Uprisings of the Kyrgyz in 1850 - 1857.
In the summer of 1850, part of the Chuy Kyrgyz, rising up again to fight, attacked the fortification of Pishpek, from which the Kokand military garrison had temporarily departed. The siege of the fortification did not last long, as the military garrison soon returned. They did not allow the rebels to gain a foothold and occupy the besieged fortifications.
In the late 1850s, the nomads of Ketmen-Tube rose up. The cause of this, as everywhere, was the arbitrariness and violence of the khan's governor, as well as a sharp increase in the amount of taxes and levies imposed on the indigenous population. The leader of this uprising was a poor man named Sasyke. The driving forces of the uprising were the working masses. However, it also involved some notable figures, such as Ryskulbek and others. The number of participants in the uprising exceeded 400 people. Against them, 100 sipahis (cavalrymen) from the local Kokand fortress were sent. The confrontation between the rebels and the punitive detachment took place in the Tash-Moynok area. The poor men Kedaybay and Bayaly distinguished themselves in this encounter. As recalled by the old resident Toktosun-usta, born in 1855 in Ketmen-Tube, initially, the leader of the uprising Sasyke and one of the khan's sipahis went out to duel with spears (sayysh). Sasyke emerged victorious. He attacked the nearest associate of the commandant of the Kokand fortress with a spear in hand and successfully knocked him off his horse. Then the punishing forces fled. The participants of the uprising began to pursue them.
The rebels stormed the Kokand fortress, and the military garrison was destroyed. Although the uprising was successful, it did not lead to liberation from Kokand oppression. Its fruits were enjoyed by representatives of the feudal nobility. In particular, the largest manap Ryskulbek received the title of datkhi from the Kokand khan and effectively acted as his governor.
In 1851, a khan's detachment consisting of 7,000 armed men arrived in Pishpek. They again "subjugated the nomadic wild Kyrgyz of the Solto tribe around Chuy and took 600 horses from them for transport." However, the local population did not want to submit to the Kokand rulers. Part of the Sarbagysh tribe, inhabiting the eastern half of the Chuy Valley, also supported them. Several armed khan's military detachments were sent against the rebels. As noted in an archival document, Kokand punitive forces attacked the wild Kyrgyz of the Solto and Sarbagysh tribes, seizing all their cattle and horses. In the summer of 1856, a large punitive detachment was sent to punish the Sarbagysh tribe, which had refused to pay the zyaketa (tax), and the collection of this tax turned into outright robbery. The head of the punitive detachment, in addition to collecting taxes, forced the Sarbagysh to provide 2,000 horses as hostages, which he intended to take to the city of Kokand.
However, the brutal actions of the khan's punitive forces could not break the freedom-loving spirit of the indigenous population and keep them in a state of submission and obedience. On the contrary, the people became even more embittered and rose up for serious protests.
The uprising of the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz that arose in 1857 was distinguished by its massiveness and duration. It covered a significant part of the Great Horde, the Talas region, the lower half of the Chuy Valley, and some other areas of Turkestan. The first to rise up were the Kazakhs of the Kungrad tribe, who roamed near Chimkent. They were joined by other residents of the Great Horde and Kyrgyz herders inhabiting Talas and the lower part of the Chuy Valley.
This uprising was triggered by the intensification of feudal-khanist oppression in general, and the blatant arbitrariness and violence of the Tashkent hakim Mirza Akhmet, in particular. As noted by an eyewitness of the uprising, who was then a tax collector, Abu-Abey-dulla Muhammad, the mentioned hakim (the khan's governor — K.U.) expelled the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz from their native lands, forced them to pay him large sums of money, took bribes, and engaged in all sorts of extortion. Here is what Abu-Abey-dulla Muhammad, who knew the khan's hakim well, wrote: "For the same fields, for which under previous hakims the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz paid 100 tilly, Mirza Akhmet set the payment at 250 tilly, and in some places, by his order, the payment was increased three to four times. In a number of places, the Kazakhs sold all their harvest and livestock, but even that was not enough to pay the amount set by Mirza Akhmet. Then they sold their ten- to twelve-year-old daughters and gave the money to Mirza Akhmet. This could not fail to cause discontent among the indigenous population.
