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Orchards on the Orontes: Entangled Local, Regional, and Imperial Networks in Ottoman Antioch, 1703-1764
Abstract
Orchards on the Orontes demonstrates the degree the population of Antioch was integrated into larger systems of institutional and interpersonal networks that spanned the Ottoman Empire during the first half of the eighteenth century through a focus on mulberry and olive orchards. I argue that a key secondary effect of Antioch’s integration into an imperial economy was a parallel process of social/cultural ‘Ottomanization’ further strengthening the connection of Antiochenes to the larger empire during this period. The mulberry and olive orchards of the Orontes River valley were lucrative holdings that attracted not only the interest of the notables of Antioch but also the wealthy of major cities such as Aleppo or Istanbul. The orchards were also physical locations where most of the population of the county lived and labored to cultivate the olives, mulberries, silkworms, and related secondary goods often represented by numbers in a distant register entry. As a result, the affairs revolving around the administration of orchards brought together a variety of individuals cutting across demographic distinctions like rank, class, gender, or even age. In many cases, the ‘bringing together’ was literal with people traveling between the county’s rural districts, the city of Antioch, and Istanbul carrying revenue, instructions, or seeking adjudication. To historicize the social and institutional significance of orchards across local, regional, and imperial levels I utilize a variety of Ottoman archival records including Antioch’s court records, imperial provincial orders and rulings, and various additional administrative and financial records. From these records, I can reconstruct a prosopographic survey of the known orchards and revenue holdings in the county which is then complemented with qualitative data. Focusing on a single county (kaza) allows a more comprehensive approach drawing conceptually and methodologically on a diverse array of scholars like Baki Tezcan, Dina Rizk Khoury, and Beshara Doumani who all approach different aspects of Ottoman society and utilize varying scales of analysis. As an evidenced-based case study, Orchards on the Orontes contributes to a variety of historiographical debates around decentralization, regional autonomy, modernization, class relations, gender norms, and other aspects of early modern Ottoman society.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Anatolia
Fertile Crescent
Mashreq
Mediterranean Countries
Ottoman Empire
Syria
The Levant
Sub Area
None