Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 42 (1) 115 133
Amsterdam’s Greek merchants: protégés of the Dutch, beneficiaries of the
Russians, subjects of the Ottomans and supporters of Greece
Hasan Çolak
TOBB University of Economics & Technology
h.colak@etu.edu.tr
Merchant diasporas have long attracted the attention of scholars through the narrow
prisms of ‘nations’ and states. The history of Amsterdam’s Greek Orthodox merchants,
together with the other cases—who left the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century
and established a seemingly controversial range of networks involving the Dutch,
Russian, Ottoman and Greek states there—is an oft-quoted example. This article draws
attention to some of the problematic aspects of these perceptions of the relations
between states and diaspora merchants. The main tenet of the article is that nation- and
state-centred perspectives are limited in explaining the full scope of flexibility and
pragmatism displayed by the diaspora merchants.
Keywords: Trade; Ottoman Greek diasporas; pragmatism; Amsterdam; the Dutch
Republic
These great corporations are a good thing. They are the government of the
country, they work for their own account and behalf without having to go
abroad, … [they provide] work and enable all of them to work. All these things
cannot be supported under the Turk, nor can they come about, for he is
without order and justice and if the capital (sermaye) is a thousand, he calls it
ten times as much, so as to confiscate it, to impoverish the others, not
appreciating that the enriching of his subjects is the wealth of his Empire. But
these [the Dutch] maintain with justice and he [the Turk] is wholly unjust and
cannot achieve anything but spoil.1
1 N. Andriotis, ‘Το Χρονικό του Άμστερδαμ’, Νέα Eστία 10 (1931) 851. I have used the English translation
provided in R. Clogg, ‘The concerns of a Greek merchant: the journal of Ioannis Pringos of Amsterdam’, in
R. Clogg (ed.), The Movement for Greek Independence 1770–1821: A Collection of Documents (London
1976) 43–44. For an introduction in Dutch, see S. Antoniadis, ‘Het dagboek van een te Amsterdam
gevestigde griekse koopman’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 69 (1956) 57–66. The most detailed study on
Pringos is V. Skouvaras, Ιωάννης Πρίγκος (1725;–1789): Η ελληνική παροικία του Άμστερνταμ, η σχολή και η
βιβλιοθήκη Ζαγοράς) (Athens 1964).
© Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, 2018
DOI: 10.1017/byz.2017.19
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Hasan Çolak
Written by a prominent Greek merchant2 in Amsterdam, these lines graphically
express his appreciation of the Dutch infrastructure for international trade, namely the
presence of large commercial corporations and the possibility of accumulating capital,
and his equally balanced dissatisfaction with the inability and unwillingness of the Ottoman administration to provide such infrastructure. The author of these lines, Ioannis
Pringos (Johannes Brink in Dutch sources) hailed from the small Ottoman region of
Zagora, adapted successfully to Amsterdam and amassed a fortune there. During the
Russo-Ottoman war (1768–74) he had great sympathy for Russia. In Amsterdam, he
collected hundreds of books and in his native Zagora he established a library where pioneers of the Greek Enlightenment, including Rigas Velestinlis, spent considerable time.
Taken at face value, the lives and activities of merchants such as Pringos could and did
serve a number of nationalist perspectives. Kordatos saw in Pringos a pioneer of
‘Romaic bourgeoisie’ (ρωμέϊκη μπουρζουαζία) which, he thought, was essential for an
understanding of the ‘Romaic nationalism’ in the time of Rigas.3 Acknowledging this
view, Stavrianos claimed that Pringos and other Balkan merchants in Europe ‘tended to
be radical-minded because of their contacts with the West,’ and made important contributions to ‘Balkan national development.’4 On a broader level, these views were on a
par with the general image of the Greek merchants as a new social group that made the
Greek Revolution financially sustainable and helped to spread the ideas of the Enlightenment. This image of the non-Muslim merchants was recognized by scholars of Ottoman and Middle Eastern history. They assumed that the non-Muslim merchants
flourished due to their collaboration with foreigners and that their interests were in harmony with those of the foreigners. Bernard Lewis even associated these merchants with
the compradors in China.5 For a long time, such a negative view of the merchants in
question in Ottoman studies retained the interpretation of diaspora merchants in the
way assumed by the nationalist perspectives.
These nationalist readings have been challenged by a number of scholars from different fields of history. While the role of the merchants in disseminating the Enlightenment ideas has been acknowledged by a number of scholars, Richard Clogg questioned
the view that makes a direct link between diaspora merchants and Greek nationalism
and stated that the rich merchants who contributed to Greek nationalism were ‘very
much the exception.’6 Similarly, Reşat Kasaba opposed the idea associating the
2 In this article, the term ‘Greek merchant’ refers to both Greek-speaking and Greek Orthodox merchants.
The Greek merchants in Amsterdam largely differed from the case of some other Greek diasporas which
involved Greek Orthodox converts to Catholicism, and Orthodox merchants who spoke other languages
than Greek.
3 G. Kordatos, Ρήγας Φεραίος και η Βαλκανική ομοσπονδία (Athens 1945) 7–28.
4 L. S. Stavrianos, ‘Antecedents to the Balkan revolutions of the nineteenth century’, The Journal of
Modern History 29/4 (1957) 342–3.
5 B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London 1961) 448.
6 R. Clogg, ‘The Greek mercantile bourgeoisie: “progressive” or “reactionary”?’ in R. Clogg (ed.), Balkan
Society in the Age of Greek Independence (London 1981) 104.
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Amsterdam’s Greek merchants
117
Ottoman non-Muslim merchants and the compradors in China and pointed out a number
of discrepancies between the interests of the Ottoman non-Muslim merchants and the
British.7 While diaspora studies in Greek academia have regarded the Greek diasporas initially as integral components of the Greek state, equally contributing to its emergence and
maintenance,8 a second strand of scholars in the post-junta period in Greece brought
about an alternative approach and methodology. In this new framework diasporas in
question began to be analysed not necessarily as part of a phenomenon springing from a
common source—in this case Greek ‘nation’ and/or state—but also as part of the host
states to which Greek people migrated. This outlook entailed a new methodology that
combined Greek sources with those produced by the mechanisms of the related host
country. Studies by Olga Katsiardi-Hering, starting with her two-volume monograph on
the Greek diaspora in Trieste,9 opened new avenues of research for diaspora studies in
terms of taking the diasporas themselves as the key point of departure regardless of their
contribution to the Greek state. Herself a prolific scholar, she has contributed to the field
as an author, supervisor, and editor for books, book series and journals, hence helping to
create a niche for a new strand of studies analysing the diasporas afresh under the light of
Greek and European sources.10 In connection with this development, new research directions including migration studies and maritime history began to flourish in this period.
