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Queen Mary University of London HST 5112 , 2011-12

Bedouin, fellahs and sultans: History of the Islamic Countryside Week 8 The colonial economy: Modernity, cotton & Egypt. Queen Mary University of London HST 5112 , 2011-12. Middle East in 1800 Ottoman reforms Land law of 1858 Egypt and cotton British rule (1882-1922) Depression.

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Queen Mary University of London HST 5112 , 2011-12

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  1. Bedouin, fellahs and sultans:History of the Islamic CountrysideWeek 8The colonial economy:Modernity, cotton & Egypt Queen Mary University of London HST 5112, 2011-12 • Middle East in 1800 • Ottoman reforms • Land law of 1858 • Egypt and cotton • British rule (1882-1922) • Depression

  2. Ottoman Middle East, 1800 • Most land is miri (state-owned), cultivated with cereals • Agricultural taxes by tax-farming, at control of local elites • Waqf – revenues from land alienated for religious purposes / family descendants • Peasants had rights of usufruct • Communal cultivation in high-risk areas

  3. Ottoman reforms, 1789-1858 • Ottoman tax revenues £2.25 – 3.57m; British are £16.8m (for circa 1800) • Move to direct collection of taxes and abolition of tax-farms and waqfs.

  4. Land law, 1858 • 1858 land law - every piece of miri land was to be registered in the name of the person who cultivated it. • State ownership re-established but title deed (tapu) to encourage stability Sultan Abdulmecid I (r. 1839 – 1861)

  5. Impact of 1858 land law • Who actually registered the land? Sometimes individual peasants, sometimes local notables • By the 1850s, European capital flows into coastal areas (Izmir, Lebanon), leading to expansion of cash crops (cotton, silk) • Handful of railway routes allow export of crops & cereals from the hinterland

  6. Impact of 1858 land law • Emergence of estates, often effectively owned by Europeans (half of land around Izmir owned by Brits in 1878) • System of Capitulations for European merchants – free trade, not subject to local jurisdiction • But by WWI – Anatolia still has majority of small holdings in the interior of the country

  7. Muhammad ‘Ali’s Egypt • French conquest (1798-1801) • Muhammad ‘Ali’s rule in Egypt (1805-1849) • Autonomous province An 1840 portrait of Muhammad Ali by Auguste Coder

  8. Muhammad ‘Ali’s Egypt • Abolition of all tax-farms • State monopoly on trade in cereals, sugar • Centralized Introduction of long-staple cotton • Forced labour (corvee) for irrigation works • Mass conscription of peasants to new army • Construction of textile factories

  9. Egypt, 1840-1882 • By 1840s, centralization collapses; land re-distributed as private property • Foreign capital flows directly to delta villages; cotton boom of the 1860s • Corvee labour • Bankruptcy leads to British occupation

  10. British rule, 1882-1922 • Balancing the books: investment in irrigation & transport infrastructure to allow rise in productivity; abolition of corvee • Emergence of large cotton estates: by 1894, 42% of holdings are more than 50 acres • The ‘izbe: large landowner would allow tenants on his lands, in return for fees & labour • By WWI, 40-50% of peasants are landless

  11. The fellah, 1919 • 85% of 12.7m population is rural • Irrigation is year-round in most of Egypt • Cotton as main crop (92% of exports in 1913) • Transport links allow closer control by Cairo • Bureaucratization at village level; ‘umda (mayor) and watchmen paid by state • Small holdings, or ‘izbe tenants of large landowners

  12. The fellah, 1919 • Dinshaway incident (1906) • Peasants & nationalist revolt (1919) • Targets of peasant attack: • Railways • Greeks • ‘izbe compounds • Local administration Pictures from the village of Dinshaway, 1900s (from http://www.cedej-eg.org/spip.php?article46)

  13. Egypt, interwar period • Formal independence, British tutelage (1922) • Political dominance of large land-owners • Decreasing soil fertility after over-watering under the British; per capita growth stagnant • The Depression (setting of Egyptian Earth) – fall in cotton prices and further indebtedness of peasants

  14. The ‘colonial economy’ British legacy in Egypt as a typical ‘colonial economy’ • Reliance on one crop • low tariffs, minimal restrictions on trade • Colony should pay for itself, little infrastructure • No local central bank • Political management through large landowners or tribal chiefs Overview of modern economic history of the Middle East in R. Owen and SevketPamuk, A history of Middle East economies in the twentieth century (1998)

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