16th and 17th century Cyprus was a place of incredible transition. Shortly after the Ottoman conquest, the Sultan began to impose the Ottoman system atop the formerly Venetian colony including a system of laws and taxation. Slaves were already a regular part of society under Venetian rule and this continued into the Ottoman period. Rather than workers on large plantations or on the floors of silk production slaves in Cyprus were overwhelmingly domestic servants and thus had regular and prolonged contact with families, especially elite families. The nature of the Ottoman system meant that many slaves were quite young and several emred – beardless youths appear within elite Ottoman households in Cyprus. The focus of this study is to detail the experiences of the youths who have to navigate the society of the newly conquered society which is a unique and at times tense blend of several cultures and confessions. Even slavery within Ottoman Cyprus morphed into something unlike the practice elsewhere as the Ottomans wished to not antagonize their new colony so as to turn a profit. The youths who are often in training to perform important bureaucratic functions as they get older come into contact with the legal system and as such appear frequently within the sicilleri – Shari’a court registers. Through the analysis of children and slaves in elite households as they intersect with the Ottoman court system, I hope to show that the story of the conquest and administration of Cyprus was one in which the family and their dependents – slaves and children alike – became integral to the development of Ottoman policy in Cyprus during its first decades.