The Responses Of The Local Elite And The Peasants Of Ottoman-Palestine
to State Centralization And Economic Changes, 1856-1908.

Awad Eddie Halabi

Introduction

After the mid-nineteenth century, Ottoman-Palestinel underwent both state centralization and global economic integration. 2 Both these developments occurred simultaneously and had far-reaching effects throughout this society. Specifically, these concurrent developments effected the relationship between two specific classes. One of these classes constituted the group with wealth and political influence- the elites; the other class encompassed the majority of the population, those who worked the land as rural agriculturalists- namely, the peasants. The relationship between these two classes was one of hierarchical exploitation, so that the wealth and supremacy in society afforded the elites opportunities to appropriate the peasants' produce. The political and economic developments later in the nineteenth century accelerated this class conflict.

The Ottoman state's centralization policy and its global integration of its economy between the end of the Crimean War in 1856 and the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 had the most significant effects on the elites' access and control of the peasants' surplus. Both Ottoman-Palestine's integration into the world economy and the penetration by centralized state forces in this region, however, began before this period. Immanuel Wallerstein notes in his "The Ottoman Empire and the Capitalist World-Economy: Some Questions for Research", how in the previous two centuries an exchange of Ottoman primary goods for
iii- manufactured European products occurred. But he distinguishes this period from the nineteenth century, when the Ottoman empire ceased to be a "self-contained social economy" and had become a "peripheral area" of the metropole. 3

In Ottoman-Palestine, as in the rest of the Fertile Crescent, the increasing exports to and imports from Europe materialised in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. During this time, however, Palestine's commerce remained minimal. For example, in 1825 Jaffa's total imports equalled 163,000 French francs with exports at 116,000 French francs; imports and exports for the whole of the coast of Syria, on the other hand equalled 18. 75 million and 12. 7 million French francs in 1833. 4 Beginning only in the mid-nineteenth century did greater European and regional demand for Palestine's agriculture (mostly wheat, barley, oranges, sesame) and other products (soap, earthenware) raise Palestine commerce to new unprecedented levels. Increasing exports were matched by the rise in imports, such as sugar, rice, coffee, cotton manufactured goods and petroleum. 5 Though statistics for the period are limited, reliable tabulations confirm that the trade of Ottoman-Palestine was undoubtedly much larger and diverse in the second half of the nineteenth century than it was earlier.

As important as trade with Europe was to the economy of Palestine, the regional and local trade grew significantly after the mid-nineteenth century. Improved methods of transport, such
iv- as railway lines, steamships servicing major ports and more paved roads, increases in population and the lowering of the internal tariffs all encouraged merchants to concentrate on the local and regional markets. It is clear that commerce within the local and regional markets remained important to the Palestine economy throughout the nineteenth century. Only at the turn of the nineteenth century did greater trade with Europe, comprising both imports and exports, dominate the Palestine economy to the extent of producing a trade deficit.

Most of the increasing exports in Palestine's agricultural was the result of cultivation and the greater amounts of production which accompanied this. These improvements in Palestine's hinterland can be attributed to the Ottoman state's centralization policy to ensure greater control over the population. Even as early as the reign of Sultan Selim III (1761-1808), Ottoman initiatives included assembling a modern European-style army to re-establish Ottoman authority. In addition, the ephemeral Egyptian ruler of Palestine (1831-1840), Mehmet 'Ali, is considered by many scholars to have ushered in the "modern age" of Palestine, with his attempts to subdue the bedouin and rural large families which held influence in the plains and foothills areas. 6 After the Ottomans regained Palestine in 1840, they pursued the Tanzimat Reform program to establish a rational and competent bureaucracy in the government of the provinces.

- All these efforts, though, could not succeed until the end of the Crimean War in 1856. The disruptions and inconsistencies in the reform efforts of the previous decades were overcome when the Ottomans possessed the military resources after the war. After this period, the Ottomans regained control of the rural areas, subdued the bedouin and powerful rural families and extended their authority through other bureaucratic and administrative reforms. These efforts opened up large areas of land for cultivation and settlement; as a result, cultivators and merchants could respond to the new market changes in Europe as well as in the Ottoman Empire. Thus, the centralization policy contributed to the local merchants, landowners, and to a lesser extent the peasants, abilities to respond to economic changes.

In conjunction with the pacification of the rural families, the state authorities entrusted political power to a new cadre of elites in the urban areas. Service to the state through the bureaucratic and religious spheres was now greatly valued, as these urban elites were awarded offices in new bureaucratic posts designed to promote Ottoman reforms and control. Moreover, a limited group of families not only dominated these posts, but the highest local religious positions as well.

With these positions, the families of the urban elite not only acted as the population's political and religious leaders, but these families also controlled land registration and tax farms. The burden of paying these taxes forced many peasants to enter land-tenure or financial agreements with urban residents
vi- with capital in order to begin planting. These agreements included borrowing money at high rates, repaying a loan through cash or providing a fixed or proportional sum of the crop, working as a tenant or leasing the peasants' land from the lender. A common occurrence in all these agreements was that the peasants' control of their resources of land and/or labour and/or yield, were undermined through the need to meet the elites' commercial ambitions.