A particular advantage of diaspora studies is their ability to bring the scholarship on
Greek diasporas into conversation with non-Greek cases. However, a notable pitfall in
this approach is its reiteration of a uniform image of diaspora communities—one that
mimics the nation outside its normative ‘space’11 for the sake of comparison. Despite such
developments within the secondary literature, however, nationalist readings have not
ceased to exist even in some of the revisionist approaches. While proposing to challenge
the ‘national historiographies’ which ‘have masked the significance of trade diasporas and
their entrepreneurial networks’,12 a recent publication involves, alongside a more nuanced
vision of the Greek diasporas, perspectives that see a direct link between the Greek state
7 R. Kasaba ‘Was there a compradore bourgeoisie in mid-nineteenth century Western Anatolia?’, Review
(Fernand Braudel Center) 11/2 (1988) 215–28.
8 On the reluctant attitude towards diaspora studies in Greek context, see D. Tziovas, ‘Introduction’, in D.
Tziovas (ed.), Greek Diaspora and Migration since 1700: Society, Politics and Culture (Farnham 2009) 1–
15.
9 Olga Katsiardi-Hering, Η ελληνική παροικία της Τεργέστης (1751-1830) (Athens 1986).
10 For a recent edited volume displaying the current state of research see O. Katsiardi-Hering and M. A.
Stassinopoulou (eds), Across the Danube: Southeastern Europeans and Their Travelling Identities (17th19th C.) (Leiden 2017). For two literature reviews on diaspora studies in the Greek context, see I. K.
Chassiotis, Επισκόπηση της ιστορίας της νεοελληνικής διασποράς (Athens 1993), and L. Korma, ‘The
historiography of the Greek diaspora and migration in the twentieth century’, Historein 16 (2017) 47–73.
11 A. Liakos, ‘Historical time and national space in modern Greece’, in H. Tadayuki and H. Fukuda (eds),
Regions in Central and Eastern Europe: Past and Present (Sapporo 2007) 215–16.
12 I. Baghdiantz McCabe, G. Harlaftis and I. Pepelasis Minoglou, ‘Introduction’, in I. Baghdiantz McCabe,
G. Harlaftis and I. Pepelasis Minoglou (eds.), Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of
History (Oxford 2005) xvi.
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and the Greek diaspora merchants, as though Vienna and Amsterdam, or Odessa and
Marseille were necessarily the same.13 This uniform view of the diasporas has been noted
by a group of scholars such as Seirinidou and Grenet, who present a more diverse view of
the individuals and strategies in the Greek diasporas.14 On the other hand, Ottomanists
such as Murphey have exposed to serious criticism the common wisdom about the connection between the interests of the early modern states and the merchants.15
Following this line of research, this article proposes that rather than being a mere
element of the diasporas, it is this very diversity in the identities, networks, and policies
of the communities, families, and even individuals in the diasporas that explains their
flexibility and flourishing. It seeks to achieve this purpose by studying the rather pragmatic relations that the Greek merchants of Amsterdam established—sometimes in a
seemingly controversial fashion—with the Dutch, Russian, Ottoman and Greek states
from the eighteenth until the mid-nineteenth centuries. It is when we see these seemingly
controversial relations in a holistic fashion that we have a more comprehensive and realistic understanding of the diaspora phenomenon.
Amsterdam Greeks as protégés of the Dutch Republic
Immigration of Greek Orthodox merchants from the Ottoman Empire to Amsterdam
has its roots in the beratlı/protection system. As a result of the agreements known as
ahdnames and capitulations,16 the Ottoman administration gave the ambassadors of
the foreign state in question the right to employ interpreters from among the Ottoman
non-Muslims.17 As is stated in the appointment documents (berat) of these interpreters,18 their new status as a beratlı/protégé of a foreign country gave them some
13 Op. cit., xx. I. G. Harlaftis, ‘Mapping the Greek maritime diaspora from the early eighteenth to the late
twentieth centuries’, in Baghdiantz McCabeHarlaftis and Pepelasis Minoglou (eds.), Diaspora
Entrepreneurial Networks, 148.
14 V. Seirinidou, ‘Grocers and wholesalers, Ottomans and Habsburgs, foreigners and “our own”: the Greek
trade diasporas in Central Europe, seventeenth to nineteenth centuries’, in S. Faroqhi and G. Veinstein (eds),
Merchants in the Ottoman Empire (Paris 2008) 81–97, and M. Grenet, ‘Entangled allegiances: Ottoman
Greeks in Marseille and the shifting ethos of Greekness (c. 1790-c. 1820)’, Byzantine and Modern Greek
Studies 36/1 (2012) 56–71.
15 R. Murphey, ‘Merchants, nations and free-agency: an attempt at a qualitative characterization of trade
in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1620-1640’, in A. Hamilton, A. de Groot, M. van den Boogert (eds), Friends
and Rivals in the East: Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Levant from the Seventeenth to the Early
Nineteenth Century (Leiden 2000) 25–59.
16 H. İnalcık, ‘Imtiyâzât’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, III (Leiden 1971) 1178–89. M. H. van den
Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls and Beratlıs in the 18th Century
(Leiden 2005) 19–63.
17 Boogert, The Capitulations, 8.
18 For a facsimile publication of an interpreter’s berat see H. P. Almkvist, Ein tü rkisches DragomanDiplom aus dem vorigen Jahrhundert: Nachträ gliche Bemerkungen (Upsala 1895). For a few of the berats
given through the mediation of the Dutch see Prime Ministerial Ottoman Archive [hereafter BOA] BOA.A.
DVN.DVE.d.22/1; 83, 130, 425, 458, 519.
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Amsterdam’s Greek merchants
119
symbolic advantages such as exemption from the cizye, a per-capita tax defining the status of a zimmi as a subject of the Ottoman Empire. Although some Ottoman Greeks,
for instance some members of the illustrious Phanariot Karatzas family, dominated the
ranks of interpreters for the Dutch ambassadors during the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries,19 in many cases the main reason for seeking Dutch protection was
related to the commercial advantages that the berats entailed. Therefore, in effect, most
of the beratlıs were engaged not in the diplomatic affairs of the embassies and consulates
but in trade, benefiting from the privileges accorded to the Dutch Republic.20
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, controlling the number and activities of
the beratlıs became unfeasible, whereupon the beratlıs began to attract the resentment
of Ottoman authorities, especially in local contexts. Coupled with a number of other
factors including the duty concessions of the Dutch diplomatic and commercial
agents,21 Ottoman officials exerted their energies to extort more profits from the beratlıs, leading to a large corpus of complaints by the ambassadors about the breach of the
berat terms. Incidents of this sort culminated eventually in the establishment of the common wisdom that the interests of the beratlı merchants had close affinity to those of the
European states that offered protection to them.22 More detailed studies of the Dutch
correspondence, however, have shown that from the beginning of the eighteenth century
onwards, Dutch merchants trading in the Levant were, in fact, alarmed by the increasing
involvement of the beratlıs in Ottoman-Dutch trade by benefiting from the same
privileges.23
Against the backdrop of this complicated combination of privileges and reservations towards the Greek merchants in the Mediterranean context, some Greeks enlarged
their networks to the Dutch Republic and began to settle in cities such as Amsterdam.
