Abstract:

The damage of Western merchants departing from Ottoman ports, especially Izmir and Istanbul, and the confiscation of their property by pirates have caused serious problems with European states. Mediterranean piracy, which began to increase in the second half of the 16th century and peaked in the last quarter, continued in the 17th century. In the second half of the 17th century, the Ottomans had to deal not only with the Venetians in the Battle of Crete, but also with problems related to attacks on the ships of some Western merchants by pirates. In our study, an assessment will be made on examples of the fact that some of the British, Venetian, Genoese, Dutch and French commercial ships operating from the Ottoman ports where trade gained intensity in the second half of the 17th century were exposed to attacks by pirates before Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli in the Mediterranean, their property was confiscated by them and its effects on bilateral relations between Western states and Ottomans. The main source of our study will be the letters of embassies and consuls belonging to the Genoa State Archive, their reports, and the registers in the Collection of State Papers in the British State Archive. The study will also benefit from correspondences of especially those who served in Izmir in the second half of the 17th century such as Agostino Spinola, Durazzo, Sinibaldo Fieschi, Pompeo Giustiniani and Ottavio Doria, Luigi Cartabono, Simon Massa and Giovanni Luigi Gentile.

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