Page 236 - UAE Truncal States
P. 236

Social Aspects of Traditional Economy
         were slill bought and sold in the main markets although their
         importation had already been outlawed in the 1870s.ltt
           Some of the wealthy Arab pearl merchants who owned several
         boats usually also had a number of slaves who would make up the
         majority of the divers on their pearling boats, while the nawakhidah
         and other members of the crew would be hired hands. The slave
         divers of a boat owner in town did not usually have arduous tasks to
         perform during the off-season, but they would often help with the
         repair of the boats while being housed and fed with their masters’
         family. In many of the less well-off families the one domestic slave
         would help like any member of the family in the date garden or with
         the fishing nets, to cut firewood, look after the animals, or work in the
         house during the winter; during the summer he would be sent to join
         a pearling crew. His master was entitled to the slave’s share of the
         catch. However, since he was part of the master’s household this
         arrangement was often not considered in the least unfair, and it
         frequently continued when the liberated slave remained as a servant
         in his master’s family.19


         Absconding debtors
         People who carried debts over from one season to another eventually
          found it necessary to borrow money from a number of lenders. When
         debts became very large and the creditors combined their efforts to
         get their money back, usually by going to the Ruler, the temptation
         for the debtor to abscond was great. Since most of the ports of the
         Trucial Coast are only a few miles apart, it was easy for someone who
         could see that trouble was brewing to take whatever cash he had left
          to another port where he could reside with a relative and start up
         again as nukhada or diver or musaqqcim. This practice, together with
         emigration in order to avoid taxes, was one of the most frequent
         causes of friction and open warfare between the shaikhs of Trucial
          Oman. Therefore when the benefits of the British-supervised ban on
          war at sea had been enjoyed for several decades after the Treaty of
         Peace in Perpetuity of 1853, the detrimental effects on the peace
          between shaikhdoms when absconding debtors were pursued over
          land became obvious. Because the pearling industry became increas­
          ingly based on credit in all the ports of the Trucial States, the Rulers
          themselves felt the necessity to come to a common understanding
          over the problem of absconding debtors. This move was encouraged

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