Sanjak of Sakız
| Sanjak of Sakız Ottoman Turkish: Liva-i Sakız or Sancak-ı Sakız |
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| Sanjak of the Ottoman Empire | |||||
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| Capital | Chios | ||||
| History | |||||
| • | Ottoman conquest | 1566 | |||
| • | Capture by Greece and Italy | 1912 | |||
| Today part of |
 Greece
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The Sanjak of Sakız or Chios (Greek: Σαντζάκι Χίου) was a second-level Ottoman province (sanjak or liva) centred on the eastern Aegean island of Chios. Its Turkish name, Sakız, derived from the island's most distinctive product, gum mastic.
A possession of the Genoese Maona company since 1346, Chios (and its attendant islets of Psara and Oinousses) was conquered without resistance by the Ottoman Empire in 1566, as a recompense for the failure to capture Malta the previous year, and annexed as a sanjak of the Eyalet of the Archipelago.
With the exception of a Florentine attack in 1599, a brief occupation by the Venetians in 1694–1695 during the Morean War, and Russian activities in the area during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, the island remained a peaceful province until the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence. During this time, its role as a major commercial hub and the main point of export for Anatolian goods (a role it held until eclipsed by the mainland port city of Smyrna in the 17th century), as well as its unique production of the gum mastic (which was much prized by the ladies of the Sultan's harem), secured it great prosperity. The island's population was mostly Greek Orthodox, with a few Genoese-descended Catholics, whose power was much diminished after the Venetian occupation; the Turkish presence was limited to the governor and his administrators, as well as a garrison of ca. 2,000 troops.
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