Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 1 A Business alla Turca?

Levantine Trade and the Representation of Ottoman Merchants in Eighteenth-Century European Commercial Literature

Mathieu Grenet

This essay investigates the role business patterns played in the perception European traders had of their Ottoman counterparts in eighteenth century Levantine trade, particularly the commercial traffic in the Eastern Mediterranean between the Ottoman Empire and Western European powers (mainly France, England, the Netherlands and the Italian states). It is based on a close reading of a wide portion of the commercial literature available at this time (with special reference to French texts), including business treatises and handbooks, as well as memoirs and correspondences of traders.1 What emerges from these readings is a picture composed on the one hand of the classical image of the Levantine trader, whose features epitomize the specificity of Ottoman business practices and the permanence of European orientalism, and, on the other, of a fragmented and subtle perception that derives from practical experiences of traders with the Ottoman Empire and its subjects. The basic assumption of this essay is that far from being opposed, these representations are two faces of the same coin, making the image of the eighteenth-century Ottoman trader both stereotypical and multifaceted. Following a brief overview of Levantine trade, consisting of a critical review of the main arguments in the abundant literature on the topic, this essay will explore how discourses on Ottoman otherness took into account a certain number of Oriental business practices whether real or assumedand then analyze how patterns of trade were instrumental in the acknowledgement of differences among these business partners who were lumped together as Levantines or Ottomans.

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1. Two Worlds made One? European-Ottoman Trade in the Eighteenth Century De tous les commerces maritimes, il nen est pas de plus utile, pour les Franois, que celui quils font dans les Etats du Grand-Seigneur, considr sous tous ses rapports .2 There is no doubt that the Levant trade constituted a major commercial stake to eighteenth century European states. A countless number of French, English and Italian reports and treatises set forth the need to control bits (if not all) of it, and most of them put forward three reasons to establish or consolidate a Western presence in the Levant: economic, since the Ottoman market was a very wide and rich outlet for European goods; political, for commercial interest constituted a good incentive to maintaining peace with such a fearful and terrible neighbor as the Ottoman Empire; cultural, because Levant trade provided the European market with a variety of goods that were part of a fascinating and somewhat fantasized Orient that raised great interest and curiosity in the West.3 Within the Levant trade system, the Ottoman Empire was the outlet of a variety of European goods ranging from woolen cloth to sugar and coffee. Appreciative of the almost endless quantity of European goods sent to the Ottoman market, the Chevalier dArvieux wrote: Il est constant que le Grand Seigneur auroit dj rompu avec nous sil navoit pu se passer de notre commerce. Celui des Vnitiens, des Anglois, des Hollandois et des Gnois fournit son Empire de tout ce quils peuvent dsirer, et qui nest point dans les Etats du Grand Seigneur, comme sont les draps dor et de laine, le papier, le plomb, ltain et les piceries .4 To put it in both economic and global terms, there is little doubt that this link between European products and Ottoman market was strengthened in the eighteenth century by the increasing technological advance taken by the West over the East: as a consequence of the improvement of manufacturing techniques, the rise of productivity led European fabricants and merchants to look for new markets to sell off their goods, a function

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 3 that came to be performed by the large, affluent and accessible Ottoman market. In exchange for these goods, the Empire exported to Western Europe a large variety of textile materials, from wool and hair, cotton and linen, to wax, oil and wood. But the Empire did not only sell its own products, and a significant share of its commercial balance consisted in the income of its activity as an interface between Europe and far East Asia. Such a business was all the more profitable, especially since the two principal commodities that passed from Asia to Europe through the Middle East were silk and spices, namely two high-value products that allowed Ottoman brokers to levy high commissions on their sales. But aside from the typology of the goods exchanged, one of the most significant features of the Levant trade is that it remained unbalanced until the early nineteenth century. Generally speaking, in the eighteenth century European demand for Eastern goods was still superior to the value of the Western goods bought by the Ottomans. As the Chevalier de Jaucourt wrote in the entry Turquie of the Encyclopdie, les marchandises que les nations europennes fournissent aux Turcs, ne sont point d'un assez grand prix pour pouvoir tre changes avec les leurs, sans un retour considrable en argent comptant. Les Anglois, les Franois & les Vnitiens sont obligs de fournir beaucoup de comptant pour la balance .5 Whereas the Levant trade constituted a significant share of the balance of trade of many European powers, it accounted only for a small part of the overall volume of trade carried on by the Ottomans. Much more important were the revenues of the internal commerce of the Empire, as well as of the international trade it carried out with Asia and the Indian Ocean. As Malcolm Wagstaff put it, the volume of inter-regional trade within the Levant itself during the eighteenth century points to the integrity of a trading system within the Ottoman empire at that time. Possibly only those items surplus to the Levants own needs were exported to Europe. It is also clear that the Levant was part of a wider trading system which was orientated towards the East, as well as the West.6

