Amasya a’yânından sâbıku’t-terceme Gözdaşzâde el-Hâc Ebûbekir Ağa bin Ya’kûb Ağa’nın mahdûmu Ali Ağa’nın oğludur. Büyük birâderi el-Hâc Mustafa Ağa’dır. Pederlerinin vefâtında yetîm olduklarına binâen vâlidelerini ammizâdeleri Hâfız el-Hâc Ali Ağa almıştı. İki kardeş, bunun hânesinde büyüdü.
Ba’dehû Canikli Hacı Ali Paşa’ya intisâb ederek onun teveccühâtını kazandı. Hâssaten birâderi paşanın vezâretinde mu’temedi olduğundan Amasya sancağı mutasarrıflığında büyük bir nüfûz ve şöhret kazandı. Paşanın vekîl-i umûru tanındı. Bu sâyede Amasya’da Hacıbaşı oldu. A’yân-ı memleketi nüfûzuna râm etdi.
1193’de Hacı Ali Paşa, Cabbârzâde’ye ma’lûben oğullarıyla beraber Kırım’a kaçdıkları esnâda bunlar da nefyedilerek memleketden çıkarıldı. Canikli Ali Paşa ve evlâdının avdetiyle beraber 1196’da avdet ederek yine Hacıbaşı olup hayli ef’âle cür’et ederek Amasya mutasarrıfı Caniklizâde [295] Mikdâd Ahmed Paşa’ya yaranmıştı.
Paşa’nın Amasya sancağından azlini müte’âkip iki kardeşin aleyhinde yağan şikâyetlere binâen yine nefy edilmişlerdi. Bu şikâyetler mu’ahharan tedkîk edilerek pek çokları sâbit olduğuna binâen 1206’da Mikdâd Ahmed Paşa’nın i’dâmından sonra bunlar da Amasya’ya celb edilip 1207’de i’dâm edildi. Oğlu es-Seyyid Mehmed Ağazâde es-Seyyid Ebûbekir Ağa, 1254’de Dârü’s-selâm Mahallesi’nde kırk yaşında sicile kaydedilmişdi.
Gözdaşzâde Hâfız el-Hâc Ali Ağa’nın evlâdından Attar el-Hâc Abdullah Efendi bin Ömer Efendi derdi ki: “Bu iki kardeş, Gözdaşoğullarından değildir. Ceddim Hacı Ali Ağa’nın üveği oğulları olmak hasebiyle bunlara “Gözdaşoğulları” dendi. Sicillât-ı Şer’iyye ve nüfûs kaydı, bizim yazdığımız gibidir.
In Modern English
He is the son of Ali Ağa, son of Gözdaşzâde Hacı Ebûbekir Ağa bin Ya'kûb Ağa, one of the leading men of Amasya, whose biography is given above. His elder brother is Hacı Mustafa Ağa. Because they were left orphans when their father died, their mother had been taken as wife by their cousin Hâfız Hacı Ali Ağa. The two brothers grew up in his house.
Later, attaching himself to Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha, he won his favor. Especially because his elder brother was the pasha's trusted man during the pasha's vizierate, he gained great influence and fame during the pasha's time as mutasarrıf of the sanjak of Amasya. He was known as the vekil who ran the pasha's affairs. Through this he became hacıbaşı in Amasya and brought the leading men of the country under his influence.
In 1193 [1779], when Hacı Ali Pasha, defeated by Cabbârzâde, fled to Crimea with his sons, they too were exiled and sent out of the country. With the return of Canikli Ali Pasha and his sons, in 1196 [1781-82] they too returned; becoming hacıbaşı again, they dared many evil deeds and had ingratiated themselves with Caniklizâde Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha, mutasarrıf of Amasya.
After the pasha's dismissal from the sanjak of Amasya, they were exiled again upon the complaints that rained down against the two brothers. When these complaints were later examined and found for the most part to be true, in 1206 [1792], after the execution of Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha, they too were brought to Amasya and executed in 1207 [1792-93]. Seyyid Ebûbekir Ağa, son of his son Seyyid Mehmed Ağa, was entered in the register in 1254 [1838-39] in the Dârüsselâm quarter as forty years old.
Attar Hacı Abdullah Efendi bin Ömer Efendi, of the line of Gözdaşzâde Hâfız Hacı Ali Ağa, used to say: "These two brothers are not of the Gözdaşoğulları. Because they were the stepsons of my grandfather Hacı Ali Ağa, they were called 'Gözdaşoğulları'. The şer'iyye registers and the population record are also as we write."
