John Wright

Murzuk and the Saharan Slave Trade in the 19th Century

In 1840 the British Foreign Office decided to open a Vice-Consulate at the oasis of Murzuk, then still the main entrepot of the central Saharan trade in black Slaves from the Sudan to Tripoli and Benghazi. The post was to make first-hand reports on the slave traffic and promote British ‘legitimate’ trade and wider regional interests. A similar post was opened at Ghadames in 1850. Between 1843 and 1854, Vice Consul Giambattista Gagliuffi in Murzuk provided the Foreign Office with a series of yearly slaving statistics which formed the basic raw material for Londons case for the abolition of this traffic. It still stands as a unique record of the central Saharan slave trade at probably its most active phase. Gagliuffis attempts at trade promotion were not so successful, and when it also became clear that the Saharan slave trade would not, after all, be as easily eradicated as had once been supposed, the Foreign Office decided in 1860–61 to close both the Murzuk and Ghadames posts.