Imports to Smyrna between 1794 and 1802: New Statistics from the Ottoman Sources

2008 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mesud Küçükkalay
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Terms Of Trade ◽  
Transport Maritime ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
La Modification ◽  
New Statistics ◽  
Trade Partners

AbstractThis study is based on the foreign customs registers of the port of Smyrna in the Ottoman Archives of Istanbul. In this paper 115 ports, 112 ships, 2859 pieces of goods, and 1273 merchants have been investigated for the period 1794-1802. This information indicates that the transformation of the Ottoman Foreign trade at the turn of the eighteenth century was linked to the following economic trends of the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries: the emergence of the European supremacy in naval transportation, a change in the terms of trade that was disadvantageous for the Ottomans, and a shift in the trade partners of the Ottoman Empire. Cette contribution exploite les données des registres de la douane ottomane du port de Smyrne, consignant les importations étrangères, conservés aux archives d'Istanbul. L'étude porte sur les cargaisons de 112 navires en provenance de 115 ports, 2859 pièces de marchandises et 1273 marchands dans les années 1794-1802. Les données témoignent que la transformation du commerce ottoman étranger en fin du XVIIIème siècle est liée aux tendances économiques de la seconde moitié du XVIIIème et de la première moitié du XIXème siècles. Elles reflètent la domination européenne dans le domaine du transport maritime, la modification des conditions commerciales au détriment des Ottomans et un changement des partenaires commerciaux de l'Empire.

The Ottoman Empire in the “Great Depression” of 1873–1896

1984 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Şevket Pamuk
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Terms Of Trade ◽  
Aggregate Production ◽  
Rates Of Change ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The World ◽  
Rates Of Growth

Contrary to the view that the periphery of the world economy benefited from rapidly expanding trade, the Ottoman economy actually faced a distinctly unfavorable world conjuncture during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Rates of growth of foreign trade dropped, external terms of trade deteriorated, declining wheat prices affected peasant producers, and the establishment of European control over Ottoman finances led to large debt payments abroad.Indirect data indicate that rates of change of agricultural and aggregate production were also lower during the “Great Depression” as compared to the later period.

Slavery and Ransom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Smiley
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
The State ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Law

This chapter explores captives’ fates after their capture, all along the Ottoman land and maritime frontiers, arguing that this was largely determined by individuals’ value for ransom or sale. First this was a matter of localized customary law; then it became a matter of inter-imperial rules, the “Law of Ransom.” The chapter discusses the nature of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, emphasizing the role of elite households, and the varying prices for captives based on their individual characteristics. It shows that the Ottoman state participated in ransoming, buying, exploiting, and sometimes selling both female and male captives. The state particularly needed young men to row on its galleys, but this changed in the late eighteenth century as the fleet moved from oars to sails. The chapter then turns to ransom, showing that a captive’s ability to be ransomed, and value, depended on a variety of individualized factors.

The Smugglers' Trade: A Neglected Aspect of English Commercial Development

1952 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 131-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. D. Ramsay
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Technical Skill ◽  
The Other ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Commercial Development ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Victorian Age

Some share—fluctuating and uncertain, but assuredly significant—of English foreign trade in modern times is to be credited to smugglers, who were ever busy in evading customs regulations and prohibitions. Mere administrative watchfulness and thoroughness could never do more than damp their activities; it was only the triumph of free trade in the early Victorian age that deprived them of their livelihood, and until then they were able to match by increase of cunning and of organization the ever more elaborate network of the customs system—its spies, its coastguards and its cutters as well as its routine officials at the ports. The smuggler flourished right down to the end of the period of protection, despite sporadic seizures by the revenue officers. In the first half of the nineteenth century, French wines, brandies and luxury textiles were being punctually shipped across the Channel in the teeth of prohibitions. In the other direction, we know, for instance, of the existence in the same period of so remarkable á phenomenon as the muslin manufacture of Tarare, near Lyons, which relied for its raw material upon the assured supply of English yarn owled abroad. But it was probably the eighteenth century, when customs regulations were at their most burdensome and complicated, that marked the classic epoch of illicit trade, the period in which the technical skill of both breakers and defenders of the law might earn the highest rewards.

L’inventario della spezieria di Giovanni Zavanti al Cairo (1732)

2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 421-495
Author(s):  
Alessandra Quaranta
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Second Generation Immigrants ◽  
Pharmaceutical Activity

Abstract The inventory of the apothecary Giovanni Zavanti, a Venetian pharmacist who worked in Cairo in the 1730s, was drawn up by the Egyptian city’s British Consulate in 1732. Since this institution ensured formal juridical protection to the English shopkeepers of the Levant Company, but devoted little attention to their need for health care, this historical source can be considered a rare testimony of European medical-pharmaceutical activity in the Levant. The inventory’s importance is also connected with the specific political and socio-cultural context of Egypt, the most economically important province of the Ottoman Empire. Substantial groups of English, French and Dutch merchants lived in the Muslim society of Cairo and were officially represented by their respective nations in the eighteenth century. The Venetian, also active in Cairo, could not count on the protection of their State institutions during the Turco-Venetian conflicts (1645–1718). In this complex context, Zavanti tried to take advantage of his professional activity and built up different socio-cultural relations to defend his properties and commercial interests. He was in contact with fellow countrymen, Arabic Christians of Egypt, Jews, Turkish officials and the Franciscan confraternity Custodia Terrae Santae. As second-generation immigrants from Venice, the Zavantis experienced a difficult process of cultural integration in Egypt.

