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International Journal of Middle East Studies
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Int. J. Middle East Stud. 17 (1985), 175-209. Printed in the United States of America
Kemal H. Karpat
INTRODUCTION
Population movements have always played a major role in the life of Islam and
particularly the Middle East. During the nineteenth century, however, the transfer
of vast numbers of people from one region to another profoundly altered the
social, ethnic, and religious structure of the Ottoman state-that is, the Middle
East and the Balkans. The footloose tribes of eastern Anatolia, Syria, Iraq, and
the Arabian peninsula were spurred into motion on an unprecedented scale by
economic and social events, and the Ottoman government was forced to undertake settlement measures that had widespread effects. The Ottoman-Russian
wars, which began in 1806 and occurred at intervals throughout the century,
displaced large groups of people, predominantly Muslims from the Crimea, the
Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean islands. Uprooted from their
ancestral homelands, they eventually settled in Anatolia, Syria (inclusive of the
territories of modern-day Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel as well as modern Syria),
and northern Iraq. These migrations continued until the time of the First World
War.' In addition, after 1830 waves of immigrants came from Algeria-especially
after Abdel Kader ended his resistance to the French-and from Tunisia as well.
a movement out of the Ottoman state towards the Americas. (At the same time
there was a much smaller emigration of Greeks, Armenians, and Bulgarians to
Russian territory; many of the Bulgarians subsequently returned to Ottoman
lands, however, and at no time did this northward migration reach a proportion
anywhere near that of the westward movement.) The source of the emigration to
the New World was Syria and, to a lesser extent, southeastern Anatolia.
The purpose of this article is to study the "Syrian" emigration-not, as has
been done until now, as an isolated phenomenon, but as a part of the total
Ottoman emigration to the Americas and in relation to the Ottoman policies
governing the movement of people out of its territories.3 While the size and
special peculiarities of the Syrian emigration do place it in a category of its own,
it may not properly be treated apart from the totality of the social and economic
? 1985 Cambridge University Press 0020- 7438/85/000175-35 $2.50
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In this study I shall attempt to piece together and analyze in a general historical framework the information provided by these Ottoman documents, my
hope being that it will stimulate greater interest in the Ottoman social history
that led up to the Syrian migration. It should be noted that, although I use the
traditional term for convenience's sake, "Syrian emigration" is a misnomer in
two respects: the term was once used by outsiders, the emigrants identifying
themselves mostly in accordance with religious affiliation or by smaller region,
town, village, or tribe; furthermore, the Ottoman migrants were not all from the
territory of Syria, as the available data indicate. As will be pointed out, the
emigration was not a "Christian" migration either; impelled by many of the same
causes that led Ottoman Christians to seek their fortunes in the New World, a
substantial number of Ottoman Muslims left their homes and traveled west
across the Atlantic.
For thousands of years the peoples inhabiting the coastal areas of Syria and
Anatolia have been prone to migrate westward, using the seaways to reach the
faraway lands where they traded and settled. These ancient peoples, deprived of
easily accessible and secure hinterlands, were accustomed to rely on the sea for
their survival and were thus highly mobile. Seafaring and far-flung trading estab-
lished patterns and traditions of migration that were followed whenever conditions warranted. During the last half of the nineteenth century, changes in the
economic and ethnocultural structure of Ottoman society, coupled with the
industrialization of North America and the rise of large agricultural enterprises
in South America-that is, the emergence of "push" factors in the Ottoman
realm enhanced by "pull" factors in the Americas-revived the dormant tradition of outward migration, and the peoples of Syria and sections of Anatolia
once more turned their faces toward the west.
The structural changes in the Ottoman state at this time were profound. The
traditional economy was shifting to a primitive form of dependent capitalism
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grants were placed in the journals of various European capitals and excited much
inquiry from prospective settlers.4 However, after 1862 millions of Muslim refu-
gees from Crimea, the Balkans, and the Caucasus began pouring into Ottoman
territories, and the liberal European immigration policy was reversed.5 The influx
opportunities that attracted many ambitious persons from the poorer regions of
the country. At the same time, the cities became the gathering places of the
unemployed and unemployable.6 These included some groups of immigrants,
who came to the urban areas in such numbers that they caused severe problems
in some cases (such as the Circassians in Beirut and the Cretans in Izmir), and
some landless peasants. In addition, the rapid occupational transformation of
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new professions-in transportation, banking, insurance, and the like-are included in the lists, and the numbers of people in these fields were expanding
rapidly.7 Thus, besides the general change in the Ottoman economic, social, and
cultural milieu that was the principal stimulant of emigration from Syria and
eastern Anatolia, there were specific causes that affected particular groups of
people, such as the traditional craftsmen and professionals who could no longer
find work in their native cities.
Some other particular causes of economic dislocation for certain groups were
the destruction of the major part of the vineyards by phylloxera; the opening of
the Suez Canal, which caused the trade routes to shift southward; and the col-
lapse of the silk industry due to a disease that killed the local worms over the
period from 1875 to 1885 and made it necessary to buy silkworm eggs from
France and ship the cocoons there. Also, the special administrative status granted
to Mount Lebanon in 1861 had the effect of cutting its people off from the
prosperous Biga valley and Tripoli and throwing them back on to their own
relatively limited resources; thus the mountaineers, who were mostly Christians,
sought economic security through migration.
socioeconomic classes'?; some had had to sell almost all of their belongings
simply to pay for their passage.
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return to Syria after accumulating some money, and a third of them did eventually return. The endless tales of oppression, injustice, and maltreatment at the
hands of the Ottoman government and their Muslim fellow citizens were aimed
primarily at arousing sympathy and support among Christians in Europe and the
Americas. These tales were published in the press of the United States and
elsewhere, often backed up by reports from missionaries or local priests-who
were prone to interpret any act of authority on the part of the Ottoman govern-
ment as "oppression" and any demand for the payment of legitimate taxes as
"extortion."13
The appeal to Christian sympathies in the U.S. took a more vehement antiOttoman, anti-Muslim turn after the beginning of the twentieth century, when
immigrant intellectuals began to publish journals and write books espousing various brands of nationalism and to consider themselves the political spokesmen
for those back home.'4 One of the techniques for arousing Christian sympathy
was to claim to have been driven out of Jerusalem by fanatic Muslims-even if
one's original home had been elsewhere in Syria or Anatolia and far from
Jerusalem.
It must be stressed therefore that the chief "push" factor in the Syrian emigration was the deterioration of the socioeconomic conditions in the Ottoman state
after 1860-a deterioration that affected all population groups, Muslims as well
as Christians. Some particular stimuli of Muslim emigration were the introduction of compulsory military service for Muslims and the occasional discrimination in the enforcement of army duties, as well as unrest in some sections of
Syria.'5 Thus, although the number of emigrating Christians was greater, the
Syrian migration was not an exclusively Christian phenomenon.
There were "pull" factors associated with the Americas that were very strong
and probably were more important in the emigration movement than the "push"
factors described above. The availability of employment in North and South
America and the relatively high wages paid were powerful attractants. Manpower
was needed in the factories of North America and in the fields of Argentina and
Brazil; and in the rapidly growing cities of these lands there was opportunity for
craftsmen and artisans.
