Olives and Bison: Scorched-Earth Colonial Policies in Palestine and the Great Plains

Olives, which are native to Northern Africa, Western Asia, and Southern Europe, have been cultivated for thousands of years. In the Levant specifically, olive production can be traced back to the Canaanite period around 5,000 years ago, although uniquely Palestinian agricultural practices arose in the Ottoman period. Unlike in the northern Levant, which saw increased feudalization with the emergence of āmirūna [kings], Palestine remained largely communal throughout Ottoman colonization, and political and economic organization was centered around tribal sheiks [chiefs] with the implementation of a tributary system. For a large portion of history in the Levant, the primary agrarian mode was the musha’ system, where a clan’s land use was rotated based on soil fertility and other natural factors to ensure an equivalency based on quality rather than quantity. This process was determined by young children who would play a game of “pick-up stones”  <a href="https://medium.com/@digiulio/olives-and-bison-scorched-earth-colonial-policies-in-palestine-and-the-great-plains-d3c12ee03487">Read More</a>