Unit 6 SAQ 6.6 - 1 AMSCO AP WORLD - Withrow

Due to its structural weakness, the local silk industry could not withstand foreign competition from the silk of Japan and China and later on the introduction of artificial fabrics. It is also argued by many historians that the decision of many Christians to emigrate from the mountain was also stirred by increasing urbanization, the emergence of a middle class, and the fear of conscription in the Ottoman army.

Commenting on the post-1860 generation of peasants, Akram Khater [wrote]:

'Having grown in relative prosperity, these peasants were facing limitations that threatened to send them economically a few steps backward. At the end of the 1880s silk was no longer the golden crop it had been ten or twenty years before. At the same time, rising land prices and shrinking inheritance combined to make the economic future bleak. So it was that many peasants arrived at the year 1887 with a sense of malaise [uneasiness]. They did not have much land, and what little they had did not promise to make them a 'good' living.... Although some villagers did migrate seasonally to neighboring cities (like Aleppo and Bursa), these areas provided limited opportunities as they were experiencing their own economic crises.... These drawbacks made a number of peasants look for other ways out of their dilemma namely, how to make enough money quickly to guarantee their status as landowners and not slip back into the ranks of the landless laborers. About the only option that appeared on the economic horizons was emigration.'"