This article analyses aspects of the hegemony that underpins British colonial knowledge and attends to the tools used to protest and resist it. It uses an analytical perspective derived from Michel Foucault’s conception of power and knowledge and drawing on Edward Said’s notion of orientalism. It concludes that British political interests led to an outgrowth in academic interest in Omani society through the conduction of comprehensive social surveys on the basis of ethnicity, with the objective of spreading inconsistency and entrenching disparities throughout the strata of Omani society. Further, this knowledge production sought to understand demographic structures and monitor the movement of society; the census was one of the most important instruments by which the British authorities divided Oman into two political entities.