The slave trade was among important economic drivers of indigenous communities in the Persian Gulf during the nineteenth century. Although measures were taken to prohibit this trade during the century, indigenous communities continued to pursue it in various ways. Despite the extensive involvement of southern shores, Bandar Lengeh and Bushehr, on its northern shores, played roles in the regional slave-trading network. Drawing on British archival documents concerning the slave trade in the Persian Gulf, this study examines the activities of Lengeh and Bushehr, analyzes their position within the network, and identifies challenges Britain faced in combating it. Based on more than one hundred archival documents and other library sources, and employing a historical method with a descriptive-analytical approach, the study seeks to reconstruct how East India Company reports and British documents represented the slave trade in Lengeh and Bushehr, and address the following question: “How were the position and role of Lengeh and Bushehr in the slave-trading network reflected in nineteenth-century British documents, and how did this representation relate to British commercial interests and objectives in the region?” The findings indicate that indigenous communities of Lengeh and Bushehr were involved less in direct trade of enslaved people than in providing maritime and logistical services. These Iranian ports were major centers for movement of enslaved people between the northern and southern shores of the Persian Gulf and, following anti-slave-trade legislation, functioned as links in the regional distribution network. Their logistical role enabled local communities to resist maritime order imposed by Britain through Iranian vessels, routes beyond British surveillance, and indigenous commercial networks.