Slaves Holding Slaves: Mükâtebe Contracts, Velâ and a Probate Inventory in the Seventeenth-Century Crimean Khanate

Abstract

This article aims to reveal some aspects of relationships between former slaves and their ex-owners in light of seventeenth-century Crimean qadi court records. It elaborates on a number of terms that indicate the social and legal status of slaves in the Crimean Khanate and analyzes a former slave probate inventory. In addition, the paper also examines the phenomenon of the mükâtebe contract in the Crimean Khanate context which allowed slaves to hold slaves; it thus seeks to provide new perspectives on the exercising of the mükâtebe. The paper considers how social fluidity affected the lives of slaves, explores the question of whether manumitted slaves actually attained the same status as the freeborn, and, finally, traces the ways in which dependency relationships evolved between freed former slaves and the slaves held by these latter.