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The Pariah Syndrome was scanned and proofed by Marko Courbet, email . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pariah Syndrome: An account of Gypsy slavery and persecution by Ian Hancock Table of Contents Acknowledgments Foreword Introduction I Out of India II Reception in Europe III Conditions of Slavery IV Towards Abolition V The Post-Emancipation Situation VI Treatment Elsewhere in Europe: Transylvania, Hungary and Russia VII Treatment Elsewhere in Europe: Spain, Portugal and France VIII Treatment Elsewhere in Europe: Germany IX German Treatment of Gypsies in the Twentieth Century X German and Dutch Transportations to America XI Treatment Elsewhere in Europe: England and Scotland XII British Shipment to the Americas XIII The Contemporary Situation of Gypsies in Europe XIV The Contemporary Situation of Gypsies in North America XV Anti-Gypsyism XVI Afterword XVII Appendix A: Definition of Terms XVIII Appendix B: Media Representation of Gypsies XIX List of Works Consulted -------------------------------------- Notes about the web version of The Pariah Syndrome: The author, Ian F. Hancock, of British Romani and Hungarian Romani descent, represents Roma on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He is professor of Romani Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and has authored nearly 300 publications. In 1997, he was awarded the international Rafto Human Rights Prize (Norway), and in 1998 was recipient of the Gamaliel Chair in Peace and Justice (USA). To contact Dr. Hancock, send e-mail to . The web version of this book includes new passages by the author not found in the original printed version. The original edition of this book (1987) uses diacritics for Romanian and Romani (Rromanes), and includes texts in the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets. When possible, care has been taken to reproduce these diacritics, or their phonological equivalents. This has not been entirely possible because of HTML limitations. For a faithful rendition of all diacritics and texts, it is recommended that the printed version of The Pariah Syndrome be consulted. Throughout, except in quotes from other works, the spelling Rumania(n), rather than the more widely-accepted Romania(n) has been preferred in order to distinguish it more readily from Romani. --------------------------------- Original Copyright (c) 1987 by Karoma Publishers, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan. ISBN 0897200799. Reproduced by the Patrin Web Journal with the generous permission of the author, Dr. Ian F. Hancock. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pariah Syndrome by Ian Hancock Acknowledgments This is a corrected and expanded version of a monograph called Land of Pain which I wrote and circulated among a number of colleagues in 1982. It is based upon a collection of texts which in most cases I have had to translate, or have translated. I should very much like to acknowledge the help given me in the preparation of this study by those friends and colleagues, who include Thomas Acton, Sascha Bley-Vroman, Harry Bryer, Madeleine Kabore, Donald Kenrick, Barbara Lalla, Ronald Lee, Joseph Miller, David Smith and, in particular, Victor Friedman. My thanks to each of them. -------------------------------------- Foreword by Dr. T.A. Acton Ian Hancock is a marginal man. Like all Romani intellectuals, he has had to live torn between the pariah status of his people and the embrace of a dominant culture which can hardly conceive of such a monster as an educated Gypsy. Some Gypsies in this position accept this, and pass as non-Gypsies, keeping at a distance all their Romani relatives, and keeping silence at who knows what cost, to them and their own children, on all of their family's past. But a sprinkling of such people find a personal liberation by joining Romani organizations where intellectuals can make a political contribution to winning a better place in society for their people. They have to face incomprehension by non-Gypsies, and often rejection by assimilated relatives, and the constant accusation that they are not "true Gypsies." Face to face with the divided reality of their identity, they are like the man in Yevtushenko's poem, strung out on a high-wire "between the city of yes and the city of no." There are many ethnic groups among the Gypsies, with a great variety of dialect, culture and occupation. In Europe and the West, however, two brute historical facts have shaped their history from the 15th century on: enslavement (particularly in eastern Europe), and attempted genocide (especially in western Europe), from which have emerged the commercial nomadism of Gypsies in western Europe and the artisan sub-proletariat of Gypsies in eastern Europe. Although the variety of Gypsy economy is, and always has been, enormous, there are perhaps three core fields in which both nomads and slaves were involved: metalwork, transport animals and vehicles, and entertainment. Ian Hancock's family belongs very much within the entertainment tradition; arguably, as a university professor, he is still in it. His forebears were among those Hungarian Gypsies from both the Romungri and the Lovari ethnic groups who were involved with circuses and show business and who came to England in small numbers in the nineteenth century and intermarried with English Gypsies in the same line of work. Then, as now, the British circus and fairground world and its trade association, the Showmen's Guild, were dominated by the large, non-Gypsy, circus and fairground magnates, who repudiated any idea of association with Gypsy ethnicity for their organization, in order to make it politically more acceptable. The small Romani showmen, whether originating in