@article{2015,title={Role of American Protestant Missionaries in Late Ottoman Empire Educational System},abstractNode={American Protestant Missionaries launched their activities in Ottoman lands as from 1819. American Board Organization studied Ottoman society in detail via the missionaries. Ottoman Empire, which involves several ethnic identities, was ridden with Catholic and Protestant missionaries in its last century. The most effective tool used by the missionaries to penetrate Ottoman society, especially by American ones, was education. American missionaries opened more than 400 schools in Anatolia in order to conduct activities of conversion to Protestantism via education. In the reign of Abdulhamid II first attempts to harness missionary activities began and Inspectorship of Schools of Non-Muslims and Foreigners was created for this purpose. Yet, activities of missionaries could not be slowed down. Ottoman admimistration was unable to close down missionary schools although majority of of them opened without a proper licence. Interference of foreign states in Ottoman policies resulted in retreat of Ottoman Empire in their efforts to slow missionary activities down. Althouh it was not their primary purpose, missionary activites produced a positive side effect by raising educational standards in the empire. In this study, educational activities of American Protestant Missionaries have been explained in the light of Ottoman archival documents and with the help of related research. Main aim of the study was to bring a new perspective to the area with original documents revealed recently.},author={Muhammet AVAROĞULLARI-- Özgür YILDIZ},year={2015},journal={Journal of Turkish Studies}}