positive expression of the British abolitionist movement, whereas decolonisation and criticism of the Empire reached their climax.45 According to their argument, colonisation was not as ‘dark’ as most people then thought it to be. It supposedly had some ‘good’ humanitarian roots. In his preface of Reginald Coupland’s British Anti-Slavery Movement, Fage highlighted that: ‘David Livingstone draws her [Britain] into Central Africa. This imperialism is a good imperialism … At the heart of this humanitarian imperialism lay the movement for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery’.46 This historiographical defence of imperial expansion is now completely outdated. However, this book will argue that the

Introduction 7 expression of ‘humanitarian imperialism’ is surprisingly relevant to analyse the nature of the European anti-slave trade operations that took place around Zanzibar waters in the late nineteenth century, possibly an image of the broader role played by abolition in colonial expansion. Following Alan Lester and Fae Dussart, this book will ‘contend that colonisation was humanitarian in some sense, not in order to commend colonisation, but rather in … a constructive critique of humanitarianism and its relationship with colonialism’.47 In fact, during the nineteenth century, the concept and meaning of colonisation – as well as imperialism or empire – underwent a significant revolution because of the abolition movement. It was progressively but finally disconnected entirely from its association with the slave trade and slavery – a relationship dating from the sixteenth century with the development of the American and West-Indian colonies.48 As Roland Marx puts it, ‘humanitarian conceptions changed the meaning of colonial enterprise’.49 This was demonstrated by Amalia Ribi Forclaz in her study of the Italian and British anti-slavery movements and their contribution to colonial expansion as well as a colonial rule between 1880 and 1940, a historical phenomenon that the author herself coined as ‘humanitarian imperialism’.50 Borrowing her words, we should define it as ‘the complex dynamic between humanitarian and imperial concerns’, which was later transformed into ‘the welfare of colonial subjects’.51 In the 1960s, however, when decolonisation was at its heights, historians looked at the relationship between slavery, abolition, imperialism, and colonisation differently compared to classic colonial historians like Coupland or Fage. In this context, the critics of the empire emerged as a new historiographical movement known as ‘Third-Worldism’ – a trend out of which later emerged Postcolonial studies in the 1990s.52 As a result, colonisation became a synonym for the worst form of human oppression; slavery was even used by some as a metaphor to describe the living conditions endured by most people under colonial rule. For those who opposed colonisation, such as Aimé Césaire or Franz Fanon in France, colonisation meant nothing but slavery.53 In the history of abolition too, things had changed. The traditional and rather ‘hagiographical’ historiography of the anti-slavery movement, whose roots laid in the nineteenth century celebration of Britain’s noble role in international relations – what Fage called humanitarian imperialism – was also challenged.54 These views were breached by Eric Williams, a historian and the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, in his seminal book, Capitalism and Slavery. For the first time, the candour and sincerity of British anti-slavery policy were put to trial. Crucially, Williams did not take humanitarian statements at face value; he saw them as code, as justification for capitalistic exploitation. 55 In the 1970s, historians such as Suzanne Miers or Moses D. E. Nwulia, following William’s footsteps, were also more than sceptical about the sincerity of the humanitarian motives when looking at British anti-slavery in East Africa. They both argued that Britain’s struggle against slavery was

8  Introduction a mask to justify imperial expansion. 56 Thanks to these historians, the literature, therefore, had completely shifted from the old idealistic views of abolition, imperialism, and colonisation. In this context, Marxist historians of the school of Dar es Salam, such as Abdul Sheriff, rewrote the history of Zanzibar in the 1980s. They saw colonisation as a by-product of Europe’s imperialist capitalism, and, in their views, imperialism inevitably led to the exploitation of both men and resources on the African continent, a historical fact explaining contemporary underdevelopment and poverty. Consequently, Sheriff also denounced British humanitarianism as a mask for imperialism. Abolition of the slave trade according to him ‘provided a convenient path for the penetration of British influence and power into East Africa under a humanitarian guise, and was a prelude to British supremacy at Zanzibar’.57 Paul E. Lovejoy – another major historian related to the Dar es Salam school – while demonstrating that only the spread of capitalism really led to the extinction of slavery, argued as well that ‘the conquest of Africa and the extension of European economic domination proceeded together under the banner of anti-slavery’.58 It has now become a common place among historians to point out the ‘humanitarian guise of the anti-slavery crusade under cover of which the British’ had led their imperial conquest’.59 In 2007, prefacing a book on the Foreign Office and anti-slavery policies, David Miliband, then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, even stated that ‘humanitarian intervention in Africa, aimed initially at suppressing the trade at source, would likewise serve eventually as a mask for imperial expansion’.60 We can see here that the imperialist component of British humanitarianism has become a part of Britain’s official narrative. The debate over the nature of imperialism and its relationship with humanitarianism – or humanitarian intervention – is today as fierce as ever. While some, such as Seymour Drescher, argue that ‘nineteenth century British expansion after abolition had little to do with its policy toward the slave trade or slavery’, others, like Jeremy Prestholdt, insist on the ‘crucial role played by abolitionist ideology in colonial conquest’.61 Most recently Padraic X. Scanlan even argued that ‘Britain profited from slavery for 200 years and then used the abolition of slavery to justify nearly two more centuries of imperial violence and colonial rule’.62 The debate is well summarized by Olivier Grenouilleau in one his latest book on abolitionist revolution: ‘two legends are … opposed. A golden one, making abolitionism the modern version of the most disinterested philanthropy. And another, a black one, turning the abolitionist movement into a bunch of hypocrites who were nothing but harbingers of colonisation’.63 Like Grenouilleau, many historians wish to go beyond this Manichean opposition. They want to elaborate further on these issues. They do not want to condemn, justify, or celebrate imperialism in looking at abolitionism and vice versa. As Richard Huzzey points out: ‘the triumph of certain anti-slavery views within government leaves unanswered whether anti-slavery commitment

Introduction 9 was organic or merely a vein of sentiment that wily imperialists or politicians could tap for their own ends’.64 In short, a part of the historiography is today inclined to portray the abolitionist movement with all its nuances, complexities, and paradoxes, sometimes leaving questions unanswered. Borrowing Mary Dewhurst Lewis’ words, this work argues that the history of abolitionism certainly has everything to gain in ‘finally putting to rest the Manichean categories through which … imperialism and colonialism are often understood’.65 Following this trend, this book intends to go beyond the celebration or the condemnation of humanitarianism or imperialism. Although they formed an inseparable couple throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, they did not necessarily have the same goals or interests. This relationship never ceased to evolve in following the multiple interactions provided by the various combinations of the many different historical contexts and actors it went through. Adopting Edgar Morin’s ‘complex thinking’, this book argues that such historical phenomena have, like diamonds, more than a thousand facets. Their beautiful complexity should, therefore, not be reduced to simplistic or Manichean oppositions.66 Is it, in fact, possible to build any good understanding of such an important chapter of human history through only one single interpretation, implicitly denying all others any seeds of truth? Morin’s approach fits adequately into what Olivier Grenouilleau defines as a global and ‘comprehensive history’, a method that this book intends to follow. It is global because the historian demonstrates ‘a will to think an [historical] object in its entirety … in trying to combine and connect various geographical scales’.67 It is comprehensive as it follows Max Weber’s vow ‘to understand how men of the past perceived the world as well as the meaning they wanted to give to their actions’ although Joseph Conrad argued that ‘it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence – that which makes its truth, its meaning – its subtle and penetrating essence’.68 An ironic statement perhaps for a writer who managed to convey so vividly ‘the life sensation’ of his era as Heart of Darkness clearly attests.

Humanitarianism and imperialism as concepts: a methodological approach Before going any further, the two concepts of imperialism and humanitarianism require considering briefly their excessively contentious meanings if we are to consider fully the complexity of their rather spectacular encounter and the unexpected impacts it had on the course of the nineteenth century, whether in Africa or the rest of the world. In 1902, J. A. Hobson noted in the preface of his seminal study that ‘modern imperialism’ was ‘a term which is on everybody’s lips and which is used to denote the most powerful movement in the current politics of the Western world’.69 Ironically, one could think that not much has changed since Hobson’s times. As a word

10  Introduction and a historical phenomenon, imperialism has, indeed, remained the source of an immense – and most controversial – historiography, even 30 years after the end of the Cold War.70 The term had long built its sulphurous meaning. Even when Lenin published Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1917, the term had already been for several decades at the heart of the fiercest academic and political controversies. However, Lenin decisively left his mark on the term and the debate. Owing to the most brutal dimensions of colonisation, imperialism easily fitted into Lenin’s argument. In Marxist rhetoric imperialism thus became synonymous with the greatest form of capitalist exploitation or oppression. Subsequently, it became such a polemical word that Keith Hancock, one of the most important historians of the British Empire in the 1940s, famously proclaimed that imperialism ‘is no word for scholars’.71 However, this book argues that the word imperialism should not be banned from historical research as it can be understood considerably well on a purely scientific perspective as ‘the rule or control, political or economic, direct or indirect, of one state, nation or people over similar groups, or perhaps one might better say the disposition, urge or striving to establish such rule or control, it is as old as recorded history’.72 The notion of humanitarianism, unfortunately in appearance only, seems less troublesome than its illustrious counterpart. The word gradually grew popular throughout the Victorian Age but did not generate at first as many disputes. Davide Rodogno points out that ‘the humanitarian spirit’ referred to ‘Christian charity and encompassed ideas of secular benevolence (bienfaisance) and philanthropy’.73 It described a supposedly sincere, good, honest, and benevolent ‘concern for human welfare’ even if it was sometimes mocked as naïve, hypocritical, or just fashionable.74 Mostly, it nonetheless remained a positive synonym for both philanthropy and charity.75 This seemed to be in complete opposition to imperialism, which was often taken by its opponents as a synonym of the worst form of violence and oppression, as noted earlier. In fact, during the second half of the nineteenth century, the term was often used to qualify anti-slavery in Britain or other philanthropic movements that led to the creation of the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions or initiated the abolition of the death penalty.76 Somehow, the term implied the idea that it contributed, unlike imperialism as some then believed, ‘to the progress of humanity’. However, imperialism and humanitarianism were contemporaries, and their paths inevitably crossed, much like those of Stanley and Livingstone. Their encounter consequently made historical analysis difficult because of all the political controversies it generated.77 The idea that ‘the attempt to hide ugly business behind … great humanitarian principles is a classic manoeuver of the Western World’ quickly became a common assumption among academics and non-academics alike.78 Humanitarianism, it was then – and still is now – argued, was nothing but a cynical mask behind which Western powers concealed their most brutal form of imperialism. In a way, there is

Introduction 11 certainly a part of truth in this common belief, and it is, therefore, necessary to inquire if humanitarianism, overpowered by imperialism, had not turned good intentions towards humanity into an unstoppable monstrosity, much like Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s novel.79 Following this metaphor, we could wonder if the righteous doctor Livingstone, so genuinely concerned with human welfare, had not himself – in dangerously blending humanitarianism with imperialism – gave birth to an uncontrollable beast responsible for the most horrible colonial crimes, quite like Leopold in the Congo.80 This book intends to question this rather well-established stereotype in arguing that such complex historical forces – humanitarianism and imperialism – cannot just be reduced to the dual struggle of good over evil and vice versa. Both evolved through time and space, and so did their relationship. Even within the confined theatre of East Africa between 1860 and 1900, they underwent a perpetual and paradoxical metamorphosis, a true mirror of their age in a sense. This book will argue that humanitarianism was not always used to conceal or forward vile imperialists’ interests even though it was truly the case on several important occasions such as during the 1888 Zanzibar blockade or the 1890 Brussels Conference. Borrowing Stephen Platt’s words on the Taiping Civil War in China (1851–1864), this work argues that ‘the events of this period [in our case Zanzibar between 1862 and 1905] are a reminder of just how fine the line is that separates humanitarian interventions and imperialism’.81 Finally, as humanitarianism and imperialism truly are global historical phenomena, this book will examine them from a world perspective.82 This means that events unravelling in Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean cannot be fully understood if they are not viewed from a global standpoint. However, this seems to be a natural approach as this archipelago was connected through its trade, politics, culture, and people to Europe, North America, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent.83 Further, at the beginning of the 1890s, Zanzibar also laid at the crossroad of three major world empires: the British, the German, and the French, not to mention, of course, the Omanese Indian Ocean thalassocracy.

A comparative history of anti-slavery in Zanzibar through British and French archives For the first time, this book will compare and confront French and British diplomatic sources in studying the British Royal Navy anti-slave trade naval operations in Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean. This research is primarily based upon the reading of the great bulk of archives related to the slave trade contained in The House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) and the Records of the Slave Trade Department (RSTD), along with the French ‘Correspondance Politique Consulaire’ of Zanzibar kept at La Courneuve (CADC), and the ‘Série des Correspondances Politiques des Consuls et les Mémoires et Documents’ in Nantes (CADN). The rich

12  Introduction corpus of both British and French diplomatic archives was also complemented by a selection of influential printed books on both sides of the Channel. The analysis of all these sources should contribute a fresh look into the legal debates surrounding the slave trade, the right to visit, and humanitarian intervention. Above all, the confrontation of British and French sources should appear particularly fruitful in breaking up strong bias or stereotypes that these archives have often passed on to respective national historiographies. In the French archives, for instance, a majority of French Consuls posted to Zanzibar were convinced that British authorities were using anti-slavery operations at sea to hide their secret plan of colonisation in East Africa. This suspicion has long remained a distinctive part of the French historiography on the matter. Reading the British archives will show that no original plot was hidden behind anti-slavery in the Indian Ocean, even if, ultimately, some political leaders would manipulate the humanitarian discourse to justify colonial expansion. Conversely, British archives tend to stress the key role played by the French flag on the continuation of the Indian slave trade throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, a point still popular in today’s historiography. In examining the French archives, we should see that even if dhows flying the tricolour played a substantial role in the traffic, they were not as central as British consuls or navy officers argued. Moreover, the actions of French colonial authorities, both in Paris and in Zanzibar, were far from being supportive of this nefarious traffic. Last but not least, due to linguistic and research funding limitations, this book has not drawn on documents in Arabic, available in archives in Zanzibar or Oman. Nonetheless, the extensive Arabic documentation translated in British and French archives should partly compensate for this absence. Consequently, this research, even if it is mainly based on European archives, will carefully try to avoid the Eurocentric approach and attempt to write what some French historians, such as Serge Gruzinski or Romain Bertrand, have called ‘a symmetrical history’.84

Nine chapters to explore anti-slavery and imperialism between 1862 and 1905 in Zanzibar and beyond This book is divided into three parts and nine chapters. It highlights the complex evolutions that anti-slavery, humanitarianism, and colonial expansion underwent in the Zanzibar Sultanate between 1862 and 1905. It argues that, although the relationship between abolitionism and imperialism took many and different forms throughout that period, their interactions can be best summarized as a permanent power struggle between abolitionists, public opinion, men on the spot, on the one hand, and government officials as well as political leaders on the other. Chapter One will show how difficult the struggle against the slave trade in the Indian Ocean was for navy officers. It will, above all, underline that British sailors and

Introduction 13 navy officers did not have the proper resources, whether financial, legal, or cultural, to complete ‘the great mission’ they had been assigned by their government. Consequently, they had to not only risk their lives in the struggle against the slave trade on the eastern shore of Africa but also attract the attention of humanitarians, public opinion, and political leaders in London to get enough or decent ships as well as appropriate legal procedures to be able to stop the traffic. Chapter Two will continue to confront the British anti-slavery official discourse with the reality of the Indian Ocean slave trade in looking at the French flag and its alleged role in the traffic there. This chapter outlines that anti-slavery operations at sea were more hindered by international law and imperial policies than by dhows flying the French flag. This will lead us to Chapter Three to examine how the right to visit, used by Her Majesty’s ship to fight the slave trade, influenced Anglo-French relations, international law, and colonial policies in the nineteenth century. This chapter will also look into the outcome of the right to visit and examine the poor ‘freedom’ that British ‘liberated slaves’, and other former slaves recruited as indentured labourers by French traders, ‘enjoyed’ in the Indian Ocean. In examining the doings of the British ViceAdmiralty Court set up in Zanzibar in 1869, Chapter Four will continue to look into the relationship of abolitionism and imperialism through the legal and financial aspects of anti-slavery. If abolitionism did not necessarily conceal cunning imperialistic moves, this chapter will demonstrate that anti-slavery could occasionally be used by men on the spot to forward British colonial domination. Chapter Five investigates further the relationship of humanitarianism and imperialism in looking at the case of the 1873 Bartle Frere Mission designed to abolish the slave trade within Zanzibar’s African dominions. It demonstrates that important anti-slavery interventions, such as the diplomatic mission led by Frere, were often forced upon reluctant governments by abolitionists and colonial officials who had managed to win public opinion and Parliament. Chapter Six continues this analysis in studying the 1888–1889 Zanzibar blockade. It shows that whereas political leaders had been forced into action in 1873, they now used the abolitionists’ discourse to justify the legality and the morality of imperial interventions before public opinion and international law. In Chapter Seven, we will continue to observe how anti-slavery merged, at a global level, with imperial politics during the 1890 Brussels Conference. If the force of the abolitionist movement, now revived by the struggle against the Indian Ocean slave trade, was seized by imperialist leaders to justify colonial expansion, this also opened new political opportunities in international relations for the humanitarian movement. Again, the power struggle between humanitarians and imperialists had unforeseen and paradoxical consequences. Following the aftermath of the conference, Chapter Eight will focus on the question of the sovereignty of states and the legitimacy of humanitarian and imperial interferences in international law. This chapter mainly analyses the impact the 1905 Hague International Arbitration

14  Introduction on Muscat dhows flying the French flag had over international relations. It argued that the arbitration was the conclusion of all the imperial disputes that had brought Britain and France into a fierce naval confrontation around Zanzibar’s waters in the context of the abolition of the slave trade and the Scramble for Africa. However, it will be stressed that this arbitration was not merely another trivial episode of the Anglo-French imperial rivalry but a cornerstone in the history of international relations and international law. Concluding this book, Chapter Nine will finally examine in depth the concepts of ‘intervention in the name of humanity’, ‘humanity’, as well as ‘crime against humanity’ in connecting the history of Zanzibar anti-slavery operations to the wider history of humanitarian intervention and international law. Looking at the political and judicial debates surrounding these concepts, this final chapter will demonstrate that the anti-slavery movement decisively attempted – although partly failing and succeeding – to place the rights of men, as it was then termed, before the sovereignty of states in both international relations and international law. Borrowing Seymour Drescher’s concept on abolition, this book, therefore, argued that this was ‘a mighty experiment’ for the world. Anti-slavery eventually left an inspiring and decisive historical experience for future generations of lawyers aiming at the protection of human rights in international law as the works of Hersch Lauterpacht prove it.85 In short, this book employs the study of the major anti-slavery operations in Zanzibar between 1862 and 1905 to demonstrate the importance of humanitarianism’s relationship with imperialism in shaping European colonial expansion in Africa and as well as the influence of abolitionism over international law. It is hoped that this will contribute to underline the influential role that Indian Ocean anti-slavery policies played in the history of international relations.

Notes 1 John Darwin, “Imperialism and the Victorians: The Dynamics of Territorial Expansion”, The English Historical Review, vol. 112, no. 447 (Jun., 1997), 634. 2 Darwin, “Imperialism and the Victorians”, 622–623; Jonas Fossli Gjersø, “The Scramble for East Africa: British Motives Reconsidered, 1884–95”, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 43, no.5, (2015): 831. 3 Tim Jeal, “David Livingstone: A brief Biographical Account”, in David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, ed. John M. MacKenzie, (London: National Portrait Gallery Publication, 1996), 11–78. 4 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (New York: Norton and Company, 1988), ix-xi. 5 Kevin Grant, A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884–1926 (London: Routledge, 2005), 26. 6 Andrew Porter, “Commerce and Christianity: The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth-­Century Missionary Slogan”, The Historical Journal, vol. 28, no. 3 (1985): 617.

Introduction 15 7 HCPP, 1871 (420), xiv; HCPP 1870 (C.209), 2–3. Andrew Porter, Religion versus Empire: British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansions 1700–1914 (Manchester, 2004), 12; John M. MacKenzie, Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester, 1986), 2; James Heartfield, The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1838–1956: A History (London, C. Hurst & Co, 2017), 223-224. 8 Birmingham Daily Post, 27 July 1872. Also published in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 28 July 1872; Daily News 27 July 1872; Belfast News-Letter, 27 July 1872; Examiner, 27 Jul, 1872; Manchester Guardian, 27 July 1872; Pall Mall Gazette, 27 July 1872; The Times, July 27 1872, 5. 9 New York Herald Tribune, 2 July, 1872; The Times, 22 July 1872, 6e; Le Temps, 21 Juillet 1872, 2; The Illustrated London News, 10 August 1872, vol lxi, 137; L’illustration, 10 août 1872, vol. lx, 84–85. Henry Morton Stanley, How I found Livingstone (London: Low and Searle, 1872). Stanley’s account was translated into many European languages and hereafter reprinted countlessly. 10 Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 8. 11 Anne Hugon, L’Afrique des explorateurs (Paris: Gallimard, 1991). 12 Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (London: Abacus) 1991. 13 John M. Mackenzie, Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), 2–3. 14 See for instance the article 6 of the 1885 Berlin Conference General Act or Jules Ferry’s most famous speech on colonisation, Journal officiel, séance du 28 juillet 1885. 15 Jacques Frémeaux, Les empires coloniaux Une histoire monde (Paris: Cnrs, 2012), 201 ; Françoise Vergès, Abolir l’esclavage : une utopie coloniale : Les ambiguïtés d’une politique humanitaire (Paris, Albin Michel, 2014) 59  ; Henri Médard, ‘‘Introduction’ in Traites et esclaves en Afrique orientale’’ in Traites et Esclavages en Afrique orientale et dans l’océan Indien, ed. Henri Médard et al. (Paris: Karthala, 2013), 16  ; Claire Laux et Jean-François Klein, Les Sociétés Coloniales de 1850 à 1950, Asie, Afrique, Antilles (Paris: Ellipse, 2012), 9. 16 Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible. Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights (London: Verso, 2013), 457. 17 M.E. Chamberlain, The New Imperialism, (London: Historical Association, 1970); Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 12. 18 Martin Ewans, European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath (New York: Routledge Curzon, 2002), 47–110. 19 Grant, Civilsed Savagery, 20–21; Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: the Republican Idea of Empire in France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 11–23. 20 James McDougall, “The history of empire isn’t about pride – or guilt”, The Guardian, Thursday 4 January 2018. 21 Marc Bloch, ‘‘Apologie pour l’histoire ou Métier d’Historien’’, in L’Histoire, La Guerre La Résistance (Paris: Gallimard, 2006), 948. 22 Serge Gruzinski, La Pensée Métisse (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 2012), 43. 23 Philip Dwyer, Amanda Nettelbeck, Violence Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 2, 5. 24 Mark Swatek-Evenstein, A History of Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020); Fabian Klose, The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Bronwen Everill and Josiah Kaplan, The History and Practice of Humanitarian Intervention

16  Introduction and Aid in Africa (Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Davide Rodogno, Against Massacre : Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012); Brendan Simms and D.J.B. Trim, Humanitarian Intervention: A History (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011); Michael N. Barnett, Empire of Humanity : a History of Humanitarianism (New York, Cornell University Press, 2011); Gary J. Bass, Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2008). 25 Simms and Trim, “Towards a history of humanitarian intervention”, in Humanitarian Intervention: a History, 1. 26 The “duty or right of humanitarian interference also known as “humanitarian intervention” [droit d’ingérence] is an expression coined by the French Doctors (Médecins Sans Frontières) during the Biafran War in Nigeria (1967–1970). Philippe Moreau Defarges, Droits d’Ingérence dans le Monde Post-2001 (Paris: Les Presses de Sciences Po, 2006), 9–16; Mario Bettati, Le Droit d’Ingérence (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1996), 12. 27 Rony Brauman and Régis Meyran, Guerres Humanitaires? Mensonges et Intox (Paris : éditions textuel, 2018), Ch.1, Kindle. 28 Jean Bricmont, Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2006); Noam Chomsky “Humanitarian Imperialism: The New Doctrine of Imperial Right” Monthly Review, Vol. 60, No. 4 (September 2008): 22–50. 29 Haidan Harltey The Zanzibar Chest: A Memoire of Love and War (London: Harper Collins, 2003) Ch.5, Kindle. 30 Brauman and Meyran, Guerres humanitaires?, Préface, Kindle  ; Aidan Hehir, Humanitarian Intervention : an introduction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 1–5. 31 Bass, Freedom’s Battle, 137–151, 155–157, 256–266. Rodogno, Against Massacre, 1–17. 32 Antoine Rougier, La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité (Paris: A. Pedone, 1910), 5. 33 Marc Bloch, “Apologie pour l’Histoire ou le Métier d’Historien’’, 868–73. He denounces what he calls the ‘idols of the origins’. Daniel Marc Segesser “Humanitarian intervention and the issue of state sovereignty in the discourse of legal experts between the 1830s and the First Word War” in The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention, 57: ‘following a tradition that aims to historicize law more than has been done so far’. 34 Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: the Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 98–166; Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 32–100. 35 Jonas Fossli Gjersø, “The Scramble for East Africa”, 831–860. 36 Olivier Grenouilleau, La Révolution Abolitionniste (Paris: Gallimard, 2017); Padraic X. Scanlan, Freedom’s Debtors: British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017); Maeve, Ryan, “A moral millstone’?: British humanitarian governance and the policy of liberated African apprenticeship, 1808–1848”, Slavery & Abolition, vol. 37, no. 2 (2016): 399–422; Robert Burroughs and Richard Huzzey, The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade : British Policies, Practices and Representations of Naval Coercion (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015); Amalia Ribi Forclaz, Humanitarian Imperialism: The Politics of Anti-Slavery Activism, 1880–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Alan Lester and Fae Dussart, Colonisation and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance : Protecting Aborigines across the Nineteenth-Century

Introduction 17 British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); William Mulligan and Maurice Bric, A Global History of Anti-Slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning : Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). 37 Jeremy Jones and Nicholas Ridout, Oman, Culture and Diplomacy, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 4. 38 J.M. Gray, “Zanzibar and the Coastal Belt, 1840–1884” in History of East Africa, ed. Vincent Harlow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 219. 39 Robert J. Blyth, “Redrawing the Boundary between India and Britain: The Succession Crisis at Zanzibar, 1870–1873”, The International History Review, vol. 22, no.4 (Dec 2000), 787. 40 Guillemette Crouzet, Genèses du Moyen-Orient : Le Golfe Persique à l’Age des Impérialismes vers 1800-vers 1914 (Paris : Champ Vallon, 2015). 41 Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, ‘‘La colonisation Arabe à Zanzibar’’, in Le Livre Noir du Colonialisme, ed. Marc Ferro (Paris: Robert lafont, 2003), 603–622. 42 Frederick Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (London: Yale University Press, 1977), 115; Paul E Lovejoy, Transformation in Slavery: A history of slavery in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 150–151; Abdul Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar (London: Currey, 1987), 231. 43 Matthew S Hopper, “Slaves of one master: Globalization and the African Diaspora in Arabia in the Age of Empire” in Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition, ed. R Harms, B. K. Freamon, and D. W. Blight (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) 224–225; Richard B. Allen, European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500–1850 (Ohio University Press. 2014), 25. 44 Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar; M. R. Bhacker, Trade and Empire in Muscat and Zanzibar (London: Routledge, 1992); Derek R. Paterson, “Abolitionism and Political Thought in Britain and in East Africa” in Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition, 1–27; Matthew S. Hopper, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 142–181. 45 Henri Brunschwig, ‘‘L’impérialisme’’, in Histoire Générale de l’Afrique Noire, Tome 2, de 1800 à nos jours, ed. Hubert Deschamps (Paris: Presse Universitaire de France, 1977), 34. 46 J. D. Fage, “Preface” in Reginald Coupland, The British Anti-Slavery Movement (London: Frank Cass, 1964), xii. 47 Lester and Dussart, Colonization and the Origins if Humanitarian Governance, 3. 48 François Azalier, ‘‘De l’esclavagisme à l’abolitionnisme, Les Abolitions de l’Esclavage : de L.F. Sonthonax à V. Schoelcher, 1793, 1794, 1848’’, actes du colloque international tenu à l’Université de Paris VIII les 3, 4 et 5 février 1994 (Paris, 1995), 299 ; Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800 (London, Verso, 2010), 371–377; Grenouilleau, La Révolution Abolitionniste, ch.6, Kindle. 49 Roland Marx, Histoire de la Grande Bretagne (Paris : Armand Colin, 1996), 209. 50 Amalia Ribi Forclaz, Humanitarian imperialism. The Politics of Anti-Slavery Activism in the Interwar Years (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 1–13. 51 Forclaz, Humanitarian imperialism, 8–9. 52 Maxime Szczepanski-Huillery, ‘‘  «  L’idéologie tiers-mondiste ». Constructions et usages d’une catégorie intellectuelle en « crise »’’, Raisons politiques, no. 18 (2/2005): 27–48 ; Mark T. Berger, ‘‘After the Third World? History, Destiny and the Fate of Third Worldism’’ Third World Quarterly, vol. 25,

18  Introduction no. 1 (2004): 9–39; Emmanuelle Sibeud, ‘‘Post-Colonial et Colonial Studies: enjeux et débats’’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, no.51-4bis (2004): 87–95. 53 Frantz Fanon, Les Damnés de la Terre (Paris, Maspero, 1961), 11  ; Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le Colonialisme (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1955), 3. Aimé Césaire and Franz Fanon were major intellectual figures of the French West Indies. They inspired political as well as intellectual opposition to colonisation throughout the 1950s and the 1960s in the context of the colonial wars of independence in Indochina (Vietnam) and Algeria. 54 Seymour Drescher, “Eric Williams: British Capitalism and British Slavery”, History and Theory, vol. 26, no. 2 (May, 1987): 180–181; Olivier Grenouilleau, Les Traites Négrières (Paris: Gallimard, 2004), 287. 55 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (London: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 169–196. 56 Suzanne Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), xii; Moses D. E. Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1975), Preface. 57 Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, 210. 58 Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 279. 59 M. Rheda Bhacker, Trade and Empire in Muscat and Zanzibar Roots of British Domination (London: Routledge, 1992), 174. 60 David Miliband, “Foreword” in Diplomacy and Empire Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade 1807–1975, Keith Hamilton and Patrick Salmon ed. (Brighton: Sussex Academic, 2009), viii. 61 Seymour Dresher, “Emperors of the World, British Abolitionism and Imperialism” in Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa and the Atlantic, ed. Derek R. Peterson (Athens, Oh: Ohio University Press, 2010), 131–132. 62 Padraic X. Scanlan, Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain (London: Robinson, 2021) 21. 63 Grenouilleau, La Révolution Abolitionniste, Ch.6, Kindle. 64 Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 205. 65 Mary Dewhurst Lewis, Divided Rule: Sovereignty and Empire in French Tunisia, 1881–1938 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 7. 66 Edgar Morin, Introduction à la Pensée Complexe (Paris: Seuil, 2005), chap. 1, Kindle. The French philosopher describes ‘complex thinking’ as ‘a permanent tension’ for ‘non-fragmentary, non-segregated, non-reducing academic knowledge [savoir].’ 67 Olivier Grenouilleau, ‘‘Jalons pour une histoire globale de l’esclavage’’, Histoire Globale Un Autre Regard sur le Monde, dir. Laurent Testot (Paris: Sciences Humaines, 2008), 131. 68 Grenouilleau, ‘‘Jalons pour une histoire globale de l’esclavage’’, 138. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkley: University of California Press, 1978), 9–10; François-André Isambert, ‘‘L’interprétation, source de la compréhension chez Max Weber’’ in Enquête, 3, (199)  : http://enquete.revues.org/423, accessed May, 26, 2014. Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 30. 69 J. A. Hobson, Imperialism A Study (New York: James Pott& Co, 1902), p. v. 70 Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions Conversations with Noam Chomsky on the post 9/11 World (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005), 1–18. Recently, historians have started to explore the contribution of imperialism (colonial violence following colonial expansion) to the genesis of Nazism and the Shoah. A. Dirk Moses, Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence

Introduction 19 and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004); Sven Linquist, Exterminates all the Brutes (London: Granta, 1997), 46–69. 71 W. K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, Vol. 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1940) 1–2. 72 Chamberlain, “The New Imperialism”, 3. A quote from Professor Langer. 73 Rodogno, Against Massacre, 6. Philanthropy could also be a source of fierce political debate. See Hugh Cunningham, The reputation of philanthropy since 1750: Britain and beyond (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2020), 153–181. 74 The term humanitarian appeared both in French and English dictionaries in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It applied to people who were moved by human sufferings; most notably nurses and doctors. These men and women reacted to the horrors of war and inspired the 1864 Geneva Convetion. See Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, ‘‘Quelques éléments de défintion et beaucoup de controverses’’, Questions Internationales, Paris, La Documentation française, no. 56 (Juillet-août 2012): 10–11. 75 Fabian Klose and Mirjam Thulin “European Concepts and Practices of Humanity in Historical Perspective” in Humanity: A History of European Concepts in Practice from the Sixteenth Century to the Present, ed. F. Klose and M. Thulin (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 9–28. 76 Michael Barnett, Empire of Humanity A History of Humanitarianism (London, Cornell University Press, 2011), 49–94; Philippe Ryffman, Une Histoire de l’Humanitaire (Paris: La Découverte, 2016), 18–29. 77 Forclaz, Humanitarian Imperialism, 3. 78 Romain Gary, Les Racines du Ciel (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), 331 79 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (London: Penguin, 2008), 81: ‘I had begun life with benevolent intentions, and thirsted … [to] make myself useful to my fellow-beings’. Mairi S. Macdonald, “Lord Vivian’s tears” in The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention, 120–140. 80 Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (New York: Macmillan, 1998), 47–60; 115–184; Seamas O Siochain and Michael O’Sullivan, The eyes of another race: Roger Casement’s Congo report and 1903 diary (Dublin: University College Dublin, 2003), 1–44; Ewans, European Atrocity, 175–210. 81 Stephen Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (London: Atlantic Books, 2012), Preface, Kindle. 82 Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History Powers and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: University Press, 2011). Pierre Singaravélou et Sylvain Venayre, Histoire du Monde au XIXe siècle (Paris : Fayard, 2018). 83 Jeremy Prestholdt, “Zanzibar, the Indian Ocean, and Nineteenth-Century Global Interface” in Connectivity in Motion Islands Hubs in the Indian Ocean World, ed. B. Schnepel and E.A. Alpers (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 135–157. 84 Romain Bertrand, L’Histoire à parts Egales: Récits d’une Rencontre Orient-Occident, XVIe-XVIIe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 2011), 14–15 ; Serge Gruzynski, Les Quatre Parties du Monde : Histoire d’une Mondialisation (Paris: points, 2006). 85 Seymour Drescher, The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor versus Slavery in British Emancipation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 121–144.

Part I

The right of visit, the French flag, and the repression of the slave trade in Zanzibar

1

The repression of the slave trade An impossible mission?

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Royal Navy had, among many other imperial tasks, to complete a great humanitarian mission in the Western Indian Ocean. British sailing and steam vessels were engaged in the repression of the slave trade in this part of the world after having focused on the Atlantic in the first half of the century. This chapter will demonstrate how complex and difficult the task of the navy officers was. First of all, we will see that the Indian Ocean slave trade had nothing to do with what British sailors and officers had experienced before in the Atlantic. This proved to be a major obstacle to British repression because men on the spot lacked the knowledge which would have allowed them to tackle the traffic. Secondly, we will point that there was a great gap between the official political discourse in Britain and the means at the disposals of the men on the spot even though anti-slavery operations at sea made the pride of the British public opinion and government officials at home. The mission assigned to British navy officers could not be implemented because of the lack of resources dedicated to anti-slavery patrols in the Indian Ocean. The British government had given its navy a titanic task without providing the appropriate practical means. Finally, this chapter will demonstrate that far from being superior to native vessels engaged in the slave trade, the Royal Navy ships were, much like its officers, not adapted to patrols these seas whereas dhows fitted perfectly in their natural environment and could easily evade the control which a foreign imperial power tried to impose upon them.

1.1 Zanzibar dhows and the elusive Indian Ocean slave trade In the age of steam, speed, and empires, one might have thought that dhows were but the romantic remains of a bygone age. Dhow – or boutre in French – was a generic term used to describe more than 80 different types of sailing vessels in the Western Indian Ocean also known as the ‘dhows’ countries’.1 Since the 1500s, dhows characterized the navigation in the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea, East Africa, and the Persian Gulf as well as the Western shores of India. 2 These vessels, with their elegant and long thin hulls rigged with one or two lateen sails, were, and still are, iconic. They symbolize the

24  The slave trade in Zanzibar historical naval supremacy of Arabian societies – Oman and the Gulf States in particular – in this part of the world.3 On the coast of Zanzibar, dhows flying Oman’s red flag materialized the Sultanate maritime Empire over East Africa and its connection to the Persian Gulf.4 Part of the Sultan’s sovereignty resided in the more or less 600 dhows that made trading and political as well as cultural interactions possible between Oman and Zanzibar. 5 Although they had been dominating the Western Indian Ocean trade for at least three centuries, Swahili, Omani, Arabian, Persian, and Indian dhows were gradually challenged by European vessels – sails or steamers – and lost their pre-eminence throughout the Victorian age. In Britain, dhows became known to the general public in the context of the suppression of the Indian Ocean slave trade during the second half of the nineteenth century. This was accomplished thanks to popular narratives written by famous British explorers – such as David Livingstone – and wellknown Royal Navy officers – like Georges L. Sulivan or Philip Colomb. In the meantime, a larger readership was reached by the engravings published by The Illustrated London News in the 1870s and the 1880s.6 In Britain, dhows became ‘especially well known in connection with the slave trade on the east coast of Africa’ and, one should add, Zanzibar.7 In France however, dhows were more identified with the trade and traditions of the Indian Ocean as it clearly appears in the survey published by the naval officers Charles Guillain in 1856 or the work of the international lawyer Charles-Brunet Millon in 1910.8 Millon, for example, described dhow owners not as slavers but as the ‘old masters of the sea’.9 Whether seen as evil slavers or beautiful oriental sailing vessels, dhows were one of the many icons, which embodied a complex and fascinating Middle-East in Europe throughout the age of empires. To a certain extent, dhows were then a metaphor of European Orientalism.10 It was quite ironic that most of the western public associated the Indian Ocean slave trade with the words ‘Dhows’ or ‘Arabs’ since this nefarious traffic had been dominated by the Europeans in the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth century. It was for instance estimated by Richard B. Allen that more than half – nearly 60 per cent – of transoceanic slave exports from East Africa between 1801 and 1873 was carried out by European vessels, most notably French ones.11 Allen assesses that between 800,000 and 1 million people fell in the hands of European slave traders at the time while this traffic destroyed the lives of between 800,000 and over 3 million Africans in the nineteenth century as a whole.12 Paradoxically, the popular representation crafted at the height of the British Indian Ocean anti-slavery operations had somehow partly thrown these historical facts into oblivion. With the decline of the European slave trade, following British and French abolition of colonial slavery in 1833 and 1848, it is nevertheless undeniable that dhows quickly became the main purveyors of this ignominious traffic. Paul E. Lovejoy, referring to the works of Edmond B. Martin and T. C. I. Ryan, highlights that the East African slave trade to Arabia, Persia, and India amounted to 347,000 people between 1801 and 1896. On the East African coast alone, the figure rose to 769,000 (See Map 1.1).13 The vast

Repression of the slave trade 25

Map 1.1  Slave caravans and slave hunters (from R. W. Beachey, The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa: A Collection of Documents, London: Rex Collings, 1976, 133).

majority of these children, men, or women were, without doubt, carried by dhows and sold to work on plantations in East Africa – cloves – and Arabia – dates – as well as pearl divers in the Persian Gulf.14 Notwithstanding, as we will see in Chapter Two, these dhows were far from all flying the colours of Zanzibar, Oman, or the Gulf states. As colonisation progressed in East

26  The slave trade in Zanzibar Africa, more and more flew the French, the British, or the German flag. In a report addressed in 1880 to the French Consul of Zanzibar and the French Navy Minister, Admiral Aristide Vallon, commander of the French naval station in the Indian Ocean, remarked that: ‘all dhows sailed by Arabs whether they fly the French, the British, the Arab, or Malagasy flag are all equally tempted to get involved in the slave trade’.15 However, the Indian Ocean slave trade carried out by dhows in the second half of the nineteenth century is much more elusive than its Atlantic counterpart. First of all, archives are not as readily accessible and comprehensive as in the Atlantic. In this part of the world, not only is the slaves’ voice almost lost but historians also rely heavily on the estimates which British Consuls and Navy Officers crafted while they coordinated British anti-slave trade operations.16 It is only after he had critically compiled these sources that Abdul Sheriff was, for instance, able to give sensible estimates of the Zanzibar slave trade in the nineteenth century.17 Besides, the Indian Ocean slave trade is not only a difficult field for historians but it also appeared more puzzling to most of the contemporaries who confronted it. To sailors and navy officers, the Indian Ocean traffic was completely different from what they had previously experienced in the Atlantic. In fact, as Hubert Gerbeau ironically reminded all historians entering this world, ‘the Indian Ocean is not the Atlantic’.18 One of the most striking differences was that dhows were not, in most cases, specifically fitted for the slave trade. This simple feature was a great problem for men in charge of the repression of the slave trade there. G. L. Sulivan, for instance, stressed that ‘[we] could find out little or nothing about those [dhows] we boarded, excepting the name of the place they sailed from and wither bound; nor had we any instructions or documents relating especially to the east coast trade, or the experience of any officers who had been engaged in the service previously … we expected to find “fittings,” “tanks,” “planks,” shackles, rice, if not fettered negroes doubled up in them, according to the experience gained by some of those who had seen the capture of American and European vessels, or which had learnt to look for from the wording of the official instructions on the subject. There are, however, no such fittings or preparations necessary in these dhows, though in some of the northern vessels, and in a few of those that were employed in carrying legal slave trade under Zanzibar colours and papers, extemporized bamboo decks are used to enable them to stow their slaves in “layers”’.19 As Sulivan deplored, the 1844 Instructions for the guidance of Her Majesty’s naval officers employed in the suppression of the slave trade framed for the Atlantic were not readily applicable in the Western Indian Ocean. 20 In the early 1870s, Philip Colomb, a navy officer and an historian known for his theories on naval tactics and the importance of naval power in geopolitics, added that ‘there is no “Hand-Book” to the East African slave trade, and [we] must acquire [our] knowledge of it chiefly by experience’.21 Colomb added that ‘instructions are very precise’ but ‘relate to the boarding

Repression of the slave trade 27 and examination of large ships – ships which may belong to European States, able and ready to resent interference – and are hardly at all applicable to the crazy old Arab dhow often guiltless of name, papers, books, or flag, which carries on both the lawful and unlawful trade in East African waters’.22 Here the officer highlights some of the most important problems Europeans faced when dealing with the Indian Ocean slave trade. First of all, European ships engaged in the slave trade were, in the second half of the nineteenth century, quite rare. Secondly, no nation, in the European sense of the word at the time, could be associated with the traffic, because most of the dhows had no legal identification such as flags, names, or documents. On the one hand, this was a big issue as the Instructions took their legal basis upon bilateral treaties, but on the other hand, a ship with no flag or any other identification could be considered a pirate, and therefore be seized or burned on the spot without trial as we will later see in Chapter Four. Only in 1869 were a short set of new instructions added to the original Atlantic edition. Unfortunately, it did not provide any sensible or proper solution to the unsolvable problem of the vessels sailing without identification and papers.23 Besides, ‘unlike their Atlantic ocean counterparts, Indian Ocean slaves rarely constituted a special cargo’. 24 As a result, slaves were not always ‘found crowded and chained together… carried as a cargo to be sold’, a simple and clear evidence that a ship was engaged in the slave trade.25 Dhows’ cargo was composed of an incredible variety of products, amongst which one may find ivory, gum copal, cowries, food grains, sesame, cloves, textiles, beads or pearls, muskets, gunpowder, dried fish, dates, rice, and plenty more! However, this does not mean that slaves received a better treatment on board of dhows. The Indian Ocean Middle Passage sadly was as traumatic and frightful as its Atlantic counterpart. 26 The fact that few dhows were specifically fitted for the slave trade is well represented in the British archives dealing with the repression of the Indian Ocean traffic. As shown by Table 1.1, the average number of slaves captured per dhow oscillated between 7 and 37 slaves between the 1860s and the 1880s. It is therefore important to note that only a small percentage of dhows were captured with more than 90 slaves on board, whereas a great percentage – between 30 and 50 per cent– had less than ten slaves. Between 1870 and 1875, 89 vessels were seized and 2,118 slaves captured. The biggest vessel had 268 slaves, the smallest just 1. Only 6 vessels out of the 98 had between 100 and 222 slaves. Between 1880 and 1884, 117 dhows were seized and 1,003 slaves captured. Only four dhows had more than 90 slaves on board. It was a completely different story to that of the Atlantic where vessels carried on average more than 200 slaves in the 1860s. These figures completely contradict the view of the Indian Ocean slave trade – as well as dhows – publicised by anti-slavery campaigners in Britain during the late nineteenth century. In fact, only the most dramatic captures appeared in the popular press or in successful travel accounts, a logical fact on an editorial point of view. G. L. Sullivan, for

Year

Number of dhows Dhows Dhows where Dhows without with Slaves Slaves slaves captured slaves slaves captured emancipated escaped

Average number of slaves per dhow captured

Average number of slaves per dhow captured with slaves

Dhows Minimum Maximum with Dhows number number greater with less of slaves of slaves than than per dhow per dhow 90 slaves 10 slaves

1864–1869 1870–1875

185

59

126

4,670

?

31

25

37

1

267

21

43

 89

 6

 83

2,118

1,749

24 (more than 300 slaves)

24

26

1

268

 8

43

1880

 27

 3

 24

263

?

?

10

11

1

 99

 1

15

 37

12

 25

289

?

?

 8

12

1

137

 1

21

 23

 7

 16

106

?

?

 5

 7

1

 34

 0

13

 18

 1

 17

141

?

?

 8

 8

1

103

 1

16

 12

 0

 12

204

?

?

17

17

1

169

 1

11

1881 1882 1883 1884

28  The slave trade in Zanzibar

Table 1.1  Slave captures in the Indian Ocean according to the reports sent by Royal Navy officers to the British Treasury and published in the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers.

Repression of the slave trade 29 instance, published a print of a slave dhow in 1873 (Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 114.). This print, showing a large dhow filled with hundreds of slaves, was again reproduced in the very popular Illustrated London News (See Figure 1.1). The British public’s idea of the Indian Ocean slave trade

Figure 1.1  Vessels used in the Zanzibar slave trade (The Illustrated London News, 1 March, 1873, 208). With permission of the Mary Evans Library.

30  The slave trade in Zanzibar was also influenced by the photograph taken on board of H.M.S. Daphne in 1868 (See Figure 1.2). In this photograph, we clearly see large groups of newly ‘emancipated slaves’. This photograph circulated as engravings in the illustrated press as well as popular travel accounts such as Sulivan’s Dhow

Figure 1.2 Rescued East African slaves taken aboard H.M.S. Daphne from a dhow, November 1868. With permission of the British National Archives (BNA, FO 84/1310; January–June 1869; 193).

Repression of the slave trade 31 Chasing in Zanzibar. 27 In reality, slaves were captured by navy officers on board of many different dhows before being all gathered on board of a mother ship, like H.M.S. Daphne for example, coordinating operations at sea. These images gave a skewed impression to the British public that large numbers of slaves were captured on board of most dhows off the East African coast. This could perhaps be interpreted as the need for British anti-slavery campaigners to craft efficient propaganda in order to garner the support of public opinion. In so doing, anti-slavery campaigners kept the British government under pressure to suppress the East African slave trade. This distorted view of the Indian Ocean slave trade influenced both the mind of the European public at the time as well as historians who hereafter studied this period. If British public opinion was given a stereotyped vision of the Indian Ocean slave trade, we have seen that British navy officer had not the ‘cultural references’ necessary to understand the traffic either. Nevertheless, there was something more serious than this cultural gap. In the following section, we will see that the Royal Navy did not really have enough men and vessels to undertake the titanic task which the British government had ascribed her in the name of anti-slavery.

1.2 A titanic task: the official abolitionist discourse confronted with the reality of the repression In December 1866, Norman Bernard Bedingfield, Captain on board of H.M.S. Wasp, a fourteen cannons steam gun vessel, sent his usual report to Commodore Hillyar, the senior officer in charge of Her Majesty’s Naval Station on the east coast of Africa. In his report, Bedingflied bluntly concluded: ‘the attempt to put down the [Indian Ocean] Slave Trade under the present system, or even to check it, is simply a farce’. 28 How could a Royal Navy officer be so critical of Britain’s anti-slavery operations in the Western Indian Ocean? Were his views justified or did it reflect a conflict between the British government and the Royal Navy? Had this officer good reason to be so bitter? In the 1860s, Britain’s naval station consisted of ‘between seven and twelve vessels’ patrolling ‘from the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean all the way to the Cape of Good Hope’. 29 The first mission of this naval station was to secure maritime routes to India, the heart of the British Empire in the nineteenth century. 30 Undoubtedly, the Royal Navy played the role of an ‘imperial gendarmerie’. 31 The Indian Ocean squadron had the mission to police the high seas and fight piracy as well as the slave trade – a kind of traffic which the navy and the Foreign Office wished to be considered as another form of piracy by other European powers. At the congress of Verona, in 1822, Britain tried for instance to impose a declaration assimilating the slave trade to piracy in international law. In 1841, Britain succeeded when Austria, Russia, and Prussia signed a treaty

32  The slave trade in Zanzibar making the slave trade a crime equivalent to piracy. However, France rejected this treaty since it granted Britain the right of search over all ships suspected of slave trafficking whatever their flags as we should see in Chapter Three. 32 Captain Bedingfield had been commanding the Wasp over a year now and ‘cruising for the suppression of the Slave Trade on the east coast of Africa’ along with the Penguin and the Vigilant. 33 Previously, he had served nearly 5 years as a Captain on board a ship patrolling with the same purpose on the west coast of Africa. Captain Bedingfield was an experienced officer who had a reasonably good experience of Britain’s anti-slavery operations on the west as well as on the east coast of Africa. His report was the result of his experience at sea. He was a man who had faced and dealt with the reality of Britain’s anti-slavery policies in the Indian Ocean. When he criticized the British anti-slavery system in the Western Indian Ocean, the first problem that Bedingfield alluded to was, above all, the lack of ships. Royal Navy senior officers often pointed out that the number of vessels allocated for the struggle against the slave trade in East Africa was far too small. In 1869, Commodore Leopold Heath, head of the East Indies Station between 1867 and 1870, actually reported to the Admiralty that Britain ‘must double or treble our squadron’ to be able to really stop the slave trade around Zanzibar.34 The historian Raymond Howell rightly concluded that ‘because there were so few ships available and the length of the coastline to be patrolled was immense, the navy was forced to continue dispatching the ship’s boat to patrol for dhows … a handful of men away in small, usually open, boats’.35 So does Matthew S. Hopper in pointing that ‘the antislavery squadron rarely consisted of more than three regular ships to patrol 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) of coastline’.36 In short, navy vessels were not present in sufficient numbers and they were not adapted to the task they had been ascribed (See Map 1.2). Fighting the slave trade on the east coast of Africa was too great a job for the crews on board of these small detached boats; a majority of pinnaces and cutters.37 The navy had more important priorities. As Andrew Lambert pointed, ‘the Royal Navy between 1860 and 1900 was dominated with European concerns and spent the bulk of the construction for operations against major powers. It employed obsolete and economical types for colonial police work and imperial suasion’.38 The best vessels were therefore not allocated to anti-slavery operations. This could be compared with the lack of adequate equipment which United Nations Peacekeeping Operations face today while carrying out increasingly dangerous missions.39 In the 1860s, navy officers and consuls complained that some of the cruisers engaged in East Africa were not only too few but also unfit for service. For instance, Major General Rigby, former British Consul in Zanzibar, declared to the 1871 committee on the East African slave trade: ‘that such a squadron should be sent out to check the slave trade was an

Repression of the slave trade 33

Map 1.2 East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean (from R. W. Beachey, The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa: A Collection of Documents, London: Rex Collings, 1976, 133).

34  The slave trade in Zanzibar absurdity’ adding that ‘there was the Sidon, an old tub that any dhow could beat; there was the Gorgon, that took 40 days to do 800 miles, and vessels of that class, perfectly useless for any other service’.40 This was confirmed by Captain Bedingfield who also lamented that ‘with three crippled vessels … I fear little can be done to check the immense and I hear increasing trade in slaves’.41 Finally, Commodore Leopold Heath noted that, out of the seven vessels which composed the East African squadron, only three ‘were remarkably well adapted for the purpose [chasing dhows]’, referring to H.M.S. Nymphe, Bullfish, and Teazer.42 If the Indian Ocean slave trade had not much to do with its Atlantic counterpart, the lack of good vessels employed for their repression by the navy was however too common a thing for Her Majesty’s officers. In the early years of the struggle on the west coast of Africa, ‘small ships were nicknamed ‘floating coffins’ ‘and in 1848 Commander Henry James Matson pointed that the West African Squadron had ‘the very worst description of vessels we have in service’.43 With very few and sometimes old or inadequate vessels, navy officers had to police the high seas between the Mozambique Channel to the South and the Gulf of Aden, as well as the Gulf of Oman to the North. Moreover, they also had to suppress the slave trade on the Swahili coast between modern Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. In these conditions, the goals set by the British government could hardly be met by men on the spot. Captain Bedingfielg definitely had good reason to be bitter. When asked in 1871, by the chairman of the select committee on the East African slave trade, if the Royal Navy could suppress the Indian Ocean traffic, Commodore Leopold Heath explicitly answered: ‘By any efforts of cruisers in numbers such as we have now, I think it is hopeless’ and harshly concluded ‘I think we have gone on for 25 years and have done no good whatever’.44 As Raymond Howell notes ‘the stated goal of the navy on the east coast was to end the slave trade and, on the surface, the fleet failed to achieve that goal. From 1860 until 1890, the cruisers captured some 1,000 dhows, liberating approximately 12,000 slaves’.45 This ‘a small fraction of … the Africans exported out of East Africa in the nineteenth century’.46 In comparison, it is estimated that 164,333 slaves were ‘liberated’ by the Royal Navy out of the 3.8 million shipped across in the Atlantic between 1800 and 1867.47 In the light of these figures should we consider, using Bedingflield’s own words, that anti-slavery on the east coast of Africa was nothing but a ‘farce’? British sailors in East Africa, such as Captain Bedingdfield, had good reasons to be disappointed with British anti-slavery policies. Although they did not complain about the goals of these policies, they were dissatisfied with the poor means at their disposals. Bedingfield and G. L. Sulivan insisted in 1873, on ‘how small the means were for suppressing [the East African slave trade]’.48 However, in writing reports published in the Parliamentary papers as well as books for the general public, navy officers contributed to the improvement of the resources put at the disposal of the Royal Navy

Repression of the slave trade 35 for the suppression of the East African slave trade throughout the 1870s.49 Their strategy eventually bore its fruits after the 1873 Bartle Frere mission when H.M.S. ‘London’ was anchored in Zanzibar harbour to supervise naval operations on the coast and enforce the treaty banning slave trade within the East African dominions of the Sultanate. The writings of Royal Navy officers had contributed to pressure a reluctant administration to truly fulfil its abolitionist credo. Sulivan, the most active of these men, was posted as commander of H.M.S. London between 1874 and 1875. The London stationed in Zanzibar harbour between 1874 and 1883 as a depot, prison, and hospital. It shows particularly well the role designed to British gun vessels in the anti-slave trade patrols. The London was a two-decker 90-gun second rate ship of the line of 205 feet and 2,598 tons. Before it was sent to Zanzibar it had famously taken part in the bombardment of Sebastopol during the Crimean War (1853–1856). The massive gunboat had 13 small boats attached to her in order to organize slave trade patrols and it had a significant impact on the slave trade at sea around Zanzibar.50 In the harbour, the vessel was also the ‘visible sign of English interference into Zanzibar’.51 It embodied Britain’s imperial might in the archipelago and the continent. Pressured by public opinion, British government officials had been forced to post H.M.S. London in Zanzibar harbour but eventually seized this opportunity to also forward imperial influence through anti-slavery. After H.M.S. London was decommissioned in 1883 because it was too old, navy officers or consuls often pointed again their lack of resources when dealing with the slave trade under normal circumstances. If the London had contributed to reducing slave trafficking at sea for a decade, it was far from having ended this plight once and for all. In 1893, British anti-slavery campaigners denounced the absence of action of the protectorate authorities against the slave trade in Zanzibar. The British Consul-General answered in a public report that ‘Zanzibar is not a British colony but a protectorate, and the British authorities there consist of Her Majesty’s Agency and four British officers occupying the responsible post of the Sultan’s government, who are laborious endeavouring to train a native police and develop an administration which will someday be strong enough to deal with these marauders [slavers] … with the limited resources which the island can at present dispose of, it is not possible to maintain a coastguard or a flotilla of small boats to watch all the bays and creeks’. 52 This report was nothing but a genuine confession of impotence. The repression of the slave trade, even on the shore of such a small island as Zanzibar, was too great a task for Her Majesty’s imperial navy or colonial authorities. Once more, the means at the disposal of British consuls and navy officers seemed relatively poor when one thought of the scale and the nature of the task they had been assigned as it was already mentioned. There was indeed a great gap between the official anti-slavery discourse in London and the means at the disposal of navy officers in the Indian Ocean. In the second half of the nineteenth century, government

36  The slave trade in Zanzibar leaders in Britain had regularly referred to the suppression of the East African slave trade as a particularly important historical matter, arguing that it was the ultimate completion of ‘the noble crusade’ which ‘Providence’ had allegedly assigned to Britain since 1807. In a letter sent in 1846 to the British Consul in Zanzibar, Atkins Hamerton, the Secretary of State Lord Palmerston, known to be fervent abolitionist in his speeches, had declared: ‘You will take every opportunity of impressing upon these Arabs that the Nations of Europe are destined to put an end to the African slave trade, and that Great Britain is the main instrument in the hands of Providence for the accomplishment of this purpose; that it is in vain for these Arabs to endeavour to resist the consummation of that which is written in the Book of Fate; and that they ought to bow to superior Power …’.53 Despite this great official abolitionist stand, this chapter clearly demonstrated that the British government was generally quite reluctant to provide the necessary financial and materials resources to tackle the Indian Ocean slave trade. This contradiction between the official abolitionist discourse and reality of anti-slavery operation might explain why Captain Bedingfield felt so bitter. This gap between official discourse and reality can be interpreted in many different ways. Historians influenced by Marxism would insist on the pure hypocrisy of the whole affair and denounce anti-slavery, like Bedingfield, as a farce. They would only add that this was a masquerade under which imperialism was too easily concealed. On the contrary, liberals or conservative historians would insist upon the heroic task accomplished in these conditions by the Royal Navy.54 Beyond this two extremes, one could also argue that the British government was just reluctant to engage men and vessels in the repression of the slave trade – because it cost money and often led to more colonial entanglements – unless forced to by public opinion and members of parliament as we will see in Chapter Five. In spite of the reputation it finely entertained, the British administration might consequently be better described as a ‘reluctant abolitionist’ instead of a ‘reluctant imperialist’ notwithstanding what Robinson and Gallagher influentially argued long ago.55

1.3 The paradoxes of British imperial hegemony at sea or David versus Goliath To most contemporaries, the war between the Royal Navy and dhows in the Western Indian Ocean must have appeared as a struggle that should be won before any battle would be fought. In fact, how could ‘traditional vessels’ of a bygone age, as well as their ‘native’ crews, resist the most ‘modern’, powerful, and ‘civilised’ of all navies? Again, Sulivan’s account is here a valuable source since it recalls the experience of anti-slave trade patrols on three different vessels in the 1860s; namely on H.M.S. Castor, H.M.S. Daphne, and H.M.S. Pantaloon. H.M.S. Castor was a fifth frigate with 36 guns built in 1832. She was 149 feet long. H.M.S. Daphne was an Amazon-class sloop of 1,000 tons and 187 feet with

Repression of the slave trade 37 two masts built in 1866. H.M.S. Pantaloon was an 11 gun wooden screw sloop launched in 1860.56 In terms of size, those vessels must have, most of the times, looked like giants even compared with the biggest transoceanic dhows or baghalas, which never went beyond 160 feet and 500 tons; not to mention smallest coastal dhows known as mtepes shown on Figure 1.1.57 Consequently, the Castor, Daphne, or Pantaloon would rarely chase dhows themselves but send their detached boats for the chase. These boats consisted mostly of whalers, gigs, cutters, or pinnaces. The boats attached to the Castor, for example, ‘consisted of the ship’s pinnace and a barge, a private’.58 Pinnaces, gigs, cutters, or whalers were all small boats equipped with oars and one or two sails. A few were equipped with steam engines.59 They rarely exceeded 30 feet. Detached from their mother ships, these small boats would chase dhows, fight with them, and eventually board and seize them before coming back with liberated slaves if any. The engraving published by the Illustrated London News in 1869 highlights this key aspect of the Royal Navy strategy in Zanzibar.60 A similar image was used by G. L. Sulivan as the frontispiece of his popular Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters in 1874 (See Figure 1.3).61 In the background, we can see the massive H.M.S. Daphne with its three masts. In the foreground, creating a sharp contrast, we see a wrecked dhow stranded with slaves trying to save their lives. As it often happened, the dhow had tried to escape the whaler sent to board her and eventually sank while crossing the shore break to reach the coast. In the middle-ground, the whaler sent by H.M.S. Daphne is seen coming to rescue the slaves. In the eyes of anti-slavery campaigners, this delivered an important symbolic message to the general public.

Figure 1.3  A pinnace rescues a wrecked dhow full of slaves (The Illustrated London News, 27 February 1869, 216). With permission of the Mary Evans Library.

38  The slave trade in Zanzibar Mother ships such as H.M.S. Daphne used their hulk as a depot for ‘liberated slaves’. They served as a centre of command where officers would elaborate their strategies to catch slave dhows. Guns, ammunitions, or food, would be stored there for the detached boats and their crews. In the Indian Ocean, these small boats were ‘provisioned for a week’s detached service, each boat being armed with rifles, pistols, and a 12-pounder gun’.62 Because these boats were small and poorly equipped, patrols were often attacked by dhows carrying slaves. In a lot of cases, dhows easily escaped.63 Chasing a slaver was, indeed, tiring and dangerous. In 1867, lieutenant Fellowes, on board of the Launch of H.M.S. Highflyer reported he had boarded a dhow engaged in the slave trade after a 5-hours chase.64 More importantly, sailors were sometimes killed or seriously injured while patrolling against the East African slave trade. In 1862, Lieutenant-Commander Mc Hardy on H.M.S. Penguin reported that 14 men detached on a cutter and a whaler had been murdered ‘by a party of Somali … about fifteen miles west of Cape Guardafi’.65 In 1864, again, a whaler and a cutter, as well as two men, were lost off the Mozambique coast.66 If small boats rather than cruisers were engaged in anti-slavery patrols it was because the navy around Zanzibar operated in shallow waters where vessels would have been easily wrecked or stranded in the numerous bays and creeks of the archipelago. Navy vessels were not designed to chase smaller ships in coastal areas. They were designed to cross oceans and sail on high seas between continents. Thanks to their size and fire power, navy vessels could be used to set up blockades – such as in 1889–1890 in Zanzibar – or to bombard cities from the coast as it happened in 1896 when the Sultan of Zanzibar, Khalid bin Barghash, took power without the assent of British Protectorate authorities.67 H.M.S. London, as we have previously mentioned, embodied quite well this type of vessel since she had taken part in the Bombardment of Sebastopol. All navy vessels in Zanzibar, such as the Daphne, the Castor, and the Pantaloon, were categorized as gun vessels and embodied the British naval strategy known as ‘gunboat diplomacy’.68 It meant that the British government was able to impose its will upon some nations in using its gun vessels. The Bombardment of Lagos and its destruction in December 1851, carried out as an anti-slavery operation on the west coast of Africa, is another great illustration of how humanitarian purposes were well served by the ‘gunboat diplomacy’ implemented by the Royal Navy.69 If large gun vessels symbolized British military might, small boats did most of the anti-slave trade work. Most of the time, these small boats were chasing dhows not so far from coastal waters as it appears in an engraving (Figure 1.4) published by The Illustrated London News in 1867. On this print, we can clearly notice in the foreground a pinnace rigged with two sails and powered by oars. Quite far in the background, on the horizon, appears the coastline. The pinnace in the foreground fires at what seems to be a mtepe dhow loaded with slaves. In the middle-ground, two other

Repression of the slave trade 39

Figure 1.4  ‘Capture of a slave Dhow by the boats of H.M.S. Lyra on the west coast of Madagascar’ (The Illustrated London News, 5 January 1867, 13). With permission of the Mary Evans Library.

pinnaces are following up the chase and catching up with the dhow. Small boats such as pinnaces were light and swift and could seize a dhow if they used, as their prize, currents, and winds. However, the struggle between the dhow full of slaves and small boats, such as those detached from H.M.S. Lyra, seems quite uneven. Dhows could easily destroy or evade small boats. Unsurprisingly, sailors often described how difficult it was to catch dhows. Devereux, for instance, pointed that dhows were ‘sailing like witches’ and stressed that navy boats ‘usually [had] a long chase unless they fire round shot’.70 Moreover, once caught the dhow had to be boarded and this remained equally perilous. One of the most publicised deaths of a navy captain illustrates perfectly well the dangers faced by navy sailors and officers. In December 1881, while cruising on a steam-pinnace around the eastern shores of Pemba Island – about 30 miles north of Zanzibar – Captain Brownrigg, commander of H.M.S. London at the time, sighted three dhows. The British officer let the first two sailed away whereas he decided to inspect the third because she was flying a French flag.71 While Brownrigg got closer and saw ‘the captain … standing on the poop with a roll of paper, ready to exhibit them’, the dhow’s crew fired at him and jumped on his pinnace to shoot him in the heart.72 This case highlights quite well the paradox of British anti-slavery operations in East African

40  The slave trade in Zanzibar waters. While their naval power was superior in terms of technology and firepower, they could not use it efficiently against dhows. As a result, British navy officers and sailors had to chase dhows with ridiculously small boats that could easily be jeopardized. Although one would have thought that the fight between dhows and Royal Navy vessels should logically have been be in favour of the latter, the reality was otherwise. This somehow nuances the stereotyped idea according to which colonial domination was, in general, the inevitable result of a European military and technological superiority.73 If needed, the three Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839–42; 1878–80; 1919) also prove that superior military might did not necessarily lead to victory and effective colonial domination.74 Beyond all the practical difficulties she faced, the Royal Navy also confronted the limitations imposed by international law and its interpretation. Whether in the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean, ‘the labyrinthine network of anti-slave trade treaties … and ambiguities over the Royal Navy’s rights of search, capture, and condemnation complicated the task of British navy officers’.75 Until 1873, officers did not have the right to stop slavers if they traded slaves within the African dominions of the Zanzibar Sultanate. They were only allowed to police ‘the international slave trade’ towards Oman and the Persian Gulf. The Hamerton treaty signed in 1845 and enforced in 1847, only banned all exports of slaves outside the African dominions of Zanzibar (article II). Slaves could be legally traded between the port of Lamu – 1°57 south – and the port of Kilwa – 9°20 south (see Map 1.1).76 Only outside of these limits, could the vessels of the Sultan’s subjects be seized by the Royal Navy (article III). Besides, a legal distinction was made between domestic slaves and slaves who were meant to be traded. In the Instructions for the guidance of Naval Officers employed in the suppression of the Slave Trade issued in 1869 by the Admiralty, Article One pointed out that ‘the mere finding … of slaves on board a vessel, will not justify an officer in detaining her, if … they [the slaves] are not being transported for the purpose of being sold as a slave’.77 This distinction between ‘domestic slaves’ and ‘slaves for sale’ often looked absurd in the eyes of the sailors, officers, or commanders. Commodore Sir Leopold Heath complained to the Admiralty that this legal distinction led to ‘practically legalising the [slave] trade’ in East Africa.78 Sulivan pointed that ‘a common practice exists amongst Arab passengers in these dhows to pay the nakoda [captain] for their voyage by bringing a slave with them from the shore, the proceeds of whose sale at a northern market yields the passage money’.79 He also stressed that unfortunately ‘the Arabs, who know full well the English view and meaning of “domestic slaves”, will swear they are such’.80 Indeed, the task of navy officers was again made more difficult. Only this time it was by international law. In the law of nations, domestic slaves had nothing to do with the slave trade. Domestic slaves at sea were considered to be the equivalent of domestic slavery on land. Both were believed to be matters which could only be dealt by the domestic laws of each

Repression of the slave trade 41 country. Unlike the repression of ‘the international slave trade’, interfering with domestic slavery was seen as an unlawful interference with the ‘sacrosanct’ sovereignty of States.81 Year after year, British Secretaries of State had repeated to consuls and navy officers that their mission was to stop the foreign slave trade on the high seas and not to deal with domestic slavery because it depended alone upon the sovereign will of each country to abolish it or not. It could not lawfully be interfered with by any of Britain’s representatives.82 To a certain extent, the Royal Navy was a victim of its own ‘modernity’ or its alleged ‘superiority of civilisation’. Her great steam vessels as well as her respect of international legal norms – the very symbols of her military and moral power – made the repression of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean almost impossible. As this chapter demonstrated, the Indian Ocean slave trade was too great a challenge. It was beyond the navy officers’ material, legal, linguistic, and cultural capabilities.83 Their failure was not only the result of a lack of appropriate material resources, it also was the result of their inability to interpret and understand the reality they were facing while at sea. In spite of their failure, these men were paradoxically celebrated by the popular printing press. To politicians and anti-slavery campaigners, they were heroes that could easily generate a certain degree of national pride and a useful political support. Paradoxically, anti-slavery in East Africa was both forced upon a reluctant administration by navy officers who were eager to genuinely fulfil abolitionists’ ideals. Even though they were reluctant to fully engage anti-slavery expenditures in East Africa, British governments were always keen to use this ‘humanitarian crusade’ to fuel a national sentiment of moral and imperial superiority over other European nations. As we will see in the next chapter, France, wrongly portrayed as the main actor of the Indian Ocean slave trade, served particularly well this narrative in creating a perfect contrast with the alleged pure and noble humanitarian motives of the British nation. Again anti-slavery was reduced to a simplistic opposition of good versus evil.

Notes 1 David J. Howarth and Robin Constable, Dhows (London: Quartet Books, 1977); Erik Gilbert. Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar, 1860–1970 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004); Dionisius Agius Seafaring in the Arabian Gulf and Oman: the people of the Dhow (London: Kegan Paul International, 2005). 2 Thomas Vernet, “East African Travelers and Traders in the Indian Ocean: Swahili Ships, Swahili Mobilities ca. 1500–1800” in Trade, Circulation, and Flow in the Indian Ocean World, ed. Michael Pearson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 167–292; Valeska Huber, Channelling Mobilities: Migration and Globalisation in the Suez Canal Region and Beyond, 1869–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 172–203. 3 Eric Staples “The Formation of Oman’s Maritime Power under the Yaariba and Sayyid Said” in Oman and overseas, Studies on Ibadism and Oman

42  The slave trade in Zanzibar









vol.2, ed. Michael Offmann-Ruf and Abdulrhaman Alsalami (New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 2013), 185–200; Philippe Beaujard, Les Mondes de l’Océan Indien : L’Océan Indien, au Coeur des Globalisations de l’Ancien Monde 7e-15e siècles, Tome 2 (Paris: Armand Colin, 2012). 4 Beatrice Nicolini, Makran, Oman, and Zanzibar: Three-Terminal Cultural Corridor in the Western Indian Ocean, 1799–1856 (Boston: Brill, 2004). 5 Abdul Sheriff, Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean (London: C. Hurst, 2010) 52–53. 6 David Livingstone, Horace Waller, The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa (London: John Murray, 1874); George Lydiard Sulivan, Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters and on the Eastern Coast of Africa (London: Low & Searle, 1873); Philip Howard Colomb, Slave-Catching in the Indian Ocean (London: Longmans & Co, 1873); The Illustrated London News, “Bugala or Dhow”, Saturday 01 March 1873, 21 7 The Oxford English Dictionary. 8 Guillain, Charles, Documents sur l’Histoire, la Géographie et le Commerce de l’Afrique Orientale, Album (Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1856–57), planche 51–52 ; Charles Brunet-Millon, Les Boutriers de la Mer des Indes : Affaires de Zanzibar et de Mascate (Paris: A. Pedone, 1910). 9 Brunet-Millon, Les Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, 6. 10 For a definition of European orientalism see Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin 1977), 18–19. 11 Richard B. Allen, European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500–1850 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014) Ch. 1, Kindle. 12 Allen, European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, Ch.1, Kindle. Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: a History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1983, 222–226. 13 Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 222–226. 14 Matthew S Hopper, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 18–50. 15 Le commandant de la station de la mer des Indes au consul de Zanzibar, 28 août 1880, in MAE, CADN, 748 POA 132. 16 Edward A. Alpers, Matthew S. Hopper, ‘‘Parler en son nom? Comprendre les témoignages d’esclaves africains originaires de l’océan Indien (1850–1930) ’’, Annales, no.4 (2008): 799–828. 17 Abdul Sheriff, Slaves, spices & ivory in Zanzibar : Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770–1873 (London: Currey, 1987), 231 18 Hubert Gerbeau, “L’Océan Indien n’est pas l’Atlantique. La traite illégale à Bourbon au XIXe siècle”, Outre-Mers, no. 336–337 (décembre 2002): 79–108. 19 Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 54. 20 Instructions for the guidance of Her Majesty’s naval officers employed in the suppression of the slave trade (London: T. R. Harrison, 1844). Official instructions to naval officers were issued in 1844 with updated editions in 1865, 1882 and 1892. 21 Colomb, Slave-Catching, 70; Naval Warfare: Its Ruling Principles and Practice Historically Treated (London: W. H. Allen & Co, 1895). 22 Colomb, Slave-Catching, 70. 23 House of Commons Parliamentary Papers [HCPP] 1870 (C141), N°80, 95. 24 Gwyn Campbell, “Servitude and the Changing Face of the Demand for Labour in the Indian Ocean World c 1800–1900” in Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition, ed. Robert Harms, Bernard K. Freamon, and David W. Blight (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 31.

