Massacre of Samothrace (1821)

The Massacre of Samothrace (Greek: Ολοκαύτωμα της Σαμοθράκης, romanized: Holocaust of Samothrace) took place on September the 1st, 1821, during the Greek War of Independence when many of the Greek inhabitants of the island of Samothrace, in the northeast Aegean Sea, were killed by the Ottomans troops and the island was destroyed.

The Massacre of Samothrace, Auguste Vinchon's painting

The massacre

According to Ion Dragoumis, who recounted the Massacre of Samothrace in his book Σαμοθράκη, when the locals learned about the Greek Revolution, in March 1821, they refused to pay the tax to the Ottoman authorities.[1]

On 1 September, 1,000–2,000 Turks with rear admiral Kara Ali in charge, disembarked on the island. Most of the locals took refuge to the mountains and just a few tried to defend against the Turks but without success. The following days many of the locals who had escaped on the mountains surrendered as the believed the Turks’ promises that they wouldn't harm them. But the Ottomans soldiers arrested and killed dozens of them especially men and boys and sold the women and the girls as slaves in Istanbul and Smyrna.[2]

Six years after the massacre some of the inhabitants who had managed to escape in other islands returned to Samothrace along with Greek people from Thrace, Lesvos, Imvros, Thassos, Lemnos and from Epirus, Mani and Kydonies, in order to reinhabit the island.

The Massacre of Samothrace is the theme of a painting of Auguste Vinchon, which is exhibited in the Louvre Museum.

References
  1. Δραγούμης (ΙΔΑΣ), Ίων (1909). Σαμοθράκη. Αθήνα: Ανατύπωση από το περιοδικό Νουμάς. σελίδες 28–31.
  2. Δραγούμης (ΙΔΑΣ), Ίων (1909). Σαμοθράκη. Αθήνα: Ανατύπωση από το περιοδικό Νουμάς. σελίδες 28–31.
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