CIRCASSIAN SLAVES.
Although the slave trade has been nominally abolished in Turkey, and
the public mart formally closed to this traffic, yet the practice
of buying and selling has not been, nor will it ever be altogether
abandoned, because the slave constitutes an essential element in the
composition of their domestic institutions.
There are two kinds of servitude in every house; one, the ordinary
labor of domestic service; the other that of personal attendance;
neither of which the free Mussulman women are willing to perform,
because they will thereby be more or less brought in contact with
men, which is proscribed by the Koran. The slave service, therefore,
becomes necessarily indispensable with the Mussulmans, whose houses
have hitherto been supplied with Circassian and Nubian slaves, the
former being a species of ladies in waiting, and the latter performing
the menial services of the household.
The average price of the slaves is, according to the tariff of the
Custom-house, $500 for the white, and $100 for the black. They bring
these prices when they arrive fresh from their native lands. Those
of the Circassian, who are, however, brought into the country in
childhood, and carefully educated and trained in accomplishments,
attain so rare a style of beauty and delicacy of appearance that they
are frequently sold for $6,000 or $8,000.
Though the restrictions upon the trade have forced Turkish families to
employ Greek and Armenian women in their houses, yet there is always
a demand for slaves.
The Armenians having the same institution as the Mussulmans, viz.,
the harem, their maidens are prevented from entering any family as
servants; it is only the old women, whose charms have all faded and
gone, who are willing to expose themselves in this way. The Greeks,
though not so scrupulous, are generally ignorant of the Turkish
language, and altogether uncongenial in their habits and ideas,
so that they are unpopular.
Slaves are still more indispensable in the palace, for the Mussulman
prejudice is opposed to the introduction of any of the subjects who
would thus come in contact with royalty. Besides, is his majesty to
form an alliance with his subjects?
The Circassian parents so long accustomed to the benefits derived by
the advancement of their daughters to positions of comparative ease,
will always be ready and anxious to supply the metropolis; and the
traffic, notwithstanding the formal prohibition, is still continued
at private houses in Top-hané.
Circassian slavery in Turkey, is not a condition of servitude. All
the children who are born from odaluks are free, and they also render
their mothers free; an odaluk may be sold alone, but never after she
has become a mother.
Besides the maids of honor or ladies in waiting, at the palace,
are often bestowed in marriage upon pashas and other dignitaries,
who thus consider themselves in some sense allied to royalty. One of
their number was a slave to Validé Sultan. She was married to Mehmed
Bey, the brother of the sultan's brother-in-law, with the idea of
ameliorating her condition; but being very ill-treated by her husband,
she had a petition written and presented it to her royal patroness,
whereupon the validé summoned the husband, and reprimanded him in
such a manner that he became exasperated, and having intoxicated
himself with racky, or Turkish brandy, rushed into the harem, and
plunged his dagger into the breast of the unfortunate wife.
Sultan Mahmoud lost his favorite wife, and was so much grieved by
her death, that he ordered her apartments to be locked up, and that
no one should enter them; he only, spent some time there every day
in solitary meditation upon his lost favorite.
There was a slave girl fourteen or fifteen years old, whose duty
was to clean the bath belonging to these apartments. She was so
curious to know why these rooms were always locked up, that she one
day found herself on an exploring expedition by means of the private
staircase. Finding the door open, she ventured to enter the apartment,
when, lo! and behold! there was the awful Mahmoud himself.
He said, "how dare you venture here; do you not know my express
commands?"
The terrified girl fell at his majesty's feet, and craved pardon.
She was so bewitching in this posture, that the sultan not only
pardoned her, but invited her to meet him every day in the same place,
till at last, he ordered that the apartments should be appropriated
to her, and she became the Fifth Kadun, and the mother of the present
sultan!
It is the idea of aspiring to such honors and stations, near even
royalty itself, which induces the Circassian parents so readily to
sell their daughters to Mussulmans, when nothing could induce them
to barter their offspring to Christians.
No wonder that each simple peasant of the Caucasus fancies slavery
in the metropolis, to be a translation from poverty to an earthly
elysium, when tales, and true tales too, not the enchantments of
Aladdin's wonderful lamp, are so common in Oriental life!
Therefore, even if the traffic is formally prohibited, the Circassian
parents will force their offspring into the market, not only to
ameliorate their condition, but to secure favorable alliances for
themselves; so that if the legal sum be not hereafter realized as
purchase money, their children will still be apprenticed in some way
or other.