The Çelebi Family and Ottoman Intra-Asian Trade, 1650–1800

This paper examines the commercial activities of the Çelebi family, an early modern Ottoman firm involved in intra-Asian trade. It uses the family as a springboard for not only ‘peopling’ the history of pre-modern Ottoman capitalism, but as a prism for rethinking the economic activities of Ottoman subjects in the Indian Ocean following central state withdrawal in 1600. While their precise origins are a matter of debate, the Çelebis initially settled in Basra. From this base they branched out to Surat in Western India and made regular voyages to Mocha, Canton, and half a dozen places in between. Because Ottoman sources related to the family’s activities are sparse, this paper follows them into Portuguese, Dutch, and English archives. These sources supply a better sense of the voyages they undertook and the goods they transported, as well as their close, if sometimes strained, relations with Mughal and Ottoman officialdom. The family’s seeming disappearance from the archival record around 1800 supplies an opportunity to reflect on both the changing character of European commercial record-keeping around this period and the tendency of the most prominent Ottoman firms involved in intra-Asian trade to settle outside the empire and to adopt new identities.