Demographic Movements in the Villages of the Hinterland of Middle Dalmatia in the 16th and at the Beginning of the 17th Century

Abstract

In the 16th Century the hinterland of the Middle Dalmatia had experienced very huge and important demographic changes. In the period of Ottoman invasion, according to data from the earliest Ottoman tax registeres, the area had become quite depopulated. But also, there was much more continuity in rural settlements than the historical researches, based on fragmentary findings from western sources, could revealed it. Returnings of the earlier native population from the pre-Ottoman period was quite often at the begining of the Ottoman rule. The same was the case with the reversal migrations of larger groups of returners from the Habsburgs or Venetian territories. The process of repopulation first started in the area around Biokovo and Neretva, and then in the other parts of the hinterland of the Middle Dalmatia. The processes of recolonization and repopulation were revealed by following enlargement of numbers of settlements called karye and by following changes in numbers of the Ottoman fiscal units called hane, in the Ottoman surveys thrue the 16th century. This research has shown that the rural landscape was characterized by disperse rural settlements. Also, the population had tendency of living in the small villages, with less than ten houses. Compact rural settlements were recorded only in afew area near the rivers Krka, Cetinaand Čikola, and also on Makarska coast.

Further, between 1520 and 1550 vacant villages were revitalized by intensive imigrations of pastoral Ortodox Vlach groups from the sancak of Hercegovina. The villages colonised by completely new population are probably those which had two names in the Ottoman tax registeres: one from the previous settlers and second from the newsettlers. Although, the Ottoman authorities initiated this migrations for military – defensive and economic reasons, some of this movements could be explained by great mobility of the Vlach groups in the eternal search for abetter position in the Ottoman timar and tax system. That could be the case with Bunjevci.

Detailed investigations has shown that the most part of the 16th Century represented a try of Ottoman authorities to repopulate and revive depopulated region. But, at the end of the 16th Century and especially at the begining of the 17th Century large migrations of the Vlachs groups on the Venetion teritory disrupted the demographic balans.