The Ottoman Empire witnessed the immigration of Muslim population in Crimea and Caucasia, dominated by the Russian Empire, into the Anatolian territories. Waves of immigration intensified especially during 1856-1857 and 1860-1865 and after the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-8. Muslim immigrants of hundreds of thousands were settled in different parts of Anatolia by the Ottoman government. These immigrations not only transformed social, economic, demographic and ethnic structure of Anatolian territories but also faced serious difficulties and problems especially concerning newcomers’ integration into established local populations. The process of settlement mainly led to tensions between immigrants and local populations of newly settled regions because of the appropriation of lands by the government to immigrants and of the resistance of land owners or tribal communities amongst local population against this process. In other words, appearance of immigrants as a new actor and the dispute on land ownership both paved the way for struggles between immigrants, local population (landowners, tribal groups, etc.) and state officials and required redefinition of land ownership in all provinces of the empire. And it can be pointed out that such struggles concerning land disputes were one of sources of inter-communal clashes and violence in subsequent years. It is also possible to see tensions, struggles and sometimes armed clashes between immigrants and tribal groups in regions, where tribes were widespread and dominant, in the central and eastern Anatolia. The aim of this paper is to place tensions and struggles between Muslim immigrants –especially the Circassians from Caucasia– settled in the province of Sivas in the central Anatolia and tribal groups there within a perspective of land disputes and to discuss the Ottoman state’s policy of immigrants, and relations between the state and both immigrants and local population at the end of the 19th century. In Sivas, the appropriation of summer pastures, virtually used by tribal groups from time immemorial, to newcomers by the Ottoman government faced resistance of tribes and led to armed clashes. And the government attempted to enhance its own authority over rival power groups such as tribal chiefs and to create a more loyal population by settling immigrants in tribal-dominated regions, where it had limited control. Thus, the paper will try questioning the Ottoman state’s policy of immigrants and practices of resistance of different layers of the society by using the Ottoman archival documents and especially correspondences of the Commission of Immigrants (Muhacirin Komisyonu).