In the Ottoman Empire, Kerserdar (), referred to rural chief policemen,, chiefs of village field sentinel, or private security forces that protected villages from robbery, in the 19th century. In 19th-century Wallachia, they were among those employed by the boyars, with a fixed salary. In Anatolia, they were employed to protect fairs. In the Balkans, they were commanders of bands of mercenaries that were employed to protect villages. In the Balkans, they were noted to have been "brigands wearing the title of gendarmerie" due to their crimes against Christians.
Some employed Turk and Albanian kerserdars notoriously oppressed Christian villages, as the irregular bashi-bazouks commonly did. In the aftermath of the Great Eastern Crisis (1878) and oppression endured by Balkan Orthodox Christians, the Christian villages were protected by Christian krserdar (in Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian; ) that pursured "Turk" and "Arnaut" bandits () and other bad people. An example of such a protector was Micko Krstić (1855–1909) during the Brsjak rebellion. __NOTOC__ See also Kırcalı, bandits Soubashi
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