For centuries, sedentary Armenian and Christian farmers coexisted with semi-nomadic Kurdish and Muslim tribes in eastern Anatolia. An agreement stipulated that the Armenians would pay tribute to Kurdish tribal chiefs in exchange for their protection against local bandits, also Kurdish. This was effectively a legalised form of extortion, aimed at maintaining Armenian subjugation.

In 1891, Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid II created the Hamidiye, a light cavalry corps composed of Kurds. The model was the Cossacks of the Tsarist army: in this case, too, the aim was to create a cavalry corps by recruiting soldiers from a semi-nomadic population. The objective was twofold: to strengthen control over the territories of eastern Anatolia, securing the loyalty of local Islamic elites, and to harshly repress the political activities of Armenians, suspected of separatism and complicity with foreign powers.

In effect, the creation of the Hamidyie militias legalised traditional Kurdish banditry. The militias practised extortion, arbitrary violence, and plunder against peasants, both Kurdish and Armenian, seizing land and acting with substantial impunity. Their particular hatred for Armenians was evident. An American missionary present in Anatolia recounted that, upon the arrival of a Hamidiye regiment in a city, passing through the Armenian quarter, the recruits would mime the gesture of beheading with their hands, warning the Armenians that, now that the government was on their side, they would massacre them all.

In 1894, Armenian peasants in the mountainous region of Sassoun asked for more time to pay the numerous taxes imposed on them, while also organising an armed defence of their villages. The Hamidians then requested the intervention of the Ottoman army and promised the Armenians amnesty if they laid down their arms. Their word was not kept: numerous villages were sacked or destroyed, and approximately 7,000 Armenians were killed. Between 1894 and 1996, approximately 100,000 Armenians were killed in the so-called "Hamidian massacres," many of them in the eastern provinces at the hands of the Hamidians.

In 1909, Abdul-Hamid II was deposed, and the following year the Young Turk government renamed the regiment "Aşiret Süvari" (Tribal Cavalry), removing the sultan's name and integrating it into the Ottoman army. Nevertheless, during the First World War, Kurdish cavalry and militias took an active part in the Armenian genocide.