Abstract
Wherever you may live, you have probably heard of politicians promising tax reductions to certain groups. Despite the formal equality before the law which has been decreed in many nation-states worldwide, differences such as by religion or marital status remain and taxes are one issue to detect them. This holds even more true for empires of the (early) modern era, where subjects were not supposed to be ruled or treated equally. However, taxes have traditionally been analyzed by economic historians only, neglecting their social component. The proposed session shall discuss how imperial societies produced, organized and negotiated social differences between the subjugated populations by means of their tax systems
Therefore, the guiding question of the proposed section is: How did early modern imperial tax systems organize social difference and how were these differences negotiated in the imperial societies? The presentations in this session shall target two interrelated questions: (1) How did the systematic classification of people issued through the tax system influenced social categorizations such as ethnicity, class or gender? (2) How could the imperial subjects negotiate their categorization? What paths did they follow in this process of negotiation?
The payment of tax and labor services formed the core of the relations between empires and their subjects as they significantly influenced the income and labor force of all subjects. Thus, the research of these processes of production, organization and negotiation can lead to profound conclusions about social categorizations and the conception of, as well as the relationship between the state and society. To approach legislation, especially about fiscal topics, as well as the agency of the imperial subjects allows for an analysis of the interrelation between the meso level of imperial tax systems and the micro level of individual subjects. It is proposed that the fiscal categorizations show significant overlapping with social categorizations, such as ethnicity, class/status, gender and profession; whose historical formation continue to have effects until today.
Besides contributing to the theoretical discussion about social difference, conviviality and social categorizations, the proposed session also has a methodological aim. It shall ask how social difference can be analyzed from a fiscal point of view in (early) modern societies in and especially outside Europe and how imperial societies in diverging contexts can be compared and analyzed through different types of sources.
Henning Sievert (Heidelberg)
Privilegien und Untertanenrechte im privatisierten Steuerwesen des Osmanischen Reiches
Das Osmanische Reich reformierte im späten 17. Jahrhundert seine Steuerverwaltung und erlebte zugleich erhebliche Veränderungen in Politik, Verwaltung und Sozialstruktur. Daraus ergaben sich Konflikte in Fragen von Differenz und Zusammenleben im Imperium, die damit in Quellentexten sichtbar werden: Wem kamen welche Privilegien zu, welche Hierarchien und Kategorisierungen wurden anerkannt, reproduziert oder aufgelöst, was für ein Modus Vivendi war jeweils gangbar? Über normative Schriften hinaus sind hier Beschwerdepetitionen von herausragender Bedeutung, welche mit Schwerpunkt auf dem 18. Jahrhundert im Mittelpunkt dieses Beitrags stehen sollen.
Stephan Conermann (Bonn)
Differenz durch Rangvergabe? Eine kritische Betrachtung des mogulzeitlichen mansab-Systems
Der indische Historiker Abu l-Fazl Allami (gest. 1602) berichtet uns in seiner Chronik der Regierungszeit Akbars (reg. 1556-1605), dass jener der beste Herrscher aller Zeiten sei und in seiner Allweisheit auch eine vollkommen neue Administration eigeführt habe. Im Mittelpunkt dieses komplexen Gefüges stand die Vergabe von Rängen in einem (zum Teil) hierarchisch gegliederten System. Alle Ranginhaber, die zu militärischen Dienstleistungen verpflichtet waren, wurden von Akbar persönlich eingesetzt. Ihre Bezahlung erfolgte in der Regel durch die Vergabe eines vorher genau taxierten Landes, wobei ihnen diese Ländereien nicht gehörten, sondern sie nur ein Anrecht auf einen Teil der dort festgelegten Steuern hatten. In dem Vortrag wird untersucht, welche Konsequenzen diese Neuerungen für die Etablierung und Durchsetzung von Differenz innerhalb der mogulzeitlichen Nobilität hatten.
Ulrike von Hirschhausen (Rostock)
Von rechtlicher Differenz zu fiskalischer Gleichheit? Chinesische und britische Kaufleute im interimperialen Shanghai 1853-1911
In Shanghai trat die Diskrepanz zwischen imperialer Erwartung und lokaler Erfahrung auch im Steuersystem zu Tage. Briten, Amerikaner und Franzosen erzwangen hier seit den 1840er Jahren sogenannte Konzessionsviertel, in denen westliches Eigentumsrecht, Zivilrecht und eben auch Steuerrecht herrschte. Zwar suchten die chinesische ebenso wie die britische Regierung die räumliche Trennung von Chinesen und Briten durchzusetzen, doch die persönlichen, ökonomischen und fiskalischen Sonderrechte wirkten wie ein Magnet auf chinesische Flüchtlinge, Arbeitssuchende und Zuwanderer aller Art. Das Londoner Colonial Office hatte nur den lokalen Briten diese Rechte zugestanden, die sie indes an chinesische Partner und Mitarbeiter verkauften. Wachsende Gruppen chinesischer Kaufleute wurden zu ökonomischen Akteuren, die jetzt ebenso wie die Ausländer nur minimalen wirtschaftlichen und fiskalischen Regeln unterworfen waren. Die Attraktivität der interimperialen Enklaven ließ die von beiden Seiten geplante räumliche Segregation zwischen Europäern und Chinesen erodieren und erzeugte einen städtischen Kapitalismus, der sich ethnischer Differenzierung weitgehend entzog.
Raquel Gil Montero (Buenos Aires)
Who and how? Indigenous taxes during the 17th Century in Charcas (actual Bolivia)
In the Peruvian Viceroyalty, indigenous taxation changed over the years during colonial times. The Government of Viceroy Toledo is considered a starting point in this regard: according to his classification, there were two different types of tributaries, naturales and yanaconas. Naturales (later called originarios) were those living under ethnic authorities in indigenous villages that he organized. Yanaconas, on the other hand, were those living outside those villages, without ethnic ties. Originarios and yanaconas were obliged to pay taxes, although the amount was different. During the 17th century because of massive migrations, new tributary categories emerged and the old ones acquired new meanings. My presentation deals with those new categories and with intermingling or miscegenation that also influenced those new and old categories. The principal source of this analysis is a General Inspection from 1683, where all those new categories were present. One can also see different ways of taxation of collecting tributes and of interpreting the laws.
Sarah Albiez-Wieck (Köln)
Negotiating fiscal categorizations in colonial Peru and Mexico (New Spain)
The fiscal system in colonial Spanish America ordered social difference, especially with regard to the head tax called tribute. The presentation shows how the fiscal classifications of people determined their place in colonial society, and how the categorized people negotiated their classification in petitions to the colonial authorities. The analysis of these petitions has shown, hat there existed two types of people whose categorization were most frequently contested and put into question: those of people whose parents belonged to different categories (tentatively labelled as “mixed”) and those whose life – or those of their ancestors – was marked by migration (therefore tentatively labelled as “migrants”). The entanglement of legal and social categories and human movement will be analyzed in two cases that were both part of the same empire and subject to the same legislation but were nevertheless surprisingly different: colonial Mexico (New Spain); and Peru.
Ulrike Lindner (Köln)
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