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Cultura Documentos
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DARIUSZ KOLODZIEJCZYK
(WARSAW
UNIVERSITY)
until
almost
annual
north
searching
into
forays
for captives
century, Tatar
Slavic
raiders made
communities
agricultural
to sell as slaves. It is understandable
in
the
that
or nationalistic
economic
perspective,
activity
these
slave
raids
can
the means
that produced
be
by
"normal"
by
most
contemporaries.
It also
had
long
tradition
from
Tatar raids leftdeep and traumatic traces in the collective memory of the
East European peasantry. As late as 1948, school children from south-eastern
Poland were asked to collect "interesting stories" from the past of theirvillages.
Most of these stories concerned theTatars, who had not been seen in that re
can be
gion since the 17th century!The long-lastingmemory of "Tatar horrors"
further confirmed by folklore and proverbs.2 Local tradition confirms that
1 - Alan W.
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DARIUSZKOL ODZIEJCZYK
150
Tatars hunted mostly young men and women, while the elderlywere usually
spared. Small children,who could not walk and were not so valuable, were often
leftbehind by the captors, especiallywhen theywere pursued by Polish troops.
In a reportfrom 1672 we read:
In the fields and foreststhey [i.e. theTatars] leftbehind over 200
poor
children
ferred
whom
to take horses
not take
since everyone
they could
along
oxen rather than children. Carts were
and
pre
sent
.4
his estimates on declarations (so called iuramentd) by Polish nobles, who regis
tered
the number
of abducted
subjects
in order
to receive
tax
exemptions.
For
exposed
Commonwealth,
to the Tatar raids.
Ambrozy Grabowski,
lected fromManuscripts],
located
to the south-east
(today in Ukraine)
[Home Memoires
were
Col
o
w
Przyleeki (ed.), Pamietniki
Koniecpolskich. Przyczynek do dziej
pol
[Memoirs about the Koniecpolski Family], Lw w [today L'viv], 1842, p. 250
258, especially p. 255-257.
Franciszek Kotula, "Warownie chlopskie", p. 75. The bishop's surname is
as Gro
5
misspelt
cholski.
missing,
skichXVII
wieku
Franciszek Kotula,
z w).
"Warownie
chlopskie",
p. 75
near Rzes
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SLAVEHUNTING
the author estimated thatover 100,000 Ukrainians and Poles were abducted from
Ruthenia alone, adding another 100,000 for the remainingprovinces of theCom
monwealth.7 Thus we arrive at an annual average of 7,000 captives, abducted by
the Tatars from Poland-Lithuania. In order to get the full picture of demo
graphic losses,Horn proposed to increase these numbers by at least 30 per cent
to include the victims of famine and plagues resultingfrom theTatar raids.His
estimateswere accepted as realisticby other Polish historians.8
The Russian author,Aleksej Novosel'skij, based his estimate on declarations
by Russian
voevodas,
sent
every year
to Moscow
on
the request
of the
tzar.
In
this case, the voevodaswere definitelynot interested in giving high figures as that
would disclose their incompetence in protecting the district.According toNo
vosel'skij, the number of Russian subjects abducted into slavery in the firsthalf
of the 17th century amounted to 150,000 to 200,000 (Le. 3,000 to 4,000 per
year).While admitting that his calculations were ratherminimal, he estimated
that the demographic losses of Ukrainian territories,then belonging to Poland,
Empire,
11 - A
Cambridge,
Cambridge
University
of the Ottoman
has been
and Muscovy
list of estimated losses of both Poland-Lithuania
chronological
Sea
in
Black
and
the
Fisher
his
article
Alan
for
the
1468-1694
years
"Muscovy
by
compiled
slave trade", Canadian-American
Slavic Studies, VI (1972), p. 575-594, especially p. 580-582.