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 4 While the superiority of domestic trade constituted perhaps the most important single fact about Ottoman trade with the world in this century, the Ottoman Empire was nevertheless getting more and more dependent on Europe, particularly European technology and capital. 7 Interestingly enough, some writings of the period already took note of the disequilibrium in the Levant trade system. For example, Elias Habescis Present state of the Ottoman Empire (1784) states that there is not doubt but that the commerce of the Europeans with Turkey is injurious to the internal conomy of the Ottoman empire, and one cause of its decline. The merchandize carried into Turkey is of great value, and what they export is not.8 Habescis statement may seem clear sighted for the time, but it overemphasizes a balanced trade, whereas the real effects on the Ottoman empire included incorporation into the capitalist world economy and the limitation of a foreign policy based on the awarding of trade privileges to allied powers, such that increasingly convergent European powers made it difficult for the Ottomans to resist new international pressures and to defend its formerly undisputed international influence and regional leadership (it is worth recalling here that the eighteenth century was for the Ottoman Empire a period of military defeatsat Karlowitz in 1699, Passarowitz in 1718 and Kk Kaynarca in 1774). The Levant trade played a part in the process of westernization that characterized Ottoman society by the end of the early modern period. If the question remains open about how early and profound this process really was, one can hardly deny that the Levant trade played a major role in it. Attempting to reassess the chronology of such westernization, Rhoads Murphey rightly points out the influence European material culture exerted on Ottoman society, a phenomenon that also can be approached through the study of the importation to the Empire of Western commodities.9 One needs to keep in mind, however, that these encounters were mediated by institutions of trade meant to facilitate exchanges by bridging the divide between members of alien cultures. Such was for example the task of brokers, interpreters and consuls. The

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 5 French offered the widest variety of these intermediaries of trade. In an attempt to establish a state monopoly, the French monarchy maintained an important diplomatic corps in the Levant (no fewer than 33 consuls, vice-consuls and secretaries in 1774). From Salonica to Alexandria and from Patras to Baghdad, these officials were in charge of controlling the French trade in the Levant. Organized into a firm hierarchy under close state surveillance, the nations brought together all French merchants in the Levant, in accordance with the monarchys wish for administrative centralization. This endeavor reached its peak with the appointment of Colbert to the Ministry of Finance of King Louis XIV. Primarily concerned with the improvement of French cloth (a key commodity for the kingdoms commercial balance), Colbert tried to establish a local network of intermediaries of trade that would protect French interests in business transactions. Among a series of other measures, he therefore decided to institute a practice of sending French youths between the ages of six and ten to Constantinople and Izmir, where they would learn Middle Eastern languages to serve as French interpreters upon graduation. Known as Jeunes de Langues, or language youths, these children were educated at the Jesuit college Louis-le-Grand in Paris and at the capuchin school in Constantinople, two institutions that were replaced in 1795 by the cole des Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris. Although the French case epitomizes state-driven initiatives to control the Levant trade, the English and the Dutch also relied upon a solid network of local trade partners.10 The different strategies used by European nations to control and expand their share in the Levant trade aside, one should not fail to underline the striking asymmetry that existed between the Ottoman Empire and Europeans as a whole. As Voltaire himself noticed, Western nations used to send merchants and consuls to all places in the Levant, as well as ambassadors to Istanbul, whereas the Ottomans did not have consulates and embassies in European port cities and capitals before the very end of the eighteenth century (1792). Rather than a sign of

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 6 Europes dependency on the Sublime Porte, such a feature seems to have reflected what McKay and Scott call a basic assumption of superiority, namely that the Ottomans considered diplomacy unnecessary in their relations with foreign powers. In the eighteenth century, though, the issue was commonly regarded as evidence of Ottomanand in particular Muslimindifference to commerce, a myth which became axiomatic in Ottoman studies.11 This asymmetric organization of Ottoman and European trade had its cultural consequences and counterpart. As Rhoads Murphey has put it, the brief and artificially staged diplomatic encounters that happened before the 1790s, led to neither profounder knowledge about, nor better understanding and acceptance of, the West by the Ottomans. What is more, reading of Ottoman diplomatic reports of the time illustrates another facet of this asymmetry: namely, that while Europeans engaged in turcophilia, Ottomans rarely expressed reciprocal feelings towards the Western world. 12 Thus, to study the perceptions and representations of Ottoman traders by their European counterparts, one needs to keep in mind the context of intensification of the contacts between the two worlds and the difficulty of drawing a direct link between this phenomenon and a better understanding of the Ottomans by the Europeansor the other way round.