If the elites were more anxious to appropriate7 peasant agriculture after the mid-nineteenth century, and state centralization facilitated this, the class conflict between the peasants and the elites worked in favour of the latter. But, acting as tax farmers, landowners and moneylenders were not the only factors which promoted the elites in their goals. As a result of the political and economic changes after the mid-nineteenth century, the urban elites coalesced into a more cohesive class, cognizant of their class interests and willing to protect their shared interests. The elites' common class consciousness was fostered through their ability to usurp political control away from the powerful rural families, and to control political leadership at the local level. These same elites were also the merchants who marketed the peasants products in the local and regional markets. In addition, they also acted as the tax collectors, moneylenders and large-scale landowners for most of the peasant population. Philip Khoury has referred

vii- to this group of elites as the "landowning-bureaucratic class". 8 The elites' common interests of appropriating the peasants' agriculture and the opportunities which arose after the mid-nineteenth century to control this agriculture, served to shape the elites into a class more coherent in its ambitions.

This thesis will concentrate specifically on how the class conflict intensified in favour of the Muslim urban elite. Previously, scholars have concentrated on the minorities (Christians, Jews and Europeans) who responded to the greater demand by European countries to Middle East agriculture. 8 As Beshara Doumani has shown in his study documenting the scholarship of Palestine during the Ottoman period, most scholars ignore the indigenous community's actions in responding to these changes. 10 Little attention has been paid to the Muslim elite who held political control at the local level and dominated, through landownership, tax farming and moneylending, the appropriation of the peasants' agriculture. In addition, the peasants of Ottoman- Palestine have virtually been ignored from the scholarship dealing with Ottoman Palestine in the nineteenth century. As a response to the lack of scholarship on these issues, this thesis concentrates on the responses of both the elite and peasant classes to the economic and political changes during the second-half of the nineteenth century.

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Endnotes for Introduction

1. In this paper, Ottoman-Palestine is defined as the sanjak (sub-province) of Jerusalem which formed a independent sanjak or mutasarrifiya in 1887, including the qadas (district) of Jerusalem, Hebron, Ghaza and Jaffa. The qadas of Jamin, Baru Sa'b and Jimayn encompassed the sanjak of Nablus while the qadas of Acre, Haifa, Nazareth, Safad and Tiberius comprised the sanjak of Acre. The sanjak of Nablus was ruled from the wilayat (province) of Damascus and the sanjak of Acre was ruled from the wilayat of Beirut. The three sanjaks of Jerusalem, Nablus and Acre combined with the wilayas of Beirut and Damascus during the late nineteenth century roughly refers to Syria-Palestine in this paper. See adjoining maps.

2. We follow the arguments of Immanuel Wallerstein and his theories on the incorporation of the Ottoman empire into the world economy elucidated by the various scholars in The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy ed. Huri Islamoglu-Inan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). See especially the introduction by Huri Islamoglu-Inan, "Introduction : 'Oriental despotism" in world -system perspective", 1-24.

3. Immanuel Wallerstein, "The Ottoman Empire and the Capitalist World-Economy: Some Questions for Research", Review, II, 3 (Winter 1979): 397-398. For Wallerstein the difference is one of quantitative change in commerce. Wallerstein reaches this conclusion by referring to numerous scholars and their work. See Hurl Islamoglu and Caglar Keyder, "Agenda for Ottoman History", Review, I, I (Summer 1977):53 quoted in Walterstein, "Ottoman Empire", 397.

4. Charles Issawi, "The Trade of Jaffa, 1825-1914", Table 2 "Trade of Jaffa". ed. Hisham Nashabe, Studia Palaestina: Studies in Honour of Constantine K. Zurayk (Beirut: Institute for Palestine).

5. Ibid, 44 and Table 1 "Average Unit Values of Selected Syrian Exports and Imports".

6. See Chapter One.

7. It seems that Roger Owen was the first to use the term "appropriation" to describe the elites' control of the peasants' surplus. Roger Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800-1914, (London: Metheun Press, 1988).

B. Philip Khoury, Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus, 1860-1920, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 5.

9. Examples of this scholarship are: Moshe Ma'oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine. 1840-1861, (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), the articles in Studies on Palestine During the Late Ottoman Period, (ed. ) Moshe Ma'oz (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1975). One recent example is Ruth Kark, Jaffa: A City in Evolution. 1799-1917 which mainly focuses on the growth of the Jewish community in that city, even though the author claims to study the entire population. See the review by Beshara Doumani in International Journal of Middle East Studies Humber 4 (November 1992):682-684.

10. "Rediscovering Ottoman Palestine: Writing Palestinians into History", Journal of Palestine Studies Volume XXI Humber 2 (Winter 1992):5-28.