Journal of Ottoman Legacy Studies (Nov 2020)
KARAYAKA KAZASI (ZİĞDİ) VERİLERİ ÜZERİNDEN OSMANLI TAŞRA TARİHİNİN İDARİ, SOSYAL VE EKONOMİK YAPISINA DAİR BİR MODELLEME
Abstract
Ottoman fiscal studies have some difficulties whether the farmer in the rural area has the right of use craft of his personal farming field. This difficulty has been caused by the lack of personal data provided by the farmers on their own. All we can access for the farmers livelihood is provided by the state mandated documentaries. The Ottoman farmers consider as tenant for the farming fields since the state was considered the real owner of the all arable lands of the empire. However some findings prove else for the condition of peasants due to the Ottoman legislation. It is true that whole country was a possession of Sultan as the head of the state. Among these possession addressed as “hass”, describes the most abundant lands of its income is the highest comparing with other de facto areas. Second type of the land called “zeamet” saved for the highest ranks of the Ottomans such vizier, governors or ser-asker (chief commander of the ottoman army). Third type of the Ottoman lands spared for the war-lords is called “tımar”. These three types of the arable lands were the most profitable percentages of the Ottoman territory and the smaller share must provide at least 10.000 silver piasters each year. Mostly all of these lands directly were under the Sultans’ will whether to donate whom. Nevertheless there is one more another type of the arable land is defined in the ottoman documents as “tarla”. This “tarla” saying in a word simply describes “the field”, cultivated by the farmer or peasant in the rural area. This type of farming area is considerably smaller than previous type of the de facto lands. However this small scale of the cultivated fields scores the largest percentages of the arable lands of the Ottoman Empire. Along with the possessors of this humble and merely fields were more crowded than the provisions that have been gifted by the exalted Sultan to his own family members or to his most loyal subjects. These humble small scale fields cultivated by their ex-owners who firstly settled in the vicinity at the rural country life or commonly owned pre-Ottoman administration. Ottoman conquest gave a good gesture for the small scale land owners to possess their lands as tenants on the condition of paying the taxes of mainly issued as tithe for the any kind of the grains. Thus any farmer regardless owned by Muslim or non Muslim possessed his miserable inherited fields to gain by the livelihood paying the gratitude to state each harvesting season. The difference between these humble fields and the fertile large scale farms was one inherited due to the being peasant or farmer and the other was provided and granted with the solely will of the Sultan. It hence be claimed that this small scale fields and their owners has the right of the use craft of their cultivated fields. This means simply the right of the estate was directly belonged to the farmer or peasant. The farmer of the Ottomans could owned the possession as long as he cultivated according to the most known ottoman regulations, arranges the farmers status in the state. However some findings proves that even the farmer, could not cultivate his own field continued to own the land and hire its use craft to other share croppers. Sometimes the owner of the field hired the right of the cultivation to others with a reasonable sum percentage of the harvested product. Sometimes the owner of the farm shared his fields’ use craft and burden of cultivation if he has not got any yoke. This shared cultivation system between the real owner of the field and other share-cropper caused the division of the harvest in to half for each. Or some documents proves that in some occasions the real owner of the field passed his use craft to others for nothing but simply to gain good gesture as charity from the needed one. In the Ottoman State tax registration notebooks contain social and fiscal datum belonging to the public. The tax registration notebooks should be examined for rural history writing. In our study, the tax registration notebook of the village Ziğdi is scrutinized. The modeling of the Ottoman State for the social and fiscal structure of the rural population has been struggled to detect. In this study, it has been defined that the Ottoman state creates a kind of modeling that depicts the poor and rich along with the middle class in the Ottoman society. Same modeling also goes for the Ottoman rural economy. The affects of rich families in the social structure of the village can be depicted. These rich families who have mills, baths, shops, fields, and animal herds within the range of reasonable economic value also had an immense influence in the rural economic struggle of the peasantry daily life. The Ottoman modeling of detecting the wealth owner in the rural area by looking in to the amount of estate, of animal herds and of the other incomes was successful. In the village of Ziğdi, animal husbandry was also recorded as a secondary living occupation. The endemic sheep named as “Karayaka” Sheep was the main source of wealth among the husbandry dealers. Thousands Karayaka sheep were also transferred to the sublime port of Istanbul as a live food stock. Three families gained benefit from the sheep trade with the port and considered as a local elite among the society of Turkic nomads. There were also some notables in the village who were trustee of pious foundations named as “Mütevelli families”. These families, named as mütevelli (trustee) were appointed to arrange the pious foundations, named Veli Chelebi and Kaya Chelebi in the village. Some were appointed from the pious foundations of Amasia and some were from Sivas. These trustees eventually settled in the village and mixed with the locals via marriage. They became the elite of the peasantry community with their wealth, gained from the work of trustee and also with their education, skilled to run the pious foundations. In this study these notable families and their wealth was scheduled to compare their might within the rural population. We did also try to find out the taste of the peasant cuisine in the village of Ziğdi. Our findings prove that their habit towards the grain cultivation must be inherited from the Hittite time. These findings need further clues to develop but the main grain cultivation resembles as the daily life agricultural routine of the Hittite peasants. In the study we also came across with the mills for grains and floors and linen mills too. The owners of the Turkish bath were also in action in the village most probably inherited from the sovereignty past of the Roman Empire. The vineyards were not fruitful but help the sugar consumption of the population to utmost degree. The gardens refers to some fruit trees as wild cherries, to produce medicine in Amasia and it hence sent to the local market of Amasia to feed the drug production.
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