The earliest reference to Srebrenica was in 1376, by which time it was already an important centre for trade in the western Balkans, based especially on the silver mines of the region. The existence of ore was already known at the time of the Roman Empire, and the settlement of Domavia was near a mine. By the time of the first reference to Srebrenica, a large number of merchants of the Republic of Ragusa were established there, and they controlled the domestic silver trade and the export by sea, almost entirely via the port of Ragusa (Dubrovnik). During the 14th century, many German miners moved into the area.
In the middle ages the region was part of the banate of Bosnia, and, subsequently, the Bosnian kingdom . In the middle of the 1420s, the army of King Tvrtko II of Bosnia fought to gain control of the town, which was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1440. The Franciscan monastery was converted into a mosque, but the large number of Catholics, Ragusa and Saxon, caused the transformation of the town to Islam to be slower than in most of the other towns in the area.
With the town in the Ottoman Empire and less influenced by the Republic of Ragusa, the economic importance of Srebrenica went into decline, as did the proportion of Catholics in the population.
In early January 1941, the Chetniks entered Srebrenica and killed around a thousand Muslim civilians in the town and in nearby villages.
During World War II, the Croatian Ustaše massacred hundreds of Serbs in villages surrounding Srebrenica.
War, genocide and demographic transformation
The town of Srebrenica came to international prominence as a result of events during the War in Bosnia (1992–1995). The strategic objectives proclaimed by the secessionist Bosnian Serb Presidency included the creation of a border separating the Serb people from Bosnia's other ethnic communities and the abolition of the border along the River Drina separating Serbia and the Bosnian
