Victorian Holocaust: Iran in the Great Famine of 1869-1873

135 Pages·2017·0.82 MB·English

by  Mohammad Gholi Majd

A Victorian Holocaust
Iran in the Great Famine of 1869–1873
Mohammad Gholi Majd
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 ReportsofFamineandIranianGovernmentDenial 15
3 FamineinSouthIran 25
4 FamineinCentralIran:Isfahan,YazdandQum 41
5 FamineinKhorassanandNorth-EastIran 53
6 FamineinTehran 69
7 FamineinHamadanandKermanshah 81
8 FamineinZanjanandQazvin 91
9 FamineinAzerbaijan 97
10 ThePersianFamineReliefCommittee 113
11 TheTollfromFamineandDisease 121
References 127
AbouttheAuthor 129
iii

Chapter One
Introduction
Intheseventy-fiveyearspanof1869-1944Iransufferedthreefamineswhich
claimed 25 million lives. While world population more than doubled during
1850-1950,Iran’s1944populationof10-12millionwasunchangedfromthe
11 million reported in 1841. It is difficult to find another country where a
century of population growth had been wiped out by famine. While the
wartimefaminesof1917-1919andthe1942-1943havereceivedsomescruti-
ny,thelongestandmostcatastrophicofthethree,theGreatFamineof1869-
1873, has remained practically unexplored.1 Missing from the pages of the
history books is the Great Famine of 1869-73 which carried off some 12
million Iranians or two-thirds of the population. The entire western “litera-
ture” on the subject consists of three scholarly articles, while two others
contain indirect references.2 While it is agreed in these articles that the fa-
mineencompassedtheentirecountry,thereislittleconsensusastotheonset,
duration, the number of victims and the causes of the Great Famine. Gilbar
gives 1869-72, Okazaki calls it the famine of 1870-71, Melville and Seyf
give 1870-72, and Kazemi gives 1869-73. Documents given in this book
indicatetheonsettobe1869andalthoughthefaminehadsupposedlyended
in the summer of 1872, death by starvation and disease had continued until
thesummerof1873.Contemporaryestimatesofthenumberofvictimsrange
from 200,000 to 5 million, with the lower estimates offered by British offi-
cialsandthehigheronesgivenbyAmericanmissionariesandPersianwriters
(seechapter11).
The present study appears to be the first book on the subject in the Eng-
lishlanguage.ItisbasedonEuropeanandAmericantravelaccounts,includ-
ing British officials traveling in the country on official business, British
diplomatic dispatches, thereports in the Timesof Londonandthe New York
Times, Persian documents, and reports and correspondence by American
1
2 Chapter1
missionarieswhowitnessedthefaminefirsthand.Thefindingsofthisstudy
indicatethat,conservatively,12millionoutofapopulationof18millionhad
perishedoremigrated.Thepost-faminepopulationof6millionwasjustone-
third of the pre-famine level. Tragically, given that Russia and Ottoman
TurkeyhadclosedtheirborderstoIraniansinJuly1871,thevastmajorityof
the12millionhadperished.IthadtakenIranatleastuntil1910torecoverits
1869 population. Barely had the country recovered when it was again rav-
agedbytheGreatFamineof1917-1919.Althoughthereisnomentionofthe
GreatFamineof1869-73inDavis’book,theIranfaminewasaprecursorof
thecataclysmicfaminesof1876-79inChina,IndiaandNorthAfrica.3These
“LateVictorianHolocausts”hadbeenprecededbyasimilarholocaustinIran
a few years earlier. The famines that afflicted a wide region from North
Chinato North Africa during 1876-79 are possibly “theworstever to afflict
the human species” (Davis 2002, 1). In addition to China and Morocco,
India, Egypt and Algeria also suffered devastating famines in this period.
Davisindicatesthemagnitudeofthecalamityduring1876-79.Accordingto
official Chinese sources, in the five northern provinces most affected by
famine, 20 million perished. Villages were completely or 75-95 per cent
depopulated. Although the famine had supposedly ended in 1879, cholera
had continued to claim lives well into 1880. In the province of Shanxi,
according to the British Ambassador, 5 million perished in just one winter.
Themagnitudeofthecalamitywassuchthatdespiteimmigrationfromnear-
by regions, Shanxi did not recover its 1875 population until 1953. In India,
10.3 million perished according to a contemporary British observer. In Ma-
dras,theepicenterofthefamine,manylocalitiesbecameatleasthalfdepop-
ulated and two-thirds had still not recovered their pre-famine population by
1901. The countryside in North Africa became an “Open Tomb” (Davis
2001, 106). In the city of Marrakesh in September 1878, 1% of the popula-
tiondiedeachday.IntheregionofGharbinnorthwestMorocco,one-thirdof
the population died in 1878-79. The famine is considered to be the greatest
calamityintherecordedhistoryofMorocco(Davis2001,108).
The similarities between the 1869-73 Iran famine and that of 1876-79
famine in north China enable one to state the findings of this study with
greater confidence. The depopulation of rural Iran was on a scale similar to
that of north China. The haunting descriptions of the suffering and death in
IranandChinaprovidedbyAmericanmissionariesandcontemporarytravel-
ers are identical. In both countries the cultivation of opium and cotton had
reduced grain supplies and hence food security. And in each the ruling dy-
nasty had found itself helpless in the face of the calamity, at first both
adoptingapolicyofsilence,andtheninthecaseofIran,outrightdenial.
Western historians of the nineteenth century, as noted by Davis, while
giving mention to the Irish Famine of 1845-48 and the one million deaths,
and to a lesser extent to the 1891-92 Russian famine, have ignored the mil-
