In the 1880s and 1890s several laws were issued in the Tsarist empire further restricting the rights of Jews in the Cossack regions. Consequently, the Don, Kuban and Terek regions were closed to permanent Jewish residence. In the early twentieth century, a similar trend occurred in relation to Ural Cossacks. On the one hand, the actions coincided chronologically with the tightening of government policy in relation to the Jewish population and, on the other, each of these areas had internal problems resulting from their specific conditions. This study attempts to find out whether this process was a simple consequence of the general restrictive policies in relation to Jews, or whether it was informed by local conditions.