Page 255 - UAE Truncal States

Chapter Six-

such ships were apprehended and punished it was usually not only
to fulfill the treaty obligations which the Rulers had pledged to
observe after 1820, but also to re-establish sovereignly over unruly
subjects. The repeated outbreaks of piracy were very annoying,
costly, and damaging for British shipping and prestige. But the fact
that every dispute between the Rulers, shaikhs and tribes of the
entire region was also pursued at sea, by attacking one another's
trading, passenger, and pearling vessels, had a devastating effect on
the economy of the sheikhdoms. In the long run the families at home
were the losers, because many a time the boats could not venture to
the seasonal diving or the pearls could not be disposed of because
communications with Lingah, Bahrain and India were too danger­
ous, and provisions could not be brought in. Therefore it was
eventually not difficult to enlist the co-operation of the Rulers on the
coast to observe and help to enforce the maritime peace which was
first agreed in 1835, periodically renewed and then eventually in May
1853 styled the “Perpetual Treaty of Peace”. Security on the waters of
the Gulf, during the diving season as well as for voyages to
neighbouring ports, Iran and India, was essential if the inhabitants
of the Trucial States were to obtain the greatest possible benefit from
the pearl banks situated off their shores.

Resurgence of raiding
When the pearling industry declined after 1929 people did not take to
piracy again as an outlet for the surplus men and ships, but the
majority of the tribally-associated people found ways of adapting
themselves to their new situation, seeking employment elsewhere. It
is however, not surprising that there was a marked increase in
raiding in the desert by beduin groups as well as lawlessness among
the unemployed who drifted from one port to another in search of a
livelihood. On the borderlands of the Rub' al Khali there was little
which one beduin could take from another beyond his camels and his
rifle. But in the vicinity of towns and villages raiding beduin stood a
chance of being able to carry off pots and pans and jewellery which
they could not afford to buy themselves. For, during these years of
depression, beduin camel-breeders did not get even a fraction of the
price they used to obtain when they sold their camels, because the
need for beasts of burden was greatly reduced in the general decline
in trade. Many of the raids near the coastal towns and villages formed
part of blood feuds and other long-standing disputes between tribal

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