Persian famine of 1870–1872

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The Great Persian famine of 1870–1872 was a period of mass starvation and disease in Iran (Persia) between 1870 and 1872 under the rule of Qajar dynasty.

The best documented famine in the Iranian history, it affected almost the whole country, however some cities managed to avoid the catastrophe, including Shahrud, Kerman and Birjand.^[2]

Causes and contributing factors[]

Xavier de Planhol comments that the famine was a result of "combined climatic catastrophes made worse by poor administration and the human factors".^[2]

New York Herald attributed the famine to an increase in the price of cotton which made the farmers abandon farming for grains and plant cotton in its place.^[3]

Shoko Okazaki maintains that the two consecutive years of severe drought was the principal factor and rejects that the increase in production of opium and cotton contributed to the famine. She also blames "senior bureaucrats, landlords, grain dealers and high-ranking religious officials who engaged in hoarding and market manipulation".^[4] Cormac �� Gráda endorses the latter reason.^[5]

Death toll[]

There is no agreement among scholars as to the total number of deaths during the famine, although there was a considerable decline in Iran's population.^[6]

Among contemporary observers, Frederic John Goldsmid gave the figure of 0.2–0.3 million deaths, while Oliver St. John put the total loss at 0.5 million. James Bassett suggested that 3 million lives were lost and Henry Walter Bellew who was travelling in Iran in 1872, cited at least 1.5 million had perished. Badaye-negar, a Persian scholar of the time, estimated 2.5 million deaths.^[6]

Gad G. Gilbar's estimation of 1.5 million deaths, which could be between 15% to 20–25% of the population, is acknowledged by Shoko Okazaki and Charles P. Melville.^[1][4] Fereydun Adamiyat calculates the death toll around 2 million deaths. Ahmad Seyf attributes a decline in the estimated population from 10 million in 1850 to 6 million in 1873, to the catastrophe, and implies that at least 4 million had perished.^[6] The New York Herald of July 29, 1871, refers to the "Unparalleled Mortality" of the famine and adds "Persia Already Half Depopulated".^[7] And the famine had continued for at least another year.

The ultimate extent of the depopulation is indicated by the proportion of empty and abandoned houses following the famine. A British traveler passing through the town of Kazeroon in south Iran in 1875, had noted that of the 2,700 houses, only 1,000 (37%) were occupied and the remaining 63% were devoid of inhabitants. The author states that the 37% occupancy rate "is about the usual proportion throughout Persia."^[8]

The "unparalleled mortality" of the famine is also reflected in the population statistics. The population in 1800 of the territory that comprises present day Iran is reported at 6.3 million. The article adds that immigration of Moslems from the Caucasus fleeing Russian expansion and possible ethnic cleansing had greatly contributed to Iran's population growth in the nineteenth century, and this migration had accelerated in the 1860s.^[9] The 1841 population is reported at 11.2 million by John Ramsey MacCulloch, nearly double that of 1800.^[10] The 1865 population was stated at 16 million by Iranians.^[11] As stated in Seyf (2010), the post-famine population in 1873 had declined to 6 million, unchanged from 1800. That is 73 years of population growth had been wiped out by famine. It was "possibly the greatest calamity in the recorded history of modern Iran."^[12]

References[]

Footnotes[]

Sources[]

Further reading[]

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