Süleymân Bey (Çapanoğlu, 1804)

In Modern English

He was from Bozok. He was the son of Abdülcebbarzade Çapan Ahmed Pasha. At the beginning of Muharrem 1219 [1804] he became muhassıl of Amasya, and his mütesellim Millîzade Hacı Süleyman Bey settled in Amasya. Yeğenzade Hacı Hüseyin Bey son of Ömer Pasha became chief ayan and muhtar-ı belde (the city's elected representative). In place of Hüseyin Efendi, naib of Amasya, who had vanished out of fear during the fighting, Mehmed Nureddin Efendi became naib.

Hasan Bey, who had left Amasya, gathered all his force and camped before the Kavak nahiye and wrote of the situation to Tayyar Mahmud Pasha. Tayyar Mahmud Pasha was a very selfish, rebellious and tyrannical man; for his own interest he recognized no one.

He regarded the sanjak of Amasya as his own mâlikâne. He could not bear its being given to Çapanzade Süleyman Bey, his rival and enemy. Above all, Hasan Bey's being driven out of Amasya by force pained him greatly.

Mühürdarzade Mustafa Necib Efendi, who was Tayyar Pasha's nüzul emini (the official in charge of the army's provisions), says in his Tarihçe: "Tayyar Mahmud Pasha, reporting this situation from Bafra to Sultan Selim III, asked that the sanjak of Amasya, which was his mâlikâne, be left in his charge. Yet Amasya was Beyhan Sultan's mâlikâne."

Sultan Selim, to console and calm Tayyar Pasha, sent the second mirahur Şirinzade Es'ad Medhi Bey to Bafra with a decree full of compliments. Es'ad Bey gave him the necessary counsel. He informed him that, since the sanjak of Amasya had been given this year to Süleyman Bey, it would be given to him again next year, and that he should not touch Süleyman Bey.

Tayyar Pasha, instead of showing calm and obedience to so many promises and compliments from the sultan, was greatly angered at the rejection of his request; this virtually touched his honor. Imprisoning poor Es'ad Bey, he placed himself at the head of the soldiers he had prepared.

Setting out from Bafra he came to Köprü and from there to Havza, and joined the force under the command of Mikdad Paşazade Hasan Bey. The forces of Deli Hacı Ali Ağa, ayan of Kavak, and of Hacı Paşazade Mehmed Emin Bey, ayan of Köprü, also joined him.

After taking over Amasya, Millîzade Hacı Süleyman Bey did not touch any of the officials or ayan. Only upon the complaints of the seyyids, at the beginning of Safer, in place of Hacı Ali Efendi, Vâsî Çelebizade Hacı Muhyiddin Ağa became nakib kaymakamı.

At the end of Safer, Tayyar Mahmud Pasha marched with his large force from Havza on Amasya. Yet Çapanzade Süleyman Bey was in no way inferior to Tayyar Pasha in force and influence; moreover he was loyal to the state, obedient and in favor of innovation. The mütesellim of Amasya, Süleyman Bey, had been obliged to inform Çapanzade Süleyman Bey and Avkatlızade Süleyman Bey, owner of the Mecidözü mâlikâne, of the movements and intentions of Tayyar Pasha and Hasan Bey and to ask for help, and had received an order to withdraw if Tayyar Pasha attacked.

Tayyar Pasha came swiftly with his retinue and overran Amasya. After a short clash with Hacı Süleyman Bey, on the first day of Rebiülevvel he entered Amasya by force. Taking and invading the entire sanjak and making Hasan Bey mütesellim again, he put an end to the fourth period of the history of Amasya.

The province of Amasya, in its fourth historical period, kept its old honor alive in great prosperity. Its social, scholarly, industrial and economic life was the same as in the third period; it lost nothing of its old honor.

The notables of this period, that is, its military and civil men, especially its virtuous scholars, accomplished sheikhs, divan and folk poets, good calligraphers and artists, reached a level that can be counted superior to the third period. Among its men there were petty struggles of life and the noise of egos.

But in this period there were no derebeys such as the Canikli Oğulları who had broken national unity, shattered the order of the state, taken the road of rebellion and banditry, and lacked feelings of homeland and nation. The sole concern of the men of Amasya was to keep Turkish existence alive on a high level in unity.

End of the fourth volume.