The need for manpower seemed acute, if one is to judge from the requests for
immigrants addressed to the Ottoman Foreign Ministry. For example, Paulo
fellow Ottomans. Their tales of the wealth of the Americas stimulated the desire
for enrichment even in those who were not badly off, and later emigrants were
often people of some means who were drawn to the New World by the prospect
of increasing their wealth.
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and journalists whose motive for emigration was cultural and political. The
Rev. Henry H. Jessup reported, for example, that in 1906, 58 graduates of the
Syrian Protestant College in Beirut were in the United States.'7 Furthermore,
data from the U.S. Immigration Commission shows that in 1911 the Syrian
immigrants had a significantly higher level of skills than other entering workers:
22.7% were in skilled occupations and 20.3% were engaged in trade, as compared
to figures of 20.2% and 19.1%, respectively, for all other immigrants. Just over
half the Syrian migrants were unskilled farm and factory workers (50.8%), while
nearly 60% of all other immigrants (59.2%) were in these jobs.'8
Later immigrants came also from different areas of Syria and Anatolia.
According to a French consular report of 1907, which provided an overall view
of immigration from Ottoman lands, the construction of railroads to the interior
allowed residents from the regions of Damascus, Aleppo, and of the entire
Mesopotamia to reach the coastal ports with ease for embarkation on ships for
the Americas. The report mentions emigration from Palestine, which was on a
much smaller scale than that from some other areas, totaling only about 4,000 in
10 years; however, about half of the Palestinians took their families with them.'9
In fact, after 1900 a large proportion of Syrian immigrants entering the United
States were women and children who came to join husbands and fathers, thus
balancing out the 67.9% male immigration of the earlier years (a total of 38,635
males to only 18,274 females).20 It may be remarked that the above ratio, although
heavily weighted toward males, was, in fact, much higher than the male-female
ratio among other Ottoman groups emigrating to the U.S. The Druzes brought
only a dozen women among 1,000 immigrants, while out of a total of about
8,000 Muslim immigrants there were only about two dozen women.21 These figures are, I believe, significant in explaining why Muslim migrants failed to establish strong communities in their adopted countries.
THE SCOPE OF EMIGRATION: NUMBERS, ORIGINS, RELIGIONS
The steady trickle of emigration from Ottoman lands, especially from Syria to
the Americas, started in the 1860s (some sources indicate that there were Ottoman
immigrants to the U.S. even as early as the 1820s); the number of departures in
the early years was fairly insignificant, however. The rate of outflow began to
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America and the Caribbean. After 1891, Spain having decided to prohibit
Ottoman immigration to Cuba (and the Philippines), the stream turned toward
North America and increased in volume, reaching a peak level in 1896/97 after
the Ottoman government lifted its ban on emigration. The rate of emigration
increased again after the turn of the century, despite renewed restrictions at the
source, and it reached a final peak during the period from 1908 to 1914, stimulated first by the relative freedom initially established by the Union and Progress
government in 1908 and then by the dislocation caused by the Balkan war in
1912. The latter event triggered emigration from all the Ottoman provinces, but
particularly the Balkans and Anatolia, to the Americas and to Russia as well.
It is not possible to determine accurately the total number of Syrian immigrants to the United States, since precise and well-kept statistics are lacking.
Although the U.S. government began collecting immigration data as early as
1798 and stepped up this procedure in 1819 in accordance with an act requiring
ship passenger lists (manifestos) to be delivered to the local customs officers,
these statistics became generally systematized and relatively reliable only after
1880. Statistics on immigration from Asian Turkey were kept beginning in 1869
only-well after the flow had begun-and are obviously unreliable, because an
extremely low number of immigrants is recorded. For the period between 1867
and 1881 it is recorded that only 74 Asian Ottomans entered the country; and for
the period 1881-1885 none were recorded as entering the U.S. According to the
official statistics, immigrants from "Turkey in Asia" began to arrive in large
numbers in 1895 (no information is provided for the years 1885-1894), yet by
1910 the total of such immigrants is already given as 59,729, and they formed
nearly one-third of all the U.S. population born in Asia.22 Thus, even after the
improvement of immigration data gathering in 1880 the record of Asian Ottoman
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Reference to Muslim emigrants is made in all types of communications concerning this traffic. For example, a group of Ottomans denied entry to the
United States because of lack of the proper documents and/or any established
means of subsistence was reported to consist of approximately 200 Syrians, 200
Armenians, and 60 "Turks," that is, Muslims.25 An Argentine statistical report
(see Appendix VI) shows that of 11,765 Syrian immigrants admitted to that
country in 1909, some 5,111 (or roughly 45%) were Muslims, the rest being
Catholics (6,428) and Jews (226).
Although it may be suggested that Muslim immigration took place only
after 1900, the Ottoman legation in Washington reported as early as 1892
that among Syrian immigrants there were "considerable numbers" of Muslims.
The report stated that the total was some 200 and that they were to be found in
Massachusetts, Michigan, and St. Louis, Mo. (it did not mention New York or
other large eastern cities where many more Muslims had settled); it noted particularly that 10 Muslims from Kharput had recently come to Worcester, Mass.,
and that one of these was an imam (religious leader) who had come to work with
his sons already in the country. Significantly, the report mentions the fact that in
to slip away from the Ottoman state and enter the U.S. (the intent being to
accomplish the bona fide conversion of these Muslims to Christianity). In any
event, many elected to pass as "Syrians" and as Christians so as not to arouse the
interest of Ottoman officials or otherwise jeopardize their entry into their new
countries. Furthermore, those in the United States often continued to assume
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to blend in with the rest of society; these were quite attractive-so much so that
in a number of cases Christian immigrants claimed that they were Muslims and
expected to be induced to "convert" at some gain for themselves.27
Although the Christians formed the large majority in the Ottoman emigration, the available evidence indicates that the proportion of Muslims was fairly
substantial-probably 15% to 20% of the total. As to the size of that total, a
reasonable estimate may be made on the basis of such sources as are available.
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Himadeh estimated that about 120,000 persons left Syria between 1860 and
1914;3' Issawi places the total emigration from Syria and Mount Lebanon at
330,000 for the period 1860-1914, while Ruppin, basing his figures on German
consular estimates, gives the number of Syrian emigrants living in North and
South America in 1912 as 500,000, of whom half were Lebanese;32 E. Weakly
reports that in 1909 a total of 13,848 embarked from Tripoli and Beirut alone;33
Issawi and Ruppin both estimate the annual outflow to have been 15,000 to
20,000 people.34 On the basis of these estimates one may conclude that the total
emigration from Beirut and Tripoli only was approximately 280,000 in the period
1900-1914. Taking into consideration also the emigration from other ports such
as Izmir, Mersin, and Trabzon, it may be estimated that the total Ottoman
migration from Asia during that time came to nearly half a million.
