Urban vs Rural

Populations, Communities, Administration

Part One

Ottoman Expansion by 1683

Drawn by Atilim Gunes Baydin: based on Robert Mantran (ed.), Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, Paris: Fayard (1989). Source: Wikimedia Commons — Ottoman Expansion by 1683
Drawn by Atilim Gunes Baydin: based on Robert Mantran (ed.), Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, Paris: Fayard (1989). Source: Wikimedia Commons

Map of the Administrative Divisions of Ottoman Syria in the late 1800s

Source: http://www.geocurrents.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ottoman-Syria-Map.jpg#ixzz6ThRDgqmy — Map of the Administrative Divisions of Ottoman Syria in the late 1800s Source: http://www.geocurrents.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ottoman-Syria-Map.jpg#ixzz6ThRDgqmy

The Circle of Justice

"The world is a garden, hedged in by sovereignty

Sovereignty is lordship, preserved by law

Law is administration, governed by the king

The king is a shepherd, supported by the army

The army are soldiers, fed by money

Money is revenue, gathered by the people

The people are servants, subjected by justice

Justice is happiness, the well-being of the world."

Source: Left circle – Arabic, after ‘Abdurrahman Badawi (ed.), Fontes Graecae Doctrinarum Politicarum Islamicarum, 1954. Right circle –
Ottoman Turkish, after Kınalızade ‘Ali Çelebi, Ahla-k-i ‘Ala-‘ı - , 1228/1832–3. — The Circle of Justice
"The world is a garden, hedged in by sovereignty
Sovereignty is lordship, preserved by law
Law is administration, governed by the king
The king is a shepherd, supported by the army
The army are soldiers, fed by money
Money is revenue, gathered by the people
The people are servants, subjected by justice
Justice is happiness, the well-being of the world."
Source: Left circle – Arabic, after ‘Abdurrahman Badawi (ed.), Fontes Graecae Doctrinarum Politicarum Islamicarum, 1954. Right circle – Ottoman Turkish, after Kınalızade ‘Ali Çelebi, Ahla-k-i ‘Ala-‘ı - , 1228/1832–3.

Eyalets in 1609

Source: Masters, Bruce Alan., A ́goston, Ga ́bor. Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. United States: Facts On File, Incorporated, 2010. — Eyalets in 1609
Source: Masters, Bruce Alan., A ́goston, Ga ́bor. Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. United States: Facts On File, Incorporated, 2010.

Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Ottoman Aleppo
with Heghnar Watenpaugh

While architectural historians are often concerned with the design, inception, and construction of buildings and objects, writing the history of architecture also includes the study of renovations, modifications, and changes in use of such spaces embedded in political and social contexts. In this episode, Heghnar Watenpaugh revisits her 2004 monograph entitled The Image of an Ottoman City in a discussion of Ottoman interventions into the historical urban geography of the empire’s third largest city, Aleppo, and talks about methods of reconstructing the lived urban environment of a city in Ottoman Syria.

Colonial Port City are geographically small but represent a long-lasting and important form in Asian empires. Portuguese Goa the first. Today, some are independent nations. Others sites of crucial global megacities. Others continuing political hotspots. Sites of early modern trade, but also military fortification and administrative hubs. Show of force usually against other Europeans. Begin with consent of nearby powers, usually. Diversity of population in concentrated area key to their function.

Key to the East: Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s 'Itinerario'

For most of the 17th century the Dutch East India Company, or VOC, brought wealth and prestige to the Low Countries, ushering in what would be known as the Dutch Golden Age. Business was booming, profits were soaring, and the greatly expanded middle class flaunted its newly acquired wealth. It was an age of masterpiece paintings and scientific breakthroughs. What allowed the VOC, established in 1602, to amass such vast fortunes at breakneck speed? The answer lies with the book that has been dubbed ‘the key to the East’: Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Itinerario.

Source: Key to the East: Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s ‘Itinerario’ (Click Here)

Atlas of Mutual Heritage

The Atlas of Mutual Heritage is a growing database containing information about, and images of, the charter areas of the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and WIC (Dutch West India Company).

Please Click for Atlas of Mutual Heritage Project

Governance at Sri Lanka
by Jan Brandes (d. 1808)
Source: Rijksmuseum, NG-1985-7-1-9

Idea: establishment of strategic foothold through the settlement and natural reproduction of an imported population. Can be ethnically or racially the same as the empire (Dutch and other white settlers in southern Africa), or racially mixed (Portuguese/Mestizo at Goa or Dutch/Mestizo at Sri Lanka), or can be a third imported group (Chinese at Taiwan). In many ways, this form is the archetypal system of colonization, possibly the oldest (Iceland), and not exclusive to Asia. Main point: ethnic inequality and exclusion are planned into this way of asserting colonial control. Touch on Patrick Wolfe: settler colonialism is a structure (not an event) that seeks to erase the indigenous population and claim their land through that elimination and new legal regimes.

The Fort of Banda by Schley, Jacobus van der
Source: Kessler Collection

Most characteristic of early modern Caribbean, but present from an early period in Asia, and will expand to become the geographically largest form of European colonialism in Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries with products like sugar and rubber. These can be devastatingly brutal when they are formed, as in Banda and Amboina where spice plantation colonies were created through genocide. They always rely on unfree labor systems, so they encourage the growth of racially based slave trades, and then later the indentured servant or “coolie” trade.