The Privileged and the Unprotected: U.S. Consuls, Return Migrants, and Extraterritorial Debates in the Ottoman Empire, 1830 – 1914

Abstract:Expansive U.S. extraterritorial claims are nothing new. Such jurisdictional tactics date back to the early republic. This paper focuses on the commingling of extraterritorial and national questions in the U.S.-Ottoman relationship in the nineteenth century. It employs a socio-legal approach to determine how majoritarian and nativist biases—on both sides of the Atlantic—imbued everyday consular practices around extraterritoriality, nationality, and protection. Three primary catalysts advanced the debate. First, the Ottoman state repurposed emerging diplomatic norms in the 1850 s to deny the local brokers of foreign merchants their accustomed protections. Second, Ottoman consuls refuted U.S. notions of expatriation and thereafter vacated key extradition and nationality treaties of 1874. Third, at the first turn of twentieth century, Ottoman officials lobbied against State Department policies enabling further restrictions to naturalized and derivative citizenship. Ultimately, the U.S.-Ottoman case became globally significant in demarcating new flash points of mass migration, humanitarian movements, and human rights on the eve of the Great War.