Russian conquest of Circassia

Circassia was a small independent nation on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea. For no reason other than ethnic hatred, over the course of hundreds of raids the Russians drove the Circassians from their homeland and deported them to the Ottoman Empire. At least 600,000 people lost their lives to massacre, starvation, and the elements while hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave their homeland. By 1864, three-fourths of the population was annihilated, and the Circassians had become one of the first stateless peoples in modern history.

Between the late 18th and early-to-mid-19th centuries, the Adyghe people lost their independence as they were slowly conquered by Russia in a series of wars and campaigns. During this period, the Adyghe plight achieved a certain celebrity status in the West; but pledges of assistance were never fulfilled. After the Crimean War, Russia turned her attention to the Caucasus in earnest, starting with the peoples of Chechnya and Dagestan. In 1859, the Russians had finished defeating Imam Shamil in the eastern Caucasus, and turned their attention westward. Eventually, the long lasting Russian–Circassian War ended with the defeat of the Adyghe forces. Adyghe leaders signed loyalty oaths on 2 June 1864 (21 May, O.S.).

The Conquest of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire in the 19th century during the Russian-Circassian War, led to the destruction and killing of many Adyghe—towards the end of the conflict, the Russian General Yevdokimov was tasked with driving the remaining Circassian inhabitants out of the region, primarily into the Ottoman Empire. This policy was enforced by mobile columns of Russian riflemen and Cossack cavalry.^[48][49][50] "In a series of sweeping military campaigns lasting from 1860 to 1864 ... the northwest Caucasus and the Black Sea coast were virtually emptied of Muslim villagers. Columns of the displaced were marched either to the Kuban [River] plains or toward the coast for transport to the Ottoman Empire ... One after another, entire Circassian tribal groups were dispersed, resettled, or killed en masse"^[50] This expulsion, along with the actions of the Russian military in acquiring Circassian land,^[51] has given rise to a movement among descendants of the expelled ethnicities for international recognition that genocide was perpetrated.^[52] In 1840, Karl Friedrich Neumann estimated the Circassian casualties to be around one and a half million.^[53] Some sources state that hundreds of thousands of others died during the exodus.^[54] Several historians use the phrase "Circassian massacres"^[55] for the consequences of Russian actions in the region.^[56]

On 20 May 2011, the Georgian parliament voted in a 95 to 0 declaration that Russia had committed genocide when it engaged in massacres against Circassians in the 19th century.^[57]

Like other ethnic minorities under Russian rule, the Adyghe who remained in the Russian Empire borders were subjected to policies of mass resettlement.

The Ottoman Empire, which ruled most of the area south of Russia, considered the Adyghe warriors to be courageous and well-experienced. It encouraged them to settle in various near-border settlements of the Ottoman Empire in order to strengthen the empire's borders.