Jaffa before the Nakba: Palestine’s Thriving City, 1799–1948

Until the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, Jaffa was a thriving Palestinian port city on the Eastern Mediterranean, the economic, cultural and political hub of Palestine. Since then, most of the city’s neighbourhoods have been demolished and its indigenous population have become refugees in different countries.This chapter traces in broad lines the major changes in Jaffa’s society, economy, culture and infrastructure from 1799 until the eve of the Nakba, using primary sources, especially the sijillat (records) of the Shari’a court, the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul and secondary sources. It will move from the massacre of an estimated 4,000 people committed by Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops when they briefly occupied the city in 1799, through Jaffa’s slow but resilient recovery under its famous Ottoman Mamluk governor Muhammad Abu Nabbut (r. 1805-1817). Under his rule the future economic bases of the city were laid, including agriculture and in particular citriculture - the oranges for which Jaffa would become famous.In charting these political and economic changes, the chapter builds a picture of the thriving city of Jaffa which existed until 1948 and which was at the heart of the social and intellectual life of Palestine.