However,
well
raids, since all are not known, and many of the individual figures appear to be inflated by con
to
temporary sources , p. 582. If one gathers together the heterogeneous material gathered
one arrives at a
figure of circa threemillion captives.
gether by Fisher,
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152
bined with politics. In 1972 an ominous book was published by the Bulgarian
historianChristo Gandev. By using the 15th-century
Ottoman surveyregisters,the
authormistakenly assumed that each mezraca was identical to a Bulgarian village,
whose inhabitantshad been slaughteredby theTurks. In conclusion he claimed
that almost 700,000 Bulgarians had been exterminated as a result of theOtto
man policy of "debulgarisation" (o6e36bJirap BaHe). Moreover, as the number
"discovered" by Gandev was almost 40 per cent of the estimated Bulgarian
population in the 15th century,he accused theTurks of reducing today's Bul
garian population by 40 per cent, that is 13million.14 His book played a promi
nent role in the anti-Turkish propaganda inBulgaria in the 1980s.
While treating such "scholarly" studies as a memento, we should not close
our eyes to the consequences of depopulation, affecting
large Slavic teritories in
Eastern Europe. If an "alternative" history ofUkraine were imaginable, perhaps
the
been
country's
historical
development
would
have
looked
different
had
it not
trade.
Century], Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow,
Zaklad
Narodowy
im. Ossolinskich
J. Starkey and H.
Brome,
1668
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SLAVEHUNTING
'53
sometimes
Tatars,
less emotional
manner.
In the introduction
to the vol
ish-Crimean
Dziubi ski also stresses the importance of smaller raids called bes bas (liter
ally five heads), carried out by theNogays and Budjak Tatars. These raidswere
more difficult to detect by the Polish border guards and occurred many times a
yearwith no regard to the actual political climate betweenWarsaw and Bah e
saray.An average number of captives abducted in thisway from Poland-Lithua
nia was estimated byDziubi ski as 1,000 a year.20
Bistra
Cvetkova
16-Ewa
wood
Thompson,
Press, 2000.
describes
numerous
Imperial Knowledge.
slave
tradesmen,
who
the
accompanied
London,
Green
1987, p. 15-16.
Century], Moscow, Nauka,
18 A. Bennigsen et al. (eds.), Le khanat de Crim e dans
Mouton
diteur, 1978, p. 1.
Topkapi, Paris-The Hague,
19 Andrzej Dziubi
ski, "Handel niewolnikami polskimi
lesArchives du Mus
e du Palais
de
20 - Dziubinski,
"Handel
Rzeczypospolitej",
p. 54.
niewolnikami
and Ruthenian
polskimi
"Jasyr
z ziem
dawnej
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'54
DARIUSZKOLODZIEJCZYK
wicz, prepared a lengthyreportwhich was read in the Polish diet in 1550. Pret
wicz accused theOttoman merchants fromAkkerman of being responsible for
theTatar slave raids.They went with them or sent their servantswhile others
lent horses to theTatars in return for half of their prey .22Among the horses
among the principal share holders in the Black Sea slave trade.According to
Pretwicz, the sultan's income from the slave trade inAkkerman and Ocakiv (Turk
ish z ) amounted to a few 100,000 ak e a year.25 Strikingly similar are the
numbers forCaffa established by Inalcik on the basis ofOttoman tax registers.
The slave tax collected inCaffa amounted to 620,000 ak e in 1520 and 650,000
ak e in 1529.26 The same author estimates the total state revenue from the slave
trade as approaching 100,000 gold florins (i.e. circa 6,000,000 ak e) in themid
16th century.27
The Ottoman tax systemconcerning the slave tradehas been already studied
by numerous authors, to mention only Berindei and Veinstein, Dziubinski,
Fisher,Hensel, Inalcik,Novicev, Sahillioglu and Uzun ar ih.28Yet, the relation
21 - Bistra Cvetkova,
v
"Robstvoto v Osmanskata
imperija i po-specialno
balgarskite zemi pod
in
the
Ottoman
in
the
[Slavery
empire, especially
Bulgarian lands under Turkish
rule], Istoriceski Pregled, XII
(1954), p. 82-100, especially p. 89.
na
22 - "Bernard Pretwicz i
jego apologia
sejmie 1550 r." [Bernard Pretwicz and his apology
in the diet of 1550], Biblioteka Warszawska,
1866, III, no. 7, p. 44-59, especially p. 49.