The original estimates of emigration totals, both in general and for Syria
alone, are quite certainly low. Some Ottoman consular reports dating from as
early as 1893 suggest that the number of "Arabic-speaking Ottomans" living in
the two Americas was as high as 200,000. These reports indicate that even by
1880, and especially after 1885, the rate of emigration and the number of
Ottomans living abroad was such that the government was forced to open new
consulates or expand existing ones in Spain (Barcelona), France, the Caribbean
(Havana, Cuba), and South America (Argentina). The impetus for providing
substantial consular service abroad came not merely from the Ottoman government's desire to provide protection to its citizens but also from its wish to prevent them from seeking diplomatic protection and acquiring passports from
European governments. Maronites in particular often managed to obtain French
passports and become thereby de facto French citizens, enabling them to act
without regard for Ottoman law when they returned home.35
Data scattered through various Ottoman consular reports provide a good
basis for estimating the emigration trend. One report states that vessels bound
for America that had docked in Barcelona carried 980 Lebanese emigrants in
April of 1889, 860 in May, and 665 in June-a total of 2,505 in just three months
at one transshipment point.36 In 1899 the Ottoman consul in Marseilles reported
that during the previous year a total of 29,763 emigrants had passed through that
port, 7,010 of whom were Syrians, 526 Armenians. Three years later the consul
stated that 15,000 Syrians left the country annually to seek their fortunes in the
New World and that of these 5,000 returned home early.37 Another dispatch
from the Ottoman consul at Genoa reports that in September of 1910, a total of
28,705 kuru4 in passport fees was collected (the fee was 11.50 or 12 to 15 francs
per passport). The consul suggested that, because 60% of the Syrian emigrants
passed through Genoa (an exaggerated percentage claim), the revenue from passports could be increased from its present level of 800 to 900 Ottoman liras per
month to 4,000 to 5,000 liras per month.38 Other consular communications gave
the totals of Syrian (Lebanese) immigrants to Argentina alone in the years 1910,
1911, and 1912 as 13,099, 13,605, and 19,797, respectively-figures much higher
than any previously known.39 Complete lists are not yet available; however, a
dispatch from Buenos Aires in September of 1913 stated that more than a million Ottomans had thus far emigrated to the Americas; this migration had started
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during the Hamidian regime and continued in the Young Turks era, but the
government had not occupied itself with the problem.40
The mounting wave of emigration was greatly alarming the Ottoman consuls
abroad, despite their government's official indifference to the problem. The
consul at Buenos Aires reported that approximately 46,000 Ottomans had come
to Argentina during the 2-year period 1911-1913. He wrote, "If the preceding
reports are studied, one will see that the number of emigrants is increasing every
year and that serious measures need to be taken in order to stop this wave which
is emptying the country, especially now when the country has supreme need for
its sons."41
Thus, the available evidence indicates that the total of Ottoman emigrants to
the Americas in the period from 1860 to 1914 probably came to 1,200,000. Of
these, approximately 600,000 were from Syria and Mount Lebanon and were
Arabic speakers; about 150,000 were Muslims of all areas; the rest came from
Albania, Macedonia, Thrace, and western Anatolia. (The French Ambassador to
Turkey estimated in 1907 that Macedonians had been emigrating at a rate of
about 15,000 per year since 1902, and that approximately the same rate applied
in Albania.)42
The number of Ottoman emigrants who did not make the New World their
permanent residence was substantial. The rate of return home was unusually
high, and among the Muslims of all regions and the Syrians, the returnees seem
to have constituted one-third of the original total of migrants. Ruppin states that
the port authorities in Beirut listed departures of 41,752 persons and arrivals of
27,868 in the 3-year period 1912-1915.43 Although presumably not all of the
travelers were migrants (the war probably caused an unusually high amount of
traffic), the fact remains that the number of returnees was surely quite high.
Himadeh's figures show that in the period 1926-1933 the ratio of returns to
departures ran from 30% to 60% annually.44 (In this case the larger percentage
no doubt resulted from the economic dislocation in the U.S.) Antun Fares, the
publisher of al-Mercad in Marseilles who supplied the Ottoman government
with information on the political activities of the Syrian immigrants, also placed
various sources.4
Even those who could not or did not wish to return to their original homes
maintained ties with the Old World, since most had relatives that had remained
behind. There was an endless traffic between Syria and the Americas: a bride
from the native village would come to marry some immigrant in a New England
town and would be followed by countless brothers, sisters, cousins, and in-laws.
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In fact, after the first wave of migrants had become established, family ties
became one of the dominant motives for travel across the Atlantic. According to
a report of the U.S. Immigration Commission, out of 9,188 Syrians entering the
country in 1908-1909, 95% stated that they were coming to join relatives or
friends.48
A substantial part of the Ottoman diplomatic correspondence concerning emigration from Syria, Anatolia, and Egypt revolves around the two intertwined
problems of travel documents and transportation, the latter problem being a
consequence of Ottoman policy with regard to the former.
Returnees had no problems of re-entry into the Ottoman state and were, in
fact, often given financial help. The government's basic policy was to allow
unlimited freedom of return to all Ottoman subjects, present or former, with no
discrimination on the basis of race or religion. The best example of this liberal
policy was the government's repatriation, at its own expense, of about 16,000
Bulgarian Orthodox Christians who, having migrated to settle in Crimea and
Kuban in villages formerly occupied by Muslims, became unhappy with their
lives in Russia and petitioned the sultan to be allowed to return to their original
villages in the Lom area.49 The policy of government-financed repatriation
was applied also to Greek and Armenian subjects who wanted to return from
Russia, and to Syrian and other Ottoman subjects who sought to return from
the Americas, Australia, and Africa. This liberal policy had to be modified
eventually-even drastically reversed in the period 1900-1903; but for most of
the time it stood in strong contrast to the unusually conservative position of the
Ottoman government with regard to emigration.
For many years emigration was simply forbidden, not merely because of the
government's desire not to lose population and tax income but also because it
was feared that poor immigrants would damage Ottoman prestige abroad. The
prevailing view in Ottoman official circles in 1888 was that many emigrants
belonged to the "proletarian classes" and intended to become beggars in the
Americas. This view was strongly expressed by Turkhan Bey, the consul in
Barcelona, who was an especially prestige-conscious, elitist-minded individual.50
The Ottoman government's attitude reflected also the negative attitude toward
immigrants expressed in some of the U.S. press. The Mail and Express, for
example, described the Maronites who had embarked from Cyprus in the following terms:
[They are] a fierce, war-like body of people but densely ignorant and imbruted by long
ages of battles against the Moslems. They are nominal Christians ... [and] the movement
for transporting them to the United States has the sanction and support of the Roman
Catholic Church. By nature, by training, by hereditary instinct, these predatory, halfsavage mountaineers are totally unqualified for American citizenship ... [and] their
arrival among us would add still greater weight to the evil burden of foreign-born
ignorance with which we are already afflicted.... A large number of Armenians have
made preparations for emigrating to the United States. ... All of them are utterly unfitted
to become American citizens.5
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On the other hand, many American businessmen who employed Syrians expressed
admiration for their skill and their willingness to work.