Britain or overseas, have become in this century a distinct population in their own right. As the fairground world has contracted, many have settled, especially in west and south London. Redevelopment of areas of Battersea and Wandsworth, with their settled Romani populations, has in turn more recently led some of these families to return to a nomadic life. Some of Hancock's relatives have now married non-showmen English Romani Travellers. It was this milieu from which Hancock's family emigrated to Canada when he was in his early teens, and to which he returned as a young man, when I made his acquaintance. He has begun to document his own family background in the journal Lacio Drom. Plucked by the London School of Oriental and African Studies in the mid-1960s from life as a spray-painter for Bush Rank and sometime road manager for the English band The Outlaws, he has since become a distinguished academic with an international reputation in the field of Creole linguistics, and some 160 publications to his name. One might think that such an established reputation would make it easier for him to intervene in the field of Romani Studies. This has not been the case: there exist today non-Gypsy experts on Gypsy affairs who, by and large, have the field neatly sewn up among themselves. The questions to which these experts address themselves - and I write as one such myself - are determined by academic and policy schema external to the Gypsies' own realities. If they are anthropologists, they are concerned with matters like kinship terminology; if they are linguists, with, say, the genitive construction, and if they are social workers, with school attendance. They are not concerned with acknowledging the crimes of society against this people. They usually concentrate on the "problems" of the present, and either ignore history or present a stylized and inaccurate account of it. Despite the wealth of documentation to which Hancock refers, both popular and scholarly accounts of Gypsies still tend to maunder on about their "mysterious history." The very fact of slavery can be almost suppressed. Anthropologists have tended to present the Rom as primordially nomadic, building their theories around this, ignoring the fact that many of their "subjects" are only four generations from slavery. Nor have Gypsies in general been able to challenge these perceptions. At the time of liberation, the freed slaves had, as Hancock shows, the lowest social status of any group, while runaway and rebel slaves were considered as criminals. Ex-slaves tried to make out as free craftsmen, or like their nomadic kin, or else tried to assimilate: to be anything but an ex-slave. It took a period of detachment and reassessment before anyone could turn round and say "No! These rebel slaves were heroes." This was the message of a remarkable novel, Le Prix de la Liberté, (1955) by a French Rom, Matéo Maximoff, whose own grandfather was born in slavery in Rumania. This novel deals with the dying days of Romani slavery when, as Panaitescu (1941) and Stahl (1980) have shown, slavery and serfdom were no longer economic propositions in a society that was being drawn into the capitalist world system. But as the prices in the slave markets tumbled, and French-educated Rumanian liberals called for emancipation, many slave-owners increased rather than abated their cruelties to their declining assets. Maximoff's novel follows one small group, which flees from an estate to join the rebels in the mountains. He confronts the Kalderash Rom people with their own historical shame as ex-slaves, and seeks to replace that shame by justified indignation, and by pride in the resistance that did occur. The leading figure in this novel, Isvan, is loosely based on Maximoff's own grandfather. Isvan is educated by his master and becomes his librarian-cum-secretary, and has to face the dilemma between remaining in this comfortable and privileged position, or joining the revolt of his people. He is, in fact, the prototype of the modern civil rights Gypsy activist-and perhaps of anti-colonialist politicians in general. He is also a marginal man, a liberal intellectual amongst an illiterate tribal people. After being educated with his master's children, he has to endure his own family's suspicions, and being thought a traitor; yet without his knowledge of his master's world, no revolt could hope to succeed. Maximoff, the novelist and preacher, used his moral imagination to recreate this world for the reader. Hancock, the scholar, has used his academic talents to establish, beyond any question, by wilfully blind gajé, its documentary reality. The earlier title of this study was Land of Pain, and the pain in question was partly their own, in coming to terms with this bitter past. Both Hancock and Maximoff are latter-day Isvans. The market for Le Prix de la Liberté and Land of Pain has been hard for publishers to comprehend. Le Prix de la Liberté was hacked to pieces by its first editors, and though it has remained in print in German, was out of print in French for many years, and Romani and English versions have yet to be published. The Pariah Syndrome, as Land of Pain appeared in a roughly mimeographed form which soon became unavailable, and was thereafter passed from hand to hand in ever more roughly Xeroxed copies across Europe. Their very unavailability has seemed to increase the demand for them from the slowly gathering numbers of literate Gypsies across the world. Together with The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies by Kenrick and Puxon (1972), which deals with the Nazi genocide dealt with in the present work, and due to appear in a UNESCO-sponsored Romani-language edition in 1987, these books form the foundation of a prose literature which will actually