Smiley Let Whose People Go

Turkish Historical Review 3 (2012) 196–228 brill.
com/thr
Let whose people go? Subjecthood, sovereignty,

liberation, and legalism in eighteenth-century
Russo-Ottoman relations
Will Smiley*
Abstract
This article considers the relationship between law, diplomacy, and identity in delineating slavery
and freedom in the Black Sea imperial milieu. Examining the release processes for captives which
followed each of the many wars between the Ottoman and Russian empires in the eighteenth
century, I argue that these matters were increasingly handled according to written and unwritten
legal understandings, rather than through ransoms or threats. The two empires agreed that the
Ottoman state would set free enslaved Russian subjects, even those in private hands, but also that
the Russians would not demand the release of others. This discussion, therefore, offers a window
on the legalization of international relations, and on the growing importance of individuals’
relationship with central states. Moreover, these understandings endured, consciously or uncon-
sciously, into the nineteenth century, arguably shaping Russo-Ottoman and Ottoman-European
relations on issues of intervention and the slave trade.
Keywords
Ottoman empire; Russo-Ottoman relations; Black Sea; eighteenth century; slavery; slave trade;
prisoners of war; international law
As four years of war between the Russian and Ottoman empires drew to a
close in 1739, a Russian1 priest named Ivan found himself in a common early
* Yale Law School, 127 Wall St., New Haven, CT 06511, USA, william.smiley@yale.edu.
I am grateful for the comments of Kate Fleet, Virginia Aksan, William O’Reilly, Turkish
Historical Review’s two anonymous reviewers, and the participants in the Middle East Studies
Association’s 2011 annual meeting and in conferences on the “Diplomatic Representation of
Christian Powers in Early Modern Istanbul” (University of Leipzig, 2011), “Ottoman-European
Exchanges in Commerce, Finance and Culture” (Cambridge, Eng., 2011), and “Byzantine
and Ottoman Civilizations in World History” (Istanbul Şehir University, 2010). I thank
the Gates Cambridge Trust, the Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies, and the Cambridge
Centre for History and Economics for financial and logistical support in my research and
writing.
1
Unless otherwise specified, the adjective “Russian” in this article is used to describe the tsar-
ist state and its subjects, regardless of ethnicity, language, or religion. Ottoman documents
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI 10.1163/18775462X00302006

W. Smiley / Turkish Historical Review 3 (2012) 196–228 197
modern dilemma. His wife, whose name is unknown, had been carried off as 1
a captive during the war, probably by Tatar raiders from the Crimean Khanate. 2
Like most such prisoners, she had been sold into slavery in the Ottoman 3
empire, so when the war ended, Ivan crossed the Black Sea to look for her. 4
Through a series of events at which one can only guess, he found her, and 5
secured her freedom and that of her daughter by paying a ransom.2 Many 6
before Ivan had ransomed Russian slaves in the Ottoman empire, but that 7
tradition was about to end. The treaty of Belgrade, which concluded the late 8
war, had banned Ottoman owners from demanding ransoms. 9
In doing so, the treaty opened up new legal options for captives. In the sum- 10
mer of 1743, 72 men, freed from the arduous and dangerous labor of rowing 11
on Ottoman galleys, returned to Russia across the Black Sea. They were a 12
mixed group—dragoons, soldiers, teamsters, Cossacks, and Kalmyks—but 13
what they had in common, and what had guaranteed their freedom, was that 14
all were Russian subjects.3 They were freed at the request of Russian diplomats, 15
without a ransom payment. To a great extent, I will argue, Ivan’s wife’s method 16
of obtaining her freedom represented the past, and the galley slaves’, the 17
future. 18
This new method of freeing slaves was tied to the Ottoman empire’s chang- 19
ing role in the international system of the eighteenth and early nineteenth 20
centuries, as the empire was increasingly incorporated into the European 21
world of “diplomatic relations and international legal institutions” after the 22
1699 treaty of Karlowitz.4 This is typically seen as a result of Ottoman defeats; 23
the empire, having ignored the rules of European diplomacy during its 24
25
typically use the equally broad word Rus, sometimes mixed, apparently interchangeably, with
26
Moskovlu (Muscovite). 27
2
Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul [BOA], Divan-ı Hümayun Düvel-i Ecnebiyye Kalemi 28
Dosyaları collection [DVE], dosya 7, gömlek 20 [7/20], Russian petition to the Porte, estimated 29
1152-60 (1739-47). Archival dates are given in their original form (Islamic calendar for Ottoman
documents; Julian/Old Style calendar for Russian and some British), followed by the Gregorian/
30
New Style equivalents in parentheses. The document contains a blank space where it appears an 31
official forgot or did not bother to record Ivan’s wife’s name. The Ottoman Turkish wording 32
(kızı, meaning “his/her daughter” but not necessarily “their daughter”), and the fact that only the 33
wife, rather than the daughter, is mentioned as having been enslaved, leave open the possibility
that Ivan was not the girl’s father.
34
3
Архив Внешней Политики Российской Империи [Archive of the Foreign Policy of the 35
Russian Empire], Moscow [AVPRI], Константинопольская Миссия [Mission in Constanti- 36
nople] collection [KM], fond [f] 90-opis’ [o] 1-del [d] 149- folios [f ] 46r-56v, A.A. Veshnyakov to 37
Daniil Efremovich Efremov and Laurent Theodotou, 15 (26) June 1743.
4
Ortaylı, İlber, “Ottoman-Habsburg relations and structural changes in the international
38
affairs of the Ottoman state (1740-1770)”, in Türkische Miszellen, ed. Robert Anhegger, Jean- 39
Louis Bacqué-Grammont, and Gudrun Schubert (Istanbul: Editions Divit, 1987), p. 288; 40
198 W. Smiley / Turkish Historical Review 3 (2012) 196–228
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ascendancy, was reluctantly forced to play

by those rules in the eighteenth century.5 Russia appears in this story largely as
an overbearing, European power; in the words of a nineteenth-century British
traveler, Russian policy was “very straight forward: ‘Do so, or I will declare
war”.6 If, as Hans Morgenthau observed, diplomats’ tools fall into the catego-
ries of “logic, bribes, and threats”,7 then the Russians, on this account, relied
primarily on threats, while the Ottomans were motivated primarily by fear.
In this article, I suggest that this model does not adequately describe the
Russo-Ottoman relationship. By examining the release of captives after the
Russian and Ottoman empires’ nearly incessant wars,8 I argue that the two
states wove a web of legal understandings which increasingly governed this
matter, even as relations remained contentious in other areas, leading to wars
fought in 1735-39, 1768-74, 1787-92, 1806-12, and 1828-29.9 Ransom—in
a sense, bribes—was for centuries the main way of liberating captives, and this
gave way to threats only as Russian military power grew. But threats were only
the main Russian tool for a short time, and as much as the Porte feared Russian
power, it also sought to advance its own economic and political interests. As
agreements proliferated, Russian and Ottoman diplomats began to interpret
Abou-el-Haj, Rifa’at A., “The formal closure of the Ottoman frontier in Europe: 1699-1703”,
Journal of the American Oriental Society 89/3 (1969), 467–75.
5
This narrative is challenged by the more nuanced views put forward in Yurdusev, A. Nuri
(ed.), Ottoman Diplomacy: Conventional or Unconventional? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004). For the famous commercial capitulations in the eighteenth century, see van den Boogert,
Maurits H., The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
6
Slade, Adolphus, Records of Travels in Turkey, Greece, &c., 2nd ed (London: Saunders and
Otley, 1833), vol. II, p. 192. Two examples of distinguished Ottomanists conflating Russia with
Europe are Shaw, Stanford J, Between Old and New: The Ottoman Empire Under Sultan Selim III,
1789-1807 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1971), p. 4; Quataert, Donald, “Ottoman
history writing and changing attitudes towards the notion of ‘decline’”, History Compass 1/1
(2003), p. 4.
7
The phrase is quoted in Maynes, Charles William, “Logic, bribes, and threats”, Foreign
Policy 60 (1985), 111–29.
8
The enslavement of Russians in the Ottoman empire was far from a unique phenomenon;
there are perhaps parallel stories to be told about enslaved Habsburg subjects, and even more
importantly, about Ottoman subjects in Russian and Holy Roman imperial captivity.
9
As the other contributors to this issue have shown, here and elsewhere, the two states’ rela-
tionship was far from universally contentious; they were capable of co-existence and even coop-
eration. See also Morkva, Valeriy, “Russia’s Policy of Rapprochement with the Ottoman Empire
in the Era of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792-1806” (Ph.D. diss., Bilkent
University, 2010); Robarts, Andrew, “A Plague on Both Houses? Population Movements and the
Spread of Disease Across the Ottoman-Russian Black Sea Frontier, 1768-1830s” (Ph.D. diss.,
Georgetown University, 2010); Şakul, Kahraman, “An Ottoman Global Moment: War of
Second Coalition in the Levant” (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 2009).
these documents, making logical, legal arguments rather than threats of 1

force.10 Captivity was, increasingly, governed by negotiations over the letter 2
and spirit of treaties “respected as sacred, and accounted binding by all civi- 3
lized Nations of whatever Religion”.11 These helped create principles which 4
channeled and limited state disputes over captivity well into the nineteenth 5
century—helping many captives, but disadvantaging others. 6
In particular, the two states came to agree, by the 1790s, that Russia had a 7
right to claim only its own subjects who were enslaved in the Ottoman empire. 8
In the modern world of nation-states, governed by an international legal sys- 9
tem which largely recognizes individuals only through the states of which they 10
are citizens,12 this seems natural—but it was far from obvious in the eigh- 11
teenth century. Religious sympathies, social status, and bonds of loyalty, more 12
than legal subjecthood,13 governed the release of captives in the seventeenth- 13
century world of ransom slavery, and it will be seen, at times in the eighteenth 14
as well.14 But by the end of that century, political rather than religious identity 15
had emerged as the main motive for freeing slaves—although those who were 16
politically eligible could still lose that eligibility through conversion to Islam.15 17
18
19
10
The proliferation of agreements was tied to a general “increase in the volume and urgency
of government business, much of it concerning problems of foreign relations” at the early nine- 20
teenth-century Porte. Findley, Carter V., “The foundation of the Ottoman foreign ministry: the 21
beginnings of bureaucratic reform under Selim III and Mahmud II”, International Journal of 22
Middle East Studies 3/4 (1972), p. 414. 23
11
The National Archives of Great Britain, London [TNA], Foreign Office Papers collection
[FO], series 78, volume 12A [78/12A]-letter #15, Robert Ainslie to London, 22 June 1791. 24
Ainslie, the British envoy to Istanbul, wrote in the context of a complaint about Austrian willing- 25
ness to break their agreements, and he may have been quoting, or at least paraphrasing, an 26
Ottoman official. 27
12
This is the classical formulation of the individual’s role in international law, but it has been
called into question in recent decades. See Parlett, Kate, The Individual in the International Legal 28
System: Continuity and Change in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2011). 29
In thinking about the pragmatic, sometimes unintended evolution of international legal princi- 30
ples, I am inspired by Thomson, Janice, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns (Princeton, N.J.: 31
Princeton University, 1994).
13
As no one was a “citizen” of the Ottoman or Russian empires in the eighteenth century, 32
with the rights of participation that implies, I use the term “subjecthood” in place of 33
citizenship. 34
14
I thank Christoph Witzenrath for pointing out the importance of loyalty to me in a 35
conversation.
15
A few scholars have begun studying captivity along the Russo-Ottoman frontiers, but slav- 36
ery within the empire has not yet received sustained attention. See Kurtynova-D’Herlugnan, 37
Liubov, The Tsar’s Abolitionists: The Slave Trade in the Caucasus and Its Suppression (Leiden: Brill, 38
2010); Boeck, Brian J., Imperial Boundaries: Cossack Communities and Empire-Building in the Age 39
of Peter the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2009); Erdem, Y. Hakan, Slavery in the
Ottoman Empire and Its Demise, 1800-1909 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996); Khodarkovsky, 40
Beyond questions of slavery and identity, the following discussion sheds

