Gümüşlüdür. Oranın a’yânı el-Hâc Mehmed Ağa’nın oğludur. Pederinin vefâtında yerine kâ’im olup hayli teneffüz etdi. Gümüş a’yânı olup Canikli Hacı Ali Paşa’dan ve evlâdından müteneffir olduğu münâsebetle 1193’de Cabbârzâde Mustafa Bey’e yardım ederek Caniklilerin hezîmet ve firârına bâ’is oldu.
1195’de Gümüş voyvodası ve ma’deni emîni olan Hâseki Mehmed Ağa’ya ser-keşâne hareketi bahânesiyle Amasya mutasarrıfı olan Caniklizâde Mikdâd Ahmed Paşa’nın verdiği [287] emr-i hafî üzerine 1196 zilka’desinde Haseki Mehmed Ağa tarafından i’dâm edildi. Oğulları Hüseyin, Mehmed, Ali, Mustafa Ağalardır.
Hacı Ebûbekir Ağa’nın veresesi Amasya Mahkemesine kısâs da’vâsı ikâme edib İnde’l-muhâkeme Mikdâd Ahmed Paşa verdiği emri inkâr, Hâseki Mehmed Ağa da verdiği emîr üzerine katl etdiğini ikrâr edib katle dâ’ir fermân-ı âlî de olmadığından kısâsa mahkûm oldu. Bâ-fermân-ı âlî kısâsen i’dâm edildi. Birâderi el-Hâc Osmân Ağa’dır.
In Modern English
He is from Gümüş. He is the son of el-Hâc Mehmed Ağa, one of the leading men of that place. When his father died he took his place and gained considerable influence. Being one of the ayan of Gümüş, because he detested Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha and his sons, in 1193 [1779] he helped Cabbarzâde Mustafa Bey and caused the Caniklis to be routed and to flee.
In 1195 [1780-81], Caniklizâde Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha, the mutasarrıf of Amasya, using Ebûbekir Ağa's headstrong behavior as a pretext, gave a secret order to Haseki Mehmed Ağa, who was voivode and maden emini (mine superintendent) of Gümüş. On this order Ebûbekir Ağa was executed by Haseki Mehmed Ağa in Zilkade 1196 [October-November 1782]. His sons are Hüseyin, Mehmed, Ali and Mustafa Ağas.
The heirs of Hacı Ebûbekir Ağa brought a case of retaliation (kısas) in the Amasya Court. During the trial Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha denied that he had given the order; Haseki Mehmed Ağa, for his part, admitted that he had killed on the order he received. Since there was no imperial decree for the killing either, Haseki Mehmed Ağa was sentenced to retaliation and was executed by way of retaliation by imperial decree. Ebûbekir Ağa's brother is el-Hâc Osman Ağa.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- a'yân: an influential notable of a town or city; in the eighteenth century a semi-official local administrator
- kâ'im olmak: to take someone's place
- teneffüz etmek: to gain influence, to have one's word count
- müteneffir: one who detests, who keeps away
- hezîmet: rout, defeat
- bâ'is olmak: to cause
- voyvoda: the official who collected the tax revenues of a district and administered it
- ma'den emîni: the official who operated a state-owned mine and was responsible for its revenue
- ser-keşâne: headstrong, as if in rebellion
- mutasarrıf: sanjak administrator
- emr-i hafî: secret order
- vereset: heirs
- kısâs: punishing the perpetrator of a killing in the same manner
- ikâme etmek: to bring (a case)
- inde'l-muhâkeme: during the trial
- ikrâr: admission, confession
- fermân-ı âlî: imperial decree
- bâ-fermân-ı âlî: by imperial decree
The Town of Gümüş and the Gümüş Mine
The epithet Hacıköylüzâde and the nisba "Gümüşlü" connect Ebûbekir Ağa to the region of today's Gümüşhacıköy. In the Ottoman period Gümüş was one of the kazas of the sanjak of Amasya and took its name from the silver-bearing lead mines of the region. These mines had been worked in Roman and Byzantine times as well, and in the Ottoman Empire were counted as a "Maden-i Hümâyun" (imperial mine); the kaza was administered until 1875 by mine directors and mine superintendents, and in the yearbooks (salnames) it appears for a time also as the "Maden-i Sîm Kazası". The town of Gümüş survives today as a settlement within the district of Gümüşhacıköy. This structure explains the title "voivode and mine superintendent of Gümüş" in the text. Gümüşhacıköy was among the great mines the state ran by the emanet system; the mint directly appointed the mine superintendents, and with the Maâdin-i Hümâyun Emaneti founded on 19 March 1775, the mining districts acquired a separate administrative structure administered by superintendents, in some records called the "Maâdin-i Hümâyun Eyaleti". That Haseki Mehmed Ağa held the voivodeship and the mine superintendency together shows that the administration of the town was concentrated in his hands. It is very probable that behind the conflict between Ebûbekir Ağa and Haseki Mehmed Ağa lay this sharing of influence between the ayan of the town and the mine's superintendent appointed by the state.
