THE CIRCASSIAN SLAVE IN TURKISH HAREMS. 481 

 THE CIRCASSIAN SLAVE IN TURKISH HAREMS. 



By Mrs. ELLEN BATTELLE DIETRICK. 



ONE of tlie curious anomalies of history is found in the ex- 

 istence of a race whose men are characterized by a passionate 

 love of freedom, equaling that of a William Tell, but whose 

 women habitually accept slavery as the most desirable of earthly 

 conditions. No more thrilling story of spirited resistance to an 

 invader can be found than that of the long struggle of Circassia 

 against the persistently encroaching Slav. After forty years of 

 continual warfare, overwhelmed by Russia's superior wealth and 

 numbers, thousands of Circassians voluntarily chose expatriation 

 rather than abide in their native land under the yoke of the con- 

 queror, and deserted en masse the best part of the country, to take 

 refuge in Turkey. Yet; from the time Circassia was first known 

 to Europe, it has been the regular custom of these independence- 

 loving, self-governing mountaineers to sell the sisters and daugh- 

 ters whose beauty has given chief fame to the name of Circas- 

 sian ; and, difficult as it may be for an American generation 

 reared to abhor slavery to credit the statement, the testimony 

 that these beautiful Circassians gladly accept, and even hasten 

 to meet, their sale is too universal for doubt upon this point. 

 The mystery, however, is largely solved when we learn that to 

 the women of Circassia slavery and marriage are purel y synony- 

 mous terms. To them slavery has meant an exchange from a 

 laborious life of poverty in the mountains to that of ease and 

 luxury as a wife either chief or secondary in a city harem. 

 To the Turk, Circassian slavery has meant purchasing a wife to 

 whom he need not give the name wife unless he choose (the 

 sultans never thus distinguish any woman), and thus obtaining 

 one or more companions who will, almost without doubt, be more 

 obedient and contented in that capacity than any one he might 

 secure from among the women of his own blood and rank in 

 society. A Turkish woman of to-day writes : " Formerly a Turk 

 rarely married his countrywoman ; on the principle, I suppose, 

 that ' exchange is no robbery,' he would marry a Circassian slave, 

 and give his sister to a Circassian man slave, or to some penniless 

 Circassian subaltern in the Turkish army. This was caused by 

 the innate love of power existing in both sexes. A Turkish girl 

 wedded to her equal would, by the laws of religion, feel herself 

 obliged to treat her husband with nearly servile respect, while, 

 when wedded to one so decidedly her inferior, she would be mis- 

 tress in her own house, and, reigning supreme over her husband 

 and slaves, would never fear a rival." 



Far from dreading their sale, the girls of Circassia look for- 



