Chíos

Separated from Anatolia by a narrow strait, Chios is famed for the fragrant resin of its mastic trees. Its southern villages produced the valuable gum, while the island's principal town looked across the water toward the mainland. Inland stands Nea Moni, an eleventh-century monastery renowned for its mosaics.

In 1346 a Genoese company, the Maona, took possession of Chios; controlled by the Giustiniani family, it managed the profitable trade in mastic, alum, salt and pitch. The Ottomans took the island in 1566, retaining much of its local administration and drawing revenue from its prized crop. In 1822, during the Greek War of Independence, men from Samos landed and raised a revolt. Ottoman forces suppressed it, killing, enslaving or expelling thousands of islanders and devastating villages, including those of the mastic-growing south.