The attitude of the Beys of the Albanian Southern Provinces (Toskaria) towards Ali Pasha Tepedelenli and the Sublime Porte (mid-18th-mid-19th centuries

Abstract

This article tries to trace the policy of a powerful administrative, economic and military provincial elite of the Ottoman-Albanian southern provinces, that of the beys of Toskaria through the typical family of the Beys of Valona, from the mid-18th to the mid-19th centuries. In this period took place an important development in the wider area: the decay of the timariot system (dirlik) and the predominance of the large estates (çiftliks). This development vitiated the already weak central ottoman government –the Sublime Porte– and consolidated the power of the landowners-beys.The absence of a central authority, however, created a status of lawlessness and anarchy, a problem which was treated–not by the intervention of the Sublime Porte–, but by the creation of the great Paşalik of Yannina. Ali Pasha, the vali of Yannina, an Albanian bey from Tepelenë, filled the vacuum of power that left the inability of the Porte and, gradually, managed to bring under his control all the southern provinces of Albania. In the ensuing conflict between the Porte and Ali Pasha, the Beys of Toskaria allied themselves with the Sultan’s forces expecting to regain all those privileges which had abolished the Albanian toparch. The Porte, however, did not show willing to restore the ancien regime of the pre-Tepelenli period and imposed forcefully its power, as well as the administrative and tax reformative measures of Mahmud II, in the wider area.The beys rebelled but they lost the battle and were forced to reassess their attitude towards the Porte. So, they chose to return back to the Ottoman legitimacy and thus tried to regain their lost prestige, power and wealth, not as unruly regional chieftains but as loyal Ottoman administrative or/and military officers.