2. Encountering Worlds and the Making of the Levantine: Towards a Commercial Anthropology Though witty and half ironic, the description by Jaques Savary of a business transaction in an Egyptian bazaar illustrates the amazement experienced by European merchants while dealing with Arab colleagues: Le censal ou courtier arabe, par le ministre duquel un ngociant franois veut vendre sa marchandise, porte la parole au ngociant arabe qui la veut acheter, & le march sen fait en peu de paroles, dans le oui ou dans le non ; mais il nen est pas de mme quand le censal porte la parole pour le ngociant arabe au Franois auquel il voudrait bien vendre sa

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 7 marchandise, car pour le persuader den donner davantage quil nen offre, par une feinte colre, il semble en sapprochant de lui (sans pourtant le toucher) quil veut ltrangler, en faisant des grimaces & des contorsions extraordinaires & ridicules, & puis dune voix haute leve & menaante, il dit ce Franois, nas-tu pas perdu la raison doffrir si peu de telle marchandise ? timagines-tu quelle ait t vole ? Et si ces paroles nont pas eu le succs quil esproit alors, il se frappe la poitrine grands coups de points [sic !], dchire sa chemise & ses habits, il se jette & se roule par terre comme sil toit possed ; il appelle Dieu temoin de la msoffre que lon fait son patron. [] Enfin ce censal voyant bien que tout ce quil a fait & dit na p mouvoir le ngociant franois, il revient luimme subitement comme si de rien ntoit, & en se relevant lui prend la main droite, & en lembrassant lui dit en riant, Le march est fait au prix que tu as offert, & puis il lve les yeux au ciel en disant, halla quebar, & halla quebir, qui veut dire en Arabe, Dieu est grand, et trs-grand. Jaurois eu peine croire une manire de ngocier si extraordinaire & si extravagante que celle-l, si un de mes amis qui a t dix ans Consul au Caire ne me lavoit assur .13 Interestingly enough, the text does not refer to any particular deal, but to Arab trade practices in general. Its prime interest therefore resides in what it shows of the way people from different cultural backgrounds came to perceive each other. In the eighteenth century, as Edhem Eldem has noted, this kind of analysis developed into a genre of its own that, typically for the times, mixed first hand observations with an anthropological approachIn that age of the Enlightenment, traders more and more frequently felt the need to pose as scientific observers of a foreign culture, concentrating on those elements which were most familiar and critical to them.14 Such a commercial anthropology had little to do with the social science we know today, but shares with it three basic features: the position of the observer (who, in the eighteenth century, was no longer a mere spectator or passerby), the critical approach of the object, and the scientific scope of the analysis. Its main purpose, however, was commercial: as stated in a report written around 1750, knowledge of the character and trade of natives, that is to say of the sellers and buyers, is necessary to the merchants who have to trade with them. 15 Primarily practical and informative, the

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 8 knowledge was meant for reuse in situ by the reader. Despite the existence of such literature, establishing commercial contacts with local merchants and brokers remained challenging. Among the issues generally tackled by commercial reports and the journals and correspondences of traders, the differences in trade practices between Europe and the Levant seemed most problematic. Upon arrival to the Levant in 1812 as a representative of a Glasgow-based commercial house, trade agent Christophe Aubin wrote to the head of James Finlay & Company reports that testify for the culture shock he was then experiencing. Aubins disorientation had to do with very concrete issues, one of the most important being the discovery of a whole new business world in which he felt clueless and vulnerable. By listing all the differences in trade practices in Glasgow and Istanbul, Aubins reports account for the radical otherness of the Ottoman world as a European mind perceived it. Patterns of orientalism aside, what is here at stake is a notion of familiarity defined as ones capacity to get beyond otherness so as to create a social and cultural space which may be shared by people of different origins. 16 In the eighteenth century, such a view found its best expression in enlightened assumptions concerning the universality of commercial values and the art of trading, as well as celebrations of the cosmopolitan merchant. Samuel Ricards famous Trait gnral du commerce, published in Amsterdam in 1781, epitomizes it by opening with a clear profession of faith in trade as a universal language: il ny a point de science dont les rgles soient plus simples & plus uniformes que celles du Commerce. [] Les principes en tant partout les mmes, on peut dire du Commerce, en juger par ses effets, quil est un lien, qui, en attachant les hommes par lintrt, forme un seul peuple de toutes les nations de lunivers . Far from being exceptional, such a sentiment is echoed by Kants belief that the spread of both republicanism and commerce would make possible the universal cosmopolitan existence which recognizes that the peoples of the earth have entered in varying degrees

