By this I mean stuff like how Spice is valuable to Europe as to want to control the trade, or how China valued silver coming from Europe.
Did the Ottomans have a valuable resource they can grow or extract themselves to sell? Most of what I read is that they sit on lucrative trade routes, but not sure what this really entails.
I’ll try to answer your question, sorry if it doesn’t satisfy you and that this arrived late. Yes, the Ottoman Empire had a lot of commodities that they cultivate themselves for export to Europe and beyond. The Ottomans mainly exported raw, unprocessed foodstuffs and raw materials, some of those I will describe below:
Mohair
Mohair is the wool of Angora goat of Anatolia, and it’s dazzlingly white and curly, grows about eight to nine inches long, and is as fine as silk, making it a major national and international trade commodity. Mohair had been exported to Europe ever since the 16th century with many foreign merchants and traders went to Ankara, the center of mohair production to purchase the product. Local court records shows that by the beginning of the 17th century Venetian, Polish, Dutch, French, and English merchants had already established themselves in the city to engage in the trade of mohair. However, the Dutch, French, and English merchants are the biggest buyer of mohair. For example, in the early 18th century about 3,000 to 3,200 bales of mohair (around 272-290 tons), two-thirds of Ankara’s mohair export were going to the Leiden textile industry in the Netherlands. In 1721, The Dutch imported some 181–193.5 tons of mohair, the French imported about 122 tons, and the English imported about 102 tons. Mohair yarn exported to Europe was used for the production of various textile goods, depending on yarn quality. During the 17th century, mohair yarn exported to the Netherlands was used primarily for the production of a camlet known as “Leidse Turken”, a high-quality, skill-intensive, light camlet produced from a mixture of camel and goat hair with wool and silk. In England, mohair yarn from Ankara was used for buttons until it was replaced by metal buttons in the mid-18th century. Mohair export started to decline after the late 18th century because of international competitions and changing fashion trends in Europe, but it’s still a valuable commodity in regional trade
Cotton
For centuries, cotton was one of the most important commodities of the Ottoman Empire, which was sold regionally and internationally. Centers of Ottoman cotton production including Adana, Syria, Western Anatolia, Palestine, Thessaly, and of course Egypt. Though generally lower in quality compared to Indian cotton, Ottoman cotton was still sought after and was one of its major exports well into the 19th century, though the trade wasn’t exactly a stable one. Ever since the 16th century, cotton was shipped in great quantities from Syrian, Anatolian, and Greek ports to European nations like the British and the French. The British imported cotton from the ports of Smyrna and Cyprus for the Lancashire spinning industry built upon Levantine cotton. English imports of cotton primarily spiked in the 1770s, where it increased tenfold between 1765 and 1775, and had tripled again by 1795, before falling back at the beginning of the 19th century. Meanwhile the French primarily bought cotton at Damascus and Aleppo, both major centers for cotton production. Levantine cotton exports to France also multiplied tenfold from 1700 to 1788, now mainly through the ports of Smyrna and Salonika. This was because at the time, Levantine exports were cut down to fulfill increasing domestic demands.
By the 19th century, Ottoman cotton production overall increased, but international trade struggled because of international competitions and the secession of Egypt. However, Ottoman and Egyptian cotton experienced a brief boom during the American Civil War and overall managed to stay afloat in international markets and saw a surge after 1900. At the beginning of the 19th century, Salonika exported some 22,500 bales of raw cotton. In the 1850s, Anatolia produced some 50,000 bales of cotton, Macedonia 9,700 bales, and Thessaly 3,500 bales. By that time Anatolia had exported 27,000 bales of cotton, 85% of its production. By 1904, production of Adana, Syria, and West Anatolia yielded some 80,000 bales. Between 1904 and 1906, production in Adana rose 250%, from 50,000 to 250,000 bales. Sadly all these economic growth and production was brought to an end with the wars in the following years.
Silk
Though mostly known for re-exporting Iranian silk for European markets, the Ottoman Empire also produced silk on their own ever since the 16th century, with cities in Anatolia and Levant as its producers. Bursa, Aleppo, Diyarbakir, and Lebanon particularly stood out as the major producer of Ottoman silk up to the 19th century. In the 17th to early 18th century, Venice, Britain, and France were major importers of Ottoman silk. For the British, raw silk was its main commodity imports, accounting for 60% of all goods brought from Ottoman ports to Britain. However, by the mid-18th to the 19th century, Ottoman silk exports to Britain exponentially decreased because of competitions with Indian silk and changing fashion patterns. Though silk production increased with the establishment of new workshops and factories, Ottoman silk during this time was mainly sold regionally
However, entering the 19th century, Ottoman silk once again received a surge thanks to the collapse of Iranian silk industry, rising demand for silk, and the ravages caused by the pebrine disease in Europe. Bursa experienced a major expansion in silk production and exports, with production of up to 700 tons of silk in 1856, and export revenues in the 1870s rose from £94,000 to £170,000. Silk production in Syria also rose from 960,000 kgs in 1861 to 1,700,000 kgs in 1868. Production centers now expanded, like the port cities of Beirut and Jaffa which got in to the silk boom. However, Ottoman silk production once again plummeted in the 1870s caused by the silkworm disease that had also ravaged Europe. All countermeasures, such as the government’s efforts to introduce Japanese silkworms that were immune to the disease, or the individual efforts of some merchants and silkraisers in Bursa to import the Pasteur techniques from France, doesn’t fulfill expectations. Moreover, after the opening of the Suez Canal, East Asian silk products flooded the European markets, making matters even worse for Ottoman (or non-East Asian too In that matter) silk producers and the silk industry. However even with that, Ottoman silk production continued to increase, though export prices stagnated. In the 1890s, Bursa experienced another major silk expansion as annual silk production rise fourfold, from 154 tons to 690 tons. Overall Syrian silk industry also experienced growth, for example Beirut silk exports rise from 1350 bales in 1881 to 3571 bales in 1893.
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