ABSTRACT
Neither the distant power of the central state nor the immediate influence of local notables was unfamiliar to Tokat's populace during the later Tanzimat years. Judicial and administrative reforms in Tokat merged central, provincial, and local streams of government and couched them in the state's newly adopted rhetoric of public welfare. The new bureaucratic system that the Tanzimat introduced was different from pre-existing patterns of local administration in the Ottoman provinces. Prior to the mid nineteenth century, a cadre of local leaders arose from the provincial context and adroitly entrenched themselves by turning their advantages in taxation, institutional service, property holding, and military service into political power during periods of greater decentralization. The great innovation of Tanzimat-era bureaucracy was to merge local traditions of administration with those of a reforming Ottoman central state. Prior to the Tanzimat, many of Tokat's district administrators had local origins in Sivas Province.