scholarly journals Bulgaria in old Serbian accounts of pilgrimage

Balcanica ◽  
2004 ◽  
pp. 159-169
Author(s):  
Tomislav Jovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
The Road ◽  
The People

A rather small portion of old Slavonic literatures is thematically linked with the journey to the Holy Land. Of many Serbian pilgrims over the centuries only three left more detailed descriptions of Bulgarian places and parts: patriarch Arsenije III, Jerotej of Raca and Silvestar Popovic. They described, each in his own way, some of the places and areas along the road to Istanbul or Salonika. Their vivid depiction of encounters with people and observations about the places they saw on their way reveal only a fragment of life in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ottoman empire. In a seemingly ordinary way, they incorporate into their own epoch the legends heard from the people they met. The descriptions of Bulgarian parts in the Serbian accounts of pilgrimage have all the appeal that generally characterizes travel literature. Although their literary value is modest they belong among the works characterized by the simplicity and immediacy of experience. Rather than being the result of a strong literary ambition, they are witness to the need to speak about the great journey, quite an adventurous enterprise at the time.

scholarly journals TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY: PLANS AND REALITIES

2018 ◽  
pp. 73-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. V. Emelianov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Trade ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Year ◽  
Solar Panels ◽  
White House ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
The Us ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Trade Partners

The article considers the changes in US foreign trade policy at the beginning of the Trump’s presidency. Exporting is a critical component for the long-term growth and the U.S. economy overall, and supporting millions of jobs in US. Though D. Trump campaigned for president as a protectionist, there was no such steps the first year of his presidency. But his second year in the White House began with announcing new tariffs on solar panels, washing machines, then on steel, aluminium. As concerning steel products, the United States being the world’s largest steel importer have persistent trade deficit.The US trade law allows the president to limit imports in case if domestic industries are threatened, against unfair foreign trade practices for a period of time, but such measures were not frequent in US practice. Meanwhile new protectionist measures are debated. Trump’s policy is being opposed not only by trade partners of the US, but in the US as well, by those who argue that protectionist measures will complicate international relationships.

The Evolution of Grain Policy: The Ottoman Experience

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seven Ağir
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Price System ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Fixed Price ◽  
Grain Trade ◽  
The Creation

Ottoman reformers' re-organization of the grain trade during the second half of the eighteenth century had two components—the creation of a centralized institution to supervise transactions and the replacement of the fixed price system with a more flexible one. These changes were not only a response to strains on the old system of provisioning, driven by new geopolitical conditions, but also a consequence of an increased willingness among the Ottoman elite to emulate the economic policies of successful rival states. Thus, the centralized bureaucracy and political economy of the Ottoman Empire at the time had remarkable parallels with those in such European states as France and Spain.

The Eastern Ports

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Erikson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
Commercial Networks ◽  
Political Structures

This chapter argues that the English Company was most successful in ports with a large local merchant class already adept at overseas trade. The captains were able to engage in trade because of preexisting financial and commercial networks that were willing and able to accommodate a large influx of small-scale commercial actors (factors, captains, officers, and seamen), as well as the larger interests of the Company itself. Overviews of foreign trade institutions, regulations, and practices at eight different ports of call—Batticaloa, Madras, New Guinea, Madagascar, Bantam (Banten), Whampoa (Huangpu, port of Guangzhou), Goa, and Batavia (Jakarta)—demonstrate this point. Each presents a window into the complex social and political structures of eighteenth-century Asian trading ports.

Harvest of Briars

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-158
Author(s):  
A. Wess Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Habsburg Monarchy ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
Third Phase

This chapter examines the competition with the Ottoman Empire and Russia, from the reconquest of Hungary to Joseph II’s final Turkish war. On its southern and eastern frontiers, the Habsburg Monarchy contended with two large land empires: a decaying Ottoman Empire, and a rising Russia determined to extend its influence on the Black Sea littorals and Balkan Peninsula. In balancing these forces, Austria faced two interrelated dangers: the possibility of Russia filling Ottoman power vacuums that Austria itself could not fill, and the potential for crises here, if improperly managed, to fetter Austria’s options for handling graver threats in the west. In dealing with these challenges, Austria deployed a range of tools over the course of the eighteenth century. In the first phase (1690s–1730s), it deployed mobile field armies to alleviate Turkish pressure on the Habsburg heartland before the arrival of significant Russian influence. In the second phase (1740s–70s), Austria used appeasement and militarized borders to ensure quiet in the south while focusing on the life-or-death struggles with Frederick the Great. In the third phase (1770s–90s), it used alliances of restraint to check and keep pace with Russian expansion, and recruit its help in comanaging problems to the north. Together, these techniques provided for a slow but largely effective recessional, in which the House of Austria used cost-effective methods to manage Turkish decline and avoid collisions that would have complicated its more important western struggles.

Strategies of International Trade

2018 ◽  
pp. 381-414
Author(s):  
Alain Bresson
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
International Market ◽  
Institutional Logics ◽  
Mutual Trade ◽  
Grain Trade ◽  
Trade Partners

This chapter examines the strategies employed in international trade in ancient Greece. It explains how the rules of trade and the distribution of “natural advantages” played the role of a system of constraints within which genuine strategies of foreign trade could be constructed. To better understand the specificity of these trade strategies, the chapter first considers the two institutional logics that prevailed in the international market: the first consisted in setting up a “surpluses for surpluses” trade strategy; the second allowed trade partners to act freely. The notions of mutual trade and nondirectional trade are discussed, along with the case of grain. The chapter also looks at the strategies used by cities to control grain trade, such as laws prohibiting grain exports, before concluding with an analysis of the grain policy of Athens as well as food production and supply in Aegean cities.

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