Brokering Abolition by Land and Sea: Africans in theBritish Consulate and Navy in Zanzibar, c. 1860–1907

Particularly over the last decade, historians have harnessed colonial sources to reveal histories of African intermediaries who enforced colonial law and provided colonial actors with intelligence. Yet the role of African intermediaries in ending slavery and enforcing anti-slavery laws remains unstudied. While power holders in the Zanzibar dominions were usually anti-abolition, given that their claim to power rested on the support of slave trading elites, the enslaved were so disempowered that they could only resist slavery or rebel against it. Most would not have had the power to abolish slavery nor to enforce its abolition. Intermediaries, however, occupied a space in between. Many were employed at the British consulate and navy in Zanzibar to develop and enforce anti-slavery laws. This article offers an insight into two individuals who worked for the British consulate abolishing slavery. The first, Baraka Aden, was a naval officer who helped catch and convict slave traders. The second, Salim bin Azan, an interpreter on British anti-slavery vessels and later an ‘Arabic Writer’ at the British consulate, worked closely with the Sultans of Zanzibar. These individual stories illuminate the diversity and complexity of African perspectives on slavery and abolition and convey how much is left to understand about African abolitionism.