Concerning the Insurrection Occasioned by Michael, Waivoda of Valachia
As the country of Valachia abounded with sheep, cattle, honey, and salt, the merchants and rich men of Constantinople were in the habit of advancing sums of money to every new waivoda on the condition of collecting from the peasantry articles of the above description in return. This practice occasioned frequently great contention. It happened sometimes, when the waivodas did not fulfil their engagements, that those who had advanced them money in the way above described, went and abused and harassed the begs, and created much disturbance. Michael, mentioned at the head of this article, was one of these waivodas who failed to fulfil his promises, and who was therefore one day visited by more than four thousand of this sort of creditors, chiefly Janissaries and principal servants of great men, who profited by this rapacity. They assaulted the waivoda in his own palace, seized upon every thing which fell into their hands, and beat and abused as many of his domestics as chanced to come in their way. This circumstance of violence and mode of assault completely wrought on the mind of the hateful infidel, and led him to the following method of settling with his creditors. He called them together, and by way of giving them his advice, at the same time appearing very polite, said: “If you kill me, you will of course lose all the property that is due to you: that is evident. Come, then, follow my advice, and go along with persons duly appointed into the province, collect what property you can, and pay yourselves out of it.” Manifesting for some time, however, some degree of hesitation and unwillingness, they at last agreed; but it turned out that the quantity they had collected was not sufficient to liquidate the whole of his debt, and they therefore pressed him to furnish the remainder. “Let the cazí of Yerkok,” said they, “be called, and let him examine the accounts. If he is unwell, his deputy, Alí Ján Effendí, may come in his stead;” for it was customary when any law-suit happened between any of the Mussulmans living in Valachia, that an appeal was made to the cazí of the above place. The cazí, or rather his deputy, Alí Ján, arrived and decided in favour of the appellants, whose receipts amounted to sixty thousand dollars. The contention was long, and a thousand obstacles presented themselves in settling this affair; but at last the sum of the debt was reduced to six thousand akchas.
The above Alí Ján relates the following story about himself: “On retiring from the tribunal, and when I was outside of the city,” he says, “I was met by an old acquaintance, an infidel, who accosted me thus: ‘Alí Ján, you have been my friend for twenty years: do not let the evening overtake you, nor remain at Yerkok; but hasten as fast as you are able to Rusjuk, for all hope of accommodation is at an end,’ and immediately went away.” The deputy, perceiving some strange commotion and troops hastening towards the city, mounted his waggon, and made the best of his way to Yerkok; but had scarcely time to give the cazí an account of the affair in which he had been employed, before these raggamuffian soldiery murdered every one of the Waivoda’s creditors and every Mussulman in the place, and thence marched to Yerkok, which they also attacked. “Seeing no alternative left me but either to fall into the hands of these infidels, or make my escape,” says Alí Ján in continuation of his story, “and being a good swimmer, I immediately swam across the Danube. Another person swam across at the same time, and we were the only persons of the inhabitants of Yerkok, amounting to four thousand men, women, and children, that escaped being either murdered or made prisoners. The city they afterwards burned to the ground.”
These events, now recorded, took place in Jemadi 1. of 1002. Those Musselmans that lived in Moldavia removed to Kili, to Ak-kermán, or to Korsú, as they found most convenient. Some of the people of Rusjuk who were present, and saw when these movements took place, sent an account of the whole state of matters to the court of Constantinople, but the Rusjukians themselves afterwards removed and dispersed themselves among the Balkan mountains.
It being the winter season when these accounts reached the metropolis, the operations of war were deferred till the spring of the year.