CAS Guest Lecture. The Mormon Colony Scheme in the late Ottoman Empire: Attempts to Alleviate the Abject Poverty facing Armenian Converts to Mormonism (1898-1928)

From the early 1880s till the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) sent dozens of missionaries to the Middle East in order to proselyte and establish the Mormon Church in the region as part of its Millenarian aspirations to prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ through preaching its “Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ” and commence the gathering of Israel. During this almost 40-year period hundreds of Ottoman-Armenians converted to Mormonism with congregations in Aintab, Aleppo, Zara, and Maraş. This presentation discusses the struggles faced by the Mormon Armenian community, particularly in terms of providing for its basic necessities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the community’s attempts to ameliorate these dire circumstances. Deeply impoverished due to awful economic circumstances within the broader Ottoman Empire, but also exacerbated by persecution from the Ottoman government and local Armenians, the LDS Armenian community and its Missionary leaders attempted various schemes, such as carpet weaving, textile manufacture, agriculture, and several abortive attempts to establish a “Mormon Colony” in the Holy Land. This presentation investigates these attempts at self-sufficiency and communalism within the context of growing Western Imperialism in the Middle East and how this intersected with the Millenarian aspirations of the Mormon Missionaries and their Protestant competitors.

Bio:
Kent Schull is an Associate Professor of Ottoman and Modern Middle East History and Director of both the Center for Middle East and North Africa Studies (CMENAS) and The Ottoman Demographic, Social, and Family History Research Group at Binghamton University, SUNY. He is a twice Fulbright Scholar to Turkey. He is also a book series editor for Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire. His most recent book is Missionary to the Middle East: The Journals of Joseph Wilford Booth, co-authored with James Toronto and published by Brigham Young University's Religious Studies Center in 2024. His research engages the history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East, particularly criminal justice, Missiology, and Forced Migration in the MENA region.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact armenianstudies@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.