Notes and Research

Old Words in the Text

• gâ'iblere karışmak: to disappear, to flee and hide
• hodbîn: selfish
• serkeş: rebellious, one who rises in revolt
• müstebid: tyrant, arbitrary ruler
• kuvvet-i cebriyye: use of force, the power of arms
• nüzûl emîni: the official who ran the provisions collected for the army
• ibkâ: leaving in place, keeping in office
• tesliye: consoling
• iltihâk: joining
• tesellüm: taking over
• mutî': obedient, submissive
• teceddüd-perver: in favor of innovation
• istimdâd: asking for help
• avdet: returning, withdrawing
• müsâdeme: clash
• ricâl: statesmen, notables
• fâ'ik: superior
• şekâvet: banditry

Çapanoğlu Süleyman Bey

The muhassıl of this entry is the same person as the "Bozoklu" Süleyman Bey of entry 77: Süleyman Bey, son of Çapanoğlu (Cebbarzade) Ahmed Pasha. According to Özcan Mert, his father Ahmed Pasha was executed in 1765, and Süleyman Bey had become governor of Bozok in 1782 with the killing of his elder brother Mustafa Bey. His time is the most brilliant period of the Çapanoğulları, lasting about thirty years. Thanks to his intelligent and cautious policy, generally obedient toward the Sublime Porte, and his support for Selim III's Nizâm-ı Cedîd movement, he spread his influence beyond Bozok to Çankırı, Amasya, Şarkîkarahisar, Kayseri, Aleppo, Adana, Tarsus, Niğde, Kırşehir and Ankara. According to Mehmet Beşirli's finding, between 1214 and 1222 he also held the tax farm of the voyvodalık of Tokat as a mâlikâne. Hüsameddin's describing him as "loyal to the state, obedient and in favor of innovation" agrees with the general opinion of present-day research. İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı also describes him as "a coinless sovereign loyal to the state" who dominated his surroundings by harsh methods when necessary but whose service and self-sacrifice in all the state's affairs were seen. In 1808 he was among the ayan who signed the Sened-i İttifak (Deed of Agreement); he died in 1813. According to Uzunçarşılı, after his death eighty pieces of property in Amasya and elsewhere were sold at auction.

Avkatlızade Süleyman Bey, owner of the Mecidözü mâlikâne, whom the mütesellim of Amasya Süleyman Bey asked for help, is the former mütesellim of Amasya told in entry 75. According to Serkan Polat's study, the Avkatlızades were relatives of Çapanoğlu by marriage.

The Events in the Documents

Uzunçarşılı's account, based on archival documents, gives Tayyar Pasha's outburst in detail. According to it, Tayyar, paying no heed to the counsel the grand vizier sent him, occupied Amasya, Turhal and Tokat with the forces he had gathered; the people of Sivas drove out of the city the mütesellim of Mehmed Celâleddin Pasha, Çapanoğlu's son and governor of Sivas; Merzifon was taken, and the forces came as far as Zile. Through the buyruldus (written orders) he sent around, Tayyar declared that he was acting with the approval of the state and the fatwa of the şeyhülislam and that he would remove the Nizâm-ı Cedîd soldiers and end oppression. Thereupon his governorship of Trabzon and his vizierate were taken from him; his suppression was assigned to Yusuf Ziya Pasha, who was brought to the governorship of Erzurum and Trabzon. The forces under the command of Tayyar's cousin Mikdad Paşazade Hasan Bey were defeated on 27 Rebiülevvel 1220 [25 June 1805] by Çapanoğlu's son Abdülfettah Bey. The forces sent to Çorum were also routed. Unable to hold out in Amasya, Tayyar withdrew. In a letter he wrote to the grand vizier on 3 July 1805 he begged pardon and asked that the province of Sivas and the sanjak of Kastamonu be given to him, promising in return to enroll Nizâm-ı Cedîd soldiers from those places at his own expense. His request was not accepted. With Hasan Bey he crossed by sea to Sukhumi and from there by a merchant ship via Crimea to Russia (Cemaziyelevvel 1220, August 1805).

According to these documents Tayyar's entry into Amasya falls in the summer of 1805. The "first day of Rebiülevvel" that Hüsameddin gives corresponds to 9 June 1804 for the year 1219 and to 29 May 1805 for the year 1220. It is the second date that agrees with the documents; the Hijri year in this entry of Hüsameddin appears, as in the last part of entry 79, one year early. Sabit Genç, however, following Hüsameddin, places the event in 1804.

