The city of Samsun where Atatürk started the Turkish War of Independence on May 19, 1919; has a special place in the history of Turkish independency. Samsun has been a trade and culture center, and a harbor city since the ancient times. It has stayed the same until this day. It still has this feature, today. It is a window of Central Anatolia that opens on the Black Sea. It has highway, airway, seaway, and railway communications.
Samsun which plays a special role in the beginning of the National War of Independence and in the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic, has been an important center of the Black Sea Region and of our country in the history of our republic. Even though it has natural and economic resources that cannot be evaluated properly, it is still the biggest city of the Black Sea Region in terms of population, industry, trade, natural and cultural wealths.
History of Samsun
Samsun is a very old residential area for the history of humanity. With the inclusion of today’s city center, people have been living in Kızılırmak valley, Kavak, Tekkeköy, and Çarşamba savannas.
In the middle stone age ( B.C 10000 – 5000) it is known that people were living in shelters in Tekkeköy and they are the primal residents of the region. Again, in Neolithic and Calcolithic periods, it is known from the excavations that people were living in Dündar Tepe, Kalenderoğlu, and Bafra İkiztepe.
The primal community that lived in Samsun and established a state is Gashkas.Tthis community is also called Gasgas ( B.C 5000 – 3500). After this known primal community, Paflagons who were in control of the whole North Anatolian, lived in Kızılırmak Basin ( B.C. 3000 – 1100). Hittites ( B.C. 2000 – 1200), Phrygians ( B.C 1182 – 676), Kimmers ( B.C. 676), Lydians( B.C. 1200- 547, constructed a site called ENETE in the place which is known as Kara Samsun today).
Milletlies (Ionia), (B.C. 2000 – B.C. 400), settled down in ENETE. They came from the Aegean by using the Black Sea way, and they called ENETE “Amisus” or “Amisos”. As the result of the defeat of Krezus ( the king of the Lidians), against the Persians ( B.C. 550-330), the Persian Empire captured the Amisos in B.C. 546. In B.C. 331, Alexander the Great defeated the Persian Empire, the Macedonian Empire captured the Amisos. After the death of Alexander the Great, Kont Kingdom whose origins are based on the Persian Empire was established ( B.C. 255-63). Amisos became the capital city of Kont Kingdom. Later , in the first century before Christ, Amisos fell into the hands of the Roman Empire. After the Roman Empire was divided into two branches, Amisos stayed inside the borders of the Byzantine Empire in A.C. 385. Although in A.C.860, during the Abbacy Period, with the order of Caliph Mutassım, Amisos was captured by the armed forces which were under the command of dreadful Omar; but the Byzantine Empire took it back later. After the Turks had come to Anatolia, Samsun was beleaguered by Danişmentliler, but it could not be obtained. During the Anatolian Seljuk Empire, Muslim residential areas of Samsun were captured by Anatolian Seljuk Empire in 1185. For the first time, the name Amisos was changed and it became Samsun. After the Crusade, Trabzon became the capital city. Then, Cenevizliler, had a dominance on the trade in the Black Sea; so they lived here approximately 100 years. In this period, Samsun where the Turks lived was called “Muslim Samsun”, and the trade site of the Cenevizliler which is 3 km away from the Muslim Samsun, was called as “non-Muslim Samsun”.
In 1071, after the Manzikert War, the Seljuks created the Muslim Samsun by building a castle on the coast of Samsun; with the Kösedağ War in 1243, Trabzon Rum Empire captured Samsun; but then, in 1296, Samsun was captured by Anatolian Turks. In 1389, during Yıldırım Beyazıt period, it became a part of the Ottoman Empire. While Anataolian Seljuks Empire was collapsing, it became the capital city of Canik Principality.
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Julius Caesar proclaimed his celebrated words, “Veni, Vidi, Vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered) in Turkey when he defeated the Pontus, a formidable kingdom in the Black Sea region of Turkey…. Part of Turkey’s southwestern shore was a wedding gift that Mark Anthony gave to Cleopatra…. The Famous Trojan Wars took place in western Turkey, around the site where a wooden statue of the Trojan Horse rests today.