serve the needs of the emergent Romani nation. Whether it is the past, or the future, of the Romani peoples that one wishes to understand, the publication of this edition of The Pariah Syndrome could not be more timely. Thames Polytechnic London,1986 -------------------------------------- Foreword to the Patrin Web Journal edition This book was the first in English to deal with the enslavement of the Romani people in Romania. When it first appeared in 1987, no one expected that massive political and social changes would begin to take place in Eastern Europe just two years later. With the death of Ceaucescu in 1989 and the shift to democracy in Romania, many more documents concerning those more than five terrible centuries have come to light, and our knowledge of the nature of Gypsy slavery, and the implications it has for our understanding of the world view and character of those descended from it -- the Vlax Roma -- are just now beginning to be understood. Together with the Porrajmos (the Holocaust), the period of slavery stands as the single most tragic event in the European experience of my people. Together they must form an integral part of the textbooks in the schools, for not only must we not forget our history, but those who are responsible for these crimes against humanity must also not be allowed to forget; for if such things fade into oblivion, they can too easily happen again. Ian Hancock Buda, Texas, 1999 -------------------------------------- Introduction The enslavement of Gypsies came to an end something over a century ago. It may be fairly estimated that well over half of the entire Romani population of Europe at the time of its institution in the 14th century were thus subjugated and, during the following five hundred years, were the mainstay of the economy which oppressed them. While this situation endured in eastern Europe, western European nations were transporting people to India, Africa and the Americas as an unpaid labor force, for no other reason than that they were Gypsies. Despite these facts, the Gypsy presence is not acknowledged in a single treatment of the Atlantic slave trade - over one hundred were examined in the preparation of this work - and not one of the principal sources for Balkan history, such as the works of Scherill, Stavrianos or Wolff, deals with the subject at all. It is understandable, though not particularly admirable, that there should be deliberate suppression in modern Rumania of this shameful period in their history. I have been told by two scholars from that country, one of them an historian, that this topic is not dealt with in the Rumanian school system, nor is likely to be in the foreseeable future. Attempts to obtain any kind of official statement in this connection from Rumanian governmental sources remain consistently unacknowledged. In Rumania itself, Beck encountered prejudice against the Tsigani (Gypsy) population at all levels, a situation he has described in a recently-published paper in which he concludes that Romanians who are in administrative government and political positions of authority, explain the Tsigani situation by referring to America. "You know," they say, "The Tsigani are like your Negroes": foreign, lazy, shiftless, untrustworthy and black (1985:105). The reluctance to recognise this by agencies outside of eastern Europe is less easy to understand, however. For example, the Slavic and East European Journal, the East European Quarterly, the Slavonic and East European Review and the Slavic Review: American Quarterly of Soviet and East European Studies all declined to publish an article based upon this study, the latter giving the reason that it was not an appropriate submission ... [since] the focus is specifically on the Rom." The North American Chapter of the Gypsy Lore Society did acknowledge in one of their own anthologies, after receiving a copy of the same article, that in the course of the Romani diaspora into Europe some groups remained in the Balkans, some possibly in servitude" (Salo, 1982:263). The world does not yet appear ready to believe that the enslavement of Gypsies ever happened, or that it was significant enough to warrant being brought to the attention of the larger community. In Romani, there is the saying that kon mangel te kerel tumendar roburen chi shocha phenela tumen o chachimos pa tumare perintonde, "he who wants to enslave you will never tell you the truth about your forefathers." We cannot wait for others to document this truth; our forefathers' history must be told by ourselves. While the enslavement of Gypsies has been abolished for over a century, equally inhumane forms of oppression continue to be perpetuated into the present day. I have tried to incorporate examples of some of these into the picture here too. The situation which led eventually to Hitler's attempt to exterminate the entire Gypsy people is dealt with, not as something separate or unique, but as just one other episode in the roster of persecution which has followed Gypsies through history. In many ways, little has changed since the end of the Second World War; the persecutions continue, but are simply not centralized in the same way. Official statements calling for the sterilization, deportation and even extermination of Gypsies are still being released today in both eastern and western European countries. In the United States, history books exclude any references to Gypsy American history; the several hundred thousand Romani Americans are the only ethnic minority in the country against whom laws are still in effect, and who are portrayed negatively in school textbooks. The responses from governmental and educational sources are that the Gypsies referred to in the laws or in children's literature are not real people, and have nothing to