Situated in a forested area, the administrative seat, the fortressed town of Kangal, was famous for its wheat, honey and dairy products. According to the Index Anatolicus, the toponym should be Kángara, “which is among the fortified positions of the Paulician rebels based in Divrigi“.[1]
Population
According to Armenian sources, the population of the kaza in 1910 was 37,801, of which 18,250 were Armenians, 16,885 were Turks, and the rest were Kurds and Circassians.[2]
According to the statistics of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople there resided 7,339 Armenians in nine of the 132 localities of the kaza before the First World War, maintaining seven churches, one monastery and 8 schools with an enrolment of 1,152 students.[3] In the administrative seat Kangal lived an Armenian majority of 3,000 inhabitants.[4]
Armenian settlements
Boz Armud (Poz Armut) [Bozarmut, pop. 224], Gomsur [Komsur, pop. 343], Kangal, Karaören (Karyoren), Maghara [Magahar; pop. 951], Manjalik [Mancılık, pop. 1,919], Mursal, Yarahisar [Yarhisar, pop. 203], Ulaş [pop. 2,000].[5]
Destruction
In the end of May and in the beginning of June 1915, adult males were arrested and executed by the men of the head of Sivas’ bandit squadron, Kütükoğlu Hüseyin, who personally oversaw the execution of some 100 men at Daşlı Dere.[6] In the large village of Mancılık, “one of the notables, Stepan Hekimian, was even nailed to a cross and paraded through the village.”[7]
3,088 Armenians of the kaza Kangal were deported during the 1915 genocide according to some Armenian sources.[8] On 14 June 1915, “(…) around 5,000 Armenians of the kaza are deported to the Syrian desert via Malatia, Adıyaman, and Suruç, by order of kaymakam Muhammad Ali Bey.”[9] “Only the 2,000 inhabitants of Ulash [Ulaş] were temporarily spared, so that they could bring in the wheat harvest needed by the army. In Septemer 1915, they were deported in turn toward the Syrian desert by way of Malatia, Adiyaman, and Suruç, on orders from the kaymakam, Mohammed Ali Bey, who hold his post until 11 March 1917.”[10]