Page 96 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

76 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

Trade and politics: the harbour
The protection of the British Government has converted the island from a scene of
chronic external aggression and intestinal feud into a peaceful and flourishing
centre of industry and commerce. (Lord Curzon, 1904) 2

This characterisation of Bahrain as tranquil and prosperous by George
Curzon is reminiscent of the charming vignette of Manama he drew some
3
ten years earlier while touring the Gulf. His typically flamboyant assess-
ment of Bahrain’s economic conditions as the newly appointed Viceroy of
India evokes the notion of a ‘renaissance’ under the aegis of the British
Empire. By the time Curzon celebrated the island’s wealth, Manama’s
economy was dominated by pearl exports and transit trade, the latter
constituting approximately one-third of the total volume of imports into
4
the islands. The picturesque sight evoked by Curzon was certainly in
stark contrast with the desolate view of the shore in the mid nineteenth
century, often lamented by visitors approaching the town from the sea.
Huts of fishermen and sailors formed ‘a coastline of filthy beaches and
barastis’ which lay alongside the customs house, a small shed with a
thatched roof in 1864. The journey to the heart of the town was tortuous.
As shallow waters prevented large ships from approaching the coast, all
merchandise and passengers had to be transferred to small sailing boats.
Once visitors reached the beach, they entered Manama through its ware-
house district and markets, while cargo was either distributed to the
warehouses of the merchants on the seafront, or reloaded for overseas
destinations. 5
The harbour and trade were the focal points of urban life. They shaped
the division of labour of Manama’s residents and structured the town’s
social and political hierarchies. Merchants involved in pearling, European
shipping and intercoastal trade formed the commercial and political
elites of early twentieth-century Manama. As part of a living chain which
distributed vital overseas supplies to the urban population, the traders
operating from the town’s markets had far more socio-economic mobility
than the artisans and farmers who tended the gardens and palm groves in
the hinterland. Moreover, the immigrant and casual labourers which
sustained the harbour economy were less exposed to exploitation than
pearl divers, as work was organised around wages which were dependent

2
Lord Curzon to Secretary of State for India, 21 April 1904, n. 85, R/15/1/330 IOR.
3 4
See Chapter 2, pp. 67–8. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. II, pp. 245–6.
5
Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. I, p. 246; Belgrave, The Pirate Coast, p. 76; Palgrave, Narrative of a
Year’s Journey, vol. II, pp. 205, 207–8. For the earliest photographic evidence of Manama
harbour see Ayyam zaman, pp. 16 ff.