do with the ethnic population of the same name. And yet this Gypsy has been created out of the Romani population by the gajé, and become institutionalized in Euro-American folklore, and it is real Gypsies who suffer because of it. I have tried to account for this by an assumption that there has been a tacit manipulation of the Romani population by the establishment which, for its own purposes, sustains the "mythical" identity it has created, and resists efforts on the part of those thus defined to adjust such an image. Sibley has addressed this most clearly: It is notable that myth contributes in a significant way to the shaping of images of groups that do not fit the dominant social model. The possibility that the characterization of social groups like ... Gypsies may be based on myth is rarely considered, particularly in governmental circles, probably because these myths are functional-they serve to define the boundaries of the dominant system. Accounts of non-conforming behaviour assume the form of a romantic myth, or they involve amputations of deviancy, which are also largely mythical; the romantic image, located at a distance or in the past, necessarily puts the minority on the outside (1981:195-196). Only cursory acknowledgement of the five centuries of slavery endured by the Balkan Gypsies has yet been made; no detailed treatments at all have appeared in English. Potra's 376-page collection of documents relating to Gypsy slavery, written entirely in Rumanian, is the only substantial study to have appeared to date, and the only reviewer to my knowledge who has discussed this work in English, Frederick Ackerley, maintained that reading it was a "pleasure" and a "delight" because it gave him a chance to practice his Rumanian. His review dealt with the Romani words the book contained rather than with the awful facts of Gypsy history it revealed (1942:69-71). Hardly much more is available on the fate of Gypsies in the Holocaust, and only one full-length book in English has been published on that. While their ex-owners were compensated to the sum of 96 francs per slave at the time of abolition (Blaramberg, 1885:802), nothing was forthcoming from the Rumanian government for the freed slaves themselves, no orientation programs set up to integrate the newly-liberated into society, no assistance with housing or health care. Gypsies were left to fend for themselves in a hostile environment, totally unequipped to deal with the anti-Gypsy laws in effect everywhere throughout Europe and, when they came here, North America. And in the same way, nothing was done to help Gypsies after the war. None were called to testify at the Nuremberg Trials or any of the subsequent war crime hearings, and no reparation has ever been forthcoming. No Gypsies were invited to participate in the formation of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, established by President Carter in 1979 to honor the memory of all who perished in the Third Reich and, despite three years lobbying in Washington on the part of a number of American Romani organizations to protest against this, the Office of Presidential Appointments voted in 1986 to exclude once again any Gypsy representation on the 65-member council. A people which have been denied access to the means by which other persecuted groups have been able to fight back - schooling, settled housing, opportunities for civil and political organization - remain at the mercy of the popular press, and herein lies one of the biggest problems of all. Journalists invariably tend to exploit the fictitious image of Gypsies, catering to a public familiar only with the Borrovian stereotype they help sustain, and fail to investigate in their reports the real problems which Gypsies must deal with on a day-to-day basis. When such issues have occasionally been covered, it has been in terms not usually sympathetic to the Gypsies' own situation. If this is not a cause for concern among the non-Gypsy population, if that population is reluctant to be reminded about what it has done, and what it continues to do, then the Romani voice must be louder. But one way or another, it will be heard. Dedzhava zumavas te haljaras anda soste si kachi but bisicharimata anda le gadzhende te prindzharen amaro rrevdimos thaj amari dukh. Ba fal-ame ke vorta mangen le gadzhe te garaven kakala prami; ande kodole dzhes ferdi 'l Rroma achen, kaj si narado etniko amerikano potriva kaste si zakonurja. Pashchi pandzh shel miji amare phralenge thaj phenjange mudardiline ande'l bov le Hitleroske, kana zumadjas tistara te prepedil amaro njamo (Hancock, 1980a) and'o Baro Porrajmos, numa akhardilo manaj jekh korkoro Rrom ka e Kris Nurembergaki. Arakhle pashchi kodo numero lengo slobodo el dzhutestar le rrobimaske, 'kh cirra maj katar shel bersh anglal, ande 1864; vushoro shaj gichisaras ke maj katar dopash anda o narodo integro ankerdile telal, tela el tiraxande le gadzhende balkanutne. Anda kodole pandzh shel bersh o berand samas la cexrake kaj sas e zor lenge themenge: kodzhja zor kaj pharejadja p'amende. Antunch tradine amen le gadzhe sar rroburja thaj chora, k'e Afrika, th'e Amerika aj vi k'e Indija, phuv amare rruduchinenge. Manaj nishte klishki kaj den kachja shtirja. Mashkar le klishke le maj dzhangle pa e istorija evropjani vorka balkanutni, chi arakhena tume dazhi jekh korkoro svato. Bilengo apojde musaj te mothos e lumja. Kam-prindzhardjuvas; kamashundjuvas! Ian Hancock International Romani Union Buda, Texas, 1986 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pariah Syndrome I. Out of India The Romani people (Roma, or Gypsies) are of northern Indian origin, having moved out of that area probably some time between AD 800 and AD 950, migrating westwards into Europe and arriving there some time after AD 1100. According