This paper examines a group of non- Muslim provincial elites titled 'chorbadjis' in the Ottoman Empire as local power holders. Chorbadjis became one of the key actors of social, economic and political functioning of the Ottomans, especially in the Balkan provinces of the Empire beginning with the eighteenth century. In this paper, I take as cases Chorbadji Nayden Efendi of Nish and Chorbadji Dino of Samakov. Through a close analysis of the activities of these two chorbadjis utilizing previously unexamined archival materials from the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, Turkey, and the Lokalna Archiva Koletsia (Local Archive Collection) that are housed in Orientalski Otdel (Oriental Section) of the National Library of Bulgaria in Sofia, I delineate the networks between non-Muslim provincial elites, state officials, local population and also other provincial notables during the 19th century in the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire in terms of the state’s relations with powerful provincial actors during that period. Apart from the scholarship on Muslim provincial elites in the Ottoman Empire, there is a very little literature on non- Muslim power holders in general and on chorbadjis in particular. Scholars of the nineteenth century Ottoman Empire saw Chorbadjis either as exploiters of peasants or as causes of tax rebellions. Even studies on the Balkan and Arab provinces during this period, whether they adopted a top-down or bottom-up approach, omitted the chorbadjis from their examination of powerful provincial elites. Thus, through a detailed analysis of the cases in which chorbadji families were involved, I aim to offer a case study on provincial elites and their relations with state and other local actors during the early nineteenth century from a different angle. The significance of this paper lies in its ability to challenge the established narratives about the nineteenth century regarding issues such as the supposedly sharp distinctions and dichotomies between the Ottoman “center” and “periphery”, the role of provincial notables in times of transformation, and the role of imperial reforms issued from Istanbul. By close examination of activities of two specific chorbadjis through the archival documents in understudied provinces of the Ottoman Empire, this paper attempts to go beyond Balkan and Turkish nationalist historiography to offer an example of an integrated approach to the history of Middle East as well as the Ottoman Empire that synthesizes regional, national, imperial, and inter- imperial histories.