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Famines: At the Interface of Nature and Society Read chapter Read first chapter

2018 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

6. Food Insecurity and Political Instability in the Southern Red Sea Region During the ‘Little Ice Age,’ 1650–1840

Author : Steven Serels

Published in: Famines During the ʻLittle Ice Ageʼ (1300-1800)

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

The Southern Red Sea Region (SRSR) is an environmentally unified geographic area whose natural features historically supported a closely-linked, multifaceted socio-economic. The SRSR is currently divided between Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia (Somaliland), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan. In the seventeenth century, the SRSR entered a two-hundred-years-long mega-drought that precipitated a protracted food crisis. Since states traditionally played key roles in the redistribution of food resources in the SRSR, this food crisis resulted in a region-wide political crisis at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Centralized states in Sudan and Ethiopia collapsed. The Yemeni Imamate lost control of the rural countryside. In Arabia, the drought facilitated the first Saudi-Wahhabi military conquest of Ottoman territory, which resulted in the first period of Saudi-Wahhabi control over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. This far reaching political crisis fundamentally changed the SRSR socio-economic system.

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previous chapter Climate and Famines in the Czech Lands Prior to AD 1500: Possible Interconnections in a European Context
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Footnotes
1
For a survey of the uncovered ruins of ‘Aydhab, see Peacock and Peacock (2008, 32–48).
 
2
Once enslaved, these famine victims were formally treated like any other slaves belonging to the Negus. However, in practice their treatment was fundamentally different, as these famine-slaves did not occupy the same roles as slaves brought from distant lands. They remained in their homes and on their land. As slaves, their new and central obligation to Sahle Sellase was to provide three days labor every three months. Even this did not prove permanent. When the acute crisis abated, these famine-slaves no longer needed direct support from Sahle Sellase, so they began agitating for a return to the status quo ante. Ultimately, the Negus emancipated approximately 4700 of his enslaved subjects (Pankhurst 53–55).
 
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Metadata
Title
Food Insecurity and Political Instability in the Southern Red Sea Region During the ‘Little Ice Age,’ 1650–1840
Author
Steven Serels
Copyright Year
2018
Book
Famines During the ʻLittle Ice Ageʼ (1300-1800)

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-54341-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-54337-6

Copyright Year: 2018

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54337-6_6