The Ottoman Tanzimat, a period of Ottoman reform (1839-1876), emerged out of an effort to resist European intervention by emancipating the non-Muslim subjects of the empire, as European powers had started intervening in the region on a explicitly sectarian basis. The resulting growth of tensions and the conflicting interpretations of the Ottoman reform led to the 1840s sectarian violence in Mount Lebanon and the massacres of 1860. This resulted in a system of local administration and politics explicitly defined on a narrow communal basis. Sectarianism arose from the confrontation between European colonialism and the Ottoman Empire and was used to mobilize religious identities for political and social purposes.