Abstract:

One of the first attempts of American Protestant missionaries to enter the Ottoman geography in the early 19th century was the establishment of the mission matba. As a carrier of knowledge, the food has opened the way to provide access to a large geography with both a limited number of missionaries and to ensure that the oral religious rituals of the missionaries are supported by written sources. This study focuses on the Maltese missionary mattress that the U.S. Protestant missionaries established in the framework of access to the Ottoman geography. Initially operated by the Protestant missionaries who did not know the matbacy, the matbacy continued the way with a matbacy and the assistant of the judge in different languages when it was unable to meet their needs. The changes in the scope and content of missionary activities require a change in the matba’s strategies, and the matba, which was established only for the printing of religious texts, printed secular texts, primarily school books. During the time the Protestant missionaries were active, the Catholic Church has increased their publications in different languages to support mission activities towards different communities, influenced by the negative attitude of the people of the region and the governments. In July 1822, the food shop, which began operating with a hand-worked printing machine, was very shortly transformed into a business with a seven-language printing literature, three food machines, a cylinder and a book warehouse. In December 1833 the matba moved to İzmir, and in the last ten years on the island, it printed millions of pages in the languages spoken around the Mediterranean and in the Ottoman Empire.

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