Hayrettin Effendi, the last Black Eunuch of Turkey
By GNAMMANKOU DIEUDONNÉ in
Black Men, August 2000
THE AFRICAN EUNUCHS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
During many centuries, a children's traffic, generally known under the name
"blood tax", has been practiced from countries and areas under Ottoman
domination in Europe, Asia and Africa, towards the palaces of the Ottoman
sultans in Constantinople (Istanbul). Black and white children were victims of
this slavery. The little girls were meant for filling the harems as cohabitants
or to become servants. The boys served in the Ottoman army or the
administration, were used as slavish or domestic labor. Some of them were
employed as pages to the palace or eunuchs in the sultan's harems.
The first Black eunuchs were employed in the Ottoman empire since 1485. The
sultans made them come from Ethiopia and the Lake Chad area. Until the end of
the 15th century, the white eunuchs were the only ones to keep the sultan's
cohabitants in the harems. In 1587, one Black received the tittle of Eunuchs'
Chief. Known under the name Kizlar Agasi, he had the rank of pacha, was the
hallebarders's palace commandant. He ruled numerous high ranking "functionaries"
of the empire and had important religious functions. He was the imperial mosque
keeper and the devout foundations of Mecca and Medina. He remained on good terms
with the sultan and was the most feared of the country. When he retired, he
withdrew to Egypt where he had a golden existence.
Nowadays, still, in Istanbul the Turkish capital, it's possible to visit the
building which sheltered the Black eunuchs sultan's palace apartments. They were
six hundred to live here all together! Africa, their original birth place,
remained present in their imagination. So on certain walls of the bedrooms we
can see African landscapes that some of them have painted.
THE LAST BLACK EUNUCHS
In 1998 the publication of a book in Turkish, Meyyale, by Dr. Hifzi Topuz, bring
some precious lightings on the daily life of the last Black eunuchs of the
Ottoman empire at the 20th century.
Those ones became free since 1918, the year has been claimed the MESUTIET, the
banning of slavery in Turkey.
The 8th chapter of Hifzi Topuz's book is consecrated to harem's eunuchs. The
Turkish author recalled without any kindness about the suffering of those men:
from the wrench from their families and African native areas to the painful
castration operation to which only 10% of the children survived, to their
transfer to Turkey.
In the 60's, we could still, in Istanbul streets meet the last Black eunuchs,
particularly in Bostanji district. Generally, the eunuchs were dumb about their
past. They died with their secrets.
Nevertheless, Hayrettin Effendi, the last eunuch of Resat, the last Ottoman
sultan, decided to tell all the story of his life to a district friend, one year
before dying, in 1976.70 years after his kidnapping in Ethiopia.
Hayrettin was a smart man. Very tall, kind and generous, he lived in a house
with a garden, with a Circassian woman that he loved and respected profoundly.
Hayrettin was a gala from Ethiopia. His story is the one of the Ottoman palace's
Black eunuchs and remained anonymous for centuries. His testimony revealed the
eunuch's suffering. It's the look of a man very lucid on the human nature's
perversity of this time. It's a rousing call to humanity for such atrocities not
to happen no more. A message of hope.
Hayrettin Effendi's testimony, last sultan's last eunuch. From the Turkish book,
MEYYALE, by Hifzi Topuz, Istanbul, Editions Remzi Kitabevi, p.69-72.
(Thanks to Ozan who translated orally this text and all the chapter about the
Black eunuchs and Mrs. Oya Göker who made us know about this work from its
publication in Turkey.)
"I remember my childhood like if it was yesterday. I'm from Habesistan. I'm a
Galla. My name was Gülnata. We were living in a little village. We were very
happy. I was 7 or 8 years. I was playing with some children same age than me on
the village's place. We always had the same game. We were running one after the
others. Then one day, some horsemen came. They didn't look like the men from our
place. Their faces were lighter. They were armed. They caught us.
One of them closed my mouth and I almost suffocated. My eyes went out of their
socket. They took all my friends and I away. I didn't understand their language.
It's after that I've known they were talking Arabic. Arrived in a village, they
put us in a yard. There were other children like us. They talked the same
language than us. They sobbed. We didn't understood why they have kidnapped us.
We shared the same sorrow. We stayed three days without drinking' and Eaton'.
We were afraid. Few days later, we have been castrated (In Massoua, peninsula of
the
Ethiopian coast occupied by the Turkish). During numerous years, I never forget
the pain and the tortures endured. Two weeks after the castration, we began to
get better. They drove us in the ports. There were some boys and girls like us.
We didn't talk both the same language but we shared the same lot. All the boys
were castrated. There were a good relationship between us. Then they embarked us
on a boat. We were delighted to have escaped from the monsters. But where did
they bring us? We thought they gonna throw us in the ocean. We didn't know
anything. We were totally uncertain. Our villages, our brothers, our sisters,
our mothers were far behind. Will it be possible to see them again one day?
Some of us cried all the time. We were afraid to be drowned. We were seeing the
sea for the first time and we were afraid. We were all gathered on the boat. We
looked at the waves. Which other misfortune was waiting for us?
.(During the crossing, the slave boat has been stopped and examined by an
English patrol and the Arabs slave traders arrested. All of them drove to Aden
port in Yemen. NDR) The children began to shout with joy believing that we can
return to our villages. Our joy won't last. The interpreter made us know that
it's going be difficult to bring us back to our villages.
Slavery was abolished. We were free.(To Aden) They made us go out of the boat.We
have been driven to the market place. The English commandant made a speech
translated in Arabic. We didn't understand anything. After it had been
translated in Habesh. As the slave trade was forbidden, they are going to give
us to families of officers and functionaries they trust..The officers were
Ottomans and the functionaries sanjaks. (One Ottoman officer, Yakup, in mission
to Aden took him and came back with him to Istanbul. NDR)
.It was winter. It was the first time that I saw the snow. I was cold. Yakup
offered me to somebody famous in Istanbul. I was disappointed. I loved Yakup
like my father. He offered me to the Cerkez Mehmet Pasa. Can somebody offer a
human as a gift? I understood after that it can happen.In 1918 with the
MESUTIET they freed us.We bought this house with a friend, lady of the palace.
We cope with it. It's our destiny."
Beshir Agha(a famous black eunuch) has a biography about him, can't post the link for some reason but google it
