Fugitive Peasants, Contested Waters, and Lucrative Contracts in Eighteenth Century Central Anatolia (1700–1774)

This article examines the ascent of çiftlik owners in eighteenth-century Niğde through a close reading of the Karaman Ahkâm Defterleri , focusing on peasant mobility, water conflicts, and saltpeter contracts. It argues that these developments were not isolated episodes, but part of an intertwined transformation rooted in intra-elite competition over resource control and provincial autonomy. Çiftlik -owners expanded their influence by harboring fugitive peasants, intervening in irrigation systems tied to pious endowments, and securing state contracts for saltpeter production. In response, cloth merchants and trustees of endowments invoked the category of the “Muslim public” to assert their own legitimacy by stressing confessional solidarity. This elite articulation of “public” was not directed at curbing sultanic sovereignty, but at defending privileged access to local resources and influence. By foregrounding the agrarian and mining sectors, the article reframes çiftlik ownership as the product of overlapping tensions over land, labor, water, and provincial finance and governance

Agrarian society · Colonialism · Confessional · Elite · Foregrounding · Legitimacy · Peasant · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Islamic Studies and History · Ottoman Empire History and Society