The initial motive was probably related to the free-trade policy pursued in the Levant
by the Dutch, who, in stark contrast with the English and French, excluded it from the
monopoly of the East India Company. The Dutch Directorate of Levant Trade acted as
an informal advisory service, and as would be seen in the coming years, its suggestions
were not necessarily followed in the Republic.24
19 G. R. B. Erdbrink, At the Threshold of Felicity: Ottoman-Dutch Relations during the Embassy of
Cornelis Calkoen at the Sublime Porte, 1726–1744 (Amsterdam 1977) 132–3. In the Ottoman registers in
question there is also reference to two other Karatzas registered as interpreters for the Dutch ambassador:
Yorgaki Karaca whose berat was renewed in 1695, and his grandson, another Yorgaki Karaca, who
replaced his grandfather upon the latter’s death in 1734. BOA.A.DVN.DVE.d.22/1; 236 and 248.
20 K. Theodoridis, ‘Ολλανδοί πρόξενοι και προστατευόμενοι στη Θεσσαλονίκη του 18ου αιώνα: Η υπόθεση
του Αναστασίου Κανέλλη’, Μακεδονικά 41 (2016) 181–194.
21 Erdbrink, At the Threshold of Felicity, 127.
22 B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London 1961) 448.
23 Erdbrink, At the Threshold of Felicity, 202–3; I. H. Kadı, Ottoman and Dutch Merchants in the
Eighteenth Century: Competition in Ankara, Izmir and Amsterdam (Leiden 2012) 237–74.
24 Kadı, Ottoman and Dutch Merchants, 198–237; 145–70.
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These conditions provided the Greek merchants with channels for obtaining the full
status of a Dutch citizen (i.e. Amsterdam burgher). While one may assume that when
Ottoman non-Muslims became protégés of a European ambassador or consul, by definition this status gave them the citizenship of the European state in question, only a handful of those Ottoman non-Muslims who were settled in European cities such as
Amsterdam were accorded citizenship. In the absence of an Ottoman law on citizenship
until 1869, the status of these merchants was not defined in strict terms.25 Attaining
Dutch citizenship would have removed any possible advantages that their Dutch competitors had over them in Dutch and Ottoman contexts. Some of the early Ottoman
Greek beratlıs began to send one of their associates, often from among their relatives to
Amsterdam, and they began to apply for citizenship in Amsterdam. This policy proved
successful for only some of these merchants, the example of Antonios Zingrilaras being
a case in point. Having moved to Amsterdam, Antonios obtained Dutch citizenship
and, in breach of the customs of his fellow Greeks, he even married a Dutch woman.
Despite the opposition of the Directorate of the Levant Trade, eventually, in 1759, he
managed to have the States-General declare his firm in Izmir—together with three other
Greek merchant houses that he merged with it in the meantime—as a Dutch firm.26 Likewise, in their correspondence with the Dutch authorities the prudent members of
Amsterdam’s Greek merchant community such as Stephanos Isaias (or Isaiou; Stephane
d’Isay in Dutch sources) advocated the idea that their interests were in harmony with
those of the Dutch merchants.27
In addition to the pragmatism employed in commercial spheres, one should also
take into account the patterns of relationship that these merchants established with
Europe and the Dutch Republic in the cultural and intellectual realms, and the possible
connotations that these patterns may have had with their position towards states. The
peculiar and unique relationship that Adamantios Korais, in his earlier years as a merchant in Amsterdam,28 established in the cultural and intellectual atmosphere of Dutch
society, as it is observed in a dismissive fashion by his less literate associate Stamatis Petrou, presents a useful window. The son of a merchant from Chios, Korais was born in
Izmir and was brought up in this already-cosmopolitan city having access to a large
library owned by his maternal grandfather. The transformation of Izmir into an international commercial entrepot29 attracted not only merchants like his father but also other
25 C. Osmanağaoğlu Karahasanoğlu, ‘Zimmi esnaf ve tacirlerin yabancı devlet vatandaşlığı iddialarının
Osmanlı hukukuna etkisi’, in F. Demirel (ed.), Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Esnaf ve Ticaret (Istanbul 2012)
105–26.
26 Erdbrink, At the Threshold of Felicity, 201.
27 Kadı, Ottoman and Dutch Merchants, 226–8.
28 B. J. Slot, ‘Commercial activities of Koraïs in Amsterdam’, Ο Ερανιστής 16 (1980) 55–139. See also V.
Kremmydas, ‘Ο Κοραής στο Άμστερδαμ. Η μύηση στους κόσμους του Διαφωτισμού και οι αντιστάσεις’, in C.
Loukos (ed.), Κοινωνικοί αγώνες και Διαφωτισμός: Μελέτες αφιερωμένες στον Φίλιππο Ηλιού (Irakleio 2007) 1–13.
29 D. Goffman, ‘Izmir: from village to colonial port city’, in E. Eldem, D. Goffman and B. Masters (eds),
The Ottoman City between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul (Cambridge 1999) 79–135.
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Amsterdam’s Greek merchants
121
men of humbler background as agents of bigger merchants. One such man was Petrou
from the island of Patmos, who began to work for Stathis Thomas, the trade partner of
the Korais family. Korais’ desire to pursue his studies in Europe coincided with the time
when his father and Thomas decided to open a branch in Amsterdam. Eventually their
decision to send Korais and Petrou to Amsterdam brought together the fates of these
two conflicting figures in one house for the next few years in Amsterdam.30 During that
time, Petrou dispatched thirteen letters to Thomas, mostly complaining about Korais, of
which complaints those regarding the latter’s affiliation with ‘Europe’ are particularly
useful. As Olga Augustinos puts it, in line with his appreciation of Enlightenment ideas,
for Korais the material and non-material cultures were intertwined. For Petrou, however, the material culture of Europe enabled by the Ottoman-Dutch trade could not and
should not interact with the non-material culture that he brought with him.31 On a later
occasion Korais would mention a direct connection between the Greeks’ importation of
textiles, metals and other products of European industry and that of books and knowledge from Europe and in particular from France.32 For Petrou, however, ‘the diabolic
French books’ that Korais read turned him into ‘a prodigal son.’33 Korais’ close pursuit
of the fashion for wigs in north-west Europe (known in Dutch as pruikentijd)34 presents
another field of friction between them. The following remarks by Petrou display the
divergent receptions of individualism and freedom, two venerated ideals in Enlightenment Europe: ‘Here, he found his freedom and, what is more, he liked himself. For this
reason, Europe is not for us. For it dresses the youth and may holy God help us.’35 Likewise, Korais’ expenses in the art auctions, operas, and private lessons, including one for
learning how to play ‘the guitar, an English instrument’,36 were nothing but a waste of
money. His adoption of ‘Frankish attire’ including such components as ‘a cloth with
golden stripes’, ‘a golden hat’, and ‘a long sword’37 at the expense of his traditional
kaloupaki38 and long Oriental clothes are among the other criticisms that Petrou levelled against Korais. If we are to believe Petrou, a Greek complained to the Orthodox
30 H. Çolak, ‘Bir ev iki dünya: on sekizinci yüzyıl Amsterdam Osmanlı Rum tüccar cemaatinde yol ayrımı’,
in H. Çolak, Z. Kocabıyıkoğlu Çeçen and N. I. Demirakın (eds), Ayşegül Keskin Çolak’a Armağan Tarih ve
Edebiyat Yazıları (Ankara 2016) 63–79.
