RAK’s sacking still reverberates

RAS AL KHAIMAH // Two hundred years ago, Ras al Khaimah was burnt to the ground. Today, experts say, that sacking by a British fleet has directly affected the shape of the UAE.

Thirteen lithographs on a wall of the Sharjah Art Museum show each grisly scene of the British attack on Ras al Khaimah on November 13 1809. Black smoke rises about a town engulfed in flames as soldiers fight door-to-door through the streets of 19th-century RAK.

The battle was the beginning of a new era in the Gulf: that of British control. It led to the General Treaty of 1820 that brought 150 years of peace and trade to the Gulf under the British and ensured a maritime truce between independent emirates that later formed the UAE.

But so brutal was the massacre of 1809 that its violence is still remembered in song and story two centuries later. Mention of the battle still brings pain to those from the area.

Yet if it had not been for the battle of 1809 and the resulting treaty in 1820, most historians agree, the UAE of 2009 would be a very different place.

“Because of that treaty, we have independent emirates,” said Dr Hasan al Naboodha, a history professor at UAE University. “It was divide and rule. Just imagine if the British didn’t come and attack the Qawasim, would you hear today about the emirate of Ajman or Umm al Qaiwain?”

The cause of the battle between the British and the Qawasim, the seafaring tribe that ruled coastal areas on the Eastern, Persian and Arabian coasts, is still hotly disputed among historians today. “The British accused the Qawasim of being pirates and attacking ships but we don’t know exactly what went on because we don’t have local sources from this time,” said Dr al Naboodha.

Contemporary British accounts depicted the Qawasim tribe as an unruly and ruthless group of plunderers and pirates.

Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed, Ruler of Sharjah, challenged this in his 1986 book The Myth of Arab Piracy, which argued that the British were foreign intruders who sought to expand their power in the Gulf for the East India Company.

Until late in the 18th century, skirmishes between the Qawasim and British were rare. In 1797, however, the Viper, a British ship, was attacked by Qawasim dhows while anchored in Bushire an attack for which Sheikh Saqr bin Rashid, then of Ras al Khaimah, apologised and offered settlement.

In 1804 the British ships Trimmer and Shannon were attacked by Sheikh Qadhib al Qasimi of Lingeh.

In 1806, a treaty was agreed upon by the Qawasim, the British and the British-backed Omanis, long-standing rivals of the Qawasim. Within a few months, relations became strained between the Omanis and the Qawasim over territorial disputes at Qishm and the treaty fell apart.

In October 1808 the Qawasim were held responsible for an attack on the Sylph, an eight-gun British schooner, that killed 30.

The next May, the Qawasim seized the Minerva and took it to Ras al Khaimah with an officer’s wife on board. She was held for ransom. One survivor claimed that the Minerva was attacked by more than 50 dhows in a two-day battle that ended in the deaths of 45 of the 77 on board.

The event fuelled British anger against the Qawasim and a larger confrontation loomed.

Such events were popular in the British media, which, according to Dr Sheikh Sultan, exaggerated the numbers of those killed and vilified the Qawasim.

“It was the power of this saga to stir the imagination, as piracy still does, which ensured it would not be forgotten,” wrote Charles Davies in his 1997 book The Red Arab Flag: An Investigation into Qasimi Piracy, 1797-1820. “Contemporary newspapers, travellers, officers and others all felt moved to write about the Qawasim and British measures taken against them.”

But even before the Minerva incident, the Supreme Government in Calcutta had already made a decision to attack Ras al Khaimah.

Reproduced from The National: RAK’s sacking still reverberates