Repression of the slave trade 43 25 Instructions for the guidance of Naval Officers employed in the suppression of the Slave Trade in HCPP 1870 (C141), N°80, 95; Gwyn Campbell, “The question of slavery in Indian Ocean world history” in The Indian Ocean Oceanic Connections and the Creation of New Societies, ed. Abdul Sheriff and Engseng Ho (London: Barnes and Noble, 2014), 125–138. 26 Alpers, Edward A. “The Other Middle Passage: The African Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean” in Many Middle Passage, Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World, ed. Emma Christopher, Cassandra Pybus and Marcus Rediker (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 20–38. 27 Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 171. 28 Captain Bedingfield to Commodore Hillyar, December 1, 1866 in HCPP, 1867–1868, (4000), Inclosure 5 in N°76, 63. 29 Raymond Howell, The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 36. 30 Robert J. Blyth “Redrawing the Boundary between India and Britain: The Succession Crisis at Zanzibar, 1870–1873”, The International History Review, vol. 22, no. 4 (Dec., 2000): 785. 31 Howell, The Royal Navy, vi. 32 Jean Allain, Slavery in International law: Of Human Exploitation and Trafficking (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 46–100; “Nineteenth Century Law of the Sea and the British Abolition of the Slave Trade”, British Yearbook of International Law, vol. 78, (2008): 342–388. 33 HCPP 1867 (Class A 3816), N°76, 88. 34 Commodore L. Heath to the Secretary to the Admiralty, March 1, 1869, in HCPP 1870 (C141)), N°61, 67. 35 Howell, The Royal Navy, 36. 36 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 153. 37 Pinnaces had a length of 36 feet and a crew of 16 men with a life-saving capacity of 80 men. Cutters had a length of 34 feet and a crew of 14 men with a life-saving capacity of 66 men. Commander Alaistair Wilson, R.N. “British warships’ boats in 1905”, http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_navyboats.htm. 38 Andrew Lambert, “Send a gunboat forty years on” in Send a Gunboat the Victorian Navy and Supremacy at Sea, 1854–1904, ed. Anthony Preston and John Major (London: Conway, 2007), 11. 39 “7 November 2016 - Peace operations facing asymmetrical threats”, United Nations, accessed August 1 2020, https://onu.delegfrance.org/Peacekeepingoperations-must-be-equipped-with-appropriate-resources. In 2016, Mr. François Delattre, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations, asked the Security Council that Peacekeeping Operations (PMOs) be provided with “appropriate resource” to be able to carry out their missions in the context of “asymmetrical threats”. 40 HCPP 1871 (420), Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade (East Coast of Africa), § 567, 44. 41 Captain Bedingfield to Commodore Hillyar, April 20 1866, HCPP 1867 (Class A 3816), Inclosure 1 in N°89, p. 96; William Cope Devereux, A Cruise in the “Gorgon”; or, Eighteen Months on H.M.S. “Gorgon,” Engaged in the Suppression of the Slave Trade on the East Coast of Africa (London: Bell & Daldy, 1869), 61. 42 HCPP 1871 (420), § 675, 53. 43 Mary Wills, “A ‘most miserable business’: naval officers’ experience of slave trade suppression” in The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade, ed. Robert Burrough and Richar Huzzey (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 77. 44 HCPP 1871 (420), § 689, § 692, 53

44  The slave trade in Zanzibar 45 Howell, The Royal Navy, 221 46 Doulton, “The flag that set us free”, 102. 47 Daniel Domingues da Silva, David Eltis, Philip Misevich and Olatunji Ojo, “The Diaspora of Africans Liberated from Slave Ships in the Nineteenth Century”, Journal of African History, vol. 55, no. 3 (November 2014): 347–369. 48 Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 5. 49 HCPP 1870 (C.209), Report addressed to the Earl of Clarendon by the Committee on the East African Slave Trade; HCPP 1871 (420) Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade. 50 Howell, The Royal Navy, 155–156. 51 Commander Arson to Rear Admiral Hewett, 13 December 1884, FO 84/1731 in Raymond Howell, The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 181. 52 Rennell Rodd to the Earl of Rosebury, 12 June, 1893, in HCPP 1893–94 (C7035), 4. 53 Letter from Lord Palmerston to Captain Hamerton, 18 December 1846, FO 84/ 647, 115. British Consul and Political Agent in Zanzibar, Hamerton had just signed a new treaty in 1845 with Seyyid Saïd, Sultan of Zanzibar and Oman. It banned all exports of slaves outside his African dominions. Quoted by Lieutenant-Colonel Rigby in his correspondence to Earl Russel, 5 October 1861, HCPP 1862 (2959), N°102, 87. David Brown, Palmerston A Biography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 189–243. Suzanne Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade (London: Longman, 1975), 16–17. 54 For the “Marxist view” see for example G. N. Uzoigwe, Britain and the Conquest of Africa The Age of Salisbury (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1975), 170–171 For a more “liberal” yet “conservative” view see for instance Charles Christopher Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade. The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century (London : Longmans, Green & Co, 1949), x. 55 Ronald Robinson, John Gallagher, with Alice Denny, Africa and the Victorians The Official Mind of Imperialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961, 1981) 239. 56 J. J. Colledge, Ben Warlow, Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (London: Greenhill, 2006). 57 Agius, In the Wake of the Dhow, 17–19; Gilbert, Dhows & The Colonial Economy in Zanzibar, 21–31. 58 Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 12. 59 Lt E. F. Inglefield, “A pinnace for chasing slaves, probably attached to H.M.S London”, c.1880, National Maritime Museum, London, PW5717, http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/conMediaFile.4175/A-pinnace-for-chasing-slaves-probably-attached-to-H.M.S-London.html. 60 The Illustrated London News, 27 February 1869. 61 Sulivan, Dhow Chasing. Frontispiece. 62 Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade, 221. 63 Commodore Oldfield to Captain Crawford, 9 April 1861, HCPP 1863 (3159), Inclosure 15 in N°127, 167. 64 Lieutenant Fellowes to Captain Pasley, HCPP 1867–1868 (4000), Inclosure 2 in N°79, 65. 65 Lieutenant-Commander Mc Hardy to Rear Admiral Sir B. Walker, 13 November 1862, HCPP 1863 (3159), Inclosure 1 in N°135, 178. 66 Commander Parr to Secretary to the Admiralty, 23 December 1864, HCPP 1866 (3635), N°86, 84. 67 Norman Robert Bennett, A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar (London: Methuen, 1978), 178–179

Repression of the slave trade 45 68 Preston and Major, Send a Gunboat, 9–11. 69 Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012) 145–147. 70 Devereux, A Cruise in the “Gorgon”, 70–71. 71 Lieutenant-Colonel Miles to Earl Granville, 8 December 1881, HCPP 1882 (C3160) N°251, 262. 72 Lieutenant-Colonel Miles to Earl Granville, 8 December 1881, HCPP 1882 (C3160) N°251, 262. 73 Richard J. Evans, The Pursuit of Power Europe 1815–1914 (London: Penguin, 2017), 653–654. 74 Thomas Barnfield, Afghanistan A Cultural and Political History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 110–164. 75 Mary Wills, “A ‘most miserable business’ ”, 76. 76 HCPP 1847 (857), Enclosure in N°34, 47–49. 77 As to Vessels liable to capture, Instructions for the guidance of Naval Officers employed in the suppression of the Slave Trade in HCPP 1870 (C141), N°80, 95. 78 Commodore Sir L. Heath to Sir Ftizgerald, February 16, 1869 in HCPP 1870 (C141), Inclosure 3 in N°63,74. See also N°63, 72. 79 Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 59. 80 Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 59. 81 Huzzey, Burning Freedom, 52–53. 82 HCPP 1870 (C141), N°80, 95. 83 Dr Kirk to Earl of Clarendon, 22 May 1869, in HCPP 1870 (C141), N°45, 52. Hopper, Slaves of one master, 162–167. Navy officers did not speak any Arabic or Swahili and often depended on unreliable interpreters.

2

The French flag in the Indian Ocean Myth or reality?

Between 1860 and 1900, British authorities repeatedly accused the French government of fostering the Indian Ocean slave trade as France allowed Indian Ocean dhows to fly the French flag. This chapter intends to show readers how dhows flying the French flag became synonymous with slavers in the British anti-slavery discourse throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Using British and French archives and new historical data – mainly drawn from the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, the Slave Trade Department as well as the correspondence of the French consulate in Zanzibar – this chapter will challenge the idea that the French flag was the major factor explaining the persistence of the Indian Ocean slave trade after 1860. It will make clear that if dhows under the French flag played a quite substantial role in the illegal slave trade across the Indian Ocean, they were far from being the main actor in this traffic. Controversies around the French flag mirrored and crystallised Anglo-French imperial rivalries in the Indian Ocean. Dhows flying the French flag were a challenge to Britain’s imperial order – the famous ‘Pax Britannica’ – maintained by the Royal Navy in Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean. French dhows were also vital to French colonies and French colonial influence in this part of the world. Consequently, France would maintain coûte que coûte, the policy of issuing French flags to Indian Ocean dhows even if the government was aware of their most dubious nature.

2.1 Dhows under the French flag: evils under French colours? In an 1869 report to the head of the British East Africa Naval Squadron, Captain Edward Spencer Meara mentioned the case of a dhow engaged in the slave trade flying the French flag. Meara, born in Ireland, had joined the navy at the age of 18. Like G. L. Sulivan mentioned in Chapter One, he had already served in the West African anti-slavery squadron in the 1850s, most notably in Sierra Leone and Lagos.1 He was an experienced officer engaged in anti-slavery for a couple of decades. Meara had boarded this vessel flying the French colours to check its papers ‘off the town of Majunga’ in West

French flag in the Indian Ocean 47 Madagascar while carrying out his duty against the East African slave trade on H.M.S. Nymphe. He suspected it to be illegally engaged in the slave trade. In fact, he found on board ‘13 slave women and 4 boys … who stated that they had been bought at Zanzibar’.2 Unfortunately, Meara could not seize this dhow and free these women and children. He could not take the slave traders for a trial to the British Vice-Admiralty in Zanzibar either. This dhow legally flew the French flag, and provided this vessel with a protection against any visit or search unless carried by French authorities. France had always refused to ratify a treaty on the mutual right of visit and search with Britain since 1841. Anglo-French relations had then been through one of their most serious diplomatic crises in the nineteenth century over this question.3 The confrontation only ended when a convention was signed by both parties in 1845. This treaty, however, only allowed British officers to check the papers of vessels flying the French flag.4 In 1867, France and Britain signed a secret agreement maintaining these conditions showing how touchy the whole problem was.5 This meant that Meara could only look at the vessels’ legal documents and not conduct a search or an inspection. In the French political arena, the right of visit and search was a very serious matter. France’s refusal mirrored the old AngloFrench antagonism which had taken shape with Britain during the Second Hundred Years’ War (1715–1815), the humiliation endured after Waterloo in 1815, and the growing colonial rivalries of the nineteenth century.6 It was such a sensitive issue that any incident at sea could trigger a new major crisis between Paris and London. Meara knew it and he could not but let the slaver go. In arresting this dhow, captain Meara encountered the limits imposed by international law and the sovereignty of states to British anti-slavery operations at sea. Paradoxically, the law of nations did not permit Meara to rescue fellow human beings from slavery as British anti-slavery policies, and his own abolitionist convictions, commanded him. He could not fulfil his moral and legal obligations as a British navy officer, an abolitionist, or a man. In the eyes of this British navy officer, the situation must have seemed completely absurd. His frustration could not be greater. He could only notify this ‘incident’ to French authorities hoping their own naval squadron would take appropriate measures. By the time his report would reach the French, the slave traders, and their ‘human cargo’ would undoubtedly long be gone! Meara probably thought that this was not only a terrible blow to Britain’s naval power in the Indian Ocean, but also a disgrace for Britain and its flag. After all, how could the Royal Navy let slavers carry on their traffic without losing some of her power and prestige? Besides, this was no trivial accident. In fact, Meara’s report on French dhows was far from being an exception in British parliamentary papers throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1869 and 1870, the Foreign Office repeatedly called the attention of the French government to the ‘rapid increase in the number of native craft under the French flag

48  The slave trade in Zanzibar on the east coast of Africa, and the presumption that the flag is abused to protect the slave trade’.7 Lord Clarendon, then British Secretary of State, insisted that ‘if the system of carrying slaves under French colours continued much longer the efforts of the British cruisers for the suppression of the slave trade between Zanzibar and Madagascar would be fruitless’.8 In other words, France, Britain’s greatest imperial rival, could be taken as responsible if the Royal Navy failed to end the slave trade in the Indian Ocean and complete the ‘inglorious crusade’ she had started in the Atlantic.9 Considering the importance of anti-slavery in shaping British national politics and identity in the nineteenth century, this could not be acceptable to any government, and above all public opinion.10 In the 1870s, the theme of the French flag used to conceal the Indian Ocean slave trade became recurrent in British anti-slavery literature. According to Philip Colomb for instance, dhow captains obtain ‘the rights to fly the French flag … and carry on their nefarious practices [the slave trade] under its protecting folds’.11 In 1878, a former navy officer of the East African Squadron wrote to The Times that ‘if you were to ask any old “boat cruiser” [someone who has served in anti-slave trade patrols on small boats in East African waters] … he would probably tell you that if there were less dhows under French colours there would be considerably less slaving’.12 In the 1880s, the question of the French flag in the Indian Ocean was still an important issue for British navy officers to deal with. In fact, nearly one French dhow a year was caught by the Royal Navy while engaged in the slave trade between 1860 and 1903 as shown in Table 2.5. In 1882, the commander-in-chief on the East Indian Station insisted on ‘the large extent to which the slave trade is encouraged and its prevention impeded by the refusal of the French government to allow dhows carrying the French flag to be boarded and searched by the boats of Her Majesty’s ships’.13 In fact, the question of the slave trade and the French flag actually continued to be a problem for British authorities in Zanzibar until the late nineteenth century as we will see through Chapter Eight in more details. Although the traffic officially been declared moribund in 1890 after the establishment of the British protectorate, there were still some cases of slave trade in which the French flag was involved.14 In 1893, a scandal broke out in the Daily Mail regarding the importance of illegal slave trade in Zanzibar after a dhow flying the French flag was caught with slaves in the harbour.15 Later, in 1899, Captain Bearcroft reported that after ‘twenty one slaves were discovered by the local authorities on board a dhow in Zanzibar harbour under the French flag … there were rumours that others, also under French colours, had sailed with slaves on board’.16 The repression of the slave trade thus brought back flags of convenience into the spotlight of international relations. The question was not completely a new one since American and Spanish flags had been at the heart of similar controversies during the first half of the century in the Atlantic.17 The American flag for instance, ‘became the flag of convenience for slave

French flag in the Indian Ocean 49 traders worldwide’ and ‘provided cover for the shipment of more than a million Africans … between 1820 and 1860’.18 However, in the eyes of the British authorities and public opinion, illegal slave trading was always identified with the French flag in Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Although Napoleonic wars were over long ago, the French flag was once again Britain’s most serious enemy. Undeniably, there was a real historical background behind the slaver reputation of the French flag in the Indian Ocean. Richard B. Allen estimates that over 380,000 slaves were shipped by French slave traders between 1700 and 1850. This was by far the largest share of the European slave trade in this part of the world.19 The archival material mentioned earlier certainly had a lasting influence over most of the historiography. Christopher Lloyd wrote in 1968 that ‘the French flag covered a multitude of sins’, meaning it concealed many illegal activities including the slave trade.20 Before him, Reginald Coupland, one of the most influential colonial historians of the 1930s, had stated that ‘Arab dhows were systematically using the French flag to cover slave smuggling’ in East Africa. 21 Later, Raymond Howell stressed the role of the French flag in the persistence of the slave trade in the region. 22 More recently Hideaki Suzuki insisted on the key role played by the French flag in the illegal traffic between 1850 and 1900 even though he was more nuanced in his views. Suzuki stressed ‘it is … entirely reasonable to surmise that a significant number of ships transporting slaves in the Western Indian Ocean … were hoisting the French flag’ but pointed that ‘it is important not to make the simple mistake of presuming that every ship sailing under the French flag was carrying slaves. 23 However, he argued that ‘the [French] flag proved to be a major obstacle to British anti-slave trade operations right up to the early twentieth century’. 24 By contrast, dhows were rarely seen so central to the continuation of the Indian Ocean slave trade in French archives or historiography. In 1910, Charles Brunet-Millon described them as wonderful sailing vessels rather than slavers, as we already noted in Chapter One. He only noted that a few had been condemned for being engaged in the slave trade. 25 As a result, very little research was conducted on this issue in the French historiography except quite recently in the works of Colette Dubois, Samuel F. Sanchez, and Guillemette Crouzet or earlier on by Jacques Lafon, Jean Louis Miège, and François Renault. 26 If French archives and historiography overlooked the slave trade under the French flag to a certain extent, its importance was however often exaggerated in British reports, and consequently in the historiography as most authors only relied on these sources. This clearly happened when Meara’s 1870 report, mentioned at the very beginning of this chapter, was forwarded to the Government of Bombay and the Foreign Office by Dr John Kirk, a leading anti-slavery figure, then political agent and acting consul in Zanzibar. 27 While Meara lamented that ‘on the coast [of Madagascar] in 1868, the officers have reported to me that only ten dhows under French colours

50  The slave trade in Zanzibar were seen, … this year I have seen as many as fifty, and I may say more under French colours,’ Kirk summarized his report in writing ‘to the south almost every dhow is now under the French flag’. 28 Kirk even added that dhow owners told Meara ‘he had no right to touch them even if they had a cargo of slaves, politely showing their [French] papers’.29 The message delivered was clear: the French flag was used by most dhows to conceal the slave trade and avoid the British anti-slave trade squadron on the east coast of Africa. The same archival material was later used by historians, like Hideaki Suzuki for instance, to prove that the development of the illegal slave trade in the Indian Ocean was linked to the multiplication of dhows sailing with the French flag.30 In March 1870, the French government replied to British authorities that French colonial administration in Mayotte [Comoros] and Nossi-Bé [Madagascar] had received instructions ‘to deliver with a great care “les actes de francisation” [document allowing a ship to fly the French flag] to Arab vessels’ and only to owners who would not ‘compromise their interests in illegal operations’.31 The French government contested the number of dhows flying the French flag as reported by Captain Meara. Count Daru, then head of the French Foreign Office, mentioned that ‘the number of dhows allowed to fly the French flag, even though it raised, is far from the increase indicated’. He pointed out that ‘official documents established that in 1868 only twenty dhows [flew the French flag]’.32 According to the records kept by the French consulate in Zanzibar – See Table 2.1 below in – 20 French dhows had visited Zanzibar harbour throughout 1868 and 30 in 1869. Their number kept rising between 1860 and 1877; it went from 5 to 94. This reflected the increasing but very relative French imperial influence there.33 Table 2.1  Number of dhows under French colours which visited Zanzibar harbour between 1851 and 1903 according to the Zanzibar French Consular Archives (MAE, CADN, 748 POA 132).

Year 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861

Number Number Number Number Number of of of of of dhows Year dhows Year dhows Year dhows Year dhows 2 ? 2 2 4 4 4 2 3 5 9

1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872

 9 22 16 10 19 20 20 30 34 47 54

1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883

79 88 44 36 94 27 25 23 13 11  7

1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894

10 13  8 25 51 85 61 41 26 48 36

1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903

30 48 71 63 45 31 25 27 28

French flag in the Indian Ocean 51 Table 2.2  Estimated number of dhows sailing from Zanzibar in the nineteenth century according to J. L. Miège and the British Consul General in Zanzibar in 1893. Years

Estimated number of dhows

1850 1861 1870 1893

550 452 400 539

However, dhows flying the French flag only represented a small percentage of the overall number of Zanzibar dhows. Table 2.1 shows how the number of French dhows trading in Zanzibar evolved in the nineteenth century. These figures must be seen in parallel with the estimation of the total number of dhows visiting Zanzibar harbour during the same time period as shown in Table 2.2. We should nonetheless keep in mind that it is not possible to draw any precise statistics on this matter. Most dhows sailed without any papers or flags until the late nineteenth century. Additionally, even when they had documents dhow owners often transferred them from one vessel to another – or between different owners as well – without giving any notice to colonial authorities.34 It is only after the 1890 Brussels Conference that imperial powers forced most of them to register under a specific flag. This might explain the gap in the estimations of the number of dhows in Table 2.2 and the number of dhow registrations made in 1897 as shown in Table 2.3. British authorities were right when they denounced the increase of dhows under the French flag between the 1860s and the 1890s. Nonetheless, they overestimated this increase. At its highest, in 1897, dhows under the French flag were only 94 on a total of 1,804 as shown by Table 2.3. French dhows clearly represented a low percentage of all the dhows registered at Zanzibar. We should bear in mind that these Table 2.3  Number of dhows registered in 1897 in Zanzibar according to the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau for the repression of the slave trade. Flag Zanzibari British German Portuguese French Total

Number of dhows 573 517 358 262 94 1,804

52  The slave trade in Zanzibar figures give us a relatively clear picture of the dhow trade since the island was the busiest harbour in the region throughout this period. Of course, it is likely that French authorities tried to underestimate the increase of dhows under their flag in order to avoid British complaints. According to the records of Mayotte and Nossi-Bé, 148 dhows were registered under the French flag between 1868 and 1879.35 Even if it is difficult to give an exact figure of the total number of French dhows sailing the Indian Ocean in the second half of the nineteenth century, we can, however, guess that around 200–250 sailed with this flag throughout the whole period. This does not mean that this fleet reached this figure each year. French consular authorities in Zanzibar estimated that around 50 dhows flew their flag at the end of the 1880s and 94 at the end of the 1890s.36 The underestimation of French dhows was probably limited there. In 1893, for example, out of a total of 539 dhows, 302 were registered under the British flag while 237 were registered under the Sultan’s flag as Zanzibar dhows.37 Only 48 were registered under French colours.38 The British government was therefore wrong when it claimed that most dhows sailed under the French flag in the Indian Ocean throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. It is also important to point out the great number of dhows flying the British flag in the 1890s. They were far more numerous than the French. They reflected Britain’s imperial hegemony over the island. In a colonial context, ‘flags of convenience’ – we would come back to this question later in Chapter Eight – could also serve British imperial interests. In East Africa, it was not so unusual to sight a native vessel – a dhow from India for example – steered by a native crew under the British flag. Overall, 10,602 native sailing vessels flew the British flag throughout the British Empire in 1870 according to Lloyds statistical tables of the world’s merchant fleets.39

2.2 French dhows: vehicles of a new imperial order in the Indian Ocean In the same report mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Captain Meara ironically remarked that, on the dhow he boarded off Madagascar, ‘no one … spoke one word of French’.40 To him, this was no trivial detail. This dhow flying a French flag was nothing but some sort of legal and cultural nonsense. To a certain extent, Meara was right. Dhows flying the tricolour were far from being ‘typically French’, or so it was believed. In fact, how could dhows and their crews – a patchwork of Swahilis, Arabs, Africans, Comorians, Malagasy, and Indians – possibly fly the French flag and be French subjects whereas they were the very symbols of the Indian Ocean native cultures? Dhows and their crews reveal how complex the issue of nationality and sovereignty had become in the age of empires. Colonial expansion had durably broadened and enriched the scope of what it meant to be French.

French flag in the Indian Ocean 53 In 1893, Louis Renault, a French jurist specialised in international maritime law, defined two main conditions upon which a vessel could be considered as French, and be granted the right to fly the French flag. The first condition was that ‘the ship, or at least half of it, should belong to French subjects’. The second condition stressed that ‘the captain, the officers, and at least three quarters of the crew should be French’.41 However, these legal requirements had been adapted by the French authorities to colonial realities. Renault noted that ‘on the west or the east coast of Africa’ where ‘French vessels involved in local trading are all almost exclusively maned by native sailors’, it is only required that ‘the captain must be French’.42 It is rather strange that Renault lost his judicial accuracy here whereas he must have known that in 1846 colonial authorities in Mayotte and Nossi-Bé had allowed by decree that the French flag could be granted to dhows if ‘individuals placed under French [colonial]’ domination possessed at least half of the vessel, and also if the captain, as well as half of the crew, were ‘French subjects without distinctions of origins’.43 Another French jurist, Charles Brunet-Millon, added further precisions to this colonial ordinance. He wrote: ‘regarding the interpretation given to the expression “individuals placed under French domination and French subjects without distinction of origins”, an ordinance issued on 15 October 1880 by the Minister of the navy and the colonies admitted that individuals who were not born in the colony could nonetheless possess and command dhows [under French flags] if they had been established in the colony for a long time and occupied a respectable position’.44 As we can see, French colonial regulations had a rather broad definition of who could be considered as a French subject and so could claim the French flag as well as French protection, for himself or his vessels. The legal definition of French subjects in the 1880 ministerial ordinance show that the decision was ultimately left in the hands of local colonial authorities. This lack of a clear legal definition created the conditions in which French flags were attributed to dhows by local authorities, as they wished, in Mayotte, Nossi-Bé, Obock, Aden, Muscat, and Zanzibar. To legally fly the French flag, dhows had to carry several legal documents. First of all, as Louis Renault phrased it, vessels ‘have a name, a sort of home address known as the “port d’attache” or “port de matricule”’.45 Renault noted that French vessels have also ‘a sort of birth certificate used mainly to attest their nationality and called “l’acte de francisation”’.46 It is this document which was at the centre of all British critics with the ‘rôle d’équipage’ or the list of the crew members on board of a vessel. Finally, the captain of a French vessel should be in possession of a ‘congé’ – an authorisation to sail [leave the port] delivered by French customs.47 In the Indian Ocean, the ‘congé’ and the ‘rôle d’équipage’ had, in theory, to be renewed every year. If not, the vessel was not considered able to lawfully fly the French flag and no protection could, therefore, be granted.48 In 1871, French authorities adopted ‘a new measure in order to prevent any

54  The slave trade in Zanzibar abuse of the French flag’. French maritime documents would only be delivered ‘if the owner is a resident in the [French] colony, or if the captain of the ship can provide a guarantee from a person residing in Mayotte or Nossi-Bé’.49 The ‘acte of francisation’, the ‘congé’, and the ‘rôle d’équipage’ were the papers that dhow captains had to keep aboard while sailing with the French flag. Without them they could be considered as a pirate illegally flying a flag they had no rights to raise. These papers were the symbol of a new era, the age of empires, where dhows had to be registered according to European standards whereas they used to sail across the Indian Ocean without papers or flags for centuries. Dhows, as we will see in Chapter Eight, were bound to no nations in the European sense of the word. They belonged to the Indian Ocean and its numerous coastal communities. So did their crews. In the case of Zanzibar and Muscat, all legal documents had to be delivered – and checked – by French consuls. In the colony of Nossi-Bé or Mayotte, French colonial authorities were in charge of these procedures; most of the time this duty fell into the hands of the ‘commandant supérieur’ [a colonial military governor]. In territorial waters and on high seas, the French naval station had to exercise the control of these documents. With anti-slavery, this mission was one of the most important that French shipsof-war had to undertake in the Indian Ocean. The French naval station was a sort of new French anti-slave trade squadron, a reminder of the one set up in the Atlantic during the first half of the century. 50 Between 1858 and 1904, 234 French vessels served in this naval division; an average of five vessels a year with a minimum of one in 1858 and a maximum of 28 in 1885 in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference.51 In 1880, the commander of the French naval station, Aristide Vallon, declared ‘to exercise a strict watch’ over French dhows and he added that ‘in many cases [he had] removed the French flag and taken away papers that had expired’.52 In the meantime, he also stressed that ‘francisation papers were sometimes delivered too easily and without enough guaranties’.53 Despite the fact that he was convinced of the dubious nature of French dhows, the French admiral concluded that ‘all our efforts should tend to minimize these irregularities and prevent foreigners from meddling with our business in order to make sure that we are able to police ourselves’.54 The Admiral’s position was clear. He did not want Britain to interfere with what he considered as a French domestic affair. So did the French Consul in Zanzibar when he stressed in 1879 that ‘the policing of our navigation should be our business’.55 It was clear that France did not want any country to interfere with her sovereignty as well as her imperial policies overseas. The French arguments were simple. The authorities preferred the evils of dhows under the French flag – the slave trade in which they were potentially involved – to the humanitarian goods of the right of search because it was in British hands, and therefore seen as a potential source of national humiliation as well as a threat to French interest.

French flag in the Indian Ocean 55 Besides, dhows were also perceived as important vehicles of French colonial influence throughout the Indian Ocean. In 1868, Eugène de Bure, then French Consul in Zanzibar, wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs that ‘the security of French dhows is the only way to keep our influence in this country [Zanzibar] and in our colonies’.56 French authorities refused to stop to deliver French flags and papers because ‘such a measure would deprive our colonies of Mayotte and Nossi-Bé of some crucial resources …, besides it would have an unfortunate political impact, completely ruining our prestige, already so small, in this part of the world’.57 In another report sent in 1890 by the French Consul in Zanzibar to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, the same argument was used. The Consul justified that dhows could fly the French flag because it was necessary to ‘establish commercial relations between our possessions of the Indian Ocean and Zanzibar as well as East Africa’, while he deplored that most dhow owners were not from the French colonies of the Comoros or Madagascar but ‘Arabs from Muscat, Mukalla [in Yemen on the Gulf of Aden], Sur, Shihr [near Mukalla], or Zanzibar’.58 As the French Vice-Consul of Muscat highlighted in 1897, France refused to deprive these owners of French papers, flags, and privileges because ‘it would bring irreparable damages to our prestige in these parts where French dhows are a powerful element of influence; it would harm the commercial and political interests of our colonies in the Indian Ocean’.59 In fact, local authorities in the Comoros or Madagascar were dependent upon the local people to run the colony’s economy and affairs. As Johan Mathew points out, ‘French officials, like British ones, were frequently the only official and possibly the only European in a port. … These officials were entirely dependent on African or Asian subordinates and found it simply impossible to rigorously implement many regulations’.60 Flags and papers were therefore easily granted to dhow owners. Furthermore, local officials also earned money when they delivered the right to fly the French flag or ‘l’acte de Francisation’. A tax was thus collected for each act which was delivered.61 In this context, some local officials in Mayotte or Nossi-Bé might have been tempted to accept bribes in return of the right to fly the French flag or simply issue many papers to increase their revenue. However, no documents were found in the archives which could confirm this theory. To conclude, French authorities were aware that dhows flying the French flag could engage in illegal activities such as the slave trade but tolerated it because it provided them with some sort of influence in the region while the Royal Navy was paramount. The French flag flown by dhows in the Indian Ocean embodied French imperial influence there inasmuch as the right of search embodied British imperial power and its humanitarian ideal. While France would not haul down her flag on dhows, Britain would not abandon the right of search either. Both embodied their imperium – their ability to exercise sovereignty and their imperial might – in an age of colonial rivalry.

56  The slave trade in Zanzibar

2.3 The role played by the French flag in the Indian Ocean slave trade 1860–1900 As noted earlier, British navy officers were keen to overestimate the role of French dhows and make them bear all responsibilities for their inability to suppress the slave trade. British consuls in Zanzibar like Kirk, or Playfair before him and others afterwards, repeatedly pointed out that the French flag ‘threatens to paralyze the operations of our cruisers’.62 Nevertheless, incidents involving the French flag were far from being as numerous as British officials argued. Only an average of one French dhow a year was caught by the Royal Navy while engaged in the slave trade between 1860 and 1900 as it could be established thanks to both British and French archives – as shown in Table 2.5. In the meantime, as we already mentioned in Chapter One, British cruisers ‘captured some 1,000 dhows, liberating approximately 12,000 slaves’ in the Indian Ocean during this period.63 We can not only conclude that Navy operations not only ‘freed’ ‘a small fraction of the … Africans exported out of East Africa in the nineteenth century’, but also that the 40–45 French cases – summarized in Table 2.4 – were not such a significant part of their overall seizures.64 If French dhows had been so crucial to the traffic the number of French dhows caught while engaged in the slave trade should have been greater. Above all, the fleet of French dhows was, from a practical point of view, too small to carry alone most of the Western Indian Ocean slave trade in the second half of the nineteenth century as it is illustrated by the traffic between Zanzibar and Oman around 1900. At the time, it is estimated that around 1,000 slaves were annually imported from Zanzibar to Sur, Oman’s busiest slave trading port.65 We know that 56 dhows from Sur were officially flying the French flag in 1904.66 The average of slaves carried by each dhow was estimated as five to ten per dhow by the Muscat British Consul himself in 1893.67 If we admit that half of the Suri dhows flying the French flag – a really high proportion compared to the figures Table 2.4  Estimate of cases of slave trade under the French flag according to French and British consular authorities in Zanzibar, 1858–1903.88 Location Zanzibar Comoro Islands Mozambique Madagascar La Réunion Oman Total

Number of cases 19 10  4  6  1  3 43

French flag in the Indian Ocean 57 given by most French consuls or the seizures of the British Navy – were engaged in this slave traffic, we can come to the reasonable conclusion that ‘no more’ than 500–600 slaves could, ‘at best’, have been transported every year by French dhows. This estimation is confirmed by the report of Percy Cox, then British Consul in Muscat, stating that over 560 slaves had been brought to Sur under the French flag out of a total of a thousand in the year 1900.68 To embrace this question from a higher standpoint, we must recall that around 347,000 slaves were carried from East Africa to Arabia, Persia, and India throughout the nineteenth century.69 In the 1860s and early 1870s, Abdul Sheriff estimated that 3,000 slaves were annually deported to Arabia.70 At this time – see Table 2.1 – the French fleet sailing through Zanzibar was composed of 60–80 dhows on a total of 400–500. It is unlikely that these dhows carried alone the traffic towards Arabia whereas they just represented one fourth of the whole fleet. All in all, these facts are only interesting because they reflect how the Anglo-French imperial rivalry crystallised on the French flag and the repression of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean. Of course, this argument does not add much to more important issues such as the terrible human consequences of the Middle Passage in the Indian Ocean.71 Nevertheless, French dhows can also help us to a better understanding of the structures, which shaped slave trafficking in the Indian Ocean. For instance, most of the incidents between France and Britain over the French flag, during the second half of the nineteenth century, took place in Zanzibar, the Comoro Islands, and on the west coast of Madagascar; mainly in Nossi-Bé. Towards the end of the period, major incidents also took place in Muscat and Sur as mentioned earlier. Over the 40–45 cases of slave trading under the French flag officially listed in the archives, we can estimate that 19 took place in Zanzibar, six in Madagascar, ten in the Comoro Islands and three in Muscat as seen in Table 2.4. As Zanzibar – with Kilwa its counterpart on the continent- was the busiest slave trade market of the entire Western Indian Ocean, it is logical, that most of these cases are associated with this harbour.72 On the other hand, the Comoros appear to be almost as important as Zanzibar. Two factors can explain these facts. First of all, the Comoros Islands – Mayotte in particular – probably had the most important fleet of French dhows after Zanzibar even no precise records could yet be found for the whole period.73 Secondly, the Comoros Islands were at the heart of an illegal traffic which provided indentured or contracted labourers – engagés in French – for the local plantations as well as for those of Madagascar and la Réunion. In the early 1860s, Rear-Admiral Walker, head of the British naval station in the Indian Ocean, was ordered ‘to ascertain all the facts regarding a report that French vessels were again engaged in exporting negroes as free labourers from the east coast of Africa to the French colonies’. After receiving different reports from various navy officers, he came to the conclusion that ‘a brisk and increasing slave trade’ was ‘carried on under the protection of the French

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

HCPP 1860 2749-I Class B 1858, December 13 (incl Recruitment of free labourers: ‘L’Alexandre’ 300 1 in n°62) slaves of both sexes for la Réunion (free labourers) transferred on ‘La Glorieuse’ in Zanzibar 1859, November 9 (incl Right of visit: ‘Le Phénix’ (recruitment of 2 in n°59) indentured labourers) visited by H.M.S. ‘Alecto’ 1859, March 16 (incl 2 in n°62) 1859, April 4 (incl 3 in n°62) 1860, February (incl 74) HCPP 1861 2823-I Class B 1860 June 2 (n°55)

Place and type of vessel

Zanzibar European sailing vessel

Recruitment of free labourers: 2 French ships and 1 French war ship Recruitment of free labourers: 2 French ships and 1 French war ship ‘l’Estafette’ Spanish vessel ‘Caridad’ inspected (affaire Mas) and dispatched by the French Consul

Mana Rock, Gallinas, Liberia European sailing vessel Kivingia (Zanzibar) European sailing vessel Kilwa (off Zanzibar) European sailing vessel Zanzibar European sailing vessel

‘Ville d’Aigues Morte’ with 565 African immigrants from the Congo

Martinique European sailing vessel

HCPP 1861 2823 Class A 1860, August 22 One Arab vessel with French colours bound to Nossi-Bé

Madagascar Dhow

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

1

1

2 3

4

58  The slave trade in Zanzibar

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean.

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

Mohilla, Comoro Islands Dhow Johanna, Comoro Islands Dhow Congo river European sailing vessel Johanna, Comoro Islands European sailing vessel

5 2

6

West Coast of Madagascar European sailing vessel

Mohilla, Comoro Islands Dhow

3

7

(Continued)

French flag in the Indian Ocean 59

HCPP 1862 2958 Class A 1861, July 26 (incl 1 in Dhow with French colours ‘Dzonmoque’ from n°106) Mohilla found to Mayotte with 93 slaves 1861, June 12 (incl 3 in Visit of a dhow with French flag n°106) 1862 2959 Class B 1861, February 28 Suspicion of slave trade: ‘Don Juan’ bound to Cuba 1861, July 17 (n°84) ‘Antankare’ French schooner bound to Mayotte and Nossi-Bé HCPP 1863 3159 Class A 1862, June 22 ‘L’Indéfatigable’ from la Réunion visited by ‘Narcissus’ HCPP 1863 3160 Class B 1862, September 18 ‘Zumonie’ dhow with French colours belonging to (n°121) M. Boursier, 93 slaves on board visited by H.M.S. ‘Brisk’

Place and type of vessel

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

Place and type of vessel

1862, June 14 (n°133)

‘Marie’ French barque with 282 African emigrants from Loango ‘Stella’, ‘Sans Nom’, ‘Renaissance’ African immigrants under Régis contract

Martinique European sailing vessel Martinique European sailing vessel

1862, September 5 (n°140) HCPP 1864 3339 Class A 1863, March 6 (incl 2 in Slave trade : ‘Fataou Salama’ dhow with French n°129) colours bound from Zanzibar visited by H.M.S. ‘Ariel’ 1863, October 10, MAE ‘Fataou Salama’ suspected of being engaged in the CADN 748/POA 132 slave trade 1864 3339-I Class B 1863, April 26 Dhow with French colours boarded by H.M.S. ‘Ariel’ off Mohilla 1863, September 14 Ghanja Dhow ‘Baroongo’ belonging to subjects of (incl 4 in n°82) the British State of Kutch flying French colours and register obtained at Nossi-Bé HCPP 1865 3503 Class A 1863, November 17 Recruitment of free labourers: schooner carrying (n°132) the French flag

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Zanzibar Dhow

8

Zanzibar Dhow

9

Mohilla, Comoro Islands Dhow Zanzibar Dhow

Banana point, mouth of Congo river European sailing vessel

4 5

60  The slave trade in Zanzibar

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Year and archives references 1865 3503-I Class B 1864, March 16 (n°62)

1864, March 24 (n°63/ n°95)

1864, October, 6 (incl 1–5 in n°92)

1863, October 6, MAE CADN 748/POA 132

‘Pondichéry of Marseille’ brigantine captured by the Spanish steamer of war ‘Neptuno’ with 682 slaves on board having no papers but showing French colours ‘Dukeyikeh’ Arab vessel belonging to Saed Bin Thani of Soor with French register and French colours shipped a cargo of nearly 300 slaves

Place and type of vessel Havana European sailing vessel

Kilwa (Zanzibar) to Maculla, Maidha near Bunder Broom Dhow ‘Ciceron’ one the several steamer purchased by Marseilles Don Juilan de Zulueta, a notorious slave dealer in European steam vessel Havana. ‘Ciceron’ hoisted English and French colours to avoid visit from French and British ships of war. In ballast at Marseilles Abuse of the right of visit by H.M.S. ‘Ariel’ on Kissimayouou (Mayotte), ‘Noussoura’ French dhow from Mayotte Mohilla (Comoro), Kilwa mastered by Bakary Matsindé (Zanzibar) Dhow Abuse of the right of visit H.M.S. ‘Ariel’ on French Idem dhow ‘Noufsoura’

11

6

7 (Continued)

French flag in the Indian Ocean 61

1864, March 30 (n°64)

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

1864, April 26 (n°102)

Dhow leaving 60 slaves on shore with French papers visited by Governor of Kilwa

HCPP 1866 3635 I Class B 1865, February 27 (incl 1 Abuse of the right of visit on ‘Jean et Camille’ in n°50) HCPP 1867–1868 4000 I Class B 1866, June 2 (incl 1 in ‘Messager de Nossi-Bé’ denounced by Consul n°56) Pakenham in Madagascar as engaged in the slave trade from Mahanoro to la Réunion HCPP 1867 3816 Class A 1865, September 26 ‘Lord Byron’ French dhow boarded by H.M.S. (n°77) ‘Vigilant’ HCPP 1870 C 141 Class B

Place and type of vessel Kilwa (Zanzibar) Dhow

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases 12

Little Popo (African west coast, Bight of Benin) European sailing vessel

Mahanoro, Madagascar European vessel

Island of Sumbat (Zanzibar) Dhow

8

13

9

62  The slave trade in Zanzibar

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

Nossi-Bé (Madagascar) Dhow

14

Majunga, Comoro Islands Dhow

19

Cape Delgado (Mozambique) Dhow

20

Makulla near Muscat Dhow

21

10

Bouya near Zanzibar Dhow

11

Off Cape Boillon Dhow

12 (Continued)

French flag in the Indian Ocean 63

1869, May 23 (incl 1 in ‘Salama’ Arab dhow belonging to M Rabuad n°1) frères, Roux de Fraissinet and Cie, drowned SEE ALSO 1871 C 340 by H.M.S. ‘Dryad’ and cargo confiscated N°41 1870, June 5 (incl in Suspicion of slave trade on five Arab dhows with n°70) French colours and papers HCPP 1872 C.657 Class B 1871, March 23 (n°66) French Dhow ‘Grimaldi’ boarded a slave from the and (n°5) Zanzibar dhow ‘Salamater’ when spotted by H.M.S. ‘Columbine’ HCPP 1873 C867-I Class B 1872, December 31 (incl Bughala dhow under French colours landed slaves in n°5) in Makulla near Muscat owned by Abdulla bin Salim el Khemenz 1873, February 12, MAE French Dhows abusively (?) CADC, 143 CP4, 196 boarded by H.M.S. ‘Daphne’ HCCP 1875 C 1168 1874, February 7 (n°25) A French dhow failing to show her colours to H.M.S. ‘Daphne’

Place and type of vessel

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

1874, September 21 (n°76, N°88)

A French dhow ‘Fath El Kheir’ boarded by H.M.S. Off Tumbat island (north‘Glasgow’. 5 children slaves found on board west coast of Zanzibar) French Consul sent back the dhow to Mayotte Dhow

22

Capture of a French Dhow ‘Fatal Kheir’ by H.M.S. ? ‘Flying Fish’ handed over to authorities at Mayotte Dhow

23

French vessel engaged in the slave trade between Mozambique, Madagascar and la Réunion ‘Etienne St Lawrence’ boarded by H.M.S. ‘Thetis’ A dhow under the French flag owned by Seyd Akil of Dufar, a large vessel coming from Madagascar took slaves at Pemba and registered them as passengers before the French Consul in Zanzibar The French Consul sends the owner of a dhow under French colours to prison as he established that he was engaged in the slave trade but the man is released by the Sultan

Tullear, Mozambique coast Dhow

24

Zanzibar Dhow

25

Zanzibar Dhow

26

1876 C 1588 1875, April 29 (n°67) HCPP 1877 C1829 1876, March 11 (n°367 see n°139, 143) 1876, May 18 (n°297)

1876, November 13 (n°359)

Place and type of vessel

64  The slave trade in Zanzibar

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

Nossi-Bé, Madagascar Dhow

27

Nos Fali, Madagascar Dhow

28

Zanzibar harbour Dhow

29

Lindi Harbour Dhow

13

14

(Continued)

French flag in the Indian Ocean 65

1876, February 21 (n°52) French schooner ‘Africa’ discovered by French authorities at Nossi-Bé, Madagascar; sent to la Réunion to be prosecuted HCPP 1880 [C.2720] 1879, September 29 A dhow flying French colours destroyed by (n°67, 77, 117) H.M.S. ‘Spartan’ after being seized while landing slaves from Mayotte HCPP 1881 C3052 1880, August 17 Seizure of a French dhow, Djamila (captain (n°293) see also Hamadi Bin Maaroof) with 94 slaves on board by n°287 in the Sultan of Zanzibar 1882 C3160 HCPP 1882 C3160 1881 August 26 (n°201, Two French dhows, one called saint Yusuf, illegally 213, 297) boarded and searched by H.M.S. ‘Ruby’. Procedures not respected

Place and type of vessel

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

1881 December 4 (n°237)

Captain Brownrigg killed while boarding a dhow Pemba island flying the French flag. British authorities asked for Dhow temporary right of search. French authorities refused

30

A schooner under British colours, ‘Gazelle’, seized Johanna, Comoro Islands by H.M.S. ‘Harrier’ with slaves at Johanna. Vessel European sailing vessel owned by a French planter, M. Caltaux from la Réunion, married to a British subject

31

Schooners ‘Town of Liverpool’ from Mauritius flying the British flag and ‘Venus’ and ‘Bretagne’ from la Réunion flying the French flag (French owners and chartered in la Réunion) French vessel ‘Félicité’ arrived at la Réunion with 15 slaves from Madagascar Dhow ‘Arakan’ flying French colours. Paper produced in orders. Boarded by H.M.S. ‘Reindeer’

Madagascar and la Réunion European sailing vessel

33

La Réunion European sailing vessel Zanzibar Dhow

34

HCPP 1883 C3547 1883, January 5 (n°195)

1888 C5428 1886, November 18 (n°112)

1887, June 30 (n°144) 1887, March 27 (incl 2 in n°47) HCPP 1888 C.5578

Place and type of vessel

15

66  The slave trade in Zanzibar

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

Kwale, off Zanzibar Dhow

16

Mozambique Dhow Zanzibar Harbour Dhow

35

Muscat Dhow

38

36

French flag teared down by Royal Navy officers before entering Muscat harbour. (Continued)

French flag in the Indian Ocean 67

1887, December 7 (incl 1 Dhow ‘M’saperi’ captain Rachidi M’souri from in n°4) Mayotte complained that H.M.S. ‘Garnet’ boarded and detained his vessel without any reason 1888, October 28, MAE Arab dhow flying French colours boarded by CADN 748/POA 132 H.M.S. ‘Algérine’ 170 slaves found on board 1893, July 4, MAE Dhow ‘Fath El Kheir’ arrested by H.M.S. CADN 748/POA 132 ‘Philomel’ with 77 slaves on board see also MAE CADN (acquittal at la Réunion, 18 Octobre 1893 748POA 111, 180 CP COM 46, 267) 1896, September, Dhows ‘Salama’ and ‘Saad’ arrested by H.M.S. Brunet-Millon, Charles. ‘Sphinx’ for being engaged in the slave trade and Boutriers de la Mer des conducted to Muscat to be handled to the French Indes, 235 et MAE Consul : 170 slaves freed including 40 children CADC, 180 CP COM under the age of 12 years old 44 / P 191, 77-83, 88-92, 95-124

Place and type of vessel

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

1897, September, MAE ‘Fath El Rahman’ dhow flying French colours CADN 748/POA 132 / abusively arrested for being engaged in the slave 180 CP COM 44, 197 trade 1897, August, MAE ‘Majunga’ French dhow arbitrarily visited by CADC, 180 CP COM British authorities 44 / P 191, 181-185 1898, June, MAE CADC, Dhows ‘Majunga’ and ‘Selama’, owner and captain, 180 CP COM 45 / P Selim ben Séïf arrested in Pemba by British 191, 86-94, 224, 228 authorities for transporting seven slaves. British (Judgement) authorities refused to handle him to French authorities contesting his status as French protégés 1899, May 4, MAE French dhow also named ‘Fath El Kheir” CADN 748POA 111 condemned at la Réunion for being involved in the slave trade 1900, April 27, MAE French ‘Diriki’, Z 45, arrested with three (children) CADC 180 CP COM slaves 46, 73

Place and type of vessel

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Mombasa Dhow

17

Pemba Dhow

18

Pemba Dhow

40

Zanzibar Dhow

41

Zanzibar Dhow

42

68  The slave trade in Zanzibar

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

1900, September 3, MAE CADC 180 CP COM 46, 113 1902, September, Charles Brunet-Millon, Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, 264-265 1902, March, Charles Brunet-Millon, Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, 294 1903, April, Charles Brunet-Millon, Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, 296

French dhow ‘Fath el Kheir’, M10, seized and sold for being engaged in the slave trade by the Portuguese Navy French dhow owner and French protégé Djouma Ben Mbarak arrested in Zanzibar

1907, March, 180 CP COM 47, 184 1909, February, 180 CP COM 47, 223

Place and type of vessel Langa, Mozambique Dhow

43

Zanzibar Dhow

A French dhow ‘Fath el Keir’ sank in Dubai after a Dubai collision with a Muscat Dhow Dhow Five French protégés arrested in on their Badan dhow by H.M.S. ‘Perseus’ near Ras Abou Daoud and sent to prison by Captain Cox for breaking quarantine French dhow ‘Kadra’, seized by the ‘Aréthuse’ for being engaged in the arms trade and taken to the French Consul in Muscat French dhow ‘Zaher’ previously known as ‘Marseille’, arms on board abusively seized by the Italian Navy

Sur, Persian Gulf Dhow

19

Ras Hafoun, Somalia Dhow Ras Hanouf, Somalia Dhow (Continued)

French flag in the Indian Ocean 69

Year and archives references

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases

Year and archives references

Name of the boat and nature of the incident

1911, July, 180 CP COM French dhow ‘Moçaffa’ abusively visited by the 47, 244 British Navy 1914, October, MAE CP French dhow ‘Selamti’ forced to pay a bribe COM 47, 293 (extortion case? ) by the Sultan of Ras Korei

Place and type of vessel Persian Gulf Dhow Ras Korei, Persian Gulf Dhow TOTAL NUMBER OF CASES

Slave trade cases Abuse of (only cases in the the right Indian Ocean of visit are numbered) cases 20

43

20

70  The slave trade in Zanzibar

Table 2.5  Slave trade cases involving French dhows in parallel with cases of the Royal Navy abuse of the right of visit on French dhows between 1858 and 1914 in the Western Indian Ocean. (Continued)

French flag in the Indian Ocean 71 flag’.74 He based his conclusion on a report sent to him by Captain De Horsey written in July 1861. The navy officer denounced that ‘negroes … are constantly being imported to Mayotte … [and] not called slaves but engagés’.75 Twenty-three years later, Kirk in Zanzibar denounced ‘a large slave trade from the Portuguese possessions to the French colonies in Madagascar and the Comoro islands’ when ‘a large dhow’ under French colours ‘fully loaded up at Kisanga with slaves … sailed for Nossi-Bé’.76 The testimonials quoted earlier are emblematic of the new system of servitude – indentured labour – which partly replaced the European slave trade in the Western Indian Ocean after the abolition of slavery in British and French colonies.77 The cases mentioned earlier prove that an illegal system of recruitment existed to supply French colonies in the Indian Ocean, mainly the Comoro Islands, Madagascar, and la Réunion. In her study of indentured labour in Madagascar, Jehanne-Emmanuelle Monnier demonstrated that ‘the official end of recruitment in Africa [1859] did not end exactions against Africans engagés’.78 She showed that ‘illegal convoys’ persisted in the second half of the century mainly towards Mayotte or Nossi-Bé.79 Sidi Ainouddine has also proven that in the Comoros Islands ‘the recruitment of slaves continued until 1904’ when slavery was finally abolished by the French governor in Ngazigja.80 In most cases, illegal recruitment of slaves as engagés was carried out with the complicity of some French officials on the spot as well as local chiefs. Richard B. Allen pointed out that this new form of servitude led to a flow of illegal slave trade between East Africa, Madagascar, and the Mascarenes throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. It is estimated that around 50,000 engagés were deprived of their freedom by French slavers.81 As mentioned earlier, the French government had set up a Naval Station in the Indian Ocean. Commanders of this squadron had the duty to put an end to these illegal practices.82 Nevertheless, the French naval squadron achieved very little in the Indian Ocean. Only 22 vessels were seized between 1858 and 1889 around Madagascar, the Comoros, la Réunion, and Zanzibar.83 Further research should, however, be conducted to see if other data cannot be found and investigate the reasons behind what seems a great failure. In the Atlantic for comparison, the French squadron seized 99 vessels and freed 8,000 slaves between 1815 and 1832.84 Apart from the supply of indentured labourers, the French flag was also involved in the Malagasy slave trade. In the 1870s, Gwyn Campbell points that ‘between 6,000 and 10,000 slaves’ were annually imported into the island.85 This was at the heights of the traffic just before the Sultan of Zanzibar signed in 1873, under the threat of a naval blockade, a new treaty with Britain forbidding the slave trade within his dominions as we will see in Chapter Five.86 Again it is hard to believe that the French flag alone played a central role in the traffic considering the seize of the fleet. As for Muscat in the 1900s, the number of French dhows was, however, too small to be able to carry the whole traffic. With a fleet of around 100 vessels – see

72  The slave trade in Zanzibar Table 1.1 in Chapter One – French dhows could ‘just’ have handled half of the Malagasy slave trade.87 All these guess-estimates which have been drawn from new archival data help us to draw a more nuanced picture of the role played by French dhows in the Western Indian Ocean slave trade throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. If they played a relatively significant role in illegal slave trade there, they were far from being responsible for the whole traffic as British colonial officials often argued at the time. Besides, French dhows also highlight some important features of the Indian Ocean slave trade and reveal the importance of indentured labour in French colonies as well. Finally, as we will see in the following chapter, French dhows are a good entry into the understanding of British anti-slavery discourse since they became one of the great focus points of authorities and public opinion. In contrast with Britain’s ‘noble crusade’, they embodied the evils of human trafficking concealed under a European flag. This made the interference of British naval power more legitimate even if their lawfulness could be questioned. Indeed, as we will now see, dhows stressed the limits imposed by international law and the sovereignty of states to humanitarian operations against the slave trade at sea.

Acknowledgements Parts of this chapter were published in an earlier form in ‘Le blocus de Zanzibar 1888-1889: entre “intervention d’humanité”, colonisation et droit international.’ Outre-Mers, no. 402–403 (2019): 107–126, and ‘The French Flag in Zanzibar Waters 1860s–1900s: Abolition and Imperial Rivalry in the Western Indian Ocean.’ The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, (2020) DOI: 10.1080/03086534.2020.1783115.

Notes 1 John Broich, Squadron Ending the African Slave Trade (London: Duckworth Overlook, 2017), Ch. 1, Kindle. 2 Commander Meara to Commodore Sir L. Heath, 5 June 1869, HCPP 1870 (C141), inclosure in N°70, 81. 3 Lawrence C. Jennings, “France, Great Britain, and the Repression of the Slave Trade, 1841–1845”, French Historical Studies, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring, 1977): 101–125. 4 ‘‘Convention conclue à Londres le 20 mai 1845 entre la France et la GrandeBretagne pour la suppression de la Traite de Noirs’’ in Recueil des Traités de la France, Volume Cinq 1842–1848 ed. by Jules de Clerq (Paris: Durand et Pedone, 1880), 277–287. 5 ‘‘Instructions confidentielles concertées entre la France et l’Angleterre pour la vérification des pavillons suspects 1867’’, Ministères des Affaires étrangères, Centre des archives de Nantes, [MAE CADN], 748 POA 132. 6 François Crouzet, “The Second Hundred Years War: Some Reflections”, French History, Volume 10, Issue 4, (December 1996): 432–450; Hendrik Wesseling, Les Empires Coloniaux Européens 1815–1914 (Paris: Gallimard, 2009) 235–246.

French flag in the Indian Ocean 73 7 HCPP, 1871 (C.340), N°1, 1. 8 HCPP, 1870 (C.141), N°2, 2. 9 W.H. Lecky, History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne (New York, Appleton and Company: 1895), 153. 10 Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 11 Philip Colomb, Slave Catching in the Indian Ocean (London: Longman Greens, 1873), 62. G. L. Sulivan, Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar (London: Sampson Low, 1873), 20. William Cope Devereux, A Cruise in the Gorgon (London: Bell & Daldy, 1869), 104. 12 Letter to the editor of The Times, 7 September, 1878, 10. 13 Robert Hall, the Secretary to the Admiralty, to Mr Lister, 28 January 1882, in HCPP 1882 (C3160), Inclosure 1 in N°298, 331 14 Captain Henderson to Rear-Admiral Nicholson, 3 May 1891, in HCPP 1890–1891 (C6373) inclosure in N°2, 12. 15 British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to the Editor of the Daily News, 9 May 1893, in HCPP 1893–1894 (C7035), inclosure, 5. 16 Captain Bearcroft to Vice-Admiral Sir E. Seymour, 22 May 1899, in HCPP 1900 (Cd96), Inclosure in N°2, 2. 17 Herbert S Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 194–195. 18 Walter Johnson ‘‘White lies: Human property and domestic slavery aboard the slave ship Creole’’, Atlantic Studies 5:2 (2008): 240. 19 Richard B Allen, European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean (Athens: Ohio University Press. 2014), Ch. 1, Kindle. 20 Christopher Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1968), 271. 21 Reginald Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, 1856–1890 (London: Faber & Faber, 1968), 216. 22 Raymond Howell, The Navy and the Save Trade (London: Croom Helm, 1987) 166–167. 23 Hideaki Suzuki, Slave Trade Profiteers in the Western Indian Ocean (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) 169. 24 Ibid, 168. 25 Charles Brunet-Millon, Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, Affaires de Zanzibar et de Mascate (Paris: A Pedone, 1910), 6; 225. 26 Colette Dubois, ‘‘Une traite tardive en mer Rouge méridionale : la route des esclaves du golfe de Tadjoura (1880–1936)’’ in Traites et esclavages en Afrique orientale et dans l’océan Indien ed. Henri Médard et al. (Paris: Karthala, 2013), 197–222  ; Samuel F. Sanchez, ‘‘Navigation et gens de mer dans le canal de Mozambique : Le boutre dans les activités maritimes de Nosy Be et de l’ouest de Madagascar au XIXe siècle’’, in Madagascar et l’Afrique, entre Identité Insulaire et Appartenance Historique, ed. D. Nativel and F. Rajaonah (Paris: Karthala, 2007), 103–136 ; Guillemette Crouzet, ‘‘Boutres tricolores, boutres de discorde. Britanniques et Français en Oman et dans le nord de l’océan Indien à la fin du XIXe siècle’’, Revue d’Histoire Maritime, no. 21 (2016): 407–434 ; Jacques Lafon, ‘‘Pavillon tricolore et traite des noirs au pays de Sindbad’’ in Itinéraires : de l’histoire du droit à la diplomatie culturelle et à l’histoire coloniale (Paris: Edition de la Sorbonne, 2001), 35–44 ; J. L. Miège ‘‘les boutriers arabes dans l’océan Indien au XIXè siècle’’, Etudes et Documents, Université de Provence, Sénanque, no.12 (1979): 113–118. François Renault, Lavigerie l’Esclavage Africain et l’Europe, tome 1. Afrique centrale; tome 2. Campagne antiesclavagiste (Paris: Éditions E. de Boccard, 1971).

74  The slave trade in Zanzibar 27 John Kirk is a mythical figure of British anti-slavery. Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, v. 28 HCPP 1870 (C141) Inclosure 1 in N°43, 49 and HCPP 1870 (C141), 81. 29 ibid. 30 Suzuki, Slave Trade Profiteers, 170. 31 HCPP 1871 (C340), Inclosure 1 in N°1, 1. 32 ibid. 33 Nombre de tonnage des boutres francisés ayant fréquenté le port de Zanzibar de 1851 à 1903 in MAE, CADN, 748 POA 132. 34 Fahad Ahmad Bishara “No country but the ocean”: Reading International Law from the Deck of an Indian Ocean Dhow, ca. 1900, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 60, no. 2 (2018): 338–366. 35 Registre des Boutres de Mayotte et dépendances 1868–1879, SHM, Lorient, 4C5.30. Sanchez, ‘‘Navigation et gens de mer’’, 126. 148 dhows were registered in the archives between 1868 and 1879. See also Jean Martin, Comores: Quatre Iles entre Pirates et Planteurs, tome 1  : Razzias Malgaches et Rivalités Internationales (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1983), 258. Martin stresses that in 1879 the papers of 28 dhows – lost or destroyed – were brought back to Mayotte by the commander of the French naval station. 36 Lacau à Goblet, 12 Décembre 1888, in Ministères des Affaires étrangères, Centre des archives de la Courneuve [MAE CADC], 143 CP10, 456–58. 37 HCPP 1893–94 (C6955) Reports on the Zanzibar Protectorate, Act, 9. 38 MAE, CADN, 748 POA 132, listes des boutres francisés du port de Zanzibar 1893–1899 ; Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite, 1897 (Bruxelles: Hayez, 1898), 211. 39 “World Fleet Statistics”, Accessed September, 1, 2019, https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/world-fleet-statistics, (year 1878). 40 HCPP 1870 (C141), Inclosure N°70, 81. 41 Louis Renault and Charles Lyon-Caen, Traité de Droit Maritime (Paris: Pichon, 1893), 39. 42 Renault and Lyon-Caen, Traité de Droit Maritime, 42. 43 Arrêté du 5 février 1846 du Commandant supérieur de Mayotte Passot; Archives des Affaires étrangères, Mémoires et Documents, Afrique, vol.143, F°28–30. 44 Brunet-Millon, Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, 104. 45 Renault and Lyon-Caen, Traité de Droit Maritime, 39.  46 Renault and Lyon-Caen, Traité de Droit Maritime, 39.  47 Paul-Louis-Ernest Pradier-Fodéré, Précis de Droit Commercial (Paris: Guillaumin, 1872), 311. 48 M. de Rémusat to Mr. West, 11 November 1871, in HCPP 1872 (C657), inclosure in N°8, 2. 49 Ibid. 50 Serge Daget, La Répression de la Traite des Noirs au XIXe siècle. L ’Action des Croisières Françaises sur les Côtes Occidentales de l’Afrique (Paris: Karthala, 1997). 51 Valérie Valey, Traite, Commerce et Politique en Afrique Orientale 1858– 1902, Mémoire de maîtrise, Université de Bretagne Sud, Rennes, Septembre 1999, 15–16. 52 Dr Kirk to the Marquis of Salisbury, 27 February 1880, in HCPP 1880 (C3052), N°252, 300. Kirk could not believe in this statement and cunningly added that he had heard that everything was done ‘to encourage the use of the French flag by Arabs, whether of Arabia or Zanzibar’. 53 Le commandant de la station de la mer des Indes au consul de Zanzibar, 28 août 1880, in MAE, CADN, 748 POA 132.

French flag in the Indian Ocean 75 54 ibid. 55 Consul de Zanzibar au Ministre de la Marine et des Colonies, 7 Janvier 1879, in MAE, CADN, 748 POA 132. 56 Eugène Bure Consul de France à Zanzibar au Ministre des affaires étrangères 20 Août 1868 in MAE, CADC, 143 CP, P18464, 1862–1869, 357. 57 Consul de Zanzibar au Ministre de la Marine et des Colonies, 7 Janvier 1879, in MAE, CADN, 748 POA 132.  58 M. Piat, Consul de France à Zanzibar, au Ministre des Affaires étrangères, 10 Juillet 1890, in MAE, CADC, 143 CP12, 1890. 59 Le vice-consul français de Mascate au ministre des Affaires étrangères, 30 Juin 1897, in MAE, CADN, 748 POA 132.  60 Johan Mathew, Margins of the Market: Trafficking and Capitalism across the Arabian Sea (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 53. 61 The amount of the tax was, according to French laws, fixed by the local authorities. Unfortunately, no document could be found on the rate fixed at Zanzibar, Mayotte, or Nossi-Bé. See Article 6, Projet de Décret sur la Francisation des Boutres, Mayotte, Service Administratif de la Marine, in Francisation des boutres, 1869–1886, FR ANOM 3100 COL 240, MAD 240, carton 530, Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer (AOM), Aix en Provence. 62 HCPP 1864 (3339-I), N°82, 75. 63 Howell, The Royal Navy, 221. 64 Lindsay Doulton, “The flag that set us free” in Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition, ed. Robert Harms et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 102. 65 Memorandum by Captain P. Z. Cox, IOR/R/15/1/552. Benjamin Reilly, Slavery, Agriculture and Malaria in the Arabian Peninsula (Athens: Ohio University Press 2015), 143–145. 66 Grant of the French Flag to Muscat Dhows, N°2, 56. 67 Briton Cooper Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967) 63; Suzuki, Slave Trade profiteers, 167–189. 68 Memorandum by Captain P. Z. Cox, IOR/R/15/1/552. 69 Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery : A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2012), 151. 70 Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar, (London: Currey, 1987), 230–231. 71 Matthew S Hopper, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 18–51; Alpers, Edward A. “The Other Middle Passage: The African Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean” in Many Middle Passage, Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World, ed. Emma Christopher, Cassandra Pybus and Marcus Rediker (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 20–38. 72 Henri Médard & Shane Doyle, Slavery in the Great Lake Region of East Africa (Oxford: James Currey, 2007), 12. 73 Francisation des boutres, 1869–1886, FR ANOM 3100 COL 240, MAD 240, carton 530, AOM. SHM, 4C5-30, registre des boutres francisés de Mayotte et dépendances 1868–1879. 74 HCPP 1862 (2958), N°106, 133. 75 HCPP 1862 (2958), Inclosure 1 in N°106, 133–134 76 HCPP 1884–1885 (C4553), N°96 and inclosure in N°96, 68. See also HCPP 1884–1885 (C4523) N°64, 39; HCPP, 1877 (C1829), N°139, 96. 77 Suzanne Miers, Slavery in The Twentieth Century (Oxford: Altamira, 2003), 6–7; Allen, European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, Ch.5, Kindle. 78 Jehanne-Emmanuelle Monnier, Esclaves de la Canne à Sucre (Paris: Harmattan, 2006), 167.

76  The slave trade in Zanzibar 79 Ibid, 177. 80 Sidi Ainouddine, ‘‘L’esclavage aux Comores Son fonctionnement de la période arabe à 1904’’, Esclavage et abolition dans l’Océan Indien (1723–1860), Acte du colloque de Saint Denis de la Réunion 4–8 Décembre 1998, texte réunis par Edmond Maestri (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2002), 90. 81 Allen, European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, Ch.5, Kindle. 82 Monnier, Esclaves de la Canne à Sucre, 172–173. 83 Valérie Valey, Traite Commerce et Politique en Afrique Orientale, 53. Valey draws her figures from the archives of la Division navale de l’Océan Indien, Service Historique de la Marine, Lorient. Répression de la traite et irrégularités des engagements de travailleurs libres, 4C6.2. 84 Daget, La Répression de la Traite des Noirs, 268. 85 Campbell “Madagascar and the Slave Trade, 1810–1895”, 217. 86 Kirk to Granville, 5.vi. 73: FO/84, 13474. Richard B. Allen, “Suppressing a Nefarious Traffic”, 893. 87 Slaves captures according to Abdul Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory, 224. 88 See table 2.5

3

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade International law or imperial politics?

In International law, the right of visit, search, and seizure of merchant’s vessels by the navy of a foreign nation had originally been restricted to times of war. In times of peace, only pirates were liable to this exceptional procedure.1 Throughout the nineteenth century however, the right of visit was used by the Royal Navy to allow warships to stop, inspect, and seize any merchant vessels suspected of slave trading. 2 The fact that the British navy used the right of visit, search, and seizure in a time of peace represented a huge revolution of international law and international relations, whether in theory or practice.3 In the views of most British politicians, humanitarian motives rightly justified this breach into the sovereignty of states and the freedom of the seas.4 In short, the right of visit questioned both international relations and international law. This chapter will first highlight how the right of visit and search became Britain’s favourite weapon against the slave trade at sea and examine why it created such a great controversy between Britain and France in Zanzibar waters during the second half of the nineteenth century. We should see that disputes over the French flag and the right of visit not only reflected imperial rivalry but also more importantly raised complex questions of international law. Last but not least, this chapter looks into the question of French indentured labour and the fate of British liberated slaves. It will outline the paradoxical consequences of the right of visit and the limits of ‘freedom’ in the age of abolition and empire.

3.1  The right of visit: humanitarianism or imperialism? Before it came to Zanzibar and the Western Indian Ocean, the question of the right of visit and search had already poisoned Anglo-French relations in the Atlantic around the 1840s.5 As Lawrence C. Jennings highlighted it, ‘from 1841 to 1845 a disagreement over … the “right of search” question, tended to divide not only the two governments but the two people’.6 On both sides of the Channel, Parliament and the popular press revived old and strong nationalist feelings tainted with either anglophobia or francophobia.7 Jean Allain points out that ‘the seizing of two French ships by the Royal Navy in particular – the Sénégambie and the Marabout – was

78  The slave trade in Zanzibar a rallying point for anti-British sentiment in France’.8 The illegal capture of those vessels considered as slavers, as well as the mistreatment of their crews, contributed to destroying the credibility of the British arguments in favour of the right of visit and search. Moreover, the Marabout crisis reminded the French public of older cases and controversies, such as the seizure of the Louis in 1817. Returning from Africa to Martinique, this vessel was seized by the Royal Navy on suspicion of slave trading. However, the French crew resisted capture: three French, as well as 12 British sailors, unfortunately, died during the fight.9 On appeal before the British High Court of Admiralty, the seizure was declared illegal as no convention existed between France and Britain allowing the Royal Navy to seize French ships.10 As a result, in the eyes of the French government and the French public opinion, the right of visit in times of peace was perceived both as a nefarious abuse of British power and a humiliation of the French flag, as already mentioned in the previous chapter. In 1841, an influential member of the French Parliament, Thomas Jollivet, published a popular pamphlet in which he mocked – just as the whole French Parliament did at the time – the head of French Foreign Affairs, François Guizot, when he defended the signature of a new anti-slave trade treaty in which the mutual right of visit and search was granted to Britain. Guizot, an ardent anglophile, justified his position in pointing that ‘abolition of the slave trade in England’ was ‘a moral movement’.11 In this view, this movement had to be joined by France if she wanted to remain a great power and ‘a civilised nation’. Accordingly, Guizot signed in London the Quintuple treaty with Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain in order to put back France at the forefront of the struggle against the slave trade. Because the treaty contained articles establishing, in the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, the mutual right of visit and search between all signatory powers, it was never ratified by the French Parliament.12 Between 1815 and 1848, anti-slavery policies in France were not as central to political life as in Britain. Abolitionism did not really meet a broad support whether in public opinion or in the political arena. The ‘Société de la morale chrétienne’ (1821–1861) and the ‘Société française pour l’abolition de l’esclavage’ (1834–1848) never went beyond confidential and elitist circles.13 Besides, as Olivier Grenouilleau points out, ‘abolitionists were often seen as traitors and accused of hoping for the ruin of their country’, especially since the international anti-slavery movement was led by Britain.14 British motives behind the abolition of the slave trade always remained deeply suspicious across all sections of French society. This suspicion towards British anti-slavery is well illustrated by the report the French Consul in Zanzibar, M. Gaillard, sent in 1877 to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In his letter, he declared: ‘thanks to the repression of the slave trade, Britain has established her influence all over the coast of Africa and Arabia as far as the very end of the Persian Gulf. It gives her a perpetual pretext to meddle in everything and, as a consequence, to take advantage of it in order to increase her influence’.15

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 79 In France, it was believed that Britain only wanted the right of visit and search to disrupt and ‘replace the commerce of her rivals’.16 As it has been summarized by the French historian Serge Daget, ‘it was thought that the jealous rival was ostensibly using humanitarian means to foster its ambitions for political, commercial and … military hegemony’.17 Moreover, ‘French statesmen never ceased to discover hidden levels of realpolitik, arrogance, and hypocrisy in British abolitionist initiatives’.18 Meanwhile, French politicians and diplomats were not the only ones to believe that Britain had a sort of hidden agenda when she tried to impose the right of visit and search. In 1895 for instance, ‘US Ambassador Eugene Schuyler, a career diplomat, wrote that “the real reason” for attempting to end the slave trade “was fairly well concealed under the mask of philanthropy”’19 For these reasons, in a context of growing imperial tensions between France and Great Britain, the question of the right of visit, as well as the question of the French flag, continued to be a most controversial issue in the Indian Ocean until The Hague Arbitration took place (1905) as we will see in Chapter Eight. Ironically, French critics of the right of visit still summarize quite well some key aspects of the ongoing historiographical debate over England’s motivations behind her anti-slavery policies in East Africa or elsewhere. 20 While early histories, such as the most influential Reginald Coupland, praised the abolition of slavery in East Africa as a confirmation of the humanitarian greatness of the British Empire, others, like Richard D. Wolf, saw the anti-slave trade campaign as ‘a cloak to disguise or give spurious justification to the economic and political objectives and strategies … of British Imperialism’. 21 As noted in the introduction to this book, the debate over the nature of imperialism and its relationship with abolition is today as fierce as ever. It is interesting to see that contemporaries already debated these questions in relative similar terms. The debate over the right of visit should, therefore, be seen as a broader controversy over the nature of the British abolition policies and its relationship to imperialism. French and British diplomatic archives dealing with Zanzibar can shed an interesting light on this debate. It is for example possible to examine if the right of visit was often diverted from its original purpose or not. Among the 60 cases, or so, that divided France and Britain over the right of visit and the slave trade between 1858 and 1914 in the Indian Ocean – see Table 2.5 in Chapter Two – only a third of them, about 20, proved to have been abusively conducted by British Navy officers. Among these cases, even less appear to have had the purpose to deter or eliminate French traders from Zanzibar waters. For instance, three French dhows were burned whereas they carried legitimate goods and trade in 1867, 1869, and 1879.22 All in all, the abuse of military power in the name of anti-slavery seems to have been quite limited in Zanzibar waters during the second half of the nineteenth century as far as France was concerned. If the right of visit gave Britain a certain naval pre-eminence it was not systematically used

80  The slave trade in Zanzibar to eliminate her rivals, among which France was the greatest. However, these few cases of abuse had a great impact upon the diplomatic and public debate since they allowed contemporaries to address bigger issues of international relations.

