Dall’Arabia all’Africa: dall’Impero informale all’ossessione per il controllo, P. Branca & M. De Michelis (a cura di), Memorie con-divise popoli, stati, nazioni in Africa, Leggere leggere, eBook, ISBN 9788868552756

“… The Imaum of Muscat has extensive possessions in Africa …”. John Croft Hawkins (1798-1851), Captain of the Indian Navy, on 21st June 1842 opened his Memoranda on the situation of East African littorals in the Indian Ocean. This report was destined both to the British-Indian Administration of the Bombay and Calcutta Presidencies, and to London. Between the aims of this document there was the necessity for Great Britain to identify reliable authorities, political leaderships, and powers who could consent the stabilization of what has been named the “Informal Empire”. Abundance of literature about this topic, yet not much studied for this region, identified a series of ports, littorals, and islands along East African coasts, all of them in Arab hands; the Arabs groups were supposed to exercise a control on the maritime and migration movements as well. These movements did regard mainly trade, and migration included the slave trade. The Persian/Arab Gulf region has been taken in consideration within its Indian Ocean wider routes, with particular reference to the different roles played by the many groups of power. Accordingly, the historic and historiographical approaches that saw in the past relationships a sharp and clear definition of powers, as well as the contributions to this large Sea “immense riches” by different ethnic-social-religious entities, should probabily be reread under new research hypothesis lights.