Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:23:18.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Expansion of Opium Production in Turkey and the State Monopoly of 1828–1839

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Ibrahim Ihsan Poroy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In order to gain a proper historical perspective on opium production in Turkey, it is necessary to look into its worldwide impact during the first half of the nineteenth century. During this time, opium production and trade in both India and Turkey grew rapidly and international trade in opium acquired great significance in shaping England's commercial and political relations with the Levant and the Far East for over a century.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , May 1981 , pp. 191 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Author's note: The research for the paper was conducted under a grant to the Institute for the Study of Human Issues and the author (DA-02038) awarded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the position of NIDA. I am grateful to Professors Andreas Tietze and Stanford J. Shaw for valuable guidance and to Cornell Fleischer for research assistance and transliteration of documents.

1 Phipps, J., A Practical Treatise on the China and Eastern Trade (London, 1836),Google Scholar Introduction; Michael, Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–42 (Cambridge, England, 1951), pp. 105–106, 220–221. See Appendix I for weights and exchange rates.Google Scholar

2 Greenberg, , pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

3 British Parliament, Accounts and Papers (A and P), 1831, Vol. 6, pp. 361–363 (letter from the Court of Directors to the Governor General in Bengal, dated 30th January 1822).Google Scholar

4 The figures are from Greenberg, , p. 412. He does not cite the source; my own work with the Jardine-Matheson (J-M) figures (see table 1, source) gave only 179 piculs (about 227 chests). I think the discrepancy is caused by Greenberg's timing: In the 1828–29 season (May 1-April 30) the sale of Turkish opium by J-M was 916 piculs (roughly 1, 160 chests) which comes close to this estimate considering that J-M was not the sole trader, only the largest. It is unlikely that Anatolian exports amounted to Greenberg's figure in 1829 as this was the first year of the Ottoman state monopoly which banned the private purchases in Anatolia and further compounded the supply problem by the inability to start monopoly operations for lack of funds. See table I notes for an explanation of the figures.Google Scholar

5 Greenberg uses only the Matheson figures for the trade and reports that “the private trade grew rapidly and Charles Magniac [table 1 note a for many names the company used] reported that their company was trading only in opium by 1830 and that opium was no small, incidental question but a central fact” (Greenberg, , p. 107). The role played by the American merchant-sailors in the trade from Turkey to China until 1848 makes a fascinating study and is the subject of another paper, now in preparation.Google Scholar

6 See Appendix II.

7 Zhukovsky, P., La Turquie Agricole (Leningrad, 1933), pp. 503–506;Google ScholarVeselovskaya, M. A., The Poppy (Moscow, 1931), translated for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 1976, pp. 7–15.Google Scholar

8 Fayk, Bey, Le Colonel (George Della Sudda), Monographie des Opiums de l'Empire Ottoman (Paris, 1867)Google Scholar (Fayk Bey Report); Fethi, Incekara, Türkiye Haşchaş çceşitleri (Ankara, 1949) (Incekara). The former is a survey done by Fayk Bey, the director of the central, civilian, military pharmacies of the Ottoman Empire and professor of pharmacology at the time. The latter was an official in the Agricultural Research Center in Ankara who gave a detailed analysis of all aspects of opium in Anatolia, including its value as an economic commodity. It is the best study of its kind I have seen. This section of the paper draws heavily on these sources.Google Scholar

9 Pierre Belon, who traveled in Asis Minor in the sixteenth century, reports that in Antalya, Kayseri, and Niĝde, opium was produced in the regions as a family affair since there was no hired labor and that the opium was exported to Asia on camels. See Iktisat, Vekaleti, Afyon, Türkiyede ve Dünyada (Ankara, ca. 1933), p. 24;Google ScholarIncekara, , p. 12. A decare is 1,000 square meters.Google Scholar

10 There are folktales about the young members of families getting high on opium oil as they “butter” their bread with it. See Anonymous, Afyon Tiryakileri (Istanbul, 1857), handwritten, lithograph.

