Britain's native agents in Arabia and Persia in the nineteenth century

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

Volumn 24, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 129-137

  Onley, James ^a  

^a NONE

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NINETEENTH CENTURY;

EID: 15044356394     PISSN: 1089201X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/1089201x-24-1-131     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. This article is based on research conducted in Bahrain, funded by the Bahrain-British Foundation; in London at the India Office Records (IOR) of the British Library, funded partly by the Society for Arabian Studies; and in Oxford at the Middle East Centre of St. Antony's College. I am grateful for the interest and assistance I received from the descendants and relatives of Britain's native agents in Bahrain (in alphabetical order): Khanim Behbehani, Khalid Kanoo, Khalifah Khalfan, Khalil Rajab, 'Adel Al-Safar, Fatimah Al-Safar, Jan Al-Safar, Nader Al-Safar, Thoraya Al-Safar, Wadi' Al-Safar, and Mirza Isma'l Al-Safar, I owe a special debt of gratitude to 'Ali Akbar Bushiri, caretaker of the afar and Sharif family manuscripts in the Bushiri Archive, Bahrain. For reading drafts of this article and offering helpful comments, I am indebted to 'Ali Akbar Bushiri, Nader Al-Safar, Jan Al-Safar, Gloria Onley, James Piscatori, Michael H. Fisher, Wm. Roger Louis, David Washbrook, and Nelida Fuccaro.
2. For a discussion of the word 'collaboration', see A. E. Atmore, "The Extra-European Foundations of British Imperialism: Towards a Reassessment", in C. C. Eldridge (ed.), British Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1984), 124-5;
3. J. Osterhammel, Colonialism. A Theoretical Overview (Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1997), 64.
4. I discuss Britain's native agents in the Gulf in The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth Century Gulf (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), the book version of my D.Phil. dissertation, "The Infrastructure of Informal Empire: A Study of Britain's Native Agency in Bahrain, c.1816-1900" (University of Oxford, 2001). This paper is a summary of one part of that book.
5. These papers are held in the Bushiri Archive (owned by 'Ali Akbar Bushiri) in Bahrain.
6. See R. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration", in R. Owen and B. Sutcliffe (eds.), Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (London: Longman, 1972), 117-42 reprinted in Wm. Roger Louis (ed.), The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy (London: New Viewpoints, 1976), 128-51;
7. Robinson, "European Imperialism and Indigenous Reactions in British West Africa, 1880-1914", in H. L. Wesseling (ed.), Expansion and Reaction (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1978), 141-63;
8. Robinson, "Imperial Theory and the Question of Imperialism after Empire", Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 12 (Jan. 1984), 42-54;
9. Robinson, "The Excentric Idea of Imperialism, with or without Empire", in W. J. Mommsen and J. Osterhammel (eds.), Imperialism and After. Continuities and Discontinuities (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 267-89.
10. For two case studies, see G. R. Warbury, "British Rule in the Nile Valley, 1882-1956, and Robinson's Theory of Collaboration", Asian and African Studies, 15 (1981), 287-322;
11. Atmore, "The Extra-European Foundations of British Imperialism: Towards a Reassessment", 106-25.
12. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism", in Louis (ed.), The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy, 131.
13. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 142.
14. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 142.
15. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 143.
16. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 130.
17. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 130.
18. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 130.
19. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 131.
20. For a discussion of this point, see B. S. Cohn, "Political Systems in Eighteenth Century India: The Banaras Region", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 82/3. (1962), 312-20;
21. S. Bose and A. Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy (London: Routledge, 1998), 57-66;
22. Marshall PJ, "Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century: Part III, Britain and India", 1-16.
23. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism", 129.
24. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 147.
25. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 132.
26. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 147.
27. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 143.
28. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 131.
29. Robinson, "Non-European Foundations", 131
30. For a history of the word 'native', see R. Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, rev. edn. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 215-16.
31. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, H. M. Govt., Consular Work Annual Review, 2001 (London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 2001), 13.
