Ottoman Policy during the Tanzimat Period, 1846–76

Abstract

Slavery as a legal status and an institution was never abolished in the Ottoman Empire. All the fermans and laws issued by the Ottoman government pertained either to suppression or abolition of a particular branch of the slave trade. Also, none of the international agreements entered upon by the Ottoman government, neither the Anglo-Ottoman Anti-Slave Trade Convention of 1880 nor the General Act of the Brussels Conference of 1890, required the Ottomans to abolish slavery. In a way, this was necessarily so. The religious law of the Empire, the Şeriat, recognised and sanctioned slavery and the Şeriat itself, as a divine law, was considered immutable. Therefore, without a formal declaration of abolition, all Ottoman measures against slavery had to be confined to the slave trade.