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- sâbıku't-terceme: one whose biography has been given before
- mahdûm: son
- ammizâde: cousin (son of a paternal uncle)
- intisâb etmek: to enter someone's service and attach oneself to him
- mu'temed: trusted man
- vekîl-i umûr: the deputy who runs affairs
- hacıbaşı: head of the city's body of ayan and pilgrims
- râm etmek: to subdue
- ma'lûb: defeated
- nefy: exile
- avdet: return
- ef'âl: deeds, (here) evil deeds
- yaranmak: to get into someone's good graces by trying to please him
- mutasarrıf: administrator of the sanjak
- mu'ahharan: afterwards
- celb: summoning, bringing in
- i'dâm: execution
- üvey oğul: (in the text "üveği oğulları") stepchildren
Amasya Between the Caniklis and the Çapanoğulları
The story of the Gözdaşoğlu brothers is intertwined with the developments that in the last quarter of the eighteenth century made Amasya a field of rivalry between two great ayan families, the Caniklis on the Black Sea coast and the Çapanoğulları (Cabbârzâdes) centered on Bozok. According to Özcan Mert's entry in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha, after clearing the Samsun and Amasya area of brigands, took the sanjak of Amasya as mâlikâne on 30 May 1772, and the voivodeship of Tokat was also attached to him afterwards. Çapanoğlu Mustafa Bey regarded the giving of Amasya and Sivas to the Caniklis as an intrusion into his own sphere of influence, and the rivalry between the two families hardened from this date.
Ali Pasha's failure in the Crimean campaign of 1778 also gave rise to unrest in his own lands. The Amasya ayan, unable to bear the pressure of his son Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha, took refuge in the late months of 1778 with Çapanoğlu Mustafa Bey. When Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha attacked Çapanoğlu lands and was defeated, Amasya passed into Çapanoğlu's hands; the Sublime Porte took the side of the Çapanoğulları in this struggle, and Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha and his son Battal Hüseyin Bey fled to Crimea. This is the event Hüsameddin gives as "in 1193 they were defeated by Cabbârzâde and fled to Crimea"; the year 1193 corresponds to 1779, and the two accounts agree. That the Gözdaşoğlu brothers were exiled at this moment shows that the Canikli partisans were cleared from the city.
Ali Pasha, who stayed about two years in Crimea, was pardoned in September 1781; Trabzon was given to him, and to his younger son Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha the governorship of Erzurum, together with the sanjak of Amasya as arpalık. That Hüsameddin says the brothers returned in 1196 [1781-82] falls right after this pardon. Another entry of Hüsameddin in the same volume shows the other side of the picture: Hacı Efendizâde Hacı Ahmed Ağa, because he did not get along with Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha, withdrew aside, in 1193 gave material aid to Çapanzâde Mustafa Bey, and when in 1195 Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha came as mutasarrıf of Amasya, went to Yozgat. The Gözdaşoğlu brothers, for their part, had in the same years risen to the hacıbaşıship as men of the Caniklis. How the Amasya ayan were divided between these two families can be seen better when these two entries are read together.
The End of Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha and the Brothers' Execution
The Ottoman-Russian-Austrian war of 1787-1792 was a ruin for the Canikli family. Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha was appointed in 1787 governor of Aleppo, then of Diyarbekir and commander (başbuğ) of Moldavia, was dismissed after his failure on the Iași side, and was sent to Filibe (Plovdiv) in 1790. Selim III, greatly vexed at the fall of Anapa into Russian hands in 1791, had Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha, who was in exile at Filibe, executed in 1792, and his severed head was buried at Karacaahmet in Istanbul. The year 1206 (August 1791 - August 1792) that Hüsameddin gives agrees with this date.
The execution of the Gözdaşoğlu brothers took place, according to Hüsameddin, after the pasha's death, in 1207 [1792-93]. Hüsameddin attributes this to the complaints against the brothers having been examined and found true. That, once their patron was gone, the cases brought by their local enemies produced results quickly is a situation often seen in the ayan politics of the period; but an archival document on the brothers' trial could not be reached in this research. The extent of the elder brother's influence is seen more clearly in the first volumes where Hüsameddin tells the annual events of Amasya: at the beginning of 1187 [1773] Göztaşoğlu Hacı Mustafa Ağa became the vekil who ran Hacı Ali Pasha's affairs and thanks to this deputyship came to the position of de facto mütesellim and chief of the sanjak of Amasya. In the same records the name of Göztaşoğlu Hacı Ali Ağa, who became hacıbaşı in 1178 [1764], also appears; he is probably the same person as the "Hâfız Hacı Ali Ağa" who raised the brothers in his house.
The Question of Descent and the Dârüsselâm Quarter
The note at the end of the entry is a fine example of how Hüsameddin compared oral testimony with the written record. Attar Hacı Abdullah Efendi, of the true line of the Gözdaşoğulları, says that the two brothers were joined to the family not by blood but through their mother's marriage to Hâfız Hacı Ali Ağa, and adds that this is how it appears in the şer'iyye registers and population records as well. Hüsameddin's own account, however, in the first paragraph introduces the brothers as grandsons of Gözdaşzâde Ebûbekir Ağa. There is a contradiction between these two statements: that they truly descend from the Gözdaşzâde line as sons of Ali Ağa and that they were merely stepchildren cannot both be true at once. Hüsameddin, by putting the family member's word last, seems to leave it to the reader's judgment.
The Dârüsselâm quarter, where the grandson was recorded in 1254 [1838-39], was one of the mixed quarters of Amasya in the nineteenth century. According to the population register of 1840 studied by Selim Özcan, 25 Muslim and 9 non-Muslim households were there. The record Hüsameddin means by "entered in the register" most likely belongs to one of the population surveys made in this period; this is an inference.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 6, p. 97–98. amasya.bel.tr
Academic studies