to Sampson (1923), linguistic evidence suggests that the ancestors of all Gypsy populations, whom we may refer to as the Domba, following Kaufman (1984), left India at the same time. He believed them to have constituted a single race speaking the same language, which subsequently diverged into two linguistic branches: the Nawar, Kurbat, Karachi and Helebi now found throughout Egypt and the Middle East on the one hand, and the Boga in Armenia and eastern Turkey, and the Rom or Roma in Europe, on the other: [Chart] On the basis of more recent scholarship, however, there is some reason to believe that the three populations usually thought to comprise the descendants of the Domba may in fact have each left India at different times and under different circumstances (Hancock, 1986a); though each exhibits considerable lexical adoption from Persian, for example, there are no items shared by all three branches, and the same is true for the Armenian items in Central and Western Gypsy. If the same people had passed through the same areas at the same time, we would expect to find that at least some of the same words had been adopted. A further argument suggesting that these last may also have left India later than Eastern Gypsy, resides in the fact that their language retains traces of a third grammatical gender, which had become lost in the Central and North-Western Indic dialects by the beginning of the Mediaeval period. Presumably the European and Armenian branches separated after this loss was completed, since there is no evidence of a three-gender system in either, though vestiges are to be found in Domari. The reasons for this exodus of thousands of miles over a period of as many years are not well understood. It is possible that the Domba who first left India did so as prisoners of war, or else as captive entertainers, and as marginals were carried further and further westwards on the crest of a succession of Middle Eastern wars. An alternative and more recent hypothesis suggests that the original population was a mixed one, consisting of Rajasthani-speaking Rajput cavalry together with their camp-followers who, coming from various different linguistic groups within the Shudra caste, moved westwards into Iran some time during the 10th century and were unable to find their way back into India again. As an isolated population in foreign territory it remained intact, social barriers slowly giving way as their commonly-shared Indian backgrounds increasingly became a unifying factor. While this might account for the diverse Indic content of the Romani lexicon and for the name Rom, and perhaps even for the traditional association of Gypsies with horses as a means of travel and an item of trade (and, through their racing and care, a source of income), concrete evidence to support this explanation is lacking. In any case, the boundaries separating language and caste in India were less rigid than the traditional studies have indicated, and the presence of both Central and North-Western features which Turner (1927) believed to be evidence of the routes of the first Gypsy migrations, is not a characteristic limited solely to Romani. There is no real evidence of why the move was made from Iran into Armenia. In the late 19th century the Dutch historian De Goeje suggested that the ancestors of those Gypsies were the 27,000 Zott captured by the Byzantines in AD 855 and taken north-westwards into Syria; but there is no evidence to show that these were the Domba, and the language of their descendants, Jakati, is a dialect of Arabic, not Indian. Reasons for the move from Armenia into the western Byzantine Empire are perhaps better understood, and was the result of yet another invasion: that of the Seljuks from the East, who ousted. Orthodox Christianity and instituted Islam. Soulis tells us ...we must conclude that the appearance of the Gypsies in Byzantinelands is undoubtedly connected with the Seljuk raids in Armenia where the Gypsies, who subsequently appeared in Europe, had stayed for a long time, as the great number of Armenian loan-words in their vocabulary testifies. These continuous raids, which caused the dislocation of the Armenian people and resulted at the end of the eleventh century in the creation of Little Armenia in Sicilia, must have been responsible also for the westward movement of the Gypsies and their invasion of Byzantine Anatolia (1961:163). [Illustration with caption] The Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean in 1355 (Holmboe and Holmboe, 1970:53) Estimates of the dates of arrival of Gypsies in Europe differ from scholar to scholar, though Bercovici's claim that "Gypsies were already on the banks of the Danube when the Roman legions appeared" is surely an example of the kind of overstatement for which he is well known. The Rumanian scholar Bogdan Petreceicu Haêdeu has analysed a number of documents, first referred to by Bataillard (1849:50-51) indicating that Gypsies were in the Balkans, and had started to be enslaved, some time prior to AD 1300; the dates and the validity of these have been discussed by Soulis (1961:161). With Mohammed II's successful defeat of Constantine, emperor of what remained of Byzantium in 1453, the Byzantine Empire and the Middle Ages came to an end; scholars and artists fleeing to the West helped lay the foundations for the European Renaissance. In the Byzantine Empire, which lasted for eleven centuries, Gypsies constituted an oppressed caste, although perhaps not as slaves. This was due in part to their having been regarded as Muslims in a Christian empire (and later as Christians, when the Ottomans occupied the region). Relationships with non-Gypsies appear in fact to have been more cordial during this period than they were to become later in Europe. Others