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 9 into a universal community where a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere. To Kant, the daily experience of cultural encounters deriving from trade would make trade a natural incubator of values such as toleration and peace.17 Aubins account is radically at odds with such views. Rather, it might repeatedly underline the many differences that existed between European and Oriental ways of trading. Beyond the practical issues, such divergences turn out to reflect a moral gap between the two worlds. In Aubins words, jealousy, and a desire of taking away other peoples business, at whatever price that can be done, - a strong propensity to flattery, and not the strictest regard to truth, seem to me the leading features of the character of a Levantine Merchant.18 In his attempt to typify the Levantine merchant, Aubin resorts to an us-and-them dialectic that permeates most of the literature on extra-European trade at this time. Far from being an original feature of his testimony, Aubins claim that Levantine merchants are corrupt was one of the topoi conveyed by treatises on trade and private correspondence alike. More than a Levantine mtis expressed through commercial craftiness, what was often underlined was the way these merchants made use of their own moral defaults in their business activities. Among these defaults, the most often mentioned are trickery, deception and fraudall three linked to the same moral feature, namely the ability to feign, fake and dissemble. If such qualities were often linked in popular discourse with commercial activities, the eighteenth century is also the time par excellence when the issue of the morality of trade is raised. A good example of such a concern is to be found in one of the letters sent by the Earl of Chesterfield to his son: In business, you always play with sharpers; to whom, at least, you should give no fair advantages. It may be objected, that I am now recommending dissimulation to you; I both own and justify it. It has been long said, 'Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare': I go still further, and say, that without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all. It is simulation that is false, mean, and criminal. The line drawn by Lord

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 10 Chesterfield between good and criminal commercial practices might seem thin and subtle, yet it is essential to understanding the way Western traders looked at their Levantine counterparts. Most of the time, Ottomans were regarded as people who went beyond the customary lines of what Westerners considered to be a moral way to trade.19 Within this context, the character of the Levantiner came to embody a form of radical otherness that stemmed both from philosophical reflections and ideas of the time, and from anthropological analysis based on the observation of Levantine trade practices. Ultimately, this commercial anthropology was embedded in the perspective of a broader human anthropology, within which the Levantine had a well-defined place. As claimed in a report from 1802, le commerce du Levant et de Barbarie ne peut tre compar ni celui que les nations civilises font les unes avec les autres, ni mme celui quelles exploitent dans le nouveau monde...Les nations qui les habitent tiennent un rang mitoyen entre les peuples civiliss et les nations barbares . Quite expectedly, the practice of trade was viewed as one of the ways for the barbarians to transcend their primitive condition and reach a superior degree of human evolution. Such a belief is echoed in the very first lines of Samuel Ricards Trait gnral du Commerce: LHistoire rend au Commerce, un tmoignage glorieux & vrai, en attestant quil a occasionn la civilisation de plusieurs nations sauvages .20 These sentiments only partially reflect, however, the view European traders had of their Ottoman counterparts. The term Levantine was probably the most common in the commercial literature of the time, but it remained a vague and general label that concealed from readers the ethnic and religious divides within Ottoman society. It would be wrong to assume that all Levantines looked alike to European eyes (an assumption sometimes fostered by superficial accusations of orientalism). Indeed, Western perception of Levantine reality was far more subtle and sophisticated when it came to everyday and concrete cases. European merchants also used different labels and ethno-religious categories which testify to a more

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 11 refined perception of Ottoman identity. As Edhem Eldem writes, when it came to the real actors of trade, however local merchants, wholesalers, intermediaries the French trading community knew better than to lump together all kinds of people. Clear distinctions were made between Greeks, Jews, Armenians and Turks [and] French traders perceived all these groups as highly differentiated, whose national characteristics determined both their behavior and the way in which they should be approached.21

3. Beyond the Levantine: Business Practices and Ethno-Religious Identities A multiethnic state concerned with its political stability and social peace, the Ottoman Empire acknowledged from early on the existence of its different ethno-religious components. A key element in the Empires social structure as well as political ideology, the millet system granted to the biggest non-Muslim minorities (namely the Greeks, the Armenians and the Jews) a partial autonomy under the supreme authority of the sultan. According to an Ottoman saying, Turks, Armenians, Arabs, Greeks and Jews were the five fingers of the sultans hand. As far as the merchants were concerned, however, a clear boundary divided Turks and minorities, the latter being in turn characterized by their belonging to the Armenian, the Greek or the Jewish millet.22 While the rigidity of this division remains a debated issue, it nevertheless constituted the backbone of much of the Ottoman social structure until the beginning of the Tanzimat period (1839), and therefore permeated the perception European merchants had of the Ottomans.

