292 | Migrants, Revolutionaries, and Spies
For these reasons, Bogigian was very willing to assist Mavroyeni’s efforts to
find an informant who could aid in monitoring Armenian political organiza-
tions in the Boston area. Over the next several months, however, it became clear
that finding such a person would be no easy task. That Mavroyeni was forced to
rely on Bogigian to aid in this task reflected just how limited and weak Ottoman
diplomatic officials’ connections were with the several thousand Armenian sub-
jects and citizens of the Ottoman Empire residing in the United States. Although
the Ottoman government maintained consular offices in cities such as Boston,
New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, close to large populations of Armenian
migrants, few if any Armenian migrants living in and around these cities both-
ered to register with these consulates. Because the Ottoman government had of-
ficially outlawed most forms of Armenian migration to the United States, these
migrants were hardly interested in informing the Ottoman diplomatic officials
of their presence in the United States, especially when many already harbored
significant distrust toward the Ottoman government. But even with Bogigian’s
assistance, finding an informant from within the Armenian migrant commu-
nity was proving difficult. As an Armenian native of the Harput region, he had
ostensibly much closer ties than Ottoman diplomatic officials to the growing Ar-
menian migrant community. At the same time, his wealth, visibility, and politics
likely distanced him from his recently arrived compatriots, making it difficult for
him to identify a suitable candidate.
Finally in April 1894, three months after tasking Iasigi with finding an Ar-
menian informer, Mavroyeni had his man. On Bogigian’s recommendation,
Mavroyeni hired Sahag Khatchadourian, a factory worker in Boston and a rel-
ative newcomer to the United States. On the surface, little separated Khatcha-
dourian from the hundreds of other Armenian migrants in the Boston area, so
what motivated him to become an informant? Perhaps like Bogigian he was mo-
tivated by opposition to what he perceived as the radicalization of Armenian pol -
itics. However, if this were the case, he would be risking a great deal for his
political convictions. Should his identity as a secret informant for the Ottoman
government become known, he risked alienating himself from his fellow Arme-
nian migrants and losing access to support networks that came with being part
of this broader community and were crucial to survival in a strange land. By
serving as an informant, Khatchadourian did stand to receive a significant jump
in pay. According to Mavroyeni, Khatchadourian earned only thirty dollars a
month, a sum that fell somewhat below the average for factory workers in 1890s
United States and was barely sufficient for Khatchadourian to both pay his bills
and provide economic support to his family back home in the Ottoman Em-
pire. His work for the Ottoman government, meanwhile, promised to more than
quintuple his monthly salary. But more must have been at play than money.
Khatchadourian was hardly the only migrant in the Boston area barely scraping