In the 1840s, some Ionians coined the term “xenocracy”, a word that sums up the last period of British rule and the Ionian State. This book shows how the relations of sovereignty in the Ionian State were determined not only by the colonial power of the foreigners (“xenoi”) but also by the Ionian middle class. It also analyses the real dimensions of the colonial regime, the conditions under which power relations were formed while highlighting the special local characteristics of the islands that constituted the “United States of the Ionian Islands”.