The Uncertainties of Freedom: The Second Constitutional Era and the End of Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire

Taking the constitutional revolution of 1908 in the Ottoman Empire as its point of departure, this article traces the constitutional regime’s emancipatory efforts and failures through a series of claims made by slaves (a majority of whom were women) and their families (or relatives and other agents acting on their behalf) to citizenship. Focusing on the few years that followed the revolution—during which the end of slavery largely overlapped with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the Turkish republic—the article explores the social and political conditions in the late Ottoman Empire, which set the limits of freedom, justice, and equality and determined who was entitled to have them and who was not.