3.1. The Turkish Merchant, between Orientalism and Decline Paradigm Studying the image Western traders had of their Ottoman counterparts, one cannot fail to notice how vague and ambiguous the term Turks remained until at least the midnineteenth century. In most European commercial literature, it bore no ethnic connotation

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 12 whatsoever and designated Muslims, Turkish-speaking persons, or even Ottoman subjects in general (Muslims and non-Muslims alike). In the historiography, though, the term Turk is commonly used in reference to Turkish-speaking Ottoman Muslims, a working definition that is narrow by necessity, and implies a careful and critical reading of the sources and secondary literature.23 As far as Turkish merchants are concerned, very little is known about their business activities, especially their trade with European powers. Two main reasons account for such a gap. First, the fact that part of the Levant trade was left in the hands of non-Muslim Ottoman minorities (rayas) has led historians to focus their attention on those communities rather than on the Turks themselves. Second, the importance played by what Cemal Kafadar once called the decline paradigm, namely the belief that the decline of the Ottoman Empire was a longlasting and irreversible process that owed much to cultural characteristics of Ottoman Turks and of the empires religious and political authorities. Such a framework of analysis has permeated much of the historical research until very recently, leading historians to overlook evidence of Ottoman-Turkish dynamism (and even prosperity) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the light of archival research, though, it appears that Turkish merchants played a significant role in the Levant trade, as they controlled most of the commerce of high-value goods such as sugar, coffee, and certain textiles. 24 Of all Ottoman traders, Turkish merchants embodied radical otherness, arousing considerable curiosityas well as a good deal of suspicion, prejudice and contemptamong their European counterparts. In particular, a large number of European commercial treatises deal at length with the business practices of the Turks, most of them articulating points worth detailed analysis. One of the most common remarks about Turkish merchants has to do with their assumed reluctance to trade with foreigners, and therefore to engage in international trade. As Habesci

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 13 summed it up in 1784, The Turks carry on scarcely any commerce beyond the confines of the Ottoman empire. [Their] principal commerce consists in transporting the commodities of the provinces of the empire, either in their natural or improved state, from one place to another: they are not willing to run any risk or hazard for greater advantages.25 Among other reasons, authors of commercial treatises often invoke the prohibitions formulated by political or religious authorities, an issue that has been questioned by historians in absence of archival evidence. Historical research has shown, however, that although they were active in local trade, Turkish merchants (either through agents or in person) had also been involved in longdistance, transnational and cross-cultural trade from the late sixteenth century onwards in regions such as the Indian Ocean, the Black Sea, and even the Western Mediterranean. Almost an untouched field of research to date, the study of Ottoman Turkish involvement in international business ventures seems the only way to challenge seriously the aforementioned myth of Muslim uninterest in trade.26 Another point most European commercial treatises insist on is Turkish ignorance of Western trade instrumentssuch as the letter of change, maritime insurance and the commercial code and tribunaland sophisticated business practices. Instead, Turkish merchants were assumed to entrust God with the fate of their business venturesa superstitious behavior often interpreted as evincing yet more backwardness.27 Lastly, Turkish morality was also considered at odds with commercial values: apart from their recognized honesty and integrity, Turkish merchants were commonly regarded as idle, greedy and haughty. Since all these features traditionally characterized the Levantine in orientalist discourse, they ultimately maintained the distance between European traders and their Turkish counterparts. Such distance, initially rooted in the obvious cultural differences that existed between the two groups, can also be explained by a lack of familiarity and practical knowledge they had of each other. But as an eighteenth-century Mmoire sur le commerce

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 14 franois du Levant convincingly argues, it is not ordinarily with the Turk that we trade, it is not he who buys, it is not he who sells, it is the Jew, it is the Armenian, it is the Greek.28

3.2. Ottoman-ness Reconsidered: Non-Muslim Minorities While the contribution of Turkish merchants to the Levant trade remains to be studied in depth, there is little doubt that most of the business partners and commercial intermediaries with whom the Europeans dealt on a daily basis in the Levant belonged to either the Greek, the Jewish or the Armenian millet.29 No wonder, then, that Western commercial reports and treatises provide us with more refined and better-informed remarks about them than about the Turks. However, these descriptions of the business practices of the minorities are also organized according to an immutable series of points. For this reason, and to find out how a certain set of features were regarded as proper to those minorities, the present paper avoids classical typology and analyzes them in a transverse way. The first of these features is the character of the Jews, Greeks and Armenians, who, as opposed to the Turks, seem to possess natural talents for trade. Surprisingly enough, though, their capacity is inversely proportional to their morality, as we often find in the European commercial literature statements such as a Greek is commonly absent-minded and treacherous, a Jew intriguing and faithless, an Armenian stingy and vulgar. Often accused of avarice, cheating and lying, they nevertheless remain the indispensable partners and intermediaries in the business Western merchants conduct in the Levant. The latter are completely aware of it, as they claim that one should necessarily know the Turks to avoid them and to fear them, the Jews to use them, the Greeks to sell to them at an advantage and to render them dependent, and the Armenians to distinguish the solidity of those who deserve trust; one should keep an eye on all, for all of them join forces and form a common front against the superior nation who comes to trade with them.30