11 Konakli may contain up to 50 percent of such impurities (Incekara, , p. 57).Google Scholar

12 In terms of opium operations, the monetary role the Jewish, Armenian, and some Romanian sarrafs played can be found in Başvekalet Arşivi, Istanbul (BVA), Cevdet Maliye (CM) 13860 (1830). Names iike Saul and Ansun of Galata, Konstanti, Istefan, Yakumi, Abraham and Konstantine Ciovanni appear quite frequently as financial facilitators of opium purchases. In 1835 the entire opium crop was delivered to Alyon Bezirgan, causing the protests of other merchants. On the role of Armenians in opium trade see Greenberg, , pp. 109, 114, 115,Google ScholarVon, Hammer D'Ohsson, Tableau Général de l'Empire Ottoman, Vol. 4 (Turkish translation, Istanbul, 1976), pp. 132–133;Google ScholarSussnitzki, A. J., “Ethnic Division of Labor,” in Charles, Issawi, ed., Economic History of the Middle East, 1800–1914 (Chicago, 1966), pp. 116, 117. This author states that most trade in cash crops was under Armenian control. The role of the Armenian opium merchants must have continued, into the twentieth century: “The arrest and deportation of the director of the biggest company here for the manufacturing of wares – Ipranossian Fréres. The main reason was that he had lately been buying large quantities of opium” (GA Konstantinopel, Gruppe B, I, H II-IX, 87, Ruckwirkung der Armenierwerfolgungen and Unsere Industrie, 1915 [Austrian National Archives, Vienna]). Berichte No. 2793 reports the deported Armenians by name and profession. Those from Konya and Akehir were mainly opium merchants.Google Scholar

13 Among items brought to a fair in Isparta in 1796, only Greeks exhibited opium (Kiryakoz, Dimitri, and Nikola). See BVA, Cevdet lktisat (CI) 1767. As the opium production increased, the share held by the Greek minority both as cultivators and merchants appears to have been decreased probably due to the dynamism of the Armenian minority who also had contacts with foreign interest.

14 Charles, de Scherzer, La Province de Smyrne (Vienna, 1873), p. 129.Google Scholar

15 The Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions (London), N. V. (06 1879), 956.Google Scholar The localities cover only a portion of opium-growing regions and the morphine contents stated are on the low side. Fayk Bey, who painstakingly tested 92 samples, reports much higher morphine contents: he found 12 percent in Geyve opium, 13.6 percent in Bursa, 15 percent in Kütahya, 12.7 percent in Amasya, 18.9 to 17 percent in Burdur, and 22 percent to 12 percent in Afyon Karahisar opium. For a listing see Fayk, Bey, pp. 6, 7.Google Scholar

16 D'Ohsson, , pp. 53–55; BVA, CM 7642 (1782) and CM 18215 (1783). One kind of macun appears to be the original Turkish delight (lat'i lokum). As a matter of fact, a major shareholder of the monopoly was Bekir Aga, the founder of probably the largest and famous Turkish delight producer of today. The main outlet of the modern producer of the candy is in front of the old Macunhane in Istanbul.Google Scholar

17 BVA CM 18061 (1783), CM 3187 (1791) and CM 10464 (1810). The total operations of Macunhane amounted to 30,000 kuruş including the operating expenses and this amount was not met by revenues. The situation continued until 1810.

18 The system was different from granting monopoly rights to a merchant as was the custom in the case of say, the catch from a lake or river whose output was coüsidered as public property under Islamic law (şeriat), or the monopoly rights involving all stages of production and sales such as those on salt and, later, tobacco. It also differed from the tradition of auctioning off the right to purchase wholesale a specific product of a given region to merchants for a lump sum, in lieu of taxes that were to be collected by the so-called appaltator, the institution being called appalto. These peculiarities of Ottoman public finance caused confusion and consternation among foreign traders. For example, at the abolition of all monopolies in 1839, Great Britain's consul in Beirut complained bitterly about such auctions, considering them as monopolies. He was rebuked by his superior in Cairo: “… the whole articles [you listed] are appaltos and not monopolies. The case of the appaltos, you mention under the head of silk, that the appaltator receives a certain sum on every oke of silk sold and consumed in the city, but it does not appear that any difficulty is made to the purchase of silk for exportation by the English merchant.… In fact you appear not to be aware that the appalto in the cases which you have mentioned as monopolies, are simply a farming of the excise duties, and which is allowable in all countries” (Colonel Campbell to Viscount Palmerston and Palmerston's reply, Cairo, May 30, 1839, in A and P, 1840, “Correspondence Relative to the Continuance of Monopolies in the Dominion of Turkey,” Item 23, pp. 559–563).