light on the issue of Russian intervention in the Ottoman empire. During
nineteenth-century diplomatic debates, especially those preceding the
Crimean War (1853-56), Russian leaders claimed that the 1774 treaty of
Küçük Kaynarca gave them a general right of protection over Orthodox Chris-
tian subjects of the Ottoman empire. Roderic Davison, however, has argued
that this was not the original intent or understanding of the treaty, and that
the Ottoman negotiators were more adept than has often been thought.16 As
Sean Pollock has observed, “Russia never intended to sacrifice a single strategic
inch on the altar of a Christian mission in the Balkans. What later Russian
diplomats (and historians) made of the treaty is a separate matter”.17 The story
of slave release complicates this picture: the Russians did gain a very concrete,
if limited, right of protection over Ottoman Christian subjects in 1774—
but they soon abandoned this right, with enduring consequences. This dem-
onstrated not only the limits of Russian interests and Russian power, but also
the success of Ottoman negotiating strategies in the face of military setbacks.
Michael, Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800 (Bloomington:
Indiana University, 2002); O’Neill, Kelly, “‘Our women for your salt’: the structure and signifi-
cance of the Black Sea slave trade after 1774” (presented at the Slavery, Ransom and Liberation
in Russia and the Steppe Area, 1500-2000, Aberdeen, Scotland, 2009). More broadly, my
understanding of the Muscovite/Russian role in the Black Sea slave trade is indebted to all of the
papers presented at the Aberdeen workshop. The long-standing tension between religious and
political principles in organizing the eastern Mediterranean is discussed in Greene, Molly,
Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010). The
story told in this article is closely intertwined with another series of negotiations and compro-
mises, by which the two empires decreed that slaves who converted to the captor state’s religion
would not be returned, and created new tests for conversion, with social and political conse-
quences in the Ottoman empire. This article might therefore be read alongside Will Smiley, “The
meanings of conversion: treaty law, state knowledge, and religious identity among Russian cap-
tives in the eighteenth-century Ottoman empire”, The International History Review 34/3 (2012),
1–22.
16
See Davison, Roderic H., “‘Russian skill and Turkish imbecility’: the treaty of Kuchuk
Kainardji reconsidered”, Slavic Review 35/3 (1976), 463–83. For an overview of the question,
see C.J. Heywood, “Küčük Kaynardja”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. P. J. Bearman and Marc
Garborieau, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2002), http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/
encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/kucuk-kaynardja-SIM_4474 (last accessed June 22, 2012).
17
Pollock, “‘We Slavishly Request…’: invitations to empire and Russian political patronage
in the Balkans”, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1/4 (2000), p. 765. The
concept of a regional right of intervention has again taken center stage in the 21st century, as
scholars have begun to consider the present-day implications of nineteenth-century interven-
tions in the Ottoman empire. Rodogno, Davide, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions
in the Ottoman Empire, 1815-1914 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012); Bass,
Gary Jonathan, Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 2008); see also Figes, Orlando, Crimea: The Last Crusade (London: Penguin, 2011).
The history of Russian enslavement 1

2
Beginning in the fifteenth century, Muslim Turkic raiders, principally from 3
the Ottoman-tributary Tatar Khanate based in the Crimea, launched slave 4
raids northward into the lands of Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania. Referred to 5
in Ottoman Turkish as Moskovlu and Rus, most of those taken were enslaved 6
and sold to buyers in the core provinces of the Ottoman empire. As they 7
arrived in the Black Sea ports along the coast of Anatolia and Rumeli (Ottoman 8
Europe), these captives joined other slaves, also traded across the Black Sea, 9
from the Caucasus—especially Circassians and Georgians. Tatar raids carried 10
off perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 eastern Slavs and Circassians in the first half 11
of the seventeenth century alone.18 These slaves served in diverse roles within 12
the Ottoman empire, as galley rowers, household servants, concubines, and 13
even, for those with prominent owners, eventually as manumitted state offi- 14
cials and mothers of sultans.19 15
Muscovite, and later Russian, rulers tolerated slavery by and of non- 16
Christians, including Ottoman subjects taken on military campaigns, in their 17
own realms into the nineteenth century.20 But the enslavement of Christians 18
who paid taxes into the state treasury, and who, if male, were potential recruits 19
for the Russian army, was unacceptable, and ending Tatar raids became a 20
major goal of Muscovite security policy. This meant constructing a series of 21
defensive lines and a powerful military,21 but it also demanded attempts to free 22
23
24
18
Khodarkovsky, Steppe, p. 22; İnalcık, Halil, “Servile labor in the Ottoman empire”, in
Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History (London: Varioum Reprints, 1985), p. 40. See 25
also Fisher, Alan W., “Muscovy and the Black Sea slave trade”, in A Precarious Balance: Conflict, 26
Trade, and Diplomacy on the Russian-Ottoman Frontier (Istanbul: Isis, 1999), pp. 27–46; 27
Kurtynova-D’Herlugnan, Abolitionists, pp. 55–65.
28
19
See Zilfi, Madeline C., Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire (Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 2010); Toledano, Ehud R., As If Silent and Absent: Bonds of Enslavement 29
in the Islamic Middle East (New Haven: Yale University, 2007); Toledano, Ehud R., Slavery and 30
Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East (Seattle: University of Washington, 1998); See Erdem, 31
Slavery; Seng, Yvonne, “A liminal state: slavery in sixteenth-century Istanbul”, in Slavery in the
32
Islamic Middle East, ed. Shaun E. Marmon (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 1999), pp. 25–42;
my understanding also owes much to conversations with Nur Sobers Khan, and to her paper, 33
“Ottoman slaves: a paragon of 16th-century social and economic integration? The court registers 34
of Galata” (presented at the conference “Slavery, Ransom and Liberation in Russia and the 35
Steppe Area,” Aberdeen, Scotland, 2009).
36
20
See generally Khodarkovsky, Steppe; Khodarkovsky, Michael, Where Two Worlds Met: The
Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600-1771 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); 37
Fisher, Alan W., The Russian Annexation of the Crimea, 1772-1783 (Cambridge: Cambridge 38
University Press, 1970). 39
21
See Davies, Brian L., Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe: 1500-1700 (London:
40
Routledge, 2007).
those who were already enslaved in Tatar and Ottoman hands. The Russians,
with little political leverage over the Porte, turned first to financial incentives
aimed at individual owners: in other words, ransom.
The “self-consciousness as a Russian Orthodox state with a divine duty to
save Orthodox Christians from infidel captivity,”22 was implemented, from
1551 to 1679, through a special tax, the polonianichnyi den’gi, earmarked for
ransoms. These funds usually went to free slaves who were still in the Crimea,
via various intermediaries. The 1649 Muscovite law code, the Ulozhenie, codi-
fied the maximum amount which the state would contribute toward each
subject’s ransom, based on social rank.23 In the first half of the seventeenth
century, Muscovy paid perhaps five million rubles in ransoms, and Michael
Khodarkovsy suggests this expenditure may have held back urban develop-
ment in Russia.24 Faced with limited funds, Russian officials prioritized the
liberation of Christians—whether or not they were Russian subjects. Thus, in
the mid-eighteenth century, authorities in St. Petersburg reprimanded the
governor-general of Astrakhan because “he set free a pagan Kalmyk woman,
while thoroughly Christian Georgians were left in the hands of Muslims.”25
Kalmyks (Kalmuks in Turkish), a Turkic and largely shamanistic group, were
subjects of the tsar,26 but that was outweighed by the fact that they were not
Christians.
In the Mediterranean, too, religion drove ransom, and as the eighteenth
century dawned, the British, French, Venetian, and perhaps even Ottoman
states committed more and more resources to freeing their enslaved subjects.27
Russia, however, took a different route as the seventeenth century ended
with victories over the Ottoman empire in the War of the Holy League.
The Russians unsuccessfully pushed, during peace negotiations, for the
Ottomans and Tatars to agree to return all captives without ransom.28
22
Khodarkovsky, Steppe, p. 22.
23
Khodarkovsky, Steppe, p. 22; Hellie, Richard, Slavery in Russia 1450-1725 (Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1982), pp. 5–8, 25–6, 525–6. For the role of brokers and intermediary
authorities, see Boeck, Boundaries.
24
Khodarkovsky, Steppe, p. 223.
25
As translated in Kurtynova-D’Herlugnan, Abolitionists, p. 69; see also p. 86.
26
For the Russian-Kalmyk relationship, see Khodarkovsky, Kalmyk.
27
See Colley, Linda, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600-1850 (London: Jonathan
Cape, 2002), pp. 75–81; Davis, Robert C., “Slave redemption in Venice, 1585-1797”, in Venice
Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797, ed. John Jeffries
Martin and Dennis Romano (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2000), pp. 454–87; Weiss,
Gillian Lee, “Back From Barbary: Captivity, Redemption and French Identity in the Seventeenth-
and Eighteenth-Century Mediterranean” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford, 2002).
28
Boeck, Boundaries, p. 137.
This demand failed; the final treaty, signed in Istanbul in 1700, endorsed 1
ransom.29 2
3
4
Threats and negotiations after the treaty of Belgrade (1739) 5
6
However, the Russians were not finished with their efforts to end ransom. By 7
the early eighteenth century, Empress Anna was on the offensive, scoring 8
significant victories in a war which lasted from 1735 to 1739. In the ensuing 9
treaty of Belgrade, Russian diplomats were able to demand that all captives 10
in the Ottoman empire, whether in private or state hands, be released with- 11
out ransom. This obviously reduced the cost of liberation to the Russian state, 12
but it raised another problem: without ransom, what incentive did private 13
owners have to give up their slaves, whose purchase likely represented a signifi- 14
cant investment? The answer was that money was replaced by power: the 15
Ottoman state was to apply its coercive resources to persuade captors to free 16
slaves. 17
The Porte quickly released captives in state custody, and soon forced private 18
owners to release galley slaves as well, but it balked at offending wealthy and 19
influential slave owners by reaching into households, or out to the provinces, 20
for captives whose initial enslavement had been entirely legal. Slaveowners’ 21
resistance was magnified by the fact that the Porte offered only a small com- 22
pensation, 100 piasters per slave—half to one-third of captives’ average mar- 23
ket value.30 The Porte also refused, as the treaty had demanded, to recognize 24
the Russian claim to the status of an “empire.” The second issue, which carried 25
great symbolic weight, was probably more important to Russian diplomats, 26
but they combined it with the slave question, and addressed both by asserting 27
their raw political power: they threatened direct retaliation against the 28
Ottomans if they did not comply on these two points. 29
For a year and a half, from early 1740 until August 1741, the two sides 30
negotiated not over what the treaty said, but simply over who could level the 31
most intimidating threats. The Russians had two important cards to play 32
33
34
29
BOA, Divan-ı Hümayun Düvel-i Ecnebiyye Kalemi Defterleri collection [DVEd] 83-pp.
3-4; Полное Собрание Законов Российской Империи 1649 года [Complete Collection of the 35
Laws of the Russian Empire of the Year 1649] [PSZRI] (St.Petersburg, 1830), vol. I/4 pp. 70-1 36
(#1804); Noradounghian, Gabriel (ed.), Recueil d’Actes Internationaux De l’Empire Ottoman 37
(Paris: Pichon, 1897), vol. I, p. 201.
38
30
Smiley, Will, “‘When Peace Is Made, You Will Again Be Free’: Islamic and Treaty Law,
Black Sea Conflict, and the Emergence of ‘Prisoners of War’ in the Ottoman Empire, 1739- 39
1830” (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 2012), pp. 5–6. 40
against the Porte: first, the Russians had agreed, in the treaty, to destroy the
fortifications at Azov, a strategic city which gave Russia indirect access to the
Black Sea. The Russian chargé d’affaires, A.A. Vishnyakov, threatened not to
do this until the Ottomans complied on both the slavery and imperial-title
points.31 Secondly, the Russians had captured thousands of Ottoman subjects
in the late war, including many prominent officers, whom they held in state
custody.32 The Russians demanded that the Porte commit to a firm timetable
for release: all slaves held in Istanbul and its immediate surroundings would be
released within one year, those in the hands of Christian and Jewish owners in
the Cuban, Crimea, Budjak, and Rumeli would go free within 18 months,
and all others would be handed over to the Russians within two years.33 The
Porte refused; some slaves were set free, but the process largely did not extend
outside Istanbul, or into the homes of elite slaveowners.34
The issue was eventually resolved by the assertion of raw military power by
a third player: Sweden. In August 1741, the Swedes declared war on Russia,
and when news reached Ambassador Extraordinary Aleksandr Rumyantsev in
Istanbul, he hastened to ensure that his sovereign would not have to fight on
a second front against the Ottomans. The Russians and Ottomans signed a
convention on September 6, 1741, which provided only that captives would
be freed with “as much speed as possible,” terms which were reiterated in
reciprocal letters over the next six years.35 The Porte sent orders to the prov-
inces, but with the exception of those who could be found in the capital,
British envoy Everard Fawkener expected, the matter would “in good measure
wear out in negotiatio, til it grows obsolete”.36 This was probably acceptable to
Russian diplomats, whose main interest seems to have been in the able-bodied
31
Laugier, Marc Antoine, Histoire des négociations pour la paix conclue à Belgrade, le
18 Septembre 1739 (Paris: Duchesne, 1768), vol. II, pp. 147–264 passim; Aktepe, M. Münir
(ed.), Şem’dânî-Zâde Fındıklılı Süleyman Efendi Târihi Mür’i’t-Tevârih (Istanbul: İstanbul
Üniversitesi, 1976), vol. I, pp. 107–8.
32
Smiley, “Meanings of conversion”, pp. 3–4.
33
The Russian draft proposal, in Italian, was copied and sent to London by British envoy
Everard Fawkener: TNA, State Papers collection [SP] 97/31, Fawkener to London, 15 (26)
August 1741 (attachment). I have been unable to locate these demands in either AVPRI or the
BOA. I thank Kate Fleet for her help in translating this copy.
34
Smiley, “When Peace Is Made”, p. 47.
35
TNA, SP 97/31, Fawkener to London, 4 (15) September 1741, 19 (30) September 1741;
Laugier, Histoire, vol. II, pp. 218, 230, 233. For copies of the letters, see BOA, DVEd 83/1,
pp. 94-9, hüküm #122-125, #129; DVEd 83/1 pp. 104-5, #127, 112-15, #131-2, 1741-47;
PSZRI, 1/11 p. 479 (#8435).
36
TNA, SP 97/31, Fawkener to London, 4 (15) September 1741.
young men, many of them soldiers or potential soldiers, who rowed on the 1
Ottoman state and private galleys.37 This was a compromise, reached in spite 2
of the treaty, based on the balance of the two sides’ political power. 3
The final agreement was also vague on precisely who would be released. 4
Converts to Islam were clearly exempt from return.38 Aside from that, both 5
sides assumed the treaty applied to Russians, but that answer was not necessar- 6
ily helpful. Ottoman orders incessantly reiterated that only “true Russians” 7
(sahih Rus, Rusi el-asıl, sahih Moskov), would benefit from the Porte’s finan- 8
cial and coercive resources.39 In an era without passports or identity cards, of 9
course, “Russianness” was difficult to define.40 Ottoman orders did not specify 10
any particular test, but language and self-identification seem to have been the 11
principal markers. One woman, enslaved by a Jewish merchant who was a 12
protégé of the British, was identified when “a Russ interpreter [dragoman] 13
pass’d by, & suspecting from the Woman’s Appearance what she might be, 14
spoke to her, the Woman told him what she was”.41 Fawkener did not specify 15
the language in which these two communicated, but the woman’s ability to 16
speak Russian, or at least her Russian accent when speaking in Turkish, may 17
have been as important as her self-identification.42 18
Other captives, though, asserted Russianness even when they were probably 19
not native speakers of the language. This was the case for the Kalmyks in the 20
group, mentioned at the beginning of this article, which returned to Russia in 21
22
23
24
37
Smiley, “‘When Peace Is Made’”, pp. 44–5. 25
38
See Smiley, “Meanings of conversion”. 26
39
Smiley, “‘When Peace Is Made’”, pp. 56–7.
40
For identity documents, see Torpey, John, The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, 27
Citizenship and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2000); Hanley, Will, “Foreignness 28
and Localness in Alexandria, 1880-1914” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2007). There is no 29
indication that any Russian slaves freed in this period had pencik tax receipts, which would have 30
recorded their origins, and indeed it seems that this tax was not collected on the battlefield in the
eighteenth century: see D’Ohsson, Mourdgea, Tableau genéral de l’empire ottoman (Istanbul: Isis, 31
2001), vol. V, pp. 85, 92. 32
41
TNA, SP 97/31, Fawkener to London, 2 (13) August 1740. For protocols of identification 33
in other contexts, see Caplan, Jane and John Torpey (eds.), Documenting Individual Identity 34
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 2001). I thank Nur Sobers Khan and William O’Reilly
for suggesting, in conversations, that language may have played a role in identifying Russian 35
slaves. 36
42
Rothman, E. Natalie, “Between Venice and Istanbul: Trans-Imperial Subjects and Cultural 37
Mediation in the Early Modern Mediterranean” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2006), 38
sees dragomans creating the boundaries which they ostensibly mediated--exactly what this
Russian dragoman did, quite literally, by picking this woman out as a Russian rather than an 39
Ottoman subject. 40
1743.43 From Ottoman documents, it is clear that these captives, all male,
were released from the galleys where they had served as rowers—but all are
designated simply as “Muscovites.”44 Most of those on the galleys who were
eligible for release had been set free two years earlier,45 but these captives had
remained much longer—perhaps because there was some question over
whether they were “true Russians.” Since they were usually not Christian,
Kalmyks were, as noted above, a low priority when the Russians paid ran-
soms—but now, Russian diplomats had to spend only political capital, rather
than financial. So eventually these Kalmyks had been released; it seems likely
that either the prisoners themselves, or Russian diplomats, had decided that
now was an opportune moment for the Kalmyks to “display” their Russianness,
in the form of their status as subjects of the empress.46
The collision of Russian and Ottoman threats, then, had produced an
understanding that the Porte would free slaves who were Russian subjects,
even if these were not Christians, but it would not press too hard for the lib-
eration of those in private households. This was still, however, largely unwrit-
ten; with the exception of abolishing ransom, the treaty of Belgrade and the
1741 Convention provided only general guidelines.
The treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, 1774
War broke out again as the Ottomans, objecting to Russian intervention in

