Page 75 - The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia

A further demonstration before Ras al Khaimah and a demand
for reparations in 1816 proved ineffectual; and it was not until 1819
that the East India Company despatched a large force under the
command of Major General Sir William Grant Keir which, joined by a
co-operating force from Muscat, finally, subdued the Pirate Coast.

Dubai had long been one of the pirate lairs and its Shaikh was one
of the several leaders required to sign a preliminary agreement to
surrender pirate vessels before he was permitted to become a parly to
the General Treaty of Peace which was concluded in January 1820.
This treaty was followed by supplementary agreements banning piracy,
gun-running and the slave trade; and, finally, in 1853, by the signing
of a Treaty of Peace in Perpetuity. Tims was the name changed from
the Pirate Coast to the Trucial Coast.

In 1820 Dubai owed allegiance to Abu Dhabi; but in 1833 some
800 of the Al bu Falasah tribe renounced the overlordship of the Ruler
of Abu Dhabi and moved to Dubai where they established an indepen­
dent State. Despite a succession of petty wars with neighbouring
States during the rest of the nineteenth century, Dubai has maintained
her independence; and the silting up of the Sharjah creek and the
influx of Persian merchants from Lingah in the early years of this
century laid the foundations of its present prosperity.

The State extends some 45 miles along the coast arid 40 miles
inland and is bordered to the West and South by Abu Dhabi and to the
East by Sharjah. It also claims the village of Hatta, widely separated
from the rest of the territory, in the Hajar mountains on the border of
Muscat and Oman.
;!
Dubai lies on the West bank of a natural creek, with the modern
sister-town of Deira on the opposite bank; these are the only towns in
the State and, with a joint population of 55,000, they form by far the
largest settlement in all the Trucial States. The harbour has been
greatly improved in recent years, and is now the principal entrepot for
the interior of Muscat and Oman and for the trans-shipment of goods
to Persia. Its position also offers ideal opportunity for smuggling, the
modern more peaceful and more lucrative equivalent of the piracy
practised by the forebears of today’s merchants!

74
H
r