| Jeddah massacre of 1858 | |
|---|---|
| Location | Jeddah, Ottoman Empire (Present-day Saudi Arabia) |
| Date | 15 June 1858 |
| Target | Christians |
Attack type | Massacre |
| Deaths | 21 Christian residents |
| Injured | 24 mostly Greeks |
| Perpetrators | Hadhramites |
The Jeddah massacre of 1858 as a massacre that took place in Jeddah in the then Ottoman Province of Hejaz on 15 June 1858. The massacre targeted Christians and resulted in the death of 21 people.
The Province of Hejaz had been in a tense situation since the Hejaz rebellion of 1855-1856, during which the sharif and ulema of Mecca had opposed the new anti-slave decree of 1854 proclaimed by of the Ottoman Governor as influenced by Westerners and contrary to Islamic law. [1] When the Firman of 1857 against the trade in African slaves was introduced, affecting the Red Sea slave trade, Hijaz was again disturbed by violent opposition, which caused the Hijaz Province to be excluded from obeying the law. [2] The anti-slavery policy, which had been introduced after Western pressure, caused hostility toward Westerners in Hejaz, and during the rebellion houses belonging to French and British proteges had been attacked during riots in Jeddah and Mecca. [3]
On 15 June 1858, 21 Christian residents of Jeddah, which was then an Ottoman town of 5,000 predominantly Muslim inhabitants, were massacred, including the French consul M. Eveillard and his wife, and the British vice-consul Stephen Page, by "some hundreds of Hadramites, inhabitants of Southern Arabia". 24 others, mostly Greeks, some "under British protection" plus the daughter of the French consul Elise Eveillard and the French interpreter M. Emerat, both badly wounded, escaped and took refuge, some by swimming to it, in the steam paddle wheel frigate HMS Cyclops. [4] [5] [6] [7]
Whereas The Church of England quarterly review (1858) suggested there could be a vague connection to the British suppression of the Indian Rebellion of 1857–1859, and The Spectator wrote that "A Sheik from Delhi is said to have instigated the massacre", [8] the Perth Gazette of 22 October 1858 extensively quoted an interview in the Moniteur of M. Emerat, the French dragoman (interpreter) and chancellor. According to him, the events were provoked by a commercial dispute which ended by the rehoisting of the British flag on an Indian ship and the hauling down of the Ottoman one, which provoked a riot. He added that the "agitators" actually resented the presence of non-Muslims "whose presence, in their eyes, defiled the sacred soil of the Hejaz". [4] [9]
The massacre was discussed in the British House of Commons on 12 and 22 July 1858. [10] [11]
According to The Church Review (1859), the Jeddah population of about 5,000 was "often much increased by the influx of strangers", "the inhabitants are nearly all foreigners, or settlers from other parts of Arabia". [5]
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The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Ottoman era in the history of Arabia lasted from 1517 to 1918. The Ottoman degree of control over these lands varied over these four centuries, with the fluctuating strength or weakness of the Empire's central authority.
The 1927 Treaty of Jeddah, formally the Treaty between His Majesty and His Majesty the King of the Hejaz and of Nejd and Its Dependencies was signed between the United Kingdom and Ibn Saud.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
‘Alī Pāshā ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Muḥammad was a sharif of the Awn clan who served as Emir and Grand Sharif of Mecca from 1905 until he was deposed in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908.
Abd al-Mutalib ibn Ghalib ibn Musa‘ad served three times as Emir and Grand Sharif of Mecca: First in 1827, then 1851 to 1856, and finally 1880 to 1881.
The Non-Muslim Cemetery is a cemetery in Jeddah in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. It is located on the King Fahd Branch Road, in Jeddah's Al-Balad district.
The Red Sea slave trade, sometimes known as the Islamic slave tradeArab slave trade, or Oriental slave trade, was a slave trade across the Red Sea trafficking Africans from the African continent to slavery in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East from antiquity until the mid-20th-century.
HMS Cyclops was a paddle wheel steam frigate built for the Royal Navy and launched in 1839 and taken out of service in 1861 and sold for breaking in January 1864. She saw action in the Syrian War in 1840 and the Crimean War in 1854, later being involved in laying the first Transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858.
The Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1880 also known as Anglo-Ottoman Convention for the suppression of the African traffic and Anglo–Ottoman Convention for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, was a treaty between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Ottoman Empire from 1880. The Convention addressed the slave trade of the Ottoman Empire, specifically the Red Sea slave trade of Africans across the Red Sea toward the Ottoman province of Hejaz.
The Firman of 1854, sometimes called the Prohibition of the Circassian and Georgian Slave Trade, refers to the Imperial Firman or Ferman (Decree) issued by Sultan Abdülmecid I in October 1854, prohibiting the slave trade in Circassian and Georgian slaves to the Ottoman Empire. It was specifically directed toward the Circassian slave trade in slave girls from the Caucasus, for sexual slavery as concubines in Ottoman harems. It did not ban slavery as such, only the trade in slaves. The decree was only enforced for four years.
The Firman of 1857, also referred to as the Prohibition of the Black Slave Trade, refers to the Imperial Firman or Ferman (Decree) issued by Sultan Abdülmecid I in 1857.
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