31 O. Augustinos, ‘Philhellenic promises and Hellenic visions: Korais and the discourse of the
Enlightenment’, in K. Zacharia (ed.), Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to
Modernity (Aldershot 2008) 182.
32 B. Trencsényi and M. Kopeček (eds), Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe
(1770–1945): Texts and Commentaries, I. Late Enlightenment – Emergence of the Modern ‘National Idea’
(Budapest 2006) 145.
33 F. Iliou, Γράμματα από το Αμστερνταμ (Athens 1976) 41.
34 B. J. Slot, ‘Een Amsterdamse Griek in de pruikentijd’, De Tweede Ronde 4 (1983) 79–84.
35 Iliou, Γράμματα, 13.
36 Op. cit., 7.
37 Op. cit., 27.
38 Op. cit., 12.
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priest that Korais would be ‘Turkified’ easily,39 i.e. he would lose his pre-departure values. In short, on the cultural and intellectual levels, the diaspora experience of the Greek
merchants in Amsterdam created not only staunch protagonists of European culture,
but also strong opponents to change.
Despite the rather difficult relationship established by the majority of Greek merchants with European culture in Amsterdam, for some merchants their diaspora experience offered them other opportunities. For example, in the list of Dutch diplomatic
representatives prepared by Schutte, for the island of Patmos there appears the name of
a certain ‘Stamati di Petro, merchant from Amsterdam’, who swore his oath in 27 July
1797 as consular agent in Patmos.40 Although the Dutch employed a number of Ottoman Greeks in their consular apparatus,41 this particular appointment presents a curious case from a number of perspectives. First of all, cases of merchants who moved to
the Dutch Republic from the Ottoman Empire and returned as representatives of the
Dutch Republic are rare if not unique. Secondly, this post must have been created specifically for Petrou, since there was no earlier Dutch consular representation for Patmos.
Thirdly, if the vice-consul is indeed the same Stamatis Petrou who wrote a number of
negative statements about Dutch and European culture and ideals, his appointment
becomes even more important in terms of showing the level of pragmatism employed by
diaspora merchants.
I think that the two names must refer to the same Stamatis Petrou. In the later stages
of his life Petrou established his own company ‘Stamati Petro en co.’ in Amsterdam, and
according to the documents of the Levant Trade, he conducted trade in Amsterdam
between 1778 and 1793.42 According to Iliou, Petrou must have returned to Patmos
between 1793 and 1800, which coincides with the appointment in question in 1797.
Likewise, on the basis of the Codex of the Orthodox Church of Amsterdam,43 Iliou
found only a second person with the same surname: Vasileios Petrou from Patmos,44
which is also confirmed by the familiadvertenties of the Dutch Centre for Family
History.45
The disjunction between the interests of the Dutch Republic and the pragmatism
employed by diaspora merchants appears to have continued during Petrou’s tenure,
39 Op. cit., 19.
40 O. Schutte, Repertorium Der Nederlandse Vertegenwoordigers, Residerende in het Buitenland, 1584–
1810 (The Hague 1976) 347.
41 Schutte’s list of Dutch diplomatic representatives includes a number of Greek names, especially for the
islands in the Eastern Mediterranean. Slot has studied some of them: B. J. Slot, ‘Oλλανδοί πρόξενοι ΜήλουΚιμώλου’, Κιμωλιακά 8 (1978) 157–267.
42 J. G. Nanninga (ed.), Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Levantschen Handel, 1765–1826 (The
Hague 1966), IV, 1727–1765, part 1, 263-5, 324-6, 517-19, and part 2, 1358, 1362.
43 Gemeente Amsterdam Stadsarchief: 5001/399.
44 Iliou, Γράμματα, 71.
45 Centrum voor Familiegeschiedenis: VFADNL104506: fiche 5339, 1.
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Amsterdam’s Greek merchants
123
which lasted until 19 July 1799, when he was dismissed from this post.46 Dissatisfaction
with his services sets the tone in his letter of dismissal issued by the Dutch Ambassador,
van Dedem. Among the first two reasons for his dismissal, van Dedem stated that Petrou
deserves ‘no confidence’ as a public officer who failed ‘in his duties and in the fulfilment
of his instructions’, and remarked that the latter ignored van Dedem and failed to maintain a correspondence with him. Petrou’s dismissal came at a time of a more global phenomenon that affected the whole of Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, namely the
Napoleonic Wars. After Napoleon invaded the Dutch Republic in 1795, he landed his
army in Ottoman Egypt in 1798. This sequence of events worked to the effect that the
Ottoman administration adopted a policy of associating the Dutch with the French and
treated them accordingly. One major result of this policy shift was the (temporary) suspension of political relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Batavian Republic
that was formed following the Napoleonic invasion of the Dutch Republic.47 Interestingly, this political crisis is mentioned only as the third and last reason in van Dedem’s
letter. Additionally, although no official appointment was made to replace Petrou, the
fact that his unfulfilled duties were transferred to a foreigner, the Prussian consul Gilly,
may point to the level of disjunction between the interests of the Republic and Petrou.
Petrou’s background as a man with a closed system of values opposing many aspects of
Dutch and European culture, his controversial appointment as the Dutch representative
in his native Patmos, and his dishonourable dismissal are indicative of the need to consider the intricate relationship that a diaspora merchant could establish with his host
state in the light of diaspora merchants’ pragmatism.
If we return to Pringos’ positive remarks about the Dutch trade infrastructure, particularly the great corporations, the other examples stated above may help us in looking
at his pro-Dutch discourse from the point of pragmatism, as well. However, in order to
have a more complete idea about his particular pragmatism, it is worth taking a look at
his attitude towards Russia and the implications of such an attitude for the Greek merchant community in Amsterdam.
Amsterdam Greeks as beneficiaries of the Russian Empire
The relationship formed by the Greek merchants of Amsterdam with the Russians is
related to the issues of the establishment and maintenance of an Orthodox church in
Amsterdam, and the prospects of Greek independence. In 1758, thirteen Greeks wrote a
letter to the Russian tsarina Elizabeth Petrovna. Drawing on their common Orthodox
faith, they asked for her help in establishing an Orthodox church in Amsterdam. The
petitioners included prominent members of the community such as Ioannis Pringos. A
striking aspect of this letter is the politically engaged manner with which the petitioners
46 Nationaal Archief [hereafter NA], NA.1.02.20, 874.
47 I. H. Kadı, ‘On the edges of an Ottoman world: non-Muslim Ottoman merchants in Amsterdam’, in C.
Woodhead (ed.), The Ottoman World (London 2011) 285.
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Hasan Çolak
identified themselves vis-à-vis the Russian Empire: ‘the Romaioi of the city of Amsterdam, humble servants of your imperial highness.’48 In other correspondence with Russian authorities, they retained a similar terminology in identifying themselves: ‘the
humble supplicant servants of her highness’,49 ‘sailors of Amsterdam, humble and …
servants of your magnificent Empire’.50 Unexpectedly, however, the required money for
the establishment of an Orthodox church came neither from the Russians nor the said
Greek merchants themselves.
