Travel and Artisans in the Ottoman Empire: Employment and Mobility in the Early Modern Era by Faroqhi Suraiya

Author:Faroqhi, Suraiya
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857738585
Publisher: I.B.Tauris
Published: 2014-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

Once in Üsküdar: slaves in flight and slave hunters

More importantly, after manumission it was in the best interests of a freedman or freedwoman to obtain a written document. In Üsküdar, as elsewhere, there were men who had farmed the due known as müjde-i abd-ı abik, or müjdegâne, that fell due when a fugitive slave was captured and returned to his/her owner. These men, often known as yavacı or yaveci, were more than ready to arrest supposed slaves and demand payment from the putative owners. Until the status of the arrested person was cleared up, he might be held under very uncomfortable conditions. Thus, when four fugitives escaped from the jail of the local administrators (amils) of Kadıköy, the men in charge of the lockup claimed that ‘[the fugitives have] broken open the prison, torn the chains, ruined the lock of the jailhouse and destroyed the fetters’.20 Free-persons, especially if young and inexperienced, might have a hard time proving that they were ‘regular’ subjects of the Sultan. Thus a young man named Piyale was arrested as a putative slave, but to his good fortune, he was able to show that he was in fact free, a so-called illik in the household of a functionary (kapıcıbaşı) serving a provincial governor.21 Apparently Piyale was a free follower of his employer.

In charge of what today we would call police affairs, the subaşı of Üsküdar, who might at the same time hold the office of emin or steward, was the main figure taking charge of fugitive slaves who had been recaptured, but a number of less prominent persons were involved as well. Moreover, these people might aggressively compete for the payments to be collected from the owners of arrested slaves: thus a man named Matara, son of Yorgi, had to admit that he had told a lie when claiming that he had found two fugitive slaves in İstavros (today: Beylerbeyi), when in reality the capture had taken place in nearby Çengelköy.22 Accompanied in court by another Orthodox man, Matara claimed that he had told this lie because he was afraid of the local low-level administrator (amil); not that it did him much good, for he still was punished for his lie. Presumably the amil of İstavros had either threatened or enticed the finders of slaves to make declarations that would procure him a financial advantage.

Apart from the people officially in charge of recuperating fugitives, there were also private persons who tried ‘to make a killing’ in this manner. A certain Kiracı Yani, who at least officially made a living by hiring out animals, seems to have earned extra money as a kind of sixteenth-century bounty hunter. In one of the Üsküdar records this man advertised the fact that he had captured two slaves, and was now looking out for a reward from the owner(s). However, two people went to court expressly to state that the men touted by Yani were not their property. A certain Rıdvan b Şaban also in the end refused to pay the müjdegâne of 50 akçe which he and Yani had evidently been negotiating about.

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