Özet:

Multi religious and multi-ethnic empires’ various populations had the aim of forming their independent states under the impact of the ideals of the Enlightenment and French Revolution at the end of the Eighteenth and beginning of the 19th centuries. Ottoman Empire was among these empires, too. The Serbs in the Balkans was the first group to revolt against the Ottoman rule in 1804. Greeks followed them in 1821 with an organized revolt which lasted until 1829 from which an Independent Greek Kingdom arose. The center of the revolt was the Balkan lands of the Empire, Morea Peninsula, which was the closest region to Europe. Therefore, it was not a coincident that the revolt broke in the region that was the first to learn about the political and intellectual developments in Europe. Production of printing press, newspapers and books, and the Greeks of the Empire who had western education in Europe played crucial role for the transmission of the Enlightenment ideals to the Greek community of the Empire. European travelers who began to travel in the Greek speaking lands of the Empire in the 1750s were interested in the architectural remnants of the ancient Greek civilization. The Greek affection which originated from the ancient Greek Civilization’s impressive architecture and principles of observation and political ideal of “demos” –democracy with direct participation– brought the independence ideal of the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire to the attention of the Europe in a striking way. Hence, the Greek Revolt, which was called as the Greek Independence War by the Greeks, became a European ideal. The Ottoman imperial government’s reaction to the revolt was very harsh since it saw it as a menace against the Ottoman reign and Sultan that protected the non-Muslims communities of the Empire through zimmî pact of Islamic Law for centuries. This pact guaranteed their lives, properties, and religion in return for payment of a specific tax (cizye) which was applied to only non-Muslims by the Islamic state in accordance with the Islamic law. Despite this regulation, the pact put the non-Muslims in a secondary position compared to the Muslims in the Empire. Sultan Mahmud II’s reaction was very punitive since he could not understand the fact that rebellious Greeks were no longer wanted to be ruled by Muslim Ottoman dynasty as zimmîs with a secondary status. They wanted to have their independent states with their distinctive Greek identity. The Morea revolt in a short period of time spread to big and small Aegean islands through the activities of sea bandits with boats, Crete, Cyprus, Chios and Samos were among these islands. The severe punishment of the rebellious in Chios island, which was named as Chios massacre in the literature shocked Europe. The bishop of the island, civil leaders of the Greeks (kocabaşısı), and representatives of Mastiha village were closed in the castle and assassinated by Ottoman soldiers. This event was followed by various mutual battles between the Greeks and soldiers in the island for seven years until 1828. There is another unknown shocking event in the island of Samothrace where almost half of its Greek inhabitants had been killed by the Ottoman soldiers, and women and children were enslaved to be sold in the slave markets with the order of the sultan. This article aims to reveal this unknown event by depending on the Ottoman archival documents and analyze the severe punishment of the Ottoman authority within the framework of violence.

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