In 1762, two Greek lawyers from Ottoman Filibe (modern Plovdiv) arrived at
Amsterdam claiming the inheritance of their clients’ fathers who had died while trading in Dutch Batavia. The two merchants had worked under Dutch protection in the
Indian Ocean and following their death, their inheritance was moved to the Weeskamer, the Dutch institution that dealt with the inheritance of those who died without a (known or reachable) spouse or child. Due to the difficulties that the two
representatives faced in confirming their authenticity, the archimandrite of the Patriarch Silvestros of Antioch, Nektarios, who happened to be in the city and was then
leading the ceremonies of the Greek Orthodox community in a house in Amsterdam,
came up with an idea. He would request help from one of his friends, an influential
member of the community, Antonios Zingrilaras, who for the esteem that he held
for Nektarios would stand surety for the said representatives together with his Dutch
friend Herman More, a lawyer. However, Nektarios set a condition for his mediation: around one third of the inheritance would be reserved for the community in
Amsterdam with the purpose of buying a house that would serve as the first church
of the Orthodox flock in Amsterdam. The plan was to dedicate this church to St
Nikolaos in appreciation of his miracles on behalf of sailors.51 In 1763 the building
that would function as the church was bought by the aforementioned Antonios Zingrilaras, and the church began to function in 1764.52
Seemingly a fruitful result of the policies of the Greek Orthodox community in
Amsterdam, in the coming years this church would function as the core element of a
Greek-Russian rapprochement. This rapprochement would bring to the fore the efforts
of individuals such as Ioannis Pringos who had not forsaken his generous words about
the Dutch infrastructure for trade. Conveniently for the pro-Russian policies, this was a
time of Russo-Ottoman wars (1768-74) during which the weakness of the Ottoman
side became apparent, also among the subjects of the Ottoman sultan. Then, the Greek
merchants reintroduced their policy of receiving the support of the Russian embassy,
which was also in harmony with the new Russian policies adopted by Catherine the
Great (1762-96) towards the Orthodox population of the Ottoman Empire. Hence, in
48 Skouvaras, Ιωάννης Πρίγκος, 60-2.
49 Op. cit., 59.
50 Op. cit., 80. The omitted matter is left out as illegible by Skouvaras.
51 Op. cit., 90.
52 V. F. H. E. van Schaik, ‘De Russisch-Griekse kerk van de Heilige Catharina te Amsterdam van 17631866’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 48 (1956) 241.
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Amsterdam’s Greek merchants
125
1766, the building was transferred to Count Woensoff, the Russian minister, and Ioannis Pringos ‘for the use of the Greek and Russian community which will be or come
here from time to time.’53 Reflecting this policy change, the church was dedicated not to
St Nikolaos as initially planned and probably announced to the families of the deceased
merchants, but to St Catherine, a prudent correlation with the then Russian tsarina
Catherine the Great. Especially after 1816 when Dutch-Russian relations were sealed
with the marriage of the Russian princess Anna Pavlovna (d. 1865) and the Dutch
prince William (later King William II, 1840–1849) the church would be popularly
known as the Russian-Greek church, and would benefit from the benevolence of the
Romanov dynasty. The archives of Anna Pavlovna refer to at least four instalments of
£300 for the years 1831, 1832, 1833, and 1837 for the church in question.54 Likewise,
the church was presented with gifts by the Russian tsar Nicholas, Anna Pavlovna’s
brother, which had connotations with regard to the political concerns of both Russia
and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Epitomes of this relationship were two plaques
commemorating the victories of the tsar and prince William against Poles and Belgians
respectively in 1831. A watercolour painting of the inside of the church from 1840 displays these plaques on the walls of the church.55
In his diary, Pringos made his pro-Russian stance evident in several places. For
instance, he saw in the Russian Empire the possible liberation of the Orthodox from ‘the
heavy and insupportable yoke, the unjust, the plunderer, the infidel Turk’.56 On another
occasion, his support for Russia during the Russo-Ottoman war of 1768–74 gave Pringos the opportunity to draw on the prophecies attributed to the Byzantine emperor Leo
the Wise about the fall of Constantinople and the end of the world: ‘The Turk shall
remain for 320 years in the City [Constantinople]. And now it is 317 years from 1454
[sic] when they took the City until now, 1771. The Lord during these three years has
made it possible for them [the Russians] to throw the Turk out of Greece and out of
Europe.’ Likewise, he asserted that ‘the Turk in the City’, i.e. the Ottoman sultan, interpreted the defeat of his loyal paşas against the unruly Ali Bey of Egypt as a fulfilment of
the eschatological prophecies of the Seyids about the end of his Empire.57 In a manner
reminiscent of his allusion to the prophecies of Leo the Wise and the Seyids, Pringos also
used Voltaire’s criticisms of the Ottomans as part of his discourse: ‘Voltaire … says,
all the rulers of Europe have the right to unite to expel the Turk from Europe.’58
Was the twenty-second chapter of Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance, entitled ‘On universal tolerance’—inviting the Christians to regard the ‘Turks’ and people of other faiths on
equal terms—also part of the pool of information to which Pringos had access? One can
53
54
55
56
57
58
Schaik, ‘De Russisch-Griekse kerk’, 241.
Op. cit., 238.
Op. cit., 236-7.
Clogg, ‘The concerns’, 42.
Op. cit., 43.
Skouvaras, Ιωάννης Πρίγκος, 188.
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Hasan Çolak
only speculate if he had access to this chapter through written or oral means.59 Even if
he did, such concerns probably did not have any place in the discourse of figures like
Pringos.
As important as the pragmatic expectations behind Pringos’ support for Russia is
his emerging resentment of Russian policies with respect to Greeks of the Ottoman
Empire following the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. The most concrete result of the Treaty
for the Greek Orthodox merchants was that they could now trade under the Russian
flag. This was particularly important for the Black Sea trade because with this Treaty,
there emerged a theoretically independent Crimean Khanate, nominally under Russian
control only to be annexed by Russia in 1783.60 On Russian initiative some Black Sea
trading ports were invigorated by the participation of a number of Ottoman Greeks.
The overall results of the Treaty also appear to have wiped out the hopes of some of the
Greeks who saw in the war the prospect of a Greek state, free from the Ottoman Empire
and probably under Russian protection. In a note written around one and a half months
after the conclusion of the Treaty, Pringos condemned the ‘ignorance’ of the Greeks, and
accused them—probably including himself—of pinning their hopes on Russia rather than
on God. He also criticized the Russian policies in creating trading ports by giving Russian passports, land, and building materials to mostly Ottoman Greeks: ‘Russia looks to
her interest. She insisted on and succeeded in [obtaining] free travel to move Greeks to
her lands, to inhabit her deserts […] Russia should have held a free area of land in the
Dodecanese as a refuge for the Greeks. But she cared little for them.’61 Pringos’ negative
views on these trading ports present an interesting irony in that the future examples of
the Black Sea trading ports such as Odessa, where the key initiator of the Greek revolution, the Philiki Etaireia, would be established, were to provide an important stronghold
for Greek nationalism.
