Abstract
The Trabzon Port in the 19th Century: Campaings, Merchants, Goods
One of the most important inner seas of world, the Black
Sea reaches to Mediterranean Sea by Istanbul and the
Çanakkale Straits; to the to the interior of Europe by the
Danube, Dnieper and Dniester Rivers; to Asia by Caucasus.
It connects sea and land trade in the shortest distance between
Asia and Europe by its strategic and geographic location.
Trabzon was the most important ports of the Black
Sea and lived the brightest periods in when trade was condensed.
Trabzon, a major transit port in the Ottoman Empire,
has become a trade center to East by the 18th century with the opening of the Black Sea to international maritime
trade and arrival of the foreign merchants. The East was to
provide raw materials to the burgeoning industry in Europe
by Trabzon-Erzurum-Tabriz Road. In 19th century,
Trabzon became the busiest port of Black Sea in a very
short time with the increasing volume of trade, opening
embassies, the shipping agents and merchants. During this
period, vinegar, wine, olives, soap, cotton, textiles, coffee,
wheat, iron ore, fish, meat, fur and etc. were bought, sold
and transported to other regions by non-Muslim, Turkish
and foreign merchants. In this study, an attempt has been
made to explain to merchants, campaigns, merchants,
goods and commercial activities in the port of Trabzon in
the 19th century by archive documents.<
Keywords
Maritime Trade, Black Sea, Trabzon, Geopoltics