The Eyalet of the Morea was an eyalet

Eyalet

Eyalets were a former primary administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. The term is sometimes translated province or government. Depending on the rank of their commander, they are also sometimes known as pashaliks, beylerbeyliks, and kapudanliks.From 1453 to the beginning of the nineteenth...

 of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. It was located on the Peloponnese Peninsula.

History

The Ottoman Turks

Ottoman Turks

The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...

 overran the Peloponnese between 1458–1460, with the exception of the Venetian strongholds, which were taken gradually over decades of intermittent Ottoman–Venetian Wars. The peninsula was made a sanjak

Sanjak

Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...

of the Rumelia Eyalet

Rumelia Eyalet

The eyalet of Rumeli or eyalet of Rumelia , also known as Rumeli Beylerbeyliği was a eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. The capital was in Adrianople , Monastir and Sofia. Its reported area in the 19th century was .It was formed during the reign of Murad I as the first Beylerbeylik of the Ottoman Empire...

, with Corinth (Turk. Gördes) as its capital. The Venetians occupied the entire peninsula during the successful Morean War

Morean War

The Morean War is the better known name for the Sixth Ottoman–Venetian War. The war was fought between 1684–1699, as part of the wider conflict known as the "Great Turkish War", between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire...

 (1684–1699), establishing the "Kingdom of the Morea" (It. Regno di Morea) to rule the country. Venetian rule lasted until the re-establishment of Ottoman control in 1715.

Kapudanlik

The Ottomans re-established a Morea Eyalet, which also included parts of mainland Greece around Nafpaktos and Preveza

Preveza

Preveza is a town in the region of Epirus, northwestern Greece, located at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. It is the capital of the regional unit of Preveza, which is part of the region of Epirus. An immersed tunnel, completed in 2002 which runs between Preveza and Actium, connects the town...

. Corinth, then Nafplion (Tr. Anaboli) and later Tripolitza

Tripoli, Greece

Tripoli is a city of about 25,000 inhabitants in the central part of the Peloponnese, in Greece. It is the capital of the prefecture of Arcadia and the centre of the municipality of Tripolis, pop...

 (Tr. Trabliçe) were the province's capitals. Throughout the 18th century, Ottoman authority remained relatively solid and opposed only by rebellions in the semi-autonomous Mani Peninsula

Mani Peninsula

The Mani Peninsula , also long known as Maina or Maïna, is a geographical and cultural region in Greece. Mani is the central peninsula of the three which extend southwards from the Peloponnese in southern Greece. To the east is the Laconian Gulf, to the west the Messenian Gulf...

, the southernmost part of the Peloponnese, and the activities of the bands of the klephts. The Russian-instigated Orlov Revolt

Orlov Revolt

The Orlov Revolt was a precursor to the Greek War of Independence , which saw a Greek uprising in the Peloponnese at the instigation of Count Orlov, commander of the Russian Naval Forces of the Russo-Turkish War...

 of 1770 temporarily threatened Ottoman rule, but was quickly and brutally subdued.

Administrative divisions

Sanjaks of Morea Eyalet in the early 19th century:

1. Sanjak of Tripolitza
2. Sanjak of Mistra