The Firman of 1857, also referred to as the Prohibition of the Black Slave Trade, refers to the Imperial ''

Firman A firman ( fa, , translit=farmân; ), at the constitutional level, was a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in an Islamic state. During various periods they were collected and applied as traditional bodies of law. The word firman com ...

'' or ''Ferman'' (

Decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...

) issued by Sultan Abdülmecid I in 1857. It formally banned the import of African slaves to the Ottoman Empire. However, the decree was not enforced in practice.

Background and firman

It was one of the reforms representing the process of official abolition of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, including the Firman of 1830, Disestablishment of the Istanbul Slave Market (1847), Suppression of the slave trade in the Persian Gulf (1847), the

Firman of 1854 The Firman of 1854, sometimes called the Prohibition of the Circassian and Georgian Slave Trade, refers to the Imperial ''Firman'' or ''Ferman'' (Decree) issued by Sultan Abdülmecid I in October 1854, prohibiting the slave trade in Circassian an ...

(1854–1855), Prohibition of the Black Slave Trade (1857), and the

Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1880 The Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1880 also known as Anglo-Ottoman Convention for the suppression of the African traffic and Anglo–Ottoman Convention for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, was a treaty between the United Kingdom of Great Britain ...

. The Firman was issued in a time period when the Ottoman Empire was subjected to a growing diplomatic pressure from the West to suppress slave trade and slavery in the Ottoman Empire. The

had banned the slave trade from the Caucasus. In 1855, the trade in African slaves to Crete and Janina was banned. This was a ban against one route of the African slave trade to the Ottoman Empire. In 1857, British pressure resulted in the Ottoman Sultan issuing a firman (decree) that prohibited the slave trade from the Sudan to Ottoman Egypt and across the Red Sea to Ottoman Hijaz. The firman did not prohibit slavery as such, nor did it prohibit slave trade as such: it merely prohibited the import of African slaves from lands outside of the empire across the borders to the Ottoman Empire.

Aftermath

However the previous prohibition of white slave trade had already caused the

Hejaz rebellion The Hejaz rebellion took place in the then Ottoman Province of Hejaz between 1854/1855 and 1856. It was a reaction toward Ottoman rule in the Arabian Peninsula. It was triggered by an anti-slavery edict that contradicted religious law, but also a p ...

in the Hijaz Province, which resulted in the slave trade in the Hijaz being exempted from the prohibition of the

Red Sea slave trade The Red Sea slave trade, sometimes known as the Islamic slave trade, Arab slave trade, or Oriental slave trade, was a slave trade across the Red Sea trafficking Africans from the African continent to slavery in the Arabian Peninsula and the ...

and the prohibition remained nominal on paper only. Ultimately, the Firman of 1857 was never enforced in practiced. The Red Sea slave trade across the Red Sea to the Ottoman Empire continued, as did the

Trans-Saharan slave trade During the Trans-Saharan slave trade, slaves were transported across the Sahara desert. Most were moved from Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle eastern civilizations; a small percentage went the other ...

via

Ottoman Libya The coastal region of what is today Libya was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1912. First, from 1551 to 1864, as the Eyalet of Tripolitania ( ota, ایالت طرابلس غرب ''Eyālet-i Trâblus Gârb'') or ''Bey and Subjects of Tri ...

, and the slave trade to

Ottoman Egypt The Eyalet of Egypt (, ) operated as an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire from 1517 to 1867. It originated as a result of the conquest of Mamluk Egypt by the Ottomans in 1517, following the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–17) and the a ...

via

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

, continued.UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. VI, Abridged Edition: Africa in the Nineteenth Century Until the 1880s. (1998). Storbritannien: University of California Press. p74 The non-enforcement of the Firman of 1857 resulted in a continuing British pressure. It was succeeded by the

Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention The Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention, also known as Anglo-Egyptian Convention for the Suppression of the Slave Trade or Anglo-Egyptian Convention for the Abolition of Slavery was a treaty between Great Britain and the Khedivate of Egypt from 1 ...

in 1877.

References

{{Anti-slavery treaties 1857 in Europe Anti-slavery treaties Abolitionism in Europe 1857 in the Ottoman Empire 1857 in law Ottoman slave trade Slave trade legislation 19th century in slavery Slavery in the Ottoman Empire Decrees Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Abolitionism in Africa Abolitionism in Asia Abolitionism in the Ottoman Empire Abolitionism in the United Kingdom

Background and firman

Aftermath

See also

References