3.2 The French flag and the right of visit: a problem of international law According to international law, ‘while a belligerent right to visit ships was well established by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, it was limited to visiting neutral ships [in times of war] to ascertain whether they were in fact neutrals or simply flying flags of convenience; and searching to ensure that no contraband material was on board’.23 Imposing this right in times of peace involved a legal revolution of practices coded in international law. Except in the 1831 and 1833 conventions, France always refused to grant the Royal Navy the right of visit, search, and seizure of vessels flying her flag. Moreover, in 1831 and 1833, this right was indeed very restricted. If the 1831 convention stated that ‘the reciprocal right of visit would be exercised on board of vessels belonging to one nation or the other’, it was limited to the west coast of Africa, and around Madagascar, Cuba, Puerto Rico as well as the Brazilian coastlines.24 Additionally, the number of vessels entitled to the right of visit was defined by a list issued by each year by both governments. No MixedCommissions – bilateral courts designed to judge slave trade cases – were set up and captured vessels had to be handled to the tribunals of the nation they belonged to.25 It was also within those limits that the 1833 convention authorised visit, search, and seizure in stating that ‘the cruisers of both nations [are] allowed to exercise the right of visit and seizure’.26 After the 1840s turmoil surrounding the right of visit, a new convention between France and Britain was signed in 1845. This convention completely excluded the reciprocal right of visit.27 From the British point of view, the aim of this new convention was to stop the abuse of the French flag allegedly used to conceal the slave trade on the west coast of Africa. It was claimed in Britain that slavers had hoisted the French tricolour to escape British patrols. Since the Royal Navy had lost the right to search and seize vessels flying the French flag. This situation was quite similar to the controversy raised by the French flag in the Indian Ocean during the second half of the century as noted in Chapter Two. However, if the 1845 convention excluded the right of visit and search, it nonetheless led to the presence of a more important French anti-slave trade squadron on the west coast of Africa. Forty-six French vessels were for instance mobilised in 1846. 28 According to the 1845 convention however, only French ships of war had the right to visit, search, and seize vessels flying the French flag. The Royal Navy could just proceed to the verification of the flag and papers – a visit strictly speaking. This was designed to prevent the abuse of the French flag in illegal slave trading. 29

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 81 In the Indian Ocean, the legal framework set up in 1845 for the right of visit in the Atlantic – the verification of the flag – remained until the end of the period in which this book is interested, namely 1914. When the 1845 treaty came to an end, new instructions were issued to French and British Navy officers in 1859 and 1867. These instructions developed with more details the procedures to be followed by navy officers. Still, these documents did not change the rules that had been set up in 1845. The 1859 and 1867 instructions are quite similar. The 1867 version is only more specific regarding some procedures to follow during flag verification. Both documents reminded navy officers that ‘in virtue of the independence of national flags, a merchant-vessel navigating the high seas is not subject to any foreign jurisdiction which shall not have been accepted by treaty. A ship can therefore visit, detain, arrest, or seize, only such merchant-vessels as are recognized to belong to her own nation’.30 The French opposition to the right of visit was also be explained through legal conceptions of international relations at sea. France’s refusal of the right of visit was mainly based upon the concept of the freedom of the seas developed by the influential Dutch jurist, Hugo Grotius. Grotius’ Mare Liberum published in 1609 contributed to establishing ‘the right to freedom of trade and navigation’ in international public law.31 Grotius elaborated the argument that high seas belonged to all nations and defined it as a ‘res communis’. All nations were entitled to navigate freely upon high seas. No restrictions to this freedom of navigation, as well as commerce, could, therefore, be imposed to any nation.32 Consequently, French and American lawyers use the freedom of the seas to oppose the British right of visit. They described it as an illegal or unlawful limitation of the freedom of the seas.33 The law of nations – ‘ius gentium’ – thus opposed the right of visit and search, Britain’s favourite tool designed for the universal suppression of the slave trade at sea. To a certain extent, this was quite ironical since Britain had significantly contributed to condemn, in theory, this inhumane traffic in international law thanks to major multilateral conferences such as the Congress of Vienna in 1815 or the Congress of Verona in 1822. Failing however to impose a universal right of visit to suppress the slave trade, Britain found its way around this problem in developing a web of more than 30 bilateral treaties signed between 1816 and 1845. Mainly designed to suppress the slave trade at sea in the Atlantic, these agreements granted the right of visit and search to the Royal Navy.34 Regarding the slave trade in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean, numerous bilateral treaties were also contracted by Britain with local powers between 1820 and 1889: twenty-­four within the Arabic Peninsula, nine with Mascat and Zanzibar, five with the Comoro islands, and four with Madagascar.35 As note earlier this was the only way since the right of visit and search could be lawful only if two countries agreed to it in a treaty. Despite Britain’s good intentions, the right of visit was nonetheless perceived as the manifestation of the mare closum doctrine. Defended by John

82  The slave trade in Zanzibar Selden in 1635 against Grotius’ mare liberum, it argued that some areas of the sea could fell under the authority of one nation when ‘her vessels manifest[d] her pre-eminence’.36 This is exactly how the right of visit was perceived by French authorities in Zanzibar throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. French lawyers and politicians often claimed that ‘abolition of slavery had been an excuse for England; the right of visit a means; naval supremacy the goal’.37 According to this argument, imperialism came concealed under the cloak of humanitarianism. France’s refusal of the mutual right of visit and search was, however, not seen in this light. Throughout the nineteenth century British politicians always claimed that the refusal of the right of visit by France threatened the suppression of the slave trade. They never pointed out that the greatest restrictions were, in truth, imposed by international maritime law. To a certain extent, the French flag became a sort of scapegoat for British abolitionists and politicians alike, allowing them to escape their inability to address the complexities of the legal issues raised by abolition at sea. The opposition between France and Britain over the right of visit was therefore much more judicial and political than it is suggested in most primary sources and the traditional historiography. In the meantime, while France doubted Britain’s motives supposedly hidden behind the right of visit and search, great suspicions were raised over the attitude of French authorities towards the slave trade – in Zanzibar in particular – when the recruitment of indentured labourer was allowed in East of Africa between 1857 and 1861.38 To this accusation, France retorted that slaves ‘rescued’ and ‘freed’ by Royal Navy officers also fell into new forms of slavery only profitable to the British Empire. As we will now see, the right of also raised two major questions for today’s historians as much as nineteenth century abolitionists: labour and freedom.

3.3 French ‘engagés’ and British liberated slaves: the terrible paradoxes of freedom and labour in the age of abolition and empire In 1856, the French government gave the authorisation to buy ‘captives’ to recruit ‘workers’ for plantations in her colonies, namely in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and La Réunion. Several companies – Chevalier, la Compagnie Générale Maritime, Régis Aîné, Vidal – were granted legal conventions allowing them to recruit ‘Africans’ to supply ‘the needs’ of these colonial territories less than a decade after the official abolition of slavery (1848).39 Slaves were first bought by the recruiter and ‘freed’ by a legal act called ‘l’acte provisoire de liberation à temps’ which stipulated that the worker would be not sold or put back in slavery. The document only made interception by British or French anti-slavery cruisers impossible. Indentured labourers were shipped on vessels specifically equipped for this traffic – some of them being former slavers – and ‘signed’ a contract to work for a salary on French plantations for a period of 7 years in most cases. The indentured labourer would

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 83 eventually become at the end of his contract ‘free’ from a juridical point of view. Meanwhile, a part of the labourer’s salary was taken every month to repay the sum which was first engaged to buy him. Understandably, these procedures were immediately denounced by British government and abolitionists as new forms of slave trade and slavery. Although not exactly similar to slavery, it undoubtedly was a new form of servitude.40 Several official pamphlets on the slave trade under the French flag were consequently published in Britain to denounce the recruitment of Africans on the east coast of Africa.41 Historians are still debating today the appropriate interpretation we should give to this new form of servitude.42 Unlike David Northrup, Alessandro Stanziani stresses that ‘it is not correct to interpret indentured labour as a simple and temporary substitute for slavery in the aftermath of abolition noting that it ‘began before slavery and persisted during and after it’.43 However, he also pointed that ‘abolition … gave new life to indentured immigration’ highlighting that ‘emigration from Africa was a by-product of the abolition of slavery by colonial powers’.44 In the nineteenth and twentieth century indentured meant mass migration on a global scale: ‘2.5 millions indentured servants, mostly Chinese and Indian but also African, Japanese, and immigrants from the Pacific Islands … were employed in sugar plantations and manufacturing’ throughout the world.45 As seen in Chapter Two, it has been estimated that around 50,000 indentured labourers, or engagés, were deprived of their freedom and sent to la Réunion during the second half of the nineteenth.46 Stanziani insists that indentured was a new form of servitude, nonetheless pointing it should not always be mistaken with slavery even though ‘contracts of indenture included coercion, and the identification of “free will” … was, at best, a lure’.47 On a legal point of view, indentured laboured differed from slavery even if freedom was in reality quite relative. Unlike slaves, they were not the property of a master and could not be sold. Regarding French indentured labour in the Indian Ocean however, Edward A. Alpers has recently pointed that ‘distinguished scholars … all have reached the same conclusions as the British abolitionists that it was little more than a disguised slave trade’.48 In short, if slavery was gradually ‘abolished’, it was replaced by new and powerful forms of coerced labour under the supervision of colonial powers.49 In Zanzibar, the recruitment of contracted labourers started in January 1854 and men were successfully ‘engaged’ by the brig La Panthère for the plantations of La Réunion.50 If the Sultan of Zanzibar and Oman, Seyyid Saïd, had agreed, he at once faced the remonstrance of the British Consul who denounced this recruitment as a revival of the European slave trade. Slave trading with ‘Christian Nations’ was actually forbidden by the Moresby treaty signed between Britain and the Sultanate of Oman and Zanzibar in 1822.51 Not surprisingly, the French Consul did not agree at all with British views. Writing to Paris, he argued that ‘this persistence to mistake temporary engagements contracted freely, and in return of a salary, with the slave trade; cannot be the result of a thoughtful and impartial

84  The slave trade in Zanzibar judgement’.52 Napoleon III himself had to make an official statement to defend this recruitment system on the east coast of Africa. The French emperor claimed that ‘this … differs completely from the slave trade … the slave nigger, once engaged as a worker, is free and has no obligations but those resulting of his contract’.53 Due to the action of the British Consul, all recruitments in Zanzibar were stopped in 1856.54 In 1858, new attempts to recruit were made but failed.55 The Sultan refused to comply with any demands of recruitment from the French in virtue of the Moresby treaty.56 Serious incidents involving French vessels sent to recruit contracted labourers on the east coast of Africa changed French official attitude and discourse. In 1857, a French vessel, le Charles et Georges, was arrested and seized by the Portuguese coastguards off the Mozambique coast with chained Africans on board. The 56 ‘labourers’ found on board all declared that they were slaves and had been shipped without their consent.57 Other vessels such as L’Alexandre and La Glorieuse in 1858, or the Phenix in 1859, also proved to be involved in human trafficking.58 Due to this scandals, Napoleon III finally forbade, in March 1859, the recruitment of Africans from the east coast of Africa for the French colonies of Madagascar and La Réunion, with the notable exception of Mayotte and Nossi-Bé.59 A year before the French government also founded ‘la station navale de la Réunion et de Madagascar’ in order to prevent the slave trade under the French flag and also to control the recruitment of contracted labourers.60 As mentioned previously, its results were poor. This can be explained by the fact that this naval squadron depended upon French colonial authorities in la Réunion, which were generally more preoccupied by the labour shortage in the colony than with fighting illegal slave trade, as Sue Peabody demonstrated.61 While British authorities accused France of fostering a new slave trade in East Africa, the French press denounced the recruitment of former slaves ‘freed’ by the Royal Navy. When the 1845 Anglo-French convention on the repression of the slave trade was signed in London, Le Charivari, a French satirical journal, published a caricature of African slaves rescued by the Navy.62 Drawn by Honoré Daumier (1808–1879), the engraving (see Figure 3.1) was entitled, with a touch of irony, ‘the philanthropists of the day’. In the caption, Daumier mocked ‘the freedom’ gained by Liberated Africans as British authorities called them. Using a sort of French pidgin, the English Captain patronisingly addressed ‘the freed slaves’. He boasted that he had rescued them from slavers but, in the meantime, indicated that they will be beaten with bamboo sticks if they refused to work in British colonies for the next 14 years. Indeed, rescued from the slave trade, Liberated Slaves were far from being free. As the caricature pointed, most of them were forcibly ‘recruited’ as indentured labourers, generally speaking for a period of around 5–7 years. In the 1840s, ‘as Sierra Leone and St Helena became crowded with slaves’, they ‘were encouraged to emigrate as “voluntary” workers to the labour-starved tropical colonies’.63 Ironically, while French newspapers and politicians – as well as British

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 85

Figure 3.1  Honoré Daumier, ‘Les philanthropes du jour’ (Le Charivari, 6 December 1844). Coll. Collectivité Territoriale de Martinique – Archives – 15FI 140. Used by permission of the Collectivité Territoriale de Martinique.

abolitionists – described British African Emigration Projects ‘as a resumption of the British slave-Trade’, French government officials also looked at it as an inspiring model for their own colonial recruitment schemes.64 Nevertheless, the 180,969 Liberated Africans ‘freed’ by the Royal Navy in the Atlantic experienced many different kinds of ‘freedoms’ as historians

86  The slave trade in Zanzibar have now well demonstrated.65 A great number worked, for example, as domestic servants under the status of ‘apprenticeship’. In Sierra Leone, a colony specifically founded for ‘freed slaves’ in 1787, ‘the majority of “apprentices” were domestic servants, “redeemed” from slavery … and bound to serve for an indeterminate period’.66 Apprenticeship, if not slavery, certainly was a new form of servitude. Apprentices in Sierra Leone were regularly victims of ‘violent’ and ‘abusive acts of degradation’ from their new ‘employers’.67 Apprenticeship also concerned newly freed slaves in the aftermath of the 1833 abolition of slavery in British colonies. It went under the fierce critics of many abolitionists and colonial officials who described it a new ‘forced servitude’ until it was consequently banned in 1838.68 Apart from apprenticeship, Liberated Africans were also recruited to work on sugar plantations or public works in the West Indies.69 A few were recruited as sailors or interpreters to assist anti-slave trade patrols in the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean.70 Some also became soldiers joining, for instance, the Royal African Corps while ‘very few … emerged as major merchants in Freetown’ or ‘led self-sufficient existence’.71 For the overwhelming majority, ‘freedom’ must have had a bitter taste. Former slaves were not considered as equal human beings in the full sense of the term whether by colonial administration or individuals holding them under their legal authority. As archival records show in Sierra Leone, they still endured the violent legacies of 300 years of slavery and racism.72 In France, politicians were quick to denounce a pure hypocrisy. The fate of Liberated Africans was used to discredit Britain’s anti-slavery policies, particularly the right of visit and search. In the aftermath of the 1890 Brussels Conference whose Act established this right between all signatory powers, a French parliamentarian opposing ratification declared: ‘if anyone should be suspected of being engaged in the slave trade it should be England’. Another immediately added: ‘indeed! Everyone knows that England in engaged in the slave trade!’.73 Despites being voluntarily outrageous, these critics show how controversial the questions of Liberated Africans and indentured labourers were in the late nineteenth century. It shows as well how irrational the debate was in France when it came to granting Britain the right of visit. Until recently, much less was known of the 12,000 Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean.74 To a certain extent, their ‘freedom’ was very similar to what was experienced by liberated slaves in the Atlantic. The major divergence resided in the fact that no colony had been specifically created there for them.75 Before Zanzibar and British East Africa became protectorates in 1890, Britain hold no colonial territory on the East African continent. This meant that Liberated Africans had to be shipped to distant places, namely Cape Town, Natal, Seychelles, Mauritius, Aden, or even Bombay.76 In the 1850s and 1860s, many were for instance sent to Bombay where they received a European education. They were consequently known as ‘Bombay Africans’. A few, like Sidi Mubarak Bombay, Abdullah Susi, James Chuma, Mathew Wellington, or Jacob Wainright, achieved fame in guiding and organising geographical

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 87 explorations led by men such as Grant, Speke, Burton, Livingstone, Cameron, or Stanley.77 Even if they were most often confined to the role of the ‘faithful servant’, especially in travel literature, some of them became significant actors the British anti-slavery movement, notably in supporting the creation of missions for Liberated Africans in East Africa.78 In 1865, it was decided that Indian Ocean freed slaves could only be landed in Mauritius and Seychelles. The ordinance stipulated that ‘they may be engaged in contract of service’ and insisted that ‘such contract of service may be for any period not exceeding five years’.79 Between 1861 and 1875, 2,667 individuals were settled in the Seychelles as Liberated Africans.80 In 1875, the Seychelles Civil Commissioner highlighted that ‘adult men and women are, as a rule, apprenticed to planters and proprietors for the purpose of field labour… orphan children have hitherto bee, as a rule, allotted as domestic servants’.81 However, Mauritius and Seychelles quickly became more and more reluctant to accept freed slaves since they were abusively considered them as a source of great public expense and a less reliable workforce when compared to Indian or Chinese indentured labourers.82 In 1875, Captain Prideaux wrote to the Earl of Derby that Seychelles islands were not an appropriate destination for Liberated Africans because ‘no provision whatever was made for their proper maintenance and support, and that, for the most part, they fell into immoral courses, and threw disgrace rather than credit to our efforts for their rescue from slavery’.83 Again, a navy officer, as seen in Chapter One, was denouncing the lack resources allocated to anti-slavery in the Indian Ocean. In the Zanzibar Sultanate, Liberated Africans were considered as a thorny issue for consular and naval authorities. It was certainly very difficult to care for them in an environment where slavery was not only legal but also central to economy and society. In the absence of direct colonial rule, all kind of initiatives were taken. In 1871, 711 liberated slaves were for instance recruited as contracted labourers by a former navy officer, Captain Frazer, who possessed a plantation on the island.84 A year later, Dr Kirk, then British Consul in Zanzibar, proposed to solve the question of liberated slaves by creating a specific colony within the Sultanate.85 In 1873, Sir Bartle Frere, before leading his diplomatic mission to abolish the slave trade in Zanzibar, also advocated the creation of ‘a colony for liberated slaves on the main land’ before a parliamentary committee in London.86 The committee, however, only advised the creation of a depôt on the island.87 This recommendation was never implemented except when H.M.S. London was stationed in Zanzibar harbour between 1874 and 1883. By the late 1880s, Liberated Africans were mainly sent to French or British missions around the island.88 According to Roland Oliver and Lindsay Doulton, the absence of direct colonial rule and ‘the lack of provision for Liberated Africans was one of the principal factors attracting European missions to the East Africa regions’.89 Doulton highlights that seven missionary societies were ‘established [for that purpose] between 1863 and 1888’.90 In the aftermath

88  The slave trade in Zanzibar of Frere’s 1873 diplomatic intervention, a mission named Frere Town was created by the Church Missionary Society near Mombasa.91 Thirty years earlier or so, another mission had already been created at Rabai. By 1876, Frere Town reached a population of 342 people but soon faced various threats. The mission had first to deal with attacks from the outside world as fugitive slaves often found refuge there. Moreover, missionaries sometimes encouraged slaves to revolt and leave their masters. In 1880, Frere Town became famous for flying a white flag showing the word freedom written in Swahili.92 As a result, the mission was attacked several times between 1876 and 1880. In the East African context, Liberated Africans probably had less ‘freedom’ than in the Atlantic since ‘any attempt to run away from the station [mission] would have involved instant re-enslavement’.93 Life in the mission was not characterized by ‘freedom’ either. Work, rest, education, marriage were all decided by the missionaries. In this world, free will and consent were fairly relative. Moreover, even within the mission’s fences, former slaves sometimes suffered, once more, the kind of violence that used to be attached to slavery. In Frere Town and Blantyre, a mission founded to honour the memory of David Livingstone, scandals broke out in 1881 and 1885 revealing that some Liberated Africans had been flogged, beaten, and even executed. Due to the public outcry, the missionaries responsible of these crimes were condemned and removed from their positions.94 For many East African freed slaves, ‘freedom’ must decidedly have been bitter. The inhuman conditions attached to African slavery for many centuries had partly survived their so-called liberation. The terrible legacies of slavery could not so easily be abolished, even in the mind of abolitionists who fought it earnestly. Considering the situation of Liberated Africans, it is important to point that a lot of them ran away at the time they were rescued by Royal Navy officers. In the 1875 for instance, the official records sent by navy officers to the Admiralty attests that slaves escaped in 10 out of the 35 seizures led by the British squadron. On one occasion as many as 80 individuals escaped.95 This situation was far from unusual. It appears in most of the records regarding East Africa during the second half of the nineteenth century. Runaway slaves’ communities even existed on the coast, representing perhaps a true alternative to slavery and ‘a real freedom’.96 In 1874, Dr Kirk even reported that a settlement of runaway slaves had been unsuccessfully attacked by the troops of the Sultan of Zanzibar.97 To conclude this chapter, we must now look at these children, men, and women that were called Liberated Africans. Thanks to the ground breaking works of Edward A. Alpers, Matthew S. Hopper, or Lindsay Doulton, we are now also able to restore parts of their lives.98 For too long a time, their voices were buried in the deep silence of the archives. They were reduced to the state of ‘wretched creatures’, an image and status meant to raise pity and compassion in the context of the humanitarian campaign led by abolitionists. A point well illustrated by the poignant photograph taken by G. L. Sulivan in 1869 (see Figure 3.2).99 This image, which at the

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 89

Figure 3.2  A photograph of children ‘rescued’ from the slave trade by G. L. Sulivan. With permission of the British National Archives (BNA, FO 84, 1310, January–June 1869, 191).

90  The slave trade in Zanzibar time only appeared as an engraving in Sulivan’s successful narrative, is not only an exceptional historical document, but it is also a vibrant historical fragment of a terrible human reality.100 On this document, children rescued from a slaver almost appear like silent shadows of history. Some of them have even nearly disappeared from the image due to the relentless work of time. If their voice is lost, their glance has been vividly captured by the photographer. When we look at them today through the medium of this photograph, it is impossible not to feel their distressing and penetrating look. Their eyes question the narrative we have given of their history, of the history of slavery, and its abolition. It is crucial that research helps to restore their dignity in building a universal historical consciousness of slavery and the slave trade, hoping to tackle, once and for all, their infamous legacies in today’s world.101 This is perhaps what we owe to these children, and to all the voiceless victims of slavery, past or present. The faded photograph taken by Sulivan is indeed an important historical document. It reveals the state of shock and suffering in which these children must have been at the time they were rescued. Like in the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean Middle Passage often meant sufferings and death.102 Historians have estimated that death rate was around 10 per cent on board of Indian Ocean dhows in the nineteenth century, much like in the Atlantic at the same time.103 Besides, a lot of them also died after they had been ‘freed’ by Royal Navy officers. Matthew S. Hopper notes that ‘a third of the Africans “liberated” … sent to Aden and Bombay died shortly after their rescue’.104 It is therefore not surprising that, on the page siding the engraving, Sulivan had put the stress on ‘the deplorable condition of some of these poor wretches’ adding that ‘some of the slaves were in the last stages of starvation and dysentery’.105 This kind of image, representing emaciated children in a state of starvation, later became ‘icons’ of major humanitarian campaigns like in Biafra in the 1960s, Ethiopia in the 1980s, or Somalia in the 1990s.106 Even today, these images regularly continue to appear on our screens in times of great humanitarian crisis such as in Yemen throughout the year 2018.107 Like in our present days, Sulivan’s image was designed to raise sympathy and gather support for the cause. For this reason, the engraving was, at the time, published in the popular illustrated press.108 Seeing this engraving, made it impossible not to react and call for governments’ immediate action. Nevertheless, if Sulivan wanted to appeal to the humanity of the reader this did not mean that he himself looked at the freed slaves with complete humanity. Racial bias against African slaves was still strong, even on the mind of dedicated abolitionists such as Sulivan. Looking at the newly ‘rescued’ slaves, he recalled bluntly: ‘one of the first things, we are told, Adam did, was to name the animals, and one of the first things done by us was to name these slaves on their being received on board’.109 This revolting analogy between animals and Africans reveals how centuries of Atlantic slave trade and plantation slavery, both contributing to the development of the ideology of race, had rooted racism into

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 91 the European mind-set.110 In spite of the abolitionist revolution, theories of racial hierarchy implied by plantation slavery were still powerful, even gaining new strength in times of colonisation.111 We should nonetheless bear in mind that, like Sulivan, most abolitionists ‘whether addressing lower classes in Britain’s slums or the people of Africa’ believed they dealt with ‘“uncivilised” people’.112 It was also not unusual for Victorian upper classes either to describe Britain’s lower classes as ‘animals’ as it is appears in one scene of’ David Copperfield.113 Notwithstanding, racial bias had human and historical consequences far beyond the scope of other social prejudices. For instance, the way anti-slavery militants, like Sulivan, perceived former African slaves shows the overwhelming obstacle which racial bias constituted to the fulfilment of the abolitionist’s ideal of freedom and equality for all human beings. In 1874, G. L. Sulivan was appointed at the head of naval operations in Zanzibar and took the command of H.M.S. London. It was partly the result of the long campaign he had led against the East African slave trade, both at sea and in London. It was not just rhetoric. Sulivan’s views on British anti-slavery policies were far from apologetic. He, for instance, doubted ‘whether the slave is better off by falling into British hands’ and even denounced in his final report ‘the complacency of those who thought that the signing of a treaty meant the immediate end of the slave trade’.114 As we have seen, the ‘freedom’ enjoyed by most Liberated Africans in East Africa, and elsewhere, was undoubtedly very limited and often most appalling. It certainly failed to fully match – yet – the most ambitious humanitarian ideal which had fuelled the abolitionist movement in Europe since its foundation. The reality had failed the ideal famously embodied by the words of a supplicant African slave engraved on the popular medallion designed by the Society for the Abolition of the slave trade in 1788: ‘Am I not a man and a Brother’. Liberated Africans were the captives and the victims of the paradoxes of abolition in the age of empire. The abolitionist movement and anti-slavery policies failed to stop at once, as official celebrations wrongly claimed thereafter, not only slave trade and slavery but also the emergence of new forms of servitude. However, despite these great failures, anti-slavery and abolitionism were a decisive step – however small and limited it might look today – without which slavery and the slave trade would never have been universally acknowledged as a crime whether in international law or popular culture.115 Most importantly, as Seymour Drescher argued, ‘without abolitionism … not just millions, but tens of millions of Africans might have continued to be captured and deported’ as European empires expanded throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.116 Despite the terrible realities hidden behind the word ‘liberation’, freed slaves and abolitionists had nonetheless taken a decisive step towards complete freedom, equality, and the universal abolition of slavery. But this was only the first step of a long struggle, a struggle far from being over yet.117

92  The slave trade in Zanzibar The following chapters will continue to show that fulfilment of anti-­ slavery’s promises were long, difficult, painful, and often disappointing. In the light of the ‘freedom’ reserved to Liberated Africans, abolitionists’ speeches, or anti-slavery policies could appear, if one only looks at their immediate aftermath, to have produced poor results. Much like the 1789 Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen, it took the abolitionist movement and former slaves more than a century of permanent struggle to imperfectly fulfil some of the incredible promises made by anti-slavery on freedom and equality. Is this so surprising if we consider that universal suffrage was only won by French women in 1944 after more than 150 years of harsh political battles which militants, like Hubertine Auclert (1848–1914), had relentlessly led? In fact, the French historian Michel Winock stresses that 1789 ideals of freedom and equality never ceased to fuel the struggle of many nineteenth century activists and intellectuals while facing most appalling political or sociological realities.118 So was it the case with abolitionism and abolitionists.

Notes 1 Jenny S Martinez, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012), 114. 2 Jean Allain, “Nineteenth Century Law of the Sea and the British Abolition of the Slave Trade”, British Yearbook of International Law, vol. 78 (2008): 342. 3 Ian Barry “The Right of Visit, Search, Seizure of Foreign Flagged Vessels on the High Seas Pursuant to Customary International Law: A Defense of the Proliferation of Security Initiative”, Hofstra Law Review, vol. 33, no. 1, (2004): 313–315. 4 Henry de Montardy, La Traite et le Droit International (Paris, V. Giard et E Brière, 1899), 65 ; on the freedom of the seas, Domnique Gaurier, Histoire du Droit International, Auteurs, Doctrines et Développement de l’Antiquité à l’Aube de la Période Contemporaine (Rennes  : Presse Universitaire de Rennes, 2005), 273–280  ; E. Papastavridis, “The Right of Visit on the High Seas in a Theoretical Perspective: Mare Liberum versus Mare Clausum Revisited”, Leiden journal of international law, Vol 24, N° 1, Cambridge University Press (2011): 45. 5 Serge Daget, La Répression de la Traite des Noirs au XIXe siècle, L’Action des Croisières Françaises sur les Côtes Occidentales de l’Afrique (Paris: Karthala, 1997) 487–528. 6 Lawrence C. Jennings, “France, Great Britain, and the Repression of the Slave Trade, 1841–1845”, French Historical Studies, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring, 1977): 101. Paul Kielstra, The Politics of Slave Trade Suppression in Britain and France, 1814–48 Diplomacy, Morality and Economics (Basingstoke : Macmillan, 2000), 207–258. 7 Olivier (Pétré-) Grenouilleau, Abolir l’Esclavage, Un Réformisme à l’Epreuve France, Portugal, Suisse, XVIIIe-XIXe siècles (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008), 85–206. 8 Allain “Nineteenth Century Law of the Sea” 18–19. 9 Allain “Nineteenth Century Law of the Sea”, 9. 10 Daget, La répression de la traite des Noirs, 47–48 ; Maeve Ryan, "The price of legitimacy in humanitarian intervention: Britain, the European powers and the abolition of the West African slave trade, 1807–1867", in Humanitarian

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 93













Intervention: A History, ed. D. Trim and B. Simms (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 231–256. 11 Thomas M. A. Jollivet, Historique de la Traite et du Droit de Visite (Paris: Imprimerie de Bruneau, 1844), 14. Thomas Jollivet (1799–1848) was a lawyer and a French politician. Strong supporter of the French monarchy, he opposed abolition and was a famous opponent of Guizot. François Guizot (1787–1874) was one of France’s most influential political figure of the nineteenth century. After leading the French Ministry of Public Education and French Foreign Affairs (1840–1848), he ended his career as head of Government (1847–1848). His extreme unpopularity contributed to the collapse of the French monarchy in 1848. 12 HCPP 1842 (463), Treaty between Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia, for the suppression of the African slave trade. Signed at London, December 20, 1841, Article III. 13 Lawrence C. Jennings, La France et l’Abolition de l’Esclavage 1802–1848 (Burxelles: André Versailles éditeur, 2010), 287–291. 14 Olivier Grenouilleau, La Révolution Abolitionniste (Paris : Gallimard, 2017), Ch. 2, Kindle. 15 Lettre du Consul Gaillard au Ministre des Affaires étrangères, Decazes, 25 Juillet 1877 in MAE, CADC, 143CP5, 25. 16 Francois Renault, Lavigerie l’Esclavage Africain et l’Europe, Tome 1 (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1970), 127. 17 Serge Daget, “France, Suppression of the Illegal Trade, and England, 1817– 1850” in The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Origins and Effects in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, ed. D. Eltis and J. Walvin (London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981), 194. 18 Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 236. 19 Allain, “Nineteenth Century Law of the Sea”, 4. 20 Drescher, Abolition, 245–267; Olivier (Pétré-) Grenouilleau, Les Traites Négrières: Essai d’Histoire Globale (Paris: Gallimard), 264–268; Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights (London: Verso Book, 2011) 150–158. 21 Richard D. Wolf, “Imperialism and the East African Slave Trade’’, Science & Society, vol. 36, no. 4 (Winter, 1972): 459; Reginald Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, 1856–1890. The Slave Trade and the Scramble (London: Faber & Faber, 1968), 134. 22 Consul Jablonski au Ministre des Affaires étrangères, 11 Mai 1867, in MAE, CADC, 143CP, P18464, 1862–1869, 280 ; HCPP 1870 (C141), inclosure 1 in N°1, 1 ; Lettre du Consul de Zanzibar Gaillard De Ferry au Ministre de la Marine et des Colonies, 7 Janvier 1879, MAE, CADN, 748POA 132. 23 Allain “Nineteenth Century Law of the Sea”, 6–7. Henry Wheaton, Enquiry Into The Validity of the British Claim to a Right of Visitation and Search (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1842), 18. 24 Jules de Clerq, Recueil des Traités de la France, Volume IV, 1831–1842, (Paris: Amyot, 1880), 157. Convention conclue à Paris le 30 novembre 1831 entre la France et la Grande Bretagne pour la répression de la Traite des Noirs. 25 Martinez, The Slave Trade, 5–13. 26 de Clerq, Recueil des Traités de la France, Volume IV, 1831–1842, 226. Convention supplémentaire conclue à Paris le 22 mars 1833 entre la France et la Grande Bretagne pour la répression de la Traite des Noirs. 27 de Clerq, Recueil des Traités de la France, Volume V, 1842–1848, 277. Convention conclue à Londres le 20 mai 1845 entre la France et la GrandeBretagne pour la suppression de la Traite de Noirs, Art 1.

94  The slave trade in Zanzibar 28 Daget, La Répression de la Traite des Noirs, 538 29 ‘Instructions adressées aux commandants des escadres de la côte d’Afrique’ in Jules de Clerq, Recueil des traités de la France, Volume cinq 1842–1848, 81. 30 Article 2, Instructions aux commandants français et anglais, HCPP 1857–58 (2446), Correspondence with the United States’ government on the question of right of visit. N°25, 56. Article 2, ‘Instructions confidentielles concertées entre la France et l’Angleterre pour la vérification des pavillons suspects 1867’ in MAE CADN, 748 POA 132. 31 Knud Haakonssen ‘Introduction’ in Hugo Grotius, Mare Liberum (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004) xv. 32 Dominique Gaurier, Histoire du Droit International, auteurs, doctrines et développement de l’Antiquité à l’aube de la période contemporaine (Rennes: Presse Universitaire de Rennes, 2005), 276–277. 33 Henry Wheaton, Enquiry, 5; Duboc, Le Droit de visite et la guerre de course, 7; William Beach Lawrence, Visitation Search or Historical Sketch of the British Claim to Exercise a Maritime Police over the Vessels of all Nations in Peace as well as War (Boston: Brown & company, 1858), 1 34 Allain, “Nineteenth Century Law of the Sea”, 12–14. 35 Michel Erpelding, Le Droit International Antiesclavagiste des « Nations Civilisées » 1815–1945 (Monts : Institut Universitaire de Varenne, 2017), 142. 36 Daget, La Répression de la Traite des Noirs, 44 ; Gaurier, Histoire International du Droit, 276–277. 37 Jollivet, Historique de la Traite et du Droit de Visite, 5. 38 Céline Flory, De l’Esclavage à la Liberté Forcée : Histoire des Travailleurs Africains Engagés dans la Caraïbe Française au XIXe siècle (Paris: Éditions Karthala, 2015), 45–48 ; 67–76. François Renault, Libération d’Esclaves et Nouvelle Servitude: les Rachats de Captifs Africains pour le Compte des Colonies Françaises après l’Abolition de l’Esclavage (Dakar: Nouvelles éditions africaines, 1976), 19–91. 39 Flory, De l’Esclavage à la Liberté Forcée, 67. 40 Olivier Grenouilleau, Qu’est-ce que l’Esclavage Une Histoire Globale (Paris, Gallimard, 2014), 210–223. 41 Flory, De l’Esclavage à la Liberté Forcée, 68–71 ; 36–45 ; 206–214. Virginie Chaillou, ‘’L’engagisme africain à la Réunion : entre ruptures et résurgence d’un système condamné’’ in Les Traites Négrières Coloniales Histoire d’un Crime, ed. Marcel Dorigny and Max-Jean Zins (Paris: Cercle d’art, 2009), 127–139. 42 David Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 43 Alessandro Stanziani, Bondage in the Indian Ocean World 1750–1914, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2014), 89. 44 Stanziani, Bondage in the Indian Ocean World, 89–90. 45 Stanziani, Bondage in the Indian Ocean World, 90. 46 Allen, European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, Ch.5, Kindle. 47 Stanziani, Bondage in the Indian Ocean World, 92. 48 Edward A. Alpers, ‘‘le caractère d’une traite d’esclaves déguisée (the nature of a disguised slave trade)? Labor recruitment for La Réunion at Portuguese Mozambique, 1887–1889’’, Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, vol. 40, no. 1 (2018): 5. Hubert Gerbeau, “Engagees and coolies on Réunion Island: slavery’s masks and freedom’s constraints” in Colonialism and Migration; Indentured Labour Before and After Slavery, ed. P.C. Emmer (Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986), 220–223. 49 Kevin Grant, A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884–1926 (London: Routledge, 2005), 20–24.

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 95 50 MAE CADC, 143 CP, P18462, 1844–1859, Consul de Zanzibar au Ministre des affaires étrangères, 28 Janvier 1854, 74. 51 Lewis Hertslet, A Complete Collections of the Treaties and Conventions and Reciprocal Regulations at present between Britain and Foreign Powers, vol III. (London: Butterworth, 1841), 265. 52 MAE CADC, 143 CP, P18462, 1844–1859, Consul de Zanzibar au Ministre des affaires étrangères, 28 Janvier 1854, 74. 9. 53 Chaillou ‘‘L’engagisme africain à La Réunion’’, 12. 54 M. Cochet, consul de France à Zanzibar, note du 10 juin 1856 in MAE CADC, 143 CP, P18462, 1844–1859, 91. 55 Consul de Zanzibar au Ministre des Affaires étrangères, 26 août 1858, in MAE CADC, 143 CP, P18462, 1844–1859, 191. 56 Sultan de Zanzibar au gouverneur de La Réunion, 26 août 1858, in MAE CADC, 143 CP, P18462, 1844–1859, 200. 57 Jean François Labourdette ‘‘Une tension diplomatique entre Paris et Lisbonne sous le Second Empire’’ in Monarchies, Noblesse et diplomatie européenne Mélanges en l’honneur de Jean François Labourdette, ed. Jean Pierre Poussou (Paris: Presse Universitaire de la Sorbonne, 2005), 109–123. 58 C. P. Rigby to H.L. Anderson, Esq., Secretary to Government, Bombay, 15 August 1858, in HCPP 1859 (111), N°10, 3. 59 Earl Cowley to Count Walewski, 3 May 1858, in HCPP 1859 (2569-1), Inclosure in N°74, 77. For Napoleon’s decree see Monnier, Esclaves de la canne à sucre, 51. 60 SHM, Lorient : Océan Indien, Répression de la traite des esclaves et surveillance du recrutement des travailleurs engagés pour les colonies, 4C6-2C1 and 2C2, pièces relatives au recrutement des travailleurs. 61 Sue Peabody, Madeleine’s Children: Family, Freedom, Secrets, and Lies in France’s Indian Ocean Colonies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), Ch.8, Kindle. 62 Honoré Daumier, Le Charivari, 6 Décembre 1844. Luce-Marie ALBIGÈS, ‘‘La traite illégale’’, Histoire par l’image, Accessed July, 14, 2014, http:// www.histoire-image.org/fr/etudes/traite-illegale. 63 Lawrence C. Jennings, “French Reaction to the ‘Disguised British Slave Trade’: France and British African Emigration Projects, 1840–1864”, Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, Vol 18, Cahier 69/70 (1978): 202. 64 Jennings, “French Reaction to the ‘Disguised British Slave Trade”, 201; 206. 65 Daniel Domingues da Silva, David Eltis, Philip Misevich and Olatunji Ojo, “The diaspora of liberated Africans from slave ships in the nineteenth century”, The Journal of African History, no. 55 (2014): 347–369. 66 Padraic X. Scanlan, Freedom’s Debtors : British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 19. 67 Maeve Ryan, “‘A Moral milestone’?: British Humanitarian governance and the policy of liberated African apprenticeship 1808–1848”, Slavery and Abolition, vol.37, no.2 (2016): 404. 68 Ibid, 405. Izhak Gross “Parliament and the Abolition of Negro Apprenticeship 1835–1838”, The English Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 380 (Jul., 1981): 560–576. 69 Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012), 183. 70 Richard Anderson, “The Diaspora of Sierra Leone’s Liberated Africans: Enlistment, Forced Migration, and "Liberation" at Freetown, 1808–1863”, African Economic History, vol. 41 (2013): 101–138. 71 da Silva, “The diaspora of liberated Africans”, 348. On the Royal African Corps, Scanlan, Freedom’s debtors, 73.

96  The slave trade in Zanzibar 72 Grenouilleau, Qu’est-ce que l’Esclavage, 191–194. Aurelia Michel, Un monde en nègre et blanc enquête historique sur l’ordre racial (Paris: Seuil, 2020), 106–164. 73 M. Ducoudray, Journal officiel de la République française. Débats parlementaires. Chambre des députés, Séance du 24 Juin 1891, 1417. M. De Mahy, Séance du 24 Juin 1891, 1417. 74 Lindsay Doulton, “The flag that set us free” in Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition, ed. Robert Harms et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 101–119; Moses D. E. Nwulia “The Role of Missionaries in the Emancipation of Slaves in Zanzibar”, The Journal of Negro History, vol. 60, no. 2 (Apr., 1975): 268–287. 75 Scanlan, Freedom’s Debtors, 28–64. Bronwen Everill, Abolition and Empire in Sierra Leone and Liberia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 17–33. 76 Matthew S. Hopper, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 171. 77 Lowri M. Jones, “Bombay Africans 1850–1910, Royal Geographical Society, 25 September - 29 November 2007”, History Workshop Journal, vol. 65, no. 1, (Spring 2008): 271–274. 78 John M. Mackenzie, “David Livingstone and the Worldly After-Life: Nationalism and Imperialism in Africa” in David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, ed. Tim Jeal (London: National Portrait Gallery, 1996), 201–219. 79 Regulations relative to engagements of minor Africans, HCPP 1875 (C 1168), Inclosure 2 in N°81, 80. 80 Doulton, “The flag that set us free”, 101. 81 Mr Havelock to Captain Prideaux, 21 September 1874, HCPP 1875, (C 1168), Inclosure 1 in N°81, 79. 82 Rev Edward Steere, HCPP 1871 (420) Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade, Question 1084, 75. 83 Captain Prideaux to the Earl of Derby, 2 January 1875, HCPP 1876, (C1588), N°16, 32. 84 Lord Stanley to Acting Consul Seward, HCPP 1867–1868 (4000-1), N°117. 85 Dr Kirk to Earl Granville, 5 September 1871,HCPP 1872 (C 657), N°55, 54 86 HCCPP, 1871 (420), question 425, 35. 87 Memorandum by Mr Churchill respecting the landing of Liberated Africans at Zanzibar, HCPP 1871 (C340), N°22, 20–21. 88 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 172. 89 Doulton, “The flag that set us free”, 105. Roland Oliver, The Missionary Factor in East Africa (London: Longmans, 1952), 16–18. 90 Doulton, “The flag that set us free”, 105. 91 Nwulia “The Role of Missionaries in the Emancipation of Slaves in Zanzibar”, 276. 92 Oliver, The Missionary Factor, 55–56. 93 Oliver, The Missionary Factor, 52. 94 Andrew Porter, Religion versus empire? : British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 270. 95 HCPP 1875 (326), Return of vessels captured for being engaged in and equipped for the slave trade. 96 Gad Heuman, Out of the House of Bondage: Runaways, Resistance and Marronage in Africa and the New World (London: Frank Cass, 1986). 97 Dr Kirk to Earl Granville, 14 January 1874, HCPP 1875 (C1168), N°11, 20. 98 Edward A. Alpers, Matthew S. Hopper, ‘‘Parler en son nom? Comprendre les témoignages d’esclaves africains originaires de l’océan Indien (1850–1930)’’, Annales, no.4 (2008): 799–828 ; Edward A. ALPERS, ‘’The story of Swema:

Dhows and the Indian Ocean slave trade 97 Female vulnerability’’ in nineteenth-century East Africa », in Women and slavery in Africa, Madison, ed. C. C. Robertson and M. A. Klein (University of Wisconsin Press 1983), 185–219; ‘’The other middle passage: The African slave trade in the Indian Ocean’’, in Many Middle Passages: Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World, ed. E. Christopher, C. Pybus et M. Rediker (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 20–38. 99 TNA, FO 84, 1310, January-June 1869. 100 G. L. Sulivan, Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters and on the Eastern Coast of Africa (London: Low & Searle, 1873), 168. 101 Roger Botte, ‘‘Les habits neufs de l’esclavage’’, Cahiers d’études africaines, no. 179–180 (2005): 1–14. 102 Edward A. Alpers, “The Other Middle Passage” 23. 103 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 170. Herbert S. Klein, Stanley L. Engerman, Robin Haines, and Ralph Shlomowitz, “Transoceanic Mortality: The Slave Trade in Comparative Perspective”, William & Mary Quarterly, LVIII, no. 1 (January 2001), 93–118. 104 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 169. 105 Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 168. 106 Heide Fehrenbach, “Children and other Civilians: Photography and the Politics of Humanitarian Image-Making” in Humanitarian Photography: A History, ed. Davide Rodogno (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Ch. 7, Kindle. 107 Luc Mathieu ‘‘Au Yémen, une situation humanitaire désespérée’’, Libération, 13 novembre 2018. 108 The Graphic, 8 March 1873. 109 Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 175. 110 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 167; Pierre H. Boulle. ‘‘La construction du concept de race dans la France d’Ancien Régime’’, Outre-Mers, n°336-337 (2e semestre 2002), 155-175. 111 Seymour Drescher, “The Ending of the Slave Trade and the Evolution of European Scientific Racism”, Social Science History, vol. 14, no. 3 (Autumn, 1990): 415–450. Some prominent abolitionists publicly expressed racist stereotypes towards Africans. See Michael Taylor, The interest : how the British establishment resisted the abolition of slavery (London: Vintage Digital, 2020), 112–113. 112 Grant, Civilised Savagery, 19. 113 Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (Ware : Wordswoth, 1995), 248-249 : ‘That sort of people [Victorian lower classes]. Are they really animals and clods, and being of another order? I want to know so much’. 114 Sulivan to Rear Admiral Macdonald, 29 December 1875, HCPP, 1877 (C.1829), N°380, 349. Peter Collister, The Sulivans and the Slave Trade (London: Rex Collings, 1980), 148 (Final Report 17 November 1875). 115 Grenouilleau, La révolution abolitionniste, ch. 3 Kindle. 116 Seymour Drescher, “Emperors of the Word British abolitionism and imperialism” in Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic, ed. Derek R. Peterson (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010), 146. 117 Roger Botte, ‘‘Les habits neufs de l’esclavage’’, 1. 118 Michel Winock, Les Voix de la Liberté les Ecrivains Engagés au XIXe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 2001), Introduction, Kindle.

Part II

Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar: A troublesome relationship

4

A British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar Sovereignty and imperial interference

The establishment of a British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar led to unexpected imperial interference into the sovereignty of the Zanzibar Sultanate and consequently opened a new chapter in the history of anti-­slavery and imperialism on the island. Men on the spot like Consuls and Navy Officers played a key role in shaping this new era where humanitarianism and imperialism occasionally worked hand in hand along the coast of East Africa. This chapter will first outline the reasons which led to the creation of a Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar in 1869. It will be shown that no hidden plan of colonisation laid behind the creation of this court even if its setting represented a substantial loss of sovereignty for the Sultanate and fostered British imperial influence over its territory. Then, we should see how Kirk, the British consul, and Seyyid Majid, the Sultan, both took advantage of the situation in consolidating or expanding their sovereign powers. If abolitionism did not necessarily concealed cunning imperialistic moves, this chapter however demonstrates that anti-slavery could occasionally be used by men on the spot to forward British colonial domination.

4.1 A Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar: interference in the name of humanity? In 1868, Seyyid Majid, Sultan of Zanzibar, wrote a letter to Henry Adrian Churchill, then British Consul on the island, to complain about the seizure and destruction of dhows ‘which he seemed to consider arbitrary’.1 Churchill reported to the Bombay government, whose interests he represented along with those of the Foreign Office, that he had received the Sultan’s letter after ‘Her Majesty’s ship Star … destroyed thirty dhows [possibly within a year], amongst which was a bungalow [a baghala: one the world’s largest wooden high seas sailing vessels between 400 to 600 tons] belonging to one of Seyyid Majid sisters’.2 Thirty dhows at the time represented less than 10 per cent of the total fleet of dhows annually present in Zanzibar harbour, namely around 500 vessels.3 It was a significant loss for the Sultan. As for France, the right of visit must have had substantial consequences on the dhow trade which constituted the heart of the Sultanate’s economy.4

102  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar In the 1860s, Sultan Seyyid Majid was not the only one to complain about arbitrary destructions of dhows by the British navy. Five years earlier, in 1863, European and American merchants had passed a resolution to denounce ‘the present grievances caused by the frequent detention, seizure and destruction of native vessels engaged in legitimate trade … within and without the dominion of his highness the sultan of Zanzibar, by commanders and officers of the cruisers of Her British Majesty employed in the suppression of the slave trade’.5 This time it was not only the French Consul or the Sultan of Zanzibar who complained about the arbitrary destruction of their vessels but also an American, an Italian, a German; and one British merchant; Captain Frazer, a former navy officer! Humanitarian action as led by the British navy disrupted commerce in Zanzibar waters. The British government was forced to act since free trade was at the heart of its foreign policies, considered as the economic principle Britain had to spread throughout the world.6 Partly as a result of these complaints and other scandals related to the destructions of dhows, a bill was passed in 1869 ‘to regulate and extend the Jurisdiction of Her Majesty’s Consul at Zanzibar in regard to vessels captured on suspicion of being engaged in the slave trade’.7 A year later, a Committee was also appointed by the Foreign Secretary, the Earl of Clarendon, ‘in consequence of the complaints of irregular proceedings on the part of Her Majesty’s cruisers engaged in the suppression of the Slave Trade’ and to reflect upon the best policy, as well as the necessary means, to end the Indian Ocean slave trade.8 The Vice-Admiralty Court was therefore created to determine the legality of the seizure carried out by Royal Navy officers and to prevent abuses. The Bill gave powers of jurisdiction to the British Consul within the Sultan’s dominions: ‘Her Majesty is empowered to exercise jurisdiction within the dominions of the sultan of Zanzibar in regard to vessels captured on suspicion of being engaged in the slave trade’.9 It was a major breach in the Sultan’s sovereignty because the power of justice is known to be the cornerstone upon which a state is built.10 In this light, one can wonder if the establishment of a British ViceAdmiralty court – like the rest of British anti-slavery policies in Zanzibar – did not unintentionally pave the way for British quasi-­sovereignty – or colonisation – on the island. It was, of course, presented in a complete different light by British officials, such as the Slave Trade Adviser for the Treasury, who pointed out that ‘it was considered a great injustice to the Arabs that the condemnation [of slave vessels] could only take place at very distant places, as the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, or Bombay; and in consequence, a Vice-Admiralty Court was first established at Aden; but Aden was found to be too far, and accordingly … a Vice-Admiralty Court [was established] at Zanzibar’.11 In fact, there was no secret plan of colonisation behind the creation of a Vice-Admiralty Court. No documents, whether in the British or the French archives, demonstrates that the establishment of the Court was seized as an opportunity to lead secretly a

British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar 103 more forward policy in Zanzibar. In the 1860s, government officials and political leaders did not use anti-slavery to promote colonial expansion in East Africa. A point which would change in the 1880s as we will see in Chapters Six and Seven. Created in the fourteenth century, Admiralty jurisdiction expanded throughout the British Empire during the early eighteenth century in the form of Vice-Admiralty Courts. Originally, these courts were granted jurisdiction over maritime law; mainly to settle disputes between merchants and seamen or ‘entertain foreign claims over piracy, spoils, and prize [in the context of privateering]’.12 Their powers were later expanded to deal with the enforcement of customs and smuggling. Vice-Admiralty Courts did not use a jury system. The judge heard all evidence and testimony before handing down a ruling. After the 1807 Abolition Act, these courts played a great role in the British anti-slavery network overseas such as in Sierra Leone for example. They ruled if a vessel seized by the Royal Navy was a lawful prize or not. Vice-Admiralty Courts also ‘inventoried, condemned, auctioned, and redistributed the cash value of any property … [including people] captured at sea’.13 In the second half of the nineteenth century, Zanzibar became one of the most important of these courts within the global network set up by the British government to end the slave trade across the world. Because of their nature and history, Vice-Admiralty Courts can rightly be considered as a manifestation of British imperial domination overseas. Establishing a Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar was, therefore, an important move. It was also a direct interference into Zanzibar’s sovereignty. This interference was justified by the requirements brought about by the suppression of the slave trade in the Western Indian Ocean. Even though Zanzibar was not a British colony yet – it only became a protectorate in 1890 – this interference was considered lawful by the British government because of its political willingness to lawfully end the slave trade there. The whole action was based on humanitarian principles, or political ideals, which Britain had promoted in international relations and international law. To a certain extent, this gave a sort of legal legitimacy to this interference since ‘the slave trade has been denounced by all the civilized world as repugnant to every principle of justice and humanity’.14 Taking the slave trade as a universal offense to international law was a revolution that had been initiated by Lord Castlereagh in the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, where he obtained the concession that all nations signed a declaration in which the slave trade was declared ‘repugnant to the principles of humanity and universal morality’. The aim, for ‘Great Britain and France’, was ‘to unite their efforts at the Congress of Vienna, to induce all the Powers of Christendom to proclaim the universal and definitive Abolition of the Slave Trade’.15 The slave trade consequently became, in theory only, what the French jurist Henry de Montardy called in 1899 a ‘crime of lèse-humanity’, a concept first used in the context of the 1794 abolition of slavery during the French Revolution and equivalent of the

104  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar expression ‘crime against humanity’ used by the influential American lawyer Henry Wheaton to condemn the slave trade in 1842.16 Following the recent abolitionists’ revolutionary idea to make slavery a universal crime according to natural law, this concept attempted to make ‘the infamous institution’ a universal offense to mankind, or humanity as it was then phrased, in positive law. But we should come back to this key aspect of the legal revolution brought by nineteenth century humanitarian politics and abolitionism in more details through Chapter Nine. In contributing greatly to the internationalisation of abolitionism through its diplomatic activity, Britain legitimised before international all interferences into the sovereignty of states thanks to the suppression of the slave trade at sea. This enabled the British government to bypass the sovereignty of states and intervene ‘in the name of humanity’. Establishing Vice-Admiralty Courts in territories that were not British colonies, such as the Zanzibar Sultanate for instance, were just a part of this movement initiated by abolitionism in history. In fact, Britain had built a network of Vice-Admiralty Courts and Mixed Commissions Courts around the globe, in the aftermath of the 1807 Abolition Act, ‘to adjudicate the validity of shipboard seizures’.17 Usually Mixed Commissions Courts were set up on foreign soil thanks to bilateral treaties like in Cuba in 1817 and Vice-Admiralty Courts on British soil – in British colonies – such as the Cape or Mauritius. But it also happened that Vice-Admiralty Courts were set up on foreign soil such as in Zanzibar or Aden, and long before they became British colonies. There, it often was the result of a unilateral declaration issued by the British Parliament. As a matter of fact, no treaty was signed with the Sultan of Zanzibar to authorise a Vice-Admiralty Court to exercise jurisdiction, on the island, over vessels and persons suspected of being engaged in the slave trade. Compared with Mixed Commissions Courts, less is known on Vice-Admiralty Courts on a global scale. According to the study led by Jenny Martinez, Mixed Commissions Courts completed an incredible task since they ‘heard more than 600 cases and freed almost 80,000 slaves found aboard illegal slave trading vessels’ around the world.18 While Martinez, looks at these Mixed Commissions as the ‘first international human rights court’, pointing that ‘the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade remains the most successful episode ever in the history of international human rights law’, other historians such as Samuel Moyn or Philip Alston argue that this view is nothing but anachronistic since, according to them, human rights only became important in international relations in the 1970s.19 Following the later, Padraic X. Scanlan, studying Sierra Leone’s Vice-Admiralty Court, stressed that ‘any putative connections that might be drawn between the origins of “human rights law” and the doing of the Vice-Admiralty Court are … specious, tenuous, and unlikely’.20 If we should be cautious with what Marc Bloch called the ‘idols of the origins’ – or looking into the past to create an artificial genealogy for ideas of the present – it is, on the other hand, crucial to put the history

British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar 105 of humanitarian policies in a wider historical perspective. It is necessary to historicize humanitarianism and human rights and write their history on the longue durée in order to understand their full signification both then and now.21 In short, even if it is, of course, impossible to prove that a historical continuity exists between contemporary international human rights court and nineteenth century Mixed Commissions, this historical precedent certainly provides an interesting historical perspective on twentieth century human rights law. International human rights policies were not born out of the blue in the second half of the twentieth century; it had a history which is now being written by various historians across the world.22 Again we should come back to this point later through Chapter Nine. In Zanzibar however, the activity of the Court, if far from setting the ground for international human rights law in the twentieth century, fostered humanitarian policies in international relations – namely the struggle against the slave trade – while strengthening Britain’s imperial paramountcy in the Sultanate. To start with, the struggle against the slave trade legitimised imperial interference with Zanzibar’s sovereignty in the name of humanitarian principles. For the better or for the worse, rights of men were by then already an element to be taken into account when dealing with international relations. The bill stated ‘Her Majesty is empowered to exercise jurisdiction within the dominions of the sultan of Zanzibar in regard to vessels captured on suspicion of being engaged in the slave trade’ as already pointed. Framing anti-slavery in Zanzibar into a law giving her representatives power of jurisdiction legitimised Britain’s action not only before the Sultanate but also before international relations. Anti-slavery was thus enforced by law and this made the use of military power at sea completely legitimate. In the meantime, the bill made clear that ‘that is and shall be lawful for Her Majesty to hold, exercise, and enjoy any power of jurisdiction which Her Majesty now hath or may at any time hereafter have within any country or place out of Her Majesty’s dominions, in the same and as ample manner as if Her Majesty had acquired such power or jurisdiction by the cession or conquest of territory’. 23 The last part of the sentence had a particularly strong meaning in the sense that it stated that the power or jurisdiction acquired by the Consul in Zanzibar was equal to ‘power or jurisdiction’ gained ‘by the cession or conquest of territory’. Zanzibar, on a jurisdictional point of view, and as far as the suppression of the slave trade was concerned, was in the power of Great Britain long before the Sultanate became a protectorate in 1890. This breach into the Sultan’s sovereignty certainly was a watershed in the history of the island from a legal and a political point of view. In a report sent to the Minister of Foreign affairs in 1869, the Zanzibar French Consul denounced ‘the power embodied by English interference’ in the Sultanate. 24 Britain had legally gained imperial paramountcy over the archipelago and its African dominions. To a certain extent, this was a clear and precise analysis of the political situation of the island; the kind of insight only diplomats on

106  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar the spot could have. However, as we will now see, the Sultan of Zanzibar paradoxically took advantage of this rather difficult situation even though he was not able to foresee the unfortunate developments this would bring to his realm.

4.2 Anti-slavery and imperial strategies or the making of a British Sultan in Zanzibar The classic opposition between humanitarian interference and national sovereignty was in Zanzibar more complex than it seemed at first glance. In 1870, the Sultan published a decree to show that he had acted to protect the dhows of his subjects against the abuses of the Royal Navy in giving his consent for the establishment of a Vice-Admiralty Court on the island. The decree, posted on the walls of the city, stated that ‘no damages will be caused to the vessels of our subjects before they will be brought back to Zanzibar; no dhows will be burned before they will be tried in Zanzibar where justice will rule, and it is only in the event of a conviction that the dhow will be burned’. 25 In allowing British interference the Sultan meant to protect his subjects from the abuses of the Royal Navy. In December 1883 ‘the native vessel “Sahalah” sailing under Zanzibar colours and papers, owned by Saeedbin-Sobeit, and whereof Saleh is master’ was condemned ‘on the ground that she was engaged in the slave trade … and ordered to be destroyed by the court’. 26 Kirk reported the procedure – as in any other case – to both the Admiralty and the Foreign Office. He explained that the ‘vessel was seized by Her Majesty’s ship “Osprey” on the 26th ultimo [26 November 1883], at the entrance of the Zanzibar channel’.27 He was the sole judge in the matter and stressed that ‘the case presented considerable difficulties, owing to the fact that certain half-caste Arabs, who were also passengers on board, had availed themselves of the occasion to bring few Comoro slaves for sale’. Kirk also highlighted that in this case, procedures ‘lasted uninterruptedly for six days’ examining papers and witnesses. According to him, condemnation came only when the ‘facts were fully proved after examination of some hundreds of Swahili letters found on board’. 28 Like in any other case, Kirk attached to the letter sent to the Foreign Secretary a decree, a receipt for slaves, a certificate of admeasurement [of the vessel], a certificate as to destruction [of the vessel], and proceeds of sales [of the vessel’s cargo]. The receipt for slaves and the certificate of admeasurement were used by the Treasury to pay H.M.S. Osprey its bounties. Out of 35 cases judged at the Vice-Admiralty Court between January 1870 and March 1875, only eight were ruled out in favour of the dhow owners to the detriment of the Navy. 29 This was a poor result but nonetheless an improvement when compared with before. The Sultan had saved a few vessels knowing that his own fleet and judicial authority could never stop the movement initiated by British anti-slave trade treaties. His father, Seyyid Saïd founder of the

British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar 107 Zanzibar Sultanate, and himself had only imposed and kept his informal power over East Africa in cooperating with British anti-slavery policies.30 For instance, the 1845 Hamterton treaty forbidding the export of slaves outside the Seyyid Saïd’s African dominions had been a victory for the Sultan in the sense it provided ‘formal recognition by a major European power of his claims to territories in coast East Africa’.31 Following this example, the Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar both diminished and supported the Sultans’ powers. Seyyid Majid reinforced them in strengthening his cooperation with Great-Britain against the slave trade while he weakened his sovereignty in letting the British Consul enforce justice over his subjects on his island when it came to the slave trade. The Court also imposed limits to the powers of the Royal Navy in checking the system of bounties for ships and slaves captured at sea. A point which the Sultan probably did not miss even though he might not have been aware of how this worked. We now need to have a quick look at it in order to get a better understanding of what really was at stake on a financial point of view. The system of bounties had been set up in the first half of the nineteenth century in the Atlantic.32 Christopher Lloyd points out that this system born out of the 1807 Abolition Act was reformed several times until the Naval Pay and Prize Act of 1854.33 In East – or West – Africa during the second half of the nineteenth century ‘the system of tonnage bounties of £4-4s-Od or of £1-10s-Od coupled with £5 a slave bounty was not insignificant to crewmen of the anti-slavery cruisers’.34 H.M.S. Daphne under the command of Captain G. L. Sulivan, between the 6 October 1867 and 4 November 1868, captured for examples 16 ships and ‘freed’ 442 slaves, among which 177 escaped. A total bounty of £7,164.10 was awarded and divided among the 145 crew members, with the understanding that ‘the captain of the ship received one third; senior lieutenants, masters, etc., received ten shares each; junior lieutenants, chaplains, surgeons, mates, etc., six shares; midshipmen three; warrant officer two; able and ordinary seamen one; volunteers one-third of a share’.35 At the end of the 1860s, one navy officer publicly confessed in a popular account of his anti-slave trade patrols on the East African coast, that ‘many captains have gone to the extreme when prize money has been the sole motive and captured every dhow with even a shadow of a slave on board’.36 H. C. Rothery, legal adviser to the Treasury in all matters relating to the slave trade acknowledged that the bounties system led in fact to abuses.37 This also explains why a ViceAdmiralty Court was needed in Zanzibar. The British government wanted to impose a better supervision to the Royal Navy anti-slavery operations in the Western Indian Ocean on a legal and financial point of view. Philip Colomb noted that ‘an active ship, fairly lucky, might in my time [the 1860s] expect to claim from the Treasury about £2,000 in any one year for slave trade captures, of which the admiral would receive £60, the captain about £170, leaving £1,500 for division amongst officers and crew. A very successful cruise has been known to produce as much as

108  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar £10,000 gross claim, but in such cases, heavy damages in restitution have sometimes materially diminished the sum for distribution’. 38 In fact, antislave trade patrols were not only motivated by the great humanitarian principles, which the anti-slavery movement had rooted within British society since the end of the eighteenth century, but also by money. 39 It was estimated by the Treasury, that suppression of the slave trade on the east coast of Africa approximately cost Britain £50,000 per year in the 1870s. In comparison, it is estimated that a total of £1,061,861 was paid in bounties by the British Treasury for 116,862 ‘liberated slaves’ to the Royal Navy anti-slave trade squadrons in the Atlantic between 1807 and 1846.40 On one hand, anti-slavery helped to foster Britain’s imperial influence overseas, yet on the other hand, it consumed a significant part of her finances in order to rescue men, women, and children from the horrors of slavery. Historians, such as Seymour Drescher, have argued that this financial commitment showed that Britain’s humanitarian concern was undoubtedly true and sincere. Drescher stated that ‘in the course of six decades (c.1860–1863), during which Britain pioneered antislavery initiatives almost unaided by the world’s other great powers, those initiatives cost metropolitan citizens 1.8 per cent of their national income’.41 Other historians, such as Padraic X. Scanlan, have questioned Dresher’s argument in showing how anti-slavery policies could also be a source of power and enrichment for a few navy officers, colonial officials, and abolitionists in taking the example of Sierra Leone during the first half of the nineteenth century.42 Nevertheless, it is far from evident that what took place in Sierra Leone, even if it casts clear doubts over the sincerity of a few influential individuals, can be applied to the rest of Vice-Admiralty Courts and Mixed Commissions around the world, not to mention abolitionism as a whole. At Zanzibar for example, no archival material have yet been found letting us think that Dr Kirk enjoyed more wealth thanks to his position as judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court there. Had it been the case it is very unlikely that French Consuls would have not revealed the scandal and tried to take advantage of it. Even though money was undoubtedly a source of motivation, a great number of navy officers had chosen the anti-slave trade patrols on the east coast of Africa, because they had been moved by ‘the horrors’ of this ‘unhuman traffic’ as Verney Lovett Cameron recalled it in 1877.43 Though officers and sailors received substantial bounties, they also constantly faced death and diseases in East Africa, even though mortality rates were probably not as high as in West Africa.44 Looking honestly at British sailors’ difficult living conditions while patrolling against the slave trade on the east coast of Africa makes it difficult to think that money was their sole and only motivation. In West Africa, Mary Wills has proved that ‘prize money was [only] one of the few advantages of the service’ and insisted that ‘notions of abolitionism, humanitarianism, and morality played a significant part in defining their [navy officers] commitment to the cause’

British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar 109 Table 4.1  Number of cases adjudicated by the Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar, 1867–1884.77

Year 1867–1874 1870–1875 1880–1884

Number of dhows captured and adjudicated by the Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar

Slaves ‘captured’ and ‘liberated’

214  89 117

4,698 2,118 1,003

since ‘employment was … notoriously unpopular [because it was too perilous]’.45 In East Africa, famous officers like Sulivan, Colomb, and Devereux demonstrated similar sources of motivations not only in the narratives they published but more importantly in their private papers.46 At Zanzibar’s Vice-Admiralty Court, a total of around 420 cases were adjudicated and 7,819 slaves ‘liberated’ between 1867 and 1884 as we can see in Table 4.1. Unfortunately, this research was not able to assess the total amount of bounties distributed during this period. Looking at the activity of the Court shows, however, how important it became for anti-slavery in East Africa and Zanzibar. As argued before, if the Vice-Admiralty Court represented a great interference with the Sultan’s sovereignty, it was also a sort of guarantee that British consular authorities in Zanzibar would supervise and control the actions of the navy. To a certain extent, the loss of sovereignty conceded by the Sultan, on one hand, was a gain on the other. The navy was now subjugated to a civil power upon which the Sultan could exercise his influence. At least, this power was not outside the physical limits of his sovereignty. It seemed easier to defend the interests of his subjects before British Consuls in Zanzibar than with navy officers cruising on a distant ship. In 1871, Kirk reported that ‘in every case tried before me as a judge in the Vice-Admiralty Court I have invariably forwarded the sultan at the commencement of the proceedings a note of the affidavit made by the captors and the information at my disposal as the owners of those interested in the cargo. Thereupon the sultan has caused his Wuzeer to attend in defence of the interests of his subjects, and whenever that agent has asked for an adjournment of proceedings, decision has been reserved and a time fixed for the hearing of further evidence’.47 This clearly established that the Sultan could implement his sovereignty better with a British Vice-Admiralty Court than without, even though he had lost some of his judicial powers over Zanzibar’s fleet of dhows, the very heart of his own imperial power in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, Kirk even proposed to the navy ‘an arrangement … authorizing the various Arab Governors along the coast to receive over and give a receipt for any vessel detained on suspicion, the sultan to be himself responsible for the due surrender of the same according to the decision of

110  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar this Court, and this His Highness was willing to grant’.48 This could have reinforced the Sultan’s powers on the coast, but the navy refused. Kirk was ‘told by Sir Leopold Heath, the Commodore commanding the British squadron, that in his opinion such an arrangement is not desirable’.49 Kirk, however, insisted that he ‘expect[ed] to find that our cruisers will be forced to allow many cases in which the suspicion of slave-dealing is strong to go free from the impossibility of bringing them to a port of adjudication, whereas under the system proposed they might have been left in charge of the Arab authorities, and the crew duly brought to court’.50 If the navy had not refused Kirk’s proposal the Sultan would have preserved his sovereignty more than he eventually did. Even if it failed Kirk’s proposal shows that consular authorities were more inclined to delegate and collaborate with the Sultan to implement Britain’s anti-slavery policies on the east coast of Africa. Notwithstanding, Seyyid Majid could not expect Kirk, or his successors, to build a far greater power of interference than the navy could ever have dreamed of. As we will see in Chapter Five, Kirk was a typical humanitarian of his time and a man, like Bartle Frere, who also favoured the alliance of humanitarianism and imperialism, following the footsteps of his dear friend David Livingstone. Kirk’s career mirrors particularly well how imperial and humanitarian interference relied on each other at Zanzibar. According to Raymond Howell, Kirk was ‘the archetype of the British man-on-the-spot in East Africa’.51 Howell added that Kirk had a leopard in the Courtroom of Zanzibar’s Vice-Admiralty Court. According to him, he warned all the persons testifying before him that the leopard ‘if you speak the truth … won’t touch you, but if you tell any lies, he’ll have you as you go out’.52 True or not this story shows that Kirk had within the Court – at least as a reputation – immense powers and acted as a kind of despot. Humanitarian issues had given him the occasion to extend his consular powers. Kirk was no reluctant abolitionist nor ‘absent minded’ imperialist either.53 With him, both were meant to strengthen each other as we should now see.

