English

Fur traders from the Caucasus, Khiva, Bukhara and Tashkent at a wholesale fair in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, 1914

Noun

amanaty pl ‎(plural only)

1. (historical) Native American hostages taken by Russian colonists.
   • 1943, George Vernadsky, A History of Russia, volume 5, rev. edition, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, OCLC 907750134, page 550:

     The treaty of 1657 repeated the main items of the treaty of 1655, and two new conditions were added: the Kalmyks were to give hostages (amanaty) as surety […]

   • 2002, European Review of Native American Studies, Budapest: Pallas Lap- és Könyvkiadó Vállalat, ISSN 0238-1486, OCLC 17421023, page 14:

     In the mid-1790s the number of amanaty kept by the Russians was rather substantial. They often accompanied the promyshlenniki on dangerous sea voyages as guides and subsidiary working force.

   • 2005, Alexandra M. Haugh, Indigenous Political Culture and Eurasian Empire: Russia in Siberia in the Seventeenth Century (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation), Santa Cruz, Calif.: University of California, Santa Cruz, OCLC 680440705, page 205:

     If need be, the governors purchased foodstuffs for their amanaty out of their town budgets. For instance, the town of Staraia Mangazeia purchased in the summer of 1681 enough grain to feed the amanaty at multiple smaller posts under their jurisdiction that held an array of Samoed, Ostiak and Tungus amanaty.