o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

THE COMPLEX NATURE OF AN OTTOMAN COMMERCIAL NETWORK
in general and the eastern Black Sea in particular, leave no doubt about the centre
of gravity of the network: the eastern Black Sea, where exactly one-third of the collaborators
(21) were mostly established in the family home town of the three brothers,
Rize. The number of collaborators in Rize was 21. Taking into consideration the
fact that the collaborators based in Erzurum, Batumi, İzmit and Baghdad –seven in
all– were also originally from Rize, the focus of this concentration shifts from collaborators
within a geographical proximity to their fellow countrymen or collaborators
they knew personally.
Table 3, which gives the ethno-religious distribution of collaborators by province,
shows that all the collaborators of the major non-Muslim ethno-religious category,
the Greeks, were based in the family home town of the Mataracızâde brothers,
Rize. Hence the majority of the non-Muslim merchants with whom the brothers had
trade relations within the provincial branch were Greeks from their home town: in
other words, people whom they personally knew. Hence, familiarity overcomes not
only the geographical divide but also the religious one.
Table 3
Ethno-religious distribution of collaborators by location
Region
Location
Ethno-religious
characteristics
Number of
collaborators
Black Sea Bafra Muslim 1
Samsun Armenian 1
Ünye Muslim 1
Giresun Muslim 2
Trabzon Muslim 3
Of Muslim 1
Rize Muslim 17
Rize Greek 4
Atina Muslim 7
Atina Greek 1
Batumi Muslim 1
Keskim Muslim 3
Çorum Muslim 1
Marmara Bandırma Muslim 1
İzmit Muslim 3
Adapazarı Muslim 1
Aegean İzmir Muslim 1
Mediterranean Adana Muslim 1
~ 431 ~