Because emigration was officially prohibited and took place illegally, it was by
necessity "clandestine"-but only in a rather loose sense, for Ottoman officials
often took bribes from emigrants and made only scant efforts to stem the traffic.
At one point the government became so alarmed about the size of the emigration
from Mount Lebanon-which occurred despite the sultan's order (irade-i seniye)
prohibiting it-that the Minister of the Interior issued a stern order that the
cause of this illegal situation be identified. The main blame was put on the local
officials, and stringent measures to stop illegal emigration were recommended.52
The recommended measures were never undertaken, however, because the ban
on emigration was lifted shortly thereafter.
of their special legal status within the Ottoman Empire. Egypt and Mount
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issuance of these passports for a fee that produced the income the Ottoman
consul in Genoa wanted to see increased.)
Individuals of all nationalities were involved in the business of arranging
transport for emigrants.55 They often overcharged or left the travelers stranded.
but with the temporary exception of Spain, the Europeans failed to honor this
request.
The ban on emigration from Mount Lebanon was extended and was to be
applied to Syria also, as an order issued in 1895 by the governor of Syria
shows.56 However, in 1896/97 the prohibition was effectively removed by the
new conditions imposed on it. The reasons for this abrupt change in policy were
numerous and complex, and I do not attempt here to discuss them comprehensively or in detail. An important one was almost certainly the great influx of
Muslims from the Balkans and the Caucasus who, beginning in 1896, sought
refuge in Ottoman lands in ever-growing numbers. After a lengthy debate between
Another reason for the change in policy was that the government had become
aware of the value of the remittances sent home by emigrants in the Americas.
A. A. Naccache, the inspector of public works and agriculture in Mount Lebanon,
estimated that the total annual income of the district amounted to 220 million
francs, 90 million of which were remitted from the New World.58 The Ottoman
consuls in South America reported that in the one year of 1913 Syrian emigrants
had sent home to relatives through a single Argentine bank a sum of 11,800,000
pesos; five or six other banks transferred similar amounts, and the estimated
total of funds sent from Argentina alone in that year was 24 million pesos, or
240 million Ottoman kuruy.59 Emigrants from other areas-for example, Muslims
from Hama and Homs-also sent money home.
These remittances had the noticeable effect of changing the appearance of
many villages and towns. In Zahleh, for example, handsome new houses of stone
were built; apparently, however, this wealth did not affect the basic economy of
the region. In a special report to the sultan, Lewis Sabuncu, an interpreter at the
court, described how some emigrants made fortunes by popularizing Middle
Eastern specialties in the United States. Two had become very rich (one of them
was a woman) by obtaining patents for the manufacture of yoghurt and unleavened bread, respectively. Wealthy returning immigrants not only improved
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their own positions in their native areas but "added strength to the reconstruction of the country and provided the Treasury with considerable benefits because
The lucrative business of the agents who secured transportation for emigrants
was adversely affected by the liberalization, since passports could now be freely
obtained and travel arrangements made openly. Bona fide maritime companies
were established in Beirut, and these issued regular tickets to New York and
other destinations. There was open competition for passengers among the shipping companies, which tried to attract fares by advertising the safety and comfort
of their vessels.62 Eventually some enterprising agents entered the game once
more by encouraging and abetting emigrants who preferred to leave without
getting passports, either because they did not want to pay the fees or because
they wished to avoid the requirement of obtaining documents to show that they
owed no money to the government or to fellow citizens.
The Ottoman emigration to the United States raised issues around which there
developed a diplomatic controversy that affected relations between the two
nations for half a century. The controversy was inherent in the difference in their
ment were subjects who, it was insisted, to avoid payment of debts or escape
criminal prosecution had left without official permission.
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The United States did not insist that all immigrants who departed from the
country necessarily remained citizens entitled to U.S. protection abroad. John
Bassett Moore, the leading authority on the subject, states the U.S. position as
follows: "Our naturalization treaties with perhaps a single exception have incorporated the principle that a naturalized citizen permanently returning to the
country of his origin is to be considered as having renounced his naturalization."64 The American government contended that the Ottoman state's assertion
of the right to decide unilaterally the citizenship of naturalized Americans raised
a "conflict between the laws of sovereign equals" and that in practice the Ottoman
extending protection to all persons who had lived for 5 years in America and
acquired American citizenship.
The open conflict with the U.S. began in the 1870s over the status of former
Ottoman subjects mostly from Syria and eastern Anatolia, but on 11 September
1874 officials of the two governments reached an agreement providing that
former Ottoman subjects who had acquired U.S. citizenship would be deemed to
have expatriated themselves and become once more Ottoman citizens if they
returned and remained for 2 years in their homeland. This agreement was
modeled on the U.S.-German naturalization treaty and was not an unusual one.
However, the U.S. Senate raised objections and refused to ratify the document.
Beginning in the 1880s the need for such a treaty became even more acute for
the Ottomans, as Armenian nationalists, many of whom were former Ottoman
subjects, were regularly using their status as U.S. citizens to defeat efforts to
arrest and prosecute them for armed insurrection and sedition against the state.
That some returning Armenians were taking advantage of the protection accorded
them by the United States government and engaging in subversive activities was
acknowledged by the American consul (Charles Dicknon) in Istanbul. He also
told the district governor (mutasarrif) of Beyoglu (Pera) that Armenians were
urging other Christians to emigrate, acquire U.S. citizenship, and then return to
engage in political activities. The consul advised that the Ottoman government
press for acceptance of the 2-year limit on immunity, as the Senate now seemed
predisposed to ratify the 1874 treaty.67
On 8 January 1889 the Ottoman government agreed to modify the naturalization treaty to meet the objections originally raised; but the Senate then raised
new objections, and the nationality issue remained unsolved and was a source of
conflict until well into the twentieth century. Roger R. Trask, in his study of the
conflict, goes directly to the heart of the matter:
The existence of the capitulations before 1914 complicated this situation because many
Ottoman subjects, including thousands of Armenians, came to the United States, acquired
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tion must be accompanied by the likeness of the emigrant, and it will only be after
fulfilling such formalities that emigration will be authorized. The passports delivered to
these emigrants will state that such persons will not be allowed to set foot again on
Ottoman territory. The explanation in question, as well as a declaration that the emigrants have lost Ottoman nationality, will be duly inscribed in the register of the commission ad hoc, in the archives of the competent department, as well as at the chancellery of
the Armenian patriarchate. A delay of a month and a half, and in cases of plausible
hindrance two months' delay, commencing from today, will be granted to those who have
gone abroad without authorization from the Imperial Government to return to their
homes. In the event of their design to stay where they are, they must make a declaration
to this effect in the Turkish embassies or legations abroad. Emigrants of this category
will, nevertheless, lose their nationality as Ottoman subjects, unless they return to Turkey
within the above named period.
