A Rebel Ayan Profile in the Tanzimat Period: The Incident of Kör Hüseyin Bey of Adjara

Abstract

Undoubtedly the most important change in Ottoman provincial administration in the 19th century was the centralizing activities taken by Mahmud II. The new government policy based on the limitation of power of ayan families who had a long history in the ottoman provinces, and on the reestablishment of central control demonstrated its impact in the Eastern Black Sea region. The region was a scene of long term struggle between governors that represents the central power and local notables in the first thirty years of the 19th century. The implementation of Tanzimat reforms in the area, as a next phase of this struggle period, created a large discontented group that their interests damaged by new Tanzimat reforms which required not only administrative but fiscal centralizing and other new applications. Although a part of this discontented group was integrated into the new system, this process was a little more painful in some part of the empire like eastern side of Trabzon Province. The period of disorders lasted between 1840-1846 in Adjara, a buffer zone on the Ottoman-Russian border, revealed an example of the own system of local notables (âyan) of Black Sea Region and showed the vulnerability and fragility of the region to the internal and external developments. In this context based on the Ottoman and French archival documents, this study aims to evaluate the emergence and causes of rebellions of Kör Hüseyin Bey, who was a member of the Selim Paşazâdeler, one of the most important âyan families in Adjara, , in 1840 and 1846 which led to a climate of anarchy and their effects on the region.