University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 Commandeering Empires: Egypt, Tripoli, and Tunis in the Age of Revolution, 1774-1835 Mukaram Hhana University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Islamic World and Near East History Commons Recommended Citation Hhana, Mukaram, "Commandeering Empires: Egypt, Tripoli, and Tunis in the Age of Revolution, 1774-1835" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1761. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1761 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1761 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Commandeering Empires: Egypt, Tripoli, and Tunis in the Age of Revolution, 1774-1835 Abstract This dissertation interrogates our conceptualizations of space, our understanding of the topographical borders of regions, and our historiographical depiction of the margins between imperial administration and local autonomy the Ottoman Maghreb. It does so by juxtaposing the history of corsairs, Bedouins, desert caravans and empires in turn-of-the-nineteenth-century North Africa. Further, it examines the horizontal connections among the North African provinces and their corresponding systems of governance. The central premise of this dissertation is that one cannot fully understand the policy and affairs of turn of the nineteenth century Egypt, or the Porte, without a firm grasp on the historical context of neighboring Ottoman Tripoli and Tunis. Approaching this project with a regional lens allows this research to challenge the historiographical perception that North Africa was a periphery of the Ottoman world, and that its coastlines were the southern periphery of the Mediterranean region. Rather, it argues that for as incomplete as Mediterranean history is without a thorough examination of North Africa, North African history in turn cannot be understood without examining the Sahara and the region’s connections with the Sahel. By reframing the concept of frontier space in our understanding of empire, this work takes zones of contact that have been traditionally seen as marginal and situates them at the center of the narrative. Changing this perspective allows us to better contextualize how Ottoman power structures ran both vertically between the imperial center, the periphery and beyond, but also horizontally— across the seas and the sands of North Africa, and across the divides of the provinces: Egypt, Tripoli, and Tunis. In doing so, this dissertation re- conceptualizes our understanding of what is ‘marginal’ and blurs the lines between the sea and the sand of African Mediterranean. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History First Advisor Eve M. Troutt Powell Keywords Corsairs, Egypt, North Africa, Ottoman Empire, Tripoli, Tunis Subject Categories History | Islamic World and Near East History This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1761 COMMANDEERING EMPIRES: EGYPT, TRIPOLI, AND TUNIS IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION, 1774-1835 Mukaram Hhana A DISSERTATION in History Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Supervisor of Dissertation Signature: ______________________ Eve M. Troutt Powell Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of History, SAS Associate Dean for Graduate Studies Graduate Group Chairperson Signature: _______________________ Benjamin Nathans Ronald S. Lauder Endowed Term Associate Professor of History, Graduate Group Chair Dissertation Committee: Peter Holquist Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet Associate Professor of History Robert I. Williams Term Professor of History Alan Mikhail Professor of History, Yale University Msdfasd This dissertation is dedicated to my grandmother Amine, my aunt Layla and my mother Fayzeh—whose liveliness, fortitude and tenacity of purpose represents the very best of the matriarchy from which I descend. ii Msdfasd ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would have not seen the light of day if it were not for the support of countless individuals, organizations and institutions. My adviser, Eve Troutt Powell has been a tremendous guide. I would neither be a historian of North Africa if it were not for her training nor would the dissertation you are reading exist. Thanks is also due to Peter Holquist who pulled a reluctant graduate student of North Africa and the Middle East into the world of Russian imperial studies, and made her all the better of a scholar for it. I am also grateful to Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, with whom I shared countless lovely coffees and chats long before she joined my committee and made my work all the more theoretically and thematically rigorous. I am indebted to Alan Mikhail, who in addition to his perennial encouragement became the point-person for my many questions on Egyptian-Ottoman history. This work is stronger for his patient advice and suggestions. I would also like to thank both the Department of History and Tracey Turner in the Graduate Division of the University of Pennsylvania. It seemed that over the course of my research, there was barely a place I visited that did not have an archive shut down, relocate, endure a political crisis, or become the source of countless bureaucratic setbacks. I am forever thankful for all the help in navigating these often unpredictable, and almost always murky, waters. I am also grateful to the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), Sevim Yılmaz Önder of Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi, the American Research Council of Egypt, (ARCE,) the Penfield Dissertation Research Fellowship and the Huntington Library for the support that their organizations have offered my research. Similarly, I would like to thank the archivists of the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi in Istanbul, the Dar ul-Watha'iq lil-Tarikhiyya al-Qawmiyya in Cairo, the Ministère des Affaires étrangères at La Courneueve, the British National Archives in Kew, the National Archives in Washington D.C., and the Huntington Library for making my research in their institutions as enjoyable as it was rewarding. I am also grateful to hocalarim Dr. İlhan Şahin and Jack Snowden for making the world of the Ottoman corsairs all the more alive and to Jack for my time in Istanbul all the more enjoyable. My comrades: Edna Bonhomme, Linda Jane Buckle, Harun Buljina, Jacob Feygin, Zoe Griffith, Erica Hughes, Victor Petrov, Julia Phillips Cohen, Elyse Semerdjian and Sarah Sussman, thank you for your encouragement and friendship. My heartfelt gratitude for my family: my aunt and uncle, Mona and Jean-Pierre Tournez in Paris, thank you for your consummate hospitality and generosity. Je vous remercie beaucoup de votre hospitalité et de générosité. To my brother Tarek and his unruly brood of joyful noisemakers, thank you for bringing life to the celebration. Christina Saenz-Alcantara and Michał Wasiucionek, you’ve both been my editors, my allies, my advocates, and cheered me on when I was too exhausted to hear, much less to listen. Michał, my work on Russian sources would be non-existent if not for your unselfish and careful translation. Your self-deprecating humor and ability to listen remain unparalleled. I am forever thankful for your enduring support and camaraderie. Christina you’re more a sister than a friend. No one else could drag me so happily to the outer realms of suburbia for the chance to see them and share in their lives—or reciprocally, tolerate my atrociously kitschy taste in furniture while I researched. Gracias por todo, Crissy. I’m exceedingly lucky to count not only Palestinians, Lebanese, Frenchmen and Arab-Americans in my family, but also Poles, Chicanas and Peruvians. iii Msdfasd ABSTRACT COMMANDEERING EMPIRES: EGYPT, TRIPOLI, AND TUNIS IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION, 1774-1835 Mukaram Hhana Eve M. Troutt Powell This dissertation interrogates our conceptualizations of space, our understanding of the topographical borders of historical regions, and our historiographical depiction of the margins between imperial administration and local autonomy the Ottoman Maghreb. It does so by juxtaposing the history of corsairs, Bedouins, desert caravans and empires in turn-of-the-nineteenth-century North Africa. Further, it examines the horizontal connections among the North African provinces and their corresponding systems of governance. The central premise of this dissertation is that one cannot fully understand the policy and affairs of turn of the nineteenth century Egypt, or the Porte, without a firm grasp on the historical context of neighboring Ottoman Tripoli and Tunis. Approaching this project with a regional lens allows this research to challenge the historiographical perception that North Africa was a periphery of the Ottoman world, and that its coastlines were the southern periphery of the Mediterranean region. Rather, it argues that for as incomplete as Mediterranean history is without a thorough examination of North Africa, North African history in turn cannot be understood without examining the Sahara and the region’s connections with the Sahel. By reframing the concept of frontier space in our understanding of empire, this work takes zones of contact that have been traditionally seen as marginal and situates them at the center of the narrative. Changing this perspective allows us to better contextualize how Ottoman power structures ran