Aden Protectorate

The Aden Protectorate was a British protectorate in southern Arabia, formed in the hinterland of the port of Aden after the British conquest of the town in 1839. Aden itself was ruled directly, first from Bombay and then as a colony, but the surrounding tribal states kept their rulers, laws and flags while accepting British protection and advice. The first arrangements covered nine states of the immediate hinterland, including Lahij, Fadhli, Aqrabi, Aulaqi and Yafa; the Mahra sultanate of the Hadhramaut joined in 1886, and by the 1950s more than thirty treaties had been signed. From 1874 the arrangements rested on the tacit acceptance of the Ottoman Empire, which claimed suzerainty over northern Yemen. The protectorate was administered informally as a Western and an Eastern division, a split made formal in 1937, with political officers at Lahij and Mukalla. Its economy rested on agriculture, pastoralism and the remittances of emigrants to East Africa and India. In 1963 the protectorate was merged with the colony of Aden into the Federation of South Arabia, and when the British withdrew in 1967 the territory became part of the People's Republic of South Yemen.