Vol. 1 No. 1 (2024)
Research

The Sociopolitical Impact of a Natural Disaster: The Snow Disaster of the Earth-Rat Year (1828) in Northwestern Tibet

PDF HTML
  • Palden Gyal
Palden Gyal
Columbia University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3197/whpcch.63842135436333

Published 2024-06-17

Keywords

  • Tibetan plateau,
  • heavy snowfall,
  • banditry,
  • migration

How to Cite

Gyal, P. (2024). The Sociopolitical Impact of a Natural Disaster: The Snow Disaster of the Earth-Rat Year (1828) in Northwestern Tibet. Climates and Cultures in History, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.3197/whpcch.63842135436333

Copyright (c) 2024 Palden Gyal

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Drawing on primary historical sources and secondary paleoclimatic data, this paper examines the significant ‘snow disaster’ (gangs skyon) that occurred in the Nagchu region of Northwestern Tibet in 1828. It places this event within the context of the ‘Little Ice Age’, a globally cold period. By analysing reports of natural disasters exchanged between the Ganden Podrang Government and local administrators, the paper argues that the snow disaster led to an ‘unprecedented’ ecological and economic crisis. This crisis resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of livestock and triggered various social and economic catastrophes. It also highlights that the Tibetan government responded by providing relief measures, including the suspension of yearly taxes. Notably, the Qing court extended substantial aid, facilitating the acquisition and replacement of livestock. This study underscores how a single climatic event can contribute to triggering various socio-political challenges in societies that are more exposed to vulnerabilities.

PDF HTML

References

  1. Bod kyi rang byung gnod ʼtsheʼi skor gyi lo rgyus yig tshags bdams sgrig [The Compilation of Selected Archival Documents on Natural Disasters in the Autonomous Region of Tibet, 1824–1956]. 2017. Lhasa: Bod Rang-skyong-ljongs Yig-tshags.
  2. Nag chu’i lo rgyus rig gnas dpyad gzhi’i rgyu cha bdams bsgrigs [The Compilation of Selected Sources on the History and Culture of Nagchu]. 2010. Lhasa: bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang (abbreviated as NLRGD).
  3. Neige bu yuan dang an, gu ge 001037, 305000113, Digital Library of Qing Archives [Qing dai dang an jiansuo xitong], National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
  4. Rang byung gnod ‘tshe gangs skyon skor [Archival Materials Concerning Snowfall Natural Disasters]. 1987. Dorji Tsetan (ed.) Lhasa: bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang (abbreviated as RNGK).
  5. Qing dai Xizang di fang dang an wen xian xuan bian [Selected Materials from Local Archives of Tibet During the Qing Dynasty]. 2017. Vols. 1–8. Beijing: Zhongguo Zang xue chu ban she.
  6. Bao, Y. et al. 2003. ‘Late Holocene temperature fluctuations on the Tibetan Plateau’. Quaternary Science Reviews 22 (21–22) (2003): 2335–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-3791(03)00132-X.
  7. Bao et al. 2008. ‘Late Holocene monsoonal temperate glacier fluctuations on the Tibetan Plateau’. Global Planetary Change 60: 126e140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2006.07.035
  8. Brönnimann S. et al. 2019. ‘Last phase of the Little Ice Age forced by volcanic eruptions’. Nature Geoscience 12: 650–56. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0402-y
  9. Brook, T. 2023. The Price of Collapse: The Little Ice Age of and the Fall of Ming China, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  10. Brook, T. 2013. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  11. Di Cosmo, N. 2014. ‘Climate change and the rise of an empire’. The Institute for Advanced Study Newsletter.
  12. Degroot, D. 2018. The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age, and the Dutch Republic, 1560–1720. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  13. Duan, K. et al. 2004. ‘Low-frequency of southern Asian monsoon variability using a 295-year record from the Dasuopu ice core in the central Himalaya’. Geophysical Research Letters 31. https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GL020015
  14. Goldstein, M. and C. Beall. 1990. Nomads of Western Tibet: The Survival of a Way of Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  15. Li, Q. et al. 2011. ‘Pollen-inferred climate changes and vertical shifts of alpine vegetation belts on the northern slope of the Nyainqentanglha Mountains (central Tibetan Plateau) since 8.4 kyr BP’. The Holocene 21 (6): 939–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683611400218
  16. Herzschuh, U. et al. 2006. ‘A general cooling trend on the central Tibetan Plateau throughout the Holocene recorded by the Lake Zigetang pollen spectra’. Quaternary International 154–55: 113–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2006.02.005
  17. Oppenheimer, C. 2003. ‘Climatic, environmental and human consequences of the largest known historic eruption: Tambora volcano (Indonesia) 1815’. Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment 27 (2): 230–59. https://doi.org/10.1191/0309133303pp379ra
  18. Parker, Geoffrey. 2013. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt32bksk
  19. Petech, L. 1950. China and Tibet in the Early 18th Century: History of the Establishment of Chinese Protectorate in Tibet. Leiden: Brill.
  20. Shakya, T. 2015. ‘Ga rgya ‘gram nag: A bandit or a proto-rebel? The question of banditry as social protest in Nag chu’. In Roberto Vitali (ed.) Trails of the Tibetan Tradition, Papers for Elliot Sperling. Dharamsala: Amnye Machen Institute. pp. 359–76.
  21. Sun, X.J. et al. 1993. ‘Holocene palynological records in Lake Selincuo, Northern Xizang’. Acta Botanica Sinica 35: 943−50 (in Chinese with English abstract).
  22. Thompson, L.G. et al. 2000. ‘A high-resolution millennial record of the south Asian monsoon from Himalayan ice cores’. Science 289: 1916–19. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.289.5486.1916
  23. White, S. 2011. The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  24. White, S. 2014. ‘The real Little Ice Age’. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 44 (3): 327–52.
  25. Zhu, L. et al. 2008. ‘Environmental changes since 8.4 ka reflected in the lacustrine core sediments from nam co, central Tibetan plateau, China’. The Holocene 18 (5): 831–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683608091801