4.3  The unexpected consequences of anti-slavery But it was not only Kirk’s career at Zanzibar which demonstrated that the approval of a Vice-Admiralty Court had led to unexpected political consequences for both the Sultan and Her Majesty’s government. In early 1870, Queen Victoria’s Secretary of State, the Earl of Clarendon, sent a letter to Churchill, still Consul, at the time, in which he stated ‘the anxiety of Her Majesty’s Government to drive this horrible trade [the slave trade] from its last stronghold on the east coast [Zanzibar]’.54 Although he recommended that the ‘process should be gradual’, he instructed Churchill to force upon the Sultan several new and more stringent anti-slave trade measures. First, he told Churchill to convince the Sultan ‘to limit the shipment of slaves to one point only on the African coast’ and ‘to make Zanzibar the only port of reception of slaves’.55 Clarendon also desired ‘that every vessel engaged

British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar 111 in the transport of slaves should be liable to capture unless … provided with a proper pass from the sultan’, and, last but not least, ‘that the public slave markets should be closed’.56 British plans of imperial interference with Zanzibar’s domestic affairs were here clearly justified through humanitarian principles; namely the struggle against the slave trade. Of course, Clarendon expected the Sultan to have some demands, but, in his eyes, the matter was already settled. He wrote that when ‘the sultan will … inquire what Her Majesty’s Government can offer in return for the concessions which they ask him to make’, the British Consul should ‘inform him that instructions have already been sent to the Commanders of Her Majesty’s cruisers, which will entirely prevent, except in exceptional cases, the destructions of dhows at time of their capture; and that every facility will in future be given for a fair and impartial trial’.57 In Clarendon’s mind, the Vice-Admiralty Court was what the Sultan already got in return for his future concessions! In the name of the repression of the slave trade, the British government was gradually implying more and more interference into Zanzibar’s domestic affairs. If Sultan Seyyid Majid refused what Churchill tried to impose upon him in 1870, Sultan Sayyid Barghash could not resist the threat of a naval blockade that Kirk used to make him sign the 1873 treaty banning slave trade in his African dominions as it will be shown in Chapter Six. Indeed, if the 1873 treaty implemented most of Lord Clarendon’s 1870 wishes. Following the treaty, a new bill also extended the powers of the Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar to any representative of British consular authorities within the Sultan’s dominions. This meant that any consular officer could set up a court to trial slave traders on land and sea in any part of the Sultanate.58 In 1876, as Coupland points it out, ‘Kirk secured the appointment of British vice-consuls at Kilwa, Mombasa, Lamu and other ports and of a consular agent at distant Ujiji [on the shores of lake Tanganyika]’.59 Moreover, in 1878, Kirk notified the British government that he ‘will employ a larger number of natives … in order to … prevent a revival of the Traffic’ as H.M.S. London was ‘the only vessel now on the East Coast of Africa’.60 In 1883, Kirk reported to the Foreign Office that he had ‘obtained the sultan’s written recognition of these officers [Commander Gissing and Mr. Haggard] as vice-consuls within his dominions and given this, together with the Queen’s commission, into their hands’.61 He added he had ‘presented them personally to His Highness, and received his assurance of co-operation when they should be placed in charge of districts on the coast’.62 Kirk ended his report in stressing he had kept these officers in Zanzibar for a while in order to ‘familiarize [them] with the working of the treaties, and the rules for their observance, both in the slave trade and commercial matters’.63 Even though these vice-consuls had very limited powers in reality, their existence demonstrates how the influential British Consul in Zanzibar was gradually trying to expand the consulate’s powers within the Sultanate in

112  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar establishing a consular network on the continent. Kirk and the British government did this on the basis of anti-slave trade treaties and diplomacy. Vice-consuls were also in charge of commercial matters as it was believed, in the Slave Trade Department and among most British abolitionists, that free trade and commerce will certainly put an end to slave trade and slavery.64 On a juridical point of view and as far as anti-slavery was concerned, the British government had imposed its rule in some upon the Sultan. This can be considered as one interesting case, among others, of Britain’s ‘humanitarian interference’ based on anti-slavery. The Niger expedition led in 1841 is another major example of this kind of ‘anti-slavery interference’ which Britain applied to West Africa. There the Royal Navy often forced local powers to ratify treaties against the slave trade using military raids and bombardments, as in Dahomey and Lagos in 1851, or naval blockades, like in Sierra Leone in 1840.65 To a certain extent, this ‘humanitarian interference’ could only be implemented thanks to Britain’s superior naval power and her wide consular network. However, according to Howell, the growing importance of consular interference with Zanzibar’s sovereignty was the result of Kirk’s rivalry with the navy and his taste for imperial power. Howell argued that Kirk wanted to reinforce the powers of his consulate to the detriment of the navy since ‘his reports continued to reflect a general hostility to the whole range of naval suppression as he attempted to minimize the navy’s importance while stressing the role played by his consular establishment’.66 To back his argument, Howell quoted Kirk writing to Lord Derby in 1877: ‘the Navy is of itself when single handed the most inefficient and at the same time costly means employed’.67 To make his point even stronger, Howell also quoted Kirk writing in 1875 that ‘whilst slavery exists in Zanzibar, our Navy is powerless to stop it’.68 Howell’s main thesis stressed that the role of the navy has been undermined by historians mainly because they centred their writings and studies on Kirk’s papers following Coupland’s seminal work.69 If Howell was right to point out that the role of the navy in the suppression of the East African slave trade was, at his time, underestimated by British historiography, he might have, however, overstated a little the importance of the rivalry between Kirk and the navy. Of course, Kirk had many disagreements with navy officers over the seizure or destruction of vessels but it was just over a minority of cases as we have seen earlier on. Besides, some vice-consuls, consuls, or officials appointed by the British government in the Indian Ocean were former navy officers such as Captain Foot in 1883 or Lloyd William Mathews who became head of the Zanzibar British Protectorate in 1891.70 Collaboration between navy and consular authorities was essential to strengthen the power of both in the Sultanate. Notwithstanding, Howell was right in pointing that, under the influence of Kirk, British imperial influence in East Africa was shifting from an informal power exercised by the navy at sea to a formal power over land implemented by consuls. In this case, humanitarianism had been openly used to forward British imperialism.

British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar 113 More than ‘a secret and hidden plan’ for colonisation, it was the evolution of the nature of the slave trade after 1874 that explained the Consul’s new strategy on land. Kirk shifted the focus point of anti-slave trade policies in Zanzibar after the 1873 treaty. If the British Consul pointed out that the action and the presence of the navy had been totally ineffective, it was because the revival of the slave trade on land was now the main problem British authorities had to deal with. Kirk was quick to outline that ‘while the sea transport and the public slave markets, both in Zanzibar and on the coast, have been effectually closed, I have now to report that a vigorous effort is being made to develop the overland route’.71 Kirk’s feelings were confirmed by Vice-Consul Elton’s report in 1874 on Dar es Salaam and the coast. Elton stated that the slave trade by land had soared since the 1873 treaty had been signed in Zanzibar. He reported that, between 21 December 1873 and 20 January 1874, a total of 4,096 slaves had taken the inland route between Dar es Salaam and Kilwa.72 Navy officers, such as Captain Prideaux, also concluded that ‘the transport of slaves by land [was] now carried on to an unprecedented extent’.73 This caused British anti-slavery policy to shift focus from sea to land. It resulted in more direct interference and intervention in the Sultan’s dominions. It partly was an unforeseen consequence of the 1873 treaty. Bartle Frere and others had not thought of this problem at any stage of their campaign for the abolition of the slave trade in Zanzibar waters. The cooperation of naval and consular powers was now central to the repression of the traffic in East Africa. In 1873, Vice-Consul Elton and Captain Prideaux both relied on each other to assess the importance of the slave trade on land and at sea. While Elton watched inland routes, Prideaux supervised the maritime traffic and watched ports on the coast. He was always ready to intervene if the vice-consul needed assistance.74 As Christopher Lloyd points out ‘the Slave Trade was thus suppressed by the twin weapons of diplomatic pressure and the exercise of naval power’.75 In fact, this will clearly appear in the following chapter even though the slave trade did not cease to exist, as Howell claimed, but ‘persisted for another half a century’ in the Western Indian Ocean.76 In the case of the Zanzibar Vice-Admiralty Court as for the Bartle Frere mission studied in the following chapter, humanitarianism became a tool of British imperialism when men on the spot were able to pressure their government and force them to engage a more forward policy.

Notes 1 Mr Churchill to the Secretary to Government, Bombay, 12 December 1868, HCPP 1870 (C.141) Class B Inclosure 1 in N°32, 34. 2 Ibid. 3 J. L. Miège ‘‘les boutriers arabes dans l’océan Indien au XIXè siècle’’, Etudes et Documents no. 12, (1979): 113. 4 Erik Gilbert, Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar 1860–1970 (Oxford, James Currey, 2004), 21–58.

114  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar 5 Resolution passed by European and American merchants at Zanzibar at a meeting held on the evening of 6 March 1863; MAE, CADN, 748POA 132. 6 John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson ‘‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’’ The Economic History Review, vol. 6, no. 1 (1953): 1–15. 7 HCPP 1868–69 (237), Zanzibar Jurisdiction of Consul, 1. 8 Report addressed to the Earl of Clarendon by the Committee on the East African Slave Trade, 24 January 1870, HCPP 1870 (C.209), 13. 9 Ibid. 10 Mervyn Frost, “Justice and Sovereignty” in Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, no. 104 (August 2004): 54–68. 11 H.C. Rothery, legal adviser to the Treasury in all matters relating to the slave trade, HCPP 1871 (420), Question 796, 59. 12 C. W. O’Hare, ‘‘Admiralty Jurisdiction (Part 1)”, Monash University Law Review, vol. 6 (Dec. 1979): 91; Martin Lemnitzer, Power, law and the end of privateering (Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 17–25. 13 Padraic X. Scanlan, Freedom’s Debtors: British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 98. 14 HCPP 1844 (577) Instructions for the guidance of Her Majesty’s naval officers employed in the suppression of the slave trade, 1. 15 Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, ACT, No. XV. Declaration of the Powers, on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, of the 8th February 1815 in Hansard, The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, Volume 32. 1 February to 6 March 1816, T.C. Hansard, 1816, 200–201. 16 Henry de Montardy, La Traite et le Droit International (Paris: Giard & Brière, 1899), 52: ‘un crime de lèse-humanité’; Pierre Serna, ‘‘Que s’est-il dit à la Convention les 15, 16 et 17 pluviôse an II? Ou lorsque la naissance de la citoyenneté universelle provoque l’invention du « crime de lèse-humanité’’, Cahiers de l’Institut d’histoire de la Révolution française, no.7 (2014), Last Modified February, 3, 2015, http://lrf.revues.org/1208 ; DOI : 10.4000/ lrf.1208. 17 Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 23; Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning: Anti-slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012), 48. 18 Jenny S. Martinez, ‘‘Antislavery Courts and the Dawn of International Human Rights Law’’, Yale Law Journal, vol.117 (2008): 553. 19 Jenny S Martinez, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 5; Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia Human Rights in History (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2010), 12; Philip Alston, “Does the past matter? On the origins of human rights”, Harvard Law Review, vol. 126, no. 7 (May 2013): 2048. 20 Scanlan, Freedom’s Debtors, 99. 21 Marc Bloch, ‘‘Apologie pour l’Histoire ou le Métier d’Historien’’ in L’Histoire la Guerre la Résistance, ed. Annette Becker et Etienne Bloch (Paris: Gallimard, 2006), 868–73. 22 Fabian Klose, “A War of Justice and Humanity, Abolition and Establishing Humanity as an International Norm” in Humanity A History of European Concepts in Practice from the Sixteenth Century to the Present, ed. Fabian Klose and Mirjiam Thulin (Göttingen : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 169- 186. 23 HCPP 1868–69 (237), Zanzibar Jurisdiction of Consul, 1. 24 Lettre du Consul de Zanzibar au ministre des Affaires étrangères, 19 août 1869, MAE, CADC, P18464, 1862–1869, 414 : ‘la puissance représentée par l’ingérence anglaise’.

British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar 115 25 Article 2 in Décret du Sultan affiché le Dimanche 10 Avril 1870, MAE, CADC, P18465, 1870–1876, 24. 26 Case N°17 of 1883, Decree and Certificate as to Destruction, HCPP 1884– 1885 (C4523) in Inclosure N°64, 39–41. 27 Sir J. Kirk to Earl Granville, 5 December 1883, HCPP 1884–1885, (C4523), N°64, 39. 28 Ibid. 29 Returns of Vessels captured for being engaged in and equipped for the slave trade, HCPP, 1875, (326) 1. 30 Beatrice Nicolini, The First Sultan of Zanzibar: Scrambling for Power and Trade in the 19th Century Indian Ocean (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012). 31 Matthew S. Hopper, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 150. 32 Christopher Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1968), 79–88. 33 Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade, 84. 34 Raymond Howell, The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 35. 35 Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade, 83. 36 W. Cope Devereux, A Cruise in the Gorgon (London: Bell & Daldy, 1869), 343. 37 Report from the Select Committee on the slave trade (East Coast of Africa) HCPP 1871 (420), Question 850, 61. 38 Philip Colomb, Slave Catching in the Indian Ocean (London: Longmans & Co, 1873), 82–83. 39 John Oldfield, Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery: The Mobilisation of Public Opinion against the Slave Trade, 1787–1807 (London, 1995), 125–148; Drescher, Abolition, 267–293. 40 Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade, 81. 41 Seymour Drescher, The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor Versus Slavery in British Emancipation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 232. 42 Scanlan, Freedom’s Debtors, 97–129. 43 Verney Lovett Cameron, Across Africa (London: Daldy, Isbister, 1877), 1. Cameron was a former senior lieutenant on H.M.S “Star”. He served several years in anti-slave trade patrols on the East coast of Africa. In 1873, he led the Livingstone search expedition but failed to reach the famous doctor before he died. Cameron, however, succeeded in crossing the African continent in 1875. Thanks to his travels and his writings, he became influential among imperial and anti-slavery circles in Europe. He played an active part in denouncing the horrors of the East African slave trade and encouraged colonisation to suppress it. See William Robert Foran, African Odyssey, The life of Verney Lovett-Cameron (London, 1937). 44 Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade, 253; John Rankin, “British and African health in the anti-slave trade squadron” in The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade, ed. Robert Burroughs and Richard Huzzey (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 95–119. 45 Wills, “A most miserable business”, 81, 74. 46 John Broich, Squadron Ending the African Slave Trade (London: duckworth publishers, 2017), Ch. 1, Kindle. 47 Dr Kirk to the Earl of Clarendon, 7 March 1870, in HCPP 1871 (C.340), N°30, 29. 48 Dr Kirk to the secretary to the Government of Bombay, 7 March 1870, Inclosure in N°30 in HCPP 1871 (C340), 29.

116  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar 49 Ibid 50 Ibid. 51 Howell, The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 62; Robert D. Long, The Man on the Spot: Essays on British Empire History (London: Greenwood, 1995), 1: ‘The empire continued to expand ... because of individuals and events on the periphery’. 52 Howell, The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 143. 53 Bernard Porter, The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), xviii-xix, 37–38. 54 The Earl of Clarendon to Churchill, 16 June 1870, in HCPP 1871 (C340), N°30, 9. 55 Ibid 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 A Bill for Slave Trade East African Courts HCPP 1873, (232). A bill to amend the Slave Trade East African Courts in HCPP 1878–79 (232). 59 Reginald Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, 1856–1890 (London: Faber & Faber, 1968), 230–231. 60 Dr Kirk to the Marquis of Salisbury, 31 May 1878, HCPP 1878–1879, (C2422), N°297, 225. 61 Sir J. Kirk to Earl Granville, 24 January 1884 HCPP 1884–1885, (C4523), N°66, 44. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 Olivier (Pétré) Grenouilleau, Les Traites Négrières: Essai d’Histoire Globale (Paris: Gallimard, 2006) 312–313; Andrew Porter “’Commerce and Christianity’: The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth-Century Missionary Slogan’’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Sep., 1985): 597–621; Kevin Grant, A civilised savagery: Britain and the new slaveries in Africa, 1884–1926 (New York: Routledge, 2005) 19–22. 65 Howard Temperley, White Dreams, Black Africa: The Antislavery Expedition to the River Niger 1841–1842 (New Haven: Harvard University Press, 1991); Robin Law, “Abolition and imperialism, International Law and the British Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade” in Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa and the Atlantic, ed. Derek R. Peterson, (Ohio University Press, Athens, 2010), 150–174; Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 115; 134–146. 66 Howell, The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 141–142. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, ix. 70 On Captain Foot, Sir J. Kirk to Granville, 13 December 1883, in HCPP 1884–1885 (C4523), N°65, 41. On Matthews, R. N. Lyne, An Apostle of Empire. Being the Life of Sir Lloyd William Mathews (London: Allen & Unwin, 1936). 71 Report on Kilwa Kinviji and the Slave Trade, HCPP 1874, (C1064), Inclosure 3 N°52, 76. 72 Reports on the Present State of the East African Slave Trade, HCPP 1874 [C.946] [C.1062], Inclosure 6 in N°3, 18. 73 Captain Prideaux to Earl Granville, 2 February 1874, 1874 (C.946) (C.1062), N°4, 19. 74 Reports on the Present State of the East African Slave Trade in HCPP 1874 (C946) (C1064), Inclosure 3 in N°2, 6, Inclosure 2 in N°3, 12; Inclosure 5 in N°3, 18.

British Vice-Admiralty Court in Zanzibar 117 75 Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade, ix. 76 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 155. 77 HCPP 1870 (411), Slave trade (tonnage bounties, &c.). HCPP 1875 (326), Slave trade (tonnage bounties, &c.). Admiralty Jurisdiction. 1880: HCPP 1881 (C3052) Inclosure in N°289 340 and HCPP 1881 (C3547) Inclosure N°144, 208. 1881: HCPP 1882 (C3160) Inclosure N°187, 194 and HCPP 1883 (C3547) Inclosure in N°207, 194. 1882: HCPP 1883 (C3547) Inclosure in N°159, 132 and HCPP 1884 Inclosure in N°93, 75. 1883: HCPP 1884 (C3949) Inclosure in N°128, 94 and HCPP 1884–1885 (C4523) Inclosure in N° 68, 43. 1884: HCPP 1884–1885 (C4523), Inclosure in N°90, 60 and HCPP 1886 (C4776), Inclosure in N°103, 98. See also Christopher Llyod, The Navy and the Slave Trade, Appendix B, (London: Frank, 1968), 278.

5

The Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty Humanitarian or imperial diplomacy?

At the beginning of the 1870s, after several decades of decline, the British anti-slavery movement reached a new climax.1 It was between the 1770s and the 1820s that this movement had, indeed, reached its zenith and achieved, to borrow Drescher’s words, an ‘abolitionism without revolution’. 2 Influencing their ‘Parliament through massive opinion campaigns spread across the country in using petition as a weapon’, the humanitarian movement had forced upon Westminster the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, slavery in 1833, and apprenticeship in 1838. 3 Mobilising large sections of society, this powerful movement had durably shaped British national and international politics as well Britain’s cultural life and identity. Created by Joseph Sturge and Lord Henry Brougham in 1838, the British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society (BFASS) aimed at pursuing the great struggle of its illustrious predecessors in influencing British foreign diplomacy and fostering abolition throughout the world.4 Unlike its predecessors, this Society had, however, not reached a wide audience or achieved a great influence in Britain even if it had moved abolitionism to a more global level through important and influential international conferences. This situation changed in the 1870s. Between 1870 and 1872, the East African slave trade and Zanzibar suddenly became a familiar topic in the British press thanks to the search for David Livingstone and the publications of his letters. In August 1872, this enthusiasm for the iconic missionary and the East African slave trade dominated the headlines of most British and European papers when the encounter between Livingstone and Stanley was published.5 This resulted in one of the most notable outbursts of popular humanitarianism and imperialism in the late Victorian age.6 It was in this particular context, in between Livingstone’s discovery in 1872 and his death in 1873, that Sir Bartle Frere successfully campaigned for an immediate intervention of the British government to put an end to the slave trade at sea within the Zanzibar Sultanate. This chapter investigates the genesis and the impact of the 1873 Bartle Frere mission on Zanzibar as well as on British anti-slavery and colonial expansion in East Africa. First of all, we should see that this diplomatic mission was unwillingly formed by the British government under the pressure of public opinion led by the

Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty 119 BFASS and Henry Bartle Frere. This chapter then points that the new treaty imposed upon the Sultan of Zanzibar was not achieved through diplomacy but thanks to the military threat exercised by the British Consul, John Kirk. While British abolitionists had pressured a reluctant government in London, Kirk had used imperialism to forward abolitionism in Zanzibar, a point that raised issues amongst public opinion and political parties at home. Finally, we will try to assess if this demonstration of gunboat diplomacy was, or not, a decisive move towards European colonial expansion in East Africa.

5.1 The British government: a reluctant abolitionist under the pressure of public opinion In 1870 and 1871, two Parliamentary Committees successively addressed in Westminster the issue of the East African Slave trade. The first Committee, as mentioned in Chapter Four, had been appointed, ‘in consequence of the complaints of irregular proceedings on the part of Her Majesty’s cruisers engaged in the suppression of the Slave Trade’.7 The second committee, called the Select Committee, was formed ‘to inquire into the whole question of the Slave Trade on the East Coast of Africa … and the possibility of putting an end entirely to the Traffic in Slaves by Sea’.8 Its main conclusion was urging the government to intervene; namely ‘that all legitimate means should be used to put an end altogether to the East African slave trade’.9 However, the British government was totally opposed to this policy. Lord Clarendon, then Foreign Secretary under Gladstone’s administration, had already vigorously dismissed the same argument a year before. In June 1870, he had replied to the head of the BFASS secretary, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, that ‘the immediate prohibition of this traffic would ruin the island [and] might eventually compel England to take possession of Zanzibar’.10 The British government refused to impose immediate abolition in Zanzibar because this would, in his views, inevitably lead to colonisation. As the conclusion of the Select Committee show, influential humanitarians and imperialists had, nevertheless, agreed that a direct manifestation of British imperial might was necessary to suppress the slave trade in East Africa. It was the cornerstone upon which Bartle Frere would successfully build his campaign. This heralded a new age where British imperial and humanitarian policies would gradually go hand in hand. In 1872, at the time of Stanley and Livingstone’s famous encounter, Sir Bartle Frere already had a ‘distinguished career as administrator and statesman of empire’.11 After being governor of Bombay (1862–1866), he was now an important member of the Council of India. Since 1868, Frere had also been a prominent member of the council of the Royal Geographical Society. This Society was powerful, not only in the field of exploration but also in imperial matters.12 With Livingstone, ‘the missionary, the explorer and the pioneer of empire’, the Society was at the crossroads of humanitarian

120  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar and imperial activity and so was Frere, ‘endearing … to humanitarians and imperialists alike’.13 A point well illustrated by Frere’s friendship with Livingstone. But to launch a British intervention against the East African slave trade, Frere had, first, to win over public opinion to get the attention of Parliament and pressure the government to shift his position. Thanks to David Livingstone Frere was able to do so.14 In their reports on the East African slave trade, the 1870 Committee and the 1871 Select Committee constantly referred to Livingstone’s letters and dispatches addressed to the British government. Humanitarians in both Committees insisted on the ‘cruelties and the horrors of the trade’ highlighted by Livingstone.15 These ‘horrors of the slave trade’ became a central aspect of the campaign led, during summer 1872, by the BFASS and Bartle Frere.16 To meet success, Frere also mobilised influential officials and humanitarian circles thanks to the BFASS, most notably Clement Hill and William Wylde at the Foreign Office.17 Under the influence of Livingstone, the Society’s members were one of the rare sections of British Society that initially had an interest in the matter.18 On 30 March 1872, Frere met them to discuss ‘what means could be taken to put a stop to this barbarous traffic in human beings on the East Coast of Africa’.19 After its heydays in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the British abolitionist movement had the chance to once again become one of the most popular and powerful humanitarian association in Victorian Society. 20 The BFASS quickly organized two important public meetings in order to mobilise public opinion and Parliament in the course of 1872. At the first of these meetings held in the Friend’s Meeting-House in London in May 1872, Horace Waller, a follower of David Livingstone, made a very long and moving speech describing the ‘the first slave gang’ he ‘came across’ while travelling with the famous explorer in Nyasaland during the 1860s.21 Waller captured his audience in describing the horrors of the continental slave trade. He publicly recalled his memories: ‘a most terrible scene, than these men, women, and children I do not think I ever came across. To say that they were emaciated would not give you an idea of what human beings can undergo under certain circumstances’. 22 Waller’s speech was reproduced several times in the press and certainly contributed to generating a large movement of sympathy. As seen in Chapter Three, it was written in the idiom of abolitionist literature depicting helpless ‘emaciated victims’, generating pity as the emotional response, and emboldening the reader to call for action against ‘enemies of humanity’. As Burbank and Cooper noted: ‘humanitarians, explorers, and propagandists … publicised a picture of Africa as a place of slave trading and tyranny, in need of benevolent intervention’. 23 Because of these ‘horrors,’ something had to be done; the British government had to intervene. Waller had already made this clear in the opening of his speech: ‘If you had been with me you would have done what Livingstone and all of us did – that is to say, no matter what complications

Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty 121 might come between Portugal and England, we were resolved that this slave gang should not pass on’. 24 State sovereignty did not matter; all that matter was to end the sufferings of the victims of the slave trade. Like Waller in his speech, Frere’s campaign aimed at imposing intervention against the slave trade in East Africa as a humanitarian obligation. It was a matter of ethics and morals. Intervention in the domestic affairs of Zanzibar consequently was legitimate. State sovereignty should be bypassed. As some International lawyers argued at the time – Chapter Nine will come back to this point in more depth – an intervention was justified ‘when a government … violates the rights of humanity, either by measures contrary to the interests of other States or by an excess of cruelty and injustice …’. 25 Massacres or horrors were, indeed, one of the major factors not only justifying intervention in the nineteenth century but also possibly forcing governments to intervene or not. In April 1822 for example, the Scio Massacres – the Ottomans had slaughtered civilians in the Greek island of Chios – famously played a decisive role in mobilising public opinion and governments in Europe in favour of a military intervention to support Greece’s independence.26 Later in 1860, French military intervention in Lebanon and Syria was also justified by the massacre of a Christian minority called the Maronites. 27 The strategy adopted by Frere and BFASS worked. A second meeting was held on 25 July 1872 in the Long Parlour of the Mansion House in London. This meeting was chaired by the Lord Mayor, Sir John Gibbons, and many influential members of Parliament were in attendance, all prominent humanitarians such as William Henry Smith or Charles Gilpin. 28 Frere then made it clear that the government had to be under pressure to take action: ‘There was no prime minister, past, present, or future, who would not earnestly attend to this question [the suppression of the slave trade] if it were only brought before him as one of the pressing questions of the day’. 29 This declaration is important because it reveals Frere’s tactics and also contradicts the old historiographical myth according to which Britain’s anti-slave trade policy was naturally rooted in her politics. 30 As Seymour Drescher demonstrated, pressuring governments with ‘popular clamour’ had been at the core of the abolitionists’ successful political strategy since the early 1800s.31 Regarding the Indian Ocean, Drescher indicates that ‘without the intervention of the abolitionist movement, the British bureaucracy would not have moved to initiate action against the institution of slavery’.32 Frere’s campaign clearly highlights this point. As already noted, British governments decidedly were reluctant abolitionists.33 In only a few months, between March and July 1872, Frere had helped to mobilise a part of the elite at the Parliament in London mainly through the influence of the BFASS.34 Frere also contributed to the revival of the humanitarian movement in reaching a wider audience thanks to the press. The first meeting held by the Anti-Slavery Society and Bartle Frere in London on 29 May was not reported in the national or the provincial press, but the meeting on 25 July at Mansion House was covered in both local and

122  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar national newspapers.35 The campaign was going well. Frere finally got the support of most of the House of Commons and the press. Lord Granville started to yield to pressure publically declaring in the press, ‘there was little doubt that it was our duty to do the utmost to put that trade down’.36 A few days after Granville met with a delegation ‘a copy of the resolutions passed unanimously at the public meeting’, victory seemed at hand for Frere and his supporters.37 In the Royal Speech read to the Parliament, Her Majesty declared that ‘my government has taken steps intended to prepare the way for dealing more effectively with the slave trade on the East Coast of Africa’.38 The speech was widely publicised throughout Britain by the national and provincial press.39 It contributed to turning Frere’s campaign into a question of national politics widely discussed across the country. Granville wrote to Gladstone in the middle of September and proposed that Bartle Frere should ‘undertake the job of going to Zanzibar, to negotiate with the Sultan for the suppression of the Trade’.40 Gladstone approved.41 Bartle Frere’s strategy had succeeded. He had managed to break the government’s deadlock on the East African slave trade. After he was chosen by the government to lead a diplomatic mission in Zanzibar, Frere managed to get the attention of a broader audience through numerous articles published in provincial and national newspapers. This took his campaign beyond the elite circles and generated broader support in public opinion. Organized by the BFASS, meetings in Manchester, York, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Darlington, and Sunderland, between October and December 1872, although still dominated by elites, certainly helped to broaden the audience of Bartle Frere’s mission.42 This provides a fresh contribution to the study of public opinion and anti-slavery in Britain during the late nineteenth century. While Drescher considered that ‘the great petitions of 1837–1838 proved to be the last in which anti-slavery could draw upon unified mass support’, this research, proves that the British anti-slavery movement, now focusing on Zanzibar and East Africa, reached a new climax in the 1870s. Its popularity, however, might not be comparable with what had been experienced before.43

5.2  A diplomatic failure or a victory of gunboat diplomacy? The Bartle Frere mission is also an interesting case because it shows that anti-slavery still was, in the second half of the nineteenth century, a ‘new and vast branch of international relations’ as the Earl of Aberdeen noted in 1842.44 It illustrates as well the rise of humanitarian concerns in imperial politics.45 Finally, it highlights how Britain used her imperial power to impose a new treaty banning the slave trade within the Sultanate of Zanzibar. In February 1872, the Foreign Office dispatched a circular to the governments of Germany, France, America, and Portugal. The circular urged those countries to use their influences upon the Sultan of Zanzibar and force him

Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty 123 to abandon the slave-trade.46 In addition, the BFASS also took the initiative to send a memorandum to the Emperor of Germany and the President of the United States.47 Both governments answered the Society and instructed their consuls in Zanzibar to ‘render all their assistance in their power to Bartle Frere’.48 The Anti-Slavery Reporter proudly announced that the French government decided to cooperate ‘with our own [government] to put an end to the slave traffic from the East Coast of Africa’.49 Anti-slavery decidedly was an important part of international relations and diplomacy even for such a peripheral state as Zanzibar. Unsurprisingly, Bartle Frere truly gave his mission such an international dimension. When he left England, he first went to Paris and met with the French President M. Thiers and M. De Rémusat, his Foreign Minister. Then, he went to Rome and met with the King, Victor Emmanuel, and Venosta, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. There he also met Pope Pius IX.50 Besides, Frere’s strategy was not limited to European nations. Before Frere left England, British humanitarians at the BFASS had urged the government ‘to call upon the rulers of Turkey and Egypt to carry into effect … their existing treaties for the suppression of the slave trade’.51 The Bartle Frere mission was not just about Zanzibar. It was an attempt to revive Britain’s international activity against the slave trade throughout the world. After Frere left Europe, he first landed in Egypt in December 1872 to discuss new treaties with Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt. After reaching Zanzibar in January 1873, Frere sailed to the south as far as Mozambique and crossed the channel to land in Madagascar. He later visited Mayotte and Johanna, the principal of the Comoro Islands. After returning to Zanzibar a second time in March 1873, he went to Muscat where its Sultan eventually signed the treaty Frere had failed to impose to Zanzibar.52 Additionally, he sent copies of this treaty to several rulers in the Persian Gulf such as the emirates of Bahrain and Dubai.53 Finally, he went to Bombay where he discussed the consequences of anti-slavery in Zanzibar with the governor who was in charge of British foreign policy in East Africa and Zanzibar on behalf of the Indian Office and the Indian government.54 It took Frere more than 6 months to complete his diplomatic journey against the slave trade in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. Ironically, Frere’s mission was a success everywhere but in Zanzibar. After spending a month on the island, Frere wrote to Granville in February 1873 to inform him that the Sultan of Zanzibar, Sayyid Barghash, refused to sign the treaty.55 Barghash argued he could agree to ban all slave trade within his African dominions because of ‘the ruined state of the island, owing to the late hurricane, and the necessity … of conforming to the wishes of all his Arab subjects’.56 He expressed his ‘desire to be allowed a term of years before the final suppression’.57 Like Clarendon in London before him, Barghash argued that immediate abolition would lead to the collapse of his Sultanate. Indeed, in 1873 Zanzibar’s plantation economy was ruined. Consul Kirk estimated that after the hurricane ‘not one third

124  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar of the coconut and clove trees are left standing’. The Sultan’s losses were estimated at around 400,000 Maria-Theresa Dollars. 58 Moreover, trade in Zanzibar was at its lowest ebb. Almost all vessels had been destroyed during the hurricane. Beyond the economic and financial crisis faced by the Sultanate, there were also political factors explaining Barghash’s refusal. In 1859, he had led a rebellion against his brother, Sultan of Zanzibar at the time, considering that he gave ‘the country to the English’. 59 Barghash was arrested and sent in exile to Bombay. In 1870, he eventually succeeded his brother when he died and became Sultan. But again, he opposed the British refusing a new treaty to limit the slave trade.60 In 1873, Barghash logically opposed once more the British abolitionist diktat. He not only refused to sign the new treaty brought by Frere but also threatened the 1861 Subsidy Arrangement on which the Indian Office relied to maintain India’s security. In 1861, the Canning Award had led to the partition of Zanzibar from Oman and its Sultan compelled to pay Muscat an annual subsidy.61 However, the Sultan could not understand or imagine why his refusal was not acceptable anymore. Times had changed. Foreign policy was not limited to the secrecy of cabinet politics anymore. Frere and Granville had to be successful with the treaty because at home expectations were high among public opinion. Foreign policy and public opinion were actually more and more intertwined in the late Victorian age. In the 1860s, Gladstone toured England and delivered speeches to large crowds about foreign policy such as in Newcastle in 1862. In 1876, he publicly denounced and engaged a campaign against the massacres of Christian minorities in Bulgaria then under Ottman rule.62 This movement reached its heights during the Midlothian campaign of 1879–1880 during which Gladstone made long speeches, enlightened by humanitarian principles, on British foreign policy and Empire.63 During the Bartle Frere mission, foreign policy makers already had to deal with public opinion and newspapers. When negotiating with the Sultan, Frere ‘had dwelt on the full determination of the Government and the people of England’.64 News of the Sultan’s refusal had reached England at the beginning of March 1873 while his final opposition was relayed in April both in the national and provincial press.65 The attention of public opinion was such that the Pall Mall Gazette and the Daily Telegraph had correspondents in Zanzibar!66 Negotiations were under the scrutiny of the press and public opinion. Foreign policy at home and abroad had entered a new age. After all his travels within and around the Sultan’s dominions, Frere also understood that the Sultan had ‘little authority over the land’ and ‘is further practically limited by the necessity for exercising it with the wants … of his own Arab race … notably the trading classes’.67 Frere understood that Barghash refused to sign the treaty because his power, both financial and political, derived from the slave trade. The ‘sultan was not some absolute “oriental despot” … but primus inter pares among a collection of tribal shaikhs’ who all relied on the slave trade.68 Frere came to the conclusion

Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty 125 that the Sultan’s authority was too weak to end the slave trade alone. Only a great imperial power such as Britain could achieve the suppression of the slave trade. Consequently, Frere stated that Barghash was ‘sincerely anxious that the English or any other Power would settle it [the slave trade] for him’.69 Frere’s hypothesis was confirmed during one of the meetings between Barghash and Reverend Percy Badger, Frere’s secretary known as an Arabic scholar and a missionary. According to Badger the Sultan was ‘moved almost to tears when he spoke of the consequences which he felt sure would result from the proposed treaty’.70 If true, the Sultan’s weakness was an argument in favour of British intervention. When Frere came back from his inspections on 12 March 1873, the Sultan’s attitude towards the treaty remained unchanged.71 Consequently, Frere had no further meeting with the Sultan and left the island on 17 March 1873. After the departure of Frere, the matter was left to John Kirk. Two days after Frere’s arrival in London, on 14 June 1873, Kirk sent a telegram to the Foreign Office ‘stating that Barghash had signed the Treaty’.72 Kirk was able to get the treaty signed not only because he had influence on the Sultan but also as he was instructed by the British government to use the threat of a naval blockade. The Earl of Granville wrote to Kirk, on 15 May 1873, that ‘if the Treaty … is not accepted and signed …. The British naval forces will proceed to blockade the Island of Zanzibar’.73 The threat was implemented by Kirk at the right time. Before he left, Frere gave instructions to the British Naval Officer in Zanzibar ordering him to ‘seize all vessels carrying slaves’.74 Frere also warned the Sultan that he had ‘been compelled to give such instructions to Her Majesty’s Consul and to the Senior Naval Officer … to give effect to the determination of Her Majesty’s Government’.75 Already under stress since Frere’s mission, the slave trade was paralysed on the island and the coast. This was the decisive moment when the diplomatic mission transformed into a demonstration of imperial power in breaking the rules imposed by international law. In London, Law Officers of the Crown did not fail to see that Frere had crossed the red line. They pointed out that ‘Frere’s instruction “imposed terms upon the sultan not imposed by the treaty of 1845” … their execution would infringe the sultan’s independence and “would therefore amount to an act of war”’.76 Nevertheless, the government decided otherwise. Here the slave trade, seen as a humanitarian question, served as a justification to go beyond the Sultan’s sovereignty, as well as international law, and launch a full military intervention if necessary. This decision was not only the result of Frere’s or Kirk’s action on the spot. It had been on the mind of Gladstone since the East African slave trade became a major issue in Parliament and the press. Even before Frere left England for Zanzibar, on 7 November 1872, Gladstone had written to Lord Granville that he did ‘not want to forswear, but on the contrary to leave open, the question of the use of force, in any manner or degree which may be necessary for the suppression of the sea-going slave trade’.77 Gladstone’s statement nuances

126  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar the importance given by most historians to Frere’s actions as the key factor leading to the threat of a naval blockade.78 This statement is also particularly striking since Gladstone was known in the 1850s for his attachment to ‘the principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries’ as well as his lack of interest in anti-slavery.79 Perhaps he was changing under the influence of humanitarianism because he felt that it had become again one of the great historical forces of his time. But the decision of the British government was also influenced by the Sultan’s reactions to the mission in Zanzibar. On 29 January 1873, Barghash declared to Badger, ‘if you want to force me to sign the Treaty, let the Envoy send me a few lines saying that Her Majesty the Queen imperatively orders me to sign it and I will do so’.80 Not surprisingly, when Kirk met Barghash to inform him that a naval blockade would be imposed on Zanzibar, he famously declared he had ‘not come to discuss but to dictate’.81 If the diplomatic mission had failed, gunboat diplomacy succeeded. As a result, Britain’s influence in East Africa and Zanzibar really came to light after its consul, Dr. Kirk, was able to force the treaty upon Barghash in June 1873. It was a great illustration of Britain’s informal empire or rule by proxy. In May 1885, the Graphic dedicated a whole page praising Kirk’s crafted diplomacy and influence over the Sultan in 1873. The enthusiastic journalist wrote that ‘that Kirk was able to extract from him [Barghash] … [what] Sir Bartle Frere, with all his personal prestige and position, and with a fleet of ironclads behind him failed to extort’.82 The article was entitled: ‘Sir John Kirk at Home’. Zanzibar, as the reader could easily read between the lines, was ruled by a British Consul. In this case, humanitarian policies had led to pure imperial politics. As Richard Huzzey noted ‘Frere himself celebrated that his work meant that Britain ‘had succeeded without seeking it and almost without knowing it, to a dominant position’.83

5.3  Another step towards colonisation? In Britain, Kirk’s demonstration of gunboat diplomacy was praised by most of the press. Many newspapers reported the signature of the treaty with great enthusiasm. The Birmingham Daily Post wrote that ‘Public opinion in England is well satisfied with the announcement that Sultan Sayyid Barghash had signed a treaty at Zanzibar’.84 The Manchester Guardian boasted that ‘this was a great triumph for humanity’.85 In Dublin, the Freeman’s Journal noted that ‘the savage little state of Zanzibar has just become an interesting locality to the English public’ and added that ‘Sir Bartle Frere’s mission has resulted in a complete success’.86 The imperialist Pall Mall Gazette proudly used one of its headlines to proclaim the ‘submission of the Sultan of Zanzibar’.87 On the contrary, the Anti-Slavery Reporter was more pragmatic and realistic, underlining that ‘the signing of the treaty is one thing, the faithful observance thereof is quite another’.88 The Times seemed uneasy with this

Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty 127 example of gunboat diplomacy, arguing ‘whatever the treaty is worth it has been extorted from the Sultan by an old fashioned threat of force’.89 As a matter of fact, parts of the government did not agree with this gunboat diplomacy and cunningly used abolitionists’ old view that only free commerce would put an end to the slave trade. In a debate at the House of Commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed out that ‘the best method for the suppression of the slave trade on the east coast of Africa was not force but the extension of commerce’.90 This was a classic liberal stand against imperialism. Surprisingly enough, the French government’s reaction to Britain’s demonstration of force in Zanzibar was mostly positive even though France had been abusively accused by the British press to be responsible for Frere’s failure to get the treaty signed at once. The French archives prove that the French Chargé d’Affaire in Zanzibar was instructed to assist Bartle Frere in his mission while maintaining the independence of Zanzibar.91 The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Albert de Broglie, thus wrote in July 1873 to the French Consul in Zanzibar: ‘The closure of slave markets [in Zanzibar] was a reform we were ourselves looking forward with some impatience. We can only rejoice on seeing it done’.92 However, the French Consul in Zanzibar, Couturier de Vienne, who had been specifically sent on the occasion of Frere’s mission, reported: ‘threats [of a naval blockade] had the most complete success … contrary to the opinion of Sir Bartle Frere, the temporary suppression of slave trafficking by the use of force is not a blessing of civilisation but a triumph for British politics and influence’.93 This contrasted with the letter from the French President, Adolphe Thiers, which de Vienne had delivered to the Sultan in January that year. In this letter, the French President insisted that France wanted the slave trade to be suppressed in the Sultan’s dominions. It was written: ‘Moved by the evils of the slave trade, France has nothing at heart but to employ her efforts to bring the suppression of a custom so contrary to the laws of humanity’.94 Despite the concerns of the French government, the French press did not give much coverage to the signature of the treaty, although Frere’s mission had been followed more closely.95 Le Temps for instance mentioned, in a very short despatch, that the Sultan had finally signed the new treaty Britain had presented him.96 In spite of France’s official support of the Bartle Frere mission, Anglo-French relations were growing tense in East Africa.97 As we just saw, men on the spot, such as French consuls, continued to regard Britain’s anti-slavery policies with suspicion while government officials could, publicly at least, praised Britain’s humanitarian efforts. Regardless of what French consuls thought, we have clearly seen that there was no plan of colonial expansion in Zanzibar hidden behind Frere’s intervention. The British government had been forced by the pressure of public opinion to send a diplomatic mission to Zanzibar in order to end the slave trade at sea in East Africa. The campaign had been orchestrated by Bartle Frere and the BFASS in London. However, as it has been argued

128  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar by R. J. Gavin, the origins of Frere’s mission ‘is to be sought not in Exeter Hall but [also] in the Husns on the bare slopes of the Jabal Akdar’.98 In other words, the mission’s origins were ‘only partly to be found in the state of British public opinion’; they were also the result of the political and economic situation in both Zanzibar and Muscat, namely the ruin of the island after the hurricane and the growing dependence upon British naval power.99 Before Gavin, Reginald Coupland presented the Bartle Frere mission more as the product of the revival of the great anti-slavery movement in Britain. He insisted on the importance of Frere’s actions as well as the character of John Kirk.100 According to Coupland, the mission was above all the natural outcome of Britain’s genuine humanitarian interest in Africa.101 On the contrary, for Abdul Sheriff, the mission was just the result of British imperialism and a very important step towards colonisation.102 Although they seem completely at odds, these two interpretations are nevertheless both relevant. As it was shown in this chapter, Bartle Frere advanced the cause of British abolitionism in using imperialism while he also fostered Britain’s colonial influence by the means of anti-slavery. However, Frere’s humanitarian imperialism was far from dominant within government circles in the 1870s. M. E. Chamberlain, following Robinson and Gallagher, noted that the treaty imposed on the Sultan was only the sign that British informal influence in Zanzibar was strengthening.103 So far abolitionism had only managed to strengthen Britain’s informal empire in this part of the world. For this reason, Suzanne Miers pointed that the Bartle Frere mission illustrated the fact that ‘Britain’s anti-slavery policy was a distinct part in the growth of her informal empire’.104 Additionally, Cain and Hopkins also added that anti-slavery policies were fostered by the ‘prospect of opening up the east coast’ to legitimate commerce at a time of ‘improved communication with Europe’.105 A point clearly illustrated by some of the reactions which appeared in the British press when the treaty was finally signed under the threat of military action. More recently, Huzzey reconciled the different interpretations mentioned above by insisting on the fact that ‘even though it did not lead immediately to formal occupation, such an assertion of British power laid the bridgeheads for future control of the kingdom’.106 As underlined in the introduction, this historiographical debate indicates that the Bartle Frere mission therefore mirrors a broader controversy on the origins of British anti-slave trade policy and colonial expansion. Studying this mission enables us to look into the role which anti-slavery policies might have played in turning Britain’s informal empire into a more classic and direct form of colonial rule. In using both anti-slavery and imperial force in Zanzibar, Frere certainly advanced the cause of a more forward imperial policy in East Africa. However, at this stage British administration only acted reluctantly and did not take advantage of the situation to expand its empire there. Nevertheless, as the next chapters will demonstrate, the revived popularity anti-slavery was more and more used by key political figures of the 1880s and 1890s to win public opinion when they needed to

Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty 129 justify imperial expansion or intervention. It seems that humanitarians and imperialists went now hand in hand more easily than before. It is possible that Bartle Frere’s mission was one the element which contributed to this important political evolution. Chapter Six will yet stress that it was far from being as simple as it looked. In fact, abolitionists were often at odds with government officials when it came to assessing the results of an intervention or the measures that should be applied to new colonial territories. Besides, as Chapter Nine will later underline, they also disagreed on the new anti-slavery measures that should be integrated into international law.

Notes 1 Andrew Porter, “Trusteeship, Anti-Slavery, and Humanitarianism” in Oxford History of the British Empire, The 19th Century, Vol III, ed. Andrew Porter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 215. 2 Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 205. 3 Olivier Grenouilleau, La Révolution Abolitionniste (Paris: Gallimard, 2017), Ch. 2, Kindle. 4 James Heartfield, The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1838–1956: A History (London, C. Hurst & Co, 2017), 9-40. 5 The Illustrated London News, 10 August 1872, vol lxi, 137. 6 John M. MacKenzie, Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), 2. 7 Report addressed to the Earl of Clarendon by the Committee on the East African Slave Trade, 24 January 1870, HCPP 1870 (C.209), 13. 8 HCPP, 1871 (420), Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade (East Coast of Africa), iii. 9 HCPP 1871 (420), xvii. 10 Letter from Earl of Clarendon, 15 June 1870, On memorandum sent by Anti-Slavery Society, Rhodes Houses Oxford [RHO], GB 162 MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 445. 11 F. V. Emery, “Geography and imperialism: the role of Sir Bartle Frere”, The Geographical Journal, vol. 150, no. 3 (1984): 342. 12 Robert A. Stafford, “Scientific Exploration and Empire” in Oxford History of the British Empire Vol.III, 297. 13 Felix Driver, “David Livingstone and the culture of exploration in Victorian Britain” in David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa (London: National Portrait Gallery, 1996) 111; John Benyon, “Sir Bartle Frere”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Church Missionary Society, The Slave Trade of East Africa (London, 1868). 14 Suzanne Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade (London: Longman, 1975), 91; R. J. Gavin, “The Bartle Frere Mission to Zanzibar”, The Historical Journal, vol. 5, no. 2 (1962): 138; Porter, “Trusteeship, Anti-Slavery and Humanitarianism”, 214. 15 HCPP 1871 (420), xiv; HCPP 1870 (C.209), 2–3. 16 Report of a public meeting held in the Friend’s Meeting House, Bishopsgate, London, The Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1 July 1872, 52–53. 17 Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning : Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012), 152–154. 18 Heartfield, The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 220-224.

130  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar 19 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 30 March 1872, vol. 18, no. 1, 9 20 Drescher, Abolition, 205–243. 21 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 30 March 1872, vol 18, no. 1, 9. Horace Waller was in Nyasaland with John Kirk and Livingstone during the Zambezi expedition, between 1860 and 1863. Daniel Liebowitz, The Physician and the Slave Trade (New York, Freeman and Co, 1998), 37–111. 22 The Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1 July 1872, 52–53. Republished in The Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1 April 1873, 125–127. 23 Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 315. 24 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 30 March 1872, vol 18, no. 1, 9. 25 G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, ‘‘Note sur la théorie du droit d’intervention, à propos d’une lettre de M. le professeur Arntz’’, Revue de Droit International et de Législation Comparée, Tome VIII (Paris: Durand et Pedone-Laurier, 1876), 674–675. 26 Gary J. Bass, Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 67–68; Davide Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012) 63–90. 27 Bass, Freedom’s Battle, 174–177; Yann Bouyrat, Droit d’intervenir? L’expédition “humanitaire” de la France au Liban, 1860 (Paris: Editions Vendémiaire, 2013), 77–105. 28 Charles Gilpin (1815–1875) was one the most famous Quaker and humanitarian of his time thanks to his campaigns against death penalty and for world peace. William Henry Smith (1825–1891) was a successful bookseller and who became an influential politician. He was known for his support to anti-slavery. 29 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 1 October 1872, Vol 18, N. 3, 63. 30 Mulligan, “British anti-slave trade policy in East Africa” in Humanitarian Intervention: A History, ed. Brendan Simms and D. J. B. Trim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 258. 31 Drescher, Aboltion, 234. 32 Drescher, Aboltion, 271. 33 On Britain as a reluctant imperialist see G.N. Sanderson, “The European partition of Africa: Coincidence or Conjuncture?” in European Imperialism and the Partition of Africa, ed. E.F. Penrose (London: Cass, 1975), 10; Bernard Porter, The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 34 Heartfield, The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 252-254. 35 Daily News, 26 July 1872; Freeman’s Journal, 26 July 1872; Leeds Mercury, 26 July 1872; Pall Mall Gazette, 26 July 1872; Bristol Mercury, 27 July 1872; The Times 26 July 1872, 10; Era, 28 July 1872; Manchester Guardian, 31 July 1872. 36 Belfast News-Letter, 24 July 1872. 37 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 1 October 1872, vol. 18, no. 3, 66. 38 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 1 October 1872, vol. 18, no. 3, p. 68 39 Belfast News-Letter, 12 August 1872; Birmingham Daily Post, 12 August 1872; Daily News, 12 August 1872; Pall Mall Gazette, 12 August 1872; Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 12 August 1872; Glasgow Herald, 12 August 1872; Birmingham Daily Post, 13 August 1872; Ipswich Journal, 13 August 1872; Leeds Mercury, 13 August 1872; Aberdeen Journal, 14 August 1872. 40 Lord Granville to Mr Gladstone, 16 September 1872; (Add. MS. 44169, FO. 80), in The political correspondence of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville, 1868–1876, edited for the Royal Historical Society by Agatha Ramm (London: Offices fo the Royal Historical Society, 1952), 347.

Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty 131 41 Ibid. 42 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 1 January 1873, vol. 18, no. 4, 116–122; Daily News, 5 November 1872; Freeman’s Journal, 5 November, 1872; Glasgow Herald, 5 November, 1872; Manchester Guardian, 5 November 1872; The Times, 5 November 1872, 4. 43 Dresher, Abolition, 277. 44 Quote from the Earl of Aberdeen (1842), in T.G. Otte, “A Course of Unceasing Remonstrance: British Diplomacy and the Suppression of the Slave Trade in the East”, in Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807–1975, ed. Keith Hamilton and Patrick Salmon (Brighton: Sussex Academic, 2009), 94. 45 Bass, Freedom’s Battle, 18. 46 Gavin, “The Bartle Frere Mission to Zanzibar”, 138. 47 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 1 January 1873, vol. 18, no. 4, 103; Anti- Slavery Reporter, 1 April 1873, vol. 18, no. 5, 127. 48 Ibid 49 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 1 January 1873, vol. 18, no. 4, 103 50 John Martineau, The Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere (London: J. Murray, 1895), 71–74. 51 Anti- Slavery Reporter, 1 January, 1873 Vol 18, N. 4, 103 52 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 91. 53 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 94–96. 54 Robert J. Blyth, The Empire of the Raj: Eastern Africa and the Middle East, 1850–1947 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003), 38–63. 55 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 36–37. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Abdul Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770–1873 (London: Currey, 1987), 234. 59 Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar, 211. 60 Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar, 217–221. 61 HCPP 1873 [C.820], 37. 62 Davide Rodogno, Against Massacre, 151–155. 63 Bass, Freedom’s Battle, 305–312 64 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 36. 65 Manchester Guardian, 12 March 1873; Manchester Guardian, 9 April 1873; The Times, 11 March 1873, 10; The Times, 22 April 1873, p 12; Leeds Mercury, March 11 1873; Northern Echo, 11 March 1873; Belfast News-­Letter, 12 March 1873; Liverpool Mercury, 13 March 1873; Hull Packet and East Riding Times, 14 March 1873; North Wales, 15 March 1873; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 16 March 1873; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 16 March 1873; Pall Mall Gazette, 19 April 1873; Leeds Mercury, 23 April 1873; Liverpool Mercury, 23 April 1873; Northern Echo, 23 April 1873; Pall Mall Gazette, 23 April 1873; Belfast News-Letter, 24 April 1873; Birmingham Daily Post, 24 April 1873. 66 Sources quoted by Manchester Guardian, 12 March 1873. 67 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 112. 68 Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar, 219. 69 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 116. 70 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 51. 71 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 74. 72 Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, 1856–1890 (London: Faber and Faber, 1939), 205. 73 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 88.

132  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar 74 Gavin, “The Bartle Frere Mission to Zanzibar”, 145. Based on P.R.O. 30/29/73, Granville’s memorandum on Frere’s action, 29 April, I873. 75 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 82. 76 Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, 200. 77 Mr Gladstone to Lord Granville [G.D. 29/61] Nov. 6/72, The political correspondence of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville, No 785, 359. 78 Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, 207; Gavin, “The Bartle Frere Mission to Zanzibar”, 146. Sheriff, Slaves, Spices, and Ivory in Zanzibar, 237. 79 Adam Roberts, “Humanitarian War: Military Intervention and Human Rights”, International Affairs, vol. 69, no. 3 (1993), 431–432; Roland Quinault, “Gladstone and Slavery”, The Historical Journal, vol. 52, no. 2 (Jun., 2009): 363–383. 80 HCPP 1873 (C.820), 82. 81 Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, p. 209. Kirk To Granville, 5.vi. 73: F.O. 84. 13474. 82 Graphic, 9 May 1885. 83 Huzzey, Africa Burning, 154. 84 Glasgow Herald, 18 June 1873 reported also in Birmingham Daily Post, 16 June 1873; Liverpool Mercury, 16 June 1873; Daily News, 16 June 1873; Glasgow Herald, 16 June 1873; Northern Echo, 16 June 1873; Western Mail, 16 June 1873; Belfast News-Letter, 17 June 1873; Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 17 June 1873. 85 Manchester Guardian, 16 June 1873. 86 Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 17 June, 1873. 87 Pall Mall Gazette, 16 June 1873. 88 Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1 July 1873, vol. 18 no. 6, 161. 89 The Times, 16 June 1873. 90 Leeds Mercury, 14 June 1873. 91 Ministère des Affaires étrangères à M Bertrand Gérant du Consulat de France à Zanzibar 24 Décembre 1872, MAE CADC, P18465, 1870–1876, 163. 13 Janvier 1873 Ministre MAE au Consul de France à Zanzibar, M. de Vienne, MAE CADC, P18465, 1870–1876, 173–174. 92 Ministre MAE au Consul de France à Zanzibar, De Vienne, 1 er Juillet 1873, MAE CADC, P18465, 1870–1876, 295. 93 Consul de France à Zanzibar, Couturier de Vienne au Ministre MAE, 29 Juin 1873, MAE CADC, P18465, 1870–1876, 293. 94 Lettre du Président de la République Française (Adolphe Thiers) au Sultan de Zanzibar, 12 Janvier 1873, MAE CADC, P18465, 1870–1876, 167. 95 Le Temps, 8 Février 1873, 1 ; Le Temps, 21 Février 1873, 2 ; Le Temps, 25 Février 1873, 2 ; Le Temps, 13 Mai 1873, 2 ; Le Temps, 14 Mai 1873, 1. Le Temps was a Republican and conservative newspaper. It had the reputation to be the unofficial voice of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 96 Le Temps, 12 Juin 1873, 1; Le Temps, 7 Août 1873, 2. 97 Consul de France à Zanzibar au Ministre MAE, 24 Septembre 1873, MAE CADC, P18465, 1870–1876, 325–327; Ministre de la Marine et des Colonies au Ministre MAE, 27 Septembre 1873, MAE CADC, P18465, 1870–1876, 327–328. 98 Gavin, “The Bartle Frere Mission”, 132. 99 Ibib. 100 Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa, 207; The British Anti-Slavery Movement (London:  Frank Cass & Co, 1964), 217. 101 Coupland, The British Anti-Slavery Movement, 215. 102 Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar, 237.

Bartle Frere mission and the 1873 treaty 133 103 Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher with Alice Denny, Africa and the Victorians the Official Mind of Imperialism (London: Macmillan, 1961, 1981), 46–47; M.E. Chamberlain, The Scramble for Africa (London: Longman, 1999), 59. 104 Suzanne Miers, “The Brussel Conference of 1889–1890”, in Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule, ed. Prosser Gifford and W.M. Roger Louis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 85. 105 P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688–2000 (Harlow: Routledge, 2013), 387. 106 Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 154.

6

The 1889 Zanzibar blockade: An international humanitarian intervention or an apogee of imperialism?

The Zanzibar blockade, lasting from December 1888 to October 1889, was allegedly set up by Britain and Germany to end the slave trade in East Africa. In the 1920s, Ellery C. Stowell, the world-famous American professor of international law, mentioned the blockade as a remarkable, yet controversial, example of humanitarian intervention in the section of his book dedicated to ‘intervention for humanity or humanitarian intervention as it is more properly called’.1 Following Bismarck and Salisbury’s political rhetoric, this chapter will first show how, in times of colonial expansion, great leaders could manipulate key elements of the humanitarian discourse to deal with an uprising. However, we should see that serious critics were raised in Britain to question the sincerity of the alleged philanthropic motives publicised by the British government to justify the operation. Finally, this chapter will demonstrate that the blockade was more a military operation designed to bring down a significant anti-colonial insurrection than a genuine example of ‘intervention for humanity’. But once more, in manipulating anti-slavery political leaders gave abolitionists an unexpected opportunity to carry their movement back to the forefront of international politics.

6.1 Launching the Zanzibar blockade: humanitarian rhetoric and imperial politics Throughout the spring and the summer of 1888, the political situation in East Africa rapidly deteriorated as the German East Africa Company (GEAC or Deutsche Ost-Afriakanishe Gesellschaft) and the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) gradually took control of the Sultan’s territories on the East African coast. 2 Norman Robert Bennett points out that, ‘according to a British missionary reporting in May [1888]’, there were ‘talks over the coast of making a clean sweep of all Europeans’.3 The provocations and the violence of the GEAC’s agents were the sparks that ignited a long-brewing insurrection. In Bagamoyo, the company’s agents forced the Zanzibari governor to hoist the company’s flag removing the Sultan’s flag from his office. The governor refused to howl down the Sultan’s flag and

The 1889 Zanzibar blockade 135 this situation repeated itself in other coastal towns such as Pangani, Tanga, Kilwa, and Lindi. G. A. Akinola explains that this opposition to the transfer of power took place because ‘the traditional ruling class … were important local potentates with deeply entrenched interests which were bound to be endangered under German rule’.4 German troops reacted ruthlessly to these symbolic acts of resistance. In Pangani, a very influential member of the aristocracy, Said bin Hamadi, was beaten, his wife raped, and his house seized by the company’s agents. 5 As a result of this type of colonial violence, the revolt quickly spread along the coast, and ‘various factions amounted to a wild army of 20,000 men’ hunted down German agents.6 At the end of August, Vohsen, the head of the GEAC, realized that ‘all company authority had disappeared’.7 He was facing a vast and complex rebellion movement that went beyond the opposition to German colonial rule. It also was a social revolt joined by slaves and peasants living on plantations as well as an attempt to overthrow Omani rule organized by urban and merchant elites. This multifaceted insurrection was led by Abushiri ibn Salim, a sugar plantation owner who ‘had occupied a leading position in the Sultan of Zanzibar’s army’.8 Finally, the movement was joined by the ‘non-Swahili people of in the hinterland’ such as the Shambala in Pangani, the Zaramo in Bagamoyo, and the Yao in Kilwa.9 On 30 September, the French Consul in Zanzibar telegraphed the Minister of Foreign Affairs and insisted that ‘the whole East African coast has raised against the Germans’.10 For the British too, acting in the name of the new Sultan Khalifa ibn Said – he had just succeeded Barghash who died in March 1888 – the situation was out of hand. In Pangani, at the heart of the rebellion, Lloyd Mathews, the Sultan’s Brigadier-General, failed to restore order as his men refused to fight.11 In consequence, the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck approached the British Prime Minister Marquess of Salisbury and ‘proposed, with British collaboration, blockading the Sultan’s coast, thus preventing both the slave trade and shipment of munitions’.12 In October 1888, the Germans officially communicated a memorandum to Salisbury’s cabinet in which they piously declared: ‘it is only by mutual cooperation, founded on reciprocal trust that the task of Christian civilisation in East Africa can be satisfactory fulfilled’.13 To a certain extent, the German government followed the spirit of the 1885 Berlin Conference and the call for military intervention delivered by Cardinal Lavigerie (1825–1892) throughout Europe during the summer of 1888.14 Touring France, Britain, Belgium, and Italy, the French Cardinal had not only reached large sections of the European public opinion but also impressed his message upon many important political leaders.15 Earlier that year, Lavigerie, famous for founding the White Fathers in Africa, had already succeeded in making Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical In Plurimis condemning slavery and the slave trade. So doing, Lavigerie revived anti-slavery in Europe while trying to restore the social and international influence of the Catholic Church.16

136  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar To a much greater extent than Lavigerie’s campaign, the Berlin Conference General Act inaugurated earlier a new era in international relations through its Preamble as well as Articles Six and Nine.17 Echoing Livingstone speech at Cambridge in 1857, the preamble first stressed, like the 1888 German memorandum, that the signatory powers declared to commit themselves to ‘the development of trade and civilisation in certain regions of Africa’ and to the improvement of ‘the moral and material well-being of the native populations’.18 Most importantly, Article Nine proclaimed for the first time that the slave trade was illegal according to international law.19 Blending the Preamble and Article Nine, Article Six pointed out that ‘all the Powers exercising sovereign rights or influence in the … [Congo Basin] bind themselves to watch over the preservation of the native tribes, and … to help in suppressing slavery, and especially the slave trade’. 20 Connecting the ‘moral and material well-being of the native tribes’ with the suppression of slavery and the slave trade, the Berlin Conference took the relationship between humanitarian ideology and the colonisation of Africa to another step. This decisively influenced Lavigerie during his 1888 campaign. He referred to Articles Six and Nine of the Berlin Act to justify the duty which, according to him, fell upon European governments to intervene in Africa to suppress slavery and the slave trade. At Cathedral St Gudule in Brussels, in one of his most popular conferences, the French Cardinal declared that ‘it is the European Governments who must have the duty to abolish slavery in the African continent they have conquered’. Addressing directly his audience, he added: ‘to prove it to you, I only need to read you two articles [Articles Six and Nine] of the Constitutive Act approved [by Leopold] in Berlin. 21 Lavigerie called for military intervention and even considered creating a new military order, modelled on the experience of the crusades, to carry out the repression of the slave trade. 22 In autumn 1888, Germany’s memorandum not only adhered to the Act of the 1885 Berlin Conference but also clearly followed Lavigerie’s call. The justification for the intervention seemed simple. Britain and Germany had to intervene because it supposedly was their duty, as representatives of ‘Christian civilisation’, to protect the natives of East Africa against the evils of ‘the Arab slave trade’.23 This was the spirit of the time established by the Berlin Conference and Cardinal Lavigerie as we just saw. Labelled as ‘the Arab slave trade’ the East African traffic was then commonly caricatured as a purely ‘Arab’ phenomenon. This stereotype had a lasting influence over the historiography and European popular culture. As Edward Alpers pointed, ‘all who participated in the slave trade [in nineteenth-century East Africa] … were generally regarded as “Arabs”, whatever their true identity’. 24 Using this rhetoric, the memorandum wanted to put the stress on the fact that the Arab insurrection not only destabilised the whole region, the authority of the Zanzibar Sultanate but also Europe’s ‘noble crusade against the slave trade’. After the death of General Gordon during the siege of Kharthoum in 1885 – an event which embodied the defeat of the

The 1889 Zanzibar blockade 137 Anglo-Egyptian occupation of Sudan by the mahdist movement narrowly described as a revolt of ‘fanatical Arabs’ at the time – it was a clever way to demonstrate that the British were compelled to intervene because their colonial and humanitarian interests were both at stake.25 The memorandum was written to convince the British Prime Minister and Westminster. It insisted that ‘the German and the British Governments are united in the opinion that the first thing to be done is to restore and uphold the authority of the Sultan of Zanzibar against the insurrectionary movement on the mainland’. 26 According to this document, the aim of the intervention was straightforward: Britain and Germany had to intervene because the Sultan’s power and European anti-slavery policies were threatened. Ironically, it was not made clear at all that the insurrection was originally not directed against the Sultan but the imposition of German rule in his dominions. On the contrary, Bennett pointed out that Sultan Khalifa, according to his own words, had possibly encouraged ‘his Arab and African subjects’ to ‘thwart German enterprise of the mainland’. 27 Nevertheless, British Members of Parliament were not blind. Some of them pointed out that German agents – and not Arab slave traders – should be held responsible for this vast insurrection. Salisbury himself was aware that German rule had triggered the uprising. 28 The Earl of Harrowby at the Lords, 6 November 1888, declared that: ‘the German name had become very much out of favour with the whole of the Natives of all kinds and sorts along that coast’. He warned that ‘If therefore, we were going to unite with Germany in more forcibly repressing the Slave Trade, it might lead to very unfortunate results’. 29 At Westminster, the protection of the Sultan’s rule was therefore not enough to justify an Anglo-German intervention. The intervention needed to appear with a greater purpose if it wanted to convince Parliament and public opinion whether in Britain or Germany. Since Lavigerie’s campaign over summer 1888 had been so popular across Western Europe, it was quite easy to use the argument of the suppression of the slave trade as a justification for a colonial intervention in East Africa. It is not surprising that the British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, consequently referred to Lavigerie and the surge of the East African slave trade when he wrote to the Foreign Office to justify the initiative of an Anglo-German blockade.30 Bismarck also seized the opportunity.31 He gave Germany’s colonial and foreign policy a new surprising turn just a few years after the Berlin Conference.32 Taking the initiative of the blockade, Bismarck engaged a more active colonial policy and developed better relations with Britain to the detriment of France. Suzanne Miers pointed out that Bismarck was able to win the support of the Catholic Centre Party at the Reichstag only when he linked the German colonial project in East Africa to the suppression of the slave trade.33 It is in this context that the German Emperor William II made a speech on 22 November 1888 in which he declared that the suppression of the slave trade was one of Germany’s colonial priorities. Even in Germany, anti-slavery was now such a popular

138  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar issue that it could be used as a part of national politics to mobilise broad support for colonisation. Who could oppose such ‘noble motives’ after all? Lavigerie’s campaign had indeed sparked all sorts of plans in the minds of European politicians and diplomats. In August 1888 for instance, Clement Hill, a high ranking Foreign Office official, had proposed, following Lavigerie’s idea, an international conference – the future 1890 Brussels Conference – to discuss the possibility to set up an international armed force to suppress the slave trade in Central and East Africa.34 According to Hill, this army could have been under the high command of an international council which would sit in Brussels.35 Even if Salisbury completely rejected Hill’s utopic motion, the idea of international military intervention against the slave trade in Africa circulated. It consequently was quite logical that the German memorandum referred to it. The document claimed that ‘it appears desirable … to establish a blockade of the coast of the mainland of Zanzibar … to cut off all traffic with the insurgent coast districts, and especially that in slave-vessels, and the carriage of arms and ammunition’.36 On 3 November 1888, Count Hatzfeldt, then German ambassador in London, wrote to Salisbury and detailed Bismarck’s proposition.37 Hatzfeldt insisted on the suppression of the slave trade and the opening of Africa to legitimate commerce as the main justification of the naval blockade. In his letter, Hatzfeldt stressed that ‘in view of the increasing extent of the hostility that the slave traders of Arab Nationality oppose the suppression of the slave trade and to the legitimate commerce of Christian peoples with the natives of Africa, the Imperial Government propose to Her Majesty’s Government to blockade in common with, and with the consent of the Sultan of Zanzibar, the coasts of East Africa’.38 Hatzfeldt’s arguments in favour of the blockade had been particularly well chosen. They were the most popular themes of the British abolitionist rhetoric throughout the whole nineteenth century as seen in previous chapters. More importantly, he did not describe the blockade as an operation designed to crush an uprising against German rule in East Africa but as a movement of ‘hostility that slave traders of Arab Nationality oppose [to] the suppression of the slave trade’.39 This last argument echoed perfectly the popular stereotype, recently revived by Lavigerie in his conferences, arguing that ‘Arabs’ were responsible for the horrors of the slave trade and strongly opposed its suppression.40 It matched perfectly the idea the influential cardinal had spread of a ‘crusade’ designed to suppress slavery on the African continent. If it succeeded it would not only appear as a victory over the evils of slavery but also over the alleged ‘evils’ of Islam. On the fifth of November, only 2 days after Hatzfeldt’s letter, the British government accepted the German proposal. Salisbury replied to the German Ambassador ‘in view of the increasing of the slave trade on the East Coast of Africa, and the disturbances and impediments to legitimate trade which it produces, Her Majesty’s Government accede to the proposal of the Imperial Government to establish, with the ascent of the Sultan of

The 1889 Zanzibar blockade 139 Zanzibar, … a blockade against the importation of munitions of war and the exportation of slaves’.41 No mention was officially made, whether by the Germans or the British, of the real causes of the East African insurrection. On the contrary, the suppression of the slave trade and the protection of legitimate commerce were abusively used by both governments to justify their military intervention. Allegedly, the blockade was designed to stop the destruction of the civilian populations of East and Central Africa caused by the trade in slaves and arms. In truth, Germany and Britain wanted, above all, to quell the revolt that had spread throughout East Africa and threatened their fragile colonial rule in the region.42 The British felt that if German rule fell, British rule would suffer the same fate. We should now see how the British and French Parliament reacted to the opportunist humanitarian rhetoric of Salisbury and Bismarck.

