Mountain Contractors: Ottoman Nature Management and Resistance

This paper discusses a group of professionals, who organized wood production on the mountains and transported them from the mountains to the valleys and cities in the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period. These men were called "mountain contractors" (dağ mimarı), emphasizing their organizational and entrepreneurial capacities, or "mountain engineers" (dağ mühendisi), emphasizing their technical skills. Mountain contractors were often from mountain communities with profound knowledge on botany (the qualities of trees), the mountain topographies, as well as methods for wood cutting and cleaning. However, the most important aspect of their work is to transport wood to timber workshops in the cities, where the wood was processed into beams and planks for house construction and shipbuilding. The transportation of wood from the mountains to the cities required a command on transportation technology and logistics, including using rivers and canals for passages, as well as organizational capacity. The mountain contractors worked with sub-contractors from mountaineers and river people, who provided labor, carrier animals and rafts. However, the mountain management, especially during the time of high demand for timber, often triggered conflicts between the mountain managers and human and non-human mountain inhabitants. As the deforestation created risks of destitution for the mountain communities, the local woodmen often sabotaged the wood transportation. Bandits, who took refuge on the woods, participated in resistances of the mountain communities. Deforestation caused migration (or onslaught) of wild animals to the human settlements. Under these conditions, the empire asked mountain contractors to suppress the resistance of humans and animals, as part of their logistical activities. As a result, the mountain management became a belligerent activity against human and non-human communities of the mountains. The paper examines some episodes of such pre-modern environmental crises around mountain management and forms of resistance