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 15 A second frequently raised point about these minorities focuses on their specialization in certain branches of trade. For instance, while the Greeks apply themselves to maritime affairs [and] never travel far inland, except into European Turkey, the Jews are known for giving themselves up to every kind of trade and to all professions, the majority of them being agents and brokers, while the wealthiest practice usury, banking and trade. As for the Armenians, they are mainly involved in inland trade from the Ottoman Empire to Persia and India, and practically monopolize the function of sarraf (financial backer) with the Ottoman pashas and viziers.31 Beyond this typology, what emerges is the picture of small ethnoreligious groups playing a key role as intermediaries between European traders and Ottoman goods and markets. By the mid-eighteenth century, though, these middlemen were able to compete directly with European traders in the Levant, and Suraiya Faroqhi rightly points out that we should view the relationship of non-Muslim Ottoman merchants to foreign traders as a complicated one, in which a single individual might play the role of both associate and competitor according to circumstances.32 Rather than a number of single individuals, though, European traders saw the minorities as well-structured and well-established groups whose sense of organization enabled big business ventures. Reminiscent of concepts in network analysis, eighteenth-century commercial literature evokes the close bounds that united the members of these groups, their sense of belonging to a single family, and the solidarity that prevailed among them. As Lady Montagu noticed about the Jews in 1717, le dernier des Isralites est encore un personnage trop important pour quon ose nuire ses intrts. Le corps entier prendrait sa dfense avec le mme zle que sil sagissait de ses membres les plus distingus .33 Indeed, the settlement in Western European port cities of Greek, Jewish and Armenian communities tightened the contacts between non-Muslim Ottoman merchants and their Western counterparts, and familiarized them with European business practices. There is little doubt that such familiarity

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 16 was instrumental in their cooperation with Western traders, and that it played a role in the European attribution of a specific identity to these minority groups. As a consequence of it, though, it also contributed to the myth of Turkish backwardness, and gave birth to the legendwidespread among Turkish nationalist historiographyof these minorities as the Trojan horse of the Western powers inside the Ottoman Empire. 34 Both views mistakenly assume that the non-Muslim Ottoman minorities shared a common interest, namely to favor European traders at the expense of the Ottoman state. Historical research has shown that the reality was far more complex than this, and commercial records testify to the existence of patterns of cooperation between minorities and Turks, as well as of competition among the minority groups.35 Ultimately, little evidence is to be found of a rejection of Ottoman identity by the minorities in the eighteenth century. Rather, most Jewish, Greek and Armenian merchants and brokers seemed willing to remain Ottoman subjects, as long as this did not contravene commercial interestsand, for some, political beliefs. 36 More than two decades ago, Philip Curtins pioneering work on long-distance crosscultural trade called for an historical economic anthropology that still largely remains to be written.37 Though on a small scale, one of the aims of the present paper was to show how the study of eighteenth-century commercial practices can provide a fresh insight into an old problem, namely the nature and complexity of Ottoman identities. Indeed, what emerges from a reading of the commercial literature of the time is the coexistence of identities under a variety of labelsLevantine, Oriental, Ottomanthat refer to a hybrid mental space and a concrete social, political and economical context. The observation of foreign commercial practices and business techniques deeply informed the understanding European merchants had of their Ottoman counterparts. Beyond the oriental paradigm, a more subtle approach to ethno-religious identities combined commercial anthropology with proto-national stereotypes, and ultimately led to a multifaceted perception of othernessas opposed to the

Grenet - A Business alla Turca? - 17 advice contained in the nineteenth-century parody of a letter from the Greek pirate Macairos to the Czar Nicolas: Si lon coutait les capitaines marchands, ils ne seraient jamais ottomans ; quant moi, je suis davis que tout ce qui vient de Turquie est turc, de mme que tout ce qui sy rend. Cest pourquoi je nai pas hsit un seul instant dclarer de bonne prise tout ce qui est pris, cela simplifie les affaires, et la simplicit avant tout ! 38