Ottoman Armenian subjects who have emigrated under false names and, yet, by diverse
means, have returned to Turkey with foreign passports will not be recognized as foreign
subjects, nor will they be allowed to live in any part of the Empire.69
In 1902/03 the provisions of the decree were made even more stringent in
response to a rapidly increasing pace of emigration from Albania and Macedonia
in the Balkans. Emigration from this area had been relatively limited, but after
1900 it had intensified greatly, and in the period from 1902 to 1907 as many as
75,000 left from Macedonia alone. The French ambassador in Istanbul reported
that by 1907 this emigration was affecting even the Ottoman provinces in the
interior. He stated that 1,000 Greeks and 100 Armenians from Bursa had left for
America and Russia (he put the total of Armenians who had migrated to Russia
at 20,000).7o Most of the migrants were young men: craftsmen and artisans such
as carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths, tailors, tanners, pastry makers, etc., who
found easy employment in the cities of North and South America; and peasants,
who were readily employed in mining industries. Their departure not only caused
a drop in the rate of production of many commodities, leading to a rise in prices,
but also upset the structure of the various religious communities. The leaders of
these communities urged the Ottoman government to ban emigration from
Albania and Macedonia because their political influence was being lessened by
the depletion of their constituencies.
During most of the years of this migration, relations between the emigrants
and the Ottoman government were rather good. The government seems to have
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turn of the century and was content with the knowledge that most of these
Syrians planned to return home and bring their accumulated earnings with them.
(As early as 1880 it was calculated that each Syrian in New York saved about
$50 a month.) The government did not appear alarmed when informed that a
small group of intellectuals calling itself "The Young Syria" had adopted an
anti-Ottoman position and that four out of nine journals published in the United
States by Syrian immigration intellectuals were taking a line hostile to the
Ottoman government. This opposition was an insignificant minority.7' However,
when Lebanese Christian intellectuals began arriving in America, chiefly after
1895, and the Union and Progress government that took power in 1908 proved a
disappointment, there was a marked shift toward a form of ethnic-religious
nationalism (occasionally called "Arab nationalism") that was directed specifically against the Ottoman government.
Embassy in Istanbul, reported in 1907 that the population balance and ratio of
land ownership and involvement in agricultural enterprise had changed in favor
of the Muslims. He gave some examples of this change in Bursa, and then discussed the situation of Syria:
The same phenomenon is seen in Syria and particularly in Beirut where the Muslim
element, in minority until the present time, has acquired a growing importance, and
thanks to a methodical and rational plan tends to replace the Christians from the dominant position they occupied since 1860. The Muslims of Aleppo, Damascus, and the
people of Bekaa and Hauran, who have become rich by trading in cereals, are buying the
properties of the Christians. The latter empoverished by [their tendency] to great luxury
or afraid of local disorders are moving some towards Egypt; other towards America.72
Thus it seems reasonable to say that the "nationalism" of the Christian Arab
emigrants was in part a reaction to their loss of majority and power in certain
areas of Lebanon and Syria-a development for which they held the Ottoman
government responsible because of its policy of settlement of refugees that was
favorable to the Muslim segment of the population.
CONCLUSION
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gration. This policy was first devised in accordance with traditional Ottoman
concepts regarding the movement of people from one territory to another, but
eventually it came to be shaped by concrete economic and political as well as
ideological factors. This led the government to move from a mild form of prohi-
with foreign passports used their new status to claim special privileges and
immunities as citizens of foreign powers.
There was close and friendly contact between Syrian emigrants abroad and the
The Syrian emigration was part of an overall Ottoman emigration. It is virtually certain that the volume of the outflow, of both the general emigration and
of the Syrian segment of it, was much greater than has been estimated previously.
The "Syrian" emigrants initially came from the entire western and northeastern
sections of Syria and southeast Anatolia, including Palestine, but eventually
Mount Lebanon became the main source of emigrants. The Muslims of Syria
and eastern Anatolia participated in this migration in far greater numbers than
those given in some published sources.
In its effort to formulate policies toward emigration and toward its former
citizens who returned with foreign passports to live in their native land, the
Ottoman government was hamstrung by the capitulations. Although formally
independent and sovereign, the Ottoman state was not permitted to enforce its
laws on foreigners-even when these were its own former subjects who were
engaging openly in anti-Ottoman activities.
Immigration and emigration appear to have been the forces chiefly responsible
(factors such as industrialization being lacking) for the alteration of the economic and socioethnic structure of the Ottoman state and, thus, for the accelerated downfall of the traditional imperial edifice and the rapid emergence of
territorial national states in the Middle East.
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
APPENDICES
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Ottoman figures are taken from consular reports and may have originated in
information supplied by the various foreign governments. The emigration figures
given by these reports appear generally higher than the corresponding immigration figures of the recipient countries. The major reason for this discrepancy lies
in the lack of uniform criteria for classification of immigrants and, especially, in
the fact that much immigration went completely unrecorded.
The methods used by U.S. authorities to classify immigrants varied from one
office to another, and the criteria were continuously changing. Figures given by
the Bureau of Statistics, for example, were usually 7% to 8% higher than those
issued from 1892 on by the Office of Immigration and its successor; while the
Bureau of Statistics compiled its figures based on immigrant arrivals, the Office
of Immigration counted only official admissions and did not count cabin-class
passengers as immigrants until 1904. The system was later (1906) refined to
exclude from the count passengers in transit and resident aliens returning from
abroad. The annual reports of the Commissioner General of Immigration have
more detailed immigration information than the other U.S. sources utilized. For
further information on U.S. immigration records, see E. P. Hutchinson, "Notes
on Immigration Statistics on the United States," American Statistical Association Journal (December 1958) 1, 963 ff.
Statistics on Ottoman immigration to Latin America are equally unsystematic
and incomplete. Only Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela gave figures on these
entrants, although Ottoman subjects were found in almost every Latin American
country, including Cuba and Mexico. However, in a number of cases data from
Brazil and Argentina are surprisingly detailed as to the religious background and
occupations of immigrants, although it must be pointed out that the general
classification terms for Ottoman immigrants were nondescriptive: in Argentina
they were all called "Syrians," while in Brazil they were referred to as "Turks"
and "Arabs."
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1871
1893
2
2
1870
4
1872
1894
1895
2,767
1896
4,139
1873
1897
4,732
1874
1898
4,275
1899
4,436
1900
3,962
14
5,255
1875
1876
1877
1901
5,782
1878
1902
1879
31
1880
1881
6,223
7,118
5,235
6,157
30,515
6,354
8,053
9,753
7,506
15,212
46,878
10,229
12,788
23,955
21,716
3,543
72,231
1903
53
1904
1905
1882
1906
1883
1907
1908
1884
1885
1909
1910
1886
15
1887
208
1911
1888
273
1912
1889
593
1890
1,126
1891
2,488
1892
1913
2,215
1914
1915
Grand total
21,544
178,712
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Division of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United
States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975), Part 1, pp. 105-7. The same figures appear
with minimal changes in The Statistical History of the United States From Colonial Times to the
Present (Stamford, Conn.).
