Ottoman intervention in Tripoli (1835) and the question of Ottoman imperialism in the 19th century

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2313225_ (Table of contents)

This thesis is a study of the relationship between the Ottoman central administration and North African periphery, and more specifically, Tripoli in the first half of the 19th century. The region was ruled by a local dynasty of Anatolian origin, Karamanlıs, virtually independent from the Sublime Porte for more than a century. After the outbreak of the unremedied internal upheavals in the 1830s, Ottoman center took the initiative to eliminate the ruling dynasty, thus stabilizing the region in 1835. The stability of the region was a top priority because of the Ottomans’ increased suspicion of further European encroachment after the French aggression in Algeria. Nonetheless, there were also other competitors preying on the Tripolitan territory, thus Ottoman action could be best understood as active participation in an inter-imperial competition. The process, however, shows us that the establishment of the central authority was the last resort. Before coming to that point, Ottomans worked hard to ensure a noise-free continuation of the Karamanlı Dynasty. The last part of the study attempts to make sense of Ottoman presence in the Tripoli after the intervention. It demonstrates that some elements of the so-called Ottoman orientalist attitude that came about in the late 19th century were taking root earlier. Nonetheless, it finds the use the terms such as colonialism and even orientalism problematic because the Ottoman imperial presence in Tripoli had never been officially defined as colonialism. Alternatively, the term “imperial repertoires of power” is utilized in accounting for the center-periphery relations in the period in question