"Bernard Pretwicz i jego apologia", p. 53-57. The report by Pretwicz was
23
extensively used
ski in his article, "Handel niewolnikami polskimi i ruskimi".
by Dziubi
24 - Jest Turk w wiele, kt rzy na koniach swoich,
w
w pa stwa
swoja^ zbroja^ Tatar
tutaj
turska vlast"
nasze
wyprawuja^
a z nimi
from Hensel,
dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
"Bernard Pretwicz i jego apologia", p. 49.
25
26
Inalcik, An Economic and Social History of theOttoman Empire, p. 283.
Halil
27
Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire. The Classical Age 1300-1600, New
and Nicholson,
Weidenfeld
28 - Mihnea
de Kefe",
Berindei
"Jasyr z ziem
York-London,
1973, p. 131.
Cahiers du monde
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'55
SLAVEHUNTING
between
various
taxes
such
as
the pen
ik, g mr
k,
tamga,
Berindei
der-Aqkerman
A.N. Kononova,
nomic
29
30
pire", p. 156-157.
from Evliya's description as well as the reports by western observers, Robert
31 Departing
Mantran has claimed that in the 17th century the slave trade in Istanbul was stillmonopolised
si cle, Paris, L'Ins
see Robert Mantran,
Istanbul dans la seconde moiti du XVIIe
by the Jews,
titut Fran ais d'Arch ologie d' Istanbul, 1962, p. 506-507. Yet, by quoting a mid-17th-cen
toMinna Rozen,
am very
sale of slaves in the Ottoman
empire", p. 157-160. I
grateful
has drawn my attention to the fact that 17th-century Jewish sources do not reflect any
involvement in the slave trade on the part of Jews, unlike the 16th-century ones which are full
it is hard to believe that Jews were completely banned from this
of such references. Although
at least much less apparent as slave dealers for a certain period of
were
profitable activity, they
time.
"The
who
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i56
DARIUSZKOL ODZIEJCZYK
later, in 1658, a French merchant, Louis d'Arvieux, travelled from Izmir toAl
exandria on an English ship which had been hired togetherwith the crew by
Turkish slavemerchants. The young Frenchman was apparently fascinated by
the
"cargo":
vites,
leurs courses,
Caffa.
Elles
et
qu'ils
toient bien
ans;
c'
les Tartatres
que
toient venues vendre
faites et
parfaitement
avoient
des Mosco
enlev
Constantinople
belles, su-tour
es dans
ou
les Cir
cassiennes.33
captain
tr s-honn
te homme
.34
As was the case in theAfrican slave trade, local nativemerchants also partici
pated in the export of human cargo. The institutionof slaveryexisted in Poland
Lithuania as well, although itdid not play a great economic role.While the ex
port of Christians toTurkey was strictlyforbidden, other slaves, especiallyMus
lim Tatars, might have been legally exported. Further, the Polish border au
thorities often arrested Jews and Armenians, who carried children with them,
A Polish no
apparently kidnapped or even bought from their foster-fathers.35
bleman even deliberately lefthis minor cousin in a village exposed to a Tatar
raid inorder to inherither bequest, although this isperhaps not a typicalevent.36
Unlike the black slaves transported across theAtlantic, at least some Slavic
slaves, abducted by theTatars and Turks, might have conceived of a redemption
and return to theirhome countries. This applied especially to the nobles whose
- Marian
Malo wist, Kaffa - kolonia genuenska na Krymie iproblem wschodni w latach 1453
- the
in the Crimea
Genoese Colony
in the Years
and the Eastern Question
1475 [Caffa
w Historii,
Milosnik
Warsaw,
1453-1475],
1947, p. 318; cf.Marian Malowist,
Towarzystwo
Wsch d a Zach d Europy w XIII-XVJ wieku.
Konfrontacja struktur spoleczno-gospodarczych [East
32
and West
of Europe
Economic
Structures], Warsaw,
33
in the Thirteenth
- Louis
D'Arvieux, M
PWN,
35
D'Arvieux, M
Dziubiriski,
of Socio
A Confrontation
1973, p. 185.
la Porte,
envoy extraordinaire du Roy
chelles du Levant, Paris, C.J.B. Delespine,
1735,1, p.
moires, p. 153.
