Under the reign of the first khans, who were tributary to the Porte, the Crimea lost all its commercial and agricultural importance. Continual wars, and incessant revolts, sometimes favoured, sometimes punished by the Porte, added to the still deeply-rooted habits of a nomade and vagabond existence, for many years precluded the regeneration of the country. But a rich fertile soil, and a country abundantly provided with all the resources necessary to man, triumphed over the natural indolence of the Tatars, just as they had done before by the savage hordes that successively invaded the Tauris. The hill sides and valleys became covered with villages, and all branches of native industry increased rapidly with the internal tranquillity of the country. The corn, cattle, timber, resins, fish, and salt of Little Tatary furnished freights for a multitude of vessels. The commerce of Central Asia, it is true, was lost for it beyond recovery, but the exportation of its native produce and of that which Russia sent to it by the Don and the Sea of Azof, was more than sufficient to keep its people in a very thriving, if not an opulent condition. Caffa shared in the general improvement; it rose again from its ruins, became the commercial centre of the country, as in the time of the Genoese, and its advancement was such, that the Turks bestowed on it the flattering name of Koutchouk Stamboul (Little Constantinople).
The dominion of the khans extended at this period, in Europe and Asia, from the banks of the Danube to the foot of the mountains of the Caucasus, and the indomitable mountaineers of Circassia themselves often did homage to the sovereigns of the Tauris. The Mussulman population was divided in those days into two great classes: the descendants of the first conquerors, known by the special designation of Tatars; and the Nogais, nomade tribes who, subsequently to the conquest, had come and put themselves under the protection of the illustrious Batou khan. The former, mixed up with the remains of the ancient possessors, formed the civilised part of the nation. Possessing the mountainous regions, and residing in towns and villages, they were both agriculturists and manufacturers; whilst the Nogais, who lived in a manner independently in Southern Russia, applied themselves solely to cattle rearing. They were at that time divided into five principal hordes: the Boudjiak occupied the plains of Bessarabia from the mouths of the Danube to the Dniestr; the Yedisan, the largest, which could bring into the field 80,000 horsemen, encamped between the Dniestr and the Dniepr; the Djamboiluk and Jedickhoul, the remnants of which still inhabit the territory of their ancestors, extended from the banks of the Dniepr to the western coasts of the Sea of Azof; lastly, the tribes of the Kouban, nomadised in the steppes between that river and the Don, which now form the domain of the Black Sea Cossacks. All these tribes collectively could, in case of urgent necessity, bring into the field upwards of 400,000 men. Such was the political condition of Little Tatary, when the Russian conquest of the provinces of the Sea of Azof and the Black Sea destroyed all the fruits of the great social revolution which had been effected in the habits of the Mussulmans by the new development of trade and commerce.
The first Muscovite invasion took place in 1736. A hundred thousand men, commanded by Field-marshal Munich forced the Isthmus of Perecop, entered the peninsula, and laid waste the whole country, up to the northern slope of the Tauric chain. The peace of Belgrade put an end to this first inroad, but the political existence of Little Tatary was, nevertheless, violently shaken; and from that time forth the khans were kept in continual perplexity by the secret or armed interventions of Russia, their subjects were stimulated to revolt, and they themselves were but puppets moved by the court of St. Petersburg.