Imperial Limits and Early Modernity: Borderland Clients of the Ottoman Empire and the “Well-Protected Dominions”

By the mid-sixteenth century Ottoman military expeditions could no longer consistently contribute to the empire’s expansion. Memalik-i mahruse, whereby I translate the first word as “dominions” (rather than “domains”) to convey the subtle but important jurisdictional status of sovereignty during this period, came to designate an entire polity of aggregated lands the focus of which was henceforth protection. In this configuration, and according to the anticipated fiscal returns for the investment costs, newly subjugated lands became either taxpaying provinces attached to the central administration or, more often than not, client principalities and political satellites of different size and stature. However, accommodation techniques and cooptation of local elites did not always produce expected outcomes, especially regarding the flow of economic surplus to the center and regular military cooperation.¹ Integration of less orderly communities living along the borderlands shared with mighty neighbors created even more cumbersome problems. This essay examines these issues by inquiring into the early modern limitations of Ottoman administrative tools founded upon preceding (late antique and medieval) modes of imperial organization. I focus on different forms of the relationship between diverse frontier communities and the Ottoman administrative center to understand the nature and limits of the “well-protected dominions” during the early modern period.

Ottoman borderland polities and communities rarely left written sources. Judging from the archival evidence, some of them adhered more or less to the Ottoman regime and in return, their chiefs were given responsibility by the Ottoman central or provincial administrators to maintain the safety of the roads, gather information, and conduct low-level frontier diplomacy. The authority granted by the sultan to their representatives—entitled beg or hakim regardless of their confession—as well as the modalities of cooptation varied. For instance, a local chief from the Van region controlling a confederation of Kurdish clans had to be tolerated in acting as a local dynast who at the same time provided a degree of security against banditry and occasional attacks against the Safavids when asked to do so.² The same was true regarding the rulers of western Georgian minor principalities or Saharan dynasts of Fezzan.³

The center exploited such means of delegation in so far as gains from these clients had a return for a relatively meager investment. Client entities often participated in the Ottoman campaigns but when they did not, used their personal army to fight private wars or rebelled, they were immediately coined with codified qualifications of outlawry (harami, ehl-i fesad ve şekavet, kutta‘-i ta‘rіk).⁴

Some other communities, protesting the administrative, fiscal, and/or confessional arrangements of the Ottomans, established novel forms of social associations without forming viable political entities. These societal formations were generally referred to by the Ottoman administrative center under broad and vague headings: ‘urban ta’ifesi for the Bedouins in the desert lands of Near Eastern provinces, or ulusat, those living in the highlands of eastern and southern Anatolia. Some of these groupings succeeded to create enduring forms of resistance as was the case for the Mani (Manya ‘asileri) from southern Morea, Druze of Lebanon, Haiduks and Uskoks of the Triplex Confinium who were all open to capable men from various backgrounds, sharing social and cultural affinities and dispositions.⁵ Ransoming of prisoners, smuggling, plundering, trafficking in slaves, alimentation and clothing constitute the major part of their transactions with their immediate rivals/neighbors on the other side of the frontier with which they shared similar organizational patterns.⁶ However, these communities were not able to consolidate their relative independence and form new political entities against their mightier neighbors.⁷

Major political entities such as the Late Antique Roman and Medieval Byzantine Empires previously inhabited the same geographical space with the Ottomans. They were thus subject to similar pre-modern infrastructural limits in terms of administrative and logistical technologies (e.g., geographical distance, logistics, monetization) and implemented very similar cooptation techniques with their borderlands’ minor clients, who occupied lands that that were next to or...