The interplay between local and global history is where the trials of empire are held. The Ottoman state overturned the autonomously ruled Kurdish Emirates in the mountainous east, bringing large numbers of Kurdish- and Armenian-speakers directly under Ottoman rule. The efforts to divide and conquer these populations created "Armenian" and "Kurdish" questions that have occupied ruling elites since the mid-nineteenth century. The "Armenian question," like many of the "questions" of the nineteenth century – "the Woman question," "the Negro question," or "the Jewish’ question" – related to the rights of those who had long been denied equality. This "question" intensified in a struggle in the Muş highlands between Armenian peasants and their warlord in the late 1880s. As elsewhere in the mountainous regions of the empire, the Ottomans backed local nobles who expressed loyalty. In the plain of Muş, the Ottoman central authorities continued to support the warlord Musa Bey, despite accusations of malfeasance, kidnapping, and murder. For many of the Armenian peasants, the final straw was in 1889 when Musa Bey kidnapped and raped Gülizar, a young daughter of a priest. Local protests spread through migrant networks to Istanbul, and then through the press to readers around the world.