A History of Turks in America

"In the 16th century, the size and power of the Ottoman Empire reached its peak. Since the conquest of Istanbul by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453, the Ottomans had engaged in active expansion, both in land and on the sea. Seeking the legitimization and prestige associated with guarding the Islamic Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, the Ottomans marched southward and eastward towards Arabia and Persia. But the conquest of Istanbul had opened the door to Europe, so the Ottomans also advanced westwards towards the Balkans. With the establishment of its Navy in the late 1400s, the Ottomans soon came in conflict with the seafaring Italian city states. By the beginning of the 1500s, however, the Ottomans had emerged as the dominant power in the Eastern Mediterranean. These successes in turn paved the way for Ottoman seamen to enter the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, thereby threatening the European trade routes to the East, and bringing the Ottomans into conflict with the Portuguese.

In the face of such expansion, European states endeavored to form alliances that would balance the power against the Ottomans. However, even the Pope's calls for holy war against the Turks in response to the conquest of Istanbul was not sufficient to overcome the individual political and economic interests of the European states and create a unified counter-force. Rather, European states struggled independently against the Ottomans, with the Hapsburgs fighting the Ottomans in the Balkans, and the Portuguese and Venetians fighting the Ottomans in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. For the Europeans, the main concern was commercial, and this quest for alternate trade routes to India as well as new trading partners sparked the 'Voyages of Discovery' that led to the Portuguese successfully discovering a way around the Cape of Good Hope, and Christopher Columbus discovering America in 1492"

From Anatolia to Appalachia: A Turkish-American Dialogue

Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery