He was born Hachadoor "Hatchik" Oscanyan in Constantinople, Turkey, later Americanizing his name to Christopher. He was a Christian Armenian minority in the Muslim Ottoman Empire. He learned the Armenian, Turkish, and modern Greek languages from private tutors, followed by Italian and French. He made the acquaintance of the American missionaries who had recently begun arriving in Turkey to help him learn English. One of these, Reverend Harrison G. O. Dwight, took an interest in him, and after the death of Oscanyan's mother, enabled him to come to America to be educated. He is regarded as the first Armenian to immigrate to the United States (aside from perhaps some silk farmers who were brought to Virginia in the mid-1600s). He arrived in New York in 1835 and started university but failing health caused him to leave college in his junior year. He joined the staff of civil engineers engaged in the construction of the Charleston and Cincinnati railroad. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen and then returned to Constantinople in 1841. He established the first newspaper that was published there in Armenian, the "Astarar Ptizantian" ("Byzantine Advertiser") but it was soon shut down by the authorities. In 1843 he became the private secretary of Fethi Pasha, son-in-law of the sultan, and minister of ordnance. During this time he was appointed special agent to purchase the trousseau of Adile Sultana, who was about to be married to Mehmed Aali Pasha, and in this capacity he frequently visited the palace. After the ceremony he acted as correspondent for several American and European newspapers. In 1849 he wrote a satirical romance in Armeno-Turkish (Turkish written with Armenian letters) entitled "Acaby." This was followed in 1851 by "Veronica," another work of fiction, and "Bedig," a book for children. The same year he published an Armenian translation of Eugène Sue's "The Mysteries of Paris". In 1853, with the assistance of others, he opened an Oriental museum in London, but the enterprise was not successful and he returned to New York. While crossing the Atlantic, he met James Gordon Bennett, editor of the New York Herald, who was impressed with his linguistic ability. Oscanyan wrote articles for the New York Herald about life in the Orient and the Armenian people, which gave him a good reputation as a writer. He published "The Sultan and His People" (New York, 1857), 16,000 copies of which were sold in four months. A Harper's New Monthly Magazine review of Oscanyan's The Sultan and His People (1857) declares that "[h]is work is devoted to sketches of the present condition, national customs, and peculiar institutions of the Turkish people" (120). A review in Putnam's Monthly Magazine asserts that Oscanyan's "book is strikingly illustrated by a native artist, and the comparisons drawn in the cuts between the eastern and western models, are humorous and interesting. On the whole, there are few better accounts of the detail of Turkish life than this of Oscanyan's and he describes with a constant and natural tendency to sympathy with his own people". He aimed to build American affinity for the Armenian people, describing Armenians as the Yankees of Asia Minor. In 1868 Mr. Oscanyan was made Ottoman consul-general in New York City, an office he held until 1874. Visiting Constantinople in 1872, he was assigned by the porte as the representative of the sultan in entertaining General William T. Sherman during his visit to Turkey. On resigning his consulship he returned to his literary pursuits and was very fond of life in New York City. He died at his home 1002 Fulton Street in Brooklyn.