Oxen in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire

The oxen made vital contributions to rural life in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. These draft animals pulled the plow, threshed the produce, dragged logs, and moved carts in return for a little hay. From the perspective of animal history, they were "non-human workers" who undertook burdensome tasks in accordance with the needs of their human employers. This dissertation reveals the essential role of oxen in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. It elaborates on the numerical data extracted from the income survey registers of the 1840s. The research reconstructs the geographical setting in three different Ottoman provinces (Konya, Edirne, and Kastamonu) from an environmental history perspective. Findings from income registers and other archival sources include substantial information about oxen. Oxen had a central place in the economic sectors of agriculture, transportation, and construction. Furthermore, their stressed work agenda was seriously affected by local conflicts involving provincial notables. Moreover, some discussions that the Tanzimat Edict triggered directly concerned oxen. This study rejects the idea that oxen were a trivial subject of human history and offers an original narrative that incorporates oxen as crucial actors in the history of the Ottoman Empire.