32. Bombay Public Dept. diary no. 31 (1758), entry for 28 Feb. 1758, in J. A. Saldanha, Selections from State Papers, Bombay, regarding the East India Company's Connections with the Persian Gulf, with a Summary of Events, 1600-1800. (Calcutta: Superintendent of Govt. Printing, 1908), 124. The diary refers to "the Broker at Muscat", who, in subsequent pages (pp. 164, 335), is identified by name.
33. Gwadar was an Omani enclave on Makran Coast, which the Sultan of Oman sold to Pakistan in 1958.
34. Article 4, Convention of 1861, in C. U. Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads Relating to India and Neighbouring Countries, 11: The Treaties, Etc., Relating to Aden and the South Western Coast of Arabia, the Arab Principalities in the Persian Gulf, Muscat (Oman), Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1933), 235-6.
35. Statement by R. Halier (Uncovenanted Asst. Resident), 2 Mar. 1889 (Bushiri Archive, Bahrain).
36. G. N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, 2 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1892), 451.
37. Between June 1872 and June 1875, 'Abd al-Nabi received Rs.1,039-0-2 (Ks.2,597.6) in salary - Rs.346-5-2 p.a. - yet his Agency-related expenses were Rs.4,772-3-1 (Ks.11,930.5) - an average of Rs.1,590-11-2 p.a.. 'Abd al-Nabi Safar, "Account of Personal Expenses, 1872-75" (Bushiri Archive, Bahrain). The amounts are recorded in krans. The exchange rate at the time was roughly 1 kran = 0.4 rupee (26 Pice), 1 rupee = 2 _ krans. L. Pelly, Report on a Journey to Riyadh in Central Arabia (1865), reprint edn. (Cambridge: Oleander Press, n.d.), appendix viii: "Riyadh Currency", 84.
38. M. Field, The Merchants: The Big Business Families of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States (New York: Overlook Press, 1984), 16-18, 126, 162, 218, 248, 280;
39. J. Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar, rev. edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 38.
40. Crystal J, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 4, 9, 13, 21, 26, 56-7;
41. F. Al-Sayegh, "Merchants' Role in a Changing Society: The Case of Dubai, 1900-90", Middle Eastern Studies, 34/1 (1998), 90-1.
42. Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 56.
43. Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 57.
44. Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 26.
45. J. A. Saldanha, Précis of the Affairs of the Persian Coast and Islands, 1854-1905 (Calcutta: Superintendent of Govt. Printing, 1906), 69. The Muscat Agency is not listed because it maintained a separate budget.
46. E. Satow, Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice, 5th edn., ed. Lord Gore-Booth (London: Longman, 1977), chap. 8, sec. 8, 58.
47. J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, 'Oman, and Central Arabia, 1: Historical (Calcutta: Superintendent of Govt. Printing, 1915), 213;
48. A. T. Wilson, The Persian Gulf: An Historical Sketch from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), 260-1.
49. For details, see J. B. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795-1880 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 566-75.
50. Pelly to Bombay Govt., 28 Jan. 1871, P/759 (IOR), 290. Pelly wrote this at a time when he was considering restablishing the Native Agency in Bahrain, abolished six years previously.
51. Rs.1,000 was the monthly salary of the First Assistant Resident during 1866-79. First Assistant Residents were sent to Bahrain as Residency Agents on at least five occasions: 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1879. Note entitled "Resident" by Prideaux (Asst. PRPG), 14 Aug. 1899, R/15/ 1/330 (IOR), 19-20.
52. "Report on the arms trade at Bahrein" by M. Meade, 18 Nov.1898, reg. no. 364/1899, L/P&S/7/112 (IOR).
53. For Bahrain, see Field, The Merchants, 265-6. For Sharjah,
54. see R. S. Zahlan, The Origins of the United Arab Emirates: A Political and Social History (London: Macmillan, 1978), 167-9.
55. For Persia, see D. Wright, The English Amongst the Persians during the Qajar Period, 1787-1921 (London: Heinemann, 1977), 78;
56. J. Calmard, "The Iranian Merchants: Formation and Rise of a Pressure Group between the Sixteenth and Nineteenth Centuries", in D. Lombard and J. Aubin (eds.), Asian Merchants and Businessmen in the Indian Ocean and the China Sea (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 97.
57. For India, see D. L. White, Competition and Collaboration: Parsi Merchants and the English East India Company in 18th Century India (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1995), 44-5, 47-8, 54, 59, 128-9, 141, 148;
58. S. Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast, 1650-1740. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), 227-8, 234, 258-64;
59. P. J. Marshall, "Masters and Banians in Eighteenth-Century Calcutta", in B. B. King and M. N. Pearson (eds.), The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia before Dominion (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979), 193.
60. For a full account of this incident, see Lorimer, Gazetteer, 1: Historical, 845-6;
61. C. E. Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag: An Investigation into Qasimi Piracy, 1797-1820 (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997), 85-7.
62. Loch (SNOPG) to Bombay, 28 Feb. 1819, P/384/43 (IOR), 2655-6.
63. Meade (PRPG) to Prideaux (Asst. PRPG), 17 Oct. 1899, R/15/1/315 (IOR).
64. Interviews with Yusif Al-'Ali (Consul 1958-98), 24 Aug. 1999 (British Embassy, Bahrain) and Rui Falco (Accountant, Gulf Residency 1966-1972 and British Council 1972-present), 20 July 1999 (British Council, Manamah, Bahrain).