166 chapter four
tax-payers.91 the inevitable result of bleeding away such subjects could
only be that the ulus became dangerously anaemic.92
a general survey of Jochid foreign trade reveals that despite these
unwelcome consequences, the khans at Sarai rarely interrupted Italian
merchant activity (implicitly, the export slave trade), only a few times in
the whole history of the Mongol state. thus the question is, what prompted
toqta to stop this well-established phenomenon in 1307?
the arab sources suggest that the khan’s intention was to stop an ille-
gal practice, reporting that the Genoese had been “kidnapping” children
from the steppe-land and that this was why they were expelled, in an act
which they call revenge.
With only minor variations which do more to confuse than clarify
the question, this explanation has become part of the historiographical
tradition.93 Whatever supporting arguments are then introduced often
91 for a synthetic survey, cf. Balard, Romanie, II, pp. 804 ff.; for more on the slave trade
as such, see above, p. 154.
92 there is a discussion of the problem and a brief bibliography at ‛umarī/Lech, pp. 299,
300 note 28; it is easy enough to judge how severe the effects on the Mongol state were
when we consider the size and strength of the Mamluk army, entirely made up of slaves
from the steppe. for two and a half centuries, the army preserved the greatest Muslim
power in the Near east from all threat, including sustained attacks by the crusaders and
Mongols.
93 heyd, Histoire, II, p. 170, says that the khan learnt (ayant appris) that the Genoese
were taking Mongol children to sell, and thus expelled them. this formulation rather
implausibly suggests that the khan of the Golden horde had only just learned of the exis-
tence of the slave trade, a position for which there is no documentary basis. Brătianu,
Recherches, p. 283: after assuming sole control, toqta “fit aussitôt sentir aux colonies
italiennes de crimée le poids de son autorité, en pretendant interdire le commerce des
esclaves, qui lui enlevait chaque année un grand nombre de sujets.” In this instance, the
“aussitôt” actually represents no less than six years, which excludes the possibility that
there is any real causal link between toqta’s seizure of power and the expulsions. Spuler,
Horde, p. 84, suggests that the khan threw out the Genoese “da ihm ihre Zusammenarbeit
mit tabriz und ihr ständiger Kinderraub zu lästig wurde” though we do not learn from this
explanation why these two offences would suddenly become intolerable for Sarai in 1307,
when the Genoese had already been behaving this way for more than a quarter century.
Nor does the link that Balard, Romanie, I, p. 151, suggests make much sense: “La prépon-
dérance génoise à l’embouchure du Don devient si éclatante que les khans s’inquiètent.
prenant prétexte des excès de la traite pratiquée par les Génois au détriment des popula-
tions qui lui étaient assujetties, le khan tokhtu fit arrêter en 1307 les marchands génois qui
se trouvaient à Saraï, confisqua leurs biens puis vint assiéger caffa”, a hypothesis which
he props up with the unsupported conjecture that the slave trade had begun to affect the
“ruling minority” in the state; he draws a distinction between these “Mongols” and the
mass of “tartar” subjects, at a time when it is attested that the initial small cadre of con-
querors was well assimilated into the local population, which were cuman rather than any
other group (‛umarī/Lech, p. 141). Grekov, Yakubovskiy, Orda, pp. 116–117, and Berindei,
o’riordan, “Venise,” p. 246, note the information from the sources with no further com-
ment. Schmid, Beziehungen, p. 248, is the exception here in noting a causal connection