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Year
Europea
1895
242
in
Asia
Armenian
2,766
Turkish
1896
169
4,139
1897
152
4,732
1898
176
4,275
1899
80
4,436
1900
285
3,962
1901
387
5,782
1,855
136
1902
187
6,223
1,151
165
1903
1,529
7,118
1,759
449
1904
4,344
1,745
1,482
1905
4,542
5,235
6,157
1,878
2,145
1906
9,510
6,354
1,895
2,033
1907
20,767
8,053
2,644
1,902
1908
11,290
9,753
3,299
2,327
1909
9,015
7,506
3,108
820
1910
18,405
15,212
5,508
1,283
3,092
5,222
9,353
1,336
1911
14,438
10,229
1912
14,481
12,788
1913
14,128
23,955
1915
1,008
3,543
1916
313
1,670
964
216
1917
152
393
1,221
454
1918
15
43
221
24
1919
10
19
282
18
1920
1,933
5,033
2,762
140
1921
6,391
11,735
10,212
353
1922
1,660
1,998
2,249
40
1923
3,743
2,183
2,396
237
1924
1,481
2,820
2,940
355
140,833
178,112
65,756
18,848
918
2,015
1914
Total
aIt is probably the case that a considerable number of immigrants listed in U.S. statistics as
originating in "Turkey in Europe" in fact had their roots in Asia.
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Place of origin
or ethnicity 1891 1892 1891 1891 1892b 1891 1892 1891 1892
European Turkey 7 30 32 117 95 109 102 265 227
Arabia
221
110
130
81
352
191
Asian Turkey 6 114 159 1,324 1,105 339 1,953 2,488 3,172
Armenians 2 6 75 619 2,406 118 316 812 2,728
Egypt
22
17
40
17
Source: AFM, fol. 587 (Idare), figures supplied by U.S. Immigration Service; also BA, Yildiz,
Perakende, 20 L.310, No. 1317 of 17 May 1893, Communication by the Ottoman Legation in
Washington, D.C.
aThe documents refer to two categories: sanatkar and meslek sahibi, "artisan" and "professional."
The two categories have been lumped together here, since no criterion for classification is indicated.
bThe Ottoman communication notes the sharp increase that occurred in 1892.
Place of origin
or ethnicity M F M F M F M F M and F
European Turkey 21 18 162 28 19 4 202 50 252
Arabia
18
Armenia
157
13
20
68
14
7
189
2
86
27
216
10
96
Source: AFM, fol. 587 (Idare). These figures probably were based on information supplied by the
U.S. government.
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Number
1871-1876
164a
885
1896-1900 8,394
1901-1905 15,591
1906-1909 35,489
Total
60,653
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Entering
Departing
9,065
Boys
998
Women
1,363
Girls
339
Families
(3,638 individuals)
Single men
Single women
Old residents
Total immigrants
1,154
7,665
462
128
11,765
Total individuals
departing
11,893
2. Religion
Catholics
6,428
Muslims
5,111
Jews
226
Total
11,765
3. Main professions
Farmers
1,477
Traders
3,634
Dependents
Wage earners
2,114
1,906
Servants
298
Semsters
184
Without profession
(children)
133
Without profession
(women)
639
Source: Juan A. Alsina, La inmigracion en el primer siglo de la independencia (Buenos Aires, 1910),
pp. 96-97.
Note: Ferenczi and Willcox, on the other hand, give the following totals for Ottoman immigration to
Argentina (condensed figures): 1871-1880, 672; 1881-1890, 3,537; 1891-1900, 11,583; 1901-1910,
66,558; 1911-1920, 59,272. See Imre Ferenczi and W. F. Willcox, International Migrations, Vol. I
(New York, 1929), p. 546.
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3,170
1871-1875
31
1908
3,170
1909
4,017
1876-1880
21
1909
4,027
6,319
2,424
1886-1895
1911
6,319
Sources: Part A: Directoria Geral de Estatistica. Annuario, Estatistico do Brasil, Anno I (19081912), Vol. 1, and Territoria e Popula(a'o (Rio de Janeiro, 1916), pp. 429-51; Part B: Imre Ferenczi
and W. F. Willcox, International Migrations, Vol. 1 (New York, 1929), pp. 264, 551.
aBrazilian statistics classify the Ottoman immigrants as Turko-Arabs ("Turco-Arabes") under the
general category of Asians.
bThe totals of "entries" for 1910, 1911, and 1912 are given, respectively, as 6,879, 7,008, and 8,002;
these figures presumably include visitors as well as official "immigrants."
'The figures in this column are condensed.
dNone of the total for this period were listed as being from Syria.
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561
1886
178
1887
254
Havana,
Cubaa
334
13,099
19,792
Sources: AFM, fol. 587 (Idare), 29 February 1911, 7 March 1890, 4 May 1891; fol. 346 (Idare),
13 February 1901; fol. 473 (Idare), 31 January 1898.
aHavana, given as the destination for immigrants of 1885 through 1889, was primarily a transshipping point rather than an ultimate destination.
bThe statistics are for 5 months of the year only.
"Of these, 240 were from Mt. Lebanon and Syria, mostly Maronites. The port of embarkation for
those going to North America was Barcelona, Spain. Separate figures for June of 1890 give a total of
2,167 who emigrated in that single month; the figure includes 598 Armenians and 1,126 people from
European Turkey.
dThese were listed as mainly Syrians; most were Christians, but some were Muslims from Baghdad
and Egypt.
eThis figure includes 6,287 Syrians and 1,603 Armenians. The departure point for the Syrians was
France.
fThese statistics are for all of 1902 and 1903 and the first 4 months only of 1904. The emigrants were
Syrians who were going to join 600 of their fellows already in Transvaal and Orange; of the 600 in
South Africa, 500 were from Mt. Lebanon, and 12 of these were Muslims working in the gold mines.
gThe first of these estimates called the emigrants to 1883 "Arabic-speaking" Ottomans; the second
estimate is that of Antun Fares.
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To
United
From
States
From
To
Fro
To
in
in
all
To
1857
1858
1859
1860
-17
11
10
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
672
1861
--5
1861
- - 5 - - 1876
1862 - - 11 - - 1877 -
1863
1864
16
1878
- 11 - - 1879 -
1865
14
1866
18
1867
1868
1869
1870
26
18
1881
20
6
24
1880
1882
1883
1884
1885
43
3,537
1886
1888
1889
1890
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1887
B. 1891-1924
To United States
To
CubaCuba
From From
TurkiC
To
To
Turkey Turkey From (not
To
in in a
Year Argentina Brazil Turks Turkeya Europe Asia Turkey fied) Arabians
1891
To
From
1892
1893 -
1894
1895
245
2,326
2,571
11,583
1896
1897
1898
648
169
978
176
1899 - 1,823
1900
1901
1902
1903
4,308
4,275
4,451
80 4,436 4,516 -
874
781
772
481
23
88
1904 - 1,097 86
1905 - 1,446 228
66,558
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
4,139
1,193
1,480
3,170
4,027
5,257
264
248
190
277
210
Asia Europe
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APPENDIX IX (cont.)