Let us set aside the above examples of Pringos’ anti-Ottoman discourse and return
to his remark about the absence of an Ottoman infrastructure that would enable merchants like himself to accumulate more wealth through trade. Alongside an abundant
number of negative attributes to ‘the Turk’, he laments that the Ottoman sultan does
not see the parallelism between the interests of his subjects and his Empire.62 One can
only imagine how Pringos, who had died in Zagora in 1789, would have acted if the
Ottoman sultan indeed sought ways to facilitate the newly-flourishing commercial
groups in and from his domains. Yet, some of his fellow Greeks in Amsterdam, who
59 His library in Zagora includes only Voulgaris’ Greek translation of Voltaire’s Essai historique et critique
sur les dissensions des églises de Pologne, which was offered later, when he returned to Zagora, by the codonator of the library, Kallinikos, the former Patriarch of Constantinople. Skouvaras, Ιωάννης Πρίγκος, 316–
18. P. Mackridge, Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766-1976 (Oxford 2009) 84.
60 R. H. Davison, ‘“Russian skill and Turkish imbecility”: the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji reconsidered’,
Slavic Review 35/3 (1976) 463–483.
61 Clogg, ‘The concerns’, 45.
62 Op. cit.; 44.
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Amsterdam’s Greek merchants
127
signed a number of petitions to the Dutch and Russian authorities alongside Pringos,
had this experience with Ottoman bureaucracy in the course of a few years.
Amsterdam Greeks as subjects of the Ottoman sultan
Early in his reign, the Ottoman sultan Selim III (1789-1808) handled the issue of the
beratlı merchants within his broad programme of reinstating the Ottoman state in the
international arena following the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. In 1791, he dispatched a
decree to his administrative officials in places with large groups of beratlı merchants,
pointing to a number of divergences from the traditional protection system: foreign
states have been appointing ‘the cizye-paying subjects’ of the sultan as their consuls and
vice-consuls, and distributing ‘papers called patente’ that placed the Ottoman merchants
outside the reach of the state. He asked his officials to put an end to these practices
which would subvert the ‘order of the country’ (nizâm-ı memleket), and asked them to
inspect the authenticity of their documentation.63 In parallel to the rather holistic fashion in which Selim viewed the matter, and in contravention of classical Ottoman political theory, some Ottoman intellectuals of the time such as the court historian Ahmed
Vâsıf Efendi began to voice mercantilist views inviting wealthy Ottoman statesmen to
invest in shipping and trade.64 In his later correspondence with his bureaucrats, including the Kapudan Pasha and his dragoman Panagiotis Mourouzis, a Phanariot Greek,
Selim himself admitted that there were not enough Ottoman merchant ships.65 As such
details show, the pressing concern was the rapid shift of the non-Muslim Ottoman subjects into the orbit of Russian commercial-cum-political expansion in the Black Sea and
the consequent shrinkage of the Ottoman merchant marine. The immediate measures
were aimed at addressing this very problem, hence creating the system of Avrupa tüccârı
(merchants of Europe) that offered the Ottoman non-Muslim merchants who were trading with Europe similar rights to those in the traditional protection system, but with the
novelty that it was the Ottoman state which sold these berats at a cheaper price. Similarly, the Ottoman administration made notable contributions to facilitate the growth
of a merchant marine, a major portion of which was owned by Ottoman Greeks.66
These immediate measures were also coupled with the broader policy of establishing a
permanent ambassadorial and consular presence in Europe. Thus, these reforms caused
the agendas of the Ottoman state and Ottoman mercantile groups such as the Greeks in
Amsterdam to overlap.
63 A. İ. Bağış, Osmanlı Ticaretinde Gayri Müslimler: Kapitülasyonlar, Avrupa Tüccarları, Beratlı
Tüccarlar, Hayriye Tüccarları, 1750-1839 (Ankara 1998) 45–6.
64 E. L. Menchinger, ‘An Ottoman historian in an Age of Reform: Ahmed Vâsıf Efendi (ca. 1730-1806),
unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan, 2014, 255.
65 G. Harlaftis and S. Laiou, ‘Mapping the Greek maritime diaspora from the early eighteenth to the late
twentieth centuries’, in McCabe, Harlaftis and Pepelasis Minoglou (eds), Diaspora Entrepreneurial
Networks, 24.
66 Op. cit.; B. Masters, ‘The Sultan’s entrepreneurs: The Avrupa Tüccarıs and the Hayriye Tüccarıs in
Syria’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 24/4 (1992) 579–97.
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Under such circumstances, and in reaction to the newly introduced municipal taxes
in Amsterdam, a group of Greek merchants made the pragmatic claim that they should
be exempt from these taxes because they were, in fact, the subjects of the Ottoman sultan. Eventually, they also brought the issue to the attention of the Ottoman administration, most probably through their Phanariot connections. Readily adopting this case,
the Ottoman administration issued two memoranda, the second and more decisive one
written by the Phanariot chief interpreter of the Porte, Konstantinos Ypsilantis. The
Ottoman argument was that these petitioners were the sultan’s genuine subjects and
hence should be exempt from taxation just like the Dutch citizens in the Ottoman
Empire. The Dutch point was that they were Dutch citizens who even paid to acquire
this status.67 The eventual result of the political crisis, which, coupled with the Napoleonic Wars, paved the way for Stamatis Petrou’s dismissal from the vice-consulate of
Patmos, presents a fruitful gain for the case of the Greek merchants. In 1804, the Ottoman administration appointed Nikolas Marcella, one of the Greek merchants of
Amsterdam who negotiated the case, as the first Ottoman consul (şehbender) in Amsterdam with the purpose of coordinating with the Dutch authorities and facilitating the
actions of Ottoman merchants in and visiting Dutch ports.68 In short, when the appropriate conditions emerged, the Greek merchants of Amsterdam fully benefited from the
offers of the Ottoman administration to the degree that they managed to represent the
Ottoman state itself in Amsterdam.
A remarkable aspect of Marcella’s rise from an ordinary merchant to the representative of the Ottoman state in Amsterdam was the mechanisms he utilized. The key connection was probably his earlier employment by Nikolaos Petrou Mavrogenis, who
later became the prince of Wallachia (1786-9).69 Despite being born not in Istanbul but
in Paros, and resented in Phanariot circles as a ‘crude islander’, Mavrogenis filled one of
the most influential positions in Ottoman bureaucracy, just as the preceding Phanariot
bureaucrats had done.70 These bureaucrats, as an integral component of the Ottoman
state,71 were at the forefront of the transformation that Selim had placed on his agenda,
and half a century before, they proved to be instrumental in curbing the Catholic influence within the Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire.72 With his earlier
67 Kadı, ‘On the edges of an Ottoman world’, 284-5. For the Dutch correspondence on this issue see
NA.1.02.20/908.
68 Kadı, ‘On the edges of an Ottoman world’, 285. On this issue see also M. van den Boogert, ‘Ottoman
Greeks in the Dutch Levant trade: collective strategy and individual practice (c. 1750-1821)’, Oriente
Moderno 86 (2006) 142–6.
