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368 Erdal Taşbaş

ment areas spread over a wide area, including Iraq, Syria, Cyprus, the
Aegean Islands, Libya, Bosnia and Ioannina . The Ottoman State’s
24
lack of land on which to settle immigrants in Anatolia in the 19 cen-
th
tury made Syria an important settlement center as Syria had a low
population density . For this reason, the Ottoman government had to
25
settle millions of refugee immigrants in Syria and Anatolia .
26
The Ottoman State, which began the resettlement process in the
Syrian region, focused primarily on those places where water re-
sources were located in order to settle the immigrants. For this pur-
pose, the vacant lands in the cities of Syrian Province such as Beirut,
Damascus, Aleppo, Raqqa, Havran, Haifa and Palestine were deter-
mined as the settlement areas . The Muslim İmmigrant Commission
27
(Muhacirin-i İslamiye Komisyonu) carried out the settlement and the
subsistence for the refugee immigrants who would settle in these
lands. The Commission, while dealing with the accommodation and
settlement of immigrants who came to Syria, tried to provide them
with opportunities such as land and housing allocation, education,
tax exemption and the provision of agricultural equipment .
28
Ottoman archival sources on the immigrants from North Africa show
that Syria was one of the places where Muslims from Algeria, Tunisia and
Morocco took refuge in the last quarter of the 19 century and the begin-
th
ning of the 20 century. Cities that hosted refugees were: Beirut, Tripoli,
th
Damascus, Hama, Aleppo, and Raqqa . It should also be noted here that
29
there was immigration not only to Syria but also to the New World from
Algeria and Tunisia. More importantly, since the 1860s, there was a sig-
nificant flow of immigrants from Syria and certain Ottoman lands to the
New World. Of course, it can be said that among the main factors in these
migration movements were the political and economic turmoil that af-
fected the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century .
30
The immigrants who were resettled in Syria experienced problems
with local populations. The people of the region regarded these new
arrivals as an economic burden for them and cultural differences

24 A. Saydam, Kırım ve Kafkasya’dan Yapılan Göçler ve Osmanlı İskan Siyaseti (1856-
1876), «Osmanlı», 4 (1999), p. 683.
25 O. Kızılkaya, T. Akay, Kafkasya Muhacirlerinin Suriye Vilayeti’ne İskanı ve
Karşılaşılan Zorluklar, «Turkish Studies-International Periodical for the Languages», 8:2
(2013), p. 140.
26 D. Chatty, Syria cit., p. 19.
27 O. Kızılkaya, T. Akay, Kafkasya Muhacirlerinin Suriye cit., p. 142.
28 K. Saylan, Suriye Vilayeti’ne Göç Eden Kafkas Muhacirlerinin İskan ve İaşe Me-
selesi, in Geçmişten Günümüze Göç I, ed. O. Köse, Canik Municipality Cultural Publica-
tions, Samsun, 2017, p. 438.
29 E. Taşbaş, Halifenin Gölgesine Sığınanlar: Göçler ve Muhacirin-i İslamiye Komisy-
onu, Berikan Publishing, Ankara, 2017, p. 305.
30 N. Amara, Faire la France en Algérie cit., p. 257

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XX - Agosto 2023
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)