Page 207 - UAE Truncal States

Chapter Five

5 Pearling

Economic importance
Agriculture in the Trucial Stales was inadequate to guarantee self-
sufficiency even for the families participating in it; therefore, a source
of cash to purchase additional supplies was required for the
subsistence of most families. The nomadic and semi-settled groups
could fall back on selling some of their famous breed of riding camels
for cash. The population in the ports of the Trucial Stales came to
depend to a large extent on the pearl-fishing industry for their
livelihood. The following quotation from the Gazetteer demonstrates
the importance of this resource at the end of the 19th century: "Pearl
fishing is the premier industry of the Persian Gulf;. . . besides being
the occupation most peculiar to that region . . . Were the supply of
pearls to fail, . . . the ports of Trucial 'Oman, which have no other
resources, would practically cease to exist; in other words, the
purchasing power of the inhabitants of the eastern coast of Arabia
depends very largely upon the pearl fisheries."32
Pearls have no intrinsic value, in the way that gold does, therefore
the requirement for them in the rest of the world and the growth in
that industry depend entirely on the demand for such luxury goods.
In India, the age-old market for Gulf pearls, Pax Britannica brought
economic growth in its wake, and pearls were ever more fashionable
among the traditional ruling and wealthy classes as well as among
the new group of officials in the British Government of India.
Victorian Britain and the rest of Europe saw in pearls a tangible
symbol of the romantic Orient. This predilection was taken up by
society in the United States, and during the first two decades of the
20th century New York became the second biggest market for Gulf
pearls after Bombay.33
The share of the Trucial Stales in the pearling industry of the Gulf
is illustrated by some of the figures given in the Gazetteer: the
number of pearling boats in Trucial Oman was over 1,200 carrying an
average crew of about 18 men. This meant that during the summer
most able-bodied men, numbering more than 22,000, were absent on
the pearl banks. The largest number, 410 boats, was under the
protection of the Ruler of Abu Dhabi; the figure for Sharjah, 360
boats, included Ra's al Khaimah, Hamrlyah, HTrah and Khan since all
these ports as well as Fujairah, Khaur Fakkan and Kalba were
nominally under the shaikh of Sharjah. Dubai had 335 boats, Umm al

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