A Local Example of Smuggling Activities on the Eastern Mediterranean Coasts: Alata Pier

Mersin, which has a coast to the Eastern Mediterranean, was a city that had just started to develop in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The fact that it has a long coastline and a large hinterland, has been one of the main triggers of the emergence and development of Mersin as a city. Although Mersin Port was not sufficient in terms of technical equipment and infrastructure with its piers, it was one of the most important ports of the Eastern Mediterranean in terms of location. At this point, the main problematic of our research is to make an evaluation on how local smuggling activities were tried to be carried out in the last period of the empire in the Eastern Mediterranean under Ottoman rule. In this regard, the banned substances smuggled within the framework of the general conjuncture of the process are mostly timber and other forest products, weapons and explosives. More importantly, with these banned substances, it has been observed that a large amount of people were kidnapped from these coasts. Especially Armenian fugitives are frequently mentioned in the documents on this subject. Although these activities were generally carried out with foreign flagged ships, the main point was that some local people in the region and those serving the state were also leading to illegal activities. In this case, it would be emphasized that there were some vulnerabilities emerged in the process. The main problematic of the study are the smuggling activities carried out in the hinterland of the Alata Pier in Erdemli, located on the coastline of Mersin, which was one of the ports away from the mouth and from the control, and the commercial activities carried out in a way to harm the people of the region despite all measures taken by the center. While the awareness of the center for all these activities reflected the spirit of the period to the documents, the activities carried out in both the coastal and mountain areas of the region seriously harmed the state. Within the framework of these events, what kind of measures the state tried to take and how much it was sufficient are among the questions to be evaluated within the scope of our study.

Keywords

Contemporary Age History, Eastern Mediterranean, Mersin-Alata Pier, Weapon and Fugitive Smuggling, European States, Coastal Safety.