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Chapter Eight

                 on the increase everywhere in the Gulf and soon became the primary
                 source of income for all the tribal settlements on the coast.
                 Culmination of the maritime peace policy in 1053
                 As the pearling industry flourished, new types of disputes between
                 the subscribers to the treaty became more prominent, such as
                 disputes over absconding debtors. Eventually the shaikhdoms of the
                 southern coast of the Gulf became so preoccupied with these
                 disputes that they all but ceased to play a significant role in the
                 regional power struggles.33 This inward-looking preoccupation with
                 the purely domestic Trucial Coast scene and its pearl banks  was
                 further enhanced by the first Maritime Truce of 1835, an agreement
                 between the British authorities and the Rulers of Sharjah, Dubai,
                 'Ajman and Abu Dhabi. The truce was for one pearling season,
                 banning all hostilities at sea between 21 May and 21 November.
                 Similar treaties, initially covering a few months and later the entire
                 year, were concluded annually thereafter. In June 1843 a truce was
                 signed for a ten-year period; the prospect of undisturbed pearl
                 fishing year after year did much to stabilise relations between the
                 Qawasim and the Bani Yas, who as the leading proponents of the
                 Ghafiri and the Hinawi factions had carried out a series of raids on
                 land and had declared war against one another at sea. At the end of
                 this period the Government of India supported the proposal of the
                 Political Resident in Bushire, Captain A.B. Kemball, to make a
                 permanent truce. All the Rulers appear to have agreed spontaneously
                 to this, and they signed the Perpetual Treaty of Peace between 4 and 9
                 May 1853.


                 3 Growing British military and political
                     involvement

                 Anti-slavery treaties
                The British Government of India, once so reluctant to commit itself to
                 binding responsibilities in the Gulf, itself generated during the
                course of the 19th century a number of issues which required a more
                comprehensive system of British political and military involvement
                in the affairs of the littoral states of the Gulf. The first such issue,
                which had nothing to do with the original aim of preventing
                disturbances to trade and communications, was the slave trade.
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