Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

marriage links by the mid-1890s with the families of some of the men officially
registered in 1880. We now consider the situation in 1895.
1895 tax registration
The form of the 1895 tax register differs from that of the tapu registers not
only in the column headings but also in the way objects of registration were
identified and listed. 16 First, there was a single list for each village, not a series
of lists according to type of property. Under each holding in the tax register,
houses and plots were listed, each with a distinct identity and number, valuation
and liability, with the total tax liability of the holding given at the end. At the
end of all the holdings in a village its total tax liability was given, divided into
different categories.
Second, only one individual was named in a holding, not a set of named
co-sharers. Where a holding, or a plot within a holding, was shared, the words
‘and his partner(s)’ or ‘and his brother(s)’ was added without names. It is thus
not clear from the form of the register how co-liability for tax was determined.
Later, if changes were made to a holding as a result of a sale or the holder’s
death, and if the register was kept up to date (which, except for one new entry,
it was not for Bait Ra’s), naming was more complete and a full set of co-sharers
was given.
Third, every object of taxation consisted of a numbered plot that was classified
by type and, for cultivated fields, identified by the name or location in which it
was situated. Thus column eight gave the type of plot: hane (house), incirlik
(figs), ‘hakura’ (kitchen garden), bağ or bahçe (garden planted with fruit trees or
vines), zeytin (olive grove), or tarla (arable). Each type was valued at a different
rate, calculated on area for all but houses and olive groves. Column 12 gave the
plot’s location of which there were only three for Bait Ra’s: derun-ı kariye (inside
the village), civar-ı kariye (village outskirts), and arz-ı Bait Ras (the land of Bait
Ra’s); the first contained houses, the second gardens or figs, and the third plots
on the common plough land.
Each person liable for tax thus held a unique set of numbered plots. Shares
in plough land were not registered. However, behind the numbering and naming,
a shareholding system can be observed. In the field labelled arz-ı Bait Ras there
were 19 separate plots, numbered 1–19 in column 9 and 723–41 in column 7,
held by 19 different persons. The areas of these plots were multiples of 223.33
dönüms, totalling 8,040 or 36 times 223.33. Thus the 19 holders of arable plots
effectively had shares ranging from ½ to 5½ and the total was 36, not the 30
shares of the 1880 tapu register.
The numbering of plots in the 1895 tax register would seem to imply the
existence of a reference map showing the location of the named fields and of
each plot in those fields. Yet no field map has surfaced in the Ottoman records
we examined. It must be assumed that identification of fields was left to those
who had local knowledge and that field mapping was still not a routine part of
Ottoman land surveys for tapu or tax registration. A field map would have served
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Two plains villages