Smith Rebels against Recruitment
In practically identical terms both the True Travels and the Purchas version
detail the story of how Charatza Trabigzanda went out of her way to inquire
into Smith's past history, taking "(as it seemed) much compassion on him."
Then, because he was not needed in Istanbul, and she was afraid her mother
might sell him again, she sent him to her brother, "the Tymor Bashaw of
Nalbrits, ... in Tartaria." As Smith put it, "shee told him, he should there
but sojourne to learne the language, and what it was to be a Turke, till time
made her Master of her selfe."
Reading between the lines, it seems probable that Charatza had her
heart set on marrying Smith. But she wanted to make something of him, in
Turkey, where Christian slaves could become somebody. Her brother, whoever
he really was, managed a timar, a fief granted him for some service to
the state. John Smith could be freed by being trained for service, and we may
hazard a guess that Charatza intended for her brother to teach Smith what
he needed to know and do. This, if the editor reads the account correctly, is
precisely what the brother set out to do. In the words of an analogous training
reported by Purchas, "when one ... hathrunne through all the Orders
... he is, without all question, the most mortified and patient man in the
World. For the blowes which they suffer, and the fastings which are commanded
them for every small fault, is a thing of great admiration."
John Smith rebelled. The question of whether he understood what was
going on is as academic in this case as the question of whether he understood
Powhatan's intentions five years later. Seizing the first opportunity, he
murdered Charatza's brother, put on the brother's clothes, and rode off on
the brother's horse. Smith's reference to the beaten track to Astrakhan
("Custragan," in Purchas), coupled with the absence of any encounters with
Turkish guards, lends support to a surmise that Smith was serving time near
the Muscovite frontier, east of the Black Sea. The town of Azov (Turkish,
Azak), where the Don River enters the sea of that name, was held by the
Turks, or the Tatars, but there were Muscovite outposts not far away. (That
Smith's "River Bruago" [or "Bruapo"] was not the Don is shown by his
referring to the Don as another river.)
From this point to the abrupt close of the Purchas version, Smith's route
led through the little-known expanses of what is now the Ukrainian S.S.R.
to Poland and Western Europe. As mentioned in the Introduction to the
True Travels, Purchas did not have (or decided to omit) Smith's account of
his foray into Morocco. After all, it added only Smith's vivid description of
a sea battle in the early 1600s.
[_]
1. Purchas says that the printing was started in Aug. 1621 (Pilgrimes, I, xlv [the modern edition
published by James MacLehose and Sons in 20 vols. (Glasgow, 1905–1907) is used here for ease of
reference]). Note, however, that the first outside reference appears to be on Feb. 27, 1622/1623 (see
W. Noel Sainsbury, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series [East Indies, 1622–1624] [London,
1878], 18).
[_]
2. Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes ..., 3d ed. (London, 1621 [orig. publ.
1603]). See Philip L. Barbour, The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith (Boston, 1964), 33–36, 407–
408, n. 1.
[_]
3. Purchas, Pilgrimes (Glasgow ed.), VIII, 331–332.
[_]
8. See, inter alia, Maria Bellonci, A Prince of Mantua: The Life and Times of Vincenzo Gonzaga,
trans. Stuart Hood (New York, 1956).
[_]
9. Genealogical tree of the Báthory family (of Somlyo).
[_]
1. Edward Arber, ed., Captain John Smith ...Works, 1608–1631, The English Scholar's Library
Edition, No. 16 (Birmingham, 1884), xxiii.
[_]
4. Günther Cerwinka, "Die Eroberung der Festung Kanizsa durch die Türken im Jahre
1600," in Alexander Novotny and Berthold Sutter, eds., Innerösterreich 1564–1619 (Graz, [1968]),
409–511.
[_]
5. Krajevni leksikon Dravske banovine ... (Zonal lexicon for the Drava district) (Ljubljana, 1937).
[_]
6. Barbour, Three Worlds, 15–16, 401–402, n. 7.
[_]
7. W.E.D. Allen, Problems of Turkish Power in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1963), and the
Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. "Giray."
[_]
8. Stanford Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge, 1976), I, 87–
111.
[_]
9. Ibid., 179–186. The editor is indebted to this work generally for many details.
[_]
1. There are many (sometimes conflicting) accounts of these developments, for which two
sources may be consulted: László Makkai, Histoire de Transylvanie (Paris, 1946), and Ştefan Olteanu,
Les Pays roumains á l'époque de Michel le Brave (l'union de 1600) (Bucharest, 1975).
[_]
2. Even before the war broke out, the Turks were attempting broadly to keep or make peace.
In addition to Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, see Gustav Bayerle, Ottoman Diplomacy in Hungary:
Letters from the Pashas of Buda, 1590–1593 (Bloomington, Ind., 1972) and Carl Max Kortepeter,
Ottoman Imperialism during the Reformation: Europe and the Caucasus (New York, 1972). Professor
Bayerle personally has offered many a helpful correction or suggestion to the editor regarding the
Turkish side of Smith's adventures, for which formal thanks are here extended.
[_]
3. For a short biography of Mercoeur, see Pierre Larousse's Grand dictionnaire universel du
XIXe siècle ... (Paris, 1865–1890).
[_]
4. See Bellonci, Prince of Mantua, and Giacomo C. Bascapè, ed., Le relazioni fra l'Italia e la
Transilvania nel secolo XVI (Rome, 1931).
[_]
5. E.g., biscione, big snake (military maneuver), Smith's "in a bishion" (True Relation, sig.
B4r); and chiaverina, a kind of javelin, Smith's "a Turks cavarine" (True Travels, 30).
[_]
6. Cf. Barbour, Three Worlds, 32–35.
[_]
7. See ibid., 42–44, for further details on these confusing events, although the editor has since
revised parts of his interpretation. The date, Apr. 1, 1602, is not confirmed elsewhere, and the exact
source consulted nearly 20 years ago can no longer be located, but forces loyal to Zsigmond were
definitely there before July (Makkai, Histoire, 203).
[_]
8. See Laura Polanyi Striker, "Captain John Smith's Hungary and Transylvania," Appendix
I in Bradford Smith, Captain John Smith: His Life and Legend (Philadelphia, 1953), 311–342.
[_]
9. See Eudoxiu de Hurmuzaki, comp., Documente privitóre la istoria Românilor (Bucharest, 1887–
1922), VIII.
[_]
5. See Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 1592, which in turn was ultimately derived and translated from
a report in Italian made c. 1600 by the Venetian bailo (legate) in Istanbul, Ottaviano Bon. Bon's
"Description of the Seraglio" is known to have been circulated in manuscript among foreigners in
Istanbul for many years (Ottaviano Bon, "Descrizione del serraglio del gransignore," in Nicolò
Barozzi and Guglielmo Berchet, eds., Relazione degli stati europei lette al senato dagli Ambasciatori Veneti
nel secolo decimosettimo, Ser. V, Turchia [Venice, 1866]).