Apart from a few pioneering works, most of the major studies on the Levantine trade have been published in the last two decades. See Nicolas Svoronos, Le Commerce de Salonique au XVIIIe sicle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1956); Robert Paris , Jean Reynaud, and Ferrol Rebuffat, 1660-1789. Le Levant et la Barbarie, vol. 5 of Histoire du commerce de Marseille (Paris: Plon, 1957); Ralph Davis, Aleppo and Devonshire Square. English Traders in the Levant in the Eighteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1967); Katsumi Fukasawa, Toilerie et commerce du Levant : dAlep Marseille (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1987); Elena Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna in the Eighteenth Century, 1700-1820 (Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 1992); Edhem Eldem, French Trade in Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century, Leiden: Brill, 1999); Maurits H. van den Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls, and Beratl in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 2 Louis Chnier, Commerce des Franois dans les Etats du Grand-Seigneur. Prsent lAssemble Nationale (Paris: chez lAuteur, 1789), 6. 3 Paolo Preto, Venice and the Ottoman Empire: from War to Turcophilia, in La Mditerrane au XVIIIe sicle (Aix-en-Provence: Universit de Provence, 1987), 135-61. 4 Robert Mantran, Commerce, course et convois en Mditerrane orientale dans la deuxime moiti du XVIIe sicle, in Economies mditerranennes. Equilibres et intercommunications, XIIIe-XIXe sicles (Athens: Centre de Recherches Nohellniques de la Fondation de la Recherche Scientifique, 1985), 1:491-504. 5 Chevalier de Jaucourt, Turquie, in Diderot and DAlembert, eds., Encyclopdie ou Dictionnaire raisonn des Sciences, des Arts et des Mtiers (Neuchtel: Samuel Faulche, 1765), 755-59. 6 Malcolm J. Wagstaff, The Role of the Eastearn Mediterranean (Levant) for the Early Modern European World-Economy, 1500-1800, in Hans-Jrgen Nitz, ed., The Early Modern World-System in Geographical Perspective (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1993), 327-42. 7 Bruce McGowan, The Age of the Ayans, 1699-1812, in Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert, eds., An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 637-758. 8 Elias Habesci, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London: R. Baldwin, 1784), 442; Charles Carrire and Marcel Courduri, Un sophisme conomique . Marseille senrichit en nachetant plus quelle ne vend (Rflexions sur les mcanismes commerciaux levantins au XVIIIe sicle), Histoire, Economie et Socit 3.1 (1984): 7-51. 9 Rhoads Murphey, Westernisation in the Eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire: How Far,