6.2  ‘Philanthropy or business’? Salisbury also seized the opportunity of the blockade to promise the Royal Navy a precious gift which would surely win him widespread praises at Westminster. Salisbury argued that the right to search and detain all foreign vessels should be granted to the German and British navies to guarantee the success of the naval blockade.43 What could be more convincing than a universal right of search to the abolitionists sitting in the House of Commons? Of course, this was rather symbolic as this right would be limited to the East African coast but Salisbury needed symbols to convince the British Parliament and public opinion. He now had them all: the suppression of the slave trade, the opening of Africa to legitimate commerce, the repression of ‘the Arab slave trade’; and finally, the right of search: the very symbol of Britain’s humanitarian power overseas as pointed in Chapters Two and Three. Among Salisbury’s arguments, France’s approval of the right of visit and search certainly was the most important of all. On 6 November 1888, the British Prime Minister proudly claimed to the Lords that he had obtained France’s agreement thanks to the launching of the Zanzibar blockade.44 He even concluded his speech claiming that France would join the blockade saying: ‘I am glad to say that the French Government is going further, and it is probable that they will send a ship to join us in the naval operations which are about to take place’.45 To British ears, used for decades to France’s fiery opposition to British anti-slavery policies, as seen in Chapter Three, this must have sounded almost unbelievable. Their ‘greatest rival’ was about to grant the Royal Navy the right of visit and join a major anti-slave trade operation led by Britain! Indeed, this was a dramatic change. However, Salisbury’s public statements quickly appeared to be at odds with reality. Two weeks later, on 19 November 1888, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, René Goblet declared that ‘the right of visit regarding vessels no matter which flag they carried’ would be allowed only ‘regarding

140  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar the possession of weapons, or the contraband of war’ because it ‘naturally derived from principles of international law’.46 Goblet maintained what has always been France’s position on the right of visit. The French minister insisted that ‘as far as the slave trade is concerned the right of visit has never been accepted by France … it was never believed that France should sacrifice the dignity of her flag and allow a foreign vessel to visit vessels flying its flag even when such an issue was at stake’.47 The French official position on the right of visit and the Zanzibar blockade seemed clear and intangible. Finally, France will despatch a vessel to check the slave trade under her flag but would not take any part in the Anglo-German naval operation.48 Salisbury’s main argument in favour of the blockade had been completely overstretched. Furthermore, even before the French Minister of Foreign Affairs had publicly spoken, critics had already been raised by the liberal press against Salisbury’s decision to engage Britain in the Zanzibar blockade. In an article published on 7 November 1888 in the Daily Mail, entitled ‘Philanthropy or Business’, British Liberals attacked Salisbury’s set of arguments in favour of the operation. First of all, the article denounced that Bismarck was taking advantage of Britain’s anti-slave trade policies to put down a revolt solely resulting from ‘the brutality which [Germans] displayed towards the natives’.49 This certainly was close to the truth as it was demonstrated earlier. The article also criticized Salisbury’s optimistic declaration on France and the right of visit. The author bluntly pointed ‘we shall believe that when we see it’.50 Finally and more importantly, the Daily Mail questioned the sincerity of the recent colonial enterprises presumably launched in the name of anti-slavery: ‘the African slave trade is always on the point of being put down. The occupation of Egypt was to do away with it, its abolition was involved in the establishment in the Congo Free State, and it has been adduced by Lord Salisbury himself as the reason for continuing to occupy Suakin with an armed force [a Sudanese port occupied in 1885 in the context of the Mahdi’s revolt after the death of Charles Gordon]. All these expedients have been adopted, and yet the African slave trade has recently been multiplied by four’.51 As we can see, the philanthropic argument of the suppression of the slave trade could not so easily be used to fool public opinion. Instead of an armed intervention, the Daily Mail supported the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society’s call for ‘a Conference of the Powers’ [the future Brussels Conference] in order to settle once and for all the question of the African slave trade. 52 The abolitionist movement, dominated by Quakers and other religious dissenters, historically favoured political agitation, free-trade, and diplomacy rather than unilateral military interventions.53 However, anti-slavery was now in the hands of political leaders and, due to the blockade, the Brussels Conference was postponed sine die. Two weeks after the Daily Mail’s article, Salisbury came under new criticism at the Lords. On 20 November 1888, the Earl of Granville,

The 1889 Zanzibar blockade 141 former Secretary of State in Gladstone’s government and a major figure of Victorian politics, questioned the Prime Minister’s claim that France had finally agreed to the British right of visit.54 Granville put Salisbury in a quite difficult position declaring: ‘we have not obtained for the first time a thing of priceless value. We have only got what blockaders always had: the right of searching neutral vessels for contraband of war’.55 Salisbury was clearly annoyed but replied to Granville: ‘I believe for all practical purposes the concession of the French Government will enable us to put a stop to the traffic in slaves; … I only wish to indicate that the objection which the French Government has taken is rather in theory than in practice. I do not believe any practical difficulty will arise’.56 If Salisbury presumed that the blockade would inevitably lead France to yield her opposition to the British right of visit, the French, however, never made the concession he publicised to the British Parliament. Nevertheless, the official proclamation of the blockade, issued on 2 December 1888, seemed to fulfil Salisbury’s promises. It stated: ‘In accordance with instructions received from their respective Governments, and in the name of His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar – We, the Admirals commanding the British and German Squadrons, hereby declare a Blockade against the importation of Munitions of War and the exportation of Slaves only, on the continuous line of coast of Zanzibar’.57 The declaration unilaterally established that ‘all ships, to whatever nation they may belong, are liable to visit and search; they should “bring to” and lower their sails immediately on a blank charge being fired: should they not do so a warning shot will be fired across their bows, after which they will be treated as hostile. Vessels engaged in ordinary trade will be allowed to continue their voyage after having been visited’.58 This followed the British Prime Minister’s pledge even if France had not yet agreed to the right of visit. It actually took about 2 months before France made a sort of clever compromise. In February 1889, the French government informed British authorities ‘that they [had] no objection to the search of French dhows by English and German Admirals under the delegated authority of the Sultan in territories of the two islands [of Zanzibar and Pemba]’.59 France’s approval of the right of visit was however very limited. It only concerned the territorial waters of Pemba and Zanzibar and the illegal transport of arms or ammunitions as Goblet publicly declared in Parliament. Furthermore, any French dhow seized by the Germans or the British had to be handed over to French jurisdiction.60 This compromise only took place because the Sultan had just made ‘a public proclamation … prohibiting in Zanzibar and Pemba importation, exportation, and trade in arms and ammunition’ and delegated ‘his sovereign rights of search of all Arab vessels’ to the German and the British navies.61 In truth, this was not such a big accommodation as it only concerned the arms trade in the territorial waters of Zanzibar’s archipelago. The French approval of the right of visit and search did not apply to the coastlines of Zanzibar’s dominions on the continent and it did not concern

142  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar the slave trade either. France had therefore not changed an inch of her policy as Granville had noted. Unlike Salisbury, Goblet’s words had been fulfilled. Salisbury’s justification of the Zanzibar blockade had not only fooled Parliament on France’s approval of the right of visit but, more importantly, on the Sultan’s agreement to such a naval operation. In fact, the Sultan opposed the blockade. He was forced into its acceptance only by the pressure exercised upon him by the British Consul, Euan-Smith. In December 1888, Euan-Smith wrote to Salisbury that ‘His Highness persisted in declining to actively cooperate in the blockade’ because it ‘would render him most unpopular with his people’.62 Consequently, Euan-Smith warned the Sultan that the German forces might evict him if he did not accept the naval operation.63 The Sultan ultimately yielded to pressure and released his first blockade proclamation in early November 1888: ‘a blockade upon the ports and coast-line and islands of our dominions upon the mainland … shall be enforced by our own ships and the ships of Germany and Great Britain’. It ‘will be directed solely against trade in munitions of war and trade in slaves’.64 All in all, Salisbury’s tactics had worked better in Zanzibar than at Westminster. He had justified the blockade in using humanitarian rhetoric only because he needed to convince a reluctant public opinion and abolitionists at Parliament. In the light of the Bartle Frere mission seen in Chapter Five, this was quite ironical. Whereas Frere had used anti-­ slavery to pressure the government to force him to intervene in Zanzibar, political leaders were now doing the exact opposite. They were manipulating the abolitionist discourse to gain the support of public opinion and Parliament in order to justify a controversial colonial operation. This shows that anti-slavery policies often were the results of a political struggle vice-versa abolitionists to government officials at times and vice-versa.

6.3  Humanitarian intervention or colonial repression? Surprisingly, no official report of the Zanzibar blockade is to be found in the British archives as far as this research was able to determinate. We only know that in April 1889, 1,282 dhows had been checked by the Royal Navy and 1,500 by the German Navy.65 A total of six German cruisers with around 1,500 men were mobilised while the Navy employed as many men and only one more vessel. Originally, it had been decided that eight ships of war with 24 small boats, both equally divided between the two countries, will take part in the operation.66 Only one Italian vessel joined the AngloGerman fleet while nine Portuguese ships, with 1,200 men, patrolled along the Mozambique coast only checking dhows flying their flag.67 Besides, three French vessels were sent to Zanzibar to exercise strict surveillance of dhows flying the French tricolour.68 The blockade stretched along the east

The 1889 Zanzibar blockade 143 coast of Africa from Kwale Bay, near Mombasa in the north, to the mouth of the Rovuma River close to Cape Delgado in the South: (See Map 1.2 in Chapter One).69 Ships of war focused their activity around the main harbours of the coastal area, namely Lamu, Mombasa, Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam, Kilwa, Kiswere, and Lindi. Zanzibar, Pemba, and Mafia were of course at the heart of this large naval blockade.70 The blockade was a sheer demonstration of military force. As far as the slave trade and arms smuggling were concerned, results were in contrast poor and appalling. Admiral Fremantle lamented that after 1,282 searches ‘the net result had been the taking away of one gun from a passenger, which I have ordered to be restored to him’.71 Regarding the slave trade, German and British vessels had only seized four dhows under the French flag. The number of French dhows boarded and condemned – a total of four – was minimal. Between December 1888 and October 1889, only one dhow under French colours, the Abd El Kader, was seized – in July 1889 – with three young slaves by H.M.S. Reindeer.72 This was the third case within a year. Before, the Bittela had been seized with two slaves on 29 August 1888 around Pemba by H.M.S. Olga.73 Then, it was the turn of the Jahora to be seized by the German-ship-of-war, la Mare, with five young slaves on board in Dar es Salaam around 13 September 1888.74 Finally, another dhow, the Asad, was also searched by German-men-of-war off Pagani [the German district] in late September 1889. The dhow had notorious slave dealers on board and tried to escape when the German vessels tried to visit her. The French Consul condemned the captain of the vessels to be jailed for 3 months and the dhow was deprived of its French papers.75 On the other hand, German and British squadrons also abusively visited three French dhows between March and November 1889, incidents which in this context only had a minor diplomatic impact, unlike future or precedents cases. In February, the French dhow la Garde was abusively seized by H.M.S. Olga whereas she had no slaves or arms aboard.76 In March, a German vessel, la Sophie, was also wrongly visited and another French dhow only seized with one rifle.77 During the same period, one last dhow, flying the tricolour and belonging to the French missionary order of the Holy Spirit, was boarded because it had a black crew – the crew members were all ‘Liberated Slaves’ who lived at the mission.78 Strangely enough, no reports mentioned at all the total number of slaves freed as a result of the blockade. This is quite peculiar since, as this research demonstrated so far, anti-slavery was always well documented and advertised between 1860 and 1900. It was probably so because there was nothing to boast about. Looking at the outcome of the Zanzibar blockade makes it clear that the suppression of the slave trade had not really been its main objective. However, this statement should somehow be nuanced considering that the blockade had paralysed the dhow trade as a whole. Knowing that the naval operation was officially underway, it is very unlikely that dhow owners involved in the illegal slave trade would have taken the chance to lose their vessels and cargo.

144  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar Looking at this demonstration of gunboat diplomacy one can see that the blockade was set up to safeguard the first steps of European’s colonial rule in East Africa rather than to suppress the slave trade. At the outbreak of the blockade, the British Admiral actually reported that ‘Her Majesty’s ship Agamemnon will remain at Zanzibar for the present, for the protection of British interests, as Her Majesty’s Consul Agent and Consul-General informs me that he believes Arab and native feeling to be greatly excited’.79 The blockade had put Britain in a difficult position towards the Sultanate and its population. No wonder that, whereas the blockade officially ended in late September 1889, it was still in force throughout most of 1890. The declaration of the conclusion of the blockade, on 29 September 1889, in fact, proclaimed: ‘notwithstanding the above declaration, German [and British] ships of war will continue to give chase to slave craft under Arab flags in East African waters’.80 The suppression of the slave trade was used to justify the continuation of a sort of permanent blockade. Two steam pinnaces continually checked the coastlines while four gunboats, among which H.M.S. Olga and Marathon, remained in Zanzibar and Pemba with seven small boats.81 Not surprisingly the blockade was maintained after the British Protectorate over Zanzibar was formally proclaimed on 4 November 1890.82 Even after the ‘Bushiri rebellion’ had been crushed by the Germans on the coast in June 1889, the political situation remained quite precarious. Nine Germans were for instance killed by the people of the Vitu region (Swahililand) on the mainland, and a ‘punitive military expedition’ was launched by the British and the Germans ‘to restore order’ in November 1890. In the aftermath of this colonial repression, the Vitu province eventually became a British protectorate.83 In this context, the intervention of the Royal Navy against the slave trade truly contributed to the establishment of the British protectorate. We can doubt that Britain would have been able to proclaim so easily a protectorate over Zanzibar if British ships-of-war had not so actively repressed the rebellion across East Africa and ‘secured British interests’ there for 2 years. The blockade was not only a demonstration of gunboat diplomacy, but it was also of the manifestation of brutal military force. The blockade not only concerned arms and slaves but food as well causing alarming shortages.84 Towns, such as Sadni and Pagani were bombarded and it resulted in many uncounted civilian deaths.85 Finally, Captain Wissmann, the former explorer chosen by Bismarck to lead a German expeditionary force on land during the blockade, crushed the rebellion and its leaders in Bagamoyo and Pagani with great violence.86 In October, the French Consul reported that ‘Lately, Lieutenants of the [German] Imperial Commissioner dedicated themselves to spreading terror on the coastal area: they conducted reprisals against the populations involved in the rebellion. They have shot many Negroes, hanged many Arabs, and took in captivity colored families in order to form villages under the protection of German fort’.87 The strategy adopted by the Germans was typical of colonial wars at the time. Facing

The 1889 Zanzibar blockade 145 insurgency and guerrilla, colonial authorities often decided to regroup civilian populations in ‘camps’ or ‘villages’ under the ‘protection’ of the army while committing brutal violence against insurgents hoping to deter the rest of the population in engaging rebellion. These tactics are known to have led directly, or indirectly, to considerable loss of lives during the Boer War (1899–1902) or, with even more terrible consequences, during the Herrero and Nama genocide (1904–1908).88 Unfortunately, no historical assessment has yet been given of the losses caused by the German military expeditions which took place during the blockade and this work failed to locate documents on the matter probably because it did not explore German archives.89 Some historians have seen in the 1888–1889 East African rebellion an anti-colonial revolt prefiguring the Maji-Maji uprising in German East Africa in 1905-1908 which repression caused around 200,000-300,000 deaths, or the Mau Mau war in British Kenya between 1952 and 1960 which crushing led to the loss of some 25,000-90,000 Kenyan lives.90 If filiations are always complex and difficult to establish in history, the memory of the 1888–1889 revolt was occasionally referred to by those who later opposed colonial rule in East Africa. On Salisbury’s point of view, and despite the violence as well as the loss of civilian life, anti-slavery tactics seemed to have worked to a certain extent. The blockade contributed to reducing dramatically the slave trade at sea around Zanzibar for a few years even though it did not eliminate it.91 In return for the blockade’s end, the Sultan was forced to grant a perpetual right of visit to German as well as British forces in his territorial waters and proclaimed that anyone entering his dominion after the 1 November 1889 should be free.92 These proclamations concluded a long process by which sultans of Zanzibar had gradually been deprived of their power and sovereignty since the 1860s. Paradoxically, it was only through this often forced collaboration that the Sultans were also able to maintain their power in Zanzibar. Regarding the right of visit and search, France finally ended the agreement reached during the blockade.93 The British Consul, Euan-Smith, was, however, unwilling to accept this change. Euan-Smith refused to agree with the French authorities. According to him, ‘the right to visit French dhows in territorial waters was awarded to England by an official delegation of Seyyid Khalifa. This right now belongs to England in virtue of the British protectorate established in Zanzibar’.94 The French Consul replied to this argument that ‘It is by a benevolent concession that we gave to the British, on the occasion of the blockade, the right to visit our dhows in territorial waters. Seyyid Khalifa could not delegate an authority he did not have himself. Under our treaty, the Sultan of Zanzibar has no more right of visit and search in a French home on land than access rights in territorial waters’.95 He concluded in stating that ‘the police of our dhows in Zanzibar and Pemba’s waters only belongs to us’.96 The Anglo-French crisis over the right of visit was, so to speak, back to its old routine. France continued to oppose

146  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar the sovereignty of states to British humanitarian imperialism. The French Consul denounced: ‘the anti-slavery monomania of which some British Navy officers suffer from and the tricks they use to compromise French dhows and persuade the world that the slave trade is carried out thanks to our flag as well as our approval or through the carelessness and indifference of French government agents’.97 This debate on the right of visit prefigured the new crisis which unfolded during the 1890 Brussels Conference (Chapter Seven), and later at the Hague Permanent Court of Abitration in 1905 (Chapter Eight). France’s refusal of the right of visit continued to be for the next 15 years an Apple of Discord as it will be seen in the following chapters. More importantly, the opportunistic manipulation of anti-slavery during the Zanzibar blockade eventually led political leaders to uncharted territories. In using the anti-slavery rhetoric they had brought back abolitionism to the forefront of international politics. Ironically, British abolitionist activists did not fail to see this and grasped this historical opportunity which imperialists had unintentionally offered them. As Chapter Seven will now show, the British abolitionists – most notably the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society – finally got the international conference they had wanted for nearly half a century. Abolitionists certainly did not fail to let this chance go and brought anti-slavery to a level it had never been able to reach before in international relations.

Acknowledgements Parts of this chapter were published in an earlier form in ‘Le blocus de Zanzibar 1888–1889: entre “intervention d’humanité”, colonisation et droit international’. Outre-Mers, no. 402–403 (2019): 107–126, and ‘The French Flag in Zanzibar Waters 1860s–1900s: Abolition and Imperial Rivalry in the Western Indian Ocean’. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, (2020) DOI: 10.1080/03086534.2020.1783115.

Notes 1 Ellery C. Stowell, Intervention in International Law (Washington: John Byrne, 1921), 51. Zanzibar Blockade, 203–204. 2 Jean-François Rispal, Zanzibar et la Politique Française dans l’Océan Indien (1776–1904), thèse de doctorat, Université de Pau et des pays de l’Adour, Pau, 2004, 456–458; John S. Galbraith, Mackinnon and East Africa, 1878–1895: A Study in the ‘New Imperialism’ (London: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 144–165. 3 Norman Robert Bennett, Arab Versus Europeans Diplomacy and War in Nineteenth Century East Central Africa (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986), 146; Farler to Penney, 7 May 1888, Trinity Sunday 1888, A.1.VI, UCMA (University Mission Central Africa). 4 G. A. Akinola, “The East African Coastal Rising, 1888–1890”, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. 7, no. 4 (June 1975): 615. 5 Bennett, Arab Versus Europeans, 146–147.

The 1889 Zanzibar blockade 147 6 Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (London: Abacus, 1991), 348. 7 Ibid, 147. 8 Akinola, “The East African Coastal Rising, 1888–1890”, 624; Rispal, Zanzibar et la politique française, 495–499 ; Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, 346–349. 9 Akinola, “The East African Coastal Rising”, 617–618. 10 Consul de Zanzibar au Ministres des Affaires étrangères, Dépêche Télégraphique, 30 Septembre 1888 in MAE CADC, 143CP10, 350. 11 Bennett, Arab Versus Europeans, 148. 12 Bennett, Arab Versus Europeans, 152. 13 Memorandum communicated by Count Leyden, 8 October 1888, HCPP, 1888 [C.5559] Africa. No. 6 (1888), Correspondence respecting suppression of slave trade in East African waters, N° 1, 1. 14 Charles Martial Lavigerie (1825–1892) was a French Cardinal. He was Archbishop of Algiers and Primate of Africa. He contributed to the foundations of catholic missions across Africa. Most notably, he founded a missionary order in 1868 called the White Fathers. In 1892 the new order had 278 missionaries in Algeria, Tunisia, Uganda, Tanzania, Congo and Zambia. The White Fathers historically remained a symbol of the role played by missionaries in the colonisation of Africa. Shorter Aylward, Cross And Flag in Africa: The White Fathers during the Colonial Scramble 1892–1914 (New York: Orbis Books 2006), 1–4; 23–33. 15 William Mulligan, “The Anti-slave Trade Campaign in Europe, 1888–90” in A Global History of Anti-slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century, ed. William Mulligan and Maurice Bric (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 149–170  ; François Renault, Le Cardinal Lavigerie 1825–1892 : L’Eglise, l’Afrique, et la France (Paris : Fayard, 1992), 554–580. 16 François Renault, Lavigerie l’Esclavage Africain et l’Europe, Tome 2 (Paris, E. de Broccard, 1971), 73–120. 17 Edward Hertslet, The Map of Africa by Treaty (London: Harrison and Sons, 1894), Vol. I: General Act of the Conference of Berlin Concerning the Congo, 20–45. 18 Hertslet, The Map of Africa by Treaty, vol. I, 20; Lewis Samuel Feuer, Imperialism and the Anti-Imperialist Mind (London: Prometheus Books, 1986), 52. 19 Hertslet, The Map of Africa by Treaty, vol. I 29. 20 Hertslet, The Map of Africa by Treaty, vol. I, 27. 21 Cardinal Lavigerie, L’Esclavage Africain, Conférence sur l’Esclavage dans le Haut-Congo faite à Sainte-Gudule de Bruxelles par le Cardinal Lavigerie (Bruxelles: Société Anti-Esclavagiste, 1888), 24–25. 22 Richard F. Clarke, Cardinal Lavigerie and the African Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1889] 2010), 304–327; Daniel Laqua, “Transnational Anti-Slavery in the 1880s and 1890s”, The International History Review, vol.33, no.4 (2011): 705–726; Amalia Ribi Forclaz, Humanitarian Imperialism The Politics of Anti-Slavery Activism 1880–1940 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015), 17–23. 23 Memorandum communicated by Count Leyden, 8 October 1888, HCPP 1888 (C.5559), Africa. No. 6, Correspondence respecting suppression of slave trade in East African waters, N° 1, 1. 24 Edward A. Alpers, “Image and reality of Arabs in East Africa”, Journal of African Development, Vol. 12, (Spring 2010): 42; James Heartfield, The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1838–1956: A History (London, C. Hurst & Co, 2017), 229-232. 25 Douglas H. Johnson ‘‘The death of Gordon: A Victorian myth’’ The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol 10, Issue 3 (1982): 285-310; Benjamin D. Hopkins, in Islam and Resistance in the British Empire

148  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar Islam and the European Empire, David Motadel ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) Ch.7, Kindle. 26 Memorandum communicated by Count Leyden, 1. 27 Bennett, Arab Versus Europeans, 145. 28 The Marquis of Salisbury to Sir E. Malet, 5 November 1888, HCPP, 1888 (C.5559), N°4, 3. 29 HCPP, Lords Sitting of Tuesday, 6th November, 1888, House of Lords Hansard, Victoria year 52, 449–458, Third Series, Volume 330 30 The Marquis of Salisbury to Sir E. Malet, 5 November 1888, HCPP, 1888 (C.5559), N°4, 3. 31 Renault, Lavigerie l’Esclavage Africain et l’Europe, Tome 2, 147–148. 32 John Lowe, The Great Powers, Imperialism, and the German Problem, 1865–1925 (London: Routledge, 1994), 95; Alain Chatriot, Dieter Gosewinkel, Politiques et Pratiques Coloniales dans les Empires Allemands et Français 1880–1962 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010), 7–29 ;  Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, 201–217 ; Sebastian Conrad, German Colonialism: A Short History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 21-35; Christine de Gemeaux, ‘‘Le Reich et l’Allemagne à l’âge des empire coloniaux et de l’impérialisme européen 1871- 1919’’ in Nouvelle histoire des colonisations européennes XIXe-XXe siècles, ed. Amaury Lorin and Christelle Taraud (Paris : Presse Universitaire de France, 2013), Ch.3, Kindle. 33 Suzanne Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, (London: Longman, 1975), 229. 34 Clement Hill (1845–1913) entered the Foreign Office in 1867. He was the secretary of the Bartle Frere Mission to Zanzibar in 1873. In 1881, he became a member of the Commission for the revision of the Slave Trade Instructions. In 1894, he was appointed chief of the African Department of the Foreign Office responsible at the time for British colonial policy in the East and Central African protectorates. In 1900, he was finally posted as superintendent of the African Protectorates. 35 Renault, Lavigerie l’Esclavage Africain et l’Europe, Tome 2, 124. Reports of the 27, 28, 29 August and 1 September 1888, FO 54/28. 36 Memorandum communicated by Count Leyden, HCPP, 1888 (C.5559), N° 1, 1 37 Paul Von Hatzfeldt (1831–1901) was a senior German diplomat. He served as ambassador to Constantinople between 1878 and 1881. He was also head of the German Foreign Office between 1881 and 1885. He was finally posted as ambassador to London until he died in 1901. 38 Count Hatzfeldt to the Marquis of Salisbury, 3 November 1888, HCPP, 1888 (C.5559), N°2, 1. 39 Ibid. 40 ‘‘Conférence du cardinal Lavigerie à Saint Sulpice’’ in La Traite des Nègres et la Croisade Africaine Choix Raisonné de Documents relatifs à la Question de l’Esclavage Africain (Liège: H. Dessain, 1889), 41. 41 The Marquis of Salisbury to Count Hatzfeldt, 5 November 1888, HCPP, 1888 (C.5559) N°3, 2. 42 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 209–211. 43 The Marquis of Salisbury to Count Hatzfeldt, 5 November 1888, HCPP, 1888 (C.5559) N°3, 2. 44 Salisbury at the Lords, 6 November 1888, HCPP, Lords Sitting of Tuesday, 6 November, 1888. 45 Ibid. 46 Journal officiel de la République française, Débats parlementaires, Chambre des députés, 19 Novembre 1888, 2564. 47 Ibid.

The 1889 Zanzibar blockade 149

48 Ibid. 49 “Philanthropy or Business”, the Daily Mail, 7 November 1888. 50 Ibib. 51 Ibid 52 Ibid. 53 Seymour Drescher, Abolition : A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2009), 211–214. 54 HCPP, Lords Sitting of Tuesday, 20 November, 1888, House of Lords Hansard, Victoria year 52, 1614–1646, Third Series, Volume 330, Question, Observations, cc.1614–1617, the blockade of the Zanzibar coast. 55 Ibib. 56 Ibid. 57 British and German declaration, 2 December 1888, FO 84/1911, 18. 58 Ibid. 59 Colonel Euan-Smith to the Marquis of Salisbury, 22 February 1889, HCPP 1889 (C5822), N°61, 40. 60 Le Consul Français aux Consuls généraux d’Allemagne et d’Angleterre, 22 Février 1889, MAE, CADC, 143 CP11, 97–98. 61 Colonel Euan Smith to the Marquis of Salisbury, 19 February, in HCPP 1889 (C5822), N°59, 40; MAE, CADC, 143 CP11, 96–97. 62 Colonel Euan Smith to the Marquis of Salisbury, 19 November 1888, HCPP 1889 (C5822), N°12, 5. 63 Ibid. 64 Proclamation, in HCPP 1889 (C5822), Inclosure 2 in N°12, 7. 65 Rear-Admiral Fremantle to Admiralty, 15 May 1889, HCPP 1889 (C5822), Inclosure in N°149, 90. 66 HCPP 1889 (C5822), inclosure 1 in n°21 p. 13; n°155, 94. 67 HCPP 1888 (C5603), n° 124 p.85; n°144, 99. 68 Bennett, Arab versus Europeans, 170. 69 Declaration of Blockade, HCPP 1889 (C5822), inclosure 3 in n°21, 14. 70 HCPP 1889 (C5822), n°31, 17; n°69, 46; n°135, 84. 71 Bennett, Arab Versus Europeans, 170. 72 Consul Lacau au Ministre, 23 Juillet 1889, MAE, CADC, 143 CP11, 283–288. 73 Annexe à la dépêche adressée par M. Lacau Consul de France à Zanzibar à la Direction Politique des Protectorats, 14 Septembre 1888, in MAE, CADC, 143 CP10, 323–328. 74 Consul Lacau au Ministre, 23 Octobre 1888, in MAE, CADC, 143 CP10, 357–379. 75 Consul Lacau au Ministre, 16 Septembre 1889, in MAE, CADC, 143 CP11, 382–388. 76 Lacau au Ministre MAE, 4 Mars 1889, in MAE, CADC, 143 CP11, 99–104 and 113–125. 77 Lacau au Ministre MAE, 8 Mars 1889, in MAE, CADC, 143 CP11, 105–107. 78 Lacau au Ministre MAE, 28 Octobre 1889, MAE, CADC, 143 CP11, 457–466. 79 Rear-Admiral Fremantle to Admiralty, 2 December 1888 in HCPP 1889 (5822), N°31, 17. 80 Declaration of the conclusion of the blockade, 29 September 1889, in FO 84/1980, 356. 81 Vice-Admiral Fremantle to Admiralty, 25 February 1891, Inclosure 1 in N°1, 1. 82 Ifor L. Evans, The British in Tropical Africa an Historical Outline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1929), 295. 83 Correspondence respecting the punitive expedition against Witu of November 1890, HCPP 1890–91 (C.6213).

150  Empire and humanitarian action in Zanzibar 84 HCPP 1889 (C5822), M Beauclerk, 4 March 1889, N°79, 51. 85 Colonel Euan-Smith, 27 March, in HCPP 1889 (C5822), N°103, 66. 86 Herman Von Wissmann (1853–1905) was a German explorer. He crossed Africa from the Congo basin to the Indian Ocean in 1880. He was associated with King Leopold II in the process which led to the creation of the Congo Free State. He was also strongly linked to Carl Peters and the German Imperial East Africa Company before he took the command of the German expeditionary force in 1889. After his victory he was promoted Major in 1890 and celebrated as a national hero. In 1888 he was named Imperial Commissioner for German East Africa and became Governor in 1895. He returned to Germany in 1896. Renault, Lavigerie l’Esclavage Africain et l’Europe, tome 2, 154–156; Arne Perras, Carl Peters and German Imperialism 1856–1918 (Oxford : Oxford University Press 2004), 146–152. 87 Du Consul au Ministre MAE, 24 Octobre 1889, in MAE, CADC, 143 CP11, 429. 88 Denis Judd and Keith Surridge, The Boer War (London: John Murray 2002), 187–197; Conrad, German Colonialism, 50-53  ; Leonor Faber-Jonke, Le premier génocide du XXe siècle, Herero et Nama dans le Sud-Ouest africain allemand, 1904–1908 (Paris : Mémorial de la Shoah, 2017) ; Susanne Kuss, German colonial wars and the context of military violence (Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017), 37–56. 89 Acting Consul-General Portal to the Marquis of Salisbury, 16 May 1889, HCPP 1889 (5822), N°146, 90; Acting Consul-General Portal to the Marquis of Salisbury, 9 July 1889, HCPP 1889 (5822), N°156, 95. 90 For the Maji Maji war estimates vary between 180,000 and 300,000 deaths. See Packenham, The Scramble for Africa, 616-622; G. C. K. Gwassa and J. Ilife, Records of the Maji-Maji uprising (Nairobi : East African Publishing House, 1968), 389; James Giblin and Jamie Monson, Maji Maji : lifting the fog of war (Leiden: Brill, 2010). For the Mau Mau war estimates vary between 25,000 (Anderson) and 90,000 (Kenya Human Rights Commisssion). Caroline Elkins estimates that 130,000-300,000 people disparead as the result of the war but her estimate stirred much debate. David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire (London: Norton & Company, 2006), Ch. 7, Kindle; Caroline Elkins, Britain’s gulag: the brutal end of empire in Kenya (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005) Epilogue, Kindle. 91 Matthew S. Hopper, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 159. 92 Portal to Salisbury, 24 September 1889, despatch n°334, FO 84/1980 308–309. 93 Consul au Ministre MAE, 25 Décembre 1890, MAE, CADC, 143 CP12, 504. 94 Consul au Ministre MAE, 25 Décembre 1890, MAE, CADC, 143 CP12, 505.  95 Consul au Ministre MAE, 25 Décembre 1890, MAE CADC, 143 CP12, 506.  96 Consul au Ministre, 25 Décembre 1890, MAE, CADC, 143 CP12, 508.  97 Lacau au Ministre MAE, 29 Octobre 1889, MAE, CADC, 143 CP11, 440. 

Part III

Zanzibar’s contribution to international law and humanitarian operations

7

The 1890 Brussels Conference: An apogee of imperial or humanitarian politic?

The 1890 Brussels Conference was not only one of the most significant international meetings on anti-slavery ever held in the nineteenth century but also reflected a time when imperial politics manipulated humanitarian issues to meet their own objectives, a movement described by Suzanne Miers as ‘the antislavery game’.1 This chapter will first dwell on the two main aspects of the Brussels Conference: humanitarian on one hand and imperialistic on the other. It will be shown that previous anti-slavery experiments in Zanzibar waters inspired the seventeen diplomatic delegations sent to Brussels. At the conference, two classic visions of international relations continued to confront each other. While France defended national sovereignty and advocated that each nation should control her own shipping, Britain called for an international system of police to repress the slave trade at sea. In short, the sovereignty of State was opposed to international intervention based on the supremacy of humanitarian principles and international law. Last but not least, this chapter investigates into one of the outcomes of the Brussels Act in looking at the international office for the repression of the slave trade set in Zanzibar between 1892 and 1914. Once more, the ambiguous and multi-faced relationship binding imperialism with humanitarianism will be examined in the light of this new development of abolitionism in international relations. All in all, this shows that Zanzibar’s nineteenth century anti-slavery experiments decidedly had global implications.

7.1 The influence of the Zanzibar blockade over the Brussels Conference As was previously demonstrated in the last chapter, the Zanzibar blockade stopped the launching of an international conference on the Indian Ocean slave trade. Nevertheless, it also paradoxically played a crucial role in forcing its launching and setting its purposes a few months later. As Miers pointed out ‘the experiences of the blockade had highlighted the need for an international treaty against the slave trade’ and the arms traffic.2 The blockade had demonstrated ‘the inadequacy of naval measures’ unless universal procedures could be applied to the suppression of the slave trade.3

154  International law and humanitarian operations Above all, the question of the right of visit and search as well as the judicial procedures applied to slave traders – the German authorities often hanged them without trial – remained unanswered. Moreover, Bismarck and Salisbury needed an international conference on the slave trade for ‘diplomatic as well as domestic reason’.4 Bismarck wanted to strengthen Anglo-German cooperation as France was trying to detach Italy from the Triple Alliance in order to weaken the Reich’s position in Europe. Moreover, he also used the rhetoric of the slave trade to win the support of the Catholic Centre Party at the Reichstag and stop the critics raised against the Zanzibar blockade. 5 In the meantime, Salisbury was under pressure from the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) at Westminster. Liberals and Conservatives alike had united at the House of Commons and ‘passed a resolution calling for a conference of all the powers’.6 Harsh criticisms had been formulated in light of the poor results achieved by the naval blockade. The head of the BFASS, Sydney Buxton, leading again remonstrance against the British government, declared at the Commons: ‘On two essential points the Government was overly sanguine … the French … will not allow the right of search …; and … the Germans have … gone in for what is practically a land expedition, and have destroyed … peaceful towns’.7 If British abolitionists were clearly aware that political leaders had manipulated anti-slavery to win public support for their colonial intervention, they seized this opportunity to pressure their government and call for an international conference on anti-slavery. In a way, imperialists toying humanitarianism had been caught by abolitionists at their own game. Launching a new international conference on the slave trade was therefore not only a good way to counter all the criticisms which had been raised against the blockade, but also a good occasion to offer public opinion a great celebration of Britain’s long efforts to suppress the slave trade throughout the world since 1807. This was clearly reflected by The Times when proudly printing ‘it was just a century ago last May that Wilberforce … took what may be called the first step in the campaign of which the last step may now be in the course of being taken … the Brussels Conference may indeed be the crowning effort of a century of labour’.8 As Miers noted, this gave Salisbury the opportunity to picture ‘the Brussels Conference of 1889–1890 as the first in the history to meet “for the purpose of promoting pure humanity and goodwill …”’.9 In Belgium, Leopold II was equally eager to justify his colonial enterprise in the Congo by the suppression of the slave trade; the most popular humanitarian cause of the age. So doing, Leopold could easily win over both public opinion and the international community. As he did before in Brussels in 1876 and in Berlin in 1884–1885, Leopold wanted his colonial enterprise to be endorsed by the international community. He wanted ‘the occupation and the exploitation of Africa’ to be acknowledged as an ‘antislavery measure’.10 The conference gave him complete satisfaction.

The 1890 Brussels Conference 155 As Daniel Laqua pointed, in Brussels, humanitarianism and imperialism went hand in hand in a most obvious and unambiguous fashion.11 At the opening of the conference, the Prince of Chimay, Belgium’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, welcomed the seventeen delegations, stressing that he was proud that they were gathered in Brussels ‘in the name of civilisation, with the highest humanitarian goal in view’.12 The conference, following the most recent example set by the Zanzibar blockade, gave the opportunity to Leopold II and all the other colonial powers, to establish a convenient moral justification to the recent imposition of colonial rule in Africa. The first article of the Brussels Act claimed that only colonial rule could lead to the extinction of the slave trade. It argued that ‘the most effective means of counteracting the slave trade in the interior of Africa’ was ‘1. Progressive organization of the administrative, judicial, religious and military services in the African territories placed under the sovereignty or protectorate of civilised nations …. 3. The construction of roads, and in particular of railways …. 4. The establishment of steam boats …. 5. Establishment of telegraphic lines … ’.13 According to Miers, this was adopted at Leopold’s instigation who wished to conceal its colonial project under the humanitarian cloak.14 In short, colonisation and industrial progress, introduced as an expression of humanitarian benevolence, would finally bring the slave trade to its last breath. This reflected the positivist spirit of the age, greatly influenced by Livingstone’s credo, upon which most of the supporters of imperial expansion relied to forward their colonial projects as already noted in Chapters Five and Six. Miers also highlighted that ‘King Leopold …, assisted by the other colonial powers, seized the opportunity [of the conference] to craft a treaty to serve their purposes and carried the antislavery game to an apogee unequalled before or since’.15 Following this lead, Mairi S. Macdonald argued that ‘The Brussels treaty is breath-taking in its cynicism’ since it stated that ‘colonial rule was the best, even the only, way to accomplish the humanitarian objectives of “effectively protecting the aboriginal populations of Africa” and of “assuring to that vast continent the benefits of peace and civilisation”’.16 In the light of the terrifying colonial violence which devastated the Congo’s population afterwards, the Brussels Conference inevitably appears as one of the greatest historical examples of a cynical, if not criminal, manipulation of humanitarianism. Macdonald legitimately questions the role played by Brussels’ abolitionist discourse in the widespread violence which contributed, with other factors such as virus and diseases, to kill an unaccountable number of people – several millions, ten possibly – in Leopold’s Congo between 1885 and 1908.17 While the conference was taking place, she demonstrates that reports of colonial violence in the Congo were ignored by the Foreign Office to secure talks and agreements in Brussels.18 Macdonald concludes that the humanitarian speech dramatised at the conference created ‘a moral hazard’ making ‘any behaviour permissible as long as it advanced [Leopold’s] “civilising

156  International law and humanitarian operations mission” in Congo’.19 In justifying imperial domination by ‘pure humanitarian motives’ had the international community not favoured the terrible metamorphosis of fine humanitarian intentions into a monstrous beast only governed by hideous greed and violence? Or as Fabian Klose puts it, does the Brussels Conference not ‘reveal most vividly the close and infamous entanglement of European humanitarianism with nineteenth century colonialism and imperialism’?20 On the other hand, as Amalia Ribi Forclaz, Daniel Laqua, and Olivier Grenouilleau pointed, the Brussels Conference also constituted a major step towards the internationalisation of anti-slavery and humanitarianism in spite of all the political manipulations it suffered from imperialists like Leopold.21 Forclaz and Laqua demonstrate that the Brussels Conference contributed to the international revival of anti-slavery in the late nineteenth century along with the renewed activity of numerous humanitarian societies like the BFASS, the Société Antiesclavagiste de Belgique, or the Societa Antichiavista d’Italia.22 Grenouilleau highlights that the Brussels Conference gave the repression of the slave trade ‘an unparalleled international judicial dimension’ as we will see throughout this chapter.23 In this sense, it reveals the ‘Janus-faded nature of internationalism’ as Laqua puts it.24 In manipulating antislavery for imperial purposes, political leaders unexpectedly gave humanitarian questions the international exposure they lacked for more than half of a century, thus contributing to the revival of the movement. Anti-slavery once more fell under the scrutiny and the pressure of a global public opinion led by non-governmental organisations as the campaign conducted by the BFASS during the conference exemplifies. British anti-slavery activists ‘organised large scales meetings in Birmingham and London’ and were responsible for 150 of the 155 petitions that are preserved at the Belgian Ministry Archives’.25 As a result, European leaders found it difficult to manipulate humanitarianism just for their own benefits. Anti-slavery organisations and activists actually struggled to re-establish a balance in favour of ‘truthful humanitarianism’. Less famous than the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference, the 1890 Brussels Conference was one the most important diplomatic gathering of the late nineteenth century. Nearly 50 years after the first World Antislavery Convention of 1840, the conference opened for the abolitionist movement a new and decisive chapter.26 This time, it was the seventeen most powerful nations of the age which gathered in Brussels to force the repression of the slave trade into international relations and international law. European states such as France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, and the United States thus met with Persia, The Ottoman Empire, the Congo Free State, and Zanzibar. On the other hand, The Brussels Act was also later ‘used by interested parties [imperialists] to force a reluctant government into action’ as it happened in the 1890s in Uganda.27 Zanzibar, much like the Congo Free State, was represented by two European delegates: Sir John Kirk, the most influential of all former British Consuls on the island, along with his former German counterpart, Dr. Arendt.

The 1890 Brussels Conference 157 Interestingly, Kirk, with Lord Hussey Crespigny Vivian, head of the Slave Trade Department at the Foreign Office, also represented Britain at the conference.28 Having agreed to participate, the two delegates from Zanzibar reported being sick before the start. In November 1889, there was some speculation about them seeking to avoid inconvenient discussions over the Sultanate’s role in the Indian Ocean slave trade. In this regard, Kirk’s appointment shows how the Sultan had finally lost important aspects of his sovereignty even though the British Protectorate had not yet been established on the island. 29 In the view of his diplomatic career in Zanzibar, Kirk certainly had in mind all the anti-slave trade policies implemented there by Britain over, at least, the past 20 years. Zanzibar’s delegation was not only a symbol of European domination, but it was also a demonstration of how important the island had become to international relations in the late nineteenth century. Furthermore, the former French Consul-General in Zanzibar, Lacau, assisted the French Ambassador at the conference. In short, the Zanzibar anti-slavery experiments were on the minds of the two most important diplomatic delegations present in Brussels. The question of the suppression of the slave trade at sea – the right of search, the problem of indigenous vessels flying European flags, and the trial of slavers – constituted a central part of the debates along with the measures to be taken by colonial powers on the continent.30 The final act of the Brussels Conference reflects very well how crucial these questions were. Out of 100 articles, 41 were dedicated to the suppression of the slave trade at sea’, and just five ‘to Resctrict the Traffic in Spirituous Liquors’.31 Lord Vivian, on the opening day, insisted that ‘in the opinion of Her Majesty’s Government the suppression of the export of slaves by sea is the object to which the efforts of the conference should be primarily directed’.32 The British anti-slavery experience in Zanzibar and the Western Indian Ocean clearly guided the works, if not the thoughts, of Lord Vivian when he exposed to the delegates the views of his government: ‘the actual limitation of the export trade in slaves to the area comprised between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf and the African Coast southward as far as the island of Madagascar will probably facilitate the labour of the conference, and enable it to concentrate its attention on that zone. Within this area it will be necessary to concert measures for combined action against slave-vessels on both shores of the Red Sea and on the coast to the southward; … for establishing effective machinery for the detection and punishment of slave dealers and those aiding them and abetting them, and efficient tribunals for trying them, … and for the adoption of a system which would render it impossible to obtain, for his protection in nefarious practices, registration under the flag of any of the Powers’.33 Vivian’s words mirrored all the anti-slavery measures Britain had implemented in Zanzibar since the middle of the nineteenth century; measures on which this book has so far focused. In accordance with the principles he had espoused, Vivian presented the British project of an international resolution for the suppression of the slave trade at sea on 28 November 1888.34

158  International law and humanitarian operations

7.2  Freedom of the seas or freedom of all men? As far as international relations and international law were concerned, the Brussels Conference gave the debate on the right of visit and search a new and decisive turn. The British project contained seven articles. Its first article was devoted to the definition of an international maritime zone ‘affected by the export trade in African slaves’. The zone was defined as follows: ‘commencing from the northward at the Isthmus of Suez, shall extend southward on the African coast to the 25° of south latitude. It shall include the island of Madagascar and all other islands in those seas. It shall also include both coasts of the Red Sea, the coasts of Arabia, and those of the Persian Gulf with the islands situated in those waters’.35 It was within this international maritime zone that the naval operations of visit and search would be conducted as it was proposed by Article Two: ‘The signatory Powers shall within this zone, have the right of supervision, jointly and severally, whether on the high seas or in territorial waters over all sailing vessels of any flag. They shall have the power of detaining any vessels, directly or indirectly suspected of being engaged in the slave trade and of bringing or sending such vessels for judgement …’.36 This second article of the British project undoubtedly reminded the contemporaries of what Britain and Germany had tried to establish during the Zanzibar blockade; namely the setting of an international maritime zone within which a universal right of visit, search and seizure was established. The only difference was that Britain wanted now nothing less than to extend what she had experienced during the Zanzibar blockade to the rest of the Western Indian Ocean. Britain would have beneficiated the most from this measure because she was the paramount imperial power in this part of the world, a position she had partly gained through the repression of the slave trade while imposing a ‘Pax Britannica’ to secure India.37 To a certain extent, Salisbury was trying to give the Royal Navy the unprecedented power of police over the Indian Ocean he failed to grant her during the Zanzibar blockade.38 A universal right of visit and search, far from restraining her sovereignty and power, enabled Britain to give international legitimacy to her naval pre-eminence. Britain’s imperial sovereignty was well served by international law. The usual contradiction between the sovereignty of State and international law did not exist in this case. The question of the right of visit embodied the internationalisation of an important humanitarian question, namely the repression of the slave trade. But Britain’s humanitarian effort went beyond her ‘narrow’ imperial interests. The second article of the British project established that vessels and people of all nations were liable to detention and trial when suspected of the slave trade. Britain was willing to establish a new form of international justice, following what she had developed through mixed-tribunals between the 1830s and the 1860s in the Atlantic. 39 The third article, therefore, proposed to set up ‘mixed tribunals … at convenient spots within

The 1890 Brussels Conference 159 the zone’ insisting that ‘no tribunal shall be considered as properly constituted unless at least five of the Powers shall have appointed duty qualified representatives’.40 This project certainly was an unprecedented step towards the internationalisation of justice when dealing with humanitarian issues on the eve of the twentieth century. Even if it is difficult to see, like Jenny Martinez, this initiative as an attempt to establish what would later become international human rights courts, it certainly contributed to placing humanitarian questions at the heart of international relations in the late nineteenth century.41 Finally, in Article Seven Britain intended to tackle ‘the abuse of … [European] flags for slave trade purposes’ with ‘a system of registration of native vessels’ whose ‘registers shall be open at all times to the inspection of naval officers of the Powers qualified to act within this zone’.42 Again, Britain was willing to stage the struggle against the slave trade at an international level in addressing a key aspect of international maritime law: the question of flags of convenience. This issue, reaching its climax during the 1905 Hague International Arbitration, will be examined in the following chapter. All in all, British proposals were unacceptable to the French delegation which ‘produced a counter-project, designed to render the right of search unnecessary by stringent regulations to prevent the abuse of national flags’ and promote for each nation the police of her own shipping.43 France continued to oppose national sovereignty to the internationalisation of the repression of the slave trade. Article Two of the French project established that ‘any merchant vessel establishing her nationality in flying her colours is normally only subjected to the sole supervision of ships-of-war flying the same flag’.44 France did not change an inch of her foreign policy regarding the right of visit and search. Her project, following the 1867 Anglo-French confidential agreement recently implemented during the Zanzibar blockade, limited the right of visit to a strict verification of papers.45 The fifth paragraph of Article Two banned any possibility of searching the dhow in stating that ‘any search, any raid is absolutely forbidden’.46 This was not surprising at all. The French Ambassador, M. Bourée, had warned the conference that ‘if this issue [the right of visit] is to be discussed, the French representatives were not authorised to take part in the deliberations’.47 Ominously, the French Anti-Slavery Society had declared to the Anti-Slavery Reporter in 1888: ‘we believe it is utterly impossible to obtain the consent of Parliamentary and public opinion in France to the right for English cruisers to search French boats sailing under the national flag’.48 In a context of great imperial rivalry with Britain, France preferred not to abandon any aspect of her national sovereignty at sea even to rescue victims of the slave trade ‘in the name of the humanity’.49 Only a complete pacification of Anglo-French relations could have led to substantial changes on this point as we shall see in the next chapter. The French Ambassador justified the French refusal because ‘the truly effective measures to suppress the slave trade must first of all focus on

160  International law and humanitarian operations the verification of the flag’.50 France therefore proposed strong measures to check the abuse of national flags; a practice often used to conceal the slave trade and evade the right of visit and search as we saw in Chapter Two. In Article Six, the French delegates proposed to set up International Bureaus in which all information on dhow registration should be gathered and opened to any marine officer of the signatory powers.51 Article Eight, following the British proposal, called the signatory states to take measures against the abuse of their national flag.52 However, the regulations proposed for the attribution of the flag did not differ at all from what already existed in the French colonies of Mayotte, Nossi-Bé, and Zanzibar. The definition of ship-owners who could obtain a flag had not changed at all. 53 It is, therefore, logical that this question remained a source of tension between France and Britain in the Indian Ocean until it was settled at The Hague in 1905. The Brussels Conference did not bring major changes to this crucial question. It only provided international exposure to this issue. France not only preferred the surveillance of the flag to the right of visit and search but she also restricted the limits of the slave trade zone proposed by the British. The French proposal excluded the Red Sea and ‘Madagascar with the islands in those seas’; namely Nossi Bé and the Comoro islands because they were French colonies. 54 The slave trade zone was limited to the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. In short, France wanted to preserve its colonial sphere of influence from any foreign or international interference. While Leopold II or Britain sought to forward their colonial interests through internationalisation, France did the exact opposite. The French delegates opposed international measures to preserve their national and colonial interests. This shows that imperial powers could use humanitarian issues to meet his own colonial interests.The French project made France the champion of national sovereignty against the British willingness to establish an international system of police and justice in the name of the repression of the slave trade; or ‘humanity’ as we will see in Chapter Nine.55 Even though British and French proposals agreed on some points such as, for instance, the regulations to check the abuse of the flag, the major issue of the right of visit remained as problematic as ever. The question alone actually threatened the outcome of the whole conference. On 6 February 1890, the British plenipotentiaries pointed to the French delegation that ‘the Government of Her Majesty learns with regret that the French Government was unable to accept … the reciprocal right to visit ships sailing in the slave trade zone’.56 Above all, the British delegates insisted that they ‘could not discuss proposals which will derogate … to the treaties [on the right of visit and search] in which the Queen is a contracting party’.57 In short, Britain would not abandon the right of visit and she was clearly alluding to the French naval inability to check the abuse of her flag. Much like with Zanzibar during the Bartle Frere Mission as seen in Chapter Five, Britain argued that the weakness of national sovereignty justified a supranational intervention to preserve international human rights

The 1890 Brussels Conference 161 principles, namely the freedom of all men and women. Placing humanitarian ideals of no binding force before national sovereignty certainly was a a revolution in terms of public law and international relations as well. In that sense, Brussels was an important judicial step but British and French diplomatic red lines seemed almost irreconcilable as ever.

7.3  The international repression of the slave trade: a failure? In order to overcome the Anglo-French disagreements, a famous international lawyer, Fyodor Fyodorovitch Martens, was asked to work out a compromise in order to prevent the conference’s failure.58 Martens (1845–1909) was a Russian diplomat who made substantial contributions to international law in the late nineteenth century. Most notably, he represented Russia at The Hague Peace Conference in 1899 on laws and customs of war and contributed to the so-called Martens’ clause inscribed in the preamble of The Hague’s Convention. Referring to the ‘laws of humanity’, this clause was an important step designed to ‘humanise’ armed conflicts through international law.59 Martens embodied an age which was hoping to settle peacefully national confrontations and ‘humanise’ international affairs, including war, by international law.60 Despite the major opposition between the French and the British proposal, Martens managed to find a consensus. His work was rewarded and eventually became the most important chapters of the Brussels Act issued on 2 July 1890. Britain had made four major concessions to meet an agreement with France. First of all, Madagascar’s territorial waters were excluded by 20 nautical miles from the slave trade zone in which the reciprocal right of visit could be implemented. Secondly, in Article XXII, the right of ‘reciprocal right of visit, of search, and of seizure’ between all the signatory powers was limited to the slave trade zone.61 Vessels of the signatory powers could no longer be boarded anywhere else outside of it. Besides, ‘the examination of the cargo or the search’ could ‘only take place in the case of vessels sailing under the flag of one of the powers that have concluded, or may hereafter conclude the special conventions provided for Article XXII, and in accordance with the provision of such conventions’.62 Thirdly, the right of visit was also limited, by Article XXIII, ‘to vessel whose tonnage is less than 500 tons’.63 This measure was designed to target only dhows or ‘indigenous vessels’. Limiting the right of visit to dhows was also a way to avoid the susceptibilities of all the signatory powers, among which France stood prominently, regarding their national merchant fleets. This safeguarded the rights of the European powers and only limited the freedom of the seas to indigenous populations now under diverse colonial rules. This served colonisation very well. Fourthly, international tribunals were abandoned and replaced by the establishment of at least one international bureau in Zanzibar staffed by representatives of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal.64

162  International law and humanitarian operations Despite the compromise drafted in Brussels, the French Chambre des Députés refused to ratify the Brussels Act. France’s parliament rejected the limits of the maritime zone and, most notably, the articles dealing with the right of visit, search, and seizure. The French parliamentarians considered that Articles XXI to XXIII and XLII to XLI could not be agreed to since they restored the unacceptable right of visit abrogated in 1842, and threatened French shipping in the Indian Ocean as well as ‘the honour of the [French] Nation’.65 Consequently, the authorisation to ratify the Brussels Act was rejected by the French Parliament on 25 June 1891 by a large majority of 439 against 104 votes.66 As a result, France and Belgium engaged in diplomatic negotiations between July and December 1891 in order to save the Brussels Act. Ultimately a new protocol was drafted to meet French approval. France was allowed to ratify the treaty on 2 January 1892 without Articles XXI to XXIII and XLII to LXI.67 France did not acknowledge the right of visit, search, and seizure of indigenous vessels as well as the limits of the slave trade zone.68 Moreover, France also evaded the clauses regarding ‘the stopping of suspected vessels’ and ‘the examination and trial of vessels seized’.69 The French government only agreed to follow the 1867 Confidential Instructions, already mentioned in Chapter Two, which just allowed the boarding of a vessel flying the French flag to check her nationality and papers. For domestic reasons, France had favoured the diplomatic status quo on the right of visit and search. Even though France had rejected the clauses of the Brussels Act related to the suppression of the slave trade at sea, she nonetheless cooperated with the other signatory powers to set up an international bureau in Zanzibar. Article LXXIV established that ‘an international office shall be instituted at Zanzibar’. This bureau was designed to ‘centralise material on the slave trade in the maritime zone and to keep archives for the use of naval or consular officers or other interested officials’.70 The article XLI stipulated that the signatory powers of the Brussels Act engaged themselves to provide a long list of documents as follows: ‘1. Licence to carry the flag; 2. The Crew list; 3. The negro passenger list; … 1. As regard the authorisation to carry the flag: (a) The name, tonnage, rig, and the principal dimension of the vessel; (b) the register number and the signal letter of the port of registry; (c) the date of obtaining the licence … 2. As regard the list of crew: (a) the name of the vessel, of the captain and the fitter out or owner; (b) the tonnage of the vessel; (c) the register number of the port of registry, its destination …’.71 This article aimed at establishing better supervision and control of dhows and the trade they carried across the Indian Ocean. As Valeska Huber demonstrated for the Suez Canal or Guillemette Crouzet for the Persian Gulf, this represented the imposition of a new imperial maritime order upon the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.72 While imperial order was gradually being imposed on land, colonial powers also wished to exercise their rule over the sea in this part of the world. The attempt to bring dhows under better supervision shows that colonisation had indeed a maritime dimension.

The 1890 Brussels Conference 163 Apart from Zanzibar, another bureau was set up in Brussels ‘with the duty of collecting, exchanging and publishing whatever information on the slave, arms and liquor traffic the various powers sent’. This bureau was to be a part of the Belgium Department of Foreign Affairs.73 The Zanzibar and the Brussels bureaus both existed until the Great War broke out. Thanks to the Brussels bureau, an incredible volume of documents was consequently published between 1893 and 1914 on the arms trade, the liquor traffic, ‘the protection of the natives’, or the abolition of slavery, and the suppression of the maritime slave trade.74 All these printed documents offer an excellent overview of all the treaties, conventions, instructions, and official reports published by European colonial states in the early stage of their rule in Africa. In these volumes, the question of the arms trade often dominates all the others while the suppression of the slave trade at sea becomes more and more peripheral. Even though figures published are often fragmentary and uncomplete, a short survey of this printed archives makes it possible to assess the impact the Brussels Act had, or not, over the suppression of the slave trade in the Western Indian Ocean. Between 1892 and 1913 Zanzibar hosted a bureau where the five delegates of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal met several times a year in order to coordinate the repression of the slave trade at sea. Persia and the Ottoman Empire refused to send any representatives while Russia did not officially inform the other powers of what she intended to do. Having recently lost its Consul in Zanzibar, Belgium also failed to send a representative.75 Holding its first meeting on 9 November 1892, the bureau was reduced to the five colonial powers present on the western shore of the Indian Ocean. Its international dimension was reduced to what can be described as an imperial level. In 1893, the first year of the bureau’s activity, the Royal Navy was the only power to communicate official statistics regarding the repression of the slave trade on the east coast of Africa. According to the figures delivered by Captain Charles Campbell, 2,159 dhows were boarded by the navy between 2 April 1892 and 1 April 1893. Out of this total only eight dhows were condemned for being engaged in the slave trade.76 For instance, ‘On the 1 February 1893 a dhow under British colours was detained by H.M.S. Sparrow and the case brought into court’ but ‘however dismissed’.77 Between 9 January 1893 and 18 November 1893, ten dhows were seized and seven condemned for being engaged in the slave trade. The British Consul and political Agent in Zanzibar, G. H. Portal, reported that ‘it may be estimated that the [British] Squadron collectively has boarded about 130 dhows per month or about 1,200 in eight months. As a result, 6 cases, involving 77 slaves, have been brought in the Vice-Admiralty Court attached to this agency, and 70 out of these slaves have obtained papers of freedom’.78 At the time the Royal Navy employed six vessels to undertake this task; namely the H.M.S. Philomel, Blanche, Swallow, Racoon, Widgeon, and Sparrow.79 These facts clearly show that Britain

164  International law and humanitarian operations continued to dominate the suppression of the slave trade in Zanzibar in using the Royal Navy to police East African waters. Britain maintained her naval pre-eminence in the region and imposed it at the Zanzibar bureau. Between 1892 and 1913, no proper coordinated action was ever undertaken by Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal – except when the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau sat and published its activity report each year. It must also be noted that the year 1893 provides by far the greatest volume of information regarding the suppression of the slave trade at sea while, in the following years, documentation becomes poorer and poorer. This shows that, in spite of their great abolitionist discourses at the Brussels Conference, colonial powers did actually little for the repression of the slave trade in the Western Indian Ocean after 1893. In 1894, the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau reported another six cases forwarded by Britain. In 1895, the bureau reported four cases of slave trade judged by the British Vice-Admiralty Court. Again, the other powers made no important contribution.80 In 1896, two cases were reported by the British delegate.81 In 1897, no case was mentioned at all.82 In 1898, two cases were briefly mentioned.83 In 1899, two cases appeared in the annual report.84 In 1900, only one case, a French dhow called the Dirihi, was reported to have been involved in the slave trade.85 In 1901, another case of slave trade was reported by the German delegate.86 In 1902, no judgement in relation to the slave trade was forwarded to the bureau.87 The report argued that this absence of slave trade cases was mainly due to the fact that Zanzibar did not play a central role in the exports of slaves any more. In this view, of course, this was due to the coordinated action of the European powers. Between 1903 and 1908 no cases were brought before the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau either.88 In 1909, one case of slave trade, for the first time in a few years, was mentioned.89 Finally, between 1910 and 1913 no case was reported by any of the European powers.90 Consequently, the British delegate proudly declared in 1913 that ‘the infamous traffic had, at last disappeared’ and concluded it was about time to close down the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau.91 In fact, since 1895, the bureau had argued that the slave trade declined thanks to the strict implementation of the Brussels Act by the European powers.92 However, historians such as Matthew S. Hopper have demonstrated that the Indian Ocean slave trade only died out in the 1920s when the ‘Arabian date and pearl markets [collapsed] as a result of globalization’.93 The statements made by the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau might be explained by the fact that the suppression of the slave trade at sea was not a great priority for the European colonial states any more. The lack of will was evident from the very beginning of the experience. No powers except Britain, and occasionally Germany or Portugal, had really shared information on the repression of the slave trade on the east coast of Africa. The reason is probably that there was not much naval activity against the slave trade to report anyhow. It could also be pointed that colonial powers were also eager to hide that the traffic continued under their rule because, if acknowledged, it would

The 1890 Brussels Conference 165 publicly have exposed their failure to carry out the humanitarian principles they originally had claimed to fulfil in taking part in the Scramble. The Great War eventually did put an end to this multilateral body and the Zanzibar experiment fell into oblivion. Looking at its results, one could ask whether the experience was worth anything. Indeed, the great declarations made at the Brussels Conference looked quite hollow when confronted with what had been achieved in Zanzibar. Nevertheless, it does not mean that these humanitarian ideals were nothing but a bitter manifestation of pure cynicism. It just stresses that European colonial states, and their political leaders, lacked the political will to implement the ambitious humanitarian policies they had pretended to carry out to win public opinion. In that sense, it is not surprising that the reports of the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau only mentioned one of the ten serious slave trade cases in which French dhows were involved in Muscat between 1893 and 1902.94 France did not want to officially acknowledge before the other powers that there was a problem with French dhows. It is also remarkable that no mention was made at all of the slave trafficking taking place in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, or Madagascar – with the exception of the great Portuguese operation of 1902 in Mozambique during which more than 700 slaves were freed and around a 100 slavers from Sur captured.95 While official representatives of the five powers sat at the Zanzibar bureau, ‘the slave trade between East Africa and the Gulf persisted and perhaps grew stronger after 1885, particularly between 1885 and 1910’.96 Hopper stressed that ‘naval patrols and diplomatic manoeuvrings may have reduced slave trade trafficking towards Arabia, but they did not eliminate it’.97 This amazing forgetfulness of the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau is emblematic of the colonial age. Colonial powers systematically overlooked the slave trade or slavery once they had set up their rule. All claimed that colonisation had instantly led to the destruction of slavery or the slave trade whereas this was not the case.98 Slave trade and slavery had only ended in the mind of colonial officials because it suited them. Most of them argued that the complete abolition of slavery would destabilise indigenous societies and thus make colonial rule impossible. Historians, like Suzanne Miers, Frederick Cooper, Kevin Grant, Richard Huzzey, Matthew S. Hopper, Moses D. E. Nwulia, and many others, have all emphasized the terrible paradoxes of colonisation when it came to abolition.99 While colonial powers argued that colonisation would put an end to slavery, ‘they took minimal action to end the institution and sometimes even supported it’ once colonial rule was established.100 Nwulia noted that ‘although the protectorate over Zanzibar was officially proclaimed on November 4, 1890, it was not until July 6, 1909, that the institution of slavery was formally abolished’.101 In Zanzibar as elsewhere, the lack of political will was evident. Appointed First-Minister of Zanzibar in 1891, Lloyd William Mathews argued that slaves themselves preferred slavery to freedom and pointed with disdain that those ‘who claimed their freedom were prostitutes, vagrants, drunkards, and thieves’.102

166  International law and humanitarian operations It was only through the continuous pressure brought by the BFASS over the Zanzibar colonial government and the Foreign Office between 1890 and 1909 that the final abolition of slavery – in law only – took place on the island.103 These facts show again how reluctant an abolitionist the British colonial administration was. So was the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau. However, even though it achieved very little, the Brussels Conference and the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau contributed to set a small and fragile foundation upon which humanitarian activists, both in civil society and official bodies, were later able to build new institutions against human trafficking.104 When the abrogation of the Brussels Acts finally took place in 1919, it was replaced by Sixth Committee of the League of Nations. A few years later, in 1926, the Slavery Convention, ‘the first international treaty against slavery as well as the slave trade’, was finally adopted in Geneva by the League of Nations.105 The Convention’s preamble explicitly made reference to the Brussels Conference and Act.106 This shows that the conference, even if it did not lead to major humanitarian achievements at the time, was a watershed for international law and international relations. When it came to putting anti-slavery and humanitarianism at the heart of international relations before 1945, a historical filiation – in spirit and letter – existed between the endeavours of the Brussels Conference, the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau, and the League of Nations.107 After all, humanitarianism had somehow survived to imperialism and tried to provide new answers to questions that remained greatly unanswered. Despite allowing us to reflect upon colonial expansion and the making of international law, the history of Zanzibar Bureau is also a captivating moment because it demonstrates how Britain got hold of most of Zanzibar’s fleet of dhows and gained a dominant position in the so-called indigenous trade. As the figures published by the bureau show, a vast number of dhows trading in Zanzibar flew the British flag between 1893 and 1913 as shown by Tables 7.1 and 7.2. Even though British dhows were still slightly inferior Table 7.1  The Zanzibar dhow trade in 1899 according to the archives of the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau. Arrivals

British German French Zanzibari British protectorate Arab Indian Benadir (Somalia)

Departures

Number of dhows

Tonnage

Number of dhows

Tonnage

2,220 2,030 109 2,383 127 241 207 2

36,809 32,621 4,820 22,382 3,069 13,589 10,741 99

2,247 2,011 82 2,506 113 238 199 1

37,274 31,839 3,875 24,107 2,719 13,810 10,377 58

The 1890 Brussels Conference 167 Table 7.2  The dhow trade in Zanzibar in 1912 according to the archives of the Zanzibar Maritime Bureau. Arrivals Dhows’ flags German Arab British British East Africa protectorate French Indian Italian Portuguese Zanzibari

Departures

Number of dhows

Tonnage

Number of dhows

Tonnage

681 135 2,032 99 42 117 27 2 1,291

6,102 7,811 28,636 2,036 1,660 6,591 940 62 12,485

687 154 2,032 96 37 106 27 2 1,344

5,673 8,179 29,062 1,996 1,523 6,453 940 62 12,561

in number around 1899 to Zanzibari’s they nonetheless carried a more important volume of trade. In 1912, British dhows not only outnumbered Zanzibari’s but also undermined the trade of others European powers. Consequently, Britain maintained its dominant position at sea in Zanzibar and the Western Indian Ocean as illustrated by Table 7.2. Anti-slavery this time had served very well Her Majesty’s imperial and economic interests. In fact, as we will see in the following chapter, dhows flying a rival’s flag were perceived as a threat to this newly built order. The final dispute over French dhows in Oman at the turn of the century perfectly illustrates how dhows were integrated into both imperial strategies and international politics. Anti-slavery was again at the crossroads of empire and international law.

Acknowledgements Parts of this chapter were published in an earlier form in ‘Le blocus de Zanzibar 1888–1889: entre “intervention d’humanité”, colonisation et droit international’. Outre-Mers, no. 402–403 (2019): 107–126, and ‘The French Flag in Zanzibar Waters 1860s–1900s: Abolition and Imperial Rivalry in the Western Indian Ocean’. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, (2020) DOI: 10.1080/03086534.2020.1783115.

Notes 1 Suzanne Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 21. 2 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 219, 223. Memorandum communicated by Hatzfeldt, 9 April 1889, FO 84/1960. 3 Ibid.

168  International law and humanitarian operations











4 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 230. 5 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 229. 6 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 230. 7 HCPP, Hansard, Debate 26 March 1889, vol. 334, cc.886–927. 8 The Times, 28 January 1890, 13. 9 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, xi. 10 Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century, 21. 11 Daniel Laqua, The Age of Internationalism and Belgium, 1880–1930, Peace, Progress, and Prestige (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 47–50. 12 M. Le Prince de Chimay, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères à la Conférence, le 18 Novembre 1889, HCPP 1890 (C6049-I), 10. 13 General Act for the Repression of the African Slave Trade, known as the Brussels General Act, 2 July 1890. 14 Suzanne Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century, 21. 15 Ibid. 16 Mairi S. Macdonald, “Lord Vivian’s tears. The moral hazards of humanitarian intervention” in The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to the Present, ed by Fabian Klose (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016),. 122. 17 W. M. Roger Louis and Jean Stengers, E. D. Morels History of the Congo Reform Moverment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 252–257; Martin Ewans, European Atrocity African Catastrophe Leopold II and the Congo Free State and its Aftermath (New York: Routledge Curzon, 2002), 235–245; Kevin Grant, A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884–1926 (London: Routledge, 2005), 38–78. 18 In the absence of population census at the time it is difficult for historians to determinate an exact figure. W. M. Roger Louis and Jean Stengers, E. D. Morels History of the Congo Reform Moverment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 252-257; Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (London: Pan Macmillan,1998), 224–235; Martin Ewans, European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath (New York: Routledge, 2002), Ch. 16, Kindle; Kevin Grant, A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884-1926 (London: Routledge, 2005), 38-78; Guy Vanthemsche, Belgium and the Congo, 1885-1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 24-25.. 19 Mairi S. Macdonald, “Lord Vivian’s tears”, 136. Georges Washington Williams, “An open letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, July 1890” in Heart Of Dearkness [Joseph Conrad] ed. Robert Kimborough (New York: Norton, 1988), 103-113. Published in summer 1890, Williams’ letter attracted the attention of the world public opinion on the “Congo atrocities”. 20 Fabian Klose, “A War of Justice and Humanity, Abolition and Establishing Humanity as an International Norm” in Humanity A History of European Concepts in Practice from the Sixteenth Century to the Present, ed. Fabian Klose and Mirjiam Thulin (Göttingen : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 186. 21 Daniel Laqua, The Age of Internationalism, 45–79. 22 Amalia Rbi Forclaz, Humanitarian Imperialism The Politics of Anti-Slavery Activism, 1880–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 15–41. 23 Olivier Grenouilleau, La Révolution Abolitionniste (Paris: Gallimard), Ch.5, Kindle. 24 Laqua, The Age of Internationalism, 45; 25 Ibid, 52.

The 1890 Brussels Conference 169 26 Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 267. 27 Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century, 24. 28 Hussey Crespigny Vivian (1834–1893) played a major role in British humanitarian politics of the late nineteenth century. T. G. Otte, “A Course of Unceasing Remonstrance: British Diplomacy and the Suppression of the Slave Trade in the East” in Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire, Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, ed. Keith Hamilton and Patrick Salmon (Brighton: Sussex Academic, 2009), 99. 29 Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century, 232. 30 Chapter I, Slave-Trade Countries, and Chapter II, Caravane Routes and Transportation of Slaves by Land. 31 General Act for the Repression of the African Slave Trade, known as the Brussels General Act, 2 July 1890. 32 HCPP 1890 (C6049), Africa N°8. A., Translation of Protocols and General Act of the Slave Trade Conference held at Brussels, 1889–1890, Protocol N°1, Sitting of 18 November 1889, Lord Vivian’s speech, 9. 33 HCPP 1890 (C6049), Sitting of 18 November 1889, Lord Vivian’s speech, 9. 34 Annexe 2. Projet présenté par les Plénipotentiaires de la Grande-Bretagne, séance du 28 Novembre 1889, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1891), 108–111. 35 Article One, Annexe 2. Projet présenté par les Plénipotentiaires de la GrandeBretagne, séance du 28 Novembre 1889, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, 109. 36 Ibid. 37 Robert J. Blyth, The Empire of the Raj, India and the Middle East, 1858–1947 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) 38–64. 38 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 240; minute, 18 June 1881, TNA, FO 84/1938. 39 Jenny S. Martinez, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 67–99. 40 Article III, Annexe 2. Projet présenté par les Plénipotentiaires de la GrandeBretagne, séance du 28 Novembre 1889, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, 109. 41 Martinez, The Slave Trade, 5. 42 Article VII, Annexe 2. Projet présenté par les Plénipotentiaires de la GrandeBretagne, séance du 28 Novembre 1889, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, 110. 43 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 241. 44 Annexe 4. Projet de Traité et projet de Règlements présentés par les Plénipotentiaires de France, séance du 20 Janvier 1890, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, Article II, §1, 113. 45 Article II, §2, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, 113. 46 Article II, §5, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, p. 113. 47 Séance du 20 Décembre, M. Bourée’s speech to the conference, in HCPP (C6049-I), Annexe 3, 130. 48 The Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1888, n. 22, 20. 49 Jean Allain, “Fydor Martens and the question of slavery at the Brussels Conference” in The History of International Law Scholarship in Russia, Conference at Tartu University, Estonia, 30 September 2006, 9. Accessed March, 22,2016, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2266492,. 50 Séance du 20 Décembre, M. Bourée’s speech to the conference, in HCPP (C6049-I), Annexe 3, 130. 51 Article VII, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, 114.

170  International law and humanitarian operations 52 Article VIII, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, 114. See Article VIII of the British project, 109. 53 Article II.1, HCPP (C6049-I), 135. Article II.2 and II.3 just stressed that ship-owners should have a good reputation and possess capital goods in the district where they made their application to get the flag. 54 Article I of the British proposal, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, 109; Article I of the French proposal, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, 112–113. 55 Fabian Klose, “A War of Justice and Humanity”, 169–186. 56 Déclaration des Plénipotentiaires de la Grande-Bretagne, Séance du 6 Février 1890, HCPP (C6049-I), 137. 57 Déclaration des Plénipotentiaires de sa Majesté, Séance du 6 Février 1890, HCPP (C6049-I), 137. 58 Jean Allain, “Fydor Martens and the question of slavery at the Brussels Conference”, 1–15. 59 Kenneth J. Keith “Rights and Responsibilities: Protecting the Victims of Armed Conflicts”, Duke Law Journal, vol. 48, no. 5 (1999): 1081–113; Rupert Ticehurst, “The Martens Clause and the Laws of Armed Conflict”, International Review of the Red Cross, No. 317 (1997), Accessed July, 2, 2019, https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/article/other/57jnhy.htm.. 60 William Mulligan “Justifying international action International law, The Hague and diplomacy before 1914” in War, Peace and International Order? The Legacies of the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, ed. Maartje Abbenhuis, Christopher Ernest Barber, Annalise R. Higgins (London, Routledge, 2017), Ch1, Kindle. 61 General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, Article XXII. 62 General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, Article XLV. 63 General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, Article XXIII. 64 General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, Article XXVII. 65 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 293. 66 Séance du 24 Juin 1891, Journal officiel de la République française. Débats parlementaires, 1443. 67 Annexe II à la note verbale de M. le Baron Beyens, 18 Décembre 1891, in Conférence Internationale de Bruxelles, 23. 68 General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, Articles XXI to XXIII. General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, 69 General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, Articles XLII to LXI. 70 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 285. General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, Article LXXIV. 71 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 354. General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, Article XLI. 72 Valeska Huber, Channelling Mobilities: Migration and Globalisation in the Suez Canal Region and Beyond, 1869–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 172–203; Guillemette Crouzet, Genèses du Moyen-Orient : le Golfe Persique à l’Age des Impérialismes vers 1800-vers 1914 (Paris: Champ Vallon, 2015) Ch. 7 and 10; “The British Empire in India, the Gulf pearl and the making of the Middle East”, Middle Eastern studies. Volume 55: Number 6 (2019, November 2nd): 864–878. 73 Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 285; General Act of Brussels, 2 July 1890, Article LXXXII. 74 One volume was published each year between 1894 and 1914. See Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite publiés en exécution de l’Acte Général de Bruxelles, 1893–1914, (Bruxelles : F. Hayez, 1894 -1914). These documents represent altogether more than 8,000 thousand pages of printed archives.