What came after lies outside this volume of Hüsameddin's book. According to Uzunçarşılı, although Süleyman Bey defeated his adversary, Amasya was not left to him; through the attitude of Grand Vizier Hafız İsmail Pasha, who was opposed to the Nizâm-ı Cedîd, the sanjak was given to Beyhan Sultan and Ali Ağa was appointed mütesellim. Mert, on the other hand, writes that Süleyman Bey retook Amasya in August 1805 and that in the summer of 1807, in the time of Mustafa IV, the sanjak slipped from his hands. The date of Tayyar Pasha's flight differs in the sources: Uzunçarşılı says August 1805, Mert gives summer 1806. After the Kabakçı Rebellion and the deposition of Selim III, Tayyar was pardoned, returned to Istanbul on a Russian ship on 20 October 1807, and was brought to the governorship of Trabzon and the deputy grand vizierate. He was dismissed in March 1808 and exiled to Dimetoka, and, after the accession of Mahmud II, was executed on 2 Receb 1223 [24 August 1808]. With his death the half-century dominance of the Canikli family in the region came to an end.

Hüsameddin's Sources

In a footnote Hüsameddin explains how he compiled these events. He reached two persons who had witnessed Hasan Bey's departure from Amasya, then his coming and taking the city, and his execution: Molla Ali Ağa, who died in the village of Efte in 1308 [1890–91] at the age of one hundred and twelve, and Çarşambalı Hacı Abdülkadir Efendi, one of the ulema, who died in Amasya in 1311 [1893–94] at the age of one hundred and fifteen. According to the ages given, both must have been born around 1196 [1782]; they saw the events in their twenties. Hüsameddin states that he wrote by combining these oral testimonies with the registers he saw in the paper archive and the Amasya meşihat registers. This partly explains the confusion of years: while the witnesses' memory preserved the order of events soundly, it may have shifted the year. This is an interpretation.

The Tarihçe of Mühürdarzade Mustafa Necib Efendi, from which Hüsameddin quotes, must be Mustafa Necib's Tarihçe, printed in Istanbul in 1280 [1863–64], counted among the works describing the end of the reign of Selim III and the Kabakçı Rebellion; Fahri Ç. Derin lists this work among the sources for the events of 1807. In the original text the quotation has an opening quotation mark but no closing one; for this reason it is not entirely clear where the part relayed from Necib Efendi ends.

On the Assessment of the Period

In closing the volume Hüsameddin describes the Amasya of the fourth period as brilliant, and the Canikli family as derebeys lacking feelings of homeland and nation. In a footnote he also notes that the word "third" at the start of this section is a typesetting error. This assessment carries the national-history outlook of the author's own time. Present-day research mostly treats the Canikli family within the framework of the redistribution of political and economic resources between the center and the provinces. Özcan Mert also describes the family's founder Hacı Ali Pasha as an "enlightened tyrant" administrator, unlike the governors and commanders of his time. The events Hüsameddin himself narrates also show that Amasya in this period was not free of internal quarrels: the muftiship changed hands more than fifteen times between 1793 and 1804, and the ulema were divided over matters such as the Nizâm-ı Cedîd and the one-third tax.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, Remainder (Bakiyye) of vol. 4, p. 685–686. amasya.bel.tr

Academic studies

• İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, "Çapanoğulları", Belleten, 38/150, April 1974. https://belleten.gov.tr/tam-metin/1311/tur
• Özcan Mert, "Çapanoğulları", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 8. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/capanogullari
• Özcan Mert, "Canikli Hacı Ali Paşa Ailesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 7, p. 151-154. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/canikli-haci-ali-pasa-ailesi
• Canay Şahin, The Rise and Fall of an Ayân Family in Eighteenth Century Anatolia: The Caniklizâdes (1737-1808), doctoral thesis, Bilkent University, 2003.
• İbrahim Serbestoğlu, "Trabzon Valisi Canikli Tayyar Mahmud Paşa İsyanı ve Caniklizâdelerin Sonu (1805-1808)", Karadeniz İncelemeleri Dergisi, 1/1, 2006, p. 89-105.
• Mehmet Beşirli, "Tokat Voyvodalığı (1774-1842)", Belleten, 69/254, 2005. https://belleten.gov.tr/eng/full-text/3505/tur
• Sabit Genç, "Nizam-ı Cedid'in Amasya Sancağı'ndaki Yansımaları", Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 8/2, 2025, p. 335-362. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/efad/article/1770469
• Fahri Ç. Derin, "Yayla İmamı Risalesi", İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, 3, 1972 (1973).

Books

• Yakup Poyraz, "Tayyâr, Mahmûd Paşa-yı Samsûnî", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, 2014.

Other sources

• A. Kadir Çapanoğlu, "Çapanoğlu Süleyman Bey'in Eşi Amasyalı Hacı Hafize Hanım" (summary of Serkan Polat's study), Yozgat Gazetesi.