Ottomans Take Caffa

1475

Mehmed II's forces captured the Genoese Black Sea colony of Caffa, ending Genoese commercial dominance in the region. The Crimean Tatars became Ottoman vassals. Slave markets on the Black Sea shifted from Genoese to Ottoman control. Italian trade eastward was steadily being squeezed shut by the expanding sultanate. The fall disrupted the slave trade supplying Egypt's Mamluks with Circassian recruits, weakening the sultanate at a critical moment.