lic abolished the slave trade early in the 15th century and valued liberty highly. The city successfully balanced its sovereignty between the interests of Venice and the Ottoman Empire for centuries.
The languages spoken by the people were the Romance Dalmatian and Croatian. The latter started to replace Dalmatian little by little since the 11th century amongst the common people who inhabited the city.
Italian and Venetian would become important languages of culture and trade in the Republic of Ragusa. The Italian language replaced Latin as official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1472 until the end of the republic itself. At the same time, due to a pacific cohabitation with the Slavic element and the influence of Italian culture during the Renaissance, Ragusa became a cradle of Croatian literature.
The economic wealth of the Republic was partially the result of the land it developed, but especially of seafaring trade. With the help of skilled diplomacy, Ragusa's merchants travelled lands freely and on the sea the city had a huge fleet of merchant ships (argosy) that travelled all over the world. From these travels they founded some settlements, from India to America, and brought parts of their culture and flora home with them. One of its keys to success was not conquering, but trading and sailing under a white flag with the word Latin: Libertas(freedom) prominently featured on it. The flag was adopted when slave trading was abolished in 1418.
Many Conversos, Jews from Spain and Portugal, were attracted to the city. In May 1544, a ship landed there filled exclusively with Portuguese refugees, as Balthasar de Faria reported to King John. During this time there worked in the city one of the most famous cannon and bell founders of his time: Ivan Rabljanin (Magister Johannes Baptista Arbensis de la Tolle). Already in 1571 Dubrovnik sold its protectorate over some Christian settlements in other parts of the Ottoman Empire to France
