Settle the Gypsies!

Let's say that the Roma people somehow stop being nomads and became more like the Jews, not that settled but not nomads. First of all, I think that the gypy population would be much larger. What do you guys think? The Romani people would be more politically important?
 
Actually, I think there would be pogroms like the commenter says below: if you want to see a really interesting article on some of the racist attitudes towards gypsies, see this fascinating New York Times article that made coffee spout out my nose when I read it ten years ago:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...931A35754C0A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Money quote:

''This is not a racial problem. It is a problem of dealing with decent and indecent people.''

The question of course you have to ask when you read this article is how did Gypsies economically and socially get into this position, and how did the social exclusion by other groups within Europe constribute to the situation.

Enjoy.


No, they'd just be the object of large scale pograms like the Jews were.
 
Yes, on the other hand you can build reserves to store your roma that all well acceptable from the american public...
 
Contrary to popular belief, most Roma (gypsies) - ie the East European ones - are settled and have "always" been. Their position in Balkan towns and villages are thus not that unlike the Jews, except that they occupy a far lower social niche, being rag-and-paper pickers, junk traders, beggars, musicians etc.

In addition, Romanian gypsies have a long history as slaves. They were brought to Romania for that purpose and bought and sold at markets not very different from Black americans, until manumitted in the mid- 19th century.
 
Most of the traveling gypsies are not Romani (the ones descended from South Asians). They are Travelers, tiny ethnic groups descended from outlaws, vagabonds, rogues, and generally people unwelcome to settle down but allowed to wander.
 
Most of the traveling gypsies are not Romani (the ones descended from South Asians). They are Travelers, tiny ethnic groups descended from outlaws, vagabonds, rogues, and generally people unwelcome to settle down but allowed to wander.

Actually there's a large number of groups of different types, and that changes depending on the country you're in. In Eastern Europe they tend to be Roma and Sinti, but in places like Britain, it's more Irish travellers, who have less of a unique culture and more uncertain heritage.

They'd likely be a different situation to the Jews. Jews were resented because of their wealth, due to their involvemenet in financial activities and talented business acumen. Resentment towards travellers is more towards things like aggressive begging, littering, and perceived higher crime. In more recent times in the UK, there's a lot of tension due to the tendency for Traveller groups to concrete over protected countryside, openly flouting legal restrictions, and then using the courts to bog down the removal of such building for years.
 
Balkans

I think the most likely area for a compact gypsy settlement that could form a core for a state would be somewhere in the Balkans including Transylvania and European Turkey, although even this borders on ASB.

Pro: The Balkans have always been a hotchpotch of ethnic groups. There is always room for one more, no matter how exotic. The area also lacks the political stability that Western Europe developed in the middle ages, where today's states are present in some form at least from the eleventh century. Instead, multiethnic empires rose and fell all the way until the Ottoman conquest - indeed, ironically the Ottomans can be said to have finally given the peninsula peace and stability. This instability was part of the reason for a rather low population in the region, meaning that a settlement should not be impossible at some time.

Con: I might be wrong here, but Roma seem to lack an agricultural tradition. In order for this to work we need gypsy peasants. They also dont seem to have too many warriors to form an aristocracy.

As a former student of Balkan history it could be fun to try and flesh out a timeline here, if anyone else would be interested.
 
In other words, my first question is: Are there any aspects of Roma/Sinti culture or customs that would make farming difficult and which seem to have been there from the beginning as opposed to caused by centuries of segregation and to some extent self-segregation? Unlike the Jews they have usually adopted the dominant religion, which means that there would be no outside regulations banning them from aquiring and/or farming land.
 
This is a crazy thought; could the Ottomans, especially later once nationalism began to come into prominence, have possibly encouraged large groups of Eastern European Roma fleeing pogroms to convert to Islam and immigrate to their territories in the Balkans? This would be in order to dilute the local ethnic groups and make the region easier to control. A similar plan could be enacted for the Jews fleeing pogroms
 
I don't see why they would want to move there or convert, nor why the Ottomans would try to get them to. They could have forcibly crushed the Jews and Christians of the Balkans but prefered to keep them aronud so they could enslave and overtax them.
 
You could potentially see them settled in the, relatively poor, Balkan interior - what is now Macedonia and western Bulgaria - which would have the the bonus for Istanbul of weakening the Bulgarian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Greek nationalists movements in those areas.
 
What good would that do them? Importing a few hundred thousand people is hardly going to make people happier, and if even the Albanians were planning independence I am not sure what good connecting them together would do.
 
The Ottomans were never particularly interested in making converts, preferring to rule with/through Orthodox/Armenian/Jewish elites, known as the Millet system. At times this also came close to recognizing various nations of the empire.

As far as I know, forced mass conversions only happened twice: In the Rhodope mountains of southern Bulgaria where the Sultan often spent his summers and desired to be served by Muslims, and in parts of Albania in order to stop/prevent the many rebellions there.

Thus, while the idea of inviting a large group of people to settle in the empire is not ASB at all, there is no reason why they should be made to convert. A very similar invitation took place when Spanish Jews were invited to settle around 1500 (most of them settling in Saloniki/Solun which had a Jewish majority up until WWII). A similar invitation would not be unlikely before the Ottoman conquest either. The area was regularly depleted by wars, and a few hundred thousand or more wishing to settle would probably be welcomed by local rulers.

However, all of this is likely to only produce a higher Roma population living in more or less the same conditions unless we can create an area of Roma farmers and villagers. Not to sound "Blut und Boden", but the presence of farmers create stronger ties to the land than other occupations, a sense of "this is the land of my ancestors" while Gypsies and/or Jews have traditionally lived more like eternal "guests" who will pack up and leave when conditions deter.
 
Counterpoint maybe; would a 'Dalit freedom' by conversions-style movement start? maybe if the Gypsies keep seeing oppressions around from christians.. maybe a leader would say 'stop being fools, if we drop this 'religion of inferiority' and join the more enlighted empire by muslimhood'...

excuse if I sound insulting or dumb or anything, but I could see a leader of the Roms making maybe this equation - "better be a damn muslim and thoericaly egal, than...'
 
They might as well just convert to Christianity or simply settle down somewhere and stop stealing stuff.

Giysqun: Read my former post. Most gypsies in Europe are settled. And since they generally follow the majority religion, most are Christians with the exception of those descending from the "deep Balkans" (Kosovo, South Serbia, Macedonia, European Turkey) who are partially muslim.
 
Giysqun: Read my former post. Most gypsies in Europe are settled. And since they generally follow the majority religion, most are Christians with the exception of those descending from the "deep Balkans" (Kosovo, South Serbia, Macedonia, European Turkey) who are partially muslim.

We are discussing the Ottomans, and had they settled down for the most part before the last hundred years? If not it is not related to the subject at hand.
 
Yes, they were living more or less like today. Settled in towns and villages, some doing various menial jobs, many were craftsmen, others begging or being professional musicians. The exception was Romania where they were imported as slaves.
 
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