| Ottoman Period: Evacuation and Resettlement (16th-19th Century) |
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In about 1475, due to pirates' raids and the insecurity that followed, many people of Samos sought refuge in the neighboring island of Chios and in Asia Minor. Many settlements near the sea were deserted and the island�s population was so scarce that the period is characterized as the evacuation of Samos. That situation went on for about a century. |
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| Sultan's Firman
In 1562 approximately, Kilitz Ali pasha, admiral of the Ottoman fleet, is said to have anchored with his fleet at the area of Heraion and, enchanted by the island�s beauty and history, asked the sultan Suleyman for permission to bring the population back to the island, securing also important privileges for them. The most significant privileges were that the new settlers were going to be exempted from the majority of the taxes, the compulsory unpaid labor and the customs, they would also be considered as Christians and they would be self-governed.
These privileges were often validated from Suleyman�s successors and contributed to the resettlement of Samos from Christians of various areas, who found there a refuge, relevant freedom and land to cultivate. The descendants of the former dwellers of the island returned there, too. The contemporary villages of Samos originate from that new settlement. The names of some villages indicate the homeland of the new or the old settlers: Mytilinii, Vourliotes, Leka, Kondeika, Skoureika, etc. |
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| Until the 1821 revolution, the administrator of Samos was originally a Christian church-warden and later an Ottoman who was appointed by the sultan. The latter had four high-ranking elders as counselors, elected by the low-ranking elders of the villages. For three years, from 1771 until 1774, the island was temporarily under Russian occupation. In the late 18th century, many new settlers from Peloponnese, Cythera and the Ionian islands came here and brought some new ideologies with them. The developments in trade and shipping, traveling and new schools, such as the Hellenic School of Karlovasi (1784), the ideas of the modern Greek Enlightenment and the French Revolution, led to the gradual formation of social sectors, reflected in two political parties, the Karmanioli and the Kallikantzari. |
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Logothetes Lycurgus
The former were progressive, whereas the latter were conservative. It was Karmanioli, who had embraced and projected the most revolutionary ideas of their time, that created the leading party of the 1821 revolution in Samos, with Logothetes Lycurgus as a leader. |
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