The era of the Anglo-Qasimi Wars of 1806, 1809-10, and 1818-1819 and the ongoing challenges the East India Company (EIC) experienced with suppressing piracy gave the lower Gulf States the label, the Pirate Coast. Within the scholarly literature piracy is often relegated to discussions of the early 19th century (Sweet 1964; Dubuisson 1978; Onley 1997, 2009) and/or rejecting (Al Qasimi 1986; Al-Fahim 1995; Taryam 1987) or accepting (Belgrave 1966; Moyse-Bartlett 1966) the label uncritically. This narrow view of piracy obscures the motivations and ramifications of maritime violence, as well as the changing British stance vis a vis maritime warfare more broadly. This paper will examine the changing nature of the label of piracy, its context, and the deeper issues underpinning its use to demonstrate first that piracy was actually an ongoing problem throughout the 19th century in the lower Gulf, but that this label is also unmerited. Maritime violence and banditry was an accepted form of warfare in the Gulf until the 19th century. After the Anglo-Qasimi Wars, the East India Company increasingly broadened the definition of piracy, classifying it first as violence without order of a government (1820) to finally any act of violence at sea perpetrated by Arabs (1853). Despite this broad and racist definition, the context of the acts shifted dramatically in the 19th century in ways that most historians have yet to recognize. The perpetrators became almost exclusively private subjects, not government agents. This proved challenging to the EIC who had until the 1860s relied on gunboat diplomacy to compel rulers into suppressing piracy. While the EIC officials continued their political pressures and threats of violence, the changing economic and political context of the Gulf made it more difficult for the EIC to force compliance with their agreements. The re-conceptualization of piracy in the lower Gulf in the 19th century demonstrates a significant shift in the political power and authority along the coast and calls into question a number of existing historical paradigms, not least of which is the domination of the EIC officials in this region and the lack of power experienced by subjects along the coast.

Successive generations of British officials documented their dealings with the rulers of the Trucial States from 1820 until Britain departed in 1971. The extensive minutes, memos, telegrams, letters, and journals that are a by-product of Britain’s long presence in the Gulf make it clear that relationships between British officials and Gulf rulers ranged from cordial to contentious, depending on the personalities and interests involved. In the case of those contentious relationships, the documents represent the development of a British lexicon to describe rulers who British officials viewed as especially irksome. Words such as 'troublesome' and 'traditional,' and phrases like 'less enlightened' and 'clinging to the ancient ways' are repeated frequently and ascribed to multiple rulers. This lexicon was used and re-produced by historians and journalists who, it appears, considered such pejorative terms to be a bona fide part of the historical record. This paper combines historical examination of British records in the 20th century, and patterns of representation of rulers deemed ‘difficult’ in subsequent historical and cultural narratives. This work will: examine patterns of negative characterizations of Trucial Rulers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; apply this analysis to descriptions of Sheikh Shakhbut of Abu Dhabi (r. 1928-1966) in documentation from his rule; and consider the ways in which his legacy was erased in post-independence UAE narratives.

In rethinking the history of the Persian/Arabian Gulf, my research focuses on the role of the environment in the shaping of communities, culture, and opportunity for coastal Gulf dwellers. Such an effort displaces both foreign imperial authorities (the Portuguese, British, and Ottomans) as well as regional leaders, such as the sheikhs of Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Emirates, replacing their story with one about common people living by and from the water. This paper sidesteps debates about how historians should understand the legality or legitimacy of piracy in the Gulf, or if it should even be given that provocative label. Instead, it opts for a completely novel approach to understanding the effectiveness of Arab maritime violence against European ships built with, and protected by, modern technology. Though the research is largely based on research in the India Office and Foreign Office records in the British Library and the British National Archives, reading colonial documentation through an environmental lens can illuminate details that are often overlooked in order to paint a picture of human relations to the Gulf. My argument is that the Gulf provided an ideal location for seasonal “piracy”. With the exception of the Qawasim, most engaged in such activities were likely pearl divers and fishermen for most of the year. Yet during particular seasons, such as when well-stocked boats from India came to purchase newly harvested dates, locals could make a quick profit by raiding trading vessels. Even though trading vessels were far more technologically advanced than the smaller coastal dhows used for such raids, the intense local knowledge of Gulf sailors provided them with the advantage they needed to quickly escape and hide among the islands, shoals, reefs, and mud flats where European vessels could not travel. British accounts are frustrated by Arabs’ familiarity with both the Ottoman and Persian sides of the Shatt-al-Arab, their ability to haul their small ships right up on to the beach, and their willingness to pull in close to islands despite the presence of jagged shoals. Such stories highlight the importance of environmental knowledge on the part of local Gulf residents as they struggled against wealthier, more technologically advanced outsiders.