The interests of The United States throughout the Ottoman Empire

Mavi Boncuk |


On the whole, the interests of the United States throughout the Ottoman Empire were peculiar, in that the majority of the complaints related to personal, as distinct from commercial, rights. I have said in an earlier chapter that some of the questions at issue, especially those involving extraterritoriality, grew out of capitulations dating back over four hundred years, to the conquest of Constantinople by the Moslems in 1453. The terms of these capitulations or "privileges" were made originally between the Greeks and the various Italian[87] city republics—Pisa, Genoa, Venice. The Moslems later embodied them in revised capitulations with France in 1535, 1604, 1673, and 1740; with England in 1583 and 1675; with Holland in 1680; with Austria in 1718; and with Russia in 1783. On these later European capitulations was based our own first treaty with the Sublime Porte in 1830. Practically speaking, therefore, consular jurisdiction in Turkey was then not very different from what it was in the fifteenth century.


When I took office one of the vexatious questions to be settled was the interpretation of Clause IV of the Treaty of 1830. This treaty was negotiated by Charles Rhind, as American commissioner, with Reis Effendi, Turkish representative. Rhind had prepared it, with the help of dragoman Navoni, in French and in Turkish, and when it was finally drawn up, according to Rhind's own report, Reis Effendi "signed and sealed the treaty in Turkish and I did the same with the French translation, and we exchanged them." Thereupon the original Turkish version, together with a copy of the French translation as signed by the American commissioners—President Jackson had appointed Captain James Biddle and David Offley together with Rhind—and several English translations were transmitted to Washington. The treaty actually approved by the Senate was one of the English versions.


Before the ratifications were exchanged the American chargé d'affaires at Constantinople, David Porter, received word that the French version was not exactly in agreement with the Turkish. Porter's simple method of correcting this discrepancy was to sign a document, also in the Turkish language, accepting the Turkish version of the treaty without reserve; and when the translation of this document reached Washington nothing further was said.


Indeed, the treaty rested in peace until 1868, when the American minister, acting according to the English version, clashed with the Turkish authorities in the interpretation of Clause IV, regarding jurisdiction over American citizens—in this case two who had been arrested and imprisoned for alleged offenses against the Turkish Government. The English version read:


Citizens of the United States of America, quietly pursuing their commerce, and not being charged or convicted of any crime or offence, shall not be molested; and even when they may have committed some offence they shall not be arrested and put in prison, by the local authorities, but they shall be tried by their Minister or Consul, and punished according to their offence, following, in this respect, the usage observed towards other Franks.


When our Government proceeded to obtain exact translations of this clause, it was found that the Turkish version did not contain the words "arrested" or "tried," although the phraseology made clear that American citizens were not to be imprisoned in Turkish prisons, but punished through their minister or consul. Consequently, the Turkish authorities could arrest but not imprison, could try but not inflict punishment.


The Turkish Government would not recognize as accurate any of the translations the United States presented. When asked to present a translation of its own, however, the matter was gradually put in abeyance.


Under Four Administrations, From Cleveland to Taft by Oscar S. Straus (Dec. 23, 1850-May 3, 1926) Presidential Cabinet Secretary, US Diplomat. Served as United States Minister to Turkey