ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

Jews in the Ottoman Empire
Report sent to London by her Majesty's Ambassador in
Istanbul:
No. 350
Sir A. H. Layard to the Marquis of Salisbury
No. 148
Constantinople, April 13, 1880 (received April 23).
My Lord,
I have the honour to transmit herewith to your Lordship
a Report on the Vilayet of Angora (Ankara) by Mr. Vice-
Consul Gatheral which I have received from Mr. Consul-
General Wilson, who is sending it to me suggests that it
should be printed. I have, &c. (Signed) A. H. Layard
F. O. 424/106, p. 306, No. 151 Turkey No. 23 (1880), p.
121, No. 72
Inclosure in No. 350
Report on the Population, Industries, Trade, Commerce,
Agriculture, Public Works, Land Tenure, and Government
of City and Province of Angora, Anatolia, by Vice-
Consul Gatheral. Extract.
The population o f this city and province is a small one,
taking into consideration its wide extent and general fertility,
and for five years past that population has been visibly
diminishing, owing to the emigration o f considerable
numbers during the famine of 1873-74, the drain on
the male Moslem population owing to the war of 1877-
78, and the special products of the province having for
three years in succession proved unremunerative to the
Christians engaged in its commerce many of them have
quitted the province for Constantinople or other parts of
Anatolia.
A Turkish census takes no note of females or male children
under fifteen years of age, returning only the total
of males liable to military service amongst Moslems, and
amongst Christians those from whom the "military service
exemption tax" is exigible. The last enumeration
was in 1877, and the total then returned was 449.241;
this multiplied by three, according to the Redhouse rule,
gives a total o f 1,347.723 souls. These are divided into
the following sects or communities: Moslems, Gregorian
or Orthodox Armenians, Catholic Armenians, Protestant
Armenians, Greeks, Jews and Gipsies. The numbers of
each community are stated in the same Return as follows:
Males liable to military service
M oslem s................................................................... 393.074
Total population (Moslems) ............................. 1,179.222
Males paying military service exemption tax -
Christians -
Gregorian Armenians..............................................33.445
Roman Catholic Armenians.................................... 3.985
28
Protestant Armenians................................................ 660
Jews ............................................................................. 280
G ipsies.......................................................................... 262
Total population other than Moslems ............... 168.501
Total of males ............................................................ 449.241
Total population..................................................... 1,347.723
Those different races have origins as varied as their
creeds. The Moslems are for the most part the descendants
of the Turkish soldiery who conquered the province
from the Byzantine Empire, A.D. 1344-л5, under Sultan
Murad, then reigning at Broussa. The Armenians are the
result of an emigration from the eastward during the fifteenth
century; they have been subdivided into Roman
Catholic and Protestant in recent times; the leading
Roman Catholic families were exiles from
Constantinople in 1830, during the reign of Sultan
Mahmoud; their wealth, intelligence, and commercial
relations with Europe added greatly to the prosperity of
the city, later an energetic Jesuit propaganda, directed
from Rome, had considerable success, but in later years
they have lost their ascendency, having split up into old
and new Catholics as in Europe; the schism officially and
outwardly has been healed, but the rancorous feeling
towards each other remains, and they seem to have no
further success in making converts. The Protestants are
the result of American missionary effort during the last
twenty-eight years. Though meanwhile small in numbers,
they are as a community better educated, more truthful
and honest, than any o f the other Christian sects, and are
gaining rapidly in numbers and influence. The Orthodox
or Gregorian Armenians are, as a community, ignorant,
superstitious, and poverty-stricken, but count more
adherents than either of the later sects. The small Jewish
community, being mostly blonde and speaking a bastard
Spanish, are evidently o f Iberian origin; whilst the origin
of the few nomad gipsy tribes who come and go is as
great a mystery in Anatolia as in Europe.
(The rest of the letter deals with details of the province of
Ankara which, although interesting, are less relevant to
the subject matter of this book.)
"The small Jewish community, being mostly blonde and
speaking a bastard Spanish, are evidently o f Iberian origin
..." reports the British Vice-Consul, Gatheral, to his
ambassador in Istanbul. The ambassador rushed these
precise notes concerning the Vilayet of Angora (Ankara)
on to his Foreign Minister in London. The blond-haired
Jewish community with its "bastard Spanish" was indeed
of Iberian origin. The Catholic kings had not only cracked
down radically on the Arabs and all other Moslems on the
Iberian peninsula, they had also envisaged a final solution
for the Jews of the Christian kingdom. Since 1412, the
Jews had been forced to wear degrading markings on
their clothes. In 1480, the Inquisition started persecuting
them with deadly hostility, and finally the Grand
Inquisitor carried out the expropriation and expulsion of
300,000 Jews. Some fled to Morocco, but many more