"Handel
niewolnikami
polskimi
Na
szla
36-
L'viv), H. Altenberg,
1904,1, p. 166.
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SLAVEHUNTING
157
relativeswere able and willing to pay for their freedom.The ransom usually ex
ceeded
an
slave market
average
price
as the Crimean
or Ottoman
merchant,
who
often had towait foryearswhile feeding and housing his prisoner until the de
manded sum was delivered, treated this transaction as a profitable capital in
vestment.37Rich Polish magnates often tried to pass for ordinary soldiers as they
knew that the ransom was proportional to the captive's wealth and position.
Peasant captives, on the other hand, tried to pass for nobles in order to receive
better
treatment.38
Tatomir,
sued
an Armenian
woman,
Anna
Szahinowa,
whose
hus
Hensel,
"Jasyr
z ziem
dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
p. 133.
Hensel,
z
"Jasyr ziem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
p. 106.
Sadok
Poland],
p. 145-147.
dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
40
L'viv, Central'nyj derzavnyj istoryrnyj arxiv Ukrajiny u L'vovi, Mahistrat
fond 52, opys 2, no. 531 (Knyha induktiv virmens'koho sudu), p. 1426-1429.
41 - Martini
Russian
Armenians
in
z
"Jasyr ziem
mista
L'vova,
1595, p. 17;
descriptio, Cologne, Officina Birckmannica,
i
VI (1867), p. 333-367,
Odesskago Obscestva Istorii Drevnostej,
z
p. 188.
"Jasyr ziem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
Broniovii...Tartariae
translation
inZapiski
42
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i58
sector
"reserved"
for slaves,
this
time
the most
unlucky
ones,
was
the galley fleet, numbering tens of thousands of oarsmen. In 1622 a galley crew,
headed by a Polish nobleman, rioted offLesbos and managed to escape to Italy.
The oarsmen numbered 22 Turks, condemned forvarious crimes, and 220 Chris
tians.Among theseChristians therewere threeGreeks, two Englishmen and one
Italian,while all the others originated fromUkraine orMuscovy.43
Most of the slaveswent neither to the palace nor to the galleys.According to
Paul Rycaut, the bulk of captives imported intoOttoman lands,were used to
compensate for losses due to epidemics and wars.44While
stress
scholars
the
importance
of slaves
in Ottoman
society,
numerous modern
such
statements
are
la K. Kiraly
z
Hensel,
p. 173; Inalcik, "Servile labor in theOt
"Jasyr ziem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej",
toman
empire", p. 27-30; Sahillioglu, "Slaves in the social and economic life of Bursa", p. 46.
48
Sahillioglu, "Slaves in the social and economic life of Bursa", p. 95.
47
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SLAVEHUNTING
With
per cent of inhabitantswere freedmen.49
was
certainly
major
centre
for slave
labour.
Nevertheless,
a substantial
number
slaves.50
Unlike the black slaves inAmerica, bound for generations to the same plan
tations and stigmatisedby racial prejudice, Slavic slaves in theOttoman empire,
men and women alike, easily assimilated intoMuslim society, ifnot in the first,
then in the second generation. The better a given group assimilates, the lessvisi
ble itbecomes - this is also the reasonwhy the history ofOttoman slavery is so
difficult to trace.One might even suggest that formany East European peasants,
accustomed to serfdom and the corv e, new urban life in theMuslim envi
ronmentmight have been easier and better.51Yet, such argumentsmay be risky:
it is like declaring that itwas good forAfricans to be kidnapped by slave hunters
since theirdescendants today carryAmerican passports.
To conclude, apart from its impact on the development of Eastern Europe,
at least two aspects of the Black Sea slave trade deserve to be recognised as cru
cial forOttoman economic history.The firstone concerns the effectof absorb
49
Sahillioglu,
"Slaves
50
"Slaves
51
Crimea
see Ahatanhel
Hill, University
of South Carolina
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Press,