852 



ZANZIBAR. 



Indian subjects of Great Britain, engaged in 

 trading and agriculture, had abandoned their 

 possessions and fled to Zanzibar. British mis- 

 sionary settlements had been destroyed, and 

 some of the missionaries who could not escape 

 were besieged in their stations. Lord Salis- 

 bury, who had made the British Government 

 a partner in the German scheme for the con- 

 quest of the most productive regions of the 

 African Continent, accepted Prince Bismarck's 

 proposal to fight the slave-traders and restore 

 European prestige by blockading the coast. 

 Portugal, having important colonial interests 

 to conserve, and Italy, ambitious of extending 

 her influence in East Africa, were induced to 

 promise assistance with their war-vessels in 

 the naval blockade. France has no important 

 colonial interests in this part of the continent, 

 but she has some commerce with the African 

 tribes, which must suffer by a blockade. The 

 Arab dhows, when chased, have been accus- 

 tomed to display the French flag, which usually 

 has saved them from capture. 



The slave trade fell away in consequence of 

 the abolition of slavery in American countries, 

 the co-operation of the Sultan of Zanzibar in 

 the efforts to suppress the traffic, and the vigi- 

 lance of the English patrol off the eastern coast 

 of Africa. Recently, however, there has been 

 an increase in the traffic. This fact has been 

 ascribed to the establishments of the French in 

 Madagascar and the Comoro Islands, owing to 

 the increase of French shipping in these seas, 

 and the facility thus given to slavers to escape 

 under false colors. The slave-raids are now 

 attended with more cruelty, destruction of life, 

 and desolation than they were when the sup- 

 ply of slaves was more abundant and not so 

 remote from the sea-coast. The export of 

 slaves is variously estimated from 60,000 to 

 180,000 a year. At least ten lives are sacri- 

 ficed in bringing one slave to market. A large 

 proportion of the slaves that are taken die on 

 the march or on shipboard, and the people who 

 are not fit for slaves the aged, the women, and 

 the children are either butchered by the raid- 

 ers or left to starve. Large areas, once popu- 

 lous, have been stripped of inhabitants. 



The English were not entirely sincere in 

 their efforts to uproot slavery and put an end 

 to the traffic in men, and the Germans were 

 still less so, for the laws that the British Gov- 

 ernment had compelled the Sultan to enact, 

 prohibiting the holding or hiring of slaves in 

 the Zanzibar dominions, had, in the interest of 

 Indian and British capitalists, been suffered to 

 fall into desuetude, while the enterprise of the 

 German East Africa Company was based upon 

 slave-labor. The Belgian Government, through 

 its consul at Zanzibar, recruited slaves for the 

 Congo Free State, paying their masters their 

 market value, while the slaves received an 

 equal sum for the term of their indentures. 



The French Government refused the request 

 of the German and English Governments for 



liberty to search French vessels, adhering to 

 the principle of international law that the 

 right of search can be exercised only in case 

 of an effective blockade, which would require 

 three times the naval force that the parties to 

 the blockade were disposed to employ. M. 

 Goblet subsequently yielded when the sup- 

 pression of the slave-trade was represented to 

 him as the object of the blockade, conceding 

 the right to search ships and boats flying 

 French colors that were suspected of carrying 

 slaves, but still insisted that the search for 

 contraband of war and its seizure should be 

 conditional on the blockade being made effect- 

 ive. To show its sincerity in desiring to stop 

 the slave-traffic, the French Government sent 

 a vessel to co-operate in the blockade. 



Admiral Deinhard, of the German block- 

 ading fleet, and Admiral Fremantle, of the co- 

 operating English squadron, declared the block- 

 ade of the coast for the purpose of preventing 

 the exportation of slaves and the importation 

 of arms and munitions of war in a proclamation 

 issued on December 2. The German fleet 

 undertook to watch the coast south of the 

 Wanga to Lindi, and the English flee.t from 

 the Wan<ra northward to the island of Lamu. 

 The English East Africa Company conciliated 

 the Arabs in Mombassa by paying for 1,500 

 runaway slaves who had been harbored by the 

 missionaries. The German squadron, which 

 bombarded the coast opposite Zanzibar before 

 the vessels took up their stations in the block- 

 ade, consisted of the frieate "Leipzig," the 

 corvettes " Carola " and " Sophie," the cruisers 

 " Mowe " and " Schwalbe," and the dispatch- 

 boat "Pfeil." The German land force at 

 Bagamoyo was besieged by the Arab leader, 

 Bushire. The Germans strengthened their 

 position at that point and at Dar-es-Salaam by 

 building stone forts, and prepared to recover 

 the other harbors by force of arms under pro- 

 tection of the blockade. They recruited native 

 soldiers, who were employed in ineffectual 

 operations against the coast tribes at Sadani 

 and elsewhere, thereby closing the caravan 

 routes and bringing ruin upon the British In- 

 dians that they had induced to resume trade, 

 many of whom were plundered by the black 

 soldiers in the employ of the German company. 

 Bushire, who had 2,500 men armed with 

 breech-loaders, captured Bagamoyo, and cut 

 off the retreat of the Germans, who were be- 

 sieged in their block-houses till December 7, 

 when the shells of the war-vessels compelled 

 the Arabs to withdraw. The town was laid in 

 ruins. The German vessels bombarded Lindi, 

 Mikandini, Tanga, Pangani, and other coast 

 towns, destroying much property belonging to 

 East Indians, and causing the owners to be de- 

 tained as prisoners by the Arabs. The Portu- 

 guese authorities on December 10 announced 

 the extension of the blockade and the prohibi- 

 tion of the importation of arms from the Ro- 

 vunia to Pomba Bay, in 13 of south latitude. 