Poland, declared war on Russia in 1768. The results were devastating for the
Porte; the Ottoman army and Aegean fleet were both destroyed in 1770, at
Kartal and Çeşme, respectively.47 During preliminary peace negotiations at
Bucharest in 1772-73, the Russian representative, Alexei Obreskov, imposed a
new demand, which was eventually included in the treaty: all Christian
slaves in the Ottoman empire were to be released without ransom. This explic-
itly included Moldavians, Wallachians, Morean Greeks, Aegean islanders,
43
AVPRI, KM f. 90 d. 149 f. 49r-50v, safe passage orders, 1 (12) June 1743.
44
BOA, DVEd 84/2, p. 34, #132, safe passage orders, evahir [late] Rabiülahir 1156 (June
1743). This document lists only 71 captives, while the Russian list has 72, but the dates and all
other details correspond, including the escorts: a merchant, his wife, and their five children.
45
Smiley, “‘When Peace Is Made’”, pp. 43–5.
46
The term is from Hanley, “Localness”, p. 14. He uses it to describe the selective and instru-
mental use of nationality in late nineteenth-century Egypt.
47
Aksan, Virginia H., Ottoman Wars 1700-1870 (London: Longman, 2007), pp. 153–4.
Poles, and Georgians.48 The treaty separately banned the Ottoman state from 1
demanding slaves as a tribute from Georgia or Mingrelia.49 These provisions, 2
if fully implemented, would have meant the virtual abolition of slavery in the 3
Ottoman empire, as it was illegal to enslave Muslims. 4
It is important to keep in mind that almost all of those whose freedom was 5
in question had initially been enslaved legally. Moreans and Aegean islanders 6
were direct Ottoman subjects, while Moldavians and Wallachians were the 7
subjects of Ottoman tributary states—and all of them, normally, could not be 8
legally enslaved in the empire.50 However, the Porte had expressly authorized 9
it through legal opinions (fetvas) during the war because of Russian-backed 10
revolts in those provinces; this served not only to punish the rebels, but also to 11
motivate Ottoman military forces through the promise of plunder. Many 12
Poles had been enslaved by Ottoman forces during the war, and Georgians 13
were the objects of a continuous Black Sea slave trade, during war and peace 14
alike, from outside the Ottoman empire.51 15
Russian power, obviously, allowed this new demand. But it also was both 16
possible and necessary only because of the abolition of ransom: possible, because 17
the Russian state surely could not have afforded to pay ransom for so many 18
slaves; and necessary, because if funds had been available, there would have 19
been no need for a special treaty provision—Russian diplomats could simply 20
have sought and ransomed captives of any origin. Russian military victories 21
had allowed them to replace their own financial resources with the Porte’s 22
financial and coercive resources, and now, since they did not have to pay the 23
cost, they could demand an extension of the release program. 24
Obreskov had no instructions from his superiors to pursue this new policy. 25
Writing to Count Nikita Panin, he justified his actions by invoking the tradi- 26
tion of aid to co-religionists—he explained that almost all of those specified in 27
the treaty were Orthodox Christians. Poles, of course, were largely Catholic, 28
but Obreskov claimed that the treaty’s reference to Poles meant those whom 29
30
31
48
See Article 25: BOA, DVEd 83/1, p. 151; PSZRI, vol. 1/19 pp. 965–66 (#14164); 32
Druzhinina, E.I., Кючук-Кайнарджийский мир 1774 года: Его подготовка и заключение 33
[The 1774 Peace of Küçük Kaynarca: Its Preparation and Agreement] (Moscow: Nauka, 1955),
pp. 220, 340; Noradounghian, Recueil, I, p. 331. Articles One, 16, and 17 of the treaty included
34
an amnesty against future retaliation (though not a release from slavery) for Greeks, Moldavians, 35
and Wallachians who had rebelled. 36
49
See Article 23, in the sources in the previous note. 37
50
Erdem, Slavery, pp. 3–5; Panaite, Viorel, The Ottoman Law of War and Peace: The Ottoman
Empire and Tribute Payers (Boulder: East European Monographs, 2000), pp. 409–10.
38
51
Smiley, “‘When Peace Is Made’”, pp. 114–16; see generally Kurtynova-D’Herlugnan, 39
Abolitionists. 40
the anti-Russian Confederation of the Bar had allowed to be captured.52

