Edouard Blak

Edouard Blak Bey a.k.a. Edouard Blacque (1824–1895[1]) was the first minister of the Ottoman Empire to the United States.[2]

His father, a Frenchman descended from the Scottish Catholic Black family,[1] was Alexandre Blacque, of Moniteur Ottoman. The Ottoman state sent Blak on scholarship to Collège Saint-Barbe in France in 1837, making him the first non-Muslim to get such a scholarship.[3] Blak married an American woman whose father was a surgeon; the surgeon was well known at the time.[4]

Blak joined the Ottoman Foreign service with posts in Paris, France and Naples, Italy.[1] In the mid-1850s Blak, sensing the rise of the United States, asked the Ottoman government to establish a diplomatic post in the U.S.; at the time the U.S. already had a minister to the empire. Blak's motive for the request stemmed from his marriage. The empire did not reciprocate until 1867.[4]

Blak came to the U.S. in 1866,[1] and was accompanied by his new wife, a Levantine Catholic woman, as his American wife had died by then. While in the U.S. she gave birth to a son, named Reşad or Richard.[2] Blak stated that he had a positive view of the U.S. from his term of service.[5]

Blak appeared in a photograph with Robert E. Lee and other officials from the U.S. government. Sinan Keralp, author of "Ottoman Diplomatic and Consular Personnel in the United States of America, 1867-1917," described this photograph as "one of America's most valuable pictorial documents" and what Blak "is best remembered [for] today".[2]

Robert E Lee with his Generals and Blacque Bey, seated at far left, 1869

His term as U.S. envoy ended in 1873.[1] He became president of Pera Municipality (now Beyoglu), where he established a system of public parks that got inspiration from Washington, DC.[5]