Between the Caniklis and the Cabbarzâdes
Ebûbekir Ağa's story unfolds within the rivalry between two great ayan families that shook Central and Northern Anatolia in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the family of Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha and the Cabbarzâdes (Çapanoğulları) of Yozgat. According to Yücel Özkaya's research based on archival documents, Canikli Ali Bey took the sanjak of Amasya as mâlikâne in 1772, became a vizier in return for his services in the Russian war that began in 1768, and was made seraskeri of Crimea. The state was disturbed by his steadily growing power and his disobedience to orders. The decrees written in early 1779 relate that Canikli Ali Pasha defied the state although his eighteen-year-old son Mikdâd had been given a vizierate and a province; Cabbarzâde Mustafa Bey, the mutasarrıf of Bozok, was charged with removing him, and the capture and imprisonment of Canikli Ali Pasha's son Mikdâd Pasha was also ordered. By the end of this pursuit Ali Pasha had come to be called a "fugitive".
Hüsameddin's statement that in 1193 [1779] Ebûbekir Ağa helped Cabbarzâde and caused the Caniklis to be routed and flee agrees exactly with these documents. As Özkaya shows, the matter did not end there. Through the mediation of Şahin Giray, Khan of Crimea, and the urging of leading men in Istanbul, Ali Pasha was pardoned, his vizierate was restored, and in September 1781 he was appointed governor of Trabzon. His son Mikdâd Pasha, who had been stripped of the rank of vizier, also had the vizierate returned, and he was granted the province of Erzurum and, as arpalık, the mutasarrıflık of Amasya. The person Hüsameddin calls "Caniklizâde Mikdâd Ahmed Pasha, mutasarrıf of Amasya" is this very Mikdâd Pasha. Thus the Gümüş notable who two years earlier had helped the enemy of the Caniklis suddenly found himself within a sanjak governed by this family. Ebûbekir Ağa's killing in the autumn of 1196 [1782] appears, though the sources do not say so, to be a direct result of this reversal. That the Canikli family continued to settle accounts with the Cabbarzâdes even after the restoration can be seen from the fact that some sources record that Cabbarzâde Mustafa Bey was killed in the spring of 1782 by the slaves Canikli Ali Pasha had captured.
A Pasha in Court
The last paragraph of the text presents a striking picture of the legal order of the age. Although Ebûbekir Ağa's heirs knew that the killing had been done on a vizier's secret order, they brought the case in the Amasya Court with a claim of retaliation. In court the pasha who gave the order denied it, while Haseki Mehmed Ağa, who carried it out, admitted his guilt but, having no imperial decree in hand, could show no ground on which to defend himself. In the end the one who suffered retaliation was not the pasha who gave the order but the ağa who carried it out. Hüsameddin relates this event without adding comment, like a dry court record; no record of the case in the court registers was found in another source. No information was found in other sources on Haseki Mehmed Ağa or on Ebûbekir Ağa's brother el-Hâc Osman Ağa.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 6, p. 95–95. amasya.bel.tr
Academic studies
Official sources
Other sources