“I am ‘free’... No, you are a slave!” Circassians, Slavery, the Search for Freedom, and the Rumeli Kazaskerliği Court in Istanbul in the Third Quarter of the 19th Century

Abstract

Based mainly on the records of the Rumeli Kazaskerliği Court from the 1860s and 1870s, this article focuses on the claims to freedom of Circassians who were brought into Ottoman lands as slaves or enslaved by different means, including trickery. It aims to understand through which networks the claims and applications regarding the demands for freedom by Circassians reached the court, and how they were handled and finalized. These records, which can contribute greatly to the understanding of the state’s attitude toward Circassian slavery and their claims of freedom, unfortunately have not attracted attention in the field of Ottoman slavery studies. The Ottomans, who were long familiar with Circassian slaves, employing them in their households and viewing them as potential wives, realized that they were encountering a new situation in the 1850s and 1860s as immigration intensified, and they thus tried to regulate and redefine the Circassian slavery and slave trade. The turmoil resulting from mass migrations, combined with the intense demand for slaves, made the enslavement of free Circassians easier, as well. The Rumeli Kazaskerliği Court was the only court in which claims of freedom from both Istanbul and the provinces were heard and resolved during this extraordinary period. The prominence of this court reflected the state’s sensitive approach toward these cases, as well as its efforts to regulate and control the process.