Shepherds, Robbers, and the Ottoman State: A Marginal View of the Centralization Efforts in Anatolia during the Tanzimat

Omri Paz

For hundreds of years, Anatolian rural communities lived under an unwritten understanding with the central government. Part of this understanding included an infrequent presence of agents of the state which at times was extensive but often was not. Beginning in the late 1830s, at the onset of the Tanzimat, the Ottoman state tried to promote and usually succeeded in promoting a new "social pact" with its subjects. Different state agencies aimed to revise the outlines for state intervention in order to promote a new agenda, which studies tend to define simply as "centralization" processes. As part of this new social pact, the imperial government forced its presence as a viable power in matters that until then were considered private. In so doing, a new state-individual relationship was set-up, investing Ottoman subjects with new entitlements and duties. Applying the new social pact in urban spheres was successful due to shared interests of the central and local governments as well as local communities and individuals. In rural communities, however, this policy interrupted existing social balances.
An unusual trial that took place in Izmir in 1855 reveals the social balances between shepherds, farmers and robbers in rural areas and their objection to the new presence of the state. Court records expose the great efforts taken by state agents to impose the new social pact on shepherds and farmers in an attempt to make them collaborate with the central government in its war against gang members.