Though she did not order it, Catherine the Great boasted of the policy in a
postwar declaration, declaring that “the multitude of Christians in captivity
and slavery and suffering imprisonment [are] already freed of their bonds” and
returning home.53 But she and her highest officials were, in private, less enthu-
siastic about the release of non-Russian slaves. Catherine made her own priori-
ties clear in an August 1775 letter to the Russian ambassador extraordinary to
the Porte, Prince Nikolai Repnin. She agreed with the measures to free “vari-
ous” (raznogo roda) slaves, but she reserved her fondest hopes “especially”
(osoblivo) for “our natural subjects” (nashikh prirodnykh poddanykh).54
Repnin himself left the liberation of slaves to his subordinate, Chargé d’Affaires
Christopher Peterson, who was dispatched to Istanbul ahead of the ambassa-
dor, in mid-September 1774. Repnin does not seem to have requested any
official report from Peterson until June 1775, and his reply did not go beyond
laconic approval of Peterson’s activities.55
Despite his superiors’ ambivalence, Peterson himself took his mission of
freeing all Christian slaves seriously at first—as did his deputy, a Georgian
dragoman named Sergei Lazarevich Lashkarev, or “Sergio” to the Ottomans.56
Within weeks of arriving in Istanbul, Peterson nearly dictated the wording of
the general liberation orders which the Porte sent down the main military
routes of the empire—the Sağ, Sol, and Orta Kols of Anatolia and Rumeli.57
52
Druzhinina, Кючук-Кайнарджийский мир, pp. 221-2.
53
PSZRI, vol. 1/20 p. 81 (#14274).
54
Сборник [Императорского] Русского Исторического Общества [Collection of the
[Imperial] Russian Historical Society] [SIRIO], vol. VI, p. 339.
55
SIRIO, VI, p. 308; Kessel’brenner, G. L., Хроника одной дипломатической карьеры:
Дипломат-востоковед С. Л. Лашкарев и его время [Chronicle of a Diplomatic Career: The
Diplomat-Orientalist S.L. Lashkarev and His Time] (Moscow: Nauka, 1987), p. 60. Habesci
and Mote both imply that Repnin took the lead in freeing slaves, but the Russian archival cor-
respondence makes clear that Peterson was primarily responsible. Habesci seems correct, though,
about Repnin’s lack of concern for the slaves. See Mote, Max Ethan and Norman Itzkowitz
(eds.), Mubadele: An Ottoman-Russian Exchange of Ambassadors (Chicago: University of Chicago,
1970), p. 39; Habesci, Elias The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London: Baldwin, 1784),
pp. 404–6.
56
BOA, Cevdet Hariciye [CHR] gömlek 8929, Porte to the naib of Bolu and Commissioner
Hasan Ağa, 21 Cemaziülevvel 1189 (20 July 1775); Kessel’brenner, Хроника одной
дипломатической карьеры, p. 59; Habesci, State, p. 400; Morkva, “Rapprochement,” p. 67,
n105; O’Neill, “Salt.”.
57
BOA, CHR 4094, Porte to the Sol Kol of Rumeli with a note of copies to the other five kols,
evahir Şaban 1188 (October-November 1774); CHR 4947, Peterson to the Porte, 25 Şaban
1188 (31 October 1774); CHR 8060, Porte to the Orta Kol of Anatolia, evasıt [mid-] Şaban
1188 (October 1774).
He demanded that the Porte’s orders cover all of the groups specified in 1
the treaty.58 Indeed, Peterson’s thoroughness is suggested by an anony- 2
mous Ottoman diarist, who noted that orders had been issued not only for 3
the release of Muscovites, Georgians, and Morean Greeks, but also of 4
Montenegrins—who were not explicitly mentioned in the treaty, but were 5
Christians.59 The Russians, indeed, insisted that Polish, and perhaps even 6
Spanish, subjects be freed from Ottoman state custody in the arsenal (the 7
shipyard-prison in Kasımpaşa, Istanbul).60 Peterson and Lashkarev also seem 8
to have pressed, more than in the 1740s, for the release of slaves held in 9
Ottoman households. As the fall and winter wore on, both Ottoman and 10
Russian diplomats began complaining to the British about the other side’s 11
intransigence on these matters.61 12
Though the Russians’ new demands were contained in a signed treaty, the 13
two sides continued to discuss the release of slaves in terms of power politics, 14
not legal interpretation. From late 1774 through 1775, fierce Ottoman resis- 15
tance was met with equally fierce Russian threats; even more than in the 16
1740s, Ottoman officials were afraid of Russian power, and in particular, of 17
Repnin.62 More concretely, the Russians still held many high-ranking Ottoman 18
officers, and Peterson at least once requested a halt to the repatriation of these 19
prisoners in order to put pressure on the Porte.63 20
The Russians’ greatest complaint, though, was not about Ottoman 21
state policy, but about the resistance of private slaveowners. The Porte’s 22
compensation for each slave was again set at 100 piasters, well below most 23
captives’ market values—especially as the piaster’s value had suffered from 24
three decades of inflation.64 Not surprisingly, owners attempted to resist the 25
liberation process. One major tactic was to claim that captives had converted 26
27
28
58
BOA, CHR, 4947, Peterson to the Porte, 25 Şaban 1188 (31 October 1774). The date is 29
from another document in the same file; this request is undated.
59
Göksu, Süleyman, Ruzname: Osmanlı-Rus Harbi Esnasında Bir Şahidin Kaleminden
30
İstanbul (Istanbul: Çamlıca, 2007), p. 74. Many Montenegrins had been enslaved in a revolt in 31
the 1760s, and the Russians had sponsored rebels there. See TNA, SP 97/44 #2, John Murray to 32
London, 16 January 1768; #7 16 April 1768; #20, 17 October 1768; 97/45 #25, 3 November 33
1769.
60
BOA, DVEd 84/2 p. 126, #731, safe passage orders, evahir Muharrem 1189 (March-April
34
1775); Habesci, State, pp. 397–8. 35
61
TNA, SP 97/50 #23, Murray to London, 3 November 1774, 97/51 #2, 18 January 1775. 36
62
Habesci, State, pp. 290, 401. 37
63
AVPRI, KM f. 90 o. 1 d. 616 ff. 50r-51r, Peterson to Rumyantsev, 19 (30) June 1775;
SIRIO, vol. VI, p. 339.
38
64
Pamuk, Şevket, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge 39
University, 2000), p. 163; Erdem, Slavery, p. 32. 40
to Islam,65 but the Russians also submitted repeated complaints that slaveown-
ers, in Istanbul and elsewhere, demanded additional compensation, re-
enslaved freed captives, concealed slaves, bribed Ottoman commissioners,
attacked Russian officials, or claimed that they had not heard about the orders
to free non-Russians.66 As Peterson reported these incidents to the Porte, he
simultaneously helped it monitor its own officials, and demonstrated the
extent of Russian power.
Indeed, Russian victories made the Porte more cooperative than it had been
three decades before. At the Russians’ request, the Ottomans reiterated the
general release orders in July 1775 and March 1776, and sent targeted repri-
mands to a number of towns.67 In Istanbul, Grand Vezir İzzet Mehmed
appointed a special commission to oversee the liberation process, headed by
Nişancı (sultanic seal-bearer) Abdullah Efendi. Abdullah supervised a team
of scribes, messengers, guards, police, and one jurist, as well as a number of
agents sent into the provinces.68 Together, Lashkarev and this liberation
commission carried with them the Porte’s orders as they searched Istanbul
65
See Smiley, “Meanings of conversion”.
66
AVPRI, KM f. 90 o. 1 d. 588 ff. 23v-24r, Peterson to Rumyantsev, 14 (25) October 1774;
d. 616 ff. 50r-51r, Peterson to Rumyantsev, 19 (30) June 1775; and see the Russian complaints
contained in BOA, CHR 941, est. 1188-1189 (1775); CHR 3746, 15 Zilkade 1189 (7 January
1776), CHR 4947, Peterson to the Porte, 25 Şaban 1188 (31 October 1774); CHR 7035, 29
Rabiülahır 1189 (29 June 1775); CHR 7036, est. 1188-1189 (1775); CHR 8120, 29 Rabiülahır
1189 (29 June 1775); BOA, Düvel-i Ecnebiyye Dosyaları [DVE], dosya 10, gömlek 13 [10/13],
13 Rebiülevvel 1189 (14 May 1775); DVE 10/19, 11 Rebiülahir 1189 (11 June 1775); BOA,
DVEd 84/2 p. 122, #718, evasıt Zilkade 1188 (January 1775); DVEd 84/2 p. 123, #722, Porte to
the authorities of Edirne, evail [early] Zilhicce 1188 (February 1775); DVEd 84/2 p.124 #728,
evahir Muharrem 1189 (March 1775); DVEd 84/2 p. 126, #730, evahir Muharrem 1189 (March
1775); DVEd 84/2 p. 127, #735, evail Safer 1189 (April 1775); DVEd 84/2 p. 130 #745, evahir
Safer 1189 (April-May 1775); DVEd 84/2 p. 132, #751, evasıt Rebiülahir 1189 (June 1775);
DVEd 84/2 p. 133, #752, evahir Rebiülahir 1189 (June 1775); DVEd 84/2 p. 138, #793, evasıt
Cemaziülahır 1189 (August 1775); BOA, Maliyeden Müdevver Defterleri [MAD] 10394 p. 60,
21 Muharrem 1189 (24 March 1775); MAD 10394 p. 62, 11 Şevval 1188 (15 December 1774);
MAD 10394, p. 64, 10 Safer 1189 (12 April 1775); Mazower, Mark, Salonica, City of Ghosts:
Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950 (London: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 104.
67
AVPRI, KM f. 90 o. 1 d. 588 ff. 34r-37r, Peterson to Rumyantsev, 10 (21) October 1774;
examples of orders are BOA, CHR 7129, Porte to the authorities of Ochakov, evail Cemaziülahır
1189 (August 1775); CHR 8060, evasıt [mid-] Şaban 1188 (October 1774); BOA, DVEd 84/2
p. 139-40, #795, evail Recep 1189 (August-September 1775); DVEd 84/2 p. 141-42, #798,
evahir Recep 1189 (September 1775); DVEd 84/2 pp. 144-45, #814, evasıt Şaban 1189
(October 1775); DVEd 84/2 p. 145, #815, evail Şaban 1189 (September-October 1775);
Ahmet Refik, Hicrî On Ikinci Asırda Istanbul Hayatı (1100-1200) (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası,
1930), pp. 222–3; Erdem, Slavery, 32; Mazower, Ghosts, p. 104.
68
The commission’s salary records are found in BOA, CHR 6200, 5 Muharrem 1190
(25 February 1776); CHR 6337, 8 Şevval 1189 (2 December 1775); 6385, 21 Zilhicce 1189
households, frightening elites. The anonymous diarist, mentioned above, 1

described the taking of captives “compulsorily and by force”.69 2
This was a substantial state intrusion into Ottoman households—a domain 3
in which elite, male Muslims ordinarily expected a good deal of privacy.70 The 4
Ottoman state, as other scholars have shown, generally respected this privacy, 5
but now the Porte was quite willing to disregard it as Ottoman officials coop- 6
erated with non-Muslim foreign agents to “make apparent” (zahire ihrac) the 7
existence, origins, and religious identities of not only male, but also female 8
slaves inside the closed courtyards of elite houses. 9
And this intrusion was widespread. In the first five months of the liberation 10
process, at least 1,189 slaves were freed in Istanbul.71 The Ottomans’ greater 11
cooperation allowed the Russians to reach deeper into Ottoman households 12
than they had in the 1740s, freeing not only men but also substantial numbers 13
of women. In one sample of 102 freed slaves, compiled from 75 owners’ peti- 14
tions for compensation, 58 captives—56.9 per cent of the total—were female. 15
The same petitions show a plurality of Moldavians, and substantial numbers 16
of Georgians and Wallachians. 17
18
19
Table 1 Sex and origin of slaves freed in and around Istanbul, according to owners’
petitions for compensation.72 20
21
Russian Moldavian Wallachian Morean Polish Georgian Unk. TOTAL 22
Male 4 10 8 1 0 19 1 44 23
(43.1%) 24
Female 15 26 11 3 2 1 0 58 25
(56.9%) 26
TOTAL 19 36 19 4 2 20 1 27
(18.6%) (35.3%) (18.6%) (3.9%) (2%) (19.6%) (1%) 102
28
29
30
(12 February 1776); CHR 7003, 11 Şevval 1188 (15 December 1774); BOA, Cevdet Maliye
[CML] 30117, 4 Zilkade 1188 (6 January 1775); BOA, MADd 10394 p. 10, 1 Ramazan 1188
31
(5 November 1774). For Abdullah’s biography, see Mehmed Süreyya, Sicill-i Osmanî Yahud 32
Tezkire-i Meşâhir-i Osmâniyye, ed. Ali Aktan, Abdülkadir Yuvalı, and Metin Hülagu (Istanbul: 33
Sebil, 1996), vol. III, p. 442. 34
69
Göksu, Ruzname, p. 74; Habesci, State, p. 400.
70
See Zilfi, Slavery, p. 58; Erdem, Slavery, p. 18; Ayalon, Yaron, “Ottoman urban privacy in
35
light of disaster recovery”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 43/3 (2011) 513–28. 36
71
BOA, Bab-ı Defteri Başmuhasebe Kalemi Defterleri collection [DBŞM] 4494, list of com- 37
pensation payments for freed slaves, 2 Şaban 1188 (8 October 1774); MAD 10394 passim, 38
compensation payments for freed slaves, 5 Şaban 1188 (11 October 1774).
72
The petitions are found in BOA, Cevdet Askeriye collection [CAS] 53283, 13 Şevval
39
1188 (17 December 1774); Cevdet Dahiliye collection [CDH] 12175, 2 Zilkade 1188 40
Russian records, of freed captives sent across the Black Sea to settle in the
newly-acquired territories of modern-day Ukraine, show similar diversity.
One ship, dispatched in May 1775, carried a Russian hussar, two Zaporozhian
Cossacks, 33 Russian civilians, two Polish women, one Albanian, five
Wallachians, eight Greeks, 12 adult Georgians, and two Georgian children.73
Another vessel, in July, brought 17 Russian soldiers, 25 Russian civilians,
20 Poles, one Kalmyk, 26 Moldavians, 15 Georgians, and 11 children whose
mothers and fathers could not be identified—perhaps, born in slavery, they
spoke Turkish as their native tongue and therefore could not be classified by
the Russian officials.74
Stronger protections for the Russian military network
The release process reached a broad array of Christian slaves, but it reached
further for some than for others. In the 1740s, the Russians had prioritized
galley slaves, probably because they were especially likely to be captured sol-
diers or potential soldiers. Now, again, diplomats focused on those captured in
military service. Almost immediately after his arrival in October 1774,
Peterson submitted to the Porte a list of 88 captured military men whose
release from the Arsenal he wished to expedite.75 Most of these were regular
Russian soldiers and sailors, but at least one was an Ottoman Greek, Giannes
Mauromichales. A Maniote brigand who took part in the Russian-sponsored
Morean revolt of 1770, Mauromichales seems to have had personal ties to
(4 January 1775); CDH 16483, 8 Ramazan 1188 (12 November 1774); CHR 834, 9 Şevval
1188 (13 December 1774); CHR 3905, 30 Ramazan 1188 (4 December 1774); CHR 3973, 17
Şevval 1188 (21 December 1774); CHR 5857, 13 Şevval 1188 (17 December 1774); CHR
5962, 11 Safer 1189 (13 April 1775); CHR 6150, 11 Rebiülevvel 1189 (12 May 1775); CHR
6340, 22 Recep 1189 (18 September 1775); CHR 6533, 19 Ramazan 1188 (13 November
1775); CHR 8923, 3 Safer 1189 (5 April 1775); CHR 9223, est. 1188-1189 (1775); BOA,
DVE 8/14, est. 1188-1189 (1775); DVE 8/47, est. 1188-1189 (1775). The designations on the
chart are direct translations of those used by the petition writers.
73
Российский Государственный Военно-Исторический Архив (Russian State Military-
Historical Archive), Moscow [RGVIA], Русско-Турецкая Война 1768-1774 [Russo-Turkish
War, 1768-1774] collection [RTV68], f. 464, o. 1 d. 4 ff. 149r-v, passenger list attached to letter
from Peterson to Rumyantsev, 21 May (1 June) 1775. The letter itself is in AVPRI, rather than
RGVIA.
74
RGVIA, RTV68, f. 464 o. 1 d. 4 f. 150r-v, passenger list, 13 (24) July 1775. The word for
“Russian” in these documents is Rossiiskie, implying a Russian mother tongue rather than just
Russian subjecthood.
75
BOA, CHR 4947, Peterson to the Porte, 5 Şaban 1188 (11 October 1774).
Alexei Orlov, commander of the Russian squadron in the Mediterranean.76 1