-
To United States
To Cuba
To
To
in
in
all
s
Year Argentina Brazil Turks Asia Europe Europe Asia Turkey fied) Arabians Ar
1916
1917
1918
1919
603
68
259
-
93
504
33
313
13
79
77
1,670
152
-
10
1,9
393
15
19
43
29
Source: Imre Ferenczi and Walter F. Willcox, International Migrations, Vol. I (New York, 1
"From 1911 on, figures refer to Asia and Europe, respectively.
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The agency of Mikhail and Taufail Far'un in Beirut, which is in charge of representing
in Syria the famous French Steamboats Company of Marseille (Frasinet), has made every
effort (beyond description) to ensure the comfort (that cannot be found elsewhere) for the
passengers traveling to Marseille, then to America. Thus, all passengers prefer our steamboats over all other steamboats. The reasons are the following:
First, every 10 days we prepare a steamboat that takes the passengers directly to
Marseille without passing by or stopping at any iskila [iskele-port], thus arriving at its
destination in a matter of 6 days, by saving half the time the sea trip usually takes and by
avoiding the hardship the passengers usually encounter by passing the asakil [plural of
iskila] and etc.
Second, the company has emphatically asked the agents and the captains of the ships to
make every effort to comfort the passengers and treat them well in order and thus avoid
the harsh treatment that other companies usually inflict on their passengers.
Third, in every steamboat, there is a shelter prepared especially for passengers in the
back of the ship to resort to in the case of danger.
Fourth, the company has employed a doctor to take care of the passengers in case
someone gets sick.
Fifth, [the services] of the agents (mentioned above) are much cheaper than most of the
other companies; thus passengers end up saving more [by traveling in our ships].
Sixth, every effort has been made by the company to facilitate the passenger's arrival
into Beirut for boarding [our ship].
Seventh, this company has employed fast and large steamboats for the convenience of
the passengers. Also the passengers in the back of [the ship] are allowed to go everywhere
inside the ship except the Captain's cabin. Other companies keep these passengers in a
very bad spot and restrict their movements.
From Marseilles to America
and Elsewhere
Tickets to America, Brazil, and other destinations to which the passengers wish to go
once they get to Marseille can be purchased from the same agency. This is 25% cheaper
than [the price offered by other agencies in Marseille]. Once a passenger gets a ticket from
Beirut to the mentioned designations, he will be serviced upon his arrival to Marseille by
the well-known Nawar Indo-American Company, thus saving himself the trouble of dealing with guides and dealers because the mentioned company has Arabic-speaking employees capable of taking care of the passenger, who will thus save expenses incurred by
other travelers [who use the services of other agencies]. All a passenger has to do is to
show the Company's card to the [travel bureau in Marseille] and the agent [there] will
make all the necessary arrangements. In order to provide additional facilities to the passenger who wants to purchase [from our company] a ticket from Beirut to America or
elsewhere in accordance with the above-explained method, he [the passenger] has to pay
the agents in Beirut only 20 francs, the remaining amount to be paid to the company in
Marseille. He who wants further information must contact the general agents for the
[company] mentioned above. They are Khawajat Mikhail and Rufail Far'un at the
Gemayel Suq in Beirut.
July 1 [18]96
Source: BA, Yildiz, Perakende, 9, B.1314, No. 961, 14 December 1896.
Note: I am thankful to Mr. Ali Kholaif for his help in translating the advertisement into English.
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NOTES
'See Kemal H. Karpat, "The Status of Muslims under European Rule: The Eviction of the
Circassians and Their Settlement in Syria," Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, No. 1 (1980).
2Pierre Bardin, Algeriens et tunisiens dans L'Empire ottoman de 1848 a 1914 (Paris, 1979). Bardin's
work is based on French diplomatic reports.
3Some of the main writings on the Syrian emigration are the following: "Migration from and
to Syria, 1860-1914," Chapter 6 in Charles Issawi, The Economic History of the Middle East,
1800-1914 (Chicago, 1966) (A. Ruppin's article is reprinted and discussed in this chapter); Elie
Safa, L'Emigration Libanaise (Beirut, 1960); Said Himadeh, The Economic Organization of Syria
and Lebanon (Beirut, 1936); George Tu'meh, Al-mughtaribun al-arab fi Amerika al-shimaliyya
(Damascus, n.d.); Najib E. Saliba, "Emigration from Syria," in Sameer Y. Abraham and Nabeel
Abraham, eds., Arabs in the New World(Detroit, 1983), pp. 31-40; and Philip K. Hitti, The Syrians
in America (New York, 1924). Information can be found also in works dealing with Middle Easterners
established in the United States: see Barbara Aswad, ed., Arabic-Speaking Communities in American
Cities (New York, 1974); Beverly Turner Mehdi, The Arabs in America, 1492-1977 (New York,
1978); Abdo A. Elkholy, The Arab Moslems in the United States (New Haven, 1966); and Earle H.
Waugh et al., eds., The Muslim Community in North America (Edmonton, Alta., 1983).
4For details, see Kemal H. Karpat, Ottoman Population, 1830-1914: Social and Demographic
Characteristics, University of Wisconsin Press, in press.
51n fact, when a group of Germans persisted, for religious reasons, in taking in newcomers and
enlarging their colonies at Acre and Haifa, they met with such hostility from the local population
that the Porte found it necessary to assure Berlin and Vienna that the safety of these settlers would be
guaranteed. See the Archives of the Turkish Foreign Ministry (hereafter AFM), fol. 36 (Siyasi
[Political]), I February 1863.
61 have discussed the occurrence of simultaneous economic development and migration in The
Gecekondu: Rural Migration and Urbanization in Turkey (New York and London, 1976).
7Some of these lists will appear in Karpat, Ottoman Population.
8Sameer Y. Abraham and Nabeel Abraham, The Arab World and Arab-Americans (Detroit,
1981), p. 17; see also the enlarged version of this work, Arabs in the New World (cited in note 3),
which has extensive bibliography.
9See Donald M. Reid, "The Syrian Christians, the Rags-to-Riches Story and Free Enterprise,"
International Journal of Middle East Studies 1 (1970): 358-66; a similar rags-to-riches story is provided by Leila Fawaz, "Refugees of a Civil War: The Case of Dimitri Debbas, 1860," paper read at a
meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 1980.
'?Abdo A. Elkholy stresses the fact that early "Arab immigrants," as he calls them, came from
peasant stock in Syria and Lebanon and that the majority belonged to the lower socioeconomic
classes; see "The Arab-Americans: Nationalism and Traditional Preservations," in E. C. Agopian and
"The reports of attacks by nomads on settled people were often blown out of proportion and
described by European diplomats seeking to embarrass the Ottoman government as being attacks
directed specifically against Christians or as "uprisings" against the government. When the nomadic
tribe of Beni-Sahr, accompanied by bands from the tribes of Lehib and Beni-Kilab, tried to steal
cattle from villages around Acre, the Europeans described this as a full-fledged insurgency, although
a single Ottoman battalion re-established order within a matter of days. See AFM, fol. 36 (Sivasi),
report of the governor of Saida, 29 October 1863. Such occurrences were often cited by immigrants
as the reason for their decision to leave the country, but these same immigrants stated also their
'21n 1860 Lord Dufferin, reporting to Sir H. Bulwer about the events in Mount Lebanon, wrote:
"When I first came to this country I was under the impression of those natural sentiments of indigna-
tion [against] the atrocities perpetrated by the Druzes on the Christians .... To my surprise however
I soon began to discover... that there were two sides to the story .... I am now in a position to
state, without fear of contradiction, that however criminal may have been the excesses to which the
Druses were subsequently betrayed, the original provocation came from the Christians" [Great
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'3See, for example, the New York Times, 9 December 1896 and 4 September 1899: A returning
missionary, Edward Riggs, referring to the Muslim-Christian tensions in Mount Lebanon, did not
hesitate to describe the Muslims as "non-speakable" Turks, causing a protest by the Ottoman legation in Washington. (I am indebted to Dr. G. M. Bannerman for some of the information on Syrian
emigrants that he presented at a seminar on migration held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
1972.)
