In search of haven and seeking fortune : the economic role of Ottoman Armenian migrants in British-occupied Egypt (1882-1914).

Abstract

When referring to economic activities in Egypt most historians highlight the role played by other non-Muslim minorities, namely, Greeks and Jews, while passingly mentioning the fact that Armenians were at most neighborhood shopkeepers – a term used by the British Agent and Consul-General, Lord Cromer. This thesis reconstructs the multi-layered economic ventures of Ottoman Armenian migrants in British-occupied Egypt. By stark contrast to the early nineteenth century, when they figured principally as high government employees, the new immigrants, comparatively larger in number, but still constituting a small proportion of the total Egyptian population, eventually featured prominently in the many segments of the Egyptian economy not, to be sure, massively in agriculture, but certainly evident in the services sectors, as restaurateurs, medics, lawyers, architects, photographers, journalists, jewelers and, more modestly, craftsmen, mechanics, tailors, and shoemakers. They even ventured into an economic realm which, at the time was regarded as a European-Western preserve, namely industry, represented by their great successes in cigarette production for local and international consumption.