The 1890 Brussels Conference 171 75 Bureau Maritime de Zanzibar in Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite, 1893, 257. 76 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1893, 267. 77 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1893, 275. 78 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1893, 273 79 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1893, 274–277. 80 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1895, 254. 81 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1896, 322. 82 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1897, 217. 83 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1898, 179. 84 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1899, 171. 85 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1900, 153. 86 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1901, 312. 87 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1902, 315. 88 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1903, 299 ; Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1904, 208 ; Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1906, 260  ; Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1907, 260 ; Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1908, 205. 89 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1909, 366–367. 90 Documents Relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1910, 337–338 ; Documents Relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1911, 200  ; Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1912, 454. 91 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1913, 455. 92 Documents relatifs à la Répression de la Traite, 1895, 254. 93 Matthew S. Hopper, “East Africa and the End of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade”, Journal of African Development vol. 13 no.1 (2011): 41–62. 94 MAE, CADC, P191, Boutre Francisé et traite des noirs : Octobre 1894-Mars 1897,180CP COM, 44. P191, Boutre Francisé et traite des noirs : Octobre 1897-Novembre 1899,180 CP COM 45 ; P192, Boutre Francisé et traite des noirs : Mai 1899-Juin 1902, 180 CP COM, 46. 95 Matthew S. Hopper, “Imperialism and the Dilemma of Slavery in Eastern Arabia and the Gulf, 1873–1939”, Itinerario, vol. 30 (2006): 76–77. 96 Matthew S. Hopper, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 159. 97 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 159. 98 Moses D. E. Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1975), 169; Suzanne Miers and Martin A. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in Africa (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 1-16; Grant, A Civilised, 2-5; Jan-Georg Deutsch, Emancipation without abolition in German East Africa, c.1884-1914 (Oxford: James Currey, 2006), 1-51; Henri Médard, ‘‘La traite et l’esclavage en Afrique Orientale et dans l’océan Indien’’ in Traites et Esclavages en Afrique orientale et dans l’océan Indien, ed. H. Médard, M.L. Derat, T. Vernet et M. P. Ballarin (Paris: Karthala, 2013), 18 ; Frederick Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925 (New Haven : Yale University Press: 1980). 99 Ibid. 100 Suzanne Miers, “Slavery and the Slave Trade as International Issues, 1890–1939”, Slavery and Abolition, vol. 19, no. 2, (1998): 16. 101 Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa, 169. 102 Robert Nunez Lyne, An Apostle of Empire Being the Life of Sir Lloyd William Mathews (London: George Allen, 1936), 158.

172  International law and humanitarian operations 103 HCPP, 1909 (Cd. 4732), Despatch transmitting a new slavery decree, signed at Zanzibar on June 9, 1909. Norman R. Bennett, A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar (London: Methuen, 1978), 185. 104 Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century, 58–65. 105 Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century, 130. 106 Convention relative à l’esclavage, Société des Nations, 1926. 107 Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century, 121–130.

8

The Hague international arbitration: The end of an old controversy?

In August 1905, The Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) issued its award on the so-called Muscat Dhows Case. Established in 1899 by the first Hague Peace Conference, the Court was meant to provide peaceful settlements for the international community in an age of growing tensions.1 It was designed to avoid wars by the means of legal disputes and settlements. The Court not only heralded a new turn in international relations, but also reflected the hopes of a generation of politicians, diplomats, lawyers, and citizens, to establish peace as a new basis of international affairs. 2 These dreams, however, were shattered to pieces by the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. 3 Less than a decade after Fashoda (1898), the Muscat international arbitration hoped to end the great tensions which had again recently opposed France and Britain over the right of visit and the French flag. Only this time, the scene of confrontation had moved to Oman and brought the two countries on the verge of war. In addition to the work of Guillemette Crouzet who analysed The Hague’s Award in the light of British and French foreign policies the Persian Gulf, this chapter argues that the 1905 arbitration was as well the conclusion of all the imperial disputes which brought Britain and France into a fierce naval confrontation around Zanzibar’s waters in the context of the abolition of the slave trade and the Scramble for Africa.4 The chapter will first demonstrate how Anglo-French imperial rivalry in the Indian Ocean in the late nineteenth century prepared the ground for this ultimate confrontation in Omani waters. Then, we should briefly look into the context in which the crisis nurtured. Finally, we will see how a minor incident led to an international crisis that could only be solved by international law as well as the diplomatic rapprochement of two great powers. It will be stressed that The Hague Arbitration was not another trivial episode of the Anglo-French imperial rivalry in the Indian Ocean but a cornerstone in the history of international relations and international law.

174  International law and humanitarian operations

8.1  Imperial rivalry and anti-slavery in the Persian Gulf While Zanzibar had become a British protectorate in 1890 in spite of France’s strong protests, Oman, along with the Trucial States of the Gulf, had more or less fallen under British rule. In 1891–1892, these nations signed treaties with the British government which forbade them to allow any concession of their territories – or privileges, whether legal or commercial – to any foreign power but Britain.5 Among other things, it meant that no state other than Britain could set up naval or military bases there. In 1903, when Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, triumphantly toured Oman and the Persian Gulf with a fleet of eight vessels of war, these seas had almost turned into a ‘British lake’, or so it was believed.6 This was the result of several decades of imperial policies. In 1820, a first agreement was concluded with the rulers of the then-called ‘Pirate Coast’ at the southern end of the Persian Gulf. These rulers agreed to impose a maritime truce in order to suppress piracy and the slave trade. In 1853, agreements were transformed into a ‘perpetual maritime truce’, giving its name to this part of the Gulf thereafter known as the Trucial Coast. From 1823 onwards, a squadron of six Royal Navy cruisers was set up in the Straits of Hormuz ‘to administer this truce and support the suppression of piracy and the slave trade’ as well as ‘to cruise pearl beds’.7 According to Crouzet, ‘the system devised by the Indian Empire … had a specific goal: ensuring peace on one the most strategic buffer zones of this expansively minded empire’.8 As in Zanzibar, British naval operations against the slave trade and piracy eventually contributed to establishing the Union Jack’s informal paramountcy while securing the Empire’s most precious colony – India – and the Persian Gulf’s most valuable commodity – pearls. As it was pointed earlier in previous chapters, this raises again questions over the relationship of British anti-slavery and imperial policies. Even in the case of the Persian Gulf, it seems however hard to believe, like Crouzet, that anti-slavery just was ‘an imperialist and political tool designed to further increase of British domination’.9 Mathew S. Hopper actually shows that empire and anti-slavery could sometimes be completely at odds in this part of the world.10 He for instance recalls how the slave trade Circular N°33 issued by the Admiralty Office in July 1875 contradicted British anti-slavery principles in order to preserve Her Majesty’s imperial interests in the Gulf.11 In fear of jeopardising the Gulf pearl fishing industry which relied heavily on slave labour, the Admiralty had ordered all of Her Majesty’s vessels ‘to deny refuge to runaway slaves except in extreme, life threatening cases’ and to return them to their masters if they had been legally acquired.12 By this circular, ‘British officials recognize[d] the Gulf’s dependence on slave divers’ and defended the ‘colonial policy [built] around it’.13 The circular was only abandoned after a major parliamentary and public campaign took place in Britain throughout 1875–1876.14 Much like during the 1873 Bartle Frere mission, anti-slavery was again forced upon a reluctant bureaucracy

The Hague international arbitration 175 by the pressure of British public opinion and the anti-slavery movement.15 Imperial and anti-slavery policies did not go hand in hand so easily. When governments were not forced into other directions, imperial interests came first. This was the case for Oman and the Trucial States because they were considered ‘strategically important for protecting the communication lines between British India and Europe’.16 Any intrusion of a foreign power was therefore seen as a potential threat. Lord Lansdowne, then British Secretary of State, declared in 1903 to the British Parliament: ‘we should regard the establishment of a naval base, or of a fortified port, in the Persian Gulf by any power as a very grave menace to British interests, and we should certainly resist it with all the means at our disposal’.17 Lansdowne’s statement was grounded in tangible historical reality. His doctrine had already been put to practice in Oman against France. In November 1898, only 4 years after the reopening of a French consulate in Oman and a few weeks away from Fashoda, a new diplomatic crisis broke out there because France planned, with the approval of Sultan Faysal bin Turki, to set up a coaling station in Bandar Jissah, only 5 miles from the capital of Muscat.18 Unlike what some British Members of Parliament then feared, there was no colonisation plan hidden behind this project.19 There ‘only’ was an imperial policy allowing France to counterbalance British influence in the Gulf of Oman.20 Present on the Somali Coast, in Obock, and Djibouti, France needed another coaling station in the Indian Ocean to enable both her navy and her merchant’s vessels to reach French Indo-China and Pondicherry. France also wanted to exercise her influence in Muscat because it controlled the access to the Persian Gulf. In 1894, the French government had reopened a consulate in Oman’s capital after more than 70 years of absence even though it had long been a place of strategic and diplomatic interest. 21 It was logic that France wished to complete her diplomatic presence by a coaling station which would allow her gunboats and merchant’s vessels to be seen in the Gulf of Oman. As a result, Oman became the new focal point of AngloFrench tensions in the Indian Ocean at the turn of the century, much like Zanzibar between the 1860s and the 1880s. To the Indian government, especially the Viceroy Lord Curzon, a French coaling station could not be tolerated. Oman was a strategic port in the system of protection he had built for India in the Gulf. As early as 1895, he had declared that ‘Oman may be regarded as a British dependency; we pay a subsidy to its sovereign, we dictate its policy; we cannot tolerate any foreign influence there’.22 Consequently, the British Consul in Oman, Major Christopher G. F. Fagan, logically ordered in January 1899 the gunboat H.M.S. Sphinx to sail for Oman and stop the French coaling station project at once. 23 Curzon even recommended to cut, if necessary, the subsidy paid each year by the Indian government to force Oman’s Sultan to abandon the territorial concession he had promised to France.24 Last but not least, a bombardment ultimatum was brought to Sultan Faysal bin Turki by RearAdmiral Archibald Lucius Douglas on H.M.S. Eclipse. 25 The threat must

176  International law and humanitarian operations have sounded more than serious since Zanzibar’s royal residence had just been bombarded two and a half years ago, on 27 August 1896, to force the Sultan Khalid bin Barghash to abandon the throne, only to be replaced by Seyyid Hamoud bin Muhammad who ‘suited’ more the interests of British colonial rule. On 16 February 1899, Oman’s Sultan logically yielded to British demands. The concession would not be granted. Fierce reactions followed this event at the French Parliament. After diplomatic negotiations, however, a compromise was found and direct confrontation eventually avoided. It was decided that a French coaling station, just separated by a wall from the British one, should be built in Makalla Cove near Muscat. 26 Besides, ‘Her Majesty’s Government … expressed [officially to France] her deepest regrets’ for what had happened in Oman. 27 The French government had saved face and honour. Most of all, armed conflict had been avoided. In this context of continuous imperial tensions, dhows flying the French flag in Omani waters were denounced as a serious threat to British antislavery policies in the Gulf. It was true that a relatively small but highly visible fleet of dhows sailed under the French flag in Sur. This town was Oman’s largest port on the Persian Gulf and ‘one of the most important dhow ports of the Indian Ocean’.28 In 1905, it was officially estimated that 26 captains sailed with French papers in Sur. These 26 men possessed a total 56 dhows. As a result, a total of ‘about 1,060 men forming crews’ claimed to be under French protection.29 Even if this constituted a negligible part of Oman’s most influential merchant community estimated at around 10,000 inhabitants, it was nevertheless symbolically significant. Not to mention that Sur was ‘famous’ for its key role in the Indian Ocean slave trade. Even without a coaling station, France had already foothold in Oman and on the Hormuz strait. Most importantly, Suri dhows flying the French flag connected this important harbour to French colonies in other parts of the Western Indian Ocean, namely Djibouti, Mayotte, and Madagascar. To a certain extent, the Muscat dhow crisis was the continuation of the imperial confrontation which had recently been revived by the Muscat coaling station, a confrontation which had long opposed France and Britain over the right of visit and the French flag in Zanzibar’s waters as this book demonstrated earlier. To the Indian government and the British Resident, Suri dhows flying the French flag were not only an intolerable threat to British imperial policy in the Gulf, but also a challenge to the Royal Navy anti-slave trade operations in the Western Indian Ocean. While, Major Fagan wrote, in October 1897, a letter to Sultan Faysal in which he stated that dhows flying the French flag were a threat to His Majesty’s sovereignty, the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury pressed, around October 1898, the diplomat Edwin Henry Egerton ‘to bring to the attention of the French government the existence of slaves trafficking on board of vessels flying the French flag along the East African coast, and to urge that measures should be taken to stop this abuse’.30 In April 1902, Lord Lansdowne, British Prime Minister

The Hague international arbitration 177 at the time, handed a memorandum to the French government pointing that the French flag was responsible for most of the slave trading in Oman.31 A few years earlier, in 1895, the Earl of Kimberley had already sent to Lord Dufferin, the British Ambassador in Paris, another report ‘proving the expansion of the slave trade, in Oman and the Persian Gulf, on Suri dhows under the French flag’.32 The document, written by Major Sadler then British Consul in Muscat, claimed that all slaves landed in Sur had been carried by dhows under French colours. As already demonstrated in Chapter Two, it was quite unlikely that the small fleet of French dhows carried alone Sur’s slave trade.33 Once more, British officials accused France of being the main obstacle to the complete suppression of the Indian Ocean slave trade. The myth that France carried most of the traffic was revived in a context of renewed imperial tensions. In 1898, Sir William Lee-Warner, then Secretary in the Political and Secret Department of the India Office, lamented: ‘it is disastrous to our prestige not only in the Gulf but in India for British Indians to see that our national policy of a century old for the suppression of the slave trade is paralysed by French action’.34 Again, as already demonstrated in Chapter Two, dhows flying the French flag provided a convenient explanation to the fact that the slave trade persisted in the Western Indian Ocean ‘in spite of … a British naval presence’. 35 According to this official narrative, Her Majesty’s vessels failed to end human trafficking there only because France had let the infamous trade develop under her flag. British public opinion was easily diverted towards the evils of the French flag and all the shortcomings of British governmental policies were ignored. This was easier than to look at the lack of political will and resources from which anti-slavery suffered greatly in the Indian Ocean, as noted in Chapter One. Nevertheless, France certainly had her part of responsibility in the persistence of the traffic. Even if French governments had declared that they wanted to tackle the problem of slave trafficking under their flag, they had not made it a true priority for the French naval station as seen in Chapter Two. British public opinion could easily adhere to the government’s official narrative. Between 1893 and 1902, a series of significant slave trade cases under the French flag was revealed both in Muscat and Zanzibar. For British officials and public opinion, these highly publicised cases confirmed what they had always argued: the traffic was encouraged – if not protected – by France. Britain’s greatest imperial rival could, therefore, be discredited and portrayed as evil, a recurrent theme in British politics since the French Revolution. In 1893, the French dhow, Fath el Kheir, was arrested by H.M.S. Philomel with 77 slaves on board in Zanzibar harbour.36 Additionally, two French dhows, the Saad and Salama, were seized near Oman by H.M.S. Sphinx with 170 slaves including 40 children under the age of 12 in 1896.37 In 1898, the Majunga and Selama were seized in Pemba, near Zanzibar, while transporting seven slaves.38 Again in 1899, another French dhow, also named Fath el Kheir, was arrested with slaves.

178  International law and humanitarian operations In 1900 finally, two French dhows, the Diriki and the Fath el Kheir were seized with slaves in Zanzibar and in Langa, Mozambique.39 Meanwhile, arbitrary seizure continued to be sometimes conducted by the Royal Navy as it had already been the case in the past. In August and September 1897 for instance, the Fath el Kheir in Mombasa and the Majunga in Pemba, were visited and arrested by the Royal Navy whereas they were not engaged in the slave trade.40 These incidents equally contributed to keeping the vicious circle of tensions spinning between France and Britain whether in East Africa or in Oman. As a result, diplomatic and political controversies over the right of visit, slave trade under the French flag, or the protection granted to dhow captains and their crews, reached a new and final height in Oman between 1900 and 1905.

8.2 ‘French protégés’ and French flags of convenience: the revival of an old controversy This work has already pointed out how British and French diplomacy strongly opposed each other in Zanzibar throughout the 1860s on the question of the nationality and the protection granted to dhow captains flying the French flag. At the time, Britain had already crafted most of the arguments she later developed in Oman and The Hague at the turn of the century. Britain contested the fact that natives of Oman or Zanzibar could be considered as French subjects since they were not born in territories under French colonial rule. Consequently, Britain rejected the idea that these native dhow owners, captains, or sailors could legally get the authorisation to fly the French flag, and, above all, get the French protection. This protection was crucial because it meant that these men were only subjected to French law and justice.41 On the contrary, the French argued that even if these ‘natives’ sailing under their colours were born in Muscat, Sur, or Zanzibar, they could be considered as French subjects because they possessed properties, businesses, or had established themselves through marriage in one of the French Indian Ocean colonies: namely Comoros, Madagascar, Obock, or Djibouti.42 This was not the first time France and Britain confronted each other over these questions. Indeed, the question of British protégés in Tunisia – along with Italians as well – had been a source of major diplomatic tensions between 1881 and 1884 as it was demonstrated by Mary D. Lewis.43 In the context of ‘New Imperialism’, protected persons could easily become a casus belli since colonial sovereignty was at stake. In Muscat, much like in Tunisia, the debate focused on the protection, immunities, and privileges granted to ‘protégés’, or people who enjoyed – with their properties – judicial protection. This time however, the question of who could legally be considered as a protected person became central. As stressed in Chapter Two, the legal definition of a French colonial subject allowed almost any interpretation. Charles Brunet-Millon, in his early

The Hague international arbitration 179 1900s defence of French dhows, insisted on the polysemy of the expression ‘French protégés’. According to him, ‘the term of Frenchmen is unequivocal and it applies to French citizens, French subjects from the French colonies, French protégés, that is to say to the natives of a State protected by France or subjects of the Sultan of Muscat who have obtained French protection. This interpretation is based upon the usual rules of capitulation countries. Citizens and French protégés compose the fixed portion of French nationals’.44 In Oman, the debate focused on ‘French protégés’, ‘or subjects of the Sultan of Muscat who have obtained French protection’.45 Their status was most controversial.46 A sort of confusion existed between French protégés who were subjects of the Imam of Muscat in the service of a French citizen in accordance with the French Muscat treaty of 1844 and French protégés, also originally subjects of the Imam, who had become French subjects in obtaining the French flag as they lived, married, or possessed businesses as well as properties in one of France’s Indian Ocean colonies. The French argued that, in virtue of Article 4 of the 1844 treaty, all her subjects enjoyed extraterritorial immunities and privileges.47 This meant that all ‘French protégés’, whether in service of French citizens or not, could only be arrested and tried by French authorities. They escaped both the Sultan and the British jurisdiction. In a colonial context, this was for France, as much as for Oman or Britain, a breach of their national sovereignty. For this reason, it could become a casus belli. Local seamen took advantage of the situation. Omani seafarers certainly liked to be under the power which offered the greatest protection to their freedom and way of living. These sailors had several ‘nationalities’ in the European sense of the word. They belonged to all ‘the nations’ they found along their trading routes. Yet, they remained the subjects of the Sultan of Oman. Dhow captains, sailors, and merchants from Sur, all formed a cosmopolitan population reflecting the monsoon trade and ‘the close family ties that Suris … enjoyed with littoral people all around the rim of the Indian Ocean’.48 They were people of the sea and lived accordingly.49 In Oman, exactly as Mary D. Lewis demonstrated for the French Tunisian protectorate, ‘locals engaged in their own scramble for power over their everyday life by adroitly recognising the opportunity divided rule [the different legal systems and authorities which coexisted in a colony] provided them’.50 The legal debates over French protégés also had broader implications. Extraterritorial immunities and privileges derived from capitulation treaties. They were an important body of international public law since the fifteenth century.51 Capitulations allowed European nations to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction over their subjects and provided them with commercial and judicial immunities. Originally capitulations had been designed to protect Christians and enhance European trade within the Ottoman Empire. In the nineteenth century, this body of laws was applied to many different colonial contexts ranging from China to Morocco or Tunisia. At the time, some diplomats and jurists even used capitulations to

180  International law and humanitarian operations draw a convenient line between ‘civilised nations’ and ‘barbarous states’ who were the only ones subjected to these laws.52 As Lewis pointed ‘over the course of the nineteenth century, [capitulations] increasingly became the basis for expanding the extraterritorial rights held by European states on behalf of their subjects and protégés’.53 Capitulation laws and protected persons were a central question for the international relations throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. In fact, ‘the Crimean War (1853–1856), after all, had erupted in part over this question since it was to determine which power (France or Russia) had the right to protect Christians in the Ottoman Empire’.54 Anglo-French opposition in Oman must be appreciated in this perspective. As this book already stressed, the question of the French protégés had long been a problem between France and Britain in the Indian Ocean, most notably in Zanzibar so far. Yet, this issue took a new, and unexpected, turn in Oman at the dawn of the twentieth century. Major late nineteenth century political figures acknowledged that this question had surprisingly dragged both countries too far. In 1902, Paul Cambon, then French Ambassador in London, wrote that this ‘ought never to have been allowed to acquire the importance which has been given to it’.55 In 1905, Lord Lansdowne called this affair ‘a trumpery dispute’ and stated that ‘we were nearer to going to war over it with France than we have been going to war with Germany about other matters’.56 One must, however, note that if the Muscat dhows crisis took both countries to such a dangerous level of tensions it was because ‘most favored nations status and exemption from native justice [capitulation laws] were the pillars of European prestige’ in the age of empire.57 Before it reached its final apogee in 1905, the old crisis ingredients came back to the front scene in the late 1890s. Between May 1897 and January 1898, Sultan Faysal wrote several times to the French Consul in Oman in order to request that the right, granted to Omani dhows, to fly the French flag, as well as the French protection given to their owners and crews, should be removed. 58 According to French authorities, this new move had been monitored by the Indian government and the British Consul in Muscat. 59 Above all, the French claimed that this question was related to the unsettled business of the slave trade and the right of visit. In the eyes of the French government, it was the 1873 right of visit in Oman’s territorial waters and the pressure exercised by the Indian government over the French flag which constituted not only a violation of the Sultan’s independence but also of the 1862 Anglo-French declaration guaranteeing the non-interference of both nations into Zanzibar and Muscat sultanates.60 On the contrary, the British replied to the French accusation of interference in stressing that ‘the French practice [of issuing the French flag and French protection to Omani subjects] as entrenching on the sovereign rights of the Sultan’.61 In their opinion, this was the true breach into the Sultan’s sovereignty and the 1862 Anglo-French declaration as

The Hague international arbitration 181 stated a memorandum sent to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs.62 Indeed, the Anglo-French quarrel had just turned into a very fine dispute of international law. This shows that abolitionism laid at the crossroad of colonial strategies, anti-slavery policies, and international diplomatic confrontations on the limits of imperial sovereignty. This made the question a particularly difficult one to answer. A new series of events contributed to add more and more strains to these issues, bringing the two countries’ relations to their worst state since Fashoda. In October 1899, Major Percy Cox arrived in Muscat as the new British Consul. Appointed at the age of 35, Cox had been chosen by Lord Curzon to bring back Sultan Faysal under strict British influence. Cox was chosen to make Faysal more compliant with the views of the Indian Office.63 While Faysal did not yield to some of the most important British demands, notably on customs reform and the introduction of a new flag for the dhows of his subjects, he nonetheless approached, under Cox’s pressure, the French Consul on the question of the French flag in February and May 1900.64 In June 1900, on board of H.M.S. Sphinx and in the company of Cox, Faysal sailed to Sur. It is worth recalling that during the 1895–1896 revolt which had threatened Faysal’s power in the Sultanate, Sur, and its important merchant community, had been one of the major centres of the rebellion.65 Faysal certainly went to Sur with these memories in mind. On board of the Sphinx, Faysal delivered a clear message to his former opponents: submit or you will be crushed by British cannons. But it could also be seen as a confession of impotence. Faysal needed Her Majesty’s naval power to exercise his sovereignty over his most troublesome subjects. However, as long as his alliance lasted with the paramount imperial power in the Gulf, Faysal not only looked but was strong. According to Cox, it was on the occasion of the Sultan’s visit in Sur that 45 French dhow owners ‘spontaneously’ renounced the French flag and the privileges attached to it.66 During his stay, the Sultan stressed he ‘neither recognize nor permit that any subject of mine … should take the so-called protection papers and flag from the French Government or any Government’.67 Additionally, he published, on 15 June 1900, an edict in which he forbade all his subjects to receive any foreign flag or protection without his written permission.68 In removing the privilege to take the French flag and French protection from his Suri subjects, Faysal asserted more clearly his power and sovereignty. He regained control over them while pleasing the British who considered the French flag as a serious interference into their imperial sphere. Suri merchants, on the other hand, could conveniently gain the forgiveness of their Sultan in giving up French flags and privileges. This did not cost them much in comparison with the reprisals which Faysal could have inflicted upon them with the help of the Sphinx. The Sultan took advantage of this crisis to reaffirm his sovereignty over Sur and he also strengthened his imperial relationship with Britain. Accusing French dhows to lead the

182  International law and humanitarian operations Western Indian Ocean slave trade allowed Cox and Faysal to reassert their respective imperial powers. Of course, Paul Ottavi, French Vice-Consul in Muscat between 1894 and 1902, refused to acknowledge the procedure undertaken by the Sultan. He reported home that French interests and French subjects had been attacked in Sur. As a result, Jules Cambon wrote to Lord Salisbury on 25 June 1900 – 10 days after Faysal’s edict – to protest against the pressure that the presence of the Sphinx had, according to him, exercised upon French dhow owners. In the argument submitted to The Hague, France published the letters of fifteen French protégés who declared to have abandoned their French flags and papers ‘against their will as they feared English vesselsof-war’.69 Cambon requested to Salisbury that flags and papers should be returned to their owners. He renewed his demands in a second letter on 26 June but proposed that ‘in the future, no papers of protection would be given’.70 However, on 17 July, he informed Salisbury that the French navy vessel, the Drôme, ‘was proceeding to Muscat to make final arrangements for the coal shed’ and visit ‘Sur to examine the flag situation’.71 In Oman, Faysal refused to hand back to the French protégés their papers when asked by Ottavi and Martel, the lieutenant commander of the Drôme. In Sur, the French naval demonstration of power managed to convince two French dhow owners to take back their papers and status. In December 1900, the French cruiser, the Catinat sailed to Muscat like the Drôme before her. In the eyes of the British, this was ‘to intimidating the Sultan into returning to the dhow owners the titres already surrendered’.72 Cox reported that Kiesel, the Commander of the Catinat, had stopped in Sur on his way to Muscat. There, ‘Kiesel had told Suri flag holders that they would be able to keep their papers owing to an agreement between the French and the Sultan’.73 Both France and Britain made a demonstration of their naval power to win the dhow community of Sur and integrate her into their respective imperial sphere. Between 1901 and 1903, this question came temporarily to a standstill and tensions eased. This not only coincided with the arrival of Lord Lansdowne at the Foreign Office as well as the departure of Ottavi from Muscat but also with the shaping of a long awaited Anglo-French diplomatic rapprochement famously known as the ‘Entente Cordiale’.74 In April 1901, Cox’s idea that the Sultan should issue a new edict forbidding his subjects to adopt foreign flags was rejected by Lord Lansdowne. According to the American historian of the Persian Gulf Briton Cooper Busch, this status quo was based upon the British assumption that ‘France would agree that her protection papers did not entitle holders to special treatment in Oman waters and territory’.75 This hope was confirmed by the official exchange of the British and the French Consuls in Oman.76 The French Consul stressed that ‘neither I nor Commander Kiesel intends to subjugate the subjects of Oman to French jurisdiction; we simply claim the right, which was bestowed to us by the Brussels Act, to control and

The Hague international arbitration 183 police the dhows carrying our flag’.77 Furthermore, the Sultan of Oman, Faysal, had earlier promised – on 24 November 1900 – not to ‘molest any French protégés in the future’; or so reported the French authorities.78 Still, this status quo was quickly shattered when one new incident involving French protégés broke out at the beginning of spring 1903. Surprisingly enough, it was not at all related to any slave trafficking under the French flag.

8.3 Flags of convenience: anti-slavery, international law, and imperial rule At the beginning of April 1903, five men, ‘all natives and residents of Sur’, were arrested by the Royal Navy and sent to prison for 3 months by the Sultan because they had broken the quarantine laws set in Muscat under British supervision.79 In accordance with quarantine regulations, the Navy had the right ‘to regulate arrivals and departures and to inspect all ships’. However, ‘quarantine was poorly regarded by the Arabs seafarers and evasions … frequent’.80 These measures meant to tackle a cholera epidemic that had broken out in Muscat in 1900 extended the scope of the navy’s rights of visit and seizure in the Gulf of Oman. As Valeska Huber demonstrated for the Red Sea, these sanitary measures were a form of political control and domination imposed on the mobilities of local populations by Colonial powers.81 In 1903, the arrest of five Suri men for breaking quarantine laws could have gone unnoticed if three of them had not been ‘French protégés’.82 Dorville, the acting French Consul at the time, protested immediately against the fact that these men had been arrested and detained by the Royal Navy instead of being handed over to him in virtue of their status. Even if the French Consul acknowledged that these men ‘had contravened the Quarantine Regulations’, he requested their release in order to place them under French jurisdiction as capitulation laws requested.83 The confrontation between France and Britain through the proxy of Oman’s Sultan was once more looming. Tensions quickly escalated when the French vessel, the Infernet entered Muscat bay on 18 May. The vessel’s commander, Forestier, requested the immediate release of the French protégés and demanded to meet the Sultan at once. All military options, including a bombardment of Oman’s capital, were considered by Forestier to meet France’s demands.84 For a week the Infernet threateningly faced H.M.S. Perseus, Naïad, and Pomona, three vessels-of-war belonging to the British Persian Gulf squadron.85 When he finally met the Sultan, Forestier was told that the protégés could not be released.86 Events in Muscat transformed a trivial incident into an explosive situation. Thanks to the numerous exchanges between Cambon and Lansdowne, an agreement was quickly found on 25 May 1903. The document, signed by the British and the French governments, specified that the question of French protection

184  International law and humanitarian operations and of French flags granted to Omani subjects would be submitted to the arbitration of The Hague international tribunal in order to avoid further conflicts.87 On 28 May, the three ‘French protégés’ were, at last, released and boarded a dhow for Sur. In the age of empires, as Mary D. Lewis showed, ‘local disputes … had the power to both reveal and exacerbate divisions between European states’.88 Tensions had ultimately eased mainly as both countries engaged the most important diplomatic rapprochement of their history.89 King Edward VII had made his visit to Paris between 1 and 4 May 1903 and his trip was celebrated as the greatest state visits of a British king in France. The King had taken the final and most important steps towards the Entente-Cordiale which was signed on 8 April 1904.90 Both the visit and the treaty were a watershed in the history of Anglo-French diplomacy and international relations.91 If it is well established that major colonial questions, such as the British occupation Egypt or the French subjugation of Morocco, were at the heart of these historic negotiations, less is known on the role played by the Muscat dhows case.92 Because of the Entente Cordiale, the colonial confrontation in Muscat was in fact transformed into a legal dispute through the conciliation of The Hague PCA. The Entente Cordiale perfectly fitted into the new ideal of perpetual peace promoted in Europe by this Court and the two Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907.93 The Muscat Dhows Case could not have been settled by the PCA if the Entente Cordiale had not been signed in 1904. The two countries’ delegations, along with the two arbiters and the umpire, met at The Hague and officially debated the case for 4 days, respectively on 25 July and between 1 and 3 August 1905.94 Melville W. Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States of America represented Britain while Jonkheer A. F. De Savornin Lohman, former Minister of the Interior in the Netherlands and professor of Law, represented France. H. Lammasch, professor of law at the University of Vienna and member of the Austrian Parliament, was chosen by the King of Italy as umpire since the two arbiters had failed to agree on a name in due time.95 The award issued in August 1905 by the Court was quite a subtle and complex compromise. The award answered two questions. Firstly, it examined whether France had the right to grant her flag to the subjects of the Sultan of Oman. Secondly, it looked at the lawfulness of the protection granted by France to the dhow captains and crews and their families. Regarding the first question, the award established that any country could choose to grant its flag – following his own regulations – to anyone, only if no other treaties limited that right. Hence, it was declared by the Court that ‘generally speaking it belongs to every Sovereign to decide to whom he will accord the right to fly his flag and to prescribe the rules governing such grants’.96 So doing, the Court reaffirmed the importance of state sovereignty in international relations. This clear and simple principle was to remain the most influential part of the award as far as international law is concerned.

The Hague international arbitration 185 Rodney Carlisle stressed that this, ‘forms the basis of international law for the later practice that continues today of registry of ships under flags of convenience, ranging from Panama and Liberia to those of Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands’.97 To a certain extent, this made Britain the victor of the award. Britain protected her own right to grant her flag to her subjects in the British Empire. Beyond the Indian Ocean, Britain protected her own colonial fleet of merchant’s vessels. The award, for instance, protected the rights of British Indians flying the Union-Jack on their dhows in Zanzibar or Oman. According to the 1905 Lloyd’s Register, Britain had in her colonies 2,01798 sailing vessels flying the Union Jack. Most of them were built, owned and manned by native subjects of Her Majesty the Queen throughout the empire. It was crucial that the award did not jeopardize their rights and, consequently, British colonial trade. It is worth mentioning that flags of convenience had already been at the heart of a major international crisis by the middle of the nineteenth century. Only this time it was a British flag which had been at the centre of a major casus belli. In 1856, the Chinese customs officers in the port of Guangzhou boarded a vessel known as the Arrow and arrested its crew. The Arrow was a smuggler and a pirate ship legally flying the British flag. It had been registered in Hong Kong, then a British colony. The Arrow had been built in China and was owned by a Chinese subject. This sailing vessel also looked typically Chinese much like its crew, apart from a young Irish captain used as a decoy. The Arrow’s registration papers had expired and, in the eyes of Chinese imperial authorities anyway, this vessel and its crew could only be considered British by a fool. To them, much like British diplomats or navy officers looking at Indian Ocean dhows flying the French flag, the Arrow was nothing but a native vessel usurping a European flag. The alleged illegal boarding and seizure of the Arrow, as well as the imprisonment of its crew, was eventually exploited by the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston as a casus belli to ‘justify’ the launching of the second Opium War also known as the Arrow War (1856–1860). Like the Arrow in the South Chinese Sea, dhows flying the French flag in Oman’s waters were raising important issues for international relations. Dhows questioned the legality of the right of visit, the flags of convenience as well as the judicial protection given to native sailors, captains, and owners flying European colours. In a context of imperial tensions, these questions could serve as a pretext for war. While preserving British rights to grant her flag throughout her empire, the award also limited France’s ability to grant her flag in the Western Indian Ocean. This was a triumph in the eyes of the British government who had long accused France to foster the slave trade under her tricolour. Sovereignty, after all, had limits and they were to be found international law. The Hague’s Court stated that ‘a Sovereign may be limited by treaties in the exercise of this right’ and then proclaimed that ‘before the 2nd of January 1892 [the date at which the Brussels Act came into force] France was entitled to authorise vessels belonging to subjects of His Highness

186  International law and humanitarian operations the Sultan of Muscat to fly the French flag, only bound by her own legislation and administrative rules’, whereas ‘after January 2, 1892 France was not entitled to authorise vessels belonging to subjects of His Highness the Sultan of Muscat to fly the French flag, except on condition that their owners or fitters-out had established or should establish that they had been considered and treated by France as her “protégés” before the year 1863; [when a treaty restricting immunities and privileges in capitulation laws was issued in the Ottoman empire as well as Morocco]’.99 In short, this decision meant that dhows which had obtained papers and flags before 1892 could legally keep them. On 2 January 1892 France had in fact ratified the Brussels Act and, accordingly, accepted, through its article XXXII, to limit the possibility of issuing her flags to ‘indigenous vessels’ in the Indian Ocean. The treaty legally restricted her sovereign powers as far as flags of convenience were concerned. This decision dramatically reduced at once the number of dhows which could keep the French tricolour. Issued by the French Consul in Oman in 1904, a list stated that four dhows had been registered before 1892 in Obock, seven in Comoros, and seven as well in Nossi-Bé.100 This formed a total of only 18 dhows compared with the 56 which had officially been presented to Oman’s Sultan and The Hague’s Court.101 Additionally, the Court decided that ‘the authorisation to fly the French flag cannot be transmitted or transferred to any other person or to any other dhow, even if belonging to the same owner’.102 This meant that dhow owners or captains could not inherit French papers or flags from their fathers as they used to. It also established that when a dhow was old and unseaworthy or just sank, the right to fly the French flag would end with the vessel’s life. Accordingly, the Sultan made a proclamation in January 1908 to forbid the transmission of French flags and papers. Gradually, French flags disappeared either with the dhows or their owners themselves. In 1907, Laronce, still French Consul in Oman, could only count 13 owners with 33 dhows legally flying French flags compared with the 26 owners and their 56 dhows of 1904.103 Britain had reduced France’s interference into her colonial sphere in Oman. Regarding the question of French protection, the award cleverly protected the vessel at sea from the British right of visit whether in Oman’s territorial waters or on high seas. This constituted a victory for France and made the award acceptable despite Britain’s gains. What France considered as the sacred inviolability of the vessels flying her flag was preserved by the decision of the Court. France’s national prestige and sovereignty had been saved. It was decided that ‘dhows of Muscat authorised as aforesaid to fly the French flag are entitled in the territorial waters of Muscat to the inviolability provided by the French-Muscat Treaty of November 17, 1844’.104 In the meantime however, dhow owners, crews, and families lost their French protection because ‘the withdrawal of these persons from the sovereignty, especially from the jurisdiction of His Highness the Sultan of Muscat would be in contradiction with the Declaration of March 10, 1862, by which France and Great Britain engaged themselves reciprocally

The Hague international arbitration 187 to respect the independence of this Prince’.105 As a result, the award announced that ‘subjects of the Sultan of Muscat, who are owners or masters of dhows authorised to fly the French flag or who are members of the crews of such vessels or who belong to their families, do not enjoy in consequence of that fact any right of ex-territoriality, which could exempt them from the sovereignty, especially from the jurisdiction of His Highness the Sultan of Muscat’.106 The decision certainly contributed to make the French flag less attractive in the eyes of the Omani tribes wishing to evade and defy the Sultan’s authority or the British navy. It certainly helped to bring on the decrease of the French flag in these waters even though it still protected those flying the tricolour from the British right of visit at sea. Hence, The Hague’s award had skilfully written down the final chapter of the Anglo-French imperial rivalry focusing on the right of visit and the French flag. Following Charles Brunet-Millon’s words, we can certainly claim that the 1903 crisis, along with the 1905 award, constituted ‘the latest manifestation of the age-old rivalry between France and England in the Indian Ocean’.107 Tensions over dhows flying the French flag had reached their conclusion. The crisis ingredients had a lot in common with what had so often taken place in Zanzibar between 1860 and 1900. The right of visit and French flags had, in a context of high imperial rivalry, questioned the Sultan’s sovereignty and independence. Both jeopardized the limits of French and British imperial realm in the Indian Ocean. If ingredients looked alike, the scale and the nature of the problem were however quite different this time. First, the slave trade under the French flag did not play any part in the final stage of the crisis. Secondly, the problem took the two countries on the verge of a direct naval confrontation whereas it had never been the case before. Finally, tensions eased as quickly as they had escalated because political leaders at the highest level had decided that this should be resolved through international law. The question of dhows flying the French flag had been more or less settled because higher political interests were at stake in Europe. Dhows could not be the pretext of imperial rivalry anymore even though tensions over arms and slaves trafficking under the French flag persisted in the Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea until the late 1930s.108 France and Britain had decided to ease their imperial tensions and start a new chapter in their diplomatic relations. After the Great War, it definitely felt as if frictions due to colonial rivalries and anti-slavery belonged to a bygone age. The Muscat Dhows Case highlights how shifting and complex the relationship between imperial and humanitarian matters was at the twilight of the nineteenth century. A point over which the next and last chapter of this book will finally dwell upon.

Acknowledgements Parts of this chapter were published in an earlier form in ‘Le blocus de Zanzibar 1888–1889: entre “intervention d’humanité”, colonisation et droit international’. Outre-Mers, no. 402–403 (2019): 107–126, and ‘The French

188  International law and humanitarian operations Flag in Zanzibar Waters 1860s–1900s: Abolition and Imperial Rivalry in the Western Indian Ocean’. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, (2020) DOI: 10.1080/03086534.2020.1783115.

Notes 1 George H. Aldrich and Christine M. Chinkin “Introduction to the Symposium on The Hague Peace Conferences”, The American Journal of International Law, vol. 94, no. 1 (2000): 1–3. The first international peace conference of 1899 was convened by Tsar Nicholas II for the limitation of armed forces and the reduction of armaments as well as a better implementation of the principles of the 1864 Geneva Convention. 2 Rodney Carlisle, “The Muscat Dhows Case in Historical Perspective”, The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord, vol. 24, no.1 (January 2014): 31; William Mulligan “Justifying international action International law, The Hague and diplomacy before 1914” in War, Peace and International Order? The Legacies of the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, ed. Maartje Abbenhuis, Christopher Ernest Barber, Annalise R. Higgins (London, Routledge, 2017), Ch1, Kindle. 3 Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001) 284–292. 4 Guillemette Crouzet, Genèses du « Moyen-Orient » Les Britanniques dans le Golfe Arabo-Persique c. 1800 – c. 1914, thèse de doctorat, Paris-Sorbonne, 2014; Genèses du Moyen-Orient : le Golfe Persique à l’Age des Impérialismes (Ceyzérieu: Champ Vallon, 2015); ‘’Boutres tricolores, boutres de discorde. Britanniques et Français en Oman et dans le nord de l’océan Indien à la fin du XIXe siècle’’, Revue d’Histoire Maritime, no. 21 (2016): 407–434.  5 Crouzet, Genèses du « Moyen-Orient », 872. 6 Briton Cooper Bush, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1894–1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 179. 7 William D. Brewer “Yesterday and Tomorrow in the Persian Gulf”, Middle East Journal, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring, 1969): 150–151; Bush, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 6–48; Guillemette Crouzet, “The British Empire in India, the Gulf Pearl and the making of the Middle-East”, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 55, no. 6 (2019): 6. 8 Guillemette Crouzet, “The British Empire in India”, 2. 9 Crouzet, Genèses du « Moyen-Orient », 443. 10 Matthew S. Hopper, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 142–180. 11 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 143. 12 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 143. William Mulligan, “The Fugitive Slave Circulars, 1875–76”, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 37, no. 2 (June 2009): 183–205. 13 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 143. 14 Mulligan, “The Fugitive Slave Circulars”, 183–205. 15 Ibid. As noted by Mulligan: Hampshire Telegraph, 25 March 1876; Birmingham Daily Post, 10 Jan. 1876; Saturday Review, 15 Jan. 1876; Northern Star, 20 Sept. 1875; Birmingham Daily Post, 10 Jan. 1876; Bristol Mercury, 30 Oct. 1875; Northern Star, 9 Oct. 1875; Northern Star, 1 Oct. 1875. 16 Johny Shelly, The Decline of Oman’s Maritime Empire During The Late Nineteenth Century, Phd, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2010, 140;

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Robert J. Blyth, The Empire of The Raj: Eastern Africa and The Middle East, 1858–1947 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1–11. 17 Address by Lord Lansdowne to the House of Lords, 5 May 1903, Parliamentary Debates col. 1348. Fiona Venn, “A Struggle for Supremacy? Great Britain, the United States and Kuwaiti Oil in the 1930s”, Working Paper II, Department of History, Working Paper Series, University of Essex, Colchester, 2000. 18 Guillemette Crouzet, ‘‘Un Fachoda en mer d’Oman à la veille de l’Entente cordiale? L’affaire du dépôt de charbon (1898–1899)’’, Relations internationales, no. 166 (2016): 53–68. 19 HC Debates, 09 March 1899, vol. 68, c295. 20 Crouzet, ‘‘Un Fachoda en mer d’Oman’’, 58–59. 21 Crouzet, ‘‘Boutres tricolores, boutres de discorde’’, 55–56. 22 Crouzet, Genèses du « Moyen-Orient », 745. 23 Major Christopher G. F. Fagan was British Consul in Oman between 1897 and 1899. 24 According to the 1861 Canning Award, a subsidy of 40,000 Maria Theresa Dollars was awarded to Oman in compensation for her partition from Zanzibar. Until 1873 this subsidy was paid by the Sultanate of Zanzibar. After the 1873 treaty for the suppression of the slave trade, the Sultan of Zanzibar was relieved of his obligation to pay the subsidy and it was overtaken by the Indian Government. The Muscat subsidy was paid until 1947. Robert J. Blyth, “Redrawing the Boundary between India and Britain: The Succession Crisis at Zanzibar, 1870–1873”, The International History Review, vol. 22, no. 4 (Dec., 2000): 803. 25 Crouzet, Genèses du « Moyen-Orient », 747. Muscat Ultimatum of February 1899, IOR/R/15/1/401, 1899: Admiralty to the Commander of the East Indies Squadron, 14 February 1899. Officially the British denied that such an ultimatum had been issued and called it a memorandum. 26 The Muscat Dhows Arbitration, Counter Case On Behalf of His Britannic Majesty, IOR/R15/1406, 58. 27 Charles Brunet-Millon, Les Boutriers de la Mer des Indes (Paris: A. Pedone, 1910), 222. 28 Abdul Sheriff, Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism, Commerce and Islam (London: C. Hurst: 2010), 53. 29 ‘‘List of dhow owners supposed by French to be under their protection’’, Grant of the French Flag to Muscat Dhows, the counter-case on behalf of the Government of His Britannic Majesty, (London: Foreign Office, 1905), Appendix 12, N°2, 56. 30 Boutres Mascatais Francisés, Mémoire présenté par le Gouvernement de la République Française (Paris : Imprimerie Nationale: 1905), 6 ; Le Marquis de Salisbury au Comte de Lytton, 29 Octobre 1888, MAE, CADC, 180 CP COM/51, 187. 31 Memorandum by Captain P. Z. Cox, 26 November 1901, ‘‘Muscat Slave Trade under cover of French Flag’’ IOR/R/15/1/552. 32 Le Comte de Kimberley au Marquis de Dufferin, 9 Février 1895, MAE, CADC, 180 CP COM/51,195. 33 “List of dhow owners supposed by French to be under their protection”, Grant of the French Flag to Muscat Dhows, Appendix 12, N°2, 56.. 34 Lee Warner to Fagan, (?) March 1898, FI 458/98. Bush, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 64. 35 Hopper, Slaves of one master, 155. 36 MAE, CADN, 748 PO/A132 and MAE, CADN, 748 PO/A111. 37 MAE, CADC, 180 CP COM 44/P191, 77–83, 88–92, 95–124. 38 MAE, CADC, 180 CP COM 45/P191, 86–94.

190  International law and humanitarian operations 39 MAE, CADC, 180 CP COM 46/P 192, 73, 113. 40 MAE, CADN, 748 PO/A132; 180 CP COM 44, 197. 41 Lieutenant-Colonel Playfair to Earl Russel, 20 September 1863, HCPP 1864 (3339-I), N°82, 75. 42 M. Jablonski to Lieutenant-Colonel Playfair, 15 September 1863, Inclosure 6 in N°82, 78. 43 Mary Dewhurst Lewis, Divided rule: sovereignty and empire in French Tunisia, 1881–1938 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 28–60. 44 Brunet-Millon, Les Boutriers Français, 249  45 Ibid. 46 Article 4 of the 1844 treaty of friendship and commerce between Oman and France stated that ‘subjects of H. M. the Sultan of Muscat who will be at the service of French people, will enjoy the same protection as the French people themselves’. 47 Boutres Mascatais Francisés, 17. Traité d’amitié et de commerce conclu à Zanzibar le 17 Novembre 1844 entre la France et les Etats de Mascate in Recueil des traités de la France, dir. Jules de Clerq, volume 5 : 1840–1844, (Paris: G Pedone, 1880), 259–264. 48 Abdul Sheriff, Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean (London: C. Hurst, 2010), 57. 49 Fahad Ahmad Bishara, ‘‘mapping the Indian Ocean World of Gulf Merchants, c. 1870–1960’’ in The Indian Ocean: Oceanic Connection and the Creation of New Societies, ed. Abdul Sheriff and Engseng Ho (London: C. Hurst, 2014), 69–93. 50 Lewis, Divided rule, 6. 51 Salahi R. Sonyel, “The Protégé System in the Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Islamic Studies vol. 2, no. 1 (1991): 56– 66. 52 Michel Erpelding, ‘‘La notion de civilisation dans la pratique conventionnelle des états au XIX et XXème siècles’’, Droits, no. 66 (2017): 45. 53 Lewis, Divided rule, 23. 54 Lewis, Divided rule, 3. 55 Bush, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 169. 56 Bush, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 185. 57 Lewis, Divided rule, 24. 58 Boutres Mascatais Francisés, 40–42. ‘‘Muscat Dhows Arbitration. In the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Grant of the French Flag to Muscat Dhows. The case on behalf of the Government of His Britannic Majesty’’. IOR/R15/1406, 15–18. 59 Boutres Mascatais Francisés, 24 ; Brunet-Millon, Les Boutriers français, 271. 60 Boutres Mascatais Francisés, 25. 61 The Muscat Dhows Arbitration, Counter Case On Behalf of His Britannic Majesty, IOR/R15/1406, 4. 62 Unknown author and date (1897?), mémoire adressé au Ministre Mae ‘réclamation au sujet de nos boutres et de nos protégés’, 180 CP COM 45/ P191, 40. 63 Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 156–157. 64 Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 158. 65 Crouzet, « Genèse du Moyen Orient », 736. 66 Boutres Mascatais Francisés, 24–25. 67 Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 159–160. See also 180 CP COM/51, 223–224. 68 Avis du Sultan de Mascate à ses sujets’, Boutres Mascatais Francisés, Annexe VII, 71. 69 Boutres Mascatais Francisés, Annexe VI, 65.

The Hague international arbitration 191 70 Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 161. Salisbury to Monson, 26 June 1900. See also ‘Muscat Dhows Arbitration’. IOR/R15/1406, 17. 71 Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 162; Crouzet, «  Genèse du Moyen Orient », 766. 72 “Muscat Dhows Arbitration”, IOR/R15/1406, 17. 73 Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 165. Cox to FSI, 15 December 1900, IOR, Home Correspondence, 1801/01. 74 Crouzet, « Genèse du Moyen Orient », 767–768 ; François Crouzet, ‘‘Entente cordiale : réalités et mythes d’un siècle de relations franco-britanniques’’, Études anglaises, vol. 57, n° 3 (2004): 310–320. 75 Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 170. 76 The case on behalf of the government of His Britannic Majesty and of His Highness the Sultan of Muscat, Archives Diplomatiques, Vol. IV, ed. Georges Fardis (Paris, 1906), 277. 77 The case on behalf of the government of His Britannic Majesty, Archives Diplomatiques, Vol. IV, 277. 78 Boutres Mascatais Francisés, 23. 79 The case on behalf of the government of His Britannic Majesty, Archives Diplomatiques, Vol. IV, 278. 80 Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 173. 81 Valeska Huber, Channelling Mobilities: Migration and Globalisation in the Suez Canal Region and Beyond, 1869–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 241–271. 82 Johan Mathew, Margins of The Market: Trafficking and Capitalism Across the Arabian Sea, (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 67. 83 The case on behalf of the government of His Britannic Majesty, Archives Diplomatiques, Vol. IV, 278. 84 Millon, Les Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, 299. 85 Millon, Les Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, 298. 86 Millon, Les Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, 300. 87 Jacques Lafon, ‘‘Pavillon tricolore et traite des noirs au pays de Sindbad’’ in Itinéraires : de l’histoire du droit à la diplomatie culturelle et à l’histoire coloniale (Paris: Editions de la Sorbonne: 2001), 44 88 Lewis, Divided Rule, 7. 89 Maurice Aguhlon, La République, Tome 1 : 1880–1932 (Paris: Fayard, 1990), 180–181. 90 Francis Neilson, “Edward VII and the Entente Cordiale”, I, The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Jul., 1957): 353–368; II, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Oct., 1957): 87–101; III, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Jan., 1958): 179–194. 91 Crouzet, ‘‘Entente cordiale’’, 310–311. 92 Crouzet, ‘‘Boutres tricolores, boutres de discorde’’. On Egypt and Morocco in the Entente Cordiale see Eugene Rogan, The Arabs A History (London: Penguin, 2009), 164–166. 93 Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, 288–289. 94 Meetings of the 25 July and of the 1, 2, 3 August (Protocols I, II, III), MAE, CADC, 180 CP COM/52, 70–169. 95 Muscat Dhows Case, France V. Britain, Award of the tribunal, Official translation, The Hague, August 8, 1905. 96 Muscat Dhows Case, 1. 97 Carlisle, “The Muscat Dhows Case in Historical Perspective”, 23–24. 98 Vessels of 100 tons and upward. See https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archivelibrary/world-fleet-statistics, year 1905. A total of 10,602 native sailing vessels flew the British flag throughout the British Empire in 1870 according to Lloyd’s.

192  International law and humanitarian operations 99 Muscat Dhows Case, 1; Muscat Dhows Case. 3–4 100 Renseignements sur la date de francisation des boutriers, MAE, CADC, 180 CP COM 51, 248- 252. 101 List of dhow owners supposed by the French to be under their protection, which was submitted to His Highness the Sultan by the French Consul at Muscat on March 25, 1905, Muscat Dhows Arbitration, Appendix 12, N°2, 56. 102 Muscat Dhows Case, 3. 103 Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 185. 104 Muscat Dhows Case, 5. 105 Muscat Dhows Case, 4. 106 Muscat Dhows Case, 5. 107 Brunet-Million, Les Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, 5 108 Colette Dubois, ‘‘Une traite tardive en mer Rouge méridionale : la route des esclaves du golfe de Tadjoura (1880–1936)’’ in Traites et esclavages en Afrique orientale et dans l’océan Indien, ed. Henri Médard et al. (Paris: Khartala, 2013), 197–222.

9

Anti-slave trade policies and the ‘Cause of Humanity’ or the shaping of a new humanitarian intervention theory in international law1

This chapter will first show that the emergence of the ‘humanitarian intervention theory’ in the second half of the nineteenth century was related to the historical movement initiated by abolitionism as argued by Fabian Klose. 2 Consequently, this chapter argues that Indian Ocean anti-slavery policies should be analysed in taking account of this broader historical perspective.3 Following again Fabian Klose as well as Lynn Hunt’s arguments, this chapter will also highlight the importance of abolitionism on the development of contemporary international law and ‘human rights’ in examining the concepts of humanity and ‘crime against humanity’ throughout the nineteenth century.4 We will show that humanitarians – among which abolitionists stood prominently – contributed to the emergence of the concept of humanity in international law as well as the popularity of ‘crime against humanity’ in the press. Anti-slavery campaigners did so to support interventions ‘in the name humanity’ before international law as well as public opinion. Without slipping into anachronism, it will be shown that ‘crime against humanity’ increasingly became popular in the press and the political arena between 1850 and 1944 in a wide different range of contexts, before finally entering international law at the Nuremberg trials. We will at last point out that a kind of ‘community of spirit’ existed between humanitarians of the late nineteenth century and twentieth century lawyers, such as Hersch Lauterpacht, who defended human rights in supporting the development of international law and humanitarian intervention. By community of spirit, we refer to the fact that some writers or artists, when facing certain dilemmas such as the defence of humanity, tend to share common inspirations and ideas thus forming a ‘community of thinking’ or a ‘galaxy of thinkers’, something quite similar to the humanists’ Republic of Letters but only across different period of times. 5 All in all, this chapter will continually demonstrate that Zanzibar contributed to placing humanitarian questions at the forefront of international relations in the second half of the nineteenth century.

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9.1 Abolitionism, anti-slavery, and ‘interventions for humanity’: Zanzibar and beyond ‘“Humanity”. Normally one uses it as a synonym for compassion; charity; decency; integrity. “He is such a human person”. Must one now go in search of an entirely different set of synonyms: cruelty; exploitation; unscrupulousness; or whatever?’6 In 1921, Ellery Cory Stowell, a famous Columbia University law professor and widely known writer on US foreign relations, published a book on the subject of intervention in international law. In this work, he dedicated an important section to what he described as ‘intervention for humanity or humanitarian intervention’.7 Unsurprisingly, he underlined the role played by British anti-slave trade policies in shaping this concept throughout the nineteenth century both in theory and practice. In the part dedicated to anti-slavery policies, he mentioned the 1888 Zanzibar blockade as a controversial but, nonetheless, interesting case (see Chapter Seven).8 Even though Stowell only mentioned briefly the 1888 blockade, this shows that anti-slavery policies related to Zanzibar inspired some reflections to major law scholars when looking at the emergence of humanitarian interventions. Stowell’s point reflects exactly what this book has so far intended to do: put the history of the repression of the slave trade in Zanzibar back into the perspective of the history of humanitarian interventions, and vice versa. Stowell, however, was not the first influential lawyer to dwell upon the concept of humanitarian intervention. Before him, Theodore D. Woolsey in the 1860s or Antoine Rougier the 1900s had used the expressions of ‘interference in the score of humanity or religion’, or, more interestingly, ‘l’intervention d’humanité’ [Humanitarian Intervention].9 Earlier in 1845, Henry Wheaton, another renowned American jurist and diplomat, justified the interference of European powers in Greece in 1827 as in the ‘interests of humanity’.10 Later in 1876, Professor Aegidius Arntz, a German scholar teaching at the University of Brussels, defended this new kind of intervention, stating that ‘when a government, although acting within its rights of sovereignty, violates the rights of humanity … the right of intervention may be lawfully be exercised’.11 Arntz’s words are particularly striking to a twentyfirst century reader because they seem to echo perfectly well the main argument in favour of humanitarian interventions today. Yet, we should be careful and not so easily slip into anachronism. Arntz’s statement is, first of all, a blow to State sovereignty and non-intervention, two principles gradually erected as sacrosanct cornerstones of international relations since the seventeenth century, a fact which became particularly pregnant after the 1945 United Nations Charter was proclaimed.12 Secondly, Arntz justified ‘the right of intervention’ on the basis of some ‘universal rights’ – ‘rights of humanity’ as he called them – whereas this expression had not any meaning in positive law yet. In fact, ‘human rights’ only became acknowledged

Anti-slave trade policies 195 as a pillar of international law after the United Nations Charter (1945) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) were adopted by the international community. Besides, Arntz’s ‘rights of humanity’ should not be mistaken with today’s ‘human rights’ even though some important similarities – in spirit but not in letter – can certainly be found. Arntz’s definition shows that a fierce debate existed over the lawfulness and legitimacy of military intervention launched in the name of ‘the rights of humanity’. Nearly 20 years before Arntz, John Stuart Mill, one of the leading economists and polemicists of his time, had also addressed this major debate of international relations in publishing a short, yet famous, essay on non-intervention.13 In this publication, Stuart Mill did not mention humanitarian intervention as a concept and stressed that non-intervention was the general principle of international relations. However, he pointed that intervention into the domestic affairs of another state could be justified, among other cases: ‘to procure the abandonment of some national crime and scandal to humanity, such as the slave trade’.14 Again, a vague universal moral principle, phrased as ‘scandal to humanity’, was used to allow intervention to lawfully breach State sovereignty. But it is important to note that John Stuart Mill probably chose the example of the slave trade to make his point since abolitionism had made it the greatest ‘scandal to humanity’ of the age.15 So had abolitionism opened a new way for intervention into the realm of international law and international relations. Since ‘humanity’ was ‘la raison d’être’ of those interventions, Edward Hall, another prominent British lawyer who published influential books on international public law, eventually coined the term of ‘humanitarian intervention’ in 1880.16 Even though Hall argued that ‘interventions which have taken place upon the real or pretended grounds of humanity and religion must be defended’, his statement shows how controversial this new theory was.17 A few decades later, in 1905, L. F. L. Oppenheim, a most respected German lawyer often described as the father of contemporary international law, continued to discuss the legitimacy of ‘intervention in the interest of humanity for the purpose of stopping religious persecutions and endless cruelties in times of peace and war’.18 Once more, ‘humanity’ – a most elusive principle of natural law that we will study in the second part of this chapter – was mobilised to justify the legitimacy and lawfulness of intervention before international law. Of course, throughout the nineteenth century, a lot of European scholars, such as August Whilem Heffer, Théophile Funck-Brentano, Albert Sorel, or Pasquale Fiore, rejected the idea that intervention could be lawfully justified by ‘inhuman acts, however condemnable they are’.19 All insisted on non-intervention and sovereignty as the sacred pillars of international relations, claiming that if these principles were not respected this would lead world affairs to chaos. As Rodogno highlighted ‘the fundamental principal of international relations [in the nineteenth century] was the principle of non-intervention, which precisely forbade interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state’.20

196  International law and humanitarian operations However, Alexis Heraclides and Ada Dialla have shown, in their comprehensive study of humanitarian intervention, that overall a majority of international law scholars supported humanitarian intervention between 1850 and 1930. 21 In 1910, Rougier, a French law professor who taught at the Universities of Caen and Lausanne, published a long essay on ‘La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité’, or ‘The Humanitarian Intervention Theory’, proving that the concept had some success among scholars.22 At the very beginning of his work, Rougier outlined that ‘the theory according to which the acts … of a government …, when contrary to the laws of humanity, give rise, for one or more foreign states, to a right to intervene … has taken, for half a century, a fairly important place in the law doctrine, even if it has yet received little political applications’.23 In short, humanitarian intervention as a concept of international law had been more a theory than a widespread practice and its legitimacy was rooted in the ‘laws of humanity’, a concept quite difficult to grasp today as we will later see. Rougier’s reflection upon ‘l’intervention d’humanité’ was mainly focused on the recent history of the Ottoman Empire or what is more commonly known as ‘the Eastern Question’. Rodogno demonstrated that the emergence of humanitarian intervention was directly linked to the issue of the protection of Christian minorities within the Ottoman Empire, a question at the heart of international relations since the Crimean War (1853–1856).24 For this reason, Rougier insisted that ‘at every moment [throughout the nineteenth century], they [European nations] had to intervene, or threatened to intervene, while was unfolding the appalling series of massacres in Greece (1826), Syria (1860), Crete (1866; 1894), Bulgaria (1876), Armenia (1896), Macedonia (1905)’.25 But Rougier did not limit his reflection to the Eastern Question showing that the debate had more global implications than the sole case of the Ottoman Empire. He also referred to the American intervention in Cuba (1898).26 He mentioned as well the 1900 international intervention led against the Boxer rebellion in China, a violent military expedition justified in proclaiming that ‘crimes against the law of nations, against the laws of humanity, and against civilisation’ had been committed.27 Finally, Rougier, like many others, looked at the repression of the slave trade as a legitimate source of humanitarian intervention pointing that ‘the great powers declared the slave trade contrary to the rights of humanity’ at the 1815 Vienna Congress.28 Even if Rougier acknowledged that ‘it [was] by the means of international agreements rather than interventions that powers ended the curse of human trafficking’, he nonetheless concluded: ‘it [did] not mean, in any way, that the independence of the slave states is absolutely inviolable and that the attacks on freedom could not trigger a legitimate intervention’.29 So had it been the case with the right of visit in Zanzibar waters as it was shown in Chapter Two. In short, Rougier and his ‘Humanitarian Intervention Theory’ mirrored perfectly well how ‘fighting the … slave trade and protecting religious minorities became the two major impulses for the emergence of a new kind

Anti-slave trade policies 197 of interventionist doctrine’ coined as humanitarian intervention.30 This new theory claimed it was not only morally but also legally just to interfere with State sovereignty in order to protect ‘the rights of humanity’ in the name of ‘the laws of humanity’. Anti-slave trade operations in Zanzibar must be appreciated in this light. In 1873, the Sultan was forced by the British consul to sign a new treaty abolishing the slave trade on the island and its African dominions in the name of new ethical norms which had emerged with abolitionism as noted in Chapter Five. This interference into the Sultanate’s sovereignty was thought to be legitimate because it allegedly defended ‘the rights and the laws of humanity’. But what did these expressions really mean at the time? Is it possible to understand them in the way contemporaries did without slipping again into the trap of anachronism?

9.2  The triumph of the laws and the rights humanity? ‘The men of Saint Domingue … do not deserve, because they lack the refinement that comes with education, to form a group separate from the rest of humanity and to be confused with the animals …’ [Toussaint Louverture, 1797].31 Following Fabian Klose and Mirjam Thulin’s works, it is now necessary to briefly clarify the terminology and explore the meaning the ‘malleable concept’ of ‘humanity’ had in international relations and European culture through the nineteenth century.32 First of all, we should, like Martti Koskenniemi, Antony Anghie, Davide Rodogno, Mark Swatek-Evenstein, or Michel Erpelding, look at the concept of ‘civilisation’ and ‘civilised nations’ from a legal point of view because it had a decisive influence on the notions of ‘humanity’, ‘laws of humanity’, ‘rights of humanity’, and humanitarian intervention.33 ‘Civilisation’ and ‘civilised nations’ actually were two key legal terms used in numerous international treaties between 1815 and 1945.34 They not only served to oppose ‘civilised nations’ to ‘uncivilised nations’ but also helped the self-proclaimed ‘civilised nations’ to impose the rest of the world their moral, legal, and religious norms among which ‘laws of humanity’ and ‘rights of humanity’ were prominent.35 According to Rodogno, ‘laws of humanity … meant the right to life, property, security, and equality before the law’.36 But, as Angie and Rodogno noted, ‘laws of humanity’ were used to exclude ‘non-civilised societies’ from international law and international relations.37 Rodogno demonstrated that the Ottoman Empire was, for instance, excluded from the ‘Family of Nations’ as a result of his alleged ‘uncivilised’ nature and showed that it was the basis upon which European powers justified humanitarian intervention into its territories.38 Koskenniemi adds that many influential nineteenth century international lawyers equally justified colonial expansion and sovereignty thanks to ‘the distinction between civilised and non-civilised communities’.39 Moreover, as Erpelding pointed, the repression of the slave

198  International law and humanitarian operations trade played a key role in this complex process.40 Starting in 1815, the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna made the slave trade a universal offense according to the law of nations in establishing that it was ‘… repugnant to the principles of humanity and universal morality’. The Act insisted this was so because ‘the public voice, in all civilised countries, calls aloud for its prompt suppression’ thus acknowledging the importance of abolitionism in this process.41 Nations who adopted anti-slavery laws and policies consequently considered themselves as ‘civilised’ by opposition to those who did not.42 The concepts of ‘civilisation’, ‘civilised’, and ‘humanity’ thus encouraged all powers to engage with the repression of the slave trade whether by the means of treaties or interventions. Thanks to the repression of the slave trade Britain could, therefore, position herself as ‘the most civilised of all nations’ because she was the undisputed leader of the abolitionist movement.43 This gave her an alleged moral superiority over her rivals and justified the use of naval power against both ‘civilised’ and ‘uncivilsed’ nations, just like in the case of France and Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean.44 However, while Britain only challenged French sovereignty in imposing the right of visit to dhows flying the French flag, she exercised a much greater degree of interference in forcing ‘the savage little state of Zanzibar’ to abandon the slave trade in 1873 as seen in Chapter Five.45 The French President, Adolphe Thiers, had himself found Britain’s demonstration of naval power lawful and legitimate. He argued that Zanzibar was not only ‘uncivilised’ but also considered the slave trade ‘contrary to the laws of humanity’ as he himself wrote to the Sultan.46 However, ‘laws of humanity’ were not only adopted by ‘the most civilised nations’ in the context of the slave trade but also during wars between European powers described as ‘civilised nations’. ‘Laws of humanity’ were designed to ‘humanising’ wars as it appeared at the second Hague Conference (1907). Humanising wars was, with anti-slavery, another major branch of humanitarian activities as it is well illustrated by the history of the Red Cross during the second half of the nineteenth century.47 In this context, the long standing debate on what was humanity and what it meant to be a part of it, took a new and decisive historical turn.48 An active minority of scholars, poets, musicians, and humanitarians described all people on earth as equally human regardless of their cultural or physical differences while arguing that one could only be a part of humanity if one acted humanly towards all human beings. To borrow Claude Levi Strauss’s words, this possibly was one of the steps which eventually led to ‘a notion of humanity encompassing without distinction of race or civilisation all the forms of the human species’.49 The abolitionist movement in Europe and the United States, as well as other powerful humanitarian organisations such as the Red Cross, contributed to portray humanity as one single family in which all humans had to be cared for. 50 Born in the eighteenth century Freemasonry also probably played a role in this movement since it professed ‘a belief in the fundamental unity of mankind’. 51 Meanwhile, major

Anti-slave trade policies 199 poets and writers, like Victor Hugo in France or William Blake in Britain, applied as well the word humanity to ‘humankind’ as a whole. 52 Hugo’s inclusive vision of humanity mirrored his commitment – and those of many other fellow philanthropists or humanitarians – to humanitarian causes such as the abolition of slavery, child labour, prostitution, or the death penalty.53 Hugo and his contemporaries acted by humanity and for humanity, ‘a feeling of goodwill toward all men’ as Diderot and D’Alembert had put it in the Encyclopédie.54 First performed in 1824, Schiller’s Ode to Joy in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony magnificently embodied this powerful vision of humanity in proclaiming: ‘You millions, I embrace you. This kiss is for all the world’.55 The nineteenth century decidedly was ‘the Age of Emotion’, as Richard J. Evans highlighted it, and humanitarianism as well as the concept of ‘humanity’ fitted perfectly its ‘Zeitgeist’ or the ‘spirit of the age’.56 According to humanitarians, one could only be human if one acted humanely towards humankind without any exception. The movement behind abolitionism and the Red Cross completely followed this almost unattainable ideal.57 In an age believing in progress, benevolence towards all men soon became a synonym of the greatest of all causes. Reflecting the spirit of the age, the French philosopher Auguste Comte had the ambition to substitute ‘la religion de l’humanité’ – the religion of humanity – to all the religions of the world.58 Like Comte, Pierre-Henri Leroux, one of the fathers of French socialism, argued that humanity was the most sacred of all human principles on earth.59 Leroux even believed that the nineteenth century was the age during which humanity would triumph. In this light, it is not surprising that Jean Jaurès, founding a newspaper for the French socialist party in 1904, called it l’Humanité.60 The word implied that the socialist party was fighting for the triumph of humanity or, in other words, the universal advancement of human welfare and mankind. This was a point quite similar to what abolitionists had advocated in pushing treaties and interventions against the slave trade across the world throughout the Victorian age. Much like Voltaire before them, abolitionists contributed to placing humanity above all other ethical references and integrated it into natural law.61 Indeed, anti-slavery campaigners had made the slogan ‘Am I not a man and a brother’ one of the most famous mottos of the century.62 For those engaged in the repression of the slave trade at sea, this new vision of humanity was not theoretical. Navy officers followed an old custom long established among seamen throughout the world: the obligation to assist or rescue those found in distress.63 Navy officers fighting the slave trade only acted for ‘humanity’ and by ‘humanity’ or ‘those duties, to which men are reciprocally obliged as men’ as the eighteenth century philosopher Emer de Vattel had put it.64 However, this did not mean that abolitionists were any ‘saints’ as the traditional historiography once wanted us to believe. Defending ‘the cause of humanity’ certainly did not prevent them to fall under the influence of the dominant racism that prevailed against Africans during the nineteenth century as we have seen with G. L. Sulivan

200  International law and humanitarian operations in Chapter Three.65 Many philanthropists, humanitarians, and freemasons did not manage to overcome this dominant aspect of their era although it clearly was in a complete contradiction with the ideal of humanity they professed.66 In fact, while a small but active minority of philanthropists and humanitarians fought, ‘in the name of humanity’, for the enhancement and the protection of the rights of all men and women without exception, a large majority rejected these conceptions. This was notably visible in the different racial theories and hierarchies, which became highly popular in the course of the century. In natural sciences and anthropology for instance, very influential scholars, like Paul Broca, George Gliddon, Arthur De Gobineau, Samuel George Morton, Josiah Nott, Armand de Quatrefage, or Robert Knox, excluded many people from ‘humanity’ in classifying them as ‘savages’ or ‘inferior races’.67 Following the infamous racial legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, this movement had fateful consequences upon world history and, above all, those men and women whose skin’s colour was labelled as black.68 Using the words of the French poetess, Andrée Chedid, one could say that ‘history’s stigma tattooed [their] memory and [their] skin’.69 But a few nineteenth century scholars, such as the Haitian scientist and diplomat Anténor Firmin, proved these theories wrong in adopting ‘a positivist scientific approach’ and establishing that ‘all men are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of colour or anatomical form’.70 Notwithstanding, these scholars were a small minority. As a result, many human beings were wrongly rejected ‘outside humanity’ by scholars who had allegedly dedicated their lives to the study of humanity.71 The development of so-called ‘racial science’ and ‘scientific racism’ throughout the nineteenth century was also accompanied by great surge of racist representations in popular culture across the globe.72 ‘Human zoos’ as well as popular shows, novels, and prints staging the alleged inferiority of ‘savage’ and ‘primitive races’ contributed to spreading strong racist stereotypes in western societies while colonial expansion experienced a new surge.73 The idea that some ‘races’ were ‘inferior’ and lacked ‘civilisation’ or ‘humanity’ was of great importance for international relations, especially when it came to define the status of nations or people as well as the way they should be treated as already pointed. Interventions against ‘civilised’ and ‘uncivilised nations’ were not set on an equal footing. For example, Britain forced Zanzibar and other West African kingdoms to abandon the slave trade – Gallinas in 1850, Dahomey and Lagos in 1852, Zanzibar in 1873 – in using military raids, naval blockades or bombardments, while, with western powers like France, she only used diplomatic pressure or the seizure and destructions of indigenous merchant vessels flying the French flag.74 In a word, the sovereignty of ‘civilised nations’ was more respected than those labelled as ‘savage’ or ‘barbaric’. Above all, it is people living in a colonial context who suffered the most from this alleged racial inferiority.