'4For some of these emotional and distorted appeals to Christian sympathies, see Abraham M.
Rihbany, A Far Journey: An Autobiographyi (Boston, 1914); George Haddad, Mt. Lebanon to
Vermont (Rutland, Vt., 1916); Hitti, Syrians in America; and Salom Rizk, Syrian Yankee (New
York, 1943).
51n the pashalik of St. Jean d'Acre (usually known simply as Acre) there were 16 Druze villages with an aggregate population of about 15,000 that were subject to military conscription; the
villages were Gerha, Djulus, Abu-Snan, El-Meghar, Errami, Bidjin, Shefama, Djedd, Esfia, Eddaliye,
Elebkeaa, Harfar Kefr, Essmeaa, Sedjiar, Yamah, and Kessa. On the other hand, the Druzes of
Houran and Liban were not subject to conscription. Obviously such unequal treatment was a cause
for resentment. See AFM, fol. 36 (Siyasi), dispatch of 13 December 1873.
'6AFM, fol. 346 (Idari [Administration]), letter of 5 March 1908.
'7Fifty-Three Years in Syria (London, 1910), Vol. 2, p. 589. Jessup reported also that 87 of the
college's graduates were in Egypt.
'8Report of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C., 1911), p. 100.
'9See L'emigration ottomane aux Etats-Unis," a lengthy memorandum dated 14 October 1907,
from the French ambassador in Istanbul to the Foreign Minister, Archives des Affaires Etrangeres,
Correspondence Politique, N.S., Turquie, Politique Int6rieure, Macadonie XXXIII, vol. 54 (1907).
20Report of the Immigration Commission, p. 97.
21Hitti, Syrians in America, p. 58.
22See E. P. Hutchinson, "Notes on Emigration Statistics of the United States," American Statistical
Association Journal 53, 284 (December 1958): 963 ff.
23At one point Prince Said Halim asked Emin Arslan Bey, Ottoman consul in Buenos Aires, for a
list of towns and villages from which immigrants to Argentina had come; see AFM, fol. 346 (Idare),
13 March 1913. (The Ottoman archives contain no such list, however.)
28Hitti and, especially, Elkholy provide some information on Muslim immigrants, as do the two
works by the Abrahams; see notes 3, 8, and 10.
Papers, House of Commons, Accounts and Papers, vol. 87 (1911), pp. 7-11. Saliba also provides
some figures that are useful; see "Emigration from Syria," pp. 34-35.
34Issawi, Economic History of the Middle East, p. 271.
35See the correspondence between Yusuf Efendi, consul in Barcelona, and Turkhan Bey, Ottoman
representative in Madrid, in AFM, fol. 346 (Idare), June 1889 to 14 November 1892.
36Ibid., report of 23 October 1893.
37AFM, fol. 177 (Idare), 14 February 1899 and 5 February 1902.
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45See AFM, fol. 346 (Idare), dispatches of 13 February 1901 and 21 February 1914. Fares stated
that between 1881/82 and 1901 a total of 320,000 had left their homes and that in 1901 there were
220,000 Syrians living in foreign lands: in the U.S.A., 100,000; in Brazil, 60,000; and in other
countries, 60,000. He also stated that about 100,000 Syrians had returned home. The high percentage
given for returnees is consistent with other figures, including those of the Ottoman consul in
Marseilles (cited in note 37), suggesting that the return rate was about one-third. Fares' figure for
total emigration is obviously too low. See also Donald Reid, Odyssey of Farah Antun (Chicago,
1975).
55The Ottoman consulate in Marseilles gave a list of individuals active as migration intermediaries;
these included Alexander Saab, Selim Saab, Tanous Bechelani, Isaac (a Jew of Morocco), Joseph
Chababe (a nephew of Isaac), Ibrahim Chababe, Selim Beyruti, Boutrous al-Hazin, Bemandos and
his nephew, George Richa, Joseph Tehara, Nassim al-Trablussi, Suleyman Sahaf, Vincent Jamuzzi,
etc.
were paid reparation expenses, although this policy was modified when it was discovered that some
well-to-do returnees were abusing the government's good will by getting their passage home paid. As
early as 1895, therefore, it was ordered that repatriation expenses of Syrians and Lebanese not be
paid. The order was often ignored, however.
62The Ottoman government, remaining apprehensive about the large numbers of emigrants, investigated the travel agencies and found that they sought to entice passengers by offering them especially comfortable conditions. A travel agency advertisement that gives an excellent picture of the
facilities offered in this competition is preserved in the Ottoman archives and is reproduced as
Appendix X.
63Roger R. Trask, The United States Response to Turkish Nationalism and Reform, 1914-1939
(Minneapolis, 1971), p. 189. See also Leland J. Gordon, "The Turkish-American Controversy over
Nationality," A merican Journal of International Law 25 (October 1931 ).
64The Collected Papers of John Bassett Moore, vol. 5 (New Haven, 1944), p. 54.
65John Bassett Moore, A Digest of International Law, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C., 1906), p. 686.
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671bid., no. 633, letter of the Beyoglu Mutasarrif of 14 August 1899 (H. 6 Rebiulevel 1316.,
R. 2 August 1315).
68United States Response, p. 189. Oscar S. Straus, a former U.S. ambassador to the sultan's court,
states that the 1874 treaty was sabotaged "by our leading missionaries under the instigatiort of
prominent Armenians who had been naturalized in America and returned to Turkey.... It was a
very discouraging situation, for many annoying cases constantly came up, some of a rather serious
nature" (Under Four Administrations [Boston and New York, 1922], p. 92).
69Moore, Digest of International Law, vol. 3, p. 706.
70"L'emigration ottomane aux Etats-Unis."
71Many journals were published by the immigrant groups. Those in Brazil were publishing nine
newspapers (another report said four) in 1901, while two were published in Argentina. See AFM, fol.
346 (Idare), letter of A. Fares of 13 February 1901.
72Archives des Affaires Etrangeres, Correspondence Politique, N.S., Turquie, Politique G6enrale,
IV, vol. 5 (1905, 1907, fol. 130 sq., "Note sur les Mohadjirs," Annexe, Dispatch of 26 November
1907.
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