The immediate cause of the mentioned uprising was the sharp increase in the amount of zyaketa collected from Kazakh and Kyrgyz herders for the benefit of the Kokand khan and his officials.
In the autumn of 1857, the zyaketchi sent by the aforementioned khan's governor collected the zyaketa from the Kazakhs living in the Merke area with great cruelty. The tax collectors "began to act lawlessly and forcibly seize property from the population."
As emphasized by one of the pre-revolutionary authors - Abdi-Sattar-khan Kaziy, "the Kyrgyz refused to pay the zyaketa and killed the zyaketchi in various places." The uprising quickly spread and covered a significant part of Turkestan. Some representatives of the feudal nobility joined it. Some of them, in particular, the Kazakh elder Khudaybergen, tried to take control of the uprising.
The Kyrgyz and Kazakhs inhabiting the western part of the Chuy Valley defeated the khan's military detachment that accompanied the tax collectors and captured Kokand officials. As a sign of victory, they paraded the captives through the ails, showing them to the local residents and calling on the latter to fight more decisively against the rule of the Kokand khanate. The local influential figure Khudaybergen led the rebels. The commander and soldiers of the khan's detachment, which suffered defeat, were killed.
The rebellious Kazakhs and Kyrgyz surrounded the Auliye-Ata fortress, where the hated Mirza-Akhmet and other khan's officials, as well as the military garrison, were located; as noted by Sultan Nurekin A, "Mirza Akhmet could not pacify the discontented, he was forced to negotiate with them and satisfy their demands," i.e., to abandon further collections of zyaketa and return everything that had been seized from them by his zyaketchi. But this did not satisfy the rebels, who resolutely demanded the departure of the aforementioned khan's hakim — governor. Auliye-Ata remained under siege. The rebels continued to threaten Mirza-Akhmet with severe reprisals, so he was forced to turn to the Kokand khan for help. All this worried Khudoyar-khan so much that he decided to personally lead the punitive detachment and severely punish the "rebels." However, the struggle for the khan's throne in the Kokand khanate and the threat of a palace coup did not allow the khan to leave the capital.
He entrusted the leadership of the punitive detachment, consisting of several thousand warriors, to his brother Mallya-bek.
The siege of Auliye-Ata was conducted without special activity, unorganized and without overall leadership. All this allowed the besieged to gather strength, continue to defend themselves, and hold out until military assistance arrived from Kokand. The rebels failed to capture the besieged fortress. But the arriving punitive detachment did not dare to engage in battle with the rebels, who outnumbered them significantly. The head of the punitive forces was forced to negotiate with the leaders of the uprising, who agreed to release Mirza Akhmet and his officials from the besieged fortress. With the onset of winter, the uprising quieted down and began to wane.
Its participants, somewhat satisfied with the liberation from the cruel khan's governor, began to disperse to their homes.
In the spring of 1858, the uprising flared up with renewed vigor. As noted by the famous Russian scholar-traveler N. Severtsov, who was then in captivity in the Kokand khanate, the flames of the uprising engulfed the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz roaming in the mountains east of Tashkent along the Chu, Talas, and Chatkal rivers. And this time, the cause of the uprising was the intensification of the tax burden. The rebels surrounded the Kokand fortifications located between the Kara-Tau ridge and the Chu River on all sides. They decided to take these fortifications by attrition. But they could not seize them.
Overall, this uprising did not succeed and soon suffered defeat, despite its massiveness and duration, because it was spontaneous and unorganized. However, it significantly undermined the dominance of the Kokand rulers over the Kazakh and Kyrgyz population and inspired the working people to new, more powerful protests.
Uprisings of the Kyrgyz from 1845 to 1848 against the Kokand Khanate