Anti-slave trade policies 201 The role played by the hierarchy of races and racist ideologies in fostering colonial violence, massacres, and genocides remain today a central issue of imperial studies.75 The impact of abolitionism on these questions is still a matter of debate because this movement did not prevent the development of racism and colonial violence throughout the nineteenth century.76 Through abolitionism and official anti-slave trade policies, the concept of humanity was in fact used to defend universal rights, such as freedom, and rescue slaves at sea. However, at the same time, it was mobilised to justify, on a moral, cultural, political, and legal point of view- the violent subjugation of nations and people through colonisation. Important European political leaders, such as the Belgian monarch Leopold II, the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the French statesman Jules Ferry, all justified colonisation of ‘inferior races’ and ‘uncivilised nations’ in using the humanitarian argument of the repression of the slave trade.77 As already noted, anti-slavery made their stand for colonial expansion lawful before international law and acceptable in the eyes of public opinion at home or abroad. At the crossroads of imperialism and humanitarianism, Zanzibar experienced and mirrored this key aspect of the period. The East African Sultanate’s history century shows how ambivalent the notion of humanity could be in the context of the repression of the slave trade. The concept was genuinely used by abolitionists to pressure reluctant governments to act against the Indian Ocean slave trade, as seen in Chapters One and Five, while during the 1888 Zanzibar blockade it was mobilised to conceal colonial repression. At the 1890 Brussels Conference, and during the 1905 Hague Arbitration, as Chapters Six and Seven have shown, ‘humanity’ was again used in the most ambivalent way. It served, at the same time, to forward both colonial and humanitarian interests in international relations. In looking at the rise of the concept of ‘crime against humanity’ through the nineteenth century, this chapter will now continue to point that the notion of humanity played an important part in the genesis of the ‘Humanitarian Intervention Theory’. A story in which Zanzibar certainly played again a non-negligible part.

9.3 Anti-slavery and ‘crime against humanity’ in the late nineteenth century: forerunners of twentieth century human rights? ‘Humanity is a casualty here’, [A French officer commenting war atrocities in Saint Domingue around 1803]78 Early in the nineteenth century, some lawyers and abolitionists were campaigning to make the slave trade an international crime according to the law of nations. Looking at the right of visit and the repression of the slave trade in 1842, Henry Wheaton, the influential American lawyer we already referred to in Chapter Four, denounced the slave trade as ‘a traffic

202  International law and humanitarian operations so justly stigmatized by every civilised and Christian powers as a crime against humanity’.79 A few years later, in 1846, many important figures of the British abolitionist movement, among which Thomas Clarkson stood prominently, launched a public campaign to protest against the import of slave grown sugar in Britain. These well-known humanitarians published a letter in The Times in which they also labelled slave trading as ‘a crime against humanity’.80 Of course, the expression had absolutely not the signification, whether, on a legal or a historical point of view, it would eventually take at the Nuremberg Trial in 1945. Once again we should be careful not to slip into anachronism so easily. Even if it is vain to trace the exact genealogy of ‘crime against humanity’, Antaki Mark and Pierre Serna have pointed that Robespierre’s speech at the Convention in 1792 might have been one of the possible starting points. On this occasion, Louis XVI was described as ‘a criminal against humanity’.81 However, the signification and the impact it had at the time remain obscure. ‘Crime against humanity’ was not such a common expression in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In the British press, the expression only appears 62 times between 1798 and 1839, and 181 times between 1840 and 1849 as far as it was possible to determine thanks to the British Library Newspaper Archives.82 At that time it had no precise legal meaning yet and it was, therefore, more an eloquent moral statement than anything else. Between 1798 and 1849, ‘crime against humanity’ was used in a wide different range of contexts and pictured situations in which the most important principles of ‘the laws of humanity’ had been violated. This could refer to the violation of some key aspects of international law or point that natural law principles had been overlooked. ‘Crime against humanity’ was for instance employed to qualify ‘conspiracy and treason’ during the 1798 Irish Rebellion or to denounce the crimes of Napoleon’s realm during the 1815 Vienna Congress.83 In these two cases the expression refers to a crime against international law – treason was a crime against the State – and a crime against natural law – crimes committed against civilians. However, ‘crime against humanity’ was also mobilised to address humanitarian issues such as the dreadful consequences of evictions during the Great Famine in Ireland (1846–1852) or the ravages of alcoholism viewed by British Tea Totalers.84 In this context the expression was meant to raise the sympathy of public opinion in denouncing crimes perceived as a serious violation of natural law or morality. These few examples also show that ‘crime against humanity’ was not only mobilised to denounce slavery or the slave trade. Nevertheless, the use made by abolitionists possibly was one of the most significant if we consider the tremendous influence the movement had over public opinion in the 1830s and 1840s.85 In the second half of the nineteenth century, ‘crime against humanity’ became a more and more popular expression. Between 1850 and 1899, it appeared in 2,488 cases in the British press, approximately thirteen times more than in the first half of the century.86 Even though more newspapers

Anti-slave trade policies 203 were published during that period, it seems that ‘crime against humanity’ really gained popularity in the press, notably when dealing with the massacre of Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire. It was for example used to describe the slaughter of the Maronites in Syria and Lebanon in 1860 or the killing of Bulgarian civilians in 1876.87 In the years 1896–1897, it was also mobilised to describe the massacres preceding the genocide of the Armenians during the Great War.88 However, the expression became more and more polysemic as its popularity grew. It was for instance employed to label different sorts of ‘outrage to humanity’, such as the destruction of the ship the Brilliant during the American Civil War in 1862, the massacres committed during the repression of the Parisian Commune in 1871, or the outrageous outbreak of antisemitism during the Dreyfus Affair in 1898.89 Again, anti-slavery was far from having the monopole of the expression. The term was more and more associated with mass killings or extermination of civilians. Yet, the relatively small role played by anti-slavery in this movement does not mean that it was of no importance. This appears to be the case in the context of the East African and trans-­ Saharan slave trade in the time preceding the 1890 Brussels Conference. Sending on 10 August 1888 an official resolution of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) to the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, Charles H. Allen, head of the organisation and son of the famous Dublin abolitionist Richard Allen, solemnly asked the head of the British government to ‘unite [with all European powers] in proclaiming the slave trade a crime against humanity and a violation of the law of nations’.90 In this letter, Allen urged Britain to take the initiative to launch a new international conference on the East African and trans-Saharan slave trade – the future 1890 Brussels Conference studied in Chapter Seven. Allen and the BFASS wanted Britain and the European Concert of Nations to take the occasion of this new conference to officially declare the slave trade as ‘a crime against humanity’. Allen’s proposition was a legal revolution and could easily have been used to interfere with the sovereignty of any nations across the globe. It meant that no state or individual would be able to escape international law when engaging the nefarious traffic. Even though the concept had absolutely not the historical and legal meaning it would eventually take at the 1945 Nuremberg trials, such a proclamation, if it had been made, would have established that certain crimes – here the slave trade – would be sanctioned by international law. The expression would not just reflect a vague concept that philosophers had grounded in natural law but a precise legal concept that could be sanctioned by positive law.91 The reaction of the Foreign Office was rather cold. Salisbury replied dryly to Allen that only the suppression of domestic slavery could lead to the extinction of the slave trade in East Africa and he, instead, proposed the abolition of the legal status of slavery in Zanzibar.92 Allen and the BFASS could not be but disappointed. In times of colonial expansion and rivalry, Britain now preferred to defend the sovereignty of State whereas she had always

204  International law and humanitarian operations advocated a ban in international law against the slave trade since 1807. Had Britain changed her mind because she now feared that making the slave trade an international crime before the law of nations could lead to foreign intervention into her colonial sphere? This question cannot be so easily answered and would certainly require new and long researches in the archives. Meanwhile, Allen’s letter demonstrates that the East African slave trade and Zanzibar mattered to the making of the history of international law and international relations. With this reference to ‘crime against humanity’ in mind, some historians came to the conclusion that the anti-slave trade societies and policies undoubtedly played a key role in the history of human rights if one looked at it on the longue durée. Lynn Hunt, for instance, pointed that ‘the Universal Declaration [the 1948 United Nations Organization Universal Declaration of Human Rights] crystallized 150 years of struggle for rights’ and insisted on the prime role played by ‘the Quaker-inspired societies founded to combat the slave trade and slavery’.93 She, indeed, described the struggle against slavery as ‘an early triumph for the idea of the “rights of man” or even “human rights”’.94 Another scholar, Jenny Martinez, even went further arguing that abolitionists had laid early and important foundations for the Nuremberg trials and twentieth century international human rights law.95 These statements, of course, sparked great controversies among scholars around the world. One of them, Samuel Moyn, dismissed Hunt’s work as a ‘glaring confusions in the search for “precursors” of human rights’ and argued that they only became important in international relations after the 1970s.96 Another, Philip Alston criticized Martinez’s ‘claim that human rights discourse played a central role in motivating and framing the abolitionist movement’.97 Even though Moyn and Alston are right in pointing that twentieth century conception of human rights should not be mistaken with nineteenth century humanitarian concerns, Hunt and Martinez make a very strong point when they stress the historical importance of the anti-slavery experience for the ‘progressive institutionalization of international law’ as well as the universal recognition of some unalienable rights – freedom – and international crimes such as the slave trade.98 Of course, we can easily slip into anachronism again in creating a superficial historical continuity between nineteenth century anti-slavery and twentieth century human rights, a deadly trap which Marc Bloch wittily denounced as the ‘idols of the origins’.99 In fact, it is not enough to note the recurrence of the expressions ‘rights of humanity’, ‘cause of humanity’ or ‘crime against humanity’, in the context of anti-slavery to understand their meaning or their importance in that era as well as their future historical developments. However, as Robert Dubler and Matthew Kalyk noted ‘it would be wrong … to conclude that [“crime against humanity”] has no genealogy’ since it ‘draws heavily upon the tradition of natural law – the tradition that a sovereign is always answerable to a higher law’.100

Anti-slave trade policies 205 Nineteenth century humanitarianism – especially anti-slavery – actually mattered to twentieth century lawyers involved in the defence of human rights and international law. For them, it was both a source of reflection and inspiration. This case is best exemplified by Hersch Lauterpacht (1897–1960) who successfully proposed the United States Attorney-General Robert Jackson to make ‘crime against humanity’ enter international law at the 1945 Nuremberg trials.101 Lauterpacht had read most of the nineteenth century legal literature dealing with anti-slavery, war crimes, and the protection of minorities or individuals. As Martti Koskenniemi pointed this literature belonged to the Victorian tradition which Lauterpacht admired.102 We know as well for a fact that Lauterpacht promoted ‘the notion of international law as a whole system of law reigning over states and individuals alike’, following L. F. L. Oppenheim’s works of which he was an eminent specialist.103 Lauterpacht criticized, to take his own words, ‘the mystical sanctity of the sovereign State’ when having to sanction or prevent crimes against individuals.104 Like Hall, Arntz, Rougier, Oppenheim, and other nineteenth century lawyers mentioned earlier in this chapter, Lauterpacht defended the ‘Humanitarian Intervention Theory’ mentioned earlier. He argued that ‘if the fundamental rights of human personality [are] part of the international system … then humanitarian intervention is both a legal and a political principle of the international society’.105 In his 1945 International Bill of the Rights of Man, Lauterpacht added that ‘international law has contributed in a more direct way to the maintenance of the rights of man and the protection of his welfare by the hesitating and infrequent, but significant, practice of humanitarian intervention, such as that on behalf of the Greek people in 1827 and subsequently of the oppressed Armenians and Christians in Turkey; … by the long series of treaties of a humanitarian character, ranging from slavery conventions to the imposing structure of international legislation concluded under the aegis of the International Labour Organization’.106 Here it might be important to consider ‘the community of spirit’ or thinking which existed between Lauterpacht and most of the nineteenth century humanitarian movements – among which anti-slavery was prominent – in their effort to subdue the sovereignty of States to international law in order to protect the most fundamental rights of men and women. As humanitarians – like Lord Byron in Greece for instance – calling for intervention to prevent minorities from being slaughtered or as abolitionists pressing to rescue save slaves at sea, Lauterpacht, attacked the ‘sanctity of the sovereign State’ to promote humanitarian intervention as a mean to defend the rights of the individuals. This question had long tormented scholars. Professor Arntz had already brought up this thorny issue at the time of the ‘Bulgarian atrocities’ in 1876 when writing: ‘[What if] in the middle of Europe a petty monarch acted like a tyrant, tortured people, condemned them to the gallows, burned them in pyres for the most ridiculous offence up to the point that the smoke of their corpses would almost scorch the eyes of the neighbouring countries? Would we let him do it?’.107

206  International law and humanitarian operations In the aftermath of the Second World War Arntz’s words had taken a most terrifying meaning. The Nuremberg and the Tokyo trials finally gave an answer to this old legal, moral, and political, dilemma that the fathers of international law – Alberico Gentili (1552–1608), Francisco de Victoria (1480–1546), Hugo Grotius (1585–1645) – had all repeatedly addressed in their own times.108 Thanks to the works of the Allied Commission on the Punishment of War Crimes Criminals and the London International Conference on Military Trials – no to mention the full engagement of the US prosecutor Robert Jackson as well as his British counterpart Sir Harley Shawcross with which Lauterpacht had decisive exchanges – the article 6 of the Charter of the International Tribunal included a paragraph (c) inscribing Crimes Against Humanity in international law for the first time.109 If enforced by the international community, through the setting of ad hoc tribunals, no single state nor individual should hereafter escape international law and judgement when conducting ‘murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds’.110 In the meantime, Lauterpacht also continued to support the ‘Humanitarian Intervention Theory’ to prevent such crimes showing that in his view crime against humanity and humanitarian intervention were the two sides of the same coin.111 This is certainly a central point of international relations as it is reflected by the recurrent debates around humanitarian intervention, the right or the duty to intervene and the ‘responsibility to protect’ – R2P – since the end of the Cold War, particularly in the aftermath the genocides in Rwanda (1994) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995).112 Today, with the ongoing conflict in Syria and the numerous evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes, the launching of a humanitarian intervention remains one of the most crucial issues for the international community to deal with.113 To a certain extent, contemporary ‘crime against humanity’ and humanitarian intervention had been the tools that anti-slavery campaigners had fought for throughout the nineteenth century as this book hopes to have demonstrated. To a certain extent we can argue that there is a certain ‘community of spirit’ between twentieth century lawyers like Lauterpacht and Victorian abolitionists like Allen. Indeed, ‘crime against humanity’ had a deep historical resonance that jurists like Lauterpacht did not ignore. Reading nineteenth century lawyers as closely as he did, Lauterpacht knew very well the important contribution which anti-slavery had made to the promotion of international law. They were his forefathers in the sense that they had themselves attempted to make the slave trade enter international law as a universal crime and supported the ‘Humanitarian Intervention Theory’, in order to protect the rights of the individual. This ‘community of spirit’ was clearly acknowledged by Lauterpacht’s International Bill of the Rights of Man (1945) in which he stressed that ‘the efforts to abolish the slave trade constitute one of the most impressive humanitarian chapters in history’.114

Anti-slave trade policies 207 Of course, this does not mean that he was directly influenced in his works by the abolitionist themselves but only that the philosophy of the abolitionist movement was a source of inspiration for those like him defending human rights in the twentieth century. This nuances the view, defended by Mazlich, Moyn, Alston, and others, according to which abolitionism did not play any role at all in the historical development of contemporary international law.115 If Lauterpacht, and other lawyers like him, were influenced by the past they were also under the spell of their present – our past – when they reflected upon humanitarian intervention and crimes against humanity. In the first half of the twentieth century ‘crime against humanity’ kept gaining popularity and was used 5,296 times.116 In 1905, a British journalist denounced the Boer War (1899–1902) as ‘a crime against humanity’.117 It was also employed by E. D. Morel to denounce the ‘Congo atrocities’ at the height of the Congo Reform Movement between 1904 and 1913.118 During the Great War – when Lauterpacht was between 17 and 21 – the term reached a new peak of popularity with 1,579 occurrences.119 In 1914, a Member of Parliament, Sir Joseph Walton, ‘addressing a crowded town’s meeting … described war [WWI] as the greatest crime against humanity that the world had ever known’.120 On 11 November 1918, the British Prime Minister, David Llyod George, solemnly used the expression in a public speech to describe Germany’s responsibility in the Great War.121 By contrast, a French socialist journal dismissed, in July 1919, the Treaty of Versailles and described it as ‘a crime against humanity’.122 During the inter-war period the concept remained popular under the pen of journalists or politicians in many different kinds of situations. In 1929, ‘the horrors of gaz warfare’ were described as ‘a crime against humanity’ while peace movements in Britain mobilised the expression in 1933 to denounce the arms race between European states.123 In 1936, ‘crime against humanity’ was both employed to alert public opinion of the dangers of a new world war and to qualify Italy’s Abyssinian campaign.124 In 1937, it was employed to condemn massacres of civilians perpetrated by the Japanese troops in China.125 In 1938, it was ominously used to describe ‘the sufferings which the Jews of Germany and Austria [were] undergoing’.126 This undoubtedly must have had a great influence upon lawyers such as Lauterpacht who lived through that era. Nevertheless, if ‘crime against humanity’ was widely used by journalists and politicians alike before the Nuremberg trials, it was rarely employed in legal treaties or official declarations with the exception of the 1915 British, French, and Russian Joint Declaration denouncing the ‘Armenian massacres’ not yet acknowledged as a genocide in the sense this expression took after 1945.127 In the early 1900s, the father of international law, L. F. L. Oppenheim, preferred the expressions of ‘crimes against the law of nations’ – ‘acts of individuals against foreign States’ – or ‘International Crimes’ – ‘piracy on the high sea or the slave trade’ – to ‘crime against humanity’.128

208  International law and humanitarian operations Highlighting that ‘crime against humanity’ became a common place in the British press between the 1850s and the 1930s is an interesting historical fact only because it contrasts with the exceptional legal status that it took at the Nuremberg trials after the Jewish Genocide. Even though ‘crime against humanity’ meant to describe something that was beyond description in 1945, it drew, consciously or not, upon a long and rich tradition that had flourished throughout the nineteenth century. Anti-slave trade policies – East African ones in particular as this book pointed – show that abolitionism was among the historical forces which contributed to the popularity of ‘crime against humanity’ in the press during the Victorian age and beyond. As this chapter highlighted, the abolitionist movement also favoured the emergence of humanitarian intervention in international law and international relations. However, as we have seen, abolitionists failed to make ‘crime against humanity’ and humanitarian intervention enter international law with a precise meaning. Above all, the work of Hersch Lauterpacht stresses that a certain ‘community of spirit’ existed between nineteenth and twentieth century lawyers when it came to defending international law, the rights of the individuals, and humanitarian interventions. Above all, this shows that twentieth century scholars promoting the reign of international law and opposing ‘the sanctity of sovereignty of States’ could draw their inspiration, among other historical currents, from nineteenth century abolitionism. In fact, anti-slavery campaigners had not only argued that some crimes required that states or individuals should not escape international law. They also advocated that interventions were legal and necessary providing that the international community would earnestly enforce them without diverting them from their original aim: ‘the interests of humanity’.129

Notes 1 Fabian Klose ““A War of Justice and Humanity” Abolition and Establishing Humanity as an International Norm” in Humanity: A History of European Concepts in Practice from the Sixteenth Century to the Present, ed. Fabian Klose and Mirjam Thulin (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 171, 181. The expression refers to J. Gleave, The Triumph of Justice; or British Valour Displayed in the Cause of Humanity Being an Interesting Narrative of the Recent Expedition to Algiers (Manchester 1816) and to the “Additional Convention to the Treaty of the 22nd January 1815, between His Britannick Majesty and His Most Faithful Majesty, for the purpose of preventing their Subjects from engaging in any illicit Traffic in Slaves”, 28 July 1817, TNA, FO 84/2. 2 Fabian Klose, “The emergence of humanitarian intervention: three centuries of ‘enforcing humanity” in The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to Present, ed. Fabian Klose (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1. 3 Davide Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 1–17.

Anti-slave trade policies 209 4 Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (London, W. W. Norton, 2007), 205. Fabian Klose and Mirjam Thulin, Humanity, 9–28. 5 The concept of Republic of Letters was crafted to describe the humanists literary network during the Renaissance Age. Marc Fumaroli, La République des Lettres (Paris, Gallimard: 2015), Introduction, Kindle. In arts, painters and sculptors often formed a community of spirit across the ages in the sense they shared common spiritual inspirations or intellectual conceptions. The forms and the contents of their works nonetheless remained singular. See André Malraux, Le Musée Imaginaire, Les Voix du Silence (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), 26–32. 6 André Brink, A Dry White Season (New York: Harper, 2006), 161. 7 Ellery C. Stowell, Intervention in International Law (Washington: John Byrne, 1921), 51, 195–215; Daniel Marc Segesser “Humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty” in The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention Ideas and Practice, 56–72. 8 Stowell, Intervention in International Law, 203. 9 Theodore D. Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of International Law (New York: Charles Scribner, 1864), 73; Antoine Rougier, La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité (Paris: A. Pedone, 1910), 52. 10 Henry Weathon, History of the Law of Nations (New York: Gould, Banks & Co, 1845), 561. 11 G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, ‘‘Note sur la théorie du droit d’intervention’’, Revue de Droit International, vol.8 (1876): 675; Stowell, Intervention in International Law, 53; Alexis Heraclides and Ada Dialla, Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century Setting the Precedent (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2015), 57–81. 12 Dominique Gaurier, Histoire du Droit International, Auteurs, Doctrines et Développement de l’Antiquité à l’Aube de la Période Contemporaine (Rennes: Presse Universitaire de Rennes, 2005), 272–310. United Nations Charter Article 2. 1, Accessed July, 4, 2015, https://www.un.org/en/sections/ un-charter/un-charter-full-text/index.html.The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members. 13 Beate Jahn, “Barbarian Thoughts: Imperialism in the Philosophy of John Stuart Mill”, Review of International Studies, vol. 31, no. 3 (Jul., 2005): 599–618; Michael W. Doyle, “A Few Words on Mill, Walzer, and Non- intervention”, Ethics & International Affairs, vol. 23, no. 4 (2009): 349–369. 14 John Stuart Mill, A few word on non-intervention, Foreign Policy Perspectives no. 8, 2. http://www.libertarian.co.uk/, Accessed July, 3, 2016. (first appeared in Fraser’s Magazine in 1859). 15 Olivier Grenouilleau, Qu’est-ce que l’Esclavage Une Histoire Globale (Paris: Gallimard, 2014), 35. 16 Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 24; William Edward Hall, International Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880), 247. 17 William Edward Hall, Treatise on International Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 3rd edition, 1890), 286. 18 Lassa Francis Laurence Oppenheim, International Law A Treatise (New York: Longmans & Co, 1905), 186. 19 A quote from Paul Pradier-Fodéré (Traité de Droit International Public Européen et Américain) in Daniel Marc Segesser “Humanitarian intervention”, 70. 20 Rodogno, Against Massacre, 21. 21 Heraclides and Dialla, Humanitarian Intervention, 57–73.

210  International law and humanitarian operations 22 The expression had a relatively small success in the British press between 1850 and 1900 according to British Library Newspaper Archives. It was only used nineteent times, mainly between 1890 and 1899. Accessed March, 3, 2020, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/. 23 Rougier, La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité, 5. 24 Rodogno, Against Massacre, 1–17; Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empire in World History, Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 338–341. 25 Rougier, La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité, 6. 26 Rougier, La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité, 13. 27 Rougier, La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité, 7. “Joint Note Signed by the Diplomatic Representatives at Peking of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Spain, The United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, and Russia, Embodying Conditions for Reestablishment of Normal Relations with China”, The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 4, No. 4, (1910): 300–303. 28 Rougier, La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité, 55. 29 Rougier, La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité, 55–56. 30 Fabian Klose, “The emergence of humanitarian intervention: three centuries of ‘enforcing humanity” in The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention, 1. 31 Toussaint Louverture, ‘‘Réfutation de quelques assertions d’un discours prononcé par au Corps Législatif le 10 Prairial an cinq [Paris 1797]’’, in The Haitian Revolution A Documentary History, ed. David Geggus (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2014), Ch. 8, doc. 63, Kindle. 32 Klose and Thulin, Humanity A History of European Concepts, 13. Catherine Le Bris, ‘’Esquisse de l’humanité juridique. L’humanité juridique d’une sphère infinie dont le centre est partout, la circonférence nulle part’’, Revue interdisciplinaire d’étude juridique, no.2 (2012): 8. 33 Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations : The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 127–132; Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 52–65; Mark Swatek-Evenstein, A History of Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), Ch.1, Kindle. 34 Michel Erpelding, ‘‘La notion de la civilisation dans la pratique conventionnelle entre Etats au XIXe et au XXe siècles’’, Droits, no. 66 (2017): 37–55. 35 Koskenniemi, The gentle Civilizer of Nations, 127–128. Rodogno, Against Massacre, 55. 36 Rodogno, Against Massacre, 55. 37 Angie, Imperialism, 37–53. 38 Rodogno, Against Massacre, 1–17 39 Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, 126. 40 Michel Erpelding, Le Droit International Antiesclavagiste des « Nations Civilisées » 1815–1945 (Paris: Fondation Varenne, 2017), 581–598. 41 Act of the Congress of Vienna, signed between Austria, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Russia and Sweden, 9 June 1815. https://opil. ouplaw.com /view/10.1093/law:oht/law-oht- 64-CTS - 453.regGroup.1/ law-oht-64-CTS-453. 42 Erpelding, Le Droit International Antiesclavagiste, 152–165. 43 Padraic X. Scanlan, Freedom’s Debtors : British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 2. 44 Fabian Klose, “Enforcing Abolition: The Entanglement of Civil Society Action, Humanitarian Norm-Setting, and Military Intervention” in The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas and Practice, 91–94.

Anti-slave trade policies 211 45 Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 17 June, 1873. 46 Lettre du Président de la République Française au Sultan de Zanzibar, 12 Janvier 1873, MAE CADC, P18465, 1870–1876, 167. 47 Catherine Le Bris, ‘‘Esquisse de l’humanité juridique’’, 24 ; ‘‘L’humanité juridique, une sphère infinie dont le centre est partout, la circonférence nulle part’’, Revue interdisciplinaire d’études juridiques, vol. 69, no.2 (2012), 1–50. Robin Coupland, “Humanity: What is it and how does it influence international law?”, IRRC, vol. 83, no. 844 (December 2001): 969. Declaration Renouncing the Use, in Time of War, of Explosive Projectiles Under 400 Grammes Weight. Saint Petersburg, 29 November-11 December 1868: ‘employment of such arms would, therefore, be contrary to the laws of humanity’. 48 Klose and Thulin, Humanity A History of European Concepts, 9–27. One the greatest example of this debate was the Valladolid controversy (1550–1551). See Nestor Capdevila, La Controverse entre Las Casas et Sepulveda : Précédé de Impérialisme, Empire et Destruction (Paris: Librairie Philosophique Vrin, 2007) 21–33. Sam McFarland, ‘‘The Slow Creation of Humanity’’, Political Psychology, vol. 32, no. 1 (February 2011), 1–20. 49 Claude Levi Strauss, Race et Histoire (Paris: Denoël, 1952, réédition 1987), 20. 50 Seymour Drescher “The Ending of the Slave Trade and the Evolution of European Scientific Racism”, Social Science History, vol. 14, no. 3 (Autumn, 1990): 415–450. 51 Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire: Freemasons and British imperialism, 1717–1927 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), Ch.2, Kindle; Ramsay’s Oration of 1737: ‘The world is nothing but a huge republic, of which every nation is a family, every individual a child’ in Robert Freke Gould, The history of freemasonry, Vol. 3 (Edinburg: Jack, 1886), 11. 52 Victor Hugo, La Légende des Siècles (1859), William Blake, The Complete Poems (London: Penguin books, 2004), 418. Vala or the Four Zoas [Night the Eigth]: ‘… But [All] thou O Universal Humanity who is One Man blessed for Ever … .’ (Paris, Gallimard, 1968), 15: ‘exprimer l’humanité dans une espèce d’œuvre cyclique … sous tous ses aspects’.  53 Victor Hugo, Œuvres Complètes  : Politique (Paris, Robert Laffont, 1985): ‘‘Plaidoyer contre la peine de mort’’ 15 septembre 1848 ; ‘‘Discours contre le travail des enfants’’, 15 Janvier 1850 ; ‘‘Lettre contre l’esclavage’’, 2 Décembre 1859. 54 Klose and Thulin, Humanity A History of European Concepts, 14. 55 Friedrich Schiller, Ode to Joy, (1785) in Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, (1822–1824), Berliner Philarmoniker, Ferenc Fricsay, (Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon Classic, 1958), 15. 56 Richard J. Evans, The Pursuit of Power Europe 1815–1914 (London: Penguin, 2017), 444–536; Monika Krause, ‘‘What is Zeigeist? Examining period-specific cultural patterns’’, Poetics, Vol. 76 (October 2019): https://doi. org/10.1016/j.poetic.2019.02.003; Theo Jung, ‘‘The Politics of Time: "Zeitgeist" in Early Nineteenth-Century Political Discourse’’, Contributions to the History of Concepts, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Summer 2014): 24-49. 57 Michael N. Barnett, Empire of Humanity : A History of Humanitarianism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), 49–96. 58 Andrew Wernick, Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001), 2–21. 59 François Jarrige, ‘‘1840 Année utopique’’ in Histoire Mondiale de la France, ed. Pierre Boucheron (Paris: Perrin, 2017), Kindle; Pierre-Henri Leroux, De l’humanité, Tome 1, (Paris: Perrotin, 1845), v-viii. 60 Claude Bellanger, Jacques Godechot, Pierre Guiral, Fernand Terrou, Histoire Générale de la Presse Française, Tome III : De 1871 à 1940, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972), 375.

212  International law and humanitarian operations 61 Cesare Beccaria, Des Délits et des Peines (Paris: Dalibon, 1821), 213–216. 62 Drescher “The Ending of the Slave Trade and the Evolution of European Scientific Racism”, 417–418. 63 A point today acknowledged by the article 98 of the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, although not yet implemented as it was estimated by U.N. officials that more than 10,000 refugees died while crossing the Mediterranean between 2014 and 2019. Irini Papanicolopulu, ‘‘The duty to rescue at sea, in peacetime and in war: A general overview’’, International Review of the Red Cross 98, no.2 (2016): 491–514. 64 Klose and Thulin, Humanity A History of European Concepts, 14. 65 Hopper, Slaves of One Master, 167. 66 Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire, Ch. 2 Kindle. 67 Some of these authors ‘were curiously generally in favour of the abolition of the slave trade and slavery’. Bethencourt, “Humankind From Division to Recomposition” in Humanity A History of European Concepts, 43; Nell Irving Painter, The History of the White People (New York: Norton and Norton, 2010), ), 219–228. 68 Grenouilleau, Qu’est-ce que l’Esclavage, 248; Aurelia Michel, Un Monde en Nègre et Blanc Enquête Historique sur l’Ordre Racial (Paris: Seuil, 2020), 109–163. 69 Andrée Chedid, Rythmes (Paris: Gallimard, 2018), 1. Rythmes, Kindle: ‘les stigmates de l’histoire tatouèrent sa [l’homme] mémoire et sa peau’. 70 Carolyn Fluehr-Lobann, “Anténor Firmin: Haitian Pioneer of Anthropology”, American Anthropologist, vol. 102, no. 3 (September 2000): 449; Anténor Firmin, De l’égalité des races humaines anthropologie positive (Paris, F. Pichon 1885). 71 Strauss, Race et Histoire, 20. 72 George W. Stocking, Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (New York: Free Press, 1968); Alice L. Conklin, In the Museum of Man: Race, Anthropology, and Empire in France, 1850–1950 (London: Cornwell University Press: 2013), 12–13. 73 Drescher “The Ending of the Slave Trade and the Evolution of European Scientific Racism”, 418; Francisco Bethencourt, “Humankind From Division to Recomposition”, 45–47; Conklin, In the Museum of Man, 1–57; Nicolas Bancel, ‘‘Et la race devint spectacle. Généalogies du zoo humain en Europe et aux États-Unis (1842–1913)’’ in L’Invention de la race. Des représentations scientifiques aux exhibitions populaires, ed. Nicolas Bancel, Thomas David, Dominic Thomas (Paris: La Découverte, 2014), 330. 74 Robin Law “Abolition and imperialism, International Law and the British Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade” in Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa and the Atlantic, ed. Derek R. Peterson (Ohio University Press: Athens, 2010) 150–174; Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain, (Cornell University Press: London, 2012), 134–146. 75 Robert Gerwarth and Stephan Malinowski, “Hannah Arendt’s Ghosts: Reflections on the Disputable Path from Windhoek to Auschwitz”, Central European History, vol. 42, no.2 (2009), 279–300; Richard Groot, “shoot them to be sure” in The New Imperial Histories Reader, ed. Stephen Howe (London: Routledge, 2010), 107–113; Philip Dwyer, Amanda Nettelbeck eds, Violence Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 1–24; Dierk Walter, Colonial Violence: European Empires and the Use of Force (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016), Ch.3, Kindle.

Anti-slave trade policies 213 76 Mairi S. Macdonald, “Lord Vivian’s Tears” in The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas and Practice, 120–140. 77 Leopold II, Discours d’ouverture de la Conférence de Bruxelles, 12 Septembre 1876, ‘’F. C. Conférence de Bruxelles en vue de l’exploration et de la civilisation de l’Afrique centrale’’, Le Globe Revue genevoise de géographie, tome 16, (1877): 38–65. Otto Von Bismarck, ‘‘Discours d’ouverture de la Conférence de Berlin’’, 15 Novembre 1884. Allocution de Jules Ferry, Journal Officiel, Séance du 28 juillet 1885. 78 Memoir by Jean Pierre Bechaud [French Officer during Saint Domingue’s war of independence, 1802–1803] in The Haitian Revolution, Ch. 9, doc. 79, Kindle 79 Fabian Klose ““A War of Justice and Humanity” in Humanity, 184. Henry Wheaton, A Right of Visitation and Search (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1842), 4; Elements of International Law With a Sketch of the History of the Science (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1836), 114. In French the expression « crime de lèse-humanité » was used in the 1794 decree abolishing slavery in the French Colonies. See Pierre Serna ‘‘Que s’est-il dit à la Convention les 15, 16 et 17 pluviôse an II? Ou lorsque la naissance de la citoyenneté universelle provoque l’invention du « crime de lèse-humanité »’’, La Révolution française, 7, 2014, 1–28. The same term was again used to denounce the Dreyfus Affair. See Emile Zola, « J’accuse ! », L’Aurore, 13 Janvier 1898. 80 Thomas Clarkson et al., The Times, 20 July 1846, 6, col.e; Jenny S Martinez, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 115. 81 Antaki Mark, ‘‘Esquisse d’une généalogie des crimes contre l’humanité’’, Revue Québécoise de droit international, (Avril 2007): 69. Robespierre, ‘‘Discours sur le jugement de Louis XVI (1ère intervention)’’ prononcé à la tribune de la Convention le 3 décembre 1792. Pierre Serna, ‘‘Que s’est-il dit à la Convention les 15, 16 et 17 pluviôse an II? ’’, 1–28. On the genesis of “crime against humanity”, Yann Jurovics, ‘‘Le crime contre l’humanité, définition et contexte’’, Les Cahiers de la Justice, no. 1, (2011): 45–64; Robert Dubler and Matthew Kalyk, Crimes Against Humanity in the 21st Century: Law, Practice and Threats to International Peace and Security (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 1–34; Norman Geras, Crimes against humanity : birth of a concept (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2011), 1–31. 82 https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. Acessed, 3 March 2020. The British Newspaper Archive gives access to most newspapers published in the United Kingdome since 1700. It does not include the archives of The Times and the Guardian. 83 Hampshire Chronicle, 24 March 1798, 2, co.a. Sun, 15 August 1815, 2, col. c. The 1798 being the first occurrence of the expression found in the British Newspaper Archives. 84 On slavery in the French colonies: Morning Advertiser, 17 August 1847, 3 col.b. On evictions in Ireland: Clare Journal and Ennis Advertiser, 06 April 1846, 2, col. d. Newry Examiner and Louth Advertiser, 08 April 1846, 1, col. b. On alcoholism: Freeman’s Journal, 27 November 1845, 4, col. a. 85 Seymour Drescher “Two variants of Anti-Slavery: Religious Organization and Social Mobilization in Britain and France 1780–1870” in From Slavery to Freedom: Comparative Studies in the Rise and Fall of Atlantic Slavery, ed. Seymour Drescher (Basingstoke: Macmillian, 1999), 35–56. 86 https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. 87 Glasgow Herald, October 26, 1860. The Pall Mall Gazette, August 10, 1876.

214  International law and humanitarian operations 88 Huddersfield Chronicle, 10 September 1896, 2 col. f. Globe, 07 October 1897, 4 col. c. 89 The Brillant: The Times, November 03, 1862; col 8. The Commune: Birmingham Daily Post, April 14, 1871. The Dreyfus Affair: The Times, September 02, 1898; col 3. 90 Charles H. Allen (head of BFASS 1863–1907) was a key figure of the late nineteenth century anti-slavery movement. Amalia Ribi Forclaz, Humanitarian Imperialism: The Politics of Anti-Slavery Activism, 1880–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 19. Charles H. Allen to the Marquis of Salisbury, 10 August 1888, FO 84/1925, 435. 91 Dubler and Kalyk, Crimes Against Humanity, 13–17. 92 Salisbury to BFASS, 18 August 1888, FO 541/28, 347. 93 Lynn Hunt, Inventing human rights : a history (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007), 205; Seymour Drescher, Abolition A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 267–293; Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2004), 251–280. 94 Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights (London: Verso, 2011), 5; Hunt, Inventing human rights, 160–167. 95 Martinez, The slave trade, 115 96 Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia Human Rights in History (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2010), 12. 97 Philip Alston, “Does the past matter? On the origins of human rights”, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 126, No 7, (May 2013): 2048. 98 Emmanuel Decaux, Olivier de Frouville, Droit International Public (Paris: Dalloz, 11ème édition, 2018), 8–9; Dubler and Kalyk, Crimes Against Humanity, 26–28. 99 Marc Bloch, ‘‘Apologie pour l’Histoire ou le Métier d’Historien’’ in L’Histoire, La Guerre La Résistance (Paris: Gallimard, 2006), 868–73. 100 Dubler and Kalyk, Crimes Against Humanity, 1, 3. 101 Philippe Sands “introduction” in Hersch Lauterpacht, An International Bill of the Rights of Man, ed. P. Sands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945, 2013), viii-ix; Philippe Sands, East West Street: On the Origins of ``Genocide’’ and ``Crimes Against Humanity’’ (London: A. Knopf, 2016), Ch.47, Kindle; Elihu Lauterpacht, The life of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), Ch. 8 Kindle. 102 Anna Filipa Vrdoljak, “Human rights and genocide: the work of Lauterpacht and Lemkin in Modern International Law”, The European Journal of International Law, vol. 20, no. 4, (2010): 1186–1191; Kerstin Von Lingen, “Fulfilling the Martens, Clause Debating “Crimes Against Humanity”, 1899–1945” in Humanity A History of European Concepts, 187–208; Lauterpacht, The life of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht, Ch. 5–7 Kindle; Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, 353–412. 103 Vrdoljak, “Human rights and genocide”, 1174. 104 Vrdoljak, “Human rights and genocide”, 1187. 105 Vrdoljak, “Human rights and genocide”, 1190; Lauterpacht, ‘Règles générales du droit de la paix’, 62 Hague Recueil (1937,I), 99. 106 Lauterpacht, An International Bill of the Rights of Man, 47. 107 G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, ‘‘Note sur la théorie du droit d’intervention’’, 674 : ‘au milieu de l’Europe, il y aurait un petit potentat qui ferait le tyran, torturant, condamnant à la potence, au bûcher pour le plus minime délit, de sorte que la fumée des cadavres monterait presqu’au cerveau des voisins? Le laisserait-on faire?’.

Anti-slave trade policies 215 108 Robert Dubler and Matthew Kalyk, Crimes Against Humanity, 7–8 ; Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, ‘‘The Nuremberg Trial and the Modern Principles of International Law’’ in Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial, ed. Guenaël Mettraux (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008), 236. 109 Geras, Crimes against humanity, 4–13; Cherif Bassiouni, Crime Against Humanity Historical Evolution and Contemporary Application (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 86–96; Lauterpacht, The life of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht, Ch. 8 Kindle. 110 Agreement for the prosecution and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis. Signed at London, on 8 August 1945, II, 6, c. 111 Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017), Ch. 2, Kindle. 112 The “duty or right of humanitarian interference also known as humanitarian intervention” [droit d’ingérence] is an expression coined by the French Doctors (Doctors Without Borders) during the Biafran War in Nigeria (1967–1970). At its world summit in 2005, the United Nations member states unanimously adopted “the responsibility to protect” as a guiding principle for the prevention of “mass atrocity crimes”. Philippe Moreau Defarges, Droits d’Ingérence dans le Monde Post-2001, (Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 2006) 9–16  ; Andrew Garwood-Gowers, “The responsibility to protect and the Arab spring: Libya as the exception, Syria as the norm?”, UNSW Law Journal, vol. 36, no.2 (2013): 598; Fabian Klose, “The emergence of humanitarian intervention: three centuries of ‘enforcing humanity” in The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention, 6. 113 Nicholas Idris Erameh, “Humanitarian intervention, Syria and the politics of human rights protection” The International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 21, no. 5, (2017): 517–530. “Syria: Security Council must address crimes against humanity in Idlib”, Accessed May, 17, 2019, https://www.amnesty.org/en/ latest/news/2019/05/syria-security-council-must-address-crimes-against-humanity-in-idlib/. In October 2018, around 5.6 millions Syrians were registered as refugees and 6.5 millions displaced in their own country. Between 380, 000 and 600,000 of people died in Syria between March 2011 and March 2019 according to estimations. Stanislas Poyet, ‘’Huit ans après son commencement, le tragique bilan de la guerre en Syrie’’, Le Figaro, 15 Mars 2019. See also Hilly Moodrick-Even Ken, Nir T. Boms, Sareta Ashraph “An Overview of Stakeholders and Interests” in The Syrian War Between Justice and Political Reality, ed. Hilly Moodrick-Even Ken, Nir T. Boms, Sareta Ashraph (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 2. 114 Lauterpacht, An International Bill of the Rights of Man, 100–104, 102. 115 Bruce Mazlish, The Idea of Humanity in a Global Era (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 2. 116 Accessed March 3, 2020, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. 117 Cambrian News, 01 December 1905, 4, col. d. 118 For example in his speech at the Geneva University on 4 March 1909, Morel declared that ‘a crime against humanity has no frontier’. His speech was reproduced in The Times. F. Seymour Cocks, E. D. Morel the man and his work (London: George Allen, 1920), 139. 119 Accessed March 3, 2020, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. 120 Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 19 August 1914, 6, col. g. 121 Staffordshire Sentinel, 11 November 1918, 3, col. e. 122 Le Populaire, 16 juillet 1919, 1. 123 Belfast News-Letter, 05 January 1929, 9, col.f. Western Daily Press, 08 December 1933, 4, col.b.

216  International law and humanitarian operations 124 Derby Daily Telegraph, 01 October 1936, 4, col. a-b. Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 15 May 1936, 9, col. c. 125 The Scotsman, 04 November 1937, 13, col.e. 126 Leeds Mercury, 15 July 1938, 7, col. b. 127 Arthur Beylerian, Les Grandes Puissances, l’Empire Ottoman et les Arméniens dans les Archives Françaises 1914–1918 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1983), 29. 128 Oppenheim, International Law, 201–202. 129 Weathon, History of the Law of Nations, 561.

Conclusion: abolitionism and humanitarian intervention; ‘ugly business behind great words’?

This book repeatedly showed how shifting and paradoxical the interactions of humanitarianism and imperialism could be through the study of the major anti-slavery operations that took place in Zanzibar between 1862 and 1905. Through the 1860s and 1870s, humanitarians, navy officers, and imperialists alike – David Livingstone, G. L. Sulivan, or Bartle Frere to name but a few – did all they could to force Her Majesty’s government to suppress the Indian Ocean slave trade. British public opinion was more easily convinced than reluctant government officials. Most contemporaries viewed this commitment as the completion of the humanitarian, if not ‘divine’, ‘crusade’ Britain had ‘historically’ initiated in the Atlantic. Some influential sections of the abolitionist movement even thought that this action would only allow the British nation to ‘atone’ for its ‘sins’. The fact that Her Majesty’s government had allowed British traders and planters to lead – with Portugal and France – the development of the slave trade and slavery worldwide for 300 years, or so, was then on everyone’s mind.1 Owing to the British abolitionist movement, the novelist Anthony Trollope could, however, proudly write in 1859, ‘Slavery was a sin. From that sin we have cleaned ourselves’.2 Thus, it was believed that abolition and abolitionism had washed away the stigma left on the British flag by the horrors of centuries of slave trading. This narrative created a perfect contrast with France’s attitude towards British anti-slavery policies, especially the right of visit and attribution of the French flag to the native vessels. During the second half of the nineteenth century, France and her flag were abusively portrayed as the main obstacle that explained the persistence of the Indian Ocean slave trade and the impossibility for the Royal Navy to suppress it – as pointed in Chapter Two. Although it was true that French dhows played a non-negligible role in human trafficking, this book demonstrated that their role was not as significant as what British authorities claimed it to be. This exaggeration perfectly served Britain’s imperial interests and reduced anti-slavery to a simple opposition of good versus evil, or ‘civilised’ versus ‘uncivilised’. Owing to France’s refusal of the right of visit and attribution of her flag to dhows, the lack of ships, men, and adequate laws dedicated to Indian Ocean anti-slavery policies could easily be jettisoned.

218  Conclusion The official abolitionist discourse was a convenient veil for the gap existing between political speeches and actions. As in Dahomey or Lagos in 1851, the abolitionist discourse also justified all kinds of naval anti-slavery operations into Zanzibar’s dominions. Navy officers and British Consuls thought they had international law – owing to the 1815 Vienna Congress declaration condemning the slave trade – and ‘god’ on their side. In 1861, when Sultan Seyyid Majid refused the new anti-slavery measures, the British Consul sent him a copy of one of Lord Palmerston’s letters written in 1846 pointing that ‘Great Britain is the main instrument in the hands of Providence’.3 In that respect, Zanzibar was not so different from other African kingdoms when it came to anti-slavery. However, while Sierra Leone and Mozambique were accustomed with the violent destruction of slave forts in the 1840s–1850s or annexation as Lagos in 1861, the Sultanate ‘only’ faced a naval threat in 1873 and a blockade in 1888.4 In 1896, Zanzibar’s palace was bombarded by the British navy not in the name of anti-slavery but as its new self-proclaimed Sultan did not suit the colonial administration of the Protectorate. Ironically, the Zanzibar Sultanante, unlike other parts of Africa, had allegedly been acknowledged as an independent and sovereign state before international law under the 1862 Anglo-French agreement. Consequently, it could not be considered as ‘uncivilised’ as the rest of the continent. However, this did not mean that the Sultanate should be treated on an equal footing. The 1862 Declaration did not prevent Zanzibar from being swallowed up by the Scramble for Africa. It became a British Protectorate in 1890 all the same, and its African dominions were divided between Britain and Germany. Zanzibar was not believed to be as ‘civilised’ and ‘respectable’ – in terms of sovereignty – as a European Nation. Its Sultans, as those of the Ottoman Empire, were far from being considered equal to European leaders. Zanzibar could easily be interfered with in the name of anti-slavery. In Zanzibar, like in the rest of Africa, Britain’s imperial influence not only derived from her naval power but also out of her anti-slavery policies allegedly demonstrating her moral superiority ‘as the most civilised nation’. The official abolitionism professed by the British government legitimised imperial interference and the use of military force, if necessary. In the meantime, official abolitionism also disqualified the expansion of other colonial powers, like France in the Indian Ocean for instance, when these nations refused to cooperate with British anti-slavery policies. Yet, France could not be treated in the way Palmerston had treated Brazil in 1850 when the Royal Navy ‘violated Brazilian territorial waters to attack slave traders’.5 Only a few Zanzibari dhows flying the French flag were burned down, irrespective of their engagement in the slave trade. Unlike Portugal in 1839, Britain had not ‘unilateraly authorised’ her navy to search French ships either.6 Even so, British anti-slavery policies brought Her Majesty’s government on the verge of war again, like with Brazil in 1850 or Cuba in 1858, when French dhows and ‘protégés’ became the target of Lord Curzon, the Indian Viceroy, as well as the British Consul in Muscat between 1900 and

Conclusion 219 1903.7 Curzon wanted to maintain Britain’s imperial pre-eminence in the Persian Gulf and used anti-slavery to eliminate a rival in what he saw as a British sphere of influence in a strict sense. If British anti-slavery policies could well serve British imperialism in Zanzibar and Oman, this research also shows that these policies were often pressed upon a reluctant administration. In the 1860s, Royal Navy officers cruising the Indian Ocean were eager to fulfil abolitionists’ ideals professed publicly by their political leaders. However these navy officers also had to lead a campaign in London to obtain what was needed to suppress the Indian Ocean slave trade, because they lacked the appropriate naval, financial, and legal resources. Following the movement initiated by the navy officers who denounced the appalling lack of means at their disposal, as well as Livingstone’s letters on the East African slave trade, imperialists and humanitarians joined forces to revive the old anti-slavery movement. In the early 1870s, they forced the government to act, as demonstrated in Chapter Five, under the pressure of public opinion. Stirred by Frere and the BFASS, the British public outcry led government leaders to send a diplomatic and naval force to compel the Sultan of Zanzibar to ban the slave trade in his African dominions in 1873. Using both diplomacy and the threat of a military intervention, Frere and Kirk, believing they had international and natural laws on their side, imposed their humanitarian ‘diktat’ to Sultan Sayyid Barghash. This was classic gunboat and anti-slavery diplomacy, the sort that West African kingdoms had already experienced in the 1840s and 1850s. Through Frere’s mission, imperialism had been reluctantly put into the service of humanitarianism. Meanwhile, British anti-slavery policies on the island, such as the establishment of a Vice-Admiralty Court in 1869 – prior to Frere’s mission – had also started to erode the Sultans’ power. The Sultanate’s sovereignty was more and more dependent upon Britain’s imperial and humanitarian interventions. However, in Zanzibar, this was the result of a co-operation between two colonial powers: the British and Omani governments. In the aftermath of Frere’s mission, anti-slavery interferences, mainly occurring at sea, were gradually reoriented towards the continent by the British Consul. This movement, described in Chapter Four, was carried out by Kirk, an ardent imperialist and abolitionist, willing to forward both anti-slavery and British imperial influence at once. It followed the general pattern of the age. European powers intervened more and more directly on the African continent throughout the 1870s and 1880s, even before the 1885 Berlin Conference. Anti-slavery was becoming a useful tool in this process. In the meantime, Zanzibar Sultans never missed an opportunity to use British anti-slavery policies to expand their own imperial claims over the continent or to quell rebellions against their powers. Their success was rather limited. Although Zanzibar became a British Protectorate, it never became a colony. The Zanzibar Sultanate, however weak it may have looked survived European colonisation. Sultans even continued to rule the archipelago until the 1964

220  Conclusion Revolution broke out as decolonisation and Cold War were at their heights on the African continent.8 The relationship of humanitarianism and imperialism took a new turn in the 1880s and 1890s, which Zanzibar perfectly illustrates. Whereas government officials had been often forced into anti-slavery policies earlier, they started using the abolitionist discource as an argument to convince a reluctant public opinion – or the international community – regarding the necessity and morality of colonial expansion. The Khedive of Egypt himself, Ismail Pasha, used anti-slavery to justify the expantion of the Egyptian empire in Sudan and Equatoria. To that purpose he employed an influent British explorer, Sir Samuel Baker between 1869–1874, as well as a renown British general, Charles Gordon, between 1874–1876.9 In 1879, ironically, General Charles Gordon mobilised in vain the British and Foreign AntiSlavery Society against the Khedive of Egypt advocating ‘a Europeanmanaged regime in Sudan’ to effectively end the slave trade and slavery there.10 However, the role which anti-slavery policies and discourse actually played in triggering the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 seems rather limited.11 This cynical anti-slavery rhetoric can be observed at ‘its best’ during the 1885 Berlin Conference, the 1888 Zanzibar blockade, and the 1890 Brussels Conference. Europeans were later told by colonial historians, like J. D. Fage looking back on Zanzibar in the nineteenth century, that ‘this imperialism [was] a good imperialism … [because] at the heart of this humanitarian imperialism [laid] the movement for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery’.12 Nonetheless, as reactions to the Berlin Conference or Zanzibar Blockade show, abolitionists and public opinion were not so easily fooled by the humanitarian tone of the imperialists’ speeches delivered by political leaders or men on the spot. Paradoxically, humanitarian campaigners took the challenge imposed on them by the surge of ‘New Imperialism’ as an opportunity. Using the revived strength of the anti-slavery sentiment in public opinion, abolitionists once more engaged in the old power struggle that they had been fighting against their governments and political leaders since the 1780s. Their actions were met with success. European leaders decided to gather in Brussels under the influence of public opinion and anti-slavery societies, as shown in Chapter Seven. The abolitionist movement was determined to make heads of states fulfil the humanitarian pledge they had taken at the 1885 Berlin Conference and at the outbreak of the 1888 Zanzibar blockade. Abolitionists and public opinion demanded action, not words. Meanwhile, politicians had learned to capitalise on the strength of the European humanitarian movement. Lord Salisbury, Otto Von Bismarck, and the King of Belgium Leopold II easily yielded to the pressure brought upon their shoulders by humanitarians. They launched the anti-slavery conference in Brussels because they also saw it as a fantastic opportunity for their government to officially portray their imperialism as ‘good imperialism’, or ‘humanitarian imperialism’. However, humanitarians and public opinion were not so easily misled. Anti-slavery

Conclusion 221 activists took this new manipulation as another chance to press governments to implement more efficient anti-slavery policies and laws at both the international and domestic levels. This was the case of the legal abolition of slavery in Zanzibar in 1909. It was the result of 20 years of constant pressure exercised by the BFASS upon a reluctant colonial administration.13 Abolitionists also seized the occasion to put back anti-slavery at the forefront of international relations. Owing to the Brussels Act, an international slave trade zone was established in the Indian Ocean and the right of visit was made legal between all the signatory powers except France, which continued to reject it for political reasons. The Brussels Conference provided a strong benchmark for future anti-slavery policies in international law and international relations.14 In 1982, Article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea made the right of visit lawful in international law when dealing with the slave trade or piracy.15 This article echoes paragraphs XX and XXII of the 1890 Brussels Act. In short, this book should help us draw a more nuanced picture of the relation between humanitarian concerns and imperial expansion in the second half of the nineteenth century. It demonstrates that humanitarian operations conducted in Zanzibar did not always serve imperial interests even though it ultimately consolidated Britain’s colonial hegemony over East Africa and the Indian Ocean. Anti-slavery could simultaneously push forward and jeopardize humanitarian or imperial interests as shown in Chapter Eight. These conclusions contribute to nuance the common assumption according to which ‘the attempt to hide ugly business behind great words and great humanitarian principles is a classic manoeuvre of the Western World’, as Romain Gary wrote in Les Racines du Ciel.16 The frontier between humanitarianism and imperialism is not as simple, and the path to its understanding is narrow. Humanitarianism – anti-slavery – was not imperialistic by nature even though both imperialists and humanitarians manipulated it opportunistically – or united forces – when it served their career, their cause, or the interests of their colonial empire, as it is showed by the annexation of Ugunda in 1894 under the influence of Frederik Lugard.17 Anti-slavery could decisively be used by men on the spot to force their governments and public opinion into imperial expantion or intervention. However, this research also demonstrated that humanitarians associated anti-slavery with imperialism when they felt it served their cause as much as imperialists manipulated anti-slavery to meet their own political agenda. For example, had partly used anti-slavery in Zanzibar to strengthen the Sultanate but he resigned shortly after the partition of its African dominions between Germany and Britain. Kirk saw the partition of Zanzibar’s dominion as a failure of his own policy paradoxically based on a balance bewteen humanitarian imperialism and the preservation of the Sultanate’s sovereignty.18 Consequently, as Gary J. Bass rightly concluded, ‘humanitarianism and imperialism should not be casually be blurred together’.19 The relationship binding humanitarianism

222  Conclusion and imperialism together depended heavily upon the will of many actors (men on the spot, government officials, humanitarians, press editors, public opinion) interacting at different levels (colonial, domestic, international). The case of the Zanzibar Sultanate also shows that political circumstances and opportunities played an important role, whether on a local, regional, or global scale. In 1873, Frere’s mission finally achieved its goals, thanks to the political contexts both in London – the death of Livingstone – and Zanzibar – a hurricane had destroyed most of the islands’ dhows and plantations. Late nineteenth century ‘humanitarian imperialism’ was the product of all these inextricable interactions. Each case is, therefore, pretty unique. It is almost impossible to draw general patterns or rules out of one singular experiment. To paraphrase Carl Von Clausewitz trying to define war in times of changes, humanitarian imperialism can therefore be pictured as ‘a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to the given case’. 20 However, Zanzibar helps to understand this subtle and unpredictable alchemy by allowing us to observe the permanent power struggle which somtimes resulted in the emergence of humanitarian intervention in the name of anti-slavery. This battle opposed government officials and humanitarian societies, as well as men on the spot, trying to gain the support of public opinion to achieve their goals. Some of them were genuinely humanitarians while others were not. In this regard, the Zanzibar Sultanate provides a remarkably interesting case for the historian to study. Unsurprisingly, humanitarian ideals, both contained in the abolitionist discourse and official anti-slavery policies, contrasted with the sheer violence of colonisation. Undeniably, abolition truly failed to prevent this explosion of ‘civilised savagery’, to paraphrase the historian Kevin Grant, which accompanied colonisation. 21 Although this only appears to be peripheral with the case of the Zanzibar Sultanate between 1862 and 1905, this has retrospectively, and rightfully, cast a dreadful shadow over most anti-slavery – or humanitarian – policies. Large scale massacres under colonial regimes of terror, such as the Hererro and Nama genocide (1904– 1908) or the ‘Congo Atrocities’ (1885–1908) have legitimately discredited the general relevance of the abolitionist discourse. 22 The persistence of slavery and development of forced labour under colonial rule – a fact which can also be observed in Zanzibar – need no mention. How could one believe in the legitimacy of anti-slavery, or the rule of international law professed by European powers at the 1890 Brussels Conference, after looking at the crimes committed in the Congo? Nevertheless, if anti-slavery was manipulated by Leopold II to justify colonial expansion and exploitation on the one hand, ‘the Congo Atrocities’, on the other hand, were made known to the world by an Irish diplomat – Roger Casement – and a British journalist – E. D. Morel – who both embodied the important revivial of the humanitarian movement in the early 1900s. 23 Fueled by the spirit and the work of evangelical missionary organisations, the Congo Reform campaign denounced colonial crimes in the name of

Conclusion 223 the old anti-slavery credo and revitalized abolitionism in public opinion worldwide. 24 However, even though it succeeded in ending Leopold’s private rule and most of the regimes of terror developed by private companies, it failed to halt ‘the system of forced labour’, which ‘remained a feature of the Belgian colonial regime’. 25 To a certain extent, ‘the Congo atrocities’ proved that anti-slavery and abolitionist discourses could give rise not only to the best but also to the worst humanity or humanitarianism could produce. Colonial violence in Zanzibar’s sultanate did not match the ‘Congo atrocities’. Notwithstanding, while the suppression of the slave trade had been the main ‘argument used by the German government to justify colonial expansion’, slave trading was still legal in 1914. 26 More importantly, colonial violence was also particularly significant during the Maji-Maji War (1905–1908) whose repression resulted in the death of between 180,000 to 300,000 people, mostly civilians. 27 Still, despite all the failures and political manipulations that the anti-slavery movement suffered, its contribution to the abolition of the slave trade and slavery worldwide remained historically decisive. As Seymour Drescher pointed, ‘late nineteenth century imperial expansion would [otherwise] have incorporated’ them and thus led to terrible human consequences. 28 This does not mean that the abolitionist movement and governmental anti-slavery policies should not be confronted with the new forms of servitude – or ‘new slaveries’as militants labelled them – which replaced the ‘old slaveries’ in a colonial context. The rise of indentured labour and forced labour under colonial rule, not to mention the persistence of slavery, shows the incapacity of the abolitionist movement to stop the development of ‘new slaveries’ and eradicte older forms of servitude in the new colonial environment. Thus, the abolitionist movement failed to meet the promises contained by its ideal of universal abolition. However, could these promises be fulfilled in a colonial context of exploitation and domination? Could slavery and the slave trade be abolished over just a century when they had thriven for millennia? At the beginning of the twenty-first century, despite the continuous efforts carried out worldwide by several generations of humanitarians, Roger Botte marked that ‘even if slavery in its oldest form had been abolished everywhere … its practices were far from having been completely eliminated’. 29 Botte argues that this is ‘the modernity of slavery’. 30 In 2017, the United Nations International Labour Organization estimated that around 40 million people were held in ‘modern slavery’ worldwide. In 2020, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes evaluated that 25 million individuals had been victims of human trafficking throughout the world. 31 This ‘modernity of slavery’ shows that human bondage has survived in taking new forms which contemporary societies and the international community have been yet unable to suppress. Perharps, this research could modestly help tackle ‘modern slaveries’ in contributing to build a better historical consciousness of past slaveries and their legacies. 32

224  Conclusion Following Gary J. Bass, Brendan Simms, D. J. B. Trim, Michael Barnett, Davide Rodogno, Fabian Klose, Bronwen Everill, Josiah Kaplan, and many others, this book also offers new perspectives on the history of humanitarian intervention in the nineteenth century by connecting it to the history of anti-slavery. 33 This research continually demonstrates that anti-slave trade policies in the Western Indian Ocean had a positive impact on the emergence of humanitarian intervention and ‘crime against humanity’ in the international relations during the late nineteenth century. Debates over the lawfulness of the right of search and the definition of the slave trade in law of nations contributed towards building the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention and concerns in international relations as well as international law. Abolitionism and anti-slavery influenced lawyers, humanitarian campaigners, public opinion, and politicians on a long-term basis as the life and works of Hersch Lauterpacht (1897–1960) have shown in Chapter Nine. These questions remain relevant today. Therefore, this study hopes that Zanzibar’s nineteenth century experiences would shed new lights on anti-slavery, colonial expansion, and humanitarianism. Perhaps, this could also contribute to clarify the ongoing debate over humanitarian interventions which the Syrian conflict has made, at some point, one the most compelling question of the twenty-first century. 34 As much as humanitarian intervention, abolitionism has also been a crucial historical experience for contemporary societies. We can certainly find inspiration in these fascinating chapters of global history to answer some of the world’s most crucial issues among which defence of fundamental human rights – both on national and international levels – stands out dramatically. After all, as Fernand Braudel noted, ‘history is nothing but a constant questioning of the bygone ages in the name of the problems – even the concerns and the torments – of the present time which surrounds and besieges us’.35

Notes 1 Christopher Leslie Brown, Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (Williamsburg: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). 2 Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012), 18. 3 Quoted by Lieutenant-Colonel Rigby in his correspondence to Earl Russel, 5 October 1861, HCPP 1862 (2959), N°102, 87. 4 Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 115. 5 Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 115. 6 Leslie Bethell, The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade: Britain, Brazil and the Slave Question 1807–1869 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 180. 7 Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 57–58; Bethell, Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade, 327–328. 8 Amrit Wilson, The Threat of Liberation: Imperialism and Revolution in Zanzibar (London: Pluto Press, 2013), 11–34.

Conclusion 225 9 Alice Moore-Harell, Egypt’s Africa Empire Samuel Baker Charles Gordon and the Creation of Equatoria (Brighton: Sussex Academy Press, 2014), 195–203. 10 Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 161. 11 Eugene Rogan, The Arabs A History (London: Penguin, 2010), 151–164; Donald Reid, “The Urabi revolution and the British conquest, 1879–1882” in The Cambridge History of Egypt, Volume II, ed. M. W. Daly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 217–238. 12 J. D. Fage, “Preface” in The British Anti-Slavery Movement, ed. Sir Reginald Coupland (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1963), xii. 13 Moses D. E. Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1975), 169; James Heartfield, The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1838–1956: A History (London, C. Hurst & Co, 2017), 264-265. 14 Suzanne Miers, “Slavery and the slave trade as international issues 1890–1939” in Slavery and Colonial Rule in Africa, ed. Suzanne Miers and Martin A. Klein (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 16–37. 15 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982, Article 110. 16 Romain Gary, Les Racines du Ciel (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), 331: ‘c’est une manoeuvre classique de l’Occident que d’essayer de cacher sous de grands mots et de grands principes humanitaires ses réalités hideuses’. 17 Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 164–169; Jonas Fossli Gjersø, “The Scramble for East Africa: British Motives Reconsidered, 1884–95”, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 43:5, (2015): 846–851. 18 Reginald Coupland, The Exploitation of East Africa 1856–1890 The Slave Trade and the Sramble (London: Faber & Faber 1939), 434–436. 19 Gary J. Bass, Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 378. 20 Carl Von Clausewitz, On War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 30 21 Kevin Grant, A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884–1926 (London: Routledge, 2005), 1–10. 22 Dean Pavlakis, “Congo Free State, 1885–1908,” Yale Genocide Studies Program, accessed February 5, 2015, http://www.cis.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/ belgian_congo/; Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (London: Pan Macmillan,1998), 224–235; Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Le Congo au temps des gran-des compagnies concessionnaires, 1898–1930 (Paris: EHESS, 2001), Chapitre VII. Les abus; Martin Ewans, European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath (New York: Routledge, 2002), Ch. 16, Kindle; Grant, Civilised Savagery, 11–37. 23 W.M. Roger Louis and Jean Stengers, E. D. Morel’s History of the Congo Reform Movement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 252–273; Seamas O Siochain and Michael O’Sullivan, The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement’s Congo Report and 1903 Diary (Dublin, University College Dublin Press, 2003), 1–44. 24 Grant, Civilised Savagery, 38–79. 25 Ewans, European Atrocity, 239; see also 220–245. 26 Jan-Georg Deutsch, Emancipation Without Abolition in German East Africa, c.1884–1914 (Oxford: James Currey, 2006), 102. 27 Susanne Kuss, German Colonial Wars and the Context of Military Violence (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017), 64. 28 Seymour Drescher, “Emperors of the world British abolitionism and imperialism” in Abolitionism in Britain, Africa and the Atlantic, ed. Derek Paterson (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010), 146.

226  Conclusion 29 Roger Botte, ‘‘Les habits neufs de l’esclavage,’’ Cahiers d’études africaines 179–180 (2005): 1. http://journals.openedition.org/etudesafricaines/5573; Suzanne Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem (New York: Altamira Press, 2003), 58–65; 152–173; 300–331; 358–391. 30 Ibid. 31 “Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage,” International Labour Organization, accessed September 4, 2020, https:// www.ilo.org/global/publications/books/ WCMS_575479/lang–en/index. htm; “Global Report on Trafficking in Persons,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, accessed September 5, 2020, https://www.unodc.org/ unodc/data-and-analysis/glotip.html. 32 Nicholas Draper, Keith McClelland, Katie Donington, Rachel Lang, and Catherine Hall, Legacies of British Slave-ownership: Colonial Slavery and the Formation of Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1–33. 33 Fabian Klose, The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Bronwen Everilland and Josiah Kaplan, The History and Practice of Humanitarian Intervention and Aid in Africa (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Davide Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012); Brendan Simms and D.J.B. Trim, Humanitarian Intervention: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Michael N. Barnett, Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism (New York: Cornell University Press, 2011); Gary J. Bass, Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008). 34 Nicholas Idris Erameh, “Humanitarian Intervention, Syria and the Politics of Human Rights Protection,” The International Journal of Human Rights 21, no. 5 (2017): 517–530. 35 Fernand Braudel, La méditerranée l’espace et l’histoire (Paris: Flammarion, 1985), 5–6: ‘l’histoire n’est pas autre chose qu’une constante interrogation des temps révolus au nom des problèmes – et même des inquiétudes et des angoisses – du temps présent qui nous entoure et nous assiège’.

Select bibliography

Primary sources Unpublished documentary sources Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix en Provence (ANOM). Zanzibar (1778, 1820/1895). Situation politique et commerciale, esclavage, indépendance, constitution, négociations entre l’Angleterre et l’Allemagne. FR ANOM 2900 COL 5, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20-23. Rapports et comptes rendus sur le consulat de France à Zanzibar (1841/1859). FR ANOM 2900COL14/55. Rapport du consul de Zanzibar sur l’arraisonnement des boutres arabes par les croiseurs anglais (1863). FR ANOM 2900COL22/124. Projet d’acquisition par la France de l’île de Pemba (1822). FR ANOM 2900COL17/89, REU 72. Traite des Noirs. Affaire du boutre francisé Fatalkeir. FR ANOM 3201COL103/742, REU 103. Francisation des boutres, 1869–1886, FR ANOM 3100 COL 240, MAD 240, carton 530. Francisation des boutres et francisation des navires, 1883–1889, FR ANOM 3100 COL, 245 MAD 245, carton 554. Bodleian Library, Rhodes House, Oxford (RHO) Dec 31, 1871 to Oct 1, 1873. GB 162 MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 30–99. Papers of Frederick Dealtry Lugard, Baron Lugard of Abinger: Papers 1858–1919 memorandum on the Slave Trade Treaty of 1873 with Zanzibar by Sir John Kirk. GB 162 MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 445. Papers of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 3rd Bart. Press cuttings. Press cuttings (a lot about or by Livingstone around August 1872). Letters on the East African Slave Trade File 5 ff 1–52. Letter from Earl of Clarendon, 15 June, 1870, on memorandum sent by Anti-Slavery Society. Letter of Horace Waller to Fowell Buxton, 7 May, 1867; 29 April, 1867; 14 April, 1869. Letter of Francis Galton to Fowell Buxton, 20 December, 1870. Centre des Archives diplomatiques de La Courneuve (MAE CADC) Correspondance Consulaire et Commerciale: Zanzibar (370 CCC).