were confused with members of the heretic sect of Athiganoi, hence the later names Cigane, Zigeuner, Tsigane, &c., current in various European languages meaning 'Gypsy' (discussed e.g. in Groome, 1899:xxii-xxiii, and Starr, 1936). Occupying this social position, they were forbidden to enter churches, or to intermarry with whites, and were permitted to follow certain occupations only. Conservative Romani dialects remain two thirds or more Indian in their basic lexicon and grammar, retaining in fact features which have become lost in their neo-Indic cognates. Romani contains a high proportion of Byzantine Greek vocabulary also, acquired during the period spent in Byzantium, and which above all reflects their position as domestics and artisans in that society. The fact that Gypsies were artisans was significant, in light of what was to follow in Europe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pariah Syndrome II. Reception in Europe The documents which Hashdeu translated and analysed (1867, 1877) were found among papers in the archives of a monastery in Tismana, in a part of Little Wallachia called Oltenia. One of these, bearing the date 1387 and signed by Mircea (Mirsha) the Great, indicates that Gypsies had been in Wallachia for almost a century before that. Another of the documents was in the form of a receipt for forty families of Gypsy slaves presented as a gift; another was a receipt for some slaves given to the monastery at Prizren by the King of Serbia, Emperor Dushan, dated 1348, although Miklosich (1875, vol. iii, pp.6-7) questioned whether the wording in fact refers to Gypsies, an interpretation first given it by Shafarik (n.d., p.56). Miklosich's reservations were supported in a later study by Novakovich (1911:383), who makes a case for the reference being to cobblers rather than to Gypsies. Still another was a bill of sale for three Gypsies, the cost of whom was forty horseshoes. The original language of these references, two of which are reproduced here, appears to be Church Slavic. They were published first in Hashdeu (1867:191), and later in Miklosich (loc. cit.) and Serboianu (1930:45-46), though in the latter they are reproduced very inaccurately. In Miklosich are found His Majesty confirms the receipt of the gifts made by my late uncle, Vladislav, voivod at Saint Anthony of Voditsa, namely the village of Zhidovishtitsa, the orchards of Bahnino, the grain mills along the Bistritsa River, and forty families of Gypsies. There are also some Gypsies: the first, the chief artisan Raiko, then Bojko, son of Zlatar, Basil, son of Sukjas, for whom he is to give forty horseshoes each year. The reasons for the institution of slavery in the Balkans were economic as much as anything else; at the beginning of the Middle Ages, eastern Europe in particular was profiting from its trade with the Orient. When the Muslims moved westwards into the Byzantine Empire, then a Greek-speaking, Christian nation, they cut off European access to the East, and consequently to the Holy Land as well. The maritime expansion and resulting settlement of the Americas were a direct outcome of this: an attempt to find alternative trade routes to the Indies. Also resulting from the Islamic encroachment were the Crusades, a series of holy wars which lasted from 1099 to 1212. There were two routes which the Crusaders took from Europe to Jerusalem, one across northern Europe through Holland, Germany and Poland, thence south along the Danube, and the other through Hungary and Wallachia, both of these routes leading to ports on the Black Sea. Because of the constant military traffic through southern Europe, and the prosperity that feeding and equipping an army brings to a society in time of war, the Balkans flourished, while western Europe entered a period of slow decline. Balkan trade also prospered, since the flow of soldiers made the trade routes safer. Because of the losses of war, there was a gradual depletion of manpower throughout south-eastern Europe. The peasantry moved up in the social system to become the new middle class in Moldavia, Transylvania and Wallachia (Panaitescu, 1941). While this was happening, the Tatars were invading Europe in a succession of attacks between 1241 and the mid-1400s. Because of the decline, and eventual fall, of Byzantium in the middle of the 15th century, and because of the Mongol invasions further north in Europe, and the Moorish domination in the southwest, a strong anti-Islamic sentiment had become very firmly established. This was the situation which Gypsies met upon their arrival in Europe. * * * At first, the virtual absence of a working class made welcome the skills which Gypsies brought with them from Byzantium and beyond. Two of these skills were smelting and the manufacture of firearms and shot, probably learnt in Armenia and the Byzantine Empire: the words in Armenian for both 'furnace' and 'tin', and the Greek words for 'lead', 'copper', 'nails' and 'horseshoes' have become a part of Romani vocabulary everywhere throughout Europe. But this attitude was not to last. Because of their strange language and appearance, and their dark skin, they were believed in Christian areas to be Tatars, intruders from the lands now occupied by the Muslims. This was especially true in areas remote from Islamic contact, where the local population had no first-hand idea of what actual Tatars looked like. Even today, two of the words for 'Gypsy' in the German language are Tatar and Heiden (i.e. 