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THE OTTOMANS DURING THE GLOBAL CRISES OF CHOLERA AND PLAGUE: THE VIEW FROM IRAQ AND THE GULF

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2019

Isacar A. Bolaños
Isacar A. Bolaños*
Affiliation:
Isacar A. Bolaños is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore, MD; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The cholera and plague pandemics of the 19th and early 20h centuries shaped Ottoman state-building and expansionist efforts in Iraq and the Gulf in significant ways. For Ottoman officials, these pandemics brought attention to the possible role of Qajar and British subjects in spreading cholera and plague, as well as the relationship between Iraq's ecology and recurring outbreaks. These developments paved the way for the expansion of Ottoman health institutions, such as quarantines, and the emergence of new conceptions of public health in the region. Specifically, quarantines proved instrumental not only to the delineation of the Ottoman–Qajar border, but also to defining an emerging Ottoman role in shaping Gulf affairs. Moreover, the Ottomans’ use of quarantines and simultaneous efforts to develop sanitary policies informed by local ecological realities signal a localized and ad hoc approach to disease prevention that has been overlooked. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that environmental factors operating on global and regional scales were just as important as geopolitical factors in shaping Ottoman rule in Iraq and the Gulf during the late Ottoman period.

Keywords

choleraGulfIraqOttoman Empireplaguequarantine
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , November 2019 , pp. 603 - 620
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

NOTES

Author's note: Funding for this research was provided by The Academic Research Institute in Iraq and the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Security Studies and Office of International Affairs. For their help and encouragement during various stages of research and writing, I express my sincere gratitude to Carter V. Findley, Samuel Dolbee, Jim Harris, Michael Christopher Low, Elizabeth Perego, Nükhet Varlık, Sam White, Camille Cole, Dianne G. Delima, Jeffrey Dyer, Moshe Matus, Doğa Öztürk, and Benjamin Smuin. For their feedback on earlier versions of this paper, I also thank the three anonymous IJMES reviewers, the journal's editorial board, and the participants of the Great Lakes Ottomanist Workshop (York University, 2016) and the Indian Ocean World Centre's conference on “Disease and Dispersion in the Indian Ocean World” (McGill University, 2016).

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16 These outbreaks occurred in 1674–75, 1739–40, and 1773–74. See al-ʿUmari, Yasin, Ghayat al-Maram fi Tarikh Mahasin Baghdad Dar al-Salam, ed. al-Basri, ʿAli Yusuf (Baghdad: Dar Manshurat al-Basri, 1968), 320–21Google Scholar. Al-ʿUmari uses the word ṭāʿun when discussing these outbreaks. On the complications arising from translating the word ṭāʿun as “plague,” see Varlık, Plague and Empire, 11–12; and White, The Climate of Rebellion, 86.

17 On malaria as a problem in Basra, see Abdullah, Merchants, Mamluks, and Murder, 13. For a sampling of accounts from European officials, travelers, and merchants, see Teixiera, Pedro, The Travels of Pedro Teixeira, trans. Sinclair, William F. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1902), 29Google Scholar; Parsons, Abraham, Travels in Asia and Africa (London: Longman, Hurts, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row, 1808), 157Google Scholar; Sestini, Domenico, Voyage de Constantinople à Bassora en 1781 par le Tigre et l'Euphrate (Paris: Dupuis, 1798), 190–91Google Scholar; British Library, India Office Records, London, United Kingdom (hereafter IOR)/G/29/21, La Touche to Board of Control, 1 July 1780; and IOR/G/29/23, Jones to Manesty, 1 November 1793. On continuity and change in state approaches to malaria during the late Ottoman period and early Turkish Republic, see Kyle T. Evered and Emine Ö. Evered, , “Governing Population, Public Health, and Malaria in the Early Turkish Republic,” Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011): 470–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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19 According to J. N. Hays, cholera did not appear in the Gulf until 1822. See Hays, Epidemics and Pandemics, 193. However, archival evidence from the India Office Records demonstrates that cholera arrived to the Gulf by 1821. See IOR/P/385/10, Jukes (Political Agent) to Bombay Government, 14 July 1821, pp. 5543–44; IOR/P/385/10, Jukes (Political Agent) to Bombay Government, 20 July 1821, pp. 5537; and IOR/P/385/11, Jukes (Political Agent) to Bombay Government, 1 September 1821, p. 5894.

20 Salname-i Vilayet-i Basra (Basra: Basra Vilayeti Matbaası, 1318/[1900–1901]), 193–94.

21 White, Sam, “Rethinking Disease in Ottoman History,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 42 (2010): 549–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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23 Resul Kerkuklü Efendi, Dehvat ül-Vüzera: Gülşen-i Hulefa Zeylidir (Baghdad: Dar al-Tibaʿa, 1246/[1830]), 351.

24 Ibid., 351.

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26 These developments are described and examined in Varlık, Plague and Empire, 248–91.

27 Panzac, La Peste, 446–56; Ayalon, Yaron, Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, Famine, and Other Misfortunes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 184Google Scholar.

28 A translated copy of Davud Paşa's letter can be found in IOR/P/385/17, translated letter from Davud Paşa to Bombay Government, pp. 268–70. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate Davud Paşa's original letter, which I presume to have been written in Ottoman Turkish. Although no date appears on the letter, the index for these proceedings mentions that Davud Paşa's letter was dated 1822. See, IOR/Z/P/3422, pp. 26. All quotations from this letter rely on the available translation.

29 Ibid.

30 Ayalon, Natural Disasters, 186.

31 Longrigg, Stephen Hemsley, Four Centuries of Modern Iraq (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), 255Google Scholar. On Georgian mamluk rule in Baghdad, see Nieuwenhuis, Tom, Politics and Society in Early Modern Iraq: Mamluk Pasha, Tribal Shaykhs and Local Rule Between 1802 and 1831 (The Hauge: Martinius Nijhoff, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lier, Thomas, Haushalte and Haushaltspolitik in Bagdad, 1704–1831 (Würzburg: Erlong Verlag, 2004)Google Scholar.

32 Despite my best efforts, I was unable to locate in the Prime Ministry's Ottoman Archives any correspondence between the Ottoman central government and Davud Paşa on the subject of the cholera crisis at Basra. This, of course, does not mean that such correspondence does not exist.

33 Ayar, Osmanlı Devletinde Kolera, 10n30.

34 On the ways in which the Ottoman experience with plague can help us rethink conventional periodizations of the three known plague pandemics, see Varlık, Nükhet, “New Science and Old Sources: Why the Ottoman Experience of Plague Matters,” The Medieval Globe 1 (2014): 193–227Google Scholar.

35 IOR/P/386/40, No. 44, Bombay Castle to Medical Board, 9 September 1828.

36 Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (Prime Ministry's Ottoman Archive), Istanbul, Turkey (hereafter BOA), HAT 462/22642A, 29 Z 1246/10 June 1831; and BOA, HAT 395/20864R, 7 M 1247/18 June 1831.

37 BOA, HAT 392/20794, 5 L 1247/8 March 1832; and BOA, HAT 393/20825, 25 Za 1247/26 April 1832.

38 Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes, Nantes, France (hereafter CADN), Constantinople D, Baghdad vol. 9, No. 11, Beuscher to Varenne, 26 April 1832.

39 Ayalon, Natural Disasters, 187.

40 The Anglo-Turkish Convention (or Treaty of Balta Limanı) (1838), which the Ottoman Empire signed in exchange for British support in the Ottoman central government's struggle against the Ottoman governor of Egypt, Mehmed Ali Paşa, eliminated state monopolies and reduced tariffs for European merchants. For more on the treaty and its importance in late Ottoman history, see Donald Quataert, “Overview of the Nineteenth Century,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914, 764.

41 On the epidemiological and economic concerns informing the Ottoman Empire's decision to adopt quarantines, see Bulmuş, Plague, 97–129.

42 Ibid., 4, 99.

43 Ibid., 130–51. On 19th-century European debates concerning the efficacy of quarantines and their hinderance to the free flow of commerce, see Ackerknecht, Erwin H., “Anticontagionism between 1821 and 1867,” International Journal of Epidemiology 38 (2009): 7–21CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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45 The National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom (hereafter TNA), FO 195/334, No. 3, Rawlinson to Canning, 16 January 1849.

46 TNA, 195/237, No. 52, Rawlinson to Wellesley, 30 September 1846.

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48 TNA, FO 195/367, No. 18, Kemball to Canning, 2 July 1851; BOA, I.DH 238/14410, 22 L 1267/20 August 1851; TNA, FO 195/367, No. 26, Kemball to Canning, 23 September 1851.

49 TNA, FO 195/237, No. 60, Rawlinson to Wellesley, 25 November 1846.

50 Salname-i Nezaret-i Hariciye, 1318 (Istanbul: Matbaa-ı Osmaniye, 1318/[1900–1901]), 454.

51 BOA, A.DVN.MHM 5A/71, 29 C 1264/2 June 1848.

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54 Ibid., 14: 5–6.

55 CADN, Constantinople D, Baghdad, vol. 13, No. 70, Guerrier to de La Cour, 8 October 1853; TNA, FO 195/521, No. 32, Kemball to Redcliffe, 11 October 1856.

56 Salname-i Nezaret-i Hariciye, 464.

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60 [Ottoman Empire], Procès-Verbaux de la Conférence Sanitaire Internationale ouverte a Constantinople, vol. 1, No. 34: 5–6 (30 August 1866). For more on Qajar approaches to public health and disease prevention, see Hormoz Ebrahimnejad, Medicine, Public Health and the Qajar State: Patterns of Medical Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Iran (Leiden: Brill, 2004); and Willem Floor, Public Health in Qajar Iran (Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 2004).

61 [Ottoman Empire], Procès-Verbaux de la Conférence Sanitaire Internationale ouverte a Constantinople, vol. 1, No. 35: 3–4 (8 September 1866).

62 Ibid., No. 35: 5 (8 September 1866).

63 TNA, FO 195/1371, telegram, no number, Plowden to Dickson, 17 October 1881.

64 TNA, FO 195/1409, No. 1, Plowden to the Earl of Dufferin, 4 January 1882.

65 TNA, FO 195/1445, No. 46, Tweedie to Wyndham, 5 September 1883.

66 TNA, FO 195/1445, No. 55, Tweedie to the Earl of Dufferin, 22 November 1883.

67 TNA, FO 195/1478, No. 25, Plowden to the Earl of Dufferin, 10 January 1884.

68 TNA, FO 195/1579, No. 41/5, Bowman to White, 17 January 1887.

69 TNA, FO 195/1611, No. 464/77, Talbot to White, 30 June 1888.

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71 Bulmuş, Plague, 152.

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73 For the Ottomans’ use of quarantines in specific contexts, see Bulmuş, Plague, 97–151; Low, “The Mechanics of Mecca,” 158–229; Sarıyıldız, Hicaz Karantina; Robarts, Migration and Disease, 109–38; and Mikhail, Alan, Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 230–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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79 BOA, DH.MKT 1657/14, 19 M 1307/15 September 1889; BOA, DH.MKT 1666/78, 18 S 130714 October 1889; BOA, DH.MKT 1670/54, 3 Ra 1307/28 October 1889; BOA, DH.MKT 1672/21, 12 Ra 1307/6 November 1889; BOA, DH.MKT 1678/40, 8 R 1307/2 December 1889.

80 TNA, FO 195/1467, No. 457/49, Tweedie to White, 22 August 1889.

81 Harrison, Contagion, 172

82 Şerifüddin bin Arif, Basra Şehri Hakkında Topografya-ı Tıbbi (Istanbul: Mahmud Bey Matbaası, 1309/[1891–92]), 2. On the Ottoman Medical Society, see Karacaoğlu, Emre, “Cemiyet-i Tıbbiye-i Osmaniye Toplantısında Sunulan Bir Tıp Tarihi Makalesi: Terakkiyat-i Tıbbiye,” Türk Klinikleri: Tıp Etiği-Hukuku-Tarihi 24 (2016): 44–54Google Scholar.

83 Arif, Basra Şehri, 14

84 Ibid., 33

85 Apparently, portions of this report were published earlier in the Ottoman periodical Tercüman-ı Hakikat. Ibid., 14–15.

