KAPİTALİZM ÇAĞINDA RODOS’TA TİCARET VE TOPLUM
TRADE AND SOCIETY IN RHODES IN THE AGE OF CAPITALISM

Summary/Abstract: This study examines the transformation of the island of Rhodes from a logistical base-positioned by the Ottoman Empire, particularly within the supply networks of Constantinople, for administrative and economic purposes-into a peripheral economy dependent on the global system, under the influence of the expansion of global capitalism and British free-trade imperialism in the 19th century. The study examines the structural rupture in the island’s economic structure caused by the 1838 Treaty of Balta Limanı and the penetration of British financial capitalism into local trade networks in the Levant region. Through the administrative establishment of the British Consular District of Rhodes in the 1850s and the official reports of Consul Niven Kerr and his successor Robert Campbell, the study examines the bureaucratic corruption within the Ottoman provincial administration, the intensifying social division, and the socio-political crises caused by the sale of patents to Ottoman subjects and the capitulations. Despite the island’s agricultural limitations, its integration into global markets through the sponge trade and the export of cash crops is assessed within the context of capitalist transformation in production relations. Furthermore, customs, population, waqf and health registers from the Prime Ministry’s Ottoman Archive for the period 1838–1858 have been compared with British consular statistics, The artificial logistical growth caused by the Crimean War, the destructive effects of the 1857 Global Financial Crisis and ecological disasters, and the early-stage competitive dynamics created by steamship technology against sail-powered shipping have been examined.

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