ABSTRACT
As part of their overall policy to develop the northern ports of Palestine, in response to the increasing European demand for Palestinian cotton in the early eighteenth century, the Ottomans considered ways of strengthening and refortifying Haifa and its harbour so as to stimulate commercial activities. In order to increase settlement and security, the state adopted and promoted a scheme for demographic expansion and called on some of the best-paid officeholders, who were commanders in the Ottoman cavalry in the Lajjun area, to make their home in Haifa, offering them special privileges. Since it was predominantly Christians who engaged in commerce and had established commercial connections either as traders or as agents of European companies, they were offered similar incentives to move to Haifa. Owing to the endeavours of Dahir al‘Umar (1762-75) in the second half of the eighteenth century, the town continued to develop without interruption until it became the most important settlement in northern Palestine.1
