Osmanlı İstanbul’unda Ermeni ve Rum Esnafa Dair Bir Kesit: 19. Yüzyıl Ortalarında Kumkapı

In the Ottoman world, tradesmen had various places where they practiced their profession. Although these places were located mainly in the central parts of the city, they were also spread in non-central neighborhoods. The Ottoman State recorded tradesmen and craftsmen in nüfus registers according to their locations or places. For the registration process, not only the names of the people but also their physical characteristics, kinship relations, ages, professions and hometowns were taken into account and due to these records, it’s possible to identify the tradesmen groups in that region and obtain information about where their shops were and who stayed there. In this study, using the registers numbered NFS.d 12 (1822), 61 (1839), 64 (1840), 65 (1841), 283, and 284 (1844-45) from the Nüfus Registers catalog of the Ottoman Archives, the masons, boatmen, fishermen, porters, innkeepers and greengrocers, sherbet makers, chicken sellers, money changers, herbalists, grocery stores and other occupational groups that were occupied by Armenians and Greeks in the Kumkapı neighborhood towards the mid-19th century are examined within the socio-economic environment in which they continued their existence. Within this framework, the study focuces on the occupational distribution, kinship ties, and migration backgrounds of these groups and tries to provide a panoramic perspective on how they maintained their presence in the center of the Ottoman State through the example of Kumkapı.