86 Basra Vilayeti Salnamesi (Basra: Basra Matbaası, 1309/[1891–92]), 104–57.

87 Ibid., 115.

88 Ibid., 118.

89 TNA, FO 195/1978, No. 379/33, Mockler to Ford, 31 May 1893; TNA, FO 195/1979, No. 589/77, Mockler to Ford, 28 August 1893.

90 BOA, BEO 349/26129, 15 Kanunusani 1309 / 27 January 1894.

91 On Mehmed Şakir's life and career, see Mehmed Şakir Bey, Halife II. Abdülhamid'in Hac Siyaseti, ed. Gülden Sarıyıldız (Istanbul: Timas, 2009), 9–17.

92 Mehmed Şakir, “Hindistan Kolerası ve Irak’ın Islahat-ı Sıhhiyesi,” İstanbul Üniversitesi Nadir Eserler Kütüphanesi (hereafter İÜNEK), Ms. No. TY 5071, 255–57

93 Ibid., 265.

94 Ibid., 434.

95 Ibid., 438–40.

96 Ibid., 220–28.

97 BOA, A.MKT.MHM 579/8, Ministry of Health to Grand Vizier, 6 Ca 1317 / 30 September 1899.

98 BOA, I.SH 4/29, 27 R 1322 / 13 July 1904. Hamdi Aziz, Suriye Kıtʿasıyla Zor Sancağı ve Hıtta-ı İrakiye'de Kolera İstila’âtı, 1318 ila 1320 (Baghdad, 1321/[1905–6]), 2. Internal evidence in the report itself suggests that the publication date of 1321 should be treated as a Rumi date.

99 Ibid., 11–13, 28–37.

100 Ibid., 15–16

101 On the pandemic's effects on Chinese society, see Benedict, Carol, Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-Century China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

102 A developed literature exists on the unsettling effects of plague's appearance in British India and the global panic that they created. See Arnold, David, Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan, “Plague Panic and Epidemic Politics in India, 1896–1914,” in Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence, ed. Ranger, Terence and Slack, Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 204–6Google Scholar; and Catanach, I. J., “The ‘Globalization’ of Disease? India and the Plague,” Journal of World History 12 (2001): 131–53CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

103 Harrison, Contagion, 140–41.

104 Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Conférence Sanitaire Internationale de Venise, 16 Février-19 Mars 1897: Procès-Verbaux (Rome: Forzani et Imprimeurs du Sénat, 1897), 42.

105 TNA, FO 195/1935, Enclosure, Dr. Lubicz to Mockler, 5 October 1896 in No. 468/84, Mockler to Currie, 6 October 1896.

106 BOA, A.MKT.MHM 573/14, Office of Grand Vizier to Baghdad and Basra, 4 Kanununuevvel 1312/16 December 1896.

107 BOA, A.MKT.MHM 573/14, Office of Grand Vizier to various ministries, 19 Kanunuevvel 1312/31 December 1896.

108 BOA, A.MKT.MHM 573/14, Office of Grand Vizier to Ministry of Health, 9 Kanunusani 1312/ 25 January 1897.

109 Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Conférence Sanitaire Internationale de Venise, 334.

110 Ibid., 385.

111 Ibid. For Ottoman efforts to establish a greater presence at Faw, see Çetinsaya, Ottoman Administration of Iraq, 130–36.

112 Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Conférence Sanitaire Internationale de Venise, 246.

113 Ibid., 212.

114 BOA, I.SH 3/15, 21 Zilkade 1316/2 April 1899; TNA, FO 195/2050, No. 28, Dickson to O'Conor, 24 March 1899.

115 TNA, FO 195/2020, No. 182/25, Cowler to Currie, 25 April 1898.

116 TNA, FO 195/2020, No. 590/90, Mendeville to O'Conor, 24 November 1898.

117 TNA, FO 195/2020, No. 342/52, Ramsay to Bunsen, 20 July 1898.

118 TNA, FO 195/2020, No. 214/30, Cowler to Currie, 11 May 1898.

119 TNA, FO 195/2050, No. 55, Dickson to O'Conor, 12 May 1899.

120 Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf, 1.

121 Bulumuş, Plague, 156.

122 Izzeddine, Cassim, La Défense Sanitaire dans le Golfe Persique (Paris: A Maloine, 1912), 5–6, 37Google Scholar.

123 Onley, The Arabian Frontier, 189–90.