Responding to American Missionary Expansion
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Responding to American Missionary Expansion: An Examination of Ottoman Imperial Statecraft, 1880-1910 Emrah Sahin Department of History McGill University, Montréal August 2011 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Emrah Sahin, 2011 ii Abstract American missionaries made a lasting impact on education and religion in the late Ottoman Middle East. After the 1880s, provincial-level conflicts increased and affected diplomatic relations between the United States and the Ottoman Empire. Much scholarship examines Washington-based papers and missionary collections, depicting—perhaps unconsciously—the Turks as uncompromising hosts and the missionaries as saviours or U.S. agents. This dissertation exposes these stereotypes by emphasizing the complexity and variation of the historical actors and their interactions. It places concerned parties within the context of Ottoman imperial statecraft and defines the central government as a sophisticated and powerful actor on missionary issues. Reading previously untapped Ottoman archival sources through analytical eclecticism, the dissertation analyzes central government responses to missionary expansion and, more specifically, how changing circumstances affected the ways in which the fin-de-siècle government approached increasing numbers of missionaries, their institutions, publications, and local-level legal cases. In addition to offering a nuanced and detailed account of Ottoman-missionary relations, the dissertation also provides: an alternative periodization for the topic; new historical narratives to the scholarship; and historical context for the contemporary debate over missionary activity in the Ottoman Empire. iii Résumé Les missionnaires américains ont eu un impact durable sur l’éducation et la religion dans le Moyen-Orient ottoman vers la fin du XIXe siècle. Après les années 1880, les conflits ont augmenté dans diverses provinces ottomanes et ont affecté les relations diplomatiques entre les États-Unis et l’Empire ottoman. Bon nombre de travaux de recherche sont fondés sur une analyse de documents rédigés par des officiels américains et de recueils de textes rédigés par des missionnaires, et l’on y dépeint, peut-être inconsciemment, les Turcs comme des hôtes intransigeants, et les missionnaires, comme des sauveurs ou des agents américains. Dans la présente thèse, nous exposons ces stéréotypes en soulignant la complexité et la diversité des acteurs historiques et de leurs interactions. Nous plaçons les parties concernées dans le contexte de l’appareil gouvernemental impérial ottoman et définissons le gouvernement central comme un acteur complexe et puissant dans les questions liées aux activités des missionnaires. En examinant des documents jusqu’alors inexploités tirés des archives ottomanes, par éclectisme analytique, nous étudions les réponses du gouvernement central à l’expansion des activités des missionnaires et, plus précisément, l’incidence des circonstances changeantes sur l’approche adoptée par le gouvernement de fin de siècle vis-à-vis du nombre croissant de missionnaires, de leurs institutions et de leurs publications, et vis-à-vis des disputes juridiques qui survenaient à l’échelle locale. En plus de faire un exposé détaillé et nuancé des relations entre l’Empire ottoman et les missionnaires, la iv présente thèse offre une périodisation alternative du sujet, apporte de nouveaux récits historiques qui s’ajouteront à l’historiographie des missionnaires et fournit un contexte historique pour les débats contemporains sur les activités des missionnaires dans l’Empire ottoman. v Acknowledgments In April 2001, I went to Uygur Kocabaşoğlu, the History Chair at Middle East Technical University, Turkey. Two months prior to graduation, I asked his opinion about examining the role of religion in East-West relations. “Look in that mirror,” he said, pointing to the cheval glass next to the office door, “and tell me, do you see a man who can juggle that huge ball of research?” I looked and saw nothing; I did not even understand what it had to do with my anatomy. I now get the sarcasm behind the chair’s question, and know that my research project indeed needed extensive research, stronger perspective, specialization, inspiration, funding, guidance, and a supporting team. Aykut Kansu, Güçlü Tülüveli, and Seçil Karal Akgün taught me the basics of the historian’s craft; Halil İnalcık, Stanford Shaw, and Timothy Roberts framed my perspective on approaching history; Gil Troy, Jason Opal, John Zucchi, Leonard Moore, and Thomas Jundt helped me to crystallize and specialize; Kemal Karpat and Üner Turgay inspired my endeavours; the Turkish Cultural Foundation and McGill University offered