Trucial States

The Trucial States, also called the Trucial Coast, the Trucial Sheikhdoms or Trucial Oman, were Arab sheikhdoms on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf whose rulers signed a series of truces and treaties with Britain between 1820 and 1892. Under informal protection by the British Empire until 1971, six of them then formed the United Arab Emirates, and the seventh joined a few weeks later.

At the start of the nineteenth century the British called this shore the "Pirate Coast", accusing seafarers based there, above all the Al Qasimi, whose families now rule Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah, of attacking British-flagged shipping. Clashes began in 1797. To protect the trade of British India near the Strait of Hormuz, expeditions attacked Ras Al Khaimah and other harbours in 1809 and, with far heavier force, in 1819. In January 1820 the sheikhs of the coast, among them the rulers of Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, signed the General Maritime Treaty; Ajman's and Umm Al Quwain's rulers acceded fully in March aboard the ship of the British commander, Major-General William Keir Grant.

The 1820 treaty did not end the fighting at sea, and skirmishes continued until 1835, when the sheikhs agreed to a truce during the pearling season. Further short agreements followed, including a ten-year truce in 1843, and in 1853 the rulers signed the Perpetual Maritime Truce. Treaties in 1847 and 1856 committed them to end the slave trade, and Sharjah and Abu Dhabi signed a further anti-slaving treaty in 1873.

Concerned by French and Russian ambitions in the Gulf, Britain went further in March 1892. Under the Exclusive Agreement the rulers promised not to give up territory to anyone but Britain and not to deal with any other foreign government without British consent, while Britain undertook to defend them against attack by sea and to help against attack by land. The Viceroy of India and the London government both ratified the agreement. The sheikhdoms became "protected states", a status short of a formal protectorate.

Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain are counted as members from 1820, and Dubai from 1833. Kalba was recognised in 1936, when it was chosen for a reserve landing strip on the Imperial Airways route, but it was folded back into Sharjah in 1951. Fujairah gained recognition in 1952, after pressure from an oil company that wanted to explore the whole east coast. Air routes to India brought aircraft to the coast from the 1920s; an airfield opened at Sharjah in 1932, and Imperial Airways flying boats called at Dubai from 1937. ## The Trucial States Council

From 1952 the seven rulers met in a Trucial States Council chaired by the British Political Agent. It had no constitution or legislative power and served mainly as a forum for agreeing common approaches; recurring business included campaigns against destructive locust swarms. Committees on health, agriculture and education followed by 1958, and in 1965 the council gained its own budget and a ruler as chairman, the first being Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed Al Qasimi of Ras Al Khaimah.

On 16 January 1968 the British prime minister Harold Wilson announced that British forces would leave the Gulf. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Rashid of Dubai agreed in February 1968 to work towards a union, initially with Qatar and Bahrain as well. Those two eventually withdrew, and six emirates agreed terms in July 1971. The British treaties lapsed on 1 December 1971, and the next day Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah formed the United Arab Emirates. Ras Al Khaimah, whose Tunb islands Iran had seized on 30 November 1971, joined on 10 February 1972.

Our 1878, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1930 and 1938 maps draw the sheikhdoms as "Trucial Oman", beside the sultanate of Muscat and Oman to the east. Later maps show the area as the United Arab Emirates.