The quest for Serbian independence had begun during the Serbian national revolution (1804-1817), the easternmost bourgeois revolutions in the nineteenth-century world, and is to last for several decades.

During the First Serbian Uprising led by Karadjordje Petrovic, Serbia had been independent for almost a decade before the Ottoman army was able to reoccupy the country.

Shortly after this, the Second Serbian Uprising had begun.

Led by Milos Obrenovic, it had ended in 1815 with a compromise between the Serbian revolutionary army and the Ottoman authorities.

The famous German historian Leopold von Ranke had published his book The Serbian revolution in 1829).

Following the Convention of Ackerman (1828), the Treaty of Adrianople (1829) and finally, the Hatt-i Sharif of 1830, the Sublime Porte recognizes Serbia as a principality under Turkish control, with Milos Obrenovic as hereditary prince.

Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II also grants the Serbian Church autonomy and reaffirms the Russian right to protect Serbia.