[Oman-L] Manumission movement and slavery in the Persian Gulf in the 1920s (lecture: Berlin, ZMO, 26 June 2008)

[Joachim Duester]

Prof. Jerzy Zdanowski will give a lecture on

"Manumission movement and slavery in the Persian Gulf in the 1920s"

at the ZMO Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Kirchweg 33, 14129 Berlin, on Thursday, 26 June 2006, at 18:00 hours.

Details can be found at
http://www.zmo.de/veranstaltungen/2008/vortrag_zdanowski.pdf
Information on ZMO at http://www.zmo.de
Information on Prof. Jerzy Zdanowski at

The purpose of this lecture is to show what can be assumed from the British archives about the slave trade and slavery in the Persian Gulf and neighboring countries between 1925 and 1950. The study is based on 72 records of the archive group R/15 "The Bushire Residency" (the reference R/15/1) followed by the Agencies: Bahrain, R/15/2, Sharjah, R/15/4, Kuwait, R/15/5, and Muscat, R/15/6. Each record contains between 77 and 199 files with applications of fugitive slaves who were entering the British agencies on the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf demanding manumission. The first manumission certificate found dated 1925, the last one – 1950. Besides slaves stories, the data make it possible to draw conclusions on principal slave routers, waves of influx of the slaves, categories of the slaves, the manumission statistics (694 certificates issued between 1929 and 1938), the British policy and procedures, relations between the slaves and owners,
advantages and disadvantages of the slavery, the place of slavery in the economic and social structure.

The basic conclusions are contrasted with those found in chosen excellent studies on this subject based on archival sources, among them Suzanne Miers "Slavery and the slave trade in Saudi Arabia and the Arab states on the Persian Gulf, 1921-1963".