Mauromichales was not found in the arsenal; he was, in fact, imprisoned in 2
Nafplio/Anapoli in the Morea. Peterson repeatedly pressed his demand for 3
Mauromichales, despite Ottoman confusion about the captive’s proper name, 4
concern that he may have been imprisoned as a criminal (rather than an 5
enemy) and opposition to his release by local rivals, both Christians and 6
Muslims. Despite confusion over local Morean politics, Peterson insisted that 7
Mauromichales be freed, and he seems eventually to have prevailed.77 8
Mauromichales was not a native Russian, but he had served with the Russian 9
military, so the military network—Peterson was himself a colonel in the 10
army—mobilized on his behalf. Peterson and Repnin persistently paid special 11
attention to military captives. Many were in state custody, so they were released 12
quickly: 493 were dispatched to Taganrog as soon as the weather allowed, in 13
April 1775, but later lists contain fewer soldiers.78 In September 1775, the 14
Porte ordered an official on Rhodes to release a Russian officer whom he was 15
personally keeping as a slave, and as late as November 1776, Repnin protested 16
that “soldiers, cavalrymen, and Cossacks” were being held in Kastamonu.79 17
Most remarkably, in the summer of 1775 Peterson petitioned the Porte on 18
behalf of two soldiers and five Cossacks who were imprisoned in Egypt by the 19
kapudan paşa (grand admiral), Gazi Hasan. They had been captured on the 20
Danube near the end of the war, and carried with Hasan’s retinue to Istanbul, 21
to Çeşme on the Aegean coast, and then to Egypt. They had written a letter 22
reporting their plight to Orlov, who was then at Leghorn/Livorno/Alikorna, 23
24
25
26
76
This account is drawn from Ottoman sources, but the prisoner (Yani Mavro Mikhalaki, in
Ottoman Turkish) seems to be the same Mauromichales discussed in Alexander, John Christos, 27
Brigandage and Public Order in the Morea, 1685-1806 (Athens, 1985), pp. 51, 125n3; Yūgō 28
Nagata, Muhsin-Zâde Mehmed Paşa ve Âyânlık Müessesesi (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of 29
Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1976), p. 56.
30
77
See the correspondence in BOA, CHR 4947, 25 Şaban 1188 (31 October 1774); BOA,
DVE 11/79, est. 1188 (1774-1775); BOA, DVEd 84/2 p. 140, #797, evail Şaban 1189 31
(1 October 1775). Another case of an enslaved Ottoman Greek who had served with the Russian 32
military is found in BOA, DVEd 84/2 p. 144, #813, evail Şaban 1189 (1 October 1775); BOA, 33
DVE 84/2 p. 148, #843, evasıt Rebiülevvel 1190 (4 May 1776). In both these cases, the Russians
34
invoked the treaty’s amnesty provision, not its captive clause, so the cases were therefore proce-
durally different from outright slavery. 35
78
AVPRI, KM, f. 90 o. 1 d. 616 f. 29, passenger list, 18 (29) April 1775; RGVIA, RTV68 36
f. 464 o. 1 d. 4 f149r-v, passenger list, 21 May (1 June 1775); d. 4 f. 150r-v, passenger list, 13 37
(24) July 1775; SIRIO, VI, p. 349; SIRIO, XV, p. 513.
38
79
BOA, DVE 84/2 p. 143, #806, Porte to Rhodes Mutasarrıf Ahmed, evahir Recep 1189
(September 1775); DVE 84/2 p. 152, #885, Porte to the authorities of Kastamonu, 10 Şevval 39
1190 (22 November 1776). 40
and he had in turn written to Peterson. Now the Porte sent orders to Hasan
and to the local kadı (magistrate) for their release.80 These men had mobilized
the Russian military network to pursue their release, even over great
distances.
The informal removal of protection for enslaved Ottoman subjects
Others, ultimately, were of less concern to the Russians—even to Peterson—

but this became clear only slowly. Taking advantage of the terms of the treaty,
Ottoman Christians increasingly petitioned Peterson, and Repnin, for help in
combating captivity. In July 1775, a Moldavian nobleman wrote to Repnin to
ask for help in liberating Moldavians who were enslaved in the (now-indepen-
dent) Crimea.81 More intriguingly, in at least two cases, Ottoman Greeks
whose enslavement was not clearly connected to the war petitioned the
Russians to intercede on their behalf.82 One of these captives, a young man
named Hristodolaki, had seemingly been illegally enslaved by an Ottoman
Muslim—a practice which the Ottoman state had tried for centuries to sup-
press, with mixed success.83 Now, Hristodolaki’s family’s appealed not to the
Ottoman state, but to Russian diplomats, who in turn petitioned the Porte.
The Ottomans complied, issuing an order noting that that “it [is not] my royal
desire that the subjects of my Sublime State be enslaved”.84
The Russians may have been ambivalent at the highest levels about the free-
ing of non-Russian slaves, and as Davison has shown, the treaty of Küçük
80
BOA, CHR 548, Peterson to the Porte, est. 1188-1189 (1775), CHR 7119, Porte to
Hasan, evail Cemaziülahır 1189 (August 1775); DVE 84/2 p. 135, #781, Porte to Hasan, evail
Cemaziülahır 1189 (August 1775).
81
SIRIO, VI, pp. 327-8.
82
BOA DVE 9/53, Peterson to the Porte and Porte to the kadı of Razgrad, evasıt Şevval 1188
(December 1774); DVE 84/2 p. 121, #716, Porte to the kadı of Razgrad, evasıt Şevval 1188
(December 1774); DVE 84/2 p.121 #717, Porte to the naibs of the fortresses of the Straits, evasıt
Şevval 1188 (December 1774). The orders to Razgrad were reiterated a month later: BOA, DVE
84/2 p122, #720, evahir Zilkade 1188 (January-February 1775).
83
Vatin, Nicolas, “Une affaire interne: le sort et la libération des personnes de condition lLi-
bre illégalement retenue en esclavage sur la territoire ottoman (XVIe siécle)”, Turcica 33 (2001)
149–90; White, Joshua, “Piracy, slavery, and diplomacy on the Early Modern Adriatic frontier:
the Ottoman administrative perspective” (presented at the Adriatic Frontiers: Communications
Across Cultures, Space and Time, 11th Mediterranean Research Meeting, Florence and
Montecatini Terme, Italy, 2010).
84
BOA, DVE 84/2 p. 121, #716, Porte to the kadı of Razgrad, evasıt Şevval 1188 (December
1774).
Kaynarca was not seen, at the time, as giving the Russians a generalized right 1
of intervention on behalf of Christians. But in the 1770s, Ottoman Christians 2
themselves petitioned the Russian state to assume a protective role.85 They 3
expected Catherine the Great to live up to her propaganda. 4
In the end, however, the widespread release of all Christians proved to be a 5
bridge too far for the Russians—they were not prepared to commit the enor- 6
mous political capital which the enterprise turned out to require, any more 7
than the Ottomans were willing to exhaust their bureaucratic and fiscal 8
resources. The difficulties soon became manifest. Along the Danube, the Porte 9
found, the law of unintended consequences had created a ransom market 10
where none had previously existed: officials in Istanbul noted that “some peo- 11
ple” (probably bands of demobilized soldiers) were in the habit of enslaving 12
loyal Ottoman Christians, whom they then claimed were legitimate war cap- 13
tives, releasing them in exchange for the official state-paid compensation of 14
100 piasters each.86 The Ottomans seem to have recognized that they were in 15
the classic ransomers’ dilemma, the same dilemma faced by the Russians in 16
previous centuries: it was unconscionable to pay for those whose enslavement 17
was plainly illegal, but if they simply refused to pay, those who had already 18
been illegally enslaved would remain in captivity. The Porte at first compro- 19
mised by reducing, without eliminating, its compensation. But quickly, the 20
Ottomans went further, entirely eliminating compensation payments for 21
Greeks and Montenegrins, who were direct Ottoman subjects. Soon, the Porte 22
further banned compensation for tributary subjects—Moldavians and 23
Wallachians—as well.87 24
In official orders, the Porte argued that the owners of such slaves deserved 25
no compensation, because it was illegal to enslave Ottoman subjects. But this 26
was disingenuous, as the Porte had explicitly authorized the enslavement of 27
subjects from these regions, in response to rebellions. Still, the fact that it was 28
normally impermissible to enslave Ottoman subjects gave some legal cover for 29
the Porte’s attempts to limit its liability. In fact, eliminating compensation 30
probably hurt, more than helped, the liberation of slaves—owners now had 31
32
33
85
This echoes a broader trend in the eighteenth century, as Balkan “political entrepreneurs”
34
sent “invitations to empire” to the Russian authorities. See Pollock, “‘We Slavishly Request”.
86
BOA, CHR 9240, unidentified Ottoman official to Grand Vezir İzzet Mehmed and reply, 35
20 Rebiülevvel 1189 (21 May 1775); repeated in BOA, MAD 10394 p. 61, 21 Rebiülevvel 1189 36
(22 May 1775). For soldiers-turned-bandits, see Aksan, Wars, p. 169; Faroqhi, Suraiya, The 37
Ottoman Empire and the World Around It (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004), p. 115.
38
87
BOA, CHR 6112, Porte to the Sağ Kol of Rumeli with a note of copies to the other five
kols, evail of Rebiülevvel 1189 (May 1775); BOA, MAD 10394 p. 57, record of orders, evail 39
Rebiülevvel 1189 (May 1775). 40
no financial incentive to surrender their captives, and indeed, owners

responded with new evasions. Some forced their Moldavian and Wallcahian
captives to sign promissory notes, and attempted to collect on the debts after
the captives returned home. The Porte ordered its courts not to enforce such
contracts, which were in essence delayed ransoms.88 Other owners claimed
that their slaves were Russians, in order to receive compensation. Lashkarev
himself defeated one such attempt, informing the Porte that two women,
released in Bolu as Russians and taken to Istanbul, were in fact Wallachians.
The Ottomans commanded that the commissioner responsible either recover
the compensation, or reimburse the state himself.89
The overall effect of refusing to pay compensation, then, was to make it
more difficult to release slaves. This is probably why the Porte never attempted
to remove compensation for Russian subjects: doing so would complicate the
release process for those about whom Repnin and Catherine herself cared the
most. The broad and sweeping terms of Küçük Kaynarca, then, were limited
by the collision of Russian interests and Ottoman fiscal and administrative
capacities.
The formal removal of protection for Georgian slaves
The application of Küçük Kaynarca was further limited with regard to another
group, and this occurred through the deliberate creation of a legal precedent,
which would be invoked in disputes 20 years later. The captives in question
were Georgians (Imeretians and Kakhetians). Along with other inhabitants of
the Caucasus, Georgians had long been enslaved and sold into the Ottoman
empire.90 Women often served as concubines and domestic servants, while
Georgian men were prominent among those who rose to high positions
through the kul system; several had become grand vezirs.91 So vital was the
88
BOA, CAS 40943, Kapıkethüda of Wallachia to the Porte and Porte to the authorities
along the shores of the Danube, 20 Muharrem 1190 (11 March 1776).
89
BOA, CHR 8929, Porte to the naib of Bolu and Commissioner Hasan Ağa, 21 Cemaziülahır
1189 (19 August 1775).
90
See Erdem, Slavery, pp. 102–7; Kunt, İ. Metin, “Ethnic-regional (cins) solidarity in the
seventeenth-century Ottoman establishment”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 5/3
(1974), 233–9. In documents from the 1770s, these captives are referred to simply as “Georgians”
(Ottoman Turkish Gürcü; Russian Gruzii); it is unclear if this was a blanket term used for other
Caucasians as well.
91
Bilge, M. Sadık, Osmanlı Devleti ve Kafkasya: Osmanlı Varlığı Döneminde Kafkasya’nın
Siyasî-Askerî Tarihi ve İdarî Taksilâtı, 1454-1829 (İstanbul: Eren, 2005), p. 237.
slave trade that Imeretian King Solomon I’s 1757 ban helped prompt a series 1
of Ottoman invasions, until the trade was resumed.92 The widespread, forcible 2
return of slaves demanded by Peterson and Lashkarev (himself a Georgian) 3
frightened Ottoman elites—who proved able to mobilize the diplomatic and 4
political resources which remained to them even after the humiliation of 5
Küçük Kaynarca. 6
In the wake of Russian victories in the 1768 War, the Porte could 7
not directly refuse to release Georgians, but the Ottomans quickly began 8
maneuvering more subtly. The initial slave-release orders, sent to the provinces 9
in mid-October 1774, omitted Georgians, referring only to slaves who were 10
“Russian and Moldavian and Wallachian and other[s] from the Christian 11
nation/faith”.93 But the Italian translation of this order, which the Porte pre- 12
sented to the Russian mission, did mention Georgians. Peterson noted the 13
difference in a letter to Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev—perhaps his drago- 14
mans had caught on to what seems to have been an Ottoman deception.94 15
Peterson soon asked for orders including all Christians, explicitly including 16
Georgians and several other groups.95 The Ottomans complied, and a draft of 17
the new orders shows the words “and others” inserted after “Russians” in the 18
margin.96 The final orders, issued in late October or early November, included 19
Georgians only obliquely—they were mentioned in quoting the treaty directly, 20
but the body of the order only referred to “Russians and the above-mentioned 21
groups.”97 It seems the Ottomans were still reluctant to commit to the release 22
of Georgians. 23
This impression is bolstered by the anonymous diarist mentioned above. He 24
noted on 5 December 1774 that “it has been forbidden to give Georgian and 25
Circassian slave girls and boys to the Muscovites.”98 These orders do not appear 26
27
28
92
Gvosdev, Nikolas K., Imperial Policies and Perspectives Towards Georgia, 1760-1819 29
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 17–26; Suny, Ronald Grigor, The Making of the Georgian
Nation, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1994), pp. 57–8.
30
93
BOA, CHR 8060, Porte to the Orta Kol of Anatolia, evasıt Şaban 1188 (October 1774). 31
Copies presumably went to the Sağ and Sol Kols, and all three kols of Rumeli. 32
94
AVPRI, KM f. 90 o. 1 d. 588 ff. 23r, 34r-37r, Peterson to Rumyantsev, 14 (25 October 33
1774). At this point Repnin had not yet arrived in Istanbul, so Peterson reported to Rumyantsev.
95
BOA, CHR 4947, Peterson to the Porte, est. 25 Şaban 1188 (31 October 1774). The
34
request itself is undated, and the estimate is based on the dates of other documents in the same 35
file. 36
96
BOA, DVE 9/37, Porte to the Sağ Kol of Rumeli with a note of copies to be sent to the 37
other five kols, evahir Şaban 1188 (October-November 1774).
97
BOA CHR 4094, Porte to the Sol Kol of Rumeli with a note of copies to the other five kols,
38
evahır Şaban 1188 (October-November 1774). 39
98
Göksu, Ruzname, p. 75. 40
in the archival records, but it may be that the Porte dared not promulgate
them formally; perhaps Ottoman officials feared that the release of even a few
Georgians would set a precedent, and would encourage the Russians to press
harder. Nonetheless, owners continued to petition for compensation when
their Georgian captives fled, or were freed by Lashkarev. The Porte paid the
requisite 100 piasters each.99
By early 1775, however, it seems that those Georgians who were willing and
able to run away had done so, while those owners who were willing to part
with their Georgian slaves for the official compensation, had done that. The
Russians now faced the task of trying to penetrate Ottoman households more
aggressively, and Peterson’s zeal finally weakened.100 In January 1775, he wrote
to Rumyantsev lamenting that his efforts were in vain. He asked permission to
turn a blind eye to the situation of Georgian slaves, and recommended that
Repnin do the same upon his arrival.101 Rumyantsev agreed.
Peterson could have simply ordered Lashkarev not to seek out Georgians
aggressively, or he could have simply contended himself with informally
informing the Porte that he would not request Georgians—which he seems to
have done around 28 January 1775.102 But he went further, seeking a formal-
ized, legalistic solution: after receiving permission from Rumyantsev, Peterson
presented an official note informing the Porte that he would “wink at” (iğmaz)
Ottoman noncompliance in the matter of Georgian slaves, because the issue
caused grievances to “the Muslim people” and threatened the friendship
between the two states. From now on, he announced, he would abandon the
matter, as would Repnin and future ambassadors.103 Peterson, then, deliber-
ately created a precedent which he intended to be binding on future
diplomats.
Even so, however, he was careful to leave himself a loophole—which again
depended on legal reasoning. “It will always be possible, as [it is] now,” he
99
See the petitions in BOA, CDH 12175, 2 Zilkade 1188 (4 January 1775); BOA, CHR
834, 9 Zilhicce 1188 (10 February 1775), CHR 3973, 17 Şevval 1188 (21 December 1774),
CHR 5857, 13 Şevval 1188 (17 December 1774).
100
The Russians even mentioned the difficulty of this issue later to the Ottoman ambassador
in St. Petersburg. See Mote and Itzkowitz, Mubadele, pp. 100–1.
101
AVPRI, KM f. 90 o. 1 d. 616 f. 2r-v, Peterson to Rumyantsev, 20 (31 January 1775).
102
Baycar, Müntehabât, pp. 492–3.
103
The original note was probably an Italian; an Ottoman translation is BOA, CHR 1847,
Peterson to the Porte, Muharrem 1189 (March-April 1775). A Russian version is in AVPRI,
Сношения Россия с Турцией [Relations between Russia and Turkey] collection [SRT], f. 89
o. 8 d. 763 f. 30r-v, attachment to Chargé d’Affaires Aleksandr Khvostov to St. Petersburg 1 (12)
February 1793 (see below).
reassured Rumyantsev, “to free Georgians”—not through outright threats, but 1

by “calling them also Russian subjects from the borders of Georgia, or war 2
captives, not bought in the land as slaves”.104 Peterson seems to have been sug- 3
gesting that, in the absence of universal identification documents, any speaker 4
of a Caucasian language might, or might not, be a Russian subject, or might 5
be claimed as a Russian military serviceman. If it were truly necessary to free a 6
particular Georgian, this could be done by asserting a fictive “Russian” iden- 7
tity for him or her. So even as he delineated rules of subjecthood and eligibil- 8
ity, Peterson deliberately planned a legal loophole which they could use to 9
evade the rule. 10
Combined with the Porte’s abolition of compensation for Ottoman 11
subjects, this declaration on the status of Georgians meant that non-Russian 12
subjects were now essentially unprotected; the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca 13
guaranteed their release without ransom, but this article was to be enforced 14
only for Russians. The Russo-Ottoman commercial capitulations, signed 15
in 1783, confirmed this; like other capitulations, they forbade the enslave- 16
ment of Russian subjects, while specifying that dragomans would decide 17
which slaves were Russian. Further weakening the importance of religious 18
identity, the capitulations, in their Russian-language version, used the 19
term Rossiyan, rather than Russkii, to describe Russian subjects—connoting 20
any of Catherine’s subjects, rather than simply Russian-speaking Orthodox 21
Christians.105 22
23
24
The persistence of subjecthood and legality after the treaty of Jassy 25
(1792) 26
27
These understandings, both those that were written and those that were not, 28
carried through to the aftermath of the next Ottoman-Russian war, which 29
began with an Ottoman declaration in August 1787 and ended with the 1792 30
treaty of Jassy. In the official Russian versions, the captivity terms of this treaty 31
(Article Eight) are identical, word-for-word, to those of Küçük Kaynarca.106 32
The prisoner terms were discussed little, if at all, in the negotiations and it may 33
34
35
104
AVPRI, KM f. 90 o. 1 d. 616 ff. 2r-3r, Peterson to Rumyantsev, 20 (31 January 1775). 36
105
For Russian and French versions of the capitulations, see PSZRI, I/21 pp. 942-43 37
(#15757); Noradounghian, Recueil, I, p. 355.
106
BOA, DVEd83/1 pp. 192-3; PSZRI, I/23 p. 219 (#17008); Noradounghian, Recueil, II,
38
p. 20; Mahmud Mesud Paşa (ed.), Muahedat Mecmuası (Istanbul: Ceride-i Askeriye Matbası, 39
1298/1880-81), vol. IV, p. 11. 40
be that Lashkarev—who had now been promoted—simply copied the lan-

guage from Küçük Kaynarca.107
Jassy’s prisoner-release terms were applied, for the most part, in conformity
with the compromises reached in 1775. The Porte, as before, appointed a
liberation commission and sent out orders to the provinces, offering the stan-
dard 100 piasters’ compensation.108 There were far fewer disputes than in the
1770s, in part because Ottoman forces had not been able to break into Russian
territory during the war, and in part because captured enemy soldiers and
sailors were increasingly kept in Ottoman state hands, as prisoners of war
rather than slaves.109 The Porte’s general release articles were prefaced by a
repetition of the treaty article, but the body of the orders simply referred to
“Russian slaves.”110 With two exceptions, local authorities’ responses show that
they limited their search to Russians.111
107
Kessel’brenner, Хроника, pp. 133–46. That this was a Russian initiative is further sug-
gested by the fact that even though the Russian terms in the two treaties are identical, the
Ottoman versions have slight differences in wording—implying that the Ottoman texts are the
product of two separate translations.
108
AVPRI, KM f. 90 o. 1 d. 1055 f. 11r, Khvostov to St. Petersburg, 7 (18) April 1792, and
following; BOA, CHR 1604, Porte to the Sağ Kol of Rumeli noting copies sent to the other five
kols, evasıt Recep 1207 (February-March 1793); CHR 2871, records of compensation payments,
24 Cemaziülevvel 1207 (7 January 1793); CHR 5629, records of compensation payments, 3
Zilhicce 1207 (12 July 1793); MAD 3470 p. 346, records of compensation payments, 13
Muharrem 1208 (21 August 1793); DVEd 86/4 p. 48, #405, Porte to authorities of Bursa, evasıt
Şevval 1206 (June 1792); DVEd 86/4 p. 51, #423, Porte to the authorities of Heraklion, evahir
Zilkade 1206 (July 1792), DVEd 86/4 p. 56, #456, Porte to the authorities of Bindirekli, evail
Muharrem 1207 (August 1792), DVE 86/4 p. 61, #507, Porte to the authorities of Bergos,
evahir Safer 1207 (October 1792), DVEd 86/4 p. 68, #581, Porte to the authorities of Izmir,
evahir Rebiülahır 1207 (December 1792); DVEd 86/4 p. 75, #681, Porte to the authorities of
Sukhumi and Batumi, evasıt Şaban 1207 (March-April 1793). The same commissioners had
already been at work freeing Austrian slaves after the treaty of Sistova signed with that state a few
months earlier; this process, too, was explicitly based on the procedures used in the 1770s. The
release commissioners did set free at least a few Moldavians alongside Austrian slaves, for reasons
which are unclear, but there is no evidence of Austrian pressure—and unlike in 1774-75, when
freed non-Russians were handed over to Russian diplomats, these Moldavians were instead put
into the custody of the Moldavian representative in Istanbul. See Smiley, “‘When Peace Is
Made’”, pp. 107–11.
109
This argument is made in Smiley, “‘When Peace Is Made’”, ch. 4.
110
BOA, CHR 1604, Porte to the Sağ Kol of Rumeli noting copies sent to the other five kols,
evasıt Recep 1207 (February-March 1793).
111
BOA, Cevdet Adliye [CADL] 691, report of the kadı of Karahısar-ı Şarki, 28 Şaban 1207
(10 April 1793), CADL 692, summary of kadıs’ reports, 25 Ramazan 1207 (6 May 1793); BOA,
CHR 1133, report of the kadı of Viranşehir, 15 Safer 1207 (2 October 1792), CHR 2613,
report of the commandant of Heraklion, 3 Rabiülevvel 1207 (19 October 1792). The exceptions
are the third and fourth documents, which are orders targeted to particular authorities, explicitly
specifying Georgians, Poles, and Moldavians.
Even if not actively sought, Georgian slaves were still welcomed by the 1
Russian mission when they ran away from their owners. According to Russian 2
records, by April 22, 1792, six Georgians had arrived.112 One such fugitive 3
initiated an intriguing, and illustrative, case.113 In February 1793, a Georgian 4
woman escaped from the home of her Armenian Christian owner, leaving 5
behind her two children. She took refuge in the Russian embassy, and the 6
Russian chargé d’affaires, Aleksandr Khvostov, asked the Porte to order the 7
Armenian to surrender the children. He probably felt this was a logical exten- 8
sion of the principle that he would welcome runaway slaves. The Ottomans, 9
however, did not see it this way, and a fascinating struggle ensued, demon- 10
strating the persistence of the agreements reached in the 1770s—and the 11
extent to which the empires took their legal agreements seriously. 12
The Ottomans refused to order the release of these children, and quickly 13
produced Peterson’s 1775 note abandoning Georgians, including the provi- 14
sion by which he bound future envoys.114 The Ottomans argued that the treaty 15
of Jassy had renewed previous agreements.115 The note was unfamiliar to 16
Khvostov, who knew that the treaty of Jassy did include Georgians, so he 17
requested instructions from St. Petersburg. Unlike Peterson two decades ear- 18
lier, or Vishnyakov 40 years before that, Khvostov did not turn to threats of 19
military measures, or of stopping the release of Ottoman captives. 20
Instead, he made legal arguments. Khvostov noted that Jassy had not 21
renewed all previous agreements, but only certain ones, which were specifi- 22
cally enumerated—and this note had not been included. Khvostov also argued 23
that even if the note were legally binding, the two states should look to its 24
intent. He pointed out that Peterson, in the note, had said he was motivated 25
by a desire to avoid the difficulties which liberating Georgians caused to 26
Muslims. But these children were owned by an Armenian Christian, implying 27
that they should not be protected. This was a clever argument, but probably a 28
disingenuous one, since the Russians traditionally were less worried about 29
slaves in Christian hands than in Muslim hands—the former were not at risk 30
31
32
112
AVPRI, KM f. 90 o. 1 d. 1055 f. 11r, Khvostov to St. Petersburg, 7 (18) April 1792; 33
d. 1055 f. 15r, Khvostov to St. Petersburg, 15 (26) April 1792. 34
113
Except where noted otherwise, this story is based on a comparative reading of the Ottoman
and Russian sources on the incident: AVPRI, SRT f. 89 o. 8 d. 763 f. 28r-29v, Khvostov to 35
St. Petersburg, 1 (12) February 1793; BOA, Hatt-ı Hümayun [HAT] 224/12489, Council to 36
Selim III, est. 1207-08 (1793). 37
114
Khvostov sent St. Petersburg a Russian translation, probably of the Porte’s own Ottoman 38
translation of Peterson’s original, which was most likely in Italian. The Russian translation is in
AVPRI, SRT f. 89 o. 8 d. 763 f. 30r-v, 1 (12) February 1793. 39
115
See Article III, treaty of Jassy, PSZRI, I/23, p. 289 (#17008). 40
of being converted and lost to their faith forever.116 Khvostov, it seems, was
grasping for any legal argument he could find—but he did not find this inci-
dent important enough to invoke the threat of Russian military or political
retaliation. In Morgenthau’s tripartite scheme, Khvostov relied on logic, rather
than threats or bribes.117
Grand Vezir Melek Mehmed and the imperial council rejected both of
Khvostov’s arguments, and sought a settlement of the sort often reached in
Ottoman courts.118 Khvostov finally agreed that if the Georgian woman could
be convinced to abandon her children, he would drop his claim. Khvostov’s
explanation for this decision, in a letter to St. Petersburg, reveals how disin-
genuous his earlier claim had been that the children should be freed because of
the Armenian’s Christian faith: now, Khvostov justified the proposed bargain
by suggesting that it would be acceptable to leave the children in the hands of
such a master, who would not jeopardize their faith. Thus, with officials of
both states looking on, the Armenian owner was summoned to try to con-
vince the Georgian mother to abandon her children.
She refused. Nonetheless, the council finally decided to give in, explaining
its decision to Sultan Selim III in legal terms. Peterson’s note, the council felt,
provided only weak legal support for their position—but they did not for-
mally repudiate the note. Instead, the council distinguished this case, noting
that these two children had not yet reached puberty—and therefore, were
bound to their mother by Islamic law.119 Thus the Ottomans justified giving
116
Indeed, in 1740, Fawkener observed that Vishnyakov was willing to leave some enslaved
Russians—perhaps serfs—in the hands of their Christian owners, because they “are certainly
much better when they fall into such Hands than in their own Country”. See TNA, SP 97/31,
Fawkener to London, 2 (13) August 1740.
117
It should be noted that a slightly later incident did eventually lead to Ottoman fears of war.
This incident concerned the alleged conversion of two Russians to Islam; the Ottomans deliber-
ately ignored the conversion tests agreed in the 1770s in order to pressure the Russians to return
Ottoman captives. This was, thus, a case of direct and proportional retaliation—the Ottomans
honored their agreements in the breach, forthrightly admitting that they had violated their legal
responsibilities because they wished to punish the Russians for violating theirs. Nevertheless, the
fear of giving the Russians an excuse for war hung over the Porte, eventually dissuading it from
this strategy. See Smiley, “‘When Peace Is Made’”, pp. 105–6.
118
Such settlements were encouraged and indeed actively sought by Ottoman Islamic kadı
courts, including in cases involving foreigners. See van den Boogert, Capitulations, pp. 304–6;
Tamdoğan, Işık, “Sulh and the 18th-century Ottoman courts of Üsküdar and Adana”, Islamıc
Law and Society 15 (2008), 55–83.
119
More specifically, they were bound by her confession of faith, since converts were not to
be returned. Had they been older, they would have been questioned separately and could have
declared themselves Muslims. See Smiley, “Meanings of Conversion”, p. 9.
way in this particular case, without compromising their position on Georgian 1

slaves more generally. 2
Khvostov, likewise, did not try to turn this case into a precedent for the 3
broader liberation of Georgians; he seems to have continued accepting only 4
those who fled to him. Indeed, echoing Peterson in 1775, he explained to 5
St. Petersburg that “local custom” would always make this matter trouble- 6
some, as Georgian slaves were important to the Ottomans. “The harems are 7
filled”, he wrote, with Georgian women.120 There is likewise no evidence that 8
Khvostov ever sought Moldavians, many of whom were privately enslaved 9
during the 1787 War. Thus, this case was the exception which proved the rule; 10
for the most part, the precedent set in the 1770s endured: the Russian state 11
concerned itself only with its own subjects, and those in its service. In the one 12
debate over Georgians which did occur, both sides turned to law, rather than 13
to threats, to resolve the debate. The balance of power—and both sides’ desire 14
to avoid confrontation at this geopolitical moment121--surely lay behind these 15
negotiations, but both sides seem to have felt that the matter was best dealt 16
with by negotiations over the meaning of the relevant agreements. 17
18
19
What the Russians didn’t demand: limited intervention in the nineteenth 20
century 21
22
The understanding that the Russian state had no claim for the freedom of 23
non-Russian subjects endured into the nineteenth century. Neither the peace 24
treaties of Bucharest (signed May 28, 1812) nor Adrianople (signed September 25
14, 1829) repeated Jassy’s and Küçük Kaynarca’s captivity terms; each pro- 26
vided for the release only of “prisoners of war” (Russian voennoplennie/ 27
Ottoman Turkish üsera-ı harb) and of any “Russian subjects” (Rossiiskimi 28
poddanymi/Rusya reayası) who were later found to have been enslaved.122 29
30
31
120
AVPRI, SRT f. 89 o. 8 d. 763 ff. 28r-29v, Khvostov to St. Petersburg, 1 (12) February 32
1793. 33
121
See İnalcık, Halil, “Yaş Muahedesinden Sonra Osmanlı-Rus Münasebetleri: Rasih Efendi
34
Ve Ceneral Kutuzof Elçilikleri”, Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi 4/2
(1946), 195–203; Morkva, “Rapprochement”. 35
122
For the terms of the treaty of Bucharest (Article Nine), see BOA, DVEd 83/1 p. 206; 36
PSZRI, I/32 pp. 320–1 (#25110); Mahmud Mesud, Muahedat, IV, pp. 54–5; Noradounghian, 37
Recueil, II, p. 90. Kurtynova-D’Herlugnan, Abolitionists, p. 116, quotes somewhat different cap-
38
tivity terms for the treaty, designated as Article Eight rather than Article Nine, but she does not
use the official Russian version in PSZRI, which seems to be the same (accounting for transla- 39
tion) as the terms in the Ottoman Ecnebi Defteri and in Mahmud Mesud’s and Noradounghian’s 40
There is no evidence, after either treaty, of a widespread release program like

those implemented in the 1770s and the 1790s, nor of the disputes which had
accompanied these programs. In part, this was due to the fact that most cap-
tured Russian soldiers and sailors were now kept in Ottoman state custody,
and in part, to the fact that Ottoman forces had not been able to reach Russian
territory in either war. So, the Russians found that the release of prisoners
would, indeed, not be “a difficult matter”123—as long as they did not try to
reach within Ottoman households for non-Russian slaves. And, following the
written and unwritten understandings reached in the previous century, they
did not.124
This is particularly remarkable because both treaties came in the wake of
major revolts against the Ottoman state, in which the Porte expressly autho-
rized the enslavement of Serbs (between 1804 and 1815) and Greeks (between
1821 and 1830).125 The latter conflict, in large part due to press accounts of
Ottoman massacres and enslavement, gave rise to a joint British, French, and
Russian intervention, culminating in the destruction of the Ottoman fleet at
Navarino in 1827.126 Yet, in sharp contrast to Küçük Kaynarca—which had
also followed a Greek revolt—neither Bucharest nor Adrianople provided for
the release of Greeks or Serbs, and there is no evidence of Russian demands
for such a release.127
nineteenth-century collections. For the terms of the treaty of Adrianople, see BOA, DVEd 83/1
p. 228; PSZRI, II/4 pp. 628–9 (#3128); Noradhounghian, Recueil, II, pp. 172–3; Mahmud
Mesud, Muahedat, IV, p. 79.
123
BOA, HAT 1069/43770E, Giurgiu Commandant Ahmed Paşa to the Porte, 8 Şaban
1244 (13 February 1829) (quoting a Russian officer’s comment about negotiations).
124
This claim is based on electronic searches of the BOA catalog for a number of relevant
search terms, as well as a systematic review of the relevant Ecnebi Defteri and Ecnebi Dosyaları for
the period after each treaty. Comprising orders issued at the request of, and orders and miscel-
laneous documents connected with, the Russian diplomatic mission, these are: BOA, DVEd
89/7 pp. 10-67, 1227-29 (1812-1814); DVEd 90/8, 1238-45 (1822-1830), DVEd 91/9, 1245-
46 (1829-1831); DVE 34, 1208-19 (1793-1805) and 1243-46 (1827-1831); DVE 35, 1246
(1830-1831); DVE 36, 1246 (1830-1831); DVE 254, 1220-26 (1805-1812); DVE 255, 1227-
28 (1812-1813); DVE 256, 1228 (1813); 317, 1246-47 (1830-1832). Both the catalog search
terms used, and the sources systematically consulted, revealed the extensive processes for freeing
Russian and non-Russian slaves, and disputes over these processes, in the 1740s and 1770s, but
almost none in the 1810s.
125
Smiley, “‘When Peace Is Made’”, ch. 6.
126
See the accounts in Rodogno, Against Massacre, ch. 3; Bass, Freedom’s Battle, pt. 2.
127
Both treaties did provide for amnesties to rebels, as had Küçük Kaynarca and Jassy, but
these were forward-looking, preventing future punishment, rather than backward-looking,
demanding freedom for those already enslaved.
The French and British did successfully demand that Mehmed Ali, the 1
effectively independent ruler of Egypt whose forces had been deeply involved 2
in suppressing revolts in the Morea, release Greek slaves he had taken. But 3
neither they nor the Russians seem to have made any such demands on the 4
Porte itself.128 Indeed, Russian sympathy for enslaved co-religionists was chan- 5
neled back into the older tradition of ransom. Harkening back to the poloni- 6
anichnyi den’gi of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Russian 7
government sponsored a collection to ransom Greek slaves. But this effort was 8
ultimately unsuccessful, in large part due to the lack of mutually trusted inter- 9
mediaries—such intermediaries had played a critical role in ransom prior to 10
the treaty of Belgrade, but it is unsurprising that there were none left after 11
nearly a century of official disapproval for ransom. So, “there is no evidence of 12
a single successful ransom by the Russian organisation”.129 Thus, the contours 13
of Russian intervention in the early nineteenth-century Ottoman empire were 14
shaped, consciously or unconsciously, by the lines of sovereignty worked out 15
in the eighteenth century. It was only the Porte itself, in 1830, which ordered 16
the release of Greek slaves after it had recognized the new state’s indepen- 17
dence—with no indication of Russian pressure, and certainly no Russian 18
involvement in enforcement.130 19
There was, however, a major exception to the continuity of understandings 20
with regard to subjecthood—again centering on Georgians. Russia annexed 21
Georgia in 1804, transforming many Ottoman household slaves into Russian 22
subjects, at least arguably. Yet the Russians, after the treaties of Bucharest and 23
Adrianople, made no attempt to release the Georgians who remained in 24
Ottoman households, even as they did try to suppress the slave trade in their 25
territory and the Black Sea.131 Perhaps the Russians felt bound by their previ- 26
ous abstention from freeing Georgians, or perhaps they simply balked at 27
the difficulty of renewing Peterson’s and Lashkarev’s efforts from the 1770s. 28
29
30
128
Rodogno, Against Massacre, ch. 3. See the protocols of the allied powers, Noradounghian, 31
Recueil, II, pp. 166–82, 186–91, 195–7, 206–16. The protocols do provide for free Greeks’ 32
emigration out of “Turkish” territory. 33
129
Bass, Freedom’s Battle, pp. 142–45. For the earlier importance of intermediaries, see Boeck,
Boundaries, ch. 4.
34
130
For the orders sent to the provinces, and posted in Istanbul, see Özkan, Eser Erdem,“R – 35
20 Numaralı Rusçuk Kadı Sicili Transkripsiyon ve Tahlili (H.1244 – 1247 / M. 1828 – 1831)” 36
(MA thesis, Osmangazi, 2006), p. 318–19; Walsh, Robert, A Residence at Constantinople 37
(London: Westley & Davis, 1836), II, pp. 528–29. None of the Ecnebi Defterleri or Ecnebi
Dosyaları reviewed for this period (see above) provide any evidence of Russian intervention on
38
behalf of Greek slaves. 39
131
Kurtynova-D’Herlugnan, Abolitionists; Suny, Georgian, p. 201; O’Neill, “Salt.” 40
In fact, Ottoman documents record only one Russian request for a person
explicitly identified as Georgian—after the treaty of Bucharest, they demanded
the liberation of a man named “David Borison.” But Borison was imprisoned
in the state arsenal, so he had almost certainly been captured in Russian mili-
tary service. The Ottomans, after consulting the terms of Jassy and Bucharest,
agreed that the Russians were legally justified, and that the matter was too
trivial to dispute.132 So, even as the Russians tacitly abandoned a group of their
own subjects, military networks still mattered. But Georgia’s annexation did
eventually become important: when the Ottoman empire formally banned
the Georgian slave trade in 1857, this was based partly on the fact that most
Georgians “were Russian subjects”.133
Conclusion
The Ottoman abolition of the trade in Georgian slaves came as the

global, British-led campaign against the slave trade reached the eastern
Mediterranean and Black Sea—and the tale told in this article both prefaces
and parallels that wider global story. The British in the Atlantic, Jenny
Martinez has recently argued, found that “neither raw coercive power nor
international law alone was enough to achieve the abolition of the slave trade.
Both were necessary”.134 Holger Lutz Kern, furthermore, has argued that
British attempts to modify international law to achieve their goals did not
132
BOA, HAT 1163/46012, Council to Mahmud II and reply, est. 1233 (1817-1818). The
Russians simultaneously requested the release of 12 Ottoman Greeks from Mani, who also seem
to have been captured in Russian service—and they had certainly served in the armed forces of
the Russian-affiliated Septinsular Republic (created from the formerly Venetian Ionian islands).
For the Ionian islands, see Wrigley, W. D.. The Diplomatic Significance of Ionian Neutrality, 1821-
31 (New York: P. Lang, 1988), pp. 40–4; Mikhailovna Stanislavskaia, Anna, Россия и Греция в
конце восемнадцатого-начале девятнадцатого века: Политика России в Ионической
Республике: 1798-1807 гг. [Russia and Greece at the end of the Eighteenth-Beginning of the
Nineteenth Century: Russian Policy in the Ionian Republic: 1798-1807] (Moscow: Nauka,
1976), pp. 329–34. For the service of both Ionian and mainland Greeks in Russian forces, see
Pappas, Nicholas C. J., Greeks in Russian Military Service in the Late Eighteenth and Early
Nineteenth Centuries (Thessalonıkı: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1991), pp. 219–58. For the
Arsenal’s use almost exclusively for Russian military captives in this period, see Smiley, “‘When
Peace Is Made’”, ch. 4.
133
Erdem, Slavery, pp. 44–5; Toledano, Ehud R., The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression:
1840-1890 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 1982), pp. 115–23.
134
Martinez, Jenny S., The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 14–15.
“easily prevail”.135 In a sense, though they dealt with bilateral agreements 1

rather than with customary international law, the Russians found the same 2
thing: their interpretation of treaties could not be enforced simply by threats. 3
In the long run, logical negotiations with the Porte over legal principles meant 4
that the Ottoman state was committed to the project as much by law as by 5
fear. This was limited, of course, to those areas within Istanbul’s control; in the 6
Caucasus, the Russians continued to pay ransoms even to Ottoman subjects 7
well after 1739.136 8
However, in order to achieve such agreement, both the nineteenth-century 9
British campaign and eighteenth-century Russian efforts demanded limiting 10
principles—neither state could do everything, in the Atlantic or in the 11
Ottoman empire. So, the Russians dropped their demands for the release of 12
non-Russian subjects, and especially for Georgians. The basis for liberation 13
shifted from religion, loyalty, and social position, to political subjecthood— 14
though, as with Georgians after 1804, this was still overlaid by pragmatic state 15
interests. The Russians officially joined the British-led campaign against the 16
slave trade in 1815, and made serious efforts in the Black Sea and the 17
Caucasus.137 But they did not attempt to resurrect their earlier efforts to reach 18
inside the Ottoman empire to free Christian slaves of various origins; con- 19
sciously or not, their policy still reflected the compromises made over the 20
previous century. Likewise, the British themselves adopted a limiting princi- 21
ple: they focused on stopping the slave trade, not on forcing abolition. As 22
Alison Frank has recently illustrated, there was, especially in the eastern 23
Mediterranean and the Ottoman empire, an indistinct and often artificial line 24
between the slave trade and slavery itself, producing ambiguities which allowed 25
even the trade to continue late into the nineteenth century, under the flags of 26
27
28
135
Kern, Holger Lutz, “Strategies of legal change: Great Britain, international law, and the 29
abolition of the transatlantic slave trade”, Journal of the History of International Law 6 (2004),
p. 258.
30
136
See Kurtynova-D’Herlugnan, Abolitionists, p. 96; Smiley, “‘When Peace Is Made’”, p. 79; 31
O’Neill, “Salt”. Similarly, as it sought to free its captured seamen in North Africa, the fledgling 32
United States was advised by French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, that 33
in the absence of sultanic authority in the area, “[t]he only two agents at Algiers are money and
fear”. Quoted in Garrity, Patrick, “The United States and Barbary Piracy, 1783-1805”,
34
Comparative Strategy 26/5 (2007), pp. 398-9. 35
137
Kurtynova-D’Herlugnan sees this as an abolitionist project, a view which seems too 36
sweeping and optimistic given the earlier compromises and limitations to which the Russians 37
agreed when dealing with the Ottomans. She also contends that Russian efforts were motivated
by an attempt to prove that they were civilized and European—a motive which does not seem to
38
have been present in the eighteenth century. O’Neill suggests the persistence of the Black Sea 39
trade well into the nineteenth century. 40
states officially committed to suppressing it.138 These limiting principles had

long lives; it would not be until the 1920s that foreign agents, now acting
under the auspices of the League of Nations, would again provoke Ottoman
and post-Ottoman anxieties by invading the privacy of Muslim households, in
search of Armenian women and children who were, in their eyes, slaves.139 By
this point, of course, Ottoman sovereignty had ceased to exist.
Yet, even as the Russian empire refrained from freeing non-Russian slaves in
the early nineteenth century, it reasserted its claim that the treaty of Küçük
Kaynarca had given it a right of protection over Ottoman Christians. Thus,
the Russians advocated an essentially fictional right, even as they made no
attempt to resurrect the very concrete claim which the treaty had given them.
Such was the irony of using rights of minority intervention to further diplo-
matic and geopolitical objectives.
The Russo-Ottoman liberation process, then, was a dead end in one sense:
it did not lead directly to nineteenth-century anti-slavery efforts or interven-
tions in the Ottoman empire. But it previewed the difficulties which would
face those who challenged slavery in the Ottoman lands, even as it limited the
tools available for later interventions. Moreover, the means by which the
Russians and Ottomans drew the boundaries of release illustrate the growth of
legal understandings between the two states, as well as the increasing impor-
tance of subjecthood to those understandings. The result was that, with regard
to slavery, Ottoman sovereignty bent, but did not break.
138
See Frank, Alison, “The children of the desert and the laws of the sea: Austria, Great
Britain, the Ottoman empire, and the Mediterranean slave trade in the nineteenth century”,
American Historical Review 117/2 (2012), 410-44. Lutz Kern, likewise, points out that “[a]s long
as a single country [until 1862, the United States] allowed its flag to cover the slave trade, the
Royal Navy was unable to suppress it”, “Strategies of legal change”, pp. 257–8. Parlett suggests
that this limitation meant the anti-slave trade campaign preserved, rather than challenged, state
sovereignty (Individual, pp. 281–2).
139
See Watenpaugh, Keith David, “The League of Nations’ rescue of Armenian genocide
survivors and the making of modern humanitarianism, 1920-1927”, American Historical Review
115/5 (2010), 1315-39.

Smiley Let Whose People Go

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Turkish Historical Review 3 (2012) 196–228 brill.

Let whose people go? Subjecthood, sovereignty,

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI 10.1163/18775462X00302006

sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ascendancy, was reluctantly forced to play

these documents, making logical, legal arguments rather than threats of 1

Beyond questions of slavery and identity, the following discussion sheds

The history of Russian enslavement 1

The treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, 1774

War broke out again as the Ottomans, objecting to Russian intervention in

the anti-Russian Confederation of the Bar had allowed to be captured.52

households, frightening elites. The anonymous diarist, mentioned above, 1

Stronger protections for the Russian military network

Alexei Orlov, commander of the Russian squadron in the Mediterranean.76 1

The informal removal of protection for enslaved Ottoman subjects

Others, ultimately, were of less concern to the Russians—even to Peterson—

no financial incentive to surrender their captives, and indeed, owners

The formal removal of protection for Georgian slaves

reassured Rumyantsev, “to free Georgians”—not through outright threats, but 1

be that Lashkarev—who had now been promoted—simply copied the lan-

way in this particular case, without compromising their position on Georgian 1

There is no evidence, after either treaty, of a widespread release program like

The Ottoman abolition of the trade in Georgian slaves came as the

“easily prevail”.135 In a sense, though they dealt with bilateral agreements 1

states officially committed to suppressing it.138 These limiting principles had

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