Having long endured so-called dhimmi status , and having suffered the brutality and oppression of Hamidian leadership since 1876 , the Armenians in Cilicia perceived the nascent Young Turk government as a godsend . With Christians now being granted the right to arm themselves and form politically significant groups , it was not long before Abdul Hamid loyalists , themselves acculturated into the system that had perpetrated the Hamidian massacres of the 1890s , came to view the empowerment of the Christians as coming at their expense
Hamidian massacres
Hamidian massacres
Adana massacre of 1909