19 The term for company merchants (kumpanya tüccari), a designation made frequently in these documents, refers to merchants certified by the Levant Company of England, the only forein company authorized to act as an “umbrella” for all foreigners except the Russians.

20 The Ottomans kept a rigid system of hierarchy and classification in trade relations with foreigners. Around 1820, the system was as follows: (i) Turkish (hayriye) merchants: Muslim or non-Muslim (reaya) subjects of the Empire trading mainly in the interior; (2) minority (azinlik) or Europe merchants: Armenian, Greek, and Jewish merchants registered with the authorities to trade in imports and exports; (3) foreign (müstemin): citizens of European countries trading in the Empire under the “capitulations” rights, mostly English and French but with a growing component of Russians and Americans. See Kütükoğlü, M. S., Osmanli-Ingiliz Iktisadi Münaseberleri, II (1838–1850) (Istanbul, 1976).Google Scholar

21 BVA, CM 4360 and CI 139.

22 In 1828, the monopoly operations could not be carried out for lack of funds; the ensuing confusion leading up to complaints by the merchants along with pleas to rescind the monopoly control for that year is in BVA, Hatt-i Humayun (HH) 26263 (1244/1828).

23 BVA, CM 13860 (1830).

24 In 1836, complaints were registered by company merchants against a government order to deliver 100,000 çeki to a merchant-financier, Alyon Bezirgan, to pay for 18,000 purse borrowed from him to cover both the Russian indemnity and the circulating capital for opium (at a price amounting to 90 krş. a çeki while the price to others was set at 102.5 krş.); the other merchants wanted to buy the entire crop, directly (BVA, HH 26100 [1836], HH 25863 [1836]).

25 BVA, CM 24646 (1831), CI 387 (1836), CI 1655 (nd., ca. 1830), CM 8252 (1838), and letter from Consul Brant, Izmir, 24 July 1833, FO 78, p. 224.

26 BVA, CM 139 (1831), CM 20482 (1837).

27 In fact, the 1836 legal purchases of over 190,000 çeki were considerably over the 74,000 of 1835 and well above the 50,000 estimated by Consul Brant for 1832 (Brant letter).

28 Mukataa is a unit of taxation in agriculture when the tax for a given crop of an area is farmed out to the highest bidder for collection. In 1836 the state treasury was separatd from the army's (Mansure's) and the right to collect taxes was given to the Imperial mint (Darphane). In 1839, a modern structure was adopted with the introduction of a treasury under a minister of finance.

29 BVA, CI 387, CI 502 and CM 15273.

30 Resm-i dönüm was in lieu of the tithe; although resm-i dönüm (fee per cultivated area; a dönüm is about 1/4 acre) refers to area, it was obviously collected on the basis of quantity (BVA, HH 27868, 1839).

31 A number of documents indicate that the cultivators were quite satisfied with the price offered. Letters from Afyon Karahisar and Kutahya state how happy the farmers were with 55 krş.Içeki in 1836 (BVA, CI 1255 [1836]). Also, when the harvesting of the opium poppy was banned in various regions because of a glut on the market, farmers sent in petition after petition for lifting of the ban (BVA, Irade, Meclis-i Vala 1254 [1838]): Cl 1944 [1840]; Cl 266 [1840]: Irade, Meclis-i Vala 562 [1841].

32 See appendix III for details.

33 BVA, Cl 1252 (1836), CM 8252 (1838). Irade. Meclis-i Vala 181 (1838) and 562 (1841), CI 1944 (1840).

34 Brant, letter.

35 Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Convention of Commerce and Navigation Signed at Balta Limani, August 16, 1836 (London, 1839), p. 292. On negotiations related to this convention, see Kütükoglu, Osmanli-Ingiliz Munasebetleri.Google Scholar

36 Consul, Sandison to Viscount, Palmerston, G.B., Parliamentary Papers, Correspondence Relative to the Continuance of Monopolies in the Dominions of Turkey (London, 1840), Item 43, p. 42.Google Scholar