The Mahona of Chios. The company that ruled an island for more than two hundred years. 

The Mahona of Chios constitutes a socio-economic as well as a political phenomenon that cannot be paralleled by any other in world’s history. According to Hieronimo Giustiniani, by approximation it seems to be a kind of aristocracy whose administrative role entailed the participation of the mother country (from a far distant position in Genoa) upon which the sovereignty of the island was vested. The Genoese authorities of Chios and their Greek subjects the majority of island’s population (80%) were subjects of the Republic of Genoa that appointed the local authorities and the Podesta’ or governor. Initially, many of the Mahona associates and therefore members of the island’s administration were citizens as well as inhabitants of Genoa. The members of the company retained for more than two centuries were entitled to have qualified rights over the island by exploiting the revenues deriving from the natural or economic resources of the island. In return they had to pay an annual tribute to Genoa. This company was named as Mahona of the Giustiniani, because all its members assumed Giustiniani as their surname or hyphenated it into their original family name.

Incidentally, the etymology of the word Mahona describing the chartered company that constituted the principal minority-authority on the island has been the subject of debatable hypotheses. Hieronimo Giustiniani believes that it derives from the Greek word Monos describing the concept of one and only or Monas that means unit in Greek. Some experts of modern times even argue that the Genoese word Mahona was a lexical product of the Arabic word ma’u-nah meaning company or financial institution. The ways that Mahona gained the political control of the island have already been described. In brief, the ship-owners that had participated with their own expenses to the original venture for protecting the Genoese colonies in the Black Sea asked for compensation. The Genoese government incapable to pay for the implicated costs reached an agreement with the ship-owners that allowed the colonists -organized in a chartered company- to enjoy all the profits deriving from the revenues of the new Genoese outpost having as obligation to pay a tribute and to defend the island who’s only recognized sovereign power was Genoa. After two years, the original shareholders that lived in Genoa sold their shares to some colonists that already lived in Chios or to some Genoese citizens that migrated to the island. These new members constituted the New Mahona that was also subsequently became known as the Mahona of the Giustiniani or the Giustiniani. Since the Republic was unable to redeem the island from the Giustiniani, Chios remained in their possession till its final fall to the Turks. In the mean-time the Mahonesi had to pay tributes to Genoa, at the beginning to the Byzantine emperor Ioannes V Palaiologos in 1363 and finally to the Turks.