Introduction 3
lionsof famine victimsin Asia andAfrica.The annihilation of these tensof
millionsis“thesecrethistoryofthenineteenthcentury”(Davis2001,6-8),to
whichtheorigins of theThirdWorld canbetraced.As convincingly argued
byDavis,theVictorianholocaustsofthe1870s,andthoseof1890s,werenot
simplycausedbydroughtthatresultedfromunusuallystrongElNiñosinthe
Pacific Ocean. It was ultimately the deliberate adoption of policies that
turned drought into calamities that killed on a scale previously unknown:
“While Asia was starving, the United States was harvesting the greatest
wheatcropinworldhistory(400millionbushels),andinCalifornia’sCentral
Valleyworthlesssurpluswheatwasburntforfuel”(Davis2002,109).
CLIMATICFACTORS
British officials and many Iranians blamed the famine on drought. Major
Oliver St John, the Tehran Officiating Director of the Anglo-Persian Tele-
graph Company, on the origins of the famine: “The rise and progress of the
recent famine in Persia were briefly as follows. From the winter of 1863-4,
therains,withasingleexception,1865-6,hadbeenregularlybelowaverage.
Lakes, springs, and kanats all over the country got lower and lower every
summer. The crops, nevertheless, had been generally good and abundant.
During the sixth winter, that of 1869-70, hardly any snow or rain fell in the
valleys.”4InapapercirculatedatameetinginLondonofthePersianFamine
ReliefCommitteeonOctober25,1871,andpublishedinthe TimesofOcto-
ber26,1871,thefollowingisstated:
The lamentable famine now raging in Persia, and threatening to carry off
hundredsofthousandsofthescantypopulationofthatextensivekingdom,has
been caused by the unparalleled drought which has prevailed throughout the
country during the last three years. In an area far exceeding that of Great
BritainandFrancetogether,noriverofanyimportanceexists,andthequantity
of rain in the spring and summer is insufficient. In ordinary years, however,
the fall of snow between November and March is considerable. It thickly
coversthehugemountainrangeswhichintersectPersia,andasitmeltsinthe
springandsummeritfillsthewatercoursesandsmallcanalsfromwhichthe
peasants irrigate theircrops. The soil inthevalleysisnaturallyfertile, and a
littlelabourensuresalargeharvestifonlythewintersnowfallhasbeenabun-
dant.Thisunhappilyhasforthepasttwoorthreeyearsbeensingularlywant-
ing;thesprings,watercourses,andrivuletshavebeencompletelydriedup,the
corn sown over and over again has been wasted, the supplies in the country
havebeenexhausted,andfaminewithdiseaseinitstrainisnowrapidlydoing
itsdeadlywork.
4 Chapter1
After the paper was read, a speaker had taken the podium. Interestingly,
there is no mention of opium cultivation, only cotton which was by then in
steepdecline:
SirHenryRawlinson,inmovingthefirstresolution,saidhebelievedhewas
theoldestAnglo-Persianatthemeeting,ifnotinLondon,andsince1833he
had kept up his connexion uninterruptedly with the country. Speaking, then,
fromhisexperience,heproposedtostatehowthisterriblevisitationhadbeen
caused,andthemeasurestobeadoptedtowardsitsmitigation.Thefactshad
been very accurately described in the paper circulated in the meeting. He
might say briefly that the interior of Persia was high and arid table-land,
containingfewrivers—infact,nonethatdeservedthenameofriversaccord-
ingtoourEnglishideas.Theyweremerestreamsandrivuletsdescendingfrom
the mountains, and were used by the villagers to irrigate their lands for the
cottoncultivation.Theywerefedalmostentirelybythesnowsfromthemoun-
tains, and the lands so irrigated furnished most abundant crops. For the last
threeyearsthesnow-fallingwaterhadbeenverydeficient,andtheshowersin
spring and summer had been next to nothing. The consequence was that the
wholecountryhadbeenburntup;largetractshadbecomedessicated,andthe
flocks and herds of the Eelyauts (nomadic tribes), which depended for their
supportontheusualsourcesofwatersupply,hadforthemostpartperished.In
othercountriestherewereartificialmeansofirrigationwhichwenttoredress
whatmightbecalledthebalanceofnature.ButinPersiatherewerenocanals
orreservoirstoirrigatethehightable-lands,andwhentherewasadeficiency
ofrainthecropsentirelyfailed,andtheconsequentdistressbecameawful.
Despiteseveralfalsehoods,includingtheclaimthat“therewerenocanals
or reservoirsto irrigate”theplateau, thenarrativeappears to establish alink
between drought in Iran and the El Niño. While the world experienced a
“moderately strong” El Niño during 1867-70 (Davis 2002, 271), a closer
examinationoftheevidencedoesnotindicateageneralmulti-yeardroughtin
Iran during this and the preceding period. Only in 1869-70 was there a
general drought over much of the country which appears to have been con-
nectedtoElNiño.InhisreporttoNasser-ed-DinShahongrainshortageand
highpricesinShirazinearlyRamazan1282(mid-January1866),Hissam-ol-
Saltaneh,theGovernor of FarsandtheShah’suncle, states that heavysnow
in Fars had hindered the transport of food and charcoal to the city.5 North
and West Iran had also experienced heavy snow in the winter of 1866. An
Englishtraveler,AugustusMounsey,whohadjourneyedtoIranfromRussia
inJanuary1866,reportsthatfromtheRussianbordertoTabriz,adistanceof
80miles,therewasheavysnowcoverontheground.OnthewaytoTehran,
he had been caught in a blizzard near Zanjan on February 1, 1866, and his
party had lost its way in the snow.6 Not surprisingly, British Parliamentary
Papers for 1867-68 state that the 1867 harvest in Azerbaijan, Iran’s main
grain producing region, was “abundant,” and grain prices were “ludicrously