69 Kadı, Ottoman and Dutch Merchants, 305.
70 C. Philliou, Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution (Berkeley 2010) 45.
71 Op. cit., 5-37.
72 E. Bayraktar Tellan, ‘The Patriarch and the Sultan: the struggle for authority and the quest for order in
the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Bilkent University, 2011; H. Çolak,
The Orthodox Church in the Early Modern Middle East: Relations between the Ottoman Central
Administration and the Patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria (Ankara 2015).
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Amsterdam’s Greek merchants
129
cooperation with a notable bureaucrat, Marcella was one of the most suitable people
not only to bring the issue to the attention of the Ottoman administration but also to
receive its approval for his future appointment as a representative of the Ottoman state.
Marcella’s appointment was part and parcel of a broader Ottoman policy to create a
permanent diplomatic presence in Europe, which was filled almost exclusively by Greek
merchants from the Ottoman Empire, as registered in a separate notebook series in the
Ottoman archives called ‘Notebooks on Consuls’ (Şehbender Defterleri). Initially, a
Greek from the island of Kefalonia was appointed as the first Ottoman consul in
Naples,73 and other examples followed suit. Hence, the first Ottoman consuls in European cities were mostly Greek merchants trading there: Thodoraki in Malta, Dimitrios
of Thessaloniki in Marseille, Kyriakos Thodori in Trieste, Thodori of Crete in London,
and some others in Genoa and Venice, Messina, Livorno, Lisbon, and Alicante.74
A highly interesting and yet overlooked aspect of the resistance led by Marcella
against the newly introduced Dutch taxes is the people who signed the petition alongside him. One of the most notable figures is Stephanos Isaias, who had endeavoured to
show his interests in the Eastern Mediterranean to be compatible with those of the
Dutch merchants, and who was one of the petitioners flirting with a politically-engaged
language in writing to the Russian authorities. In parallel to these actions, we see the
same Isaias defending the equally pragmatic idea that the Greek merchants in Amsterdam were the subjects of the Ottoman sultan and hence should be exempt from the
recent taxes imposed by the Dutch authorities. If one pursues the same research track
and looks further into the personalities and networks of the people who signed the petition claiming that they are the genuine subjects of the Ottoman sultan, it is possible to
see even more controversial cases ignored by scholars who have written on Marcella’s
appointment.
Amsterdam Greeks as supporters of Independent Greece
A particularly interesting link among the Greek negotiators who secured the backing of
the Ottoman state is provided by Anastasios Tomasachi, the father of Georgios Tomasachi (also referred to as Tomasinos), who would be a prominent supporter of the Greek
Revolution against the Ottoman Empire. Established in 1814 in Odessa, the Philiki
Etaireia quickly attracted followers among Greeks outside Russian and Ottoman
domains too. Although Frangos’ survey of the members of the society does not mention
any connection between the Philiki Etaireia and the merchants of Amsterdam,75 Koster
has published a number of documents showing a direct connection between the philikoi
73 BOA.A.{DVNS.ŞHB.d.1, 1.
74 See respectively BOA.A.{DVNS.ŞHB.d.1, 3–4; 9; 2–3; 6; 3–4; 4–5; 6; and 7. See also C. V. Findley, ‘The
foundation of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry: the beginnings of bureaucratic reform under Selim III and
Mahmud II’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 3/4 (1972) 397.
75 G. D. Frangos, ‘The Philike Etaireia, 1814–1821: a social and historical analysis’, unpublished PhD
dissertation, Columbia University, 1971.
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and some Greek merchants in Amsterdam.76 One of these merchants was Georgios
Tomasachi. That a member of the Greek merchant community in Amsterdam provided
material support for the Greek Revolution was definitely not a unique incident. We
know that the Greek Revolution attracted the support of Greeks, including merchants,
across Europe in varying degrees.77 However, the extent of the family and business networks of Georgios Tomasachi turns his connection with the Greek Revolution into a
particularly curious case. Apart from his father, he was related to at least two other petitioners who negotiated their status as the subjects of the Ottoman state and avoided
paying the taxes imposed by the Dutch authorities. He was the grandson of Stephanos
Isaias, who himself signed several petitions to benefit from the support of the Dutch,
Russian and Ottoman states for various purposes. More importantly, however, Tomasachi’s uncle-in-law, and Isaias’ son-in-law, was none other than Nikolas Marcella, the
Ottoman consul in Amsterdam. What makes the relationship between the two families
particularly remarkable is that they merged their companies into one called Tomasachi
& Marcella, which continued until Marcella’s death in 1814.78 In this way the family
names of both a consul of the Ottoman state and a future proponent of the Greek insurrection against Ottoman rule were represented within the same company. In short, those
who avoided Dutch taxation by successfully negotiating their Ottoman status and the
supporters of the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire were related not only
through family but also commercial networks.
The second member of the Greek community of Amsterdam who stood out with his
engagement with the Greek Revolution was Stephanos Palaiologos. Like Tomasachi, he
was one of the eleven members of the Philhellenic Committee in Amsterdam. The other,
exclusively Dutch members included two notaries, a professor of law, three clergymen
from Protestant and Catholic denominations, and three Dutch merchants trading in the
Levant. Jan Fabius, a notary, acted as the president of the Committee.79 As noted by
Koster, in addition to coordinating the collection and dispatch of war materials and
money possibly from several European ports to the revolutionaries, Palaiologos also
contributed support in the form of cash from his own account.80 Conveniently for the
intrinsic relation between the Greek community and the benefactor of the Orthodox
church of Amsterdam, the Russian princess at the Dutch court, Palaiologos owned a
76 D. Koster, ‘Dutch Philhellenism and the Greek merchants of Amsterdam’, Pharos, Journal of the
Netherlands Institute at Athens 6 (1998) 54-7.
77 See, for instance, W. St Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of
Independence (Cambridge 2008) 25.
78 Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie en Heraldiek, Nederland’s Patriciaat (The Hague 1919) 241.
79 Koster, ‘Dutch Philhellenism’, 33, L. Wagner-Heidendal, Het filhellenisme in het Koninkrijk der
Nederlanden (1821–1829): een bijdrage tot de studie van de publieke opinie in het begin van de negentiende
eeuw (Brussels 1972) 99–101, J. H. A. Ringeling, ‘Het Eerste Philhelleense Comité in de Nederlanden:
Amsterdam 7 Februari 1822’, Amstelodamum 51 (1964) 145-55, R. A. D. Renting, ‘Nederland en de
Griekse Vrijheidsoorlog’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 67 (1954) 21–49.
