Abstract
THE DETERMINANTS OF THE COMMERCIAL LIFE IN THE OTTOMAN PORTS ACCORDING TO THE BRITISH CONSULAR REPORTS AT THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY
The 19th century is characterized as the longest century of the Ottoman Empire. The intensity
and the importance of the ecopolitical events that took place especially in the second half of the
century are quite remarkable in terms of the their role in determining the economic and political
fate of the state. The rush in the foreign indebtment that started after the Crimean War and
resulted with a bankruptcy with the first global depression of capitalism that took place between
1873 and 1896, the Russian war of 1877-78 in which the empire lost the largest territory ever and,
the organizations that represent the foreign control on the economy of the Ottoman Empire like
the Public Debt Administration and etc., were the main determinants of the period. At the same
time the trade of the Ottoman Empire underwent a structural transformation in the 19th century.
The Western countries that had a limited share in the foreign trade of the Ottoman Empire along
with the effects of the Industrial Revolution and in the process of the expansion of the capitalism
to the periphery increased their share via bilateral trade agreements and established a new trade
scheme depending on the exchange of raw materials with manufactured goods. The effects of
the above mentioned processes and eco-political developments on the economic and commercial activities of the ports of Smyrna, Salonica, Trebizond and Beirut that had important shares in the
foreign trade of the Ottoman Empire and the commercial progresses in the aforementioned ports
dependingly will be discussed through the British consul reports in this study. In this way the aim
of the study is to analyze the effects of the developments that took place in this period on the
trade of the Ottoman Empire at the micro scale.
Keywords
Ottoman Empire, 19th Century, Foreign Trade.