228  Select bibliography The microfilms’ references are listed below since these archives can only been viewed in this format. Consequently, these references have also been used in all the footnotes of this book. Microfilm de P/253 à P/262 P/253: 1828–1851 P/254: 1852–1865 P/255: 1866–1874 P/256: 1875–1880 P/257: 1880 (juillet)–1883 (septembre) P/258: 1883 (octobre)–1888 (juillet) P/259: 1888 (août)–1889 (juin) P/260: 1889 (juillet)–1890 (mars) P/261: 1890 (avril–septembre) P/262: 1890 (octobre)–1901 Correspondance Politique Consulaire: Zanzibar (143 CP) Microfilms P 18461 à 18465 P 18461: 1840–1843 (Supplément Mascate et Zanzibar) P 18462 (143 CP/1): 1844–1859 (349 vues) P 18463 (143 CP/2): 1860–1861 (462 vues) P 18464 (143 CP/3): 1862–1869 (480 vues) P 18465 (143 CP/4): 1870–1876 (488 vues) Volumes reliés 143CP/5: 1877–1881 143CP/6: 1882–1884 143CP/7: 1885 143CP/8: 1886 143CP/9: 1887 143CP/10: 1888 143CP/11: 1889 143CP/12: 1890 Correspondance Politique Commerciale: Mascate Microfilms P191 à P192 P191, Boutre Francisé et traite des noirs: Octobre 1894–Mars 1897, 180 CP COM, 44. P191, Boutre Francisé et traite des noirs: Octobre 1897–Novembre 1899, 180 CP COM, 45. P192, Boutre Francisé et traite des noirs: Mai 1899–Juin 1902, 180 CP COM, 46. P192, Boutre Francisé et traite des noirs: Juin 1902–Juillet 1914, 180 CP COM, 47. Volumes Reliés 180CP COM, 51, Affaire des boutres: arbitrage du tribunal de La Haye Centres des archives diplomatiques de Nantes (MAE CADN) Série des correspondances politiques des consuls et les mémoires et documents ZANZIBAR (consulat) 748PO/A 123, Autorités locales: correspondance reçue et correspondance expédiée (1859–1879) 132, Boutres: question des boutres francisés; listes des boutres francisés de Zanzibar; arrestation de boutres (1846–1904) 140, Traite des noirs et esclavage (1852–1903) 146/2 Blocus des côtes de Zanzibar par les autorités britanniques et allemandes contre le trafic d’armes et d’esclaves 147, Boutres français

Select bibliography 229 187Division navale de l’océan indien, marchés de la marine. 1880–1906 Correspondance avec la division navale de l’océan indien. 1892–1896 Division navale de la mer des indes. Lettres au consulat. 1880–1891 236Lettres concernant l’exécution de l’acte de Bruxelles. 1892–1894 Colonies anglaises diverses, questions coloniales anglaises. 1892–1903 Division navale de l’Océan Indien, Service Historique de la Marine, Lorient (SHML) Série 4C. 4C1 4C1 Dépêches et circulaires ministérielles – Ministère de la Marine and Affaires étrangères 4C3 Demandes d’instructions 4C6 Dossier Divers Répression de la traite et irrégularités des engagements de travailleurs libres (4C6.2) Les affaires de Zanzibar (4C6. 3–17) Indian Office Records, British Library, London (IOR) (From the Qatar Digital Library, archives digitised in cooperation with the British Libray; see http://www.qdl.qa/en. This website offers online access to a wide range of digitised archives) ‘Muscat: slave trade under cover of French flag’, IOR/R/15/1/552, 2 Jan 1902–21 Mar 1904. ‘Muscat French Flag Question’, IOR/R/15/1/404, 1 Feb 1905–7 Aug 1905. ‘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’, IOR/L/PS/20/ C246, June 1906. ‘Muscat Dhows Arbitration. In the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Grant of the French Flag to Muscat Dhows. The case on behalf of the Government of His Britannic Majesty.’ IOR/R15/1406. The National Archives (former Public Record Office), Kew, London (TNA) FO 84, Records of the Slave Trade and African Departments, FO Division 4, Correspondence of Slave Trade and African Departments up to 1892. FO 84/1279 (1867) Zanzibar: Colonel Playfair, Mr Seward, Mr Churchill, Dr Kirk FO 84/1292 (1868) Churchill, Kirk; Muscat: Atkinson FO 84/1325 (1870) Churchill, Kirk; Muscat: Mr Way FO 84/1344 (1871) Zanzibar: Kirk, Churchill FO 84/1357 (1872) Consul General Kirk FO 84/1373 (1873) Kirk drafts FO 84/1374 (1873) Jan–June Kirk FO 84/1375 (1873) Jul–Aug Kirk FO 84/1376 (1873) Sept–Dec Kirk, Cap Prideaux FO 84/1385 (1872) Zanzibar Mission Nov–Dec B Frere FO 84/1386 (1872) Zanzibar Mission Feb–Oct FO 84/1387 (1872) Zanzibar Mission Nov–Dec FO 84/1388 (1873) Zanzibar Mission Jan–Oct FO 84/1389 (1873) idem Jan–March FO 84/1390 (1873) idem March–April FO 84/1391 (1873) Jan–Apr Zanzibar mission general FO 84/1426 (1873–1875) papers related to the interpretation of the treaty with Zanzibar of 5 June 1873 FO 84/1433 (1837–1871) Fugitive Slaves Commission: reception of slaves on British ships in foreign waters

230  Select bibliography FO 84/1910 (1888) Oct–Nov Despatches FO 84/1911 (1888) Dec Despatches FO 84/1912 (1888) Telegrams FO 84/1913 (1888) Commercial treaty, drafts and despatches FO 84/1973 (1889) Consuls General Euan Smith, Hawes, Portal; Jan–June Drafts FO 84/1974 (1889) idem, July–Dec Drafts FO 84/1975 (1889) Jan Despatches FO 84/1976 (1889) Feb Despatches FO 84/1977 (1889) Feb–March Despatches FO 84/1978 (1889) April–May Despatches FO 84/1979 (1889) June–July Despatches FO 84/1980 (1889) Aug–Sept Despatches FO 84/1981 (1889) Oct–Nov Despatches FO 84/2010 (1889) Slave Trade Conference at Brussels Drafts and telegrams to/from FO 84/2011 (1889) Slave Trade Conference Despatches FO 84/2268 (1892) Slave Trade Conference in Brussels

Published documentary sources Archives Diplomatiques, ed. Georges Fardis, 46ème année, tome 100, Vol. IV. ‘Contre Mémoire présenté par le Gouvernement de la République Française et concernant le désaccord … en ce qui touche les Boutriers Mascatais’ (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1906), 233–377. Assemblée Nationale Journal officiel de la République française. Débats parlementaires. Chambre des députés. 1845traité avec l’Imam de Mascate, Procès Verbaux, t.4, 55. 1847–1848 Droit de Visite. Incident concernant la répression de la traite, voir Budget de 1848, Dépenses Marine, Procès Verbaux, t.12, 286. 1848–1849 Considération sur la situation du commerce maritime et des colonies par suite de l’abolition de l’esclavage, convention du 29 mai 1848 entre la France et l’Angleterre. 1849–1851 Traité de commerce et de navigation avec le Sultanat de Mascate, 8 Avril 1851, Impression n 1835: C., t.13 an., 171; supplément n 99), Commission (F., n 451; M., 1177) Rapport de Mr Flavigny (31 Juillet) (Impression n 2132; C t.16, an., 168; M., 2340). 1871–1876, budget général de l’Etat, § 3 exercice 1875 n 4, Observation sur les mesures à prendre pour empêcher la traite des nègres qui se fait dans cette ile [Zanzibar]. Novembre 1872 (t 14, 426). 1885–1889, Question 115, Question concernant le blocus de la côte de Zanzibar, Prétendue surveillance du pavillon français sur les côtes de l’Afrique Orientale (19 Novembre 1889, 501). 1889–1983, Exercice 1891 n 11, traité 5 août 1890 concernant le sultanat de Zanzibar et Madagascar. Interpellations n 41, affaire Zanzibar. Question n 37 relative aux intentions de la Grande-Bretagne d’établir son protectorat sur le sultanat de Zanzibar. 1898–1902, Interpellation n 13, sur les affaires de Zanzibar et de Mascate. Traités et Conventions, n 31, Projet de loi portant approbation de la convention commerciale singée le 27 Juin 1901.

Select bibliography 231 Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite publiés en exécution de l’acte général de Bruxelles, vol. I, 1889–1893. Bruxelles, 1890–1894. Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite publiés en exécution de l’acte général de Bruxelles, vol. II, 1894–1897. Bruxelles, 1895–1898. Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite publiés en exécution de l’acte général de Bruxelles, vol. III, 1898–1902. Bruxelles, 1899–1903. Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite publiés en exécution de l’acte général de Bruxelles, vol. IV, 1903–1906. Bruxelles, 1904 –1907. Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite publiés en exécution de l’acte général de Bruxelles, vol. V, 1907–1909. Bruxelles, 1908–1910. Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite publiés en exécution de l’acte général de Bruxelles, vol. VI, 1910–1912. Bruxelles, 1911–1913. Documents relatifs à la répression de la traite publiés en exécution de l’acte général de Bruxelles, vol. VIII, 1913. Bruxelles, 1914. House of Commons Parliamentary Papers 1825(244) (311) Slave trade. Correspondence regarding the state of the slave trade at Mauritius, Bourbon, Madagascar, and the coast of Africa, and to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope. 1841Session 1 [332] Class C. Correspondence with foreign powers, parties to the conventions between Great Britain and France, upon the slave trade. 1845[630] Convention between Her Majesty and the King of the French, for the suppression of the traffic in slaves. Signed at London, May 29, 1845. 1847–48 [977] Class C. Correspondence on the slave trade with foreign powers, parties to treaties. 1859Session 1 (111) Slave trade (Zanzibar). Copies or extracts of the letters of the government of Bombay to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for India. 1861(250) Slave trade. Return of the names of Her Majesty’s ships employed in the suppression of the slave trade. 1861[2823] Class A. Correspondence with the British commissioners at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, and Loanda; and reports from British Vice-Admiralty courts, and from British naval officers, relating to the slave trade from April 1 to December 31, 1860. 1861[2823-I] Class B. Correspondence with British ministers and agents in foreign countries, and with foreign ministers in England, relating to the slave trade. 1862[2958] Class A. Correspondence with the British commissioners at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, and Loanda; and reports from British Vice-Admiralty courts, and from British naval officers, relating to the slave trade from January 1 to December 31, 1861. 1862[2959] Class B. Correspondence with British ministers and agents in foreign countries, and with foreign ministers in England, relating to the slave trade. 1863[3159] Class A. Correspondence with the British commissioners at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, New York, and Loanda, and reports from British Vice-Admiralty courts, and from British naval officers, relating to the slave trade from January 1 to December 31, 1862. 1863[3160] Class B. Correspondence with British ministers and agents in foreign countries, and with foreign ministers in England, relating to the slave trade.

232  Select bibliography 1864[3339] Class A. Correspondence with the British commissioners at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, Loanda, and New York; and reports from British Vice-Admiralty courts, and from British naval officers, relating to the slave trade from January 1 to December 31, 1863. 1864[3339-I] Class B. Correspondence with British ministers and agents in foreign countries, and with foreign ministers in England, relating to the slave trade. 1865[3503] Class A. Correspondence with the British Commissioners at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, Loanda, and New York; and reports from British Vice-Admiralty courts, and from British naval officers, relating to the slave trade from January 1 to December 31, 1864. 1865[3503-I] Class B. Correspondence with British ministers and agents in foreign countries, and with foreign ministers in England, relating to the slave trade. 1866[3635] Class A. Correspondence with the British commissioners at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, Loanda, and New York; and reports from British Vice-Admiralty courts, and from British naval officers, relating to the slave trade. 1866[3635-I] Class B. Correspondence with British ministers and agents in foreign countries, and with foreign ministers in England, relating to the slave trade. 1867[3816] Class A. Correspondence with the British commissioners, at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, Loanda, and New York; and reports from British Vice-Admiralty courts, and from British naval officers, relating to the slave trade. 1867–68 [4000-I] Class B. Correspondence with British ministers and agents in foreign countries, and with foreign ministers in England, relating to the slave trade. 1868–69 (237) Zanzibar (jurisdiction of consul). 1867–68 [4000] Class A. Correspondence with the British commissioners at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, Loanda, and New York; and reports from British Vice-Admiralty courts, and from British naval officers, relating to the slave trade from January 1 to December 31, 1867. 1868–69 [4131] Class A. Correspondence with the British commissioners at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, and Loanda; and reports from British vice-admiralty courts, and from British naval officers, relating to the slave trade. 1868–69 [4131-I] Class B. Correspondence with British ministers and agents in foreign countries, and with foreign ministers in England, relating to the slave trade. 1870[C.140] Class A. West coast of Africa. Correspondence. 1870[C.141] Class B. East coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters. 1870[C.209] Report addressed to the Earl of Clarendon by the Committee on the East African Slave Trade, dated January 24, 1870. 1871(420) Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade (East Coast of Africa); together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, appendix and index. 1871[C.340] Class B. East Coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters. 1871[C.341] Class C. Correspondence respecting slavery and the slave trade in foreign countries, and other matters. 1871[C.385] East Coast of Africa. Recent correspondence respecting the slave trade. 1872(174) Slave trade (vessels captured, &c) return of vessels captured for being engaged in and equipped for the slave trade.

Select bibliography 233 1872[C.598] Despatches addressed by Dr. Livingstone, Her Majesty’s Consul, Inner Africa, to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in 1870, 1871, and 1872. 1872[C.657] Class B. East coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters. 1873(236) Slave trade (East African courts). [H.L.] A bill intitled an act for regulating and extending the jurisdiction in matters connected with the slave trade of the Vice-Admiralty Court. 1873(249) Slave trade (consolidation). [H.L.] A bill intituled an act for consolidating with amendments the acts for carrying into effect treaties trade. 1873[C.820] Correspondence respecting Sir Bartle Frere’s mission to the East Coast of Africa. 1873[C.867-I] Class B. East Coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters. 1874[C.887] Slave trade. No. 1 (1874). Treaty between Her Majesty and the Sultan of Muscat for the abolition of the slave trade. 1874[C.889] Slave trade. No. 2 (1874). Treaty between Her Majesty and the Sultan of Zanzibar for the suppression of the slave trade. 1874[C.1064] Slave trade. No. 8 (1874). Correspondence with British representatives and agents, and reports from naval officers, relative to the East African slave trade. 1875[C.1168] Slave trade. No. 1 (1875). Correspondence with British representatives and agents abroad, and reports from naval officers, relative to the East African slave trade. 1876[C.1521] Slave trade. No. 3 (1876). Communications from Dr. Kirk respecting the suppression of the land slave traffic in the dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar. 1878–79 (232) Slave trade (East African Courts). A bill to amend the Slave Trade (East African Courts) Act, 1873. 1878–79 [C.2422] Slave trade. No. 1 (1879.) Correspondence with British representatives and agents abroad, and reports from naval officers, relating to the slave trade. 1880[C.2720] Slave trade. No. 5 (1880). Correspondence with British representatives and agents abroad, and reports from naval officers and the Treasury relative to the slave trade. 1881[C.3052] Slave trade. No. 1 (1881). Correspondence with British representatives and agents abroad, and reports from naval officers and the Treasury, relative to the slave trade. 1882[C.3160] Slave trade. No. 1 (1882). Correspondence with British representatives and agents abroad, and reports from naval officers and the treasury, relative to the slave trade. 1883[C.3547] Slave trade. No. 1 (1883). Correspondence with British representatives and agents abroad, and reports from naval officers and the Treasury. 1883[C.3702] Slave trade. No. 5 (1883). Convention between Her Majesty and the King of Mohilla for the suppression of slavery and the slave trade. Signed at Doani, October 24, 1882. 1883[C.3727] Slave trade. No. 6 (1883). Convention between Her Majesty and the Sultan of Johanna for the suppression of slavery and the slave trade. Signed at Bambao, October 10, 1882. 1884–85 [C.4523] Slave trade. No. 1 (1885). Correspondence with British representatives and agents abroad, and reports from naval officers and the Treasury.

234  Select bibliography 1886[C.4776] Slave trade. No. 1 (1886). Correspondence with British representatives and agents abroad, and reports from naval officers and the Treasury. 1887[C.5111] Slave trade. No. 1 (1887). Correspondence relative to the slave trade. 1888[C.5428] Slave trade. No. 1 (1888). Correspondence relative to the slave trade 1887. 1888[C.5559] Africa. No. 6 (1888). Correspondence respecting suppression of slave trade in East African waters. 1888[C.5578] Africa. No. 7 (1888). Reports on slave trade on the east coast of Africa: 1887–88. 1889[C.5821] Slave trade. No. 1 (1889). Correspondence relative to the slave trade. 1890[C.6048] Africa. No. 7 (1890). General act of Brussels Conference, 1889–90; with annexed declaration. 1890[C.6049] [C.6049-I] Actes de La Conférence de Bruxelles (1889–1890). 1890[C.6130] Africa. No. 9 (1890). Declarations exchanged between the Government of Her Britannic Majesty and the Government of the French Republic with respect to territories in Africa. Signed at London, August 5, 1890. 1890–91 [C.6211] Africa. No. 1 (1890–91). Anti-slavery decree issued by the Sultan of Zanzibar, dated August 1, 1890. 1890–91 [C.6254] Africa.No. 4 (1891).Declaration between Great Britain and Zanzibar relative to the exercise of judicial powers in Zanzibar. Signed at Zanzibar, February 2, 1891. 1890–91 [C.6373] Africa. No. 6 (1891). Papers relating to the trade in slaves from East Africa. 1892[C.6702] Africa. No. 6 (1892). Papers relative to slave trade and slavery in Zanzibar. 1893–94 [C.7035] Africa. No. 6 (1893). Paper respecting traffic in slaves in Zanzibar. 1893–94 [C.7247] Africa. No. 12 (1893). Returns of slaves freed in Zanzibar waters through Her Majesty’s ships: 1892–93. 1895[C.7707] Africa. No. 6 (1895). Correspondence respecting slavery in Zanzibar. 1896[C.8275] Africa. No. 7 (1896). Correspondence respecting slavery in the Zanzibar dominions. 1897[C.8394] Instructions to Mr. Hardinge respecting the abolition of the legal status of slavery in the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. 1897[C.8433] Abolition of the legal status of slavery in Zanzibar and Pemba. 1898[C.8858] Africa. No. 6 (1898). Correspondence respecting the abolition of the legal status of slavery in Zanzibar and Pemba. [In continuation of ‘Africa no. 2 (1897).’] 1899[C.9502] AFRICA. No. 8 (1899). Correspondence respecting the status of slavery in East Africa and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. [In continuation of ‘Africa no. 6 (1898).’] 1900[Cd.96] Correspondence respecting slavery and the slave trade in East Africa and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. [In continuation of ‘Africa No. 8 (1899).’] 1901[Cd. 593] Correspondence respecting slavery and the slave trade in East Africa and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. 1903[Cd. 1389] Africa. No. 6 (1902). Correspondence respecting slavery and the slave trade in East Africa and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. 1909[Cd. 4732] Africa. No. 3 (1909). Despatch from His Majesty’s agent and consul-general at Zanzibar, transmitting a new slavery decree, signed at Zanzibar on June 9, 1909.

Select bibliography 235 Newspapers (selection of the most notable articles on the Bartle Frere Mission) Aberdeen Journal: 14 August 1872; 1 January 1873. Anti-Slavery Reporter: 1 April 1871; 1 July 1872; 1 October 1872; 1 April 1873; 1 June 1873.Belfast News-Letter: 24 July 1872; 27 July 1872; 12 August 1872. Birmingham Daily Post: 24 July 1872; 27July 1872; 1 January 1873; 24 April 1873. Daily News: 2 July 1872; 26 July 1872; 27 July 1872; 7 August 1872; 7 February 1873; 16 June 1873. Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser: 12 August 1872; 1 January 1873; 17 June 1873. Glasgow Herald: 26 October 1873; 24 July 1872; 5 November 1872; 1 January 1873; 16 June 1873; 18 June 1873. Illustrated London News: 3 August 1872; 10 August 1872; 17 August 1872; 24 August 1872; 1 March 1873. Ipswich Journal: 13 August 1873; 7 January 1873; 7 January 1873. Leeds Mercury: 26 July 1872; 27 July 1872; 13 August 1872; 6 January 1873. Lloyds Weekly Newspaper: 26 July 1872; 27 July 1872; 13 August 1872; 6 January 1873. Manchester Guardian: 27 July 1872; 31 July 1872; 7 August 1872; 21 November 1872; 9 December 1872; 22 January 1873; 23 January 1873; 31 January 1873; 7 February 1873, 11 March 1873; 12 March 1873; 9 April 1873; 11 April 1873; 14 April 1873; 16 April 1873; 23 April 1873; 21 May 1873; 28 May 1873; 30 May 1873; 13 June 1873; 16 June 1873. Pall Mall Gazette: 27 July 1872; 20 August 1872; 19 April 1873; 23 April 1873; 16 June 1873; 10 August 1876. The Times: 27 July 1872; 31 July 1872; 7 August 1872; 21 November 1872; 9 December 1872; 22 January 1873; 23 January 1873; 31 January 1873; 7 February 1873, 11 March 1873; 12 March 1873; 9 April 1873; 11 April 1873; 14 April 1873; 16 April 1873; 23 April 1873; 21 May 1873; 28 May 1873; 30 May 1873; 13 June 1873; 16 June 1873.

Printed sources American Society of International Law. ‘Great Britain v. France’. The American Journal of International Law, vol. 2, no. 4 (Oct., 1908): 921–928. Baker, Samuel. Ismaïlia, A Narrative of the Expedition to Central Africa for the Suppression of the Slave Trade. London: MacMillan and Co, 1874. Banning, Emile. L’Afrique et la Conférence Géographique de Bruxelles. Bruxelles: Mezbarch & Falk, 1878. Berlioux, Étienne Félix. La Traite Orientale: Histoire des Chasses à l’Homme organisées en Afrique depuis Quinze Ans pour les Marchés de l’Orient. Paris: De Guillaumin & Cie, 1870. Brunet-Millon, Charles. Boutriers de la Mer des Indes, Affaires de Zanzibar et de Mascate, Paris: A. Pedone, 1910. Burton, R.F. First Footsteps in East Africa: Or, An Exploration of Harar. London: Green, and Longmans, 1856. Burton, R.F. The Lake Regions of Central Africa. London: Longman & Co, 1860. Burton, R.F. Zanzibar: City, Island and Coast, Vol. 1 and 2. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1872.

236  Select bibliography Cameron, Verney Lovett, Across Africa, London: Isbister, 1877. Cameron, Verney Lovett, Slavery in Africa: The Disease and the Remedy. London, 1888. Church Missionary Society, The Slave-Trade of East Africa: Is It to Continue or Be Suppressed? London: Church Missionary Society, 1868. Clarke Richard F. Cardinal Lavigerie and the African Slave Trade. London: Longmans & Co, 1889. Colomb, Philip. Slave Catching in the Indian Ocean: A Record of Naval Experiences. London: Longmans & Co, 1873. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. London: Blackwood’s Magazine, 1899. Devereux, William Cope, A Cruise in the “Gorgon”; or, Eighteen Months on H.M.S. “Gorgon,” Engaged in the Suppression of the Slave Trade on the East Coast of Africa. London: Bell & Daldy, 1869. Foreign Office, Correspondence Respecting Slavery in the Zanzibar Dominions. London: H.M.S.O, 1896. Fraser, H.A., Tozer, W.G., and Christie, J. Slavery in Zanzibar As It Is. London, 1871. Fraser, H.A. The East African Slave Trade and the Measures Proposed for Its Extinction as Viewed by Residents in Zanzibar. London: Harrison, 1871. Frere, Sir Henry Bartle Edward. Memorandum on the Measures Which Might Be Taken for the More Effectual Suppression of the Slave Trade in Eastern Africa. London, 1876. Gaume, Joseph. Suéma, ou La Petite Esclave Africaine Enterrée Vivante: Histoire Contemporaine dédiée aux Jeunes Chrétiennes de l’Ancien et Nouveau Monde. Paris: Gaume Frère, 1870. Gladstone, William Ewart. The Political Correspondence of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville, 1868–1876, edited by Agatha Ramm. London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1952. Grandidier, Alfred. Notice sur l’Ile de Zanzibar. Saint-Denis: Bulletin de la Société des Sciences de l’île de La Réunion, 1868. Guillain, Charles. Documents sur l’Histoire, la Géographie et le Commerce de l’Afrique Orientale. Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1856. Hall, William Edward. A Treatise on International Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890. Hutcheon Hall, William. A Few Remarks Relative to the Slave Trade on the East Coast of Africa. London: W. H. Hall, 1872. Hutchinson, Edward Moss. The Slave Trade of East Africa. London: Unknown Publisher, 1874. Kilkewa, P. Slave Boy to a Priest: The Autobiography of Padre Kilekwa. London: Universities Mission to Central Africa, 1937. Lavigerie, Charles. Documents sur la Fondation de l’Oeuvre Antiesclavagiste. SaintCloud: Eugène Belin et Fils, 1899. Le Roy, Alexandre. D’Aden à Zanzibar: Un Coin de l’Arabie Heureuse, le Long des Côtes. Tours: Alfred Mame, 1894. Leroy Beaulieu, Paul. De la Colonisation chez les Peuples Modernes. Paris: Guillaumin, 1874. Livingstone, David. Sketches of Dr. Livingstone’s Missionary Journeys and Discoveries in Central South Africa. London: John Murray, 1857. Livingstone, David. The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death. London: Murray, 1874.

Select bibliography 237 Madan, A.C. Kiungani, or Story and History from Central Africa. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1886. Malcolm, W.E. England’s East African Policy. Articles on the Relations of England to the Sultan of Zanzibar, and on the Negotiations of 1873. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co, 1875. Martineau, John. The Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere. London: John Murray, 1895. Montardy, Henry de. La Traite et le Droit International: Thèse pour le Doctorat. Paris: V. Giard, 1899. Oppenheim, L.F.L. International Law A treatise: Volume I, Peace; Volume II, War. London: Longmans & Co, 1905–1906. Parès, E. Du Gabon à Zanzibar: Les Explorateurs Français en Afrique, Limoges: Eugène Ardant, 1880. Queneuil, Henry. De la Traite des Noirs et de l’Esclavage, la Conférence de Bruxelles et ses résultats. Paris: L. Larose & L. Tenin, 1907. Razîk, Salîl Ibn, Badger, George Percy. History of the Imâms and Seyyids of ‘Omân: From A.D. 661–1856. London: Printed for the Hakluyt society, 1871. Rigby, Christopher Palmer. Zanzibar, and the Slave Trade, with Journals, Dispatches. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1935. Rolin-Jaequemyns, G. “Note sur la théorie du droit d’intervention, à propos d’une lettre de M. le professeur Arntz”. Revue de droit international et de législation comparée, tome VIII. Paris: Durand et Pedone-Lauriel, 1876, 675–682. Rougier, Antoine. La Théorie de l’Intervention d’Humanité. Paris: A. Pedone, 1910. Ruete, Emilie. Memoirs of an Arabian Princess. London: Ward & Downey, 1888. Salomon, Charles. L’Occupation des Territoires sans Maître, Etude de Droit International. Paris: A Giard, 1889. Speke, John Hanning. Journal of the Discovery of the Nile Sources. London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1864. Stanley, H.M. Address on the Slave Trade in the Interior of Africa before the AntiSlavery Society at Manchester. Manchester: Anti-Slavery Society, 1884. Stanley, H.M. How I Found Livingstone. London: Low and Searle, 1872. Stanley, H.M. Through the Dark Continent. London: Sampson Low & Co, 1878. Stowell, Ellery C. Intervention in International Law. Washington: J. Byrne & Co, 1921. Sulivan, G.L. Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters and on the Eastern Coast of Africa. London: Low & Searle, 1873. Tanoviceano, Jean. De l’Intervention au point de vue du Droit International. Paris: L. Larose, 1884. Wheaton, Henry. Elements of International Law. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1846. Woolsey, Theodore D. Introduction to the Study of International Law. London: Griffin & Co, 1864.

Secondary literature Anghie, Antony. Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Ainouddine, Sidi. “L’esclavage aux Comores Son fonctionnement de la période arabe à 1904”. In Esclavage et abolition dans l’Océan Indien (1723–1860), Acte du colloque de Saint Denis de La Réunion 4–8 Décembre 1998, edited by Edmond Maestri, 905–934. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2002.

238  Select bibliography Allain, Jean. Slavery in International Law: Of Human Exploitation and Trafficking. Leiden: Martinus Ninjhoff, 2013. Allen, Richard B. European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500–1850. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015. Allen, Richard B. “The Constant Demand of the French: The Mascarene Slave Trade and the Worlds of the Indian Ocean and Atlantic during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries”. The Journal of African History, vol. 49, no. 1 (2008): 43–72. Alpers Edward A. East Africa and the Indian Ocean. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2009. Alpers, Edward A. The East African slave trade. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1967. Al-Quasimi, Sultan Muhammad. Les Relations entre Oman et la France 1715–1905. Paris: l’Harmattan, 1995. Barnett, Michael N. Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011. Bass, Gary J. Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Bayly, C.A. The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914 Global Connections and Comparisons. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Beachey, R.W. A History of East Africa, 1592–1902. London: Taurus Academic, 1996. Beachey, R.W. “The East African Ivory Trade in the Nineteenth Century”. The Journal of African History, vol. 8, no. 2 (1967): 269–290. Beachey, R.W. The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa. London: Collings, 1971. Bennett, Norman R. A History of the Arab States of Zanzibar. London: Methuen, 1978. Bennett, Norman R. “France and Zanzibar, 1844 to the 1860”. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, part 1, vol. 6, no. 4 (1973): 602–632; part 2, vol. 7, no. 1 (1974): 27–55. Benton, Lauren. A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Bhacker, M.R. Trade and Empire in Muscat and Zanzibar: Roots of British Domination. London: Routledge, 1992. Bishara, Fahad Ahmad. “No Country but the Ocean: Reading International Law from the Deck of an Indian Ocean Dhow, ca. 1900”. Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 60, no. 2 (2018): 338–366. Blackburn Robin. The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800. London, Verso, 2010. Blackburn Robin. The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery 1776–1848. London: Verso, 1988. Blyth, R.J. “Redrawing the Boundary between India and Britain: The Succession Crisis at Zanzibar, 1870–1873”. The International History Review, vol. 22, no. 4 (Dec., 2000): 785–805. Blyth, R.J. The Empire of the Raj: India, Eastern Africa and the Middle East, 1858–1947. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Botte, Roger. Esclavages et Abolitions en Terres d’Islam: Tunisie, Arabie saoudite, Maroc, Tunisie, Soudan. Bruxelles: A. Versaille, 2010. Bricmont, Jean. Impérialisme Humanitaire, Droits de l’Homme, Droit d’Ingérence, Droit du plus Fort. Bruxelles: Aden, 2003.

Select bibliography 239 Broich, John. Squadron: Ending the African Slave Trade. London: Duckworth, 2017. Brown, Christopher Leslie. Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism. Williamsburg: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Brunschwig, Henri. Le Partage de l’Afrique Noire. Paris: Flammarion, 1971. Burbank, Jane and Cooper, Frederick. Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. Burroughs, Robert, and Huzzey, Richard. The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade: British Policies, Practices and Representations of Naval Coercion. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015. Busch, Cooper Briton. Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1894–1914. Los Angeles: U.C.P., 1967. Campbell, Gwyn, ed. The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia. New York: Frank Kass, 2003. Carlisle, Rodney. “The Muscat Dhows Case in Historical Perspective”. The Northern Mariner, vol. XXIV, no. 1 (Jan., 2014): 23–40. 2014 Cave, Basil S. “The End of Slavery in Zanzibar and British East Africa”. Journal of the Royal African Society, vol. 9, no. 33 (Oct., 1909): 20–33. Chamberlain, M.E. ‘Pax Britannica’?: British Foreign Policy 1789–1914. London: Longman, 1988. Chamberlain, M.E. The Scramble for Africa. London: Longman, 1999. Cheriau, Raphaël. “Le blocus de Zanzibar 1888–1889: entre ‘intervention d’humanité’, colonisation et droit international”. Outre-Mers, no. 402–403 (2019): 107–126. Cheriau, Raphaël. “The French Flag in Zanzibar Waters 1860s–1900s: Abolition and Imperial Rivalry in the Western Indian Ocean”. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, (2020) DOI: 10.1080/03086534.2020.1783115. Chesterman, Simon. Just War of Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Christopher, Emma, Pybus, Cassandra, and Rediker, Marcus, ed. Many Middle Passages: Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Clarence-Smith, William Gervase. Islam and the Abolition of Slavery. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Clarence-Smith, WilliamGervase, ed. The Economics of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century. London: Routledge, 1989. Conklin, Alice L. In the Museum of Man: Race, Anthropology, and Empire in France, 1850–1950. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013. Conklin, Alice L. Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Cooper, Frederick. Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977. Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine. “La colonisation Arabe à Zanzibar”. In Le livre noir du colonialisme, edited by Marc Ferro. Paris: Hachette, 2003. Coupland, Reginald. The Exploitation of East Africa 1856–1890. London, Faber and Faber, 1939. Crouzet, François. “Entente cordiale: réalités et mythes d’un siècle de relations franco-britanniques”. Études anglaises, vol. 57, no. 3 (2004): 310–320. Crouzet, Guillemette. “Boutres tricolores, boutres de discorde. Britanniques et Français en Oman et dans le nord de l’océan Indien à la fin du XIXe siècle”. Revue d’Histoire Maritime, no. 21 (2016): 407–434.

240  Select bibliography Crouzet, Guillemette. Genèses du Moyen-Orient: Le Golfe Persique à l’Age des Impérialismes 1800–1914. Ceysérieux: Champ Vallon, 2015. Daget, Serge. La Répression de la Traite des Noirs au XIXe siècle. L’Action des Croisières Françaises sur les Côtes de l’Afrique 1817–1850. Paris: Karthala, 1997. Darwin, John. “Imperialism and the Victorians: The Dynamics of Territorial Expansion”. The English Historical Review, vol. 112, no. 447 (Jun., 1997): 634. Deutsh, Jan-Jorg. Emancipation without Abolition in German East Africa c.1884–1914. Oxford: James Currey, 2006. Domingues da Silva, Daniel, Eltis, David, Misevich, Philip, and Ojo, Olatunji. “The Diaspora of Africans Liberated from Slave Ships in the Nineteenth Century”. Journal of African History, vol. 55, no. 3 (Nov., 2014): 347–369. Dorigny, Marcel and Métellus Jean. De l’Esclavage aux Abolitions: XVIIe - XXe siècles. Paris: Cercle d’Art, 1998. Dorigny, Marcel and Zin, Max-Jean. Les Traités Négrières Coloniales: Histoire d’un crime. Paris: Cercle d’art, 2009. Doulton, Lindsay. “The Flag that Set Us Free: Antislavery, Africans and the Royal Navy’’. In Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition, edited by R Harms, B.K. Freamon, and D.W. Blight, 101–119. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Drescher, Seymour. Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Drescher, Seymour. The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor versus Slavery in British Emancipation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Dubois, Colette. “Une traite tardive en mer Rouge méridionale: la route des esclaves du golfe de Tadjoura (1880–1936)”. In Traites et Esclavages en Afrique Orientale et dans l’Océan Indien, edited by Henri Médard, Marie-Laure Derat, Thomas Vernet, Marie Pierre Ballarin, 197–222. Paris: Khartala, 2013. Eltis, David, ed. Cambridge World History of Slavery, Volume IV, 1804–2016. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Emmer, P.C. Colonialism and Migration: Indentured Labour Before and After Slavery. Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986. Frank, Robert. Pour l’Histoire des Relations Internationales. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2012. Frémeaux, Jacques. Les Empires Coloniaux une Histoire Monde. Paris: CNRS, 2012. Galbraith, John S. Mackinnon and East Africa 1878–1895: A Study in the ‘New Imperialism’. London: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Gaurier, Dominique. Histoire du Droit International, Auteurs, Doctrines et Développement de l’Antiquité à l’Aube de la Période Contemporaine. Rennes: Presse Universitaire de Rennes, 2005. Gavin, J.R. “The Bartle Frere Mission to Zanzibar 1873”. The Historical Journal, vol. 5, no. 2 (1962): 122–148. Gerbeau, Hubert, and Eric, Saugera, ed. La Dernière Traite: Fragment d’Histoire en Hommage à Serge Daget. Paris: Société Française d’Outre-Mer, 1994. Gerwarth, Robert and Malinowski, Stephan. “Hannah Arendt’s Ghosts: Reflections on the Disputable Path from Windhoek to Auschwitz”. Central European History, no. 42 (2009): 279–300. Gifford, Prosser and Louis, William Roger. France and Britain in Africa. Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971. Gilbert, Erik. Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar 1860–1970. Oxford: James Currey, 2004.

Select bibliography 241 Gjersø, Jonas Fossli. “The Scramble for East Africa: British Motives Reconsidered, 1884–95”. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 43, no. 5 (2015): 831–860. Grant, Kevin. A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884–1926. London: Routledge, 2005. (Pétré-) Grenouilleau, Olivier. Les Traites Négrières Essai d’Histoire Globale. Paris: Gallimard, 2004. Grenouilleau, Olivier. La Révolution Abolitionniste. Paris: Gallimard, 2017. Grenouilleau, Olivier. Qu’est-ce que l’Esclavage? Une Histoire Globale. Paris: Gallimard, 2014. Hall Catherine. Civilizing Subjects, Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Hamilton, Keith and Salmon, Patrick, ed. Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire. Brighton: Eastbourne, 2009. Harms, Robert, Freamon, Bernard K., and Blight, DavidW, ed. Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.Heartfield, James. The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1838–1956: A History. London: Hurst & Company, 2016. Heraclides, Alexis and Dialla, Ada. Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century Setting the Precedent. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015. Hopper, Matthew S. Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. Howell, Raymond. The Navy and the Slave Trade. London: Longmans Green and Co, 1968. Huber, Valeska. Channelling Mobilities: Migration and Globalisation in the Suez Canal Region and Beyond, 1869–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Hunt, Lynn. Inventing Human Rights: A History. London: W. W. Norton, 2007. Huzzey, Richard. Freedom Burning Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012. Iliffe, John. Africans: The History of a Continent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Jennings, Lawrence C. “France, Great Britain, and the Repression of the Slave Trade, 1841–1845”. French Historical Studies, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring, 1977): 101–125. Jennings, Lawrence C. La France et l’Abolition de l’Esclavage (1802–1848). Burxelles: A. Versailles. 2010. Jones Jeremy and Ridout Nicholas. Oman, Culture and Diplomacy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Kelly, J.B. Britain and the Persian Gulf 1750–1880. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. Kielstra, Paul Michael. The Politics of Slave Trade Suppression in Britain and France, 1814–48: Diplomacy, Morality and Economics. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000. Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Klose, Fabian, ed. The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2016.

242  Select bibliography Klose, Fabian and Thulin, Mirjam, ed. Humanity: A History of European Concepts in Practice from the Sixteenth Century to the Present. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016.Koskenniemi, Martti. The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Lester, Alan and Dussart, Fae. Colonisation and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance: Protecting Aborigines across the Nineteenth-Century British Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Lloyd, Christopher. The Navy and the Slave Trade. London: Frank Cass & Co., 1968. Louis, Roger William and Stengers, Jean, ed. E. D. Morel’s History of the Congo Reform Movement. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. Lovejoy, Paul E., Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Third Edition, 2012. MacKenzie, John M. Propaganda and Empire: the Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. MacKenzie, John M. Imperialism and Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986. Martin, Jean. Comores: Quatre Iles entre Pirates et Planteurs, Tome 1: Razzias Malgaches et Rivalités Internationales (fin XVIIIe-1875). Paris: L’Harmattan, 1983. Martinez Jenny S. “Antislavery Courts and the Dawn of International Human Rights Law”. The Yale Law Journal, vol. 117, no.4 (Jan., 2008): 550–641. Martinez Jenny S. The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. McMahon, Elisabeth, Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Médard, Henri, Derat, Marie-Laure, Vernet, Thomas, Ballarin, Marie Pierre, ed. Traites et Esclavages en Afrique Orientale et dans l’Océan Indien. Paris: Khartala, 2013. Miège, J.L. “les boutriers arabes dans l’océan Indien au XIXè siècle”. Etudes et Documents, no. 12, Sénanque: Université de Provence, 1979: 113–118. Miers, Suzanne. Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1975. Miers, Suzanne. Slavery in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Monnier, Jehanne-Emmanuelle. Esclaves de la Canne à Sucre: Engagés et Planteurs à Nossi-Bé, Madagascar 1850–1880. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006. Moreau Defarges, Philippe. Droits d’Ingérence: Dans un Monde Post-2001. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2006. Mulligan, William. “The Fugitive Slave Circulars, 1875–76”. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 37, no. 2 (June, 2009): 183–205. Mulligan, William and Bric, Maurice, ed. A global History of Anti-Slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Nichols, C.S. The Swahíli Coast: Politics, Diplomacy and Trade on the East African Littoral, 1798–1856. London: Allen and Unwin, 1971. Nicolini, Beatrice. Makran, Oman, and Zanzibar: Three-Terminal Cultural Corridor in the Western Indian Ocean, 1799–1856. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

Select bibliography 243 Nicolini, Beatrice. The First Sultan of Zanzibar: Scrambling for Power and Trade in the Nineteenth Century Indian Ocean. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2012. Northrup, David, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Nwulia, Moses D.E. Britain and Slavery in East Africa. Washington D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1975. Oldfield, J.R. Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery: The Mobilization of Public Opinion against the Slave Trade, 1787–1807. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998. Oliver, Roland. The Missionary Factor in East Africa. London: Longmans, 1952. Oliver, Roland. Sir Harry Johnston and the Scramble for Africa. London: Chatto & Windus: 1957.1957. Otte, T.G. “A Course of Unceasing Remonstrance: British Diplomacy and the Suppression of the Slave Trade in the East”. In Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire, edited by Keith Hamilton and Patrick Salmon, 93–124. Brighton: Eastbourne, 2009. Pakenham, Thomas, The Scramble for Africa. London: Abacus, 1992. Paterson, Derek R, ed. Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010. Pitts, Jennifer. A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Porter, Andrew. European Imperialism, 1860–1914. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994. Porter, Andrew. Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Porter, Andrew, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume III, The Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Porter, Bernard. The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Preston, Antony and Major, John. Send a Gunboat: The Victorian Navy and Supremacy at Sea, 1854–1904. London: Longmans, 1967. Reilly, Benjamin, Slavery, Agriculture and Malaria in the Arabian Peninsula. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015. Renault, François. Lavigerie, l’Esclavage Africain et l’Europe (2 tomes), Campagne Antiesclavagiste. Paris, De Boccard, 1971. Renault, François. Le Cardinal Lavigerie, 1825–1892, L’Eglise, l’Afrique et la France. Paris: Fayard, 1992. Renault, François. Libération d’Esclaves et Nouvelle Servitude. Dakar: Les Nouvelles Éditions Africaines, 1976. Renault, François, et Daget, Pierre. Les Traites Négrières en Afrique. Paris: crouzet 1985. Renouvin, Pierre et Duroselle, Baptiste, Jean. Introduction à l’Histoire des Relations Internationales. Paris: Pocket, 210. Ribi Forclaz, Amalia. Humanitarian Imperialism: The politics of Anti-Slavery Activism, 1880–1940. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Richardson, David, ed. Abolition and Its Aftermath: The Historical Context, 1790–1916. London: Cass, 1985.

244  Select bibliography Richardson, David. “The British Empire and the Atlantic Slave Trade 1660–1807”. In The Oxford History of the British Empire: the Eighteenth Century, Volume 2, edited by P. J. Marshall, 440–464. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Rispal, Jean-François. “Zanzibar et la presence française dans l’océan Indien (1776–1904)”. Rahia, no. 15 (printemps 2005): 1–115. Robinson, Ronald, and Gallagher, John, with Denny, Alice. Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism. London: Macmillan, 1981. Rodogno, Davide. Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815–1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Ryan, Maeve. “A moral millstone?: British Humanitarian Governance and the Policy of: iberated African Apprenticeship, 1808–1848”. Slavery & Abolition. vol 37, no 2 (2016): 399–422. Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage Digital, 1994. Said, Edward W. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London: Penguin, 1991. Saleh, Ali. Zanzibar 1870–1972: Le Drame de l’Indépendance. Paris: l’Harmattan, 2007. Sanchez Samuel F. “Navigation et gens de mer dans le canal de Mozambique: les boutres dans l’activité maritime de Nosy Be et de l’Ouest de Madagascar au XIXe siècle”. In Madagascar et l’Afrique, entre Identité Insulaire et Appartenance Historique, edited by D. Nativel and F. Rajaonah, 103–136. Paris: Karthala, 2007. Scanlan, Padraic X. Freedom’s Debtors: British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. Scanlan, Padraic X. Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain. London: Robinson, 2020. Scarr, Deryck, Slaving and Slavery in the Indian Ocean. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998. Schmidt, Nelly. Abolitionnistes de l’Esclavage et Réformateurs des Colonies, 1820–1851. Paris: Karthala, 2001. Sheriff, Abdul, Dhow Cultures and the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism, Commerce, and Islam. Hurst: London, 2010. Sheriff, Abdul. Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar. London: James Currey, 1987. Shorter, Aylward. Cross and Flag in Africa: The “White Fathers” during the Scramble (1892–1914). New York: Orbis Books, 2006. Simms, B. and Trim, D.J.B. Humanitarian Intervention: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Singaravélou, Pierre. Les Empires Coloniaux: XIXe-XXe siècle. Paris: Seuil, 2013. Stanziani, Alessandro. Bondage in the Indian Ocean World 1750–1914. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Suzuki, Hideaki. Slave Trade Profiteers in the Western Indian Ocean. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Swatek-Evenstein, Mark. A History of Humanitarian Intervention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Temperley, Howard. British Antislavery, 1833–1870. London: Longman, 1972. Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870. London: Macmillan, 1998. Van der Linden, Marcel. “Unanticipated consequences of “humanitarian intervention”: The British campaign to abolish the slave trade, 1807–1900”. Theory and Society, vol. 39, no. 3 (2010): 281–298.

Select bibliography 245 Vergès Françoise. Abolir l’Esclavage: Une Utopie Coloniale Les Ambiguïtés d’une Politique Humanitaire. Paris: Albin Michel, 2001. Vernet, Thomas. “Avant le giroflier. Esclavage et agriculture sur la côte swahili, 1590–1812”. In Traites et Esclavages en Afrique Orientale et dans l’Océan Indien, edited by Henri Médard, Marie-Laure Derat, Thomas Vernet, Marie Pierre Ballarin, 245 à 306. Paris: Khartala, 2013. Wesseling, Hendrik Lodewijk. Le Partage de l’Afrique, 1880–1914. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. Wesseling, Hendrik Lodewijk. Les Empires Coloniaux Européens 1815–1914. Paris: Gallimard, 2009. Walker, Iain. Islands in a Cosmopolitan Sea: A History of the Comoros. London: Hurst, 2019. Weiss, Thomas G. Humanitarian Intervention. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017.

Index

Italicized and bold pages refer to figures and tables respectively; page numbers followed by “n” refer to notes. Abd el Kader 143 Abolition Act of 1807 103, 104, 107 abolitionism 2, 3, 12, 78, 108, 194–198, 201, 217, 218, 223, 224; in the age of empire, paradoxes of 82–92; historiography of 6–9; terrible paradoxes of freedom and labour in 82–92 abolitionist discourse and repression of slave trade, confrontation between 31–32, 34–36 Act of the 1885 Berlin Conference 153, 155, 156; Article Nine 136; Article Six 136; Preamble 136 Act of the 1890 Berlin Conference 182; Article LXI 162; Article LXXIV 162; Article XII 221; Article XLI 162; Article XLII 162; Article XXI 162, 221; Article XXII 161, 162 Aden 53, 86, 90 Aîné, Régis 82 Ainoudde, Sidi 71 Akinola, G. A. 135 Allain, Jean 77–78 Allen, Richard B. 49, 71, 206 Allied Commission on the Punishment of War Crimes Criminals 206 Alpers, Edward A. 83, 88 Alston, Philip 104 America 122; American Civil War (1861–1865) 6; American flag, in Indian Ocean 48–49 Anghie, Antony 5, 197

Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839–42; 1878–80; 1919) 40 Anglo-French agreement (1867) 159 Anglo-French declaration (1862) 180–181, 218 anti-slavery 1–3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 23, 24, 27, 31, 32, 34-41, 46–49, 54, 78, 79, 82, 86, 87, 91, 101–103, 105, 118, 121–123, 126–129, 134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 142, 143, 145, 146, 153, 154, 156, 157, 166, 167, 181; between 1862 and 1905 12–14; Hague Arbitration on the Muscat Dhow Case (1905) 183–187; in nineteenth century 201–208; in Persian Gulf 174–178; strategies, of British Vice-Admiralty Court 106–110; trade policies 194–197; unexpected consequences of 110–113; in Zanzibar through British and French archives, comparative history of 11–12 Anti-Slavery Reporter 123, 126, 159 Anti-Slavery Society 121, 140 apprenticeship 86, 87, 118 Arendt, Hannah 156 Armenia, massacres in 196 Arntz, Aegidius 194, 195, 205, 206 Arrow 185 Atlantic slave trade 6 Auclert, Hubertine 92 Austria 31, 78 Badger, Percy 125 Baker, Sir Samuel 220 Barghash, Khalid bin 38, 175 Barghash, Sayyid 123–125, 219 Barnett, Michael 4, 224 Bartle, Henry 119

Index 247 Bartle Frere Mission (1873) 13, 35, 87, 118–129, 160; colonisation and 126–129; diplomatic failure 122–126; gunboat diplomacy, victory of 122–126; reluctant abolitionist, under pressure of public opinion 119–122 Bass, Gary J. 4, 221, 224 Bearcroft, Captain 48 Bedingfield, Norman Bernard 31, 32, 34, 36 Belgium 154, 155; Department of Foreign Affairs 163 Bennett, James Gordon 2 Bennett, Norman Robert 134 Berlin Conference (1885) 3, 54, 135, 156, 219, 220 Bertrand, Romain 12 BFASS see British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society (BFASS) Biafra 90 Birmingham Daily Post 126 Bismarck, Otto Von 3, 135, 137–139, 154, 201 Blackburn, Robin 3 Blantyre 88 Bloch, Marc 3, 104, 204 Boer War (1899–1902) 145, 207 Bombay 86, 90, 102 Bombay, Sidi Mubarak 86 Bosnia-Herzegovina, genocide in 4, 206 Bourée, M. 159 Braudel, Fernand 224 Brazil 219 British African Emigration Projects 85 British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society (BFASS) 118–123, 127, 140, 154, 156, 166, 203, 219–221 British High Court of Admiralty 78 British imperial hegemony at sea, paradoxes of 36–41, 37, 39 British liberated slaves, French ‘engagés’ and 82–92, 85, 89 British Library Newspaper Archives 202, 210n22 British Protectorate 157, 219 British Royal Navy 5, 11, 23, 28, 31, 34–37, 40, 41, 46–48, 55, 56, 57, 77–82, 85, 88, 90, 102, 103, 106–108, 139, 142, 144, 146, 163, 174, 176, 178, 183, 187, 218, 219 British Sultan in Zanzibar, making 106–110

British Treasury 108 British Vice-Admiralty Court, Zanzibar 13, 101–113, 219; adjudication 109, 109; anti-slavery and imperial strategies 106–110; imperial interference 101–106; sovereignty 101–107, 109, 110, 112; unexpected consequences of anti-slavery 110–113 Broca, Paul 200 Broglie, Albert de 127 Brougham, Lord Henry 118 Brownrigg, Captain 39 Brunet-Millon, Charles 49, 53, 178–179, 187 Brunswick, Henri 6 Brussels Conference (1890) 11, 86, 146, 153–167, 201; freedom of all men 158–161; freedom of the seas 158–161; international repression of the slave trade 161–167, 166, 167; Zanzibar blockade, influence of 153–157 Brussels Conference and Act 166 Bulgaria: humanitarian interventions in 4; series of massacres in 196 Burbank, Jane 120 Bure, Eugène de 55 Burton, R.F. 6, 87 Bushiri rebellion 144 Buxton, Sydney 154 Byron, Lord 205 Cain, P.J. 128 Cambon, Paul 180, 183 Cameron, Verney Lovett 87, 108, 115n43 Campbell, Charles 163 Campbell, Gwyn 71 cannibalism 1 Canning Award (1861) 189n24 Cape of Good Hope 102 Cape Town 86 Carlisle, Rodney 185 Castlereagh, Lord 103 Cathedral St Gudule 136 Catholic Centre Party 137, 154 Catinat 182 Césaire, Aimé 7 Chamberlain, M. E. 128 Charter of the International Tribunal: article 6, 206 Chevalier 82 China, Boxer rebellion in 196

248  Index Christianity 2, 3 Chuma, James 86 Churchill, Henry Adrian 101, 110, 111 Church Missionary Society 88 civilisation 3, 196–198, 200 civilised states 197 Clarendon, Lord 48, 110–111, 119 Clarkson, Thomas 202 Clausewitz, Carl Von 222 Cold War 4, 206, 220 Colomb, Philip 24, 26, 48, 107 colonisation 6–8, 10, 12, 25–26, 91, 101, 102, 113, 119, 126–129, 136, 138, 155, 161, 162, 165, 175, 201, 219, 220, 222 Comoros Island 55, 57, 71, 81, 106, 123, 186 Comte, Auguste 199 Conference of the Powers 140 Congo 155–156; Congo Atrocities (1885–1908) 222, 223; Congo Free State 3; Reform Movement 207 Congress of Verona (1822) 81 Congress of Vienna (1815) 81, 103, 196, 202, 218; Final Act of 198 Conrad, James 1, 9 Cooper, Briton 182 Cooper, Frederick 120, 165 Coupland, Reginald 49, 79, 111, 112, 128; British Anti-Slavery Movement 6 Cox, Percy 57, 181, 182 Crete, massacres in 196 crime against humanity 14, 104, 193, 201–208, 224 Crimean War (1853–1856) 35, 180, 196 crime of lèse-humanity 103 Crouzet, Guillemette 49, 162, 173 Cuba 80, 218; American intervention in 196; humanitarian interventions in 4 Curzon, Lord 174, 175, 181, 218–219 Daget, Serge Daget 79 Dahomey 112, 200, 218 Daily Mail 48, 140 Daily Telegraph 124 Dar es Salam school 8 Daru, Count 50 Darwin, John 1 Daumier, Honoré 84, 85 death penalty, abolition of 10 Declaration on the rights of Man and Citizen (1789) 92

decolonisation 6, 7, 220 De Horsey, Captain 71 Derby, Lord 112 De Rémusat, M. 123 De Savornin Lohman, Jonkheer A. F. 184 dhows and Indian Ocean slave trade 23–31, 166, 167; under French flag 46–72, 50, 51, 56, 58–70; international law 77–92; right of visit 77–80 Dialla, Ada 196 Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield 91 domestic slaves 40 Douglas, Lucius 175 Doulton, Lindsay 87 Drescher, Seymour 8, 91, 108, 118, 121, 122, 223 Dreyfus Affair (1898) 203 Drôme 182 Dubler, Robert 204 Dublin 126 Dubois, Colette 49 Dufferin, Marquis de 177 Dussart, Fae 5, 7 East Africa 1, 11, 12, 71, 109, 128, 221; anti-slavery policies 79, 208; British 86; British anti-slavery in 7, 118; British imperial influence in 112; British imperialism in 6; Christian civilization in 135–137; colonial expansion in 103, 118; East African rebellion (1888-1889) 145; indentured labourer, recruitment of 82; Liberated Africans in 87, 88, 91; map of 33; rescued slaves 30; slave trade 2, 6, 8, 26, 32–36, 40, 91, 119, 203, 204; transoceanic slave exports 24 ‘Eastern Question, the’ 196 Edward VII, King 184 Egypt, occupation of 140 Elton, Vice-Consul 113 Emmanuel, Victor 123 Entente-Cordiale 184 Erpelding, Michel 197–198 Ethiopia 90 Euan-Smith, Colonel 142, 145 European Concert of Nations 203 European Orientalism 24 European slave trade 24, 49, 71, 83 Evans, Richard J. 199 Everill, Bronwen 4, 224

Index 249 Fagan, Christopher G. F. 176 Fage, J. D. 6, 220 Fanon, Franz 7 Fath el Kheir 177, 178 Faysal, Sultan 181, 182 Fellowes, Lieutenant 38 Ferry, Jules 3 Fiore, Pasquale 195 Firmin, Anténor 200 Forclaz, Amalia Ribi 5, 7, 156 Fowell, Sir Thomas 119 France 5, 7, 41, 122, 139, 142, 153, 217, 218; French ‘engagés,’ and British liberated slaves 82–92, 85, 89; French Indo-China 175; French protégés 178–183; see also French flag Frazer, Captain 87, 102 freedom of all men 158–161 freedom of the seas 158–161 freed slaves 56, 71, 82, 84, 86–88, 90, 91, 104, 107, 143, 165 Freeman’s Journal 126 Frémeaux, Jacques 3 French Chargé d’Affaire, Zanzibar 127 French flag: and Hague Arbitration on the Muscat Dhow Case (1905) 178–183; in Indian Ocean slave trade 46–72; dhows and 46–72, 50, 51; new imperial order, vehicles of 52–55; right of visit and 80–82; role of (1860–1900) 56–72, 56, 58–70 French–Muscat Treaty of 1844 186; Article 4, 179 Frere, Sir Bartle 87, 88, 118–121, 124–129, 217, 219 Frere Town 88 Fuller, Melville W. 184 Funck-Brentano, Théophile 195 Gaillard, M. 78 Gallagher, John 1 Gallinas 200 Gary, Romain, Les Racines du Ciel 221 Gavin, R. J. 128 GEAC see German East Africa Company (GEAC or Deutsche OstAfriakanishe Gesellschaft) Geneva Conventions 10 Gentili, Alberico 206 George, David Llyod 207 Gerbeau, Hubert 26 German East Africa Company (GEAC or Deutsche Ost-Afriakanishe Gesellschaft) 134

Germany 122, 137–139, 218; German memorandum (1888) 136 Gibbons, Sir John 121 Gilpin, Charles 121, 130n28 Gjersø, J. F. 1 Gladstone, William Ewart 122, 124–126, 141 Gliddon, George 200 Gobineau, Arthur De 200 Goblet, René 139–141 Gordon, Charles 136, 220 Gordon, General 136 Grant, Kevin 87, 165, 222 Granville, Lord 122, 123 Graphic 126 Great Famine, Ireland (1846–1852) 202 Great War (1914) 163, 165, 173, 187, 203, 207 Greece: European powers, interference of 194; humanitarian interventions in 4; series of massacres in 196 Grenouilleau, Olivier 5, 8, 9, 78, 156 Grotius, Hugo 206; Mare Liberum 81, 82 Gruzinski, Serge 3–4, 12 Guadeloupe 82 Guillain, Charles 24 Guizot, François 78, 93n11 gunboat diplomacy 38, 123–127 Hague Arbitration on the Muscat Dhow Case (1905) 5, 13–14, 79, 159, 160, 173–187, 201; flags of convenience 183–187; French flag and 178–183; French protégés and 178–183; imperial rivalry and anti-slavery in Persian Gulf 174–178 Hague Peace Conference (1899) 161, 173 Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration 146, 173 Hague’s Award, The 173 Hall, Edward 195 Hamadi, Said bin 135 Hamerton, Atkins 36 Hamterton Treaty (1845) 40, 106 Hancock, Keith 10 Hatzfeldt, Paul Von 138, 148n37 HCPP see House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, The (HCPP) Heath, Sir Leopold 32, 40, 110 Heffer, August Whilem 195 Heraclides, Alexis 196

250  Index Her Majesty 6, 13, 34, 35, 48, 101, 102, 105, 119, 122, 126, 167, 177, 181; Consul at Zanzibar, Jurisdiction of 102; Government 110, 111, 138, 217 Her Majesty’s Agency 35 Her Majesty the Queen 185 Herrero and Nama genocide (1904–1908) 145, 222 Hill, Clement 120, 138, 148n34 Hillyar, Commodore 31 H.M.S.: Agamemnon 144; Bittela 143; Blanche 163; Brilliant 203; Bullfish 34; Castor 36, 38; Daphne 30, 36, 38, 107; Dirihi 164; Diriki 178; Eclipse 175; Gorgon 34; Highflyer 38; Jahora 143; London 35, 38, 39, 87, 91, 111; Louis 78; Lyra 39, 39; Majunga 177, 178; Marabout 77, 78; Marathon 144; Naïad 183; Nymphe 34, 47; Olga 144; Osprey 106; Pantaloon 36–37, 38; Perseus 183; Philomel 163, 177; Pomona 183; Racoon 163; Reindeer 143; Saad 177; Salama 177; Selama 177; Sénégambie 77; Sidon 34; Sparrow 163; Sphinx 175, 177, 181, 182; Star 101; Swallow 163; Teazer 34; Wasp 31; Widgeon 163 Hobson, J. A. 9 Hopkins, A.G. 128 Hopper, Matthew S. 5, 32, 88, 90, 164, 165 House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, The (HCPP) 11 Howell, Raymond 32, 34, 49, 110 Huber, Valeska 162, 183 Hugo, Victor 199 humanitarianism 1, 3–9, 12–14, 82, 101, 105, 108, 110, 112, 113, 118, 126, 153–156, 166, 199, 201, 205, 217, 219–221, 223, 224; Brussels Conference (1890) and 153–167; European 156; humanitarian diplomacy 118–129; humanitarian imperialism 4, 6–8, 128, 146, 220–222; humanitarian interference 16n26, 106, 110, 112, 215n112; humanitarian intervention 8, 194–197, 217–224; definition of 4–5; in nineteenth century, history of 4–6; Zanzibar blockade (1889) 134–139, 142–146; methodological approach

to 9–11; in nineteenth century 205; right of visit and 77–80 humanity 2, 5, 10, 11, 14, 90, 120, 126,127, 134, 134, 154, 159–161, 223, 224; anti-trade slave policies and cause of 193–208; crime against 14, 104, 193, 201–208, 224; interference in Vice-Admiralty Court 101–106; rights of 121, 197–201 human rights 5, 14, 104, 105, 159, 160, 193–195, 201–208, 224 Hunt, Lynn 193, 204 Huzzey, Richard 5, 8–9, 126, 128, 165 IBEAC see Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) Illustrated London News, The 24, 38, 39 Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) 134 imperialism 1–4, 13; British ViceAdmiralty Court 106–110; Brussels Conference (1890) and 153–167; historiography of 6–9; humanitarian 4, 6–8, 128, 146, 220–222; imperial diplomacy 118–129; imperial interference 13, 101, 105, 111, 218; Marxist rhetoric 10; methodological approach to 9–11; right of visit and 77–80; rivalry in Persian Gulf 174–178; Zanzibar blockade (1889) 134–139 indentured labours 13, 71, 77, 82–84, 87, 223 Indian Ocean: map of 33; Middle Passage 27, 90; slave captures in 28; slave trade 5, 6, 12, 13, 23–31, 219; American flag in 48–49; French flag in 46–72 inferior races 200, 201 Infernet 183 International Bill of the Rights of Man (1945) 205, 206 International Labour Organization 205, 223 international maritime law 82 Irish Rebellion (1798) 202 Ismail, Khedive 220 ius gentium 81 Jackson, Robert 205 Jaurès, Jean 199 Jennings, Lawrence C. 77 Jollivet, Thomas 78, 93n11

Index 251 Kalyk, Matthew 204 Kaplan, Josiah 161, 224 Khalifa, Seyyid 145 Kilwa 111, 135 Kirk, Sir John 49, 50, 71, 87, 88, 106, 108–113, 123–126, 128, 156, 157, 219, 221 Kisanga 71 Klein, Jean François 3 Klose, Fabian 4, 156, 193, 197, 224 Knox, Robert 200 Koskenniemi, Martti 5, 197, 205 Kosovo: Western interventions in 4 ‘l’acte provisoire de liberation à temps’ 82 Lafon, Jacques 49 La Glorieuse 84 Lagos 46, 112, 200, 218; Bombardment of 38 Lake Tanganyika 1 L’Alexandre 84 la Mare 143 Lambert, Andrew 32 Lammasch, H. 184 Lamu 111 Lansdowne, Lord 175–177, 180, 182, 183 La Panthère 83 Laqua, Daniel 155, 156 La Réunion 6, 71, 82, 83, 84 Laronce 186 ‘la station navale de la Réunion et de Madagascar’ 84 Lauterpacht, Hersch 193, 205, 206, 224 Laux, Claire 3 Lavigerie, Cardinal 135–138 Law of Nations 198, 203 League of Nations 166 Le Charivari 84 le Charles et Georges 84 Lee-Warner, Sir William 177 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism 10 Leopold II, King 150n86, 154, 155, 160, 201, 220, 222 Leopold II the Belgian Monarch 3; and Congo Free State 3 Leo XIII, Pope: In Plurimis 135 Leroux, Pierre-Henri 199 Lester, Alan 5, 7

Le Temps 127 Lewis, Mary Dewhurst 9, 178, 179, 183 l’Humanité 199 Liberated Africans 84, 86–88, 91 Libya, Western interventions in 4 Lindi 135 Livingstone, David 1–2, 6, 10, 24, 87, 88, 110, 115n43, 118–120, 136, 217, 222; East Coast slave trade, suppression of 2; and Heart of Darkness 1–3; Stanley and 2–3 Lloyd, Christopher 49, 107, 113 Lloyd’s Register (1905) 185 London International Conference on Military Trials 206 Louis XVI 202 Lovejoy, Paul E. 8, 24 Lugard, Frederik 221 Macdonald, Mairi S. 155 Macedomia, massacres in 196 Madagascar 47–49, 55, 57, 71, 80, 84, 157 MAE CADC see Ministère des Affaires étrangère, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de La Courneuve (MAE CADC) MAE CADN see Ministère des Affaires étrangère, Centres des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (MAE CADN) mahdist movement 137 Maji-Maji war (1905–1908) 223 Malagasy slave trade 71 Manchester Guardian 126 Manyema 1 mare closum 81 Maritime, la Compagnie Générale 82 Mark, Antaki 202 Maronites 121 Martens, Fyodor Fyodorovitch 161 Martin, Edmond B. 24 Martinez, Jenny 104, 159, 204 Martinique 82 Marx, Roland 7 Marxism 36 Mascarenes 71 Mathews, Lloyd William 112, 135, 165 Matson, Henry James 34 Mau Antacid war (1952–1960) 145 Mauritius 86, 87, 102, 104 Mayotte 6, 52, 53, 55, 71, 84, 160

252  Index McDouglas, James 3 Meara, Edward Spencer 46–47, 49, 50, 52 Médard, Henri 3 Midlothian campaign of 1879–1880 124 Miège, Jean Louis 49 Miers, Suzanne 7, 128, 137, 153–155, 165 Miliband, David 8 Mill, John Stuart 195 Millon, Charles-Brunet 24 Ministère des Affaires étrangère, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de La Courneuve (MAE CADC) 11 Ministère des Affaires étrangère, Centres des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (MAE CADN) 11, 50, 60, 67–69 Mixed Commissions Courts 104, 105, 109 Mombasa 111 Monnier, Jehanne-Emmanuelle 71 Montardy, Henry de 103 morality 13, 103, 108, 198, 202, 220 Morel, E. D. 207, 222 Moresby treaty 84 Morin, Edgar 9 Morocco 184 Morton, Samuel George 200 Moyn, Samuel 104, 204 Mozambique 84, 123, 218 Muhammad, Seyyid Hamoud bin 175 Mulligan, William 5 Munitions of War 141 Muscat 53, 54, 57, 71, 81, 123, 124, 128, 175. see also Hague Arbitration on the Muscat Dhow Case (1905) Muscat British Consul 56, 57 Napoleonic Wars 49, 80 Napoleon III 84 Natal 86 Naval Pay and Prize Act of 1854 107 Newcastle 124 New Imperialism 178, 220 new imperial order in Indian Ocean, vehicles of 52–55 Ngazigja 71 Niger 112 Northrup, David 83 Nossi-Bé 6, 52, 53, 55, 57, 71, 84, 160, 186 Nott, Josiah 200 Nuremberg trials (1945) 193, 202–208

Nwulia, Moses D. E. 7, 165 Nyasaland 120 Obock 53, 186 Oliver, Roland 87 Oman 5, 12, 24, 40, 56, 124, 174, 175, 179, 183, 187, 219 Oppenheim, L. F. L. 195, 205, 207 oppression 7, 10 Ottavi, Paul 182 Ottoman Empire 203, 218 Pall Mall Gazette 124, 126 Palmerston, Lord 185 Pangani 135 Paris 12, 47, 83, 123, 177, 184 Parisian Commune (1871) 203 Pax Britannica 46, 158 Pemba Island 39, 141 Persian Gulf 23, 24, 25, 40, 78, 81, 158, 160, 162, 173, 219; imperial rivalry and anti-slavery in 174–178 Peters, Carl 150n86 Philippines: humanitarian interventions in 4 Pirate Coast 174 Pius IX, Pope 123 Platt, Stephen 11 Pondicherry 175 Portal, G. H. 163 Portugal 121, 122, 217, 218 Prestholdt, Jeremy 8 Prideaux, Captain 87, 113 Prussia 31–32, 78 Puerto Rico 80 Quakers 140 Quatrefage, Armand de 200 Quintuple treaty 78 racial bias against African slaves 90 racial science 200 Records of the Slave Trade Department (RSTD) 11 Red Cross 10, 198, 199 Red Sea 81, 157, 183, 187 reluctant abolitionist, under pressure of public opinion 119–122 Renault, François 49 Renault, Louis 53 repression of slave trade 23–41, 197– 198, 201; and abolitionist discourse, confrontation between 31–32, 34–36 British imperial hegemony

Index 253 at sea, paradoxes of 36–41, 37, 39; Zanzibar dhows and Indian Ocean slave trade 23–31 repression of the slave trade: international 161–167, 166, 167 res communis 81 Responsibility To Protect (R2P) 4, 206 Restore Hope operation 4 RGS see Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Rigby, C. P. 32 right of search 32, 54, 55, 77, 139, 141, 154, 157, 159, 224 right of visit 47, 77–80, 86, 101, 139–142, 145, 146, 154, 158–162, 173, 176, 178, 180, 185–187, 196, 198, 201, 217, 221; abuse of 58–70; French flag and 80–82 rights of humanity 121, 194–201, 204 Robinson, Ronald 1 Rodogno, Davide 4, 10, 197, 224 Rothery, H. C. 107 Rougier, Antoine 4–5, 194; ‘La théorie de l’intervention d’humanité’ (‘The Humanitarian Intervention Theory’) 196–197 Royal African Corps 86 Royal Geographical Society 119 Royal Geographical Society (RGS) 2 RSTD see Records of the Slave Trade Department (RSTD) Russia 31–32, 78 Rwanda, genocide in 4, 206 Ryan, Maeve 5 Ryan, T. C. I. 24 Sadler, Major 177 Said, Sultan Khalifa ibn 135 Salim, Abushiri ibn 135 Salisbury, Marquess 3, 137–142, 154, 182 Sanchez, Samuel F. 49 Scanlan, Padraic X. 5, 8, 104, 109 Schiller, Friedrich: Ode to Joy 199 Schuyler, Eugene 79 scientific racism 200 Scio Massacres 121 Sebastopol, bombardment of 35, 38 Second Hundred Years’ War (1715–1815) 47 Selden, John 81–82 Select Committee 119, 120 Serna, Pierre 202 servitude 71, 83, 86, 91, 223

Seychelles 86, 87 Seyyid Majid, Sultan of Zanzibar 101–102, 107, 110 Seyyid Saïd, Sultan of Zanzibar 6, 83, 106–107 Shawcross, Sir Harley 206 Shelley, Mary 11 Sheriff, Abdul 8, 26, 57, 128 Sierra Leone 46, 84, 86, 218; apprentices in 86; freed slaves in 86; Vice-Admiralty Court 104 Simms, Brendan 4, 224 Sixth Committee of the League of Nations 166 slave caravans 25 slave hunters 25 Slavery Convention (1926) 166 slave trade 3; abolition of 8; Atlantic 6; East African 2, 6; East Coast 2; European 24, 49, 71, 83; Indian Ocean 5, 6, 12, 13, 23–31; repression of 23–41, 161–167, 166, 167, 197–198, 200; see also individual entries Slave Trade Department 46, 112, 157 slave trafficking 35, 177 Smith, William Henry 121, 130n28 Societa Antichiavista d’Italia 156 Société Antiesclavagiste de Belgique 156 Société de la morale chrétienne 78 Société française pour l’abolition de l’esclavage 78 Society for the Abolition 91 Somalia 90 Sorel, Albert 195 sovereignty 5, 13, 14, 24, 41, 47, 52, 54, 55, 72, 77, 101–107, 109, 110, 112, 125, 145, 146, 153, 155, 157–161, 176, 178–181, 184–187, 198, 200, 203, 205, 208, 218, 219, 221; state 121, 184, 194, 195, 197 Speke, John Hanning 6, 87 Stanley, Henry Morton 1, 2, 10, 87, 119; Livingstone and 2–3; New Imperialism 3 Stanziani, Alessandro 83 St Helena 84 Stowell, Ellery Cory 194 Strauss, Claude Levi 198 Sturge, Joseph 118 Subsidy Arrangement (1861) 124 Sulivan, Georges L. 24, 35, 46, 88–91, 89, 107, 199, 217; Dhow Chasing in

254  Index Zanzibar Waters 37; Instructions for the guidance of Her Majesty’s naval officers employed in the suppression of the slave trade 26, 40 Susi, Abdullah 86 Suzuki, Hideaki 49, 50 Swahili coast slave trade 34 Swatek-Evenstein, Mark 197 Syria 206; humanitarian interventions in 4; series of massacres in 196 Taiping Civil War (1851–1864) 11 Tanga 135 Thiers, Adolphe 127, 198 Thiers, M. 123 Third-Worldism 7 Thulin, Mirjam 197 Times, The 48, 126–127, 154, 202 Tokyo trial 206 trans-Saharan slave trade 203 Treaty of Versailles (1919) 207 Trim, D. J. B. 4, 224 triumph of the laws 197–201 Trollope, Anthony 217 Trucial States of the Gulf 174, 175 R2P see Responsibility To Protect (R2P) Tunisia 178 United Nations Charter (1945) 194, 195 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (1982): Article 98, 212n63; Article 110, 221 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes 223 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) 195, 204 Vallon, Aristide 26 Vattel, Emer de 199 Vergès, Françoise 3 Victoria, Francisco de 206 Victorian Society 120 Vidal 82

Vienne, Couturier de 127 Vivian, Lord Hussey Crespigny 157 Vohsen, Ernst 135 Voltaire 199 Wainright, Jacob 86 Walker, Rear-Admiral 57 Waller, Horace 120 Walton, Sir Joseph 207 Weber, Max 9 Wellington, Mathew 86 Wheaton, Henry 104, 194, 201–202 William II, German Emperor 137 Williams, Eric: Capitalism and Slavery 7 Wills, Mary 108 Winock, Michel 92 Wissmann, Herman Von 144, 150n86 Wolf, Richard D. 79 Woolsey, Theodore D. 194 Wylde, William 120 Yemen 90 Zanzibar 1–14; comparative history of anti-slavery in, through British and French archives 11–12; at crossroad of historiography of abolitionism and imperialism 6–9; dhows 23–31; and history of humanitarian intervention in nineteenth century 4–6; Independence, Anglo-French declaration on 5 Zanzibar blockade (1889) 134–146, 194, 201, 220; humanitarian intervention 142–146; influence on Brussels Conference (1890) 153–157; launching 134–139; philanthropy or business 139–142 Zanzibar British Consul 111, 113, 142, 145 Zanzibar French Consul 105, 135, 143 Zanzibar Maritime Bureau 164–166, 166, 167 Zanzibar Vice-Admiralty Court 113