partial funding for the project. The vital elements of success were guidance and teamwork: the perfect supervision of Laila Parsons, wonderful editing of Michael Wiseman, analytical-stylistic contributions of Hasher Majoka, and research-logistics assistance from Haluk Gelgeç, Raymond Esfandi, and my wife Sema Karagöz Şahin gifted me with a dream team. This dissertation is a product of this team. It is also a statement of how far my project has come since the last time I looked into “that mirror.” vi Table of Contents Note on Transliteration__________________________________________ ix 1. Ottoman Imperial Statecraft and American Missionaries, 1880-1910__________________________________________ 1 Main Propositions Encountering Imperial Records Approach Historiography and Contributions Historical Background Late Ottoman Empire Imperial Statecraft Chapter Overview 2. Strangers in the Land: Ottoman Central Government Reacts to Local Pressure______________________________________________________ 43 Surveying Missionary Expansion Responding to Expansion: Continuities and Inconsistencies Central Government and Missionary Activities in Local Context Conclusion 3. Regulating American Missionary Activity through the Granting and Denying of Licences____________________________________________ 91 Regulating the Faith through Licensing New Vigilance and Missionary Publications Local Sensitivities Bells, Clocks, and Flags as Symbols of Religion Conclusion 4. Controlling Missionary Publications___________________________ 133 Vigilance on Publishing Missions Imperial Policy on Printing Devices and Presses Permitting and Restricting Publications A Case of Textbooks Conclusion 5. Approaching Individual Missionaries as the Object of Public Security_____________________________________________________ 198 Imperial Justice Intelligence and Evaluation Public Security Regarding Missionaries and Locals The Ministry of Public Security Ottoman-U.S. Relations Regarding Missionaries vii 6. Conclusion: Historicizing the Imperial Bureaucrat_______________ 238 Appendices__________________________________________________ 245 Maps Government offices Robert College and the city, İstanbul Publications, types, customs house Ellen M. Stone, bandits, and a local police station Bibliography_________________________________________________ 259 Primary Sources Archives and Research Libraries Ottoman Records Missionary Collections Published Primary Sources Newspapers and Journals Secondary Sources Books Articles Unpublished Theses and Presentations Reference Works and Websites viii Note on Transliteration Words in Ottoman Turkish, including the names of people and places in Turkey, have been transcribed with modern Turkish orthography. Accordingly, “c” reads like “j”; “ç” is “ch”; “ş” is “sh.” The “ğ” is silent but lengthens the preceding vowel. “I” is pronounced like “io” as in motion; “ö” is the same as French “eu” as in peu; “ü” is the same as French “u” as in lune. All translations within this dissertation belong to the author; they respect the language of the text when possible and find an English expression when necessary to render the original tone. ix 1 Ottoman Imperial Statecraft and American Missionaries, 1880- 1910 In recent years missionary activity in Turkey has revived a century-old debate. On Wednesday, 18 April 2007, a group of five men, identified as “young” and “Muslim,” attended a sermon at the Zirve Bible House, a mission and publishing firm in the south-eastern city of Malatya. The Turkish convert- pastor, Necati Aydın, was lecturing from the Bible when the carnage began. The group tied Aydın and his parishioners Uğur Yüksel and Tilman Geske to chairs, and murdered them brutally.1 Reactions to this bloody incident were uniform in their outrage. International Christian Concern, an influential human rights group based in Washington, called it “satanic.” The Zirve Bible House director Hamza Özant, himself having been threatened, wished they would have received police 1“Turkish Believers Satanically Tortured for Hours Before Being Killed,” 25 April 2007, online; Laura King, “3 men slain at Bible publishing firm in Turkey,” Los Angeles Times, 19 April 2007, online. Birch recalls earlier incidents that contributed to the debate. “In 2005 Molotov cocktails thrown at the International Protestant church in Ankara caused £5,000 damage. And last year an American missionary in the south-eastern city of Gaziantep was bound and gagged by two assailants... Although they did not kill him, the attackers promised to come back and finish him off unless he and his family left Turkey immediately.” Nick Birch, “Three Murdered at Turkish Bible Publishing House,” The Guardian, 19 April 2007, online. For the continuing debate over missionary activity in Turkey, see Recep