Economic Exploitation and Creation of Dependency of the Nokhchi (1617–1622)

The occupation administration of the Tsardom of Muscovy in the town of Terki used the subjugated Nokhchi (Okochans) to carry out state tasks while artificially keeping them in a state of economic dependency. In their petition to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the Okochan murza Kokhostrov Biytemirov and the serving Okochans of the town of Terki reported constant coercion into military action: «against your sovereign's disobedient ones we fight, we, your sovereign's kholops, not sparing our heads; for you, sovereign, we shed our blood and lay down our heads»^[1]. At the same time, the metropole deliberately withheld basic subsistence resources from the Indigenous population for five years. A memorandum from the Ambassadorial Prikaz to the Prikaz of the Kazan Palace records: «the sovereign's grain allowance for the past years — for the 125th, and the 126th, and the 127th, and the 128th, and the 129th year — was not given to them»^[1]. The result was the exhaustion of the population: Biytemirov reported that they «have been left without grain, have utterly perished from hunger and every hardship and have fallen, sovereign, into great debt, and we are dying a death of starvation together with our wives and children»^[1]. To resolve the crisis, the leader of the Nokhchi set out for Moscow, but perished while returning to the Caucasus. A memorandum from the Ambassadorial Prikaz states that «Kokhostrov-murza together with his man drowned in the Oka River»^[1], while representatives of the metropole resolved to confiscate the property of the deceased: «his clothing and all his belongings were taken into our treasury»^[1]. The delegate's death was used to further curtail the rights of the Nokhchi. In a petition submitted to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the Okochan murza Chepan Kokhostrov indicated that in the incident «the sovereign's charter of grant was lost together with him»^[1], as a result of which the occupation administration artificially lowered the status of his family in order to impose obligations upon it: an official extract of the Ambassadorial Prikaz records that the heirs were «made equal in everything with the Okochans, with the plowing people, and carts and wagons are taken from them», whereas previously from them «no taxes whatsoever had been taken»^[1].