80 Koster, ‘Dutch Philhellenism’, 36.
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Amsterdam’s Greek merchants
131
frigate called the Anna Pavlovna. Both the Anna Pavlovna and the Briseïs, a brig owned
by Emmanuel Xenos, made seven journeys each between the years 1820 and 1826 into
the Eastern Mediterranean.81 Two letters of gratitude dispatched by the insurgents in the
island of Hydra and the provisional Greek Ministry of Religion82 address both Palaiologos
and Tomasachi, which ended up in the personal archive of Jan Fabius, the president of the
Committee. Alongside these links with their Dutch collaborators, however, when it came
to the official Dutch authorities, Palaiologos kept his connections with the Greek revolution a secret. An interesting example is a joint petition that Palaiologos signed with Stephanos Isaias and Anton Curtovich, both of whom also took part in securing the support of
the Ottoman state against Dutch taxation. In this petition, they requested the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs to grant protection to Ioannis Xenos, another Greek merchant from
Amsterdam who had set sail for Istanbul and Izmir around the time of the Greek revolution in 1821. As a mark of their ability to manoeuvre pragmatically in the intense international atmosphere, they mentioned specifically that although Xenos was not a burgher of
Amsterdam, he ‘had behaved and had been considered as a Dutchman.’83 Likewise, in his
letter to Gaspard Testa, the translator of the Dutch ambassador, he presented the Greek
insurrection as a curse that had struck his ‘unfortunate nation’ and condemned them with
the words: ‘may heaven punish the chiefs and instigators of the insurrection’.84
Of particular importance was the role of mediation that Palaiologos offered in
order to secure the first foreign loan for the Greek state from the Dutch, which eventually did not take place as the preference was made for the London Stock Exchange.
Often presented within the narrow confines of patriotism85—the questioning of which is
beyond the scope and intention of this article—I believe that the role that he sought to
undertake can and should also be seen as an act of brokerage. In this way, a merchant
underwent a formation into a political figure by also benefiting from the offers of his
commercial vision and experience in the Levant. In his letter of 1823, offering his availability and willingness to act as mediator for a Dutch loan, he laid out a number of revenues that the Greek state would be able to receive in the coming five or ten years after
achieving independence. He calculated, for instance, that a loan of five million Dutch
florins at 6% interest would generate a yearly interest of 300,000 Dutch florins. Apparently familiar with the economic resources of the region, as can also be exemplified in
his commercial activities there, he suggested that this yearly interest could be paid
through trade ‘in currants, silk, and other products of the region’ which, according to
his calculations, would generate a yearly profit of 500,000 Dutch florins.86
81 Op. cit., 53.
82 NA.2.21.006.01, 10.
83 Nanninga (ed.), Bronnen, IV, part 2, 1048. Kadı, Ottoman and Dutch merchants, 229.
84 Nanninga (ed.), Bronnen, IV, part 2, 1074–5. Koster, ‘Dutch Philhellenism’, 53.
85 N. L. Foropoulos, ‘Στέφανος Παλαιολόγος, ένας λησμονημένος Πάτμιος αγωνιστής’, Δωδεκανησιακά
Χρονικά 10 (1984) 139–170, Koster, ‘Dutch Philhellenism’, 36, 48 and 49.
86 Τα Αρχεία της Ελληνικής Παλιγγενεσίας, Vol. 11. Λυτά έγγραφα Υπερτάτης Διοικήσεως & Εκτελεστικού - Α΄ &
Β΄ Βουλευτικής Περιόδου (1822–1823–1824) (Athens 1978) 205-6.
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The actions of Tomasachi and Palaiologos continued after the recognition of the
Greek state, as evidenced by their correspondence with Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first
Greek president.87 The main context of their exchange of letters was the financial and
material support of the Philhellenic Committee. The role of a broker, which researchers
like Koster have limited to ‘working in the interest of Greece’,88 is also evident in the
nature of actions Palaiologos and Tomasachi offered to assist.89 In 1830, Palaiologos
wanted to get involved in providing the Greek navy with warships by sending some
sketches to Kapodistrias, and offered, yet again, his mediation for a Dutch loan. Even
though Kapodistrias hinted at the importance of warships for Greece, his murder in the
coming year halted the potential of such cooperation. Regarding the latter offer, however, he stated quite clearly that the decision to receive a new loan no longer depended
on himself on account of the earlier debts. Despite ‘the unfortunate circumstances’
regarding his business activities, within the same year, Tomasachi also offered to get a
Dutch loan, which Kapodistrias declined for the same reason.
As the above incidents indicate, the interests of these individuals were not limited to
the field of commerce because they began to enlarge their activities beyond its normative
confines by intertwining their activities with politics. A manifest reflection of this relationship between trade and politics was the rapid rise to power of Stephanos Palaiologos’ nephew, Stephanos Palaiologos junior. Son of Athanasios Palaiologos, who was
also a member of the Philiki Etaireia and was trading in Crimea, Stephanos came to
Amsterdam only in 1835, shortly before his uncle’s death, as the vice-consul of the
Greek state in Amsterdam. He worked in this capacity until 1874, at which time he
became the consul-general and occupied this post probably until his death.90
Conclusion
As I sought to indicate through the case of Greek merchants in Amsterdam, the policies
of the diaspora merchants were often motivated by pragmatism and were so flexible
that they could accommodate to and even benefit from the emerging commercial and
political developments quite successfully. In the commercial, social and diplomatic
spheres, the received wisdom about the alleged affinity between the host Dutch state
and diaspora merchants is dubious, to say the least. Despite a set of positive and negative attitudes towards themselves, the merchants sought to pursue an active policy of
associating themselves with the host state and society through a number of mechanisms
87 Koster, ‘Dutch Philhellenism’, 54–7.
88 Op. cit., 49. Koster mentions in one instance that Tomasachi and Palaiologos ‘were not ignorant of their
own commercial interests’ and that ‘philhellenism also meant business’ (op. cit., 40). However, their
‘patriotic activities’ and ‘patriotic feelings’ set the tone of his narrative (op. cit., 40, 36, 48 and 49).
89 Op. cit., 57 and 56.
90 B. J. Slot and D. Koster (eds), Dutch Archives and Greek History: A Guide to Dutch Archives and
Libraries Concerning the History of the Greeks and the Greek World between 1250 and 1940 (Athens
2007) 69.
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Amsterdam’s Greek merchants
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by seeking to assume the position of protégés, citizens and consular agents. The main
reasons appear to be of a pragmatic nature, and as seen, this pragmatism was extended
to other states, too. The patterns of both positive and negative relations that the Greek
merchants established with Russia, interpreted by the merchants mostly on the basis of
the extent of Russian benevolence provide another example of pragmatism as a key
motive in state-merchant relations. When the conditions of similar benevolence were
present from the Ottoman side, a number of the merchants in question took part in
negotiating their status as Ottoman subjects and one of them became the representative
of the Ottoman state. One of the two notable figures who provided material support to
the Greek insurrection against the Ottoman administration was tied to the negotiators
of Ottoman identity with family and commercial bonds. That is not to dismiss the very
presence of the support by some of the Greek merchants in Amsterdam to the Greek
Revolution. However, it is also equally impossible not to note the same element of pragmatism in the activities of the Greek merchants who supported the Revolution. The fact
that all these changes occurred over a long time span bears testimony to the enduring
ability of these merchants to adapt to the changing political developments. Rather than
showing weakness, this diverse composition of the diaspora merchants and their seemingly controversial policies at the individual or communal level are the key to their flexibility and rise, which cannot be fully comprehended within the narrow confines of
nation- and state-centred perceptions.
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