A. British Consul in East Africa
••ezieral. Rigby, Zanzibar and the Slave Trade. By Mrs. C. 'E.' B. Russell: (George Allen and Unwin. 16s.) Zan During the past year (1869) 19,000 slaves were brought to zibar from the coast of Africa. . . .
" The road to the coast, stank with corpses.. . . One poor Woman had a child on her back which she was too weak to carry further. .11)0 slave-dealer took it by the heels and dashed its brains out against a tree. . . .
"
It is impossible to conceive a more revolting sight than the landing of a cargo Of slaves (at Zanzibar). . . . They are frequently in the last stage of starvation and unable to stand. Some drop dead in the custom-house and in the streets ; others, who are not likely to recover, are loft on board to die. . . ."
kits. RUSSELL'S life of her father, General Rigby, is an . admirable study of a remarkable man whose personality and achievements fully deserve to be thus rescued from the shades. His personal letters and diaries, his service in India and Persia, his wanderings about Europe, and characteristic comments on its manners and customs and squalor, his close acquaintance with African explorers, especially the noble Spekc--all this is interesting ; but the kernel of the book is Rigby's fight with the 'Arab' slave system at Zanzibar, of which the above quotations—Lthey could' be multipliedindefi- nitely—afford a by no means exaggerated description.
The Arabs had been exporting slaves from the East coast of Africa to Arabia, Persia and India for centuries before' the Europeans began the transatlantic 'slave-trade from the West coast ; and its suppression set British humanitarianism an cquallydiffieult task. It waseasier indeed to exert presstire on European Governments to co-operate in abolishing the Trade than on the " Sultan " of Muscat, the owner of Zanzibar and overlord' of the East African coast. The GoVernthentS' of France. Spain and Portugal had condemned the Trade in principle and had enacted laws, however ill-enforced, against it. But the Sultan's. Arab subjects, being Moslems, regarded slavery as a basic element in their society, sanctioned by their faith, and the slave-trade as • the necessary means of maintaining The Sultan's revenue, moreover, was largely drawn from the tax on the Trade. Thus, till 1875, the Btitish • Governinent was content with a .compromise. It obtained from the Sultan treaty-pledges to abandon and to alloW the British Navy to suppress the " external " part of the Trade, i.e., that which was carried on with European smugglers southwards, while it acquiesced for the time being in the " domestic " Trade by which the needs of the Sultan's subjects in Arabia and Africa were supplied.
Rigby came to Zanzibar in 1858 as British consul and political agent, burning with humanitarian zeal, but with no
• force, save a few Indian police, at his back and no felloW- countryman on the island to advise or assist him. Under the conditions described above, there were only two things he could do. First, he could and he did draw his Government's attention to the continued export of slaves from the coast to Portuguese and French dealers in open breach of the treaty-pledges, with the result 'that. partly by diplomatic action, partly by stiffening up the Naval patrol, the volume of this smuggling was very greatly reduced. Secondly, lie discovered that buying, selling and owning slaves was as much the custom of the numerous Indians who froin time immemorial had settled as traders in Zanzibar as of the Arabs themselves. Since they were mainly from British India and therefore British subjects, he boldly enforced the famous Abolition of Slavery:Act of 1833. He gave all British subjects a month's notice to bring all. slaves in their possession to his consulate for eMancipatiOn. 'There was anger and cornmotiOn among the Indians. One of the richest Hindu merchants refused to obey the order, whereupon Rigby put him in irons till he submitted. Haitals and. deputations followed. But Rigby was firm and had his way.. He gave certificates of freedom to 'about 3,600 slaves and saw that they held good. This single-handed achievement, which received full official
-approval, made a deep . impression on the island. Till very recent times Zanzibaris would often fix the date of 'a past event as at the time when Rigby freed the slaves.
Other interesting incidents of Rigby's stay at Zanzibar are well described by Mrs. Russell, specially the attempt by the Sultan's brother, with French connivance, to usurp the throne—an attempt that was thwarted largely by Rigby's courage and resource. But what may well strike the reader most is the purity of his motives and of the policy of which he was the instrument. The British consul was not seeking Imperial aggrandisement, economic or political. He protected the interests of British-Indian trade, but there was hardly any British trade to protect. Americans from Salem and Germans from Hamburg were making profits from East ;African ivory and gum-copal long before there *as any serious !British competition. There were American, German and French business men residing at Zanzibar in Rigby's day, but not one Englishman. Only four British merchant ships :visited the island in 1858 as against 79 of other nations. Nor were we wanting territory. A British naval officer hoisted the British flag at Mombasa in 1824, at the request of its inhabit- ants, but his action was disowned and the flag hauled down. In 1861 we induced the French to guarantee jointly with us the integrity of the Sultan's " dominions," and we honestly tried to preserve it until Germany insisted on " a place. in the sun " in East Africa in 1884.
• Exhaustive study of the records shows that, in Rigby's time and long after, the British Government's interest in East Africa was the abolition of the slave-system and very little • else ; - and, though the Arabs bitterly resented this intrusion on their domestic affairs, they recognised that in other matters, and particularly in the maintenance of their independence, -Britain was their best friend. That, above all else, is the reason why by the " eighties," when Kirk stood in Rigby's shoes, both in trade and in political influence, Britain took the lead of other nations.
R. CoureaND.
Previous page
