ABSTRACT

This chapter presents an introduction of the domestic passport. The initial aim of the introduction of the domestic passports was connected to the Greek insurgency, it was extended to include all migrants and considered a remedy for the social problems associated with the ever-expanding port cities of the nineteenth century. The Ottoman state's seemingly unconnected policies on population control extending over a century culminated in the introduction of the system of domestic passports in 1821; what occasioned this move was the Greek Rebellion. The poll tax was collected on the basis of official community registers, which were ideally updated at certain intervals, and copies of which were kept in Istanbul and by the local judges. Due to the circularity of migration in the Ottoman Empire, the fluctuating migrant population in Ottoman cities always included a significant group of new arrivals who had paid their poll tax back at home.