page_title: Black people
section_title: Turkey
hierarchical_section_title: Black people / Asia / Western Asia / Turkey
context_page_description: Black people refers to a racialized classification of people, usually a political and a skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all Black people have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "Black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is mostly used for people of Sub-Saharan African descent and the indigenous peoples of Oceania. Indigenous African societies do not use the term Black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.
  The term "Black" may also be capitalized; the AP Stylebook changed its guide to capitalize the "b" in Black in 2020.
  Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified "Black", and these social constructs have changed over time. In a number of countries, societal variables affect classification as much as skin color, and the social criteria for "Blackness" vary. In the United Kingdom, "Black" was historically equivalent with "person of color", a general term for non-European peoples.
context_section_description: Beginning several centuries ago, during the period of the Ottoman Empire, tens of thousands of Zanj captives were brought by slave traders to plantations and agricultural areas situated between Antalya and Istanbul in present-day Turkey. Some of their ancestry remained in situ, and many migrated to larger cities and towns. Other black slaves were transported to Crete, from where they or their descendants later reached the İzmir area through the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, or indirectly from Ayvalık in pursuit of work.
caption: A Bashi-bazouk of the Ottoman Empire, painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1869
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