Samos, in contrast to other islands of the Eastern Aegean, broke free from the Ottoman Empire during the early 19th century, and remained under a semi-independent regime from 1834 and up to the time of its incorporation into the Greek State in 1912. Nevertheless, it still benefited from tax relief on the products it exported to the coast of Asia Minor, while broadening the networks of communication that connected it to Athens, the rest of Greece, and Europe at large. Samos produced, among other things, olives and olive oil, tobacco, wine and other agricultural products, leather goods processed in the local tanneries, and timber. There were also shipyards for small and medium-sized sailing boats of various types, built by local shipbuilders. Of course, the island’s inadequate road network that connected the villages and urban centres of Samos (i.e. Vathi and Karlovasi), and the relative social, economic, production and cultural autonomy of certain villages and areas (which is attributed to settlers from a number of areas in the Ottoman Empire, probably around the 15th-16th century, when the island was largely abandoned due to pirate attacks) did not favour the development of mono-cultivation or encourage the locals to focus exclusively on particular types of industrial or agricultural products, as was the case in Lesvos, with olive oil and its by-products, or Southern Chios, with mastic products. (The exception was the island’s leather-processing industry, which survived until well into the 20th century.)