Gutman|287both peaceful and violent means to achieve these ends, which it saw as the only
solutions to the challenges facing Ottoman Armenians. The Hunchaks hardly
received universal support from the broader Ottoman Armenian population.
However, after decades of territorial losses brought on in large part by the growth
of separatist movements among Christian populations in the Balkans, the Ot-
tomans viewed the emergence of such politics among its Armenian subjects as
a major threat. In the hopes of stamping out support for organizations like the
Hunchaks, the Ottoman government adopted increasingly repressive policies
vis-à-vis its Armenian population.
Among the measures adopted by the Ottoman government to accomplish
this goal was a near-total ban on Armenian migration to the United States. Like
other migrant groups that made the long transoceanic voyage in the late nine-
teenth century, most Armenian migrants went to North America with the aim of
contributing to the economic viability of the households they left behind. Many
never intended to remain in the United States, and a large percentage eventu-
ally returned to their home communities. From the Ottoman government’s
perspective, however, unchecked Armenian migration threatened to turn the
United States into a major staging ground of anti-Ottoman revolutionary in-
trigue. Throughout the late 1880s and early 1890s, however, Armenians found
ways to bypass restrictions on their ability to migrate. As a result, Ottoman of-
ficials grew increasingly desperate for information on the political activities of
the rapidly growing Armenian population in the United States. As the empire’s
representative in Washington, Mavroyeni dutifully provided his superiors with
any information that he felt could help the empire combat the perceived threat of
Armenian separatist politics.
To the average American, the Christian Mavroyeni’s willingness to work
on the behalf of a self-identified Muslim state in its efforts to combat a political
movement that advocated independence for a Christian ethnic group might have
appeared strange. Mavroyeni, however, did not give the issue two thoughts and
immediately set to work. Credible information regarding the political activities
of Armenian migrants was initially difficult to come by. In January 1890, Mav-
royeni’s office received a letter from one Omer Mustafa warning that Armenian
migrant factory workers in the Northeast United States were actively planning
acts of sedition against the Ottoman Empire. Omer Mustafa’s letter also spoke
of efforts by Armenians in the United States to purchase firearms and smuggle
them into the empire. Efforts to track down Omer Mustafa and follow up on
the information he provided in the letter failed to turn up any useful informa-
tion. Mavroyeni forwarded the letter to his superiors in the Foreign Ministry
in Istanbul with the caveat that some of its more elaborate claims should not be
taken too seriously. Over the next couple of years, however, Mavroyeni regularly
forwarded information to Istanbul that he felt lent greater credence to the idea