Caravane Maritime

Caravane maritime is the term designating the use of Western European/ 'Christian' shipping to carry Muslim goods and passengers between ports in the Ottoman Empire, including North Africa. By extension, it can include the inter-port carrying trade in the whole Mediterranean, whether by English, Dutch, French, Venetian/Italian or 'Greek' vessels.

It consisted of a web of trade routes linking the major ports in the area; Algiers to Sidon , Tunis to Smyrna, Istanbul to Alexandria, Jaffa to Salonika. At its base was the large trade of miscellaneous commodities, such as foodstuffs, textiles, tin, iron, and luxury goods. These trading activities created a web of people of various faiths, nationalities and social classes, allowing and fostering a constant exchange of ideas, customs and information that cut across religious denominations and borders. The reality at the basis of the market place in that region at that time prevents us from talking about Christian, Muslim or of specific national trades. In the Southern Mediterranean, between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries, there was no strong state authority capable of dominating or regulating these markets, a situation that also explains the rise of piracy and privateering in that area, and the ways in which this interacted with the caravane proper.