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How Fast ?, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 23 (1999): 116-39. Fatma Mge Gek, East Encounters West. France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 98; Berrak Burak, The Institution of the Ottoman Embassy and Eighteenth-Century Ottoman History: an Alternative to Gek, in Baki Tezcan and Karl K. Barbir, eds., Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman World. A Volume of Essays in Honor of Norman Itzkowitz (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007), 147-151; Paul Masson, Histoire du commerce franais dans le Levant au XVIIIe sicle (Paris: Hachette, 1911); Almanach gnral des marchands, ngociants, armateurs et fabricans de la France et de lEurope, et autres parties du monde (Paris: Grang, 1774); Charles Sigisbert Sonnini, Voyage en Grce et en Turquie, fait par ordre de Louis XVI, et avec lautorisation de la cour ottomane (Paris: F. Buisson, 1801), 280; Franois Vron Duverger de Forbonnais, Questions sur le commerce des Franois au Levant (Marseille: Carapatria, 1755), 123-24. 11 Cemal Kafadar, A Death in Venice (1575): Anatolian Muslim Merchants Trading in the Serenissima, Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 191-218; Derek McKay and Hamish M. Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, 1648-1815 (London and New York: Longman, 1983), 204; Voltaire, De lempire ottoman au XVIe sicle: ses usages, son gouvernement, ses revenus (1753), in uvres compltes de Voltaire, ed. Charles Lahure (Paris: L. Hachette et Cie, 1859), 8:124-29; Jean-Louis Bacqu-Grammont, Sinan Kneralp, and Frdric Hitzel, Reprsentants permanents de la France en Turquie (1536-1991) et de la Turquie en France (1797-1991) (Istanbul and Paris: Isis, 1991). 12 Stphane Yerasimos, Deux Ottomans Paris sous le Directoire et lEmpire. Relations dambassade (Arles: Actes Sud, 1998); Mehmed Efendi, Le Paradis des Indidles. Un ambassadeur ottoman en France sous la Rgence, ed. Gilles Veinstein (Paris: La Dcouverte, 2004). 13 Jacques Savary, Le parfait ngociant, ou instruction gnrale pour ce qui regarde le commerce des marchandises de France, & des pays trangers (Geneva: Frres Cramer et Cl. Philibert, 1752), 1:834-35. 14 Eldem, French Trade, 204 and 218. 15 French National Archives [hereafter : A.N.], A.E. B III 241, n 18, Caractre des gens du pays, leur commerce, ca. 1750; cited in Eldem, French Trade, 219-20. 16 Allan B. Cunningham, The Journal of Christophe Aubin: A Report on the Levant Trade in 1812, Archivum Ottomanicum 8 (1983): 5-131; Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: the Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978); Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer M. Welsh, "The Turk" As Europes Other, in J. Peter Burgess, ed., Cultural Politics and Political Culture in Postmodern Europe (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997), 291-320. 17 Samuel Ricard, Trait gnral du Commerce, contenant des observations sur le commerce des principaux tats de lEurope (Amsterdam: E. van Harrenvelt and A. Soetens, 1781), 1:1; Emmanuel Kant, Kants Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 107-8. 18 The term Levantine did not in the eighteenth century refer to any ethno-confessional group in particular, and is still used by Europeans to designate any inhabitant of the Levant, regardless of ethnic, linguistic or religious distinction. Cunningham, Journal, 96; Oliver Jens Schmitt, Levantiner. Lebenswelten und Identitten einer ethnokonfessionellen Gruppe im Osmanischen Reich im langen 19. Jahrhundert (Mnchen: Oldenburg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2005). 19 Earl of Chesterfield, Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a
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Gentleman (London: J. Dodsley, 1774), Letter LXXI (22 May 1749). Municipal Archive of Marseilles (France), 5 F 1, Mmoire sur le commerce du Levant et de Barbarie, et sur celui de la Mer Noire, 1802; Ricard, Trait gnral, 1:1. 21 Edhem Eldem, Les ngociants franais Istanbul au XVIIIe sicle : dune prsence tolre une domination impose, in Franois Crouzet, ed., Le ngoce international, XIIIe-XXe sicle (Paris: Economica, 1989), 181-90. 22 Stefano Trinchese, ed., Le cinque dita del Sultano. Turchi, Armeni, Arabi, Greci ed Ebrei nel continente mediterraneo del 900 (LAquila: Textus, 2005); Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, eds., Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire. The Functioning of a Plural Society, 2 vols. (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1982). 23 Edhem Eldem, Capitulations and Western trade, in Suraiya Faroqhi, ed., The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839, vol. 3 of The Cambridge History of Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 283-335. 24 Michel Morineau, Naissance dune domination. Marchands europens, marchands et marchs du Levant aux XVIIIe et XIXe sicles, in Pour une histoire conomique vraie (Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1985), 295-326. 25 Habesci, Present State, 424-26; Eyp zveren and Onur Yildirim, An Outline of Ottoman Maritime History, in Gelina Harlaftis and Carmel Vassallo, eds., New Directions in Mediterranean Maritime History (St Johns, Nfld: International Maritime Economic History Association, 2004), 147-70. 26 Gilles Veinstein, Commercial Relations Between India and the Ottoman Empire (Late Fifteenth to Late Eighteenth Centuries): a Few Notes and Hypotheses, in Sushil Chaudhury and Michel Morineau, eds., Merchants, Companies and Trade. Europe and Asia in the Early Modern Era (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 95-115. 27 Alexandre de Miltitz, Manuel des Consuls, 2 vols. (London and Berlin: A. Asher, 18371841), 516-28. 28 Municipal Library of Saint-Brieuc (France), ms. 88, Mmoire sur le commerce franois du Levant, f 230v; cited in Eldem, French Trade, 221. 29 Elena Frangakis-Syrett, The Economic Activities of Ottoman and Western Communities in Eighteenth-Century Izmir, Oriente Moderno 18 (1999): 11-26. 30 A.N., A.E. B III 241, n 18, ca. 1750. 31 Guillaume Antoine Olivier, Travels in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Persia, undertaken by order of the Government of France, during the first six years of the Republic (London: T.N. Longman and O. Rees, 1801), 18; A.N., A.E. B III 242, Mmoire sur le commerce de Smyrne, 1820. 32 Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 153-54. 33 Jean-Michel Berton, Les Turcs dans la balance politique de lEurope au dix-neuvime sicle, ou Considrations sur lusurpation ottomane et sur lindpendance de la Grce, suivies dune nouvelle traduction des lettres de Lady Montague sur la Turquie (Paris: Librairie Nationale et Etrangre, 1822), 278. 34 Salhi R. Sonyel, Minorities and the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire (Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, 1993). 35 Daniel Panzac, International and Domestic Maritime Trade in the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century, International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992): 189-206. 36 Mathieu Grenet, Entangled allegiances. A study in the definition of a civic identity among the Ottoman Greeks in Marseilles, 1780-1840 (paper presented at the Summer Workshop of the Program in Hellenic Studies of Princeton University, Santorini, Greece, June 23-24, 2007). Mathieu Grenet, Citizens Abroad. The Greek Community of Marseilles and
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Political Events in Greece, 1820-1830, InterCultural Studies 7 (2007): 39-52. Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), IX. 38 Taxile Delord, Clment Carraguel, and Louis Huart, Messieurs les Cosaques. Relation charivaresque, comique et surtout vridique des hauts faits des Russes en Orient (Paris: Lecou, 1854), 354.
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