'Heathen', 'non-Christian'). There is indication that in Muslim-held areas, Gypsies were regarded as Christians, or at least as non-Muslims, and treated accordingly in terms of taxation and status. They may well have begun to acquire some aspects of Christianity in Armenia: the Romani word for 'Easter', for example, is derived from Armenian, although an earlier religion, which survives only in fragments today, appears to have its roots in Zoroastrianism, which could have been acquired in either India or Iran, or Manichaeanism, which existed in both Iran and Syria at the time of the exodus through those lands (Hancock, 1987). Kenrick and Puxon believe that the present-day hatred of Gypsies in Europe is a folk-memory of this first encounter, stemming from "the conviction that blackness denotes inferiority and evil [which] was well rooted in the western mind. The nearly black skins of many Gypsies marked them out to be victims of this prejudice" (1972:19). European folklore contains a number of references to the Gypsies' complexion: a Greek proverb says "Go to the Gypsy children and choose the whitest," and in Yiddish, "The same sun that whitens the linen darkens the Gypsy," and "No washing ever whitens the black Gypsy." One word in Romani which Gypsies in some countries use as a name for themselves means 'black', and is an Indian word of ultimately Dravidian origin: Caló, among the Spanish Gypsies, and Kalo in Finland. Caucasian non-Gypsies are called Parné or Panorré "whites" in some Romani dialects, even by fair-skinned Gypsies. Hoyland repeats the Elizabethan belief that this dark skin was acquired: "Gypsies would long ago have been divested of their swarthy complexions, had they discontinued their filthy mode of living" (1816:39-40). The closing-off of the trade routes, and the continuing necessity of feeding the soldiers and the rest of the population, began to strain the economy severely, and the establishment of a large, unpaid labor force to produce food and goods more cheaply was slowly becoming a reality. Measures soon began to be taken to keep Gypsies in southern Europe by force, so necessary had they become to the economy. Gypsies, in turn, made efforts to get away from this situation, and many successfully managed to move on into northern and western Europe. In some places, however, such as Germany and Poland, they met with such cruelty, since they were believed to be Muslims (Hancock, 1980a), that they turned back to seek refuge in the mountains and forests of southern Europe, as a result finding themselves once again in the situation from which they had previously fled. Gypsies, then, were quickly incorporated, by legislation and by force, into the system which came totally to rely upon them during the five centuries which followed. * * * Some writers, such as Jirechek (1919), Potra (1939) and Chelcea (1944) have suggested not only that slavery was an inherent condition of the Gypsies, originating in their pariah status in the Sudra caste in India, but that they were slaves from the very time of their arrival in south-eastern Europe, since they were brought in as such by the conquering Tatars. This was challenged by Soulis (1961:162), who cites documentation indicating the presence of Gypsies in the Balkans prior to the arrival in the same area of the Turks. This has been upheld more recently by Gheorghe (1983), who believes that part of the Romani population migrated into Europe through the Caucasus and Crimea, turning south into the Balkans. He further believes that Gypsies were allowed to move freely and work unmolested for a century or more before social and economic factors drew them into a situation of enslavement. According to Gheorghe, it was the practice of the Rumanians to use prisoners taken in war as slaves. Citing Grigoras (1966) as his source, he gives an example of this involving Gypsies: It is recorded ... that the Moldavian prince, Stephan the Great, after a victorious was with his Wallachian neighbours (1471), transported into Moldavia 17,000 Tsigani (Gypsies) in order to use their labour force. These figures are, maybe, exaggerated; nevertheless, they suggest the high economic value attached to Gypsies (op. cit., p.16). He goes on to demonstrate that Gypsies so taken could accordingly be given, along with other property, as tribut or taxes by the barons to the princes, and that slavery as a national institution developed gradually through such means. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pariah Syndrome III. Conditions Under Slavery Once human beings are made the possessions of others, they become stripped of their identity as people and are seen simply as objects. The psychology underlying this is, among other things, probably guilt; it is easier to live with a situation such as slavery if the victims are dehumanized. Article I(37) of the Moldavian Civil Code for 1833 admitted, but dismissed, the moral wrong of slavery: Although slavery goes against the natural law of man, it has nevertheless been practiced in this principality since antiquity ... Gypsies were seen as "debased creatures, inferior even to the animals" by at least one observer, Wickenhauer, whose rationale for such a statement was that if they had had any redeeming qualities at all, Gypsies would not have been slaves (Potra, 1935:296). The earliest legal documentation referring to Gypsies as slaves date back to the reigns of Rudolph IV and Stephan Dushan (Urosh IV), 1331-1355, who made one fifth of their number the property of the monasteries and landowners (Ozanne, 1878:65, Kinder and Hilgemann, 1964:205). They are referred to variously as sclavi, scindromi or robie in the documents, Rumanian and Slavic terms meaning "slave." Throughout the Balkan principalities, Gypsies were distributed in the following way: the overall population was divided into house slaves (tsigani de casatsi) and field slaves (tsigani de ogor). The former were divided further into three categories of Slaves of the Crown or State, namely the sclavi domneshti (noblemen), sclavi curte (court) and sclavi gospod (householders), and one category of Slaves of the Church (sclavi monastiveshti). The field slaves were likewise divided into two categories, those of the boyars or barons, who were known as the sclavi coevestsi, and those of the small landowners, known as the sclavi de mosii. There were three principal occupations among the Slaves of the Crown: that of rudari (or aurari) or goldwasher, that of ursari or bear-trainer, and that of lingurari or carver of wooden spoons. In addition there was a class of laborers known as laieshi, individuals who were allowed to move with some freedom over the estates, and who did a variety of jobs. In this group were also included the lautari or musicians (properly 'fiddlers'). Slaves of the Church included the vatrashi, who were grooms, coachmen, cooks and Petty merchants, and numbers of laieshi. The different occupations followed by the laieshi have supplied the names of some of the vici, or clans, found among the contemporary Vlax (i.e. "Wallachian" or Danubian")* Gypsies: kirpachi 'basket-makers', kovachi 'blacksmiths', zlatari 'goldwashers', churari sieve-makers', chivute 'whitewashers' and so on. One characteristic of Balkan slavery was that the slaves themselves were required to give tribute to the State or, in the case of the laieshi, to their owners, so that a proportion of what they were able to find for themselves was then taken from them. *Care should be taken not to confuse geographical with linguistic classifications. Speakers of dialects of the Vlax or Danubian branch of Romani have spread to many parts of the world from the Balkans, following the abolition of slavery in the mid 19th century. As a linguistic category, the Balkan branch includes dialects spoken principally in Bulgaris and Greece, which differ in substantial ways from the Vlax dialects. [Illustration with caption] Goldwashers in the Banat The job of those involved in goldwashing has been remarked upon by a number of travelers through the region, and descriptions may be found in several sources (such as Dembsher, 1777, Grellmann, 1807, Hoyland, 1816, Clarke, 1818, Groome, 1899, and in particular, Wilsdorf, 1984). Grellmann's account from the late 18th century indicates that, unpleasant as their job was, gold washers were seen as a privileged group, and distinct from the slaves: Goldwashing, in the rivers, is another occupation, by which many thousand Gipseys, of both sexes, procure a livelihood, in the Banat, Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia ... In Wallachia and Moldavia, none of the bojars' slaves, thence called bojaresk (bojar Gipseys), are suffered to meddle with goldwashing; that being a liberty granted only to those who, like other subjects, are immediately under the prince, denominated domnesk (princely Gipseys): which are also subdivided into three classes; the first named Rudar; the second Ursar; and the third Lajaschen. The Rudars alone have the licence above mentioned; the others are obliged to seek a different means of obtaining support. Each person is forced to pay a certain tribute to government (op. cit., pp. 51-52). Those engaged to entertain their owners with music have also been described by their visitors; one such account, which contains a description of the naju or Pan-pipe, appeared in a work published in 1777: Even though the music is just as monotonous and miserable as the dance, it is the Gypsies who are charged with tickling their [owners'] ears. The violin, the German guitar, and a pipe of eight reeds into which they blow while passing it back and forth non-stop across the lips, are the local instruments (Carra, 1777:176). [Illustration with caption] Lautaris, ca. 1850 There were restrictions on the Gypsies' playing music for their own enjoyment, however; a set of instructions for dealing with one's slaves issued by the Exchequer of the Hapsburg Empire at about the same time, ruled that "the Gypsies' new masters were to beat them if they worked badly, and [they] were instructed to take particular care that they 'wasted no time on music"' (Guy, in Koudelka, 1975). Maria Theresa's list of rules ended with the direction that "They shall be permitted to amuse themselves with music, or other things, only when there is no field work for them to do" (Hoyland, 1816:74). Slaves belonging to private landowners were not subject to any laws higher than those of whoever owned them, and although the churches and monasteries were governed by the law of the land, it was their slaves who were treated most cruelly of all. The boyars were also quite ruthless, although they usually left matters of discipline to their overseer (called a ciocoi or a vatave). In one lurid account, Bercovici describes how The boyars had a special penal code for Gypsies; beating on the soles of the feet until the flesh hung in shreds ... when a runaway was caught, his neck was placed in an iron band lined with sharp points so that he could neither move his head nor lie down to rest. The boyars had no right to kill their slaves, but there was nothing said about slowly torturing them to death. No law forbade the boyar to take the most beautiful girls as his mistresses, or to separate wives from husbands, and children from parents (1928:81). Although, as Bercovici states, the laws of both Moldavia and Wallachia granted no right to the slave owners to kill their slaves, it is recorded in the diary of a French journalist, one Félix Colson, writing about a visit to the Balkans in 1839 that despite its common occurrence, not one boyar had ever been prosecuted for the murder of a Gypsy. One account tells us that "A Gypsy postillion or courier is often shot through the head or flogged to death upon any cause or no cause, without the murder being noticed, for 'he is only a zigeuner"' (Chamber's Journal, 1856:274). Colson, