| "It's not their territory" Who decides that? They lived there since generations. They had weapons. They controlled who goes in their land. I think that mattered more in reality, than some arbitary lines drawn on some map far away, by people never been close to the land in the first place. And taxation in its oldest shape was indeed just protection money. You had to pay your lord/king for safety. Otherwise the noble knights came to your farm and took what they wanted and might have burned it down, if they felt like it.
And if you passed through foreign land, you had to pay hundreds of local lords for safe passage. Same here. You pay the nomads for safety - they keep other tribes/rubbers away from their territory, providing you safety. So you can claim, they did provide a "service". But sure, you cannot really compare it to the taxation and services of the modern national states. And sure, for the caravans it would be better, if just no one was around they needed to pay for protection of someone else. It is parasitism. But this is how most states started. By preying on the weak for the benefit of a ruling class. |
> They lived there since generations. They had weapons. They controlled who goes in their land.
A bit like the Israeli settlers in the West Bank then.