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The Greek War for
Independence - American Philhellenes
The American
"discovery" of modern Greece dates back to the eighteenth century when
Thomas Jefferson expressed his desire to see the Greek people free from
Turkish domination and the establishment of a Greek national state with
"'the language of Homer becoming again a living language, as among
possible events.'" Jefferson's concern was shared by many educated
Americans whose familiarity with the his
tory and literature of ancient Greece inspired strong philhellenic
sentiments. During the Greek War of Independence (1821-30) thousands
of American philhellenes gave their moral and material support to the
Greek cause. Some even participated in the hostilities and
distinguished themselves by their military service and dedication to
the cause of freedom.
In 1833 the United States recognized the new Greek government and on
10/22 December 1837 a commercial treaty was signed which regulated the
trade between the two countries for the next eighty-two years. By 1900
American consulates were established in several locations on the
mainland and the Aegean islands, though the development of Greek-
American diplomatic and commercial relations progressed slowly
throughout the nineteenth century.
On May 25th, 1821, Petros Mavromichalis, on behalf of the Messinian
Congress send a letter to the then Secretary of State John Quincy
Adams, which was published in the American newspapers, asking for moral
support. "Your virtues, Americans, are close to ours, although a broad
sea separates us", wrote among other Mavromichalis. "We feel you closer
than our neighboring countries and we consider you as friends,
co-patriots and brothers, because you are fair, philanthropic and
brave… Do not deny to help us…" Edward Everett, a Harvard professor and
great philhellene, who was also the publisher of the North American
Review, published every correspondence of letters or appeals that he
was receiving from Greece and through articles and speeches he made
strong public pronouncements for the recognition of the Revolution and
for sending military aid to Greece.
On December 3rd, 1822, US president James Monroe in his annual address
to Congress said: "A strong hope is entertained that the Greeks will
recover their independence and assume their equal statue among the
nations of the earth."
1823, December 18: New York Citizens Petition of Sympathy for Greece,
demonstrates public sympathy toward revolutionary movements. The
citizens… have, in common with their fellow-citizens throughout the
United States, witnessed… the heroic efforts of the Greeks to rescue
themselves from Turkish bondage. (Documents for John Quincy Adams)
Thomas Jefferson and
Adamantios Koraes
It is worth noting that Adamantios Koraes, a Greek physician,
intellectual, scholar and an early "prophet" of the Revolution, who
believed that independence of Greece could only be achieved by
educational progress, wrote many times to Thomas Jefferson asking for
his support to the struggle of Greece for independence.
Koraes, who at the time lived in Paris, met Jefferson there around
1785, when Jefferson served as the ambassador of the United States to
France. Following Jefferson's return to America in 1789, the two men
continued their friendship through correspondence. Koraes' letters to
Jefferson were passionate and full of patriotic zest, always promoting
the case that it was to the best interest of America and the American
people to help Greece attain its freedom. "Help us, fortunate
Americans", wrote Koraes in a letter dated July 10th, 1823, "We are not
asking you for a handout. Rather, we are providing you with an
opportunity to augment your good fortune."
Koraes believed that appealing to powerful, respected and enlightened
philhellenes to intervene and influence their respective governments
for the recognition of the Greek cause, was a powerful and invaluable
political tool. Himself an "enlightened revolutionary", he believed
that the power of intellect and diplomacy was more effective than the
might of soldiers and arms. Through correspondence and personal
contacts, Koraes convinced many foreign intellectuals that the
continuing use of the Greek language since classical days, together
with a continuous habitation of the same lands and of common religion,
history and tradition, was conclusive evidence of the existence of a
Greek national identity, thus establishing a strong argument for the
recognition of an independent Greek state.
The American
philhellenes
The first volunteer American to travel to Greece and join the Greek War
of Independence was George Jarvis, a
New Yorker, who went to Greece in 1822. He learned the Greek language,
put on a "foustanella" (Greek kilted skirt) and upon joining the
"kleftes" (Greek guerilla fighters) he became known as "Kapetan
Zervos". Jarvis was brave, participated in many battles and was
repeatedly wounded. He died of natural causes in Argos on August 11th,
1828, but his appeals back home for aid and contributions to the Greek
cause paid off.
Jarvis became a role model for other American volunteers. In 1824,
Captain Jonathan P. Miller, of Vermont, arrived in Greece. He too
learned the Greek language, worn the foustanella and was fearless in
battle. Miller was in Messolongi during its siege and in a letter to
Edward Everett dated May 3rd, 1826, he described the heroic "exodus"
and the subsequent fall of Messolongi and the massacre of its
population by the Ottomans.
While in Greece, Miller adopted a four-year-old boy, whom he brought
back to Vermont. This boy, Loukas Miltiades Miller, eventually
graduated from Vermont University in 1845, and shortly thereafter he
married and moved to the town of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he engaged
in business and civic activities. In 1853 he was elected a member of
the State Legislature and in 1891 he was the first American of Greek
origin to be elected to the Congress of the United States of America!
However, by far the best-known philhellene is Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe,
a Bostonian physician. Upon his arrival in Greece, he enlisted in the
Greek Army and for six years he served as a soldier and a chief
surgeon. In 1829 he established a medical center in Aegina and a school
for the blind in Corinth. Long after the revolution, Howe continued to
be active in Greek affairs, both in Greece and in the United States. In
1866, during the Cretan Revolution, he returned to Greece with his wife
Julia Ward Howe, to organize support for the new uprising of the
Cretans against Ottoman tyranny and enslavement.
Other American philhellenes who went to Greece to offer their services
during the Revolution were George Wilson of Providence, Rhode Island,
who excelled in bravery during the naval battle at Nafpaktos; James
Williams, an African American from Baltimore who joined the Greek Navy
forces; Estwick Evans from New Hampshire, who left behind his wife and
children in order to fight the Greek War for Independence; captain John
M. Allen; and William Townsend Washington, a distant relative of
president George Washington, who despite his erratic personal behavior
and colorful life-style he was fearless and brave and fell heroically
fighting in the battle of Palamidi.
In the meantime, the Greek Revolution was gaining support among the
American philhellene citizens and many were collecting money to help
the Greek cause. Through the fundraising efforts of New York
philhellenes, the amount of 6,600 sterling pounds was collected in 1824
and was forwarded to the Greek government via London, England.
During a fundraiser in New York City, Nicholas Biddle, a banker,
offered the then largest personal donation of $300 to the "New York
Greek Relief Committee", while US president John Adams in a letter to
the same committee encouraged the fundraising efforts. Leading the
fundraising efforts in Baltimore was Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, a
signatory of the Declaration of Independence, and in Philadelphia the
leader was Mathew Carey.
In 1825, the French General Lafayette, a great philhellene and staunch
supporter of the Greek Revolution, visited the United States and in
every affair that he attended in his honor, proclaimed the importance
and the moral responsibility of helping, in any way possible, the Greek
struggle for independence.
However, by 1826 the initial enthusiasm of the American public begun to
wane, partly due to conflicting reports about the success of the war
and also because of disturbing news about infighting and rivalry among
the Greek leaders.
To rekindle the American philhellenic movement, the Greek revolutionary
leader Theodoros Kolokotronis, through George Jarvis, sent a letter to
Edward Everett dated July 5th, 1826, in which the great Greek leader
explained the situation in Greece, pledged unity and appealed for
further help and support. "Greece is forever grateful to the
philanthropy of our Christian [American] brothers", wrote Kolokotronis,
"who share her struggle and who also support with their funds her just
war [for independence]… the Greeks, determined to live or die free, do
not fear shedding their blood… or the killing of their old, their women
and their children… and they are ready to accept death rather than
slavery; and now, more than ever, enthusiastically and united they are
moving forward against [the Turks]… The Greek nation is not ungrateful
to its benefactors. It is grateful to those who proclaim its epic
struggle and their names will be recorded with indelible letters in the
annals of the reborn Greece, in timeless display, for the respect of
upcoming generations… Do not stop sending us your contributions… thus
[you are] benefiting humanity and fulfilling Christ's will. " The
letter was translated by Everett and parts of it, along with parts from
Jarvis' accompanying letter, were published in newspapers in Boston,
Philadelphia, New York and other cities, sparking a new initiative of
aid and assistance for the Greek nation.
Samuel Howe
Like most other philhellenes who fought in Greece, including Byron,
Howe soon became disillusioned with his unglamorous comrades-in-arms,
who failed to resemble the heroes he had read about in Homer. The
righteous campaign against foreign oppression repeatedly deteriorated
into civil war among competing factions, and Howe, never slow to pass
judgment, complained that the modern Greeks were deceitful, corrupt,
ignorant, and selfish. Nonetheless, he relished the drama of the war,
the opportunity to command, the variety and scope of his work, the
constant travel, and the gratification of serving a noble cause.
Howe devoted the next six years to Greek independence, immersing
himself in the kind of frenetic activity that he would always thrive
on. In addition to battling the Turks and treating wounded Greek
soldiers, between 1824 and 1827 he was also busy organizing a hospital
at Nauplia and, on behalf of the American-Greek relief committees,
traveling around the countryside to distribute emergency supplies of
food and clothing to the suffering Greek women and children. In
February 1828, at the behest of the Greek government, he returned for
several months to the United States, where he embarked on a speaking
tour to raise money for the Greek cause and published his hastily
written but moderately successful Historical Sketch of the Greek
Revolution, a florid and melodramatic work, even by the standards of
the day.
With the American-Greek relief committees paying his passage and
expenses, he returned to Greece in November to begin a series of
ambitious relief projects. His work on these projects demonstrated the
administrative efficiency, organizational skill, and ingenuity that
would later serve him well as founding director of an asylum for the
blind. Acting on his lifelong conviction that doling out charity
promoted idleness, he employed hundreds of destitute refugees in
hauling and setting stones to build a harbor wall to restore the port
at Aegina. When that task was completed, he persuaded the Greek
government to grant him land at Hexamilia to establish an agricultural
colony, which he named "Washingtonia." Supported by the American relief
committees, Howe chose twenty-six refugee families to be his colonists,
provided them with seed and cattle, and established a school based on
the innovative system of the English educator of the poor Joseph
Lancaster.
During most of 1829—the year Laura Bridgman was born—Howe reigned over
his very own utopian colony, a benevolent Mr. Kurtz. Not until he ran
his own asylum in Boston would he again enjoy such a satisfying
combination of power and social usefulness. Thirty years later, he
recalled his days as ruler of Washingtonia as among the happiest of his
life:
''...I was alone among my colonists, who were all Greeks. They knew I
wanted to help them, and they let me have my own way. ... I labored
here day and night, in season and out, and was governor, legislator,
clerk, constable, and everything but patriarch...''.
This idyll, of course, could not last. Inevitably, Howe had a bitter
falling-out with the president of Greece, who after years of Turkish
domination may have objected to ceding a portion of Corinth to an
American. Resentful that his well-intentioned efforts to bring good
government to a chaotic nation had not been appreciated by its leaders,
Howe left the country in January 1830, carrying with him Byron's
helmet, which he had picked up at auction.
Howe spent the next year touring Europe, and then set sail for home. He
was almost thirty years old, a seasoned veteran of bloody combat and a
world traveler, but he remained essentially the same man he had been
when he first set out for Greece. The boyish characteristics of his
adolescent letters—expressions of longing for "reputation" and heroic
distinction; boasting masked by self-denigration—persisted in the
letters he wrote to friends long after his return. As idealistic and
vaguely ambitious as ever, he continued to dream of following "a path
as yet untrodden in this country by the multitude, and ... to do
something in it." Neither his exposure to terrible human suffering in
Greece nor the many personal hardships he had undergone had altered
him: he was, as John Jay Chapman observed, "one of those singular men
in whom we can trace no course of development."
The Town of Greece
(Northern part of New York State)
The Town of Greece was incorporated in 1822. It was named after the
country of Greece, as a show of support as the Greek people fought for
their independence from Turkish rule. The name is also a tribute to
this old-world nation a symbol of intellectual and athletic
excellence.
'Aρθρα-σχόλια-συνεργασίες-επιστολές
είναι καλοδεχούμενα (-ες) γιά δημοσίευση.
Επιτρέπεται η με κάθε τρόπο μετάδοση, αναδημοσίευση του περιεχόμενου
του "Καλαμιού",
όταν αναφέρεται τ' όνομά του, με την ένδειξη www.Kalami.net
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