TY - JOUR
T1 - Contesting Subjecthood and Sovereignty in Ottoman Galata in the Age of Confessionalization
T2 - The Carazo Affair, 1613-1617
AU - Krstić, Tijana
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - In the early 1610s, communities of diplomats and traders with the status of müste'min (foreign resident) in Ottoman Galata were put on alert by the concerted attempt of certain Ottoman officials, especially the kad of Galata, to extract from them the harac-the tax typically paid only by the immis (non-Muslim subjects of the sultan). Interwoven into this legal and diplomatic crisis is another story that sheds an interesting light on the entire affair. In 1609 Spanish king Philip III proclaimed the expulsion of Moriscos-(forcibly) Christianized Spanish Muslims-from the Iberian peninsula, triggering a massive exodus of a large segment of population into North Africa, but also to Ottoman Constantinople, via France and Venice. Although Constantinople received a significantly smaller number of refugees than North African principalities under Ottoman suzerainty, the impact of the Morisco diaspora was disproportionally large. In Constantinople, the refugees were settled in Galata, in what appears to be a deliberate attempt by the Ottoman authorities to change the confessional make-up of this overtly non-Muslim section of the city. This is how the fierce economic and confessional competition among the local, already established trading and diplomatic communities and the newcomers began. The paper will reconstruct these competitive relationships on the basis of Ottoman, Venetian, and French contemporary sources by focusing on the incidents surrounding the attempted imposition of the harac on foreign residents and the attempted takeover of Galata churches by the Morisco refugees. It appears that the arrival of the Moriscos and familiarity with their plight in Spain prompted Ottoman officials to rethink the legal status and the notions of extra-territoriality in relation to religious identity in the Ottoman context as well.
AB - In the early 1610s, communities of diplomats and traders with the status of müste'min (foreign resident) in Ottoman Galata were put on alert by the concerted attempt of certain Ottoman officials, especially the kad of Galata, to extract from them the harac-the tax typically paid only by the immis (non-Muslim subjects of the sultan). Interwoven into this legal and diplomatic crisis is another story that sheds an interesting light on the entire affair. In 1609 Spanish king Philip III proclaimed the expulsion of Moriscos-(forcibly) Christianized Spanish Muslims-from the Iberian peninsula, triggering a massive exodus of a large segment of population into North Africa, but also to Ottoman Constantinople, via France and Venice. Although Constantinople received a significantly smaller number of refugees than North African principalities under Ottoman suzerainty, the impact of the Morisco diaspora was disproportionally large. In Constantinople, the refugees were settled in Galata, in what appears to be a deliberate attempt by the Ottoman authorities to change the confessional make-up of this overtly non-Muslim section of the city. This is how the fierce economic and confessional competition among the local, already established trading and diplomatic communities and the newcomers began. The paper will reconstruct these competitive relationships on the basis of Ottoman, Venetian, and French contemporary sources by focusing on the incidents surrounding the attempted imposition of the harac on foreign residents and the attempted takeover of Galata churches by the Morisco refugees. It appears that the arrival of the Moriscos and familiarity with their plight in Spain prompted Ottoman officials to rethink the legal status and the notions of extra-territoriality in relation to religious identity in the Ottoman context as well.
KW - Confessionalization
KW - Constantinople
KW - Extraterritoriality
KW - Moriscos
KW - Müste'min
KW - Trans-Imperial Subjects
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84930705544&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1163/22138617-12340024
DO - 10.1163/22138617-12340024
M3 - Review Article
AN - SCOPUS:84930705544
SN - 0030-5472
VL - 93
SP - 422
EP - 453
JO - Oriente Moderno
JF - Oriente Moderno
IS - 2
ER -