Page 316 - UAE Truncal States

The External Influences
tribal confederations dominated for example by the Bani Yas or the
Qawasim. The inevitable British preoccupation with the maritime
Rulers affected the natural balance between the tribal powers on the
coast and those in the hinterland. Because the affairs of the Buraimi
area, the Hajar mountains, and Inner Oman came to the attention of
the British authorities usually by hearsay through the Agent in
Sharjah and the representative in Muscat, they were generally
considered to be of little consequence. Eventually this attitude also
became locally adopted to the extent that both parties to the treaties,
concluded at the end of the 19lh century and during the first decades
of the 20th century, easily kept up the pretence that a coastal Ruler
had authority over all the territory that lay between his coastal
stronghold and the land considered to be under the sovereignly of the
next coastal Ruler, or even of the Sultan in Muscat. Thus it was as
much due to the deliberate British strengthening of the coastal rulers
as to the pull of the growing economic opportunities which the Gulf’s
pearling banks offered to the pastoral tribes of Eastern Arabia, that
the traditional power struggle between nomadic and settled Arabs
was decided in favour of the coastal settlements.

British-inspired agreement concerning absconding
debtors
Much as the British Government benefited politically from the
various agreements of the 19lh century, which allowed in later
decades the imposition of political restrictions, the shaikhdoms on
the coast also benefited substantially in economic and human terms,
mainly because the increasingly important pearling industry could
continue to grow and flourish with a minimum of disturbance. Such
disturbances as there were almost always stemmed from the fleeing
of debtors from one principality to another, where they were afforded
asylum and could resume their work. Each Ruler wanted to have as
many pearl merchants and pearling crews under his jurisdiction as
possible, and, not being averse to turning to their own advantage the
tribal customs of affording hospitality and refuge, they did not relish
the idea of having to give up this conduct. But the disputes over
runaway debtors became so numerous, adversely affecting every
shaikhdom in turn, that the British Political Resident in Bushire, at
that time Colonel Pelly, was eventually able to persuade the Rulers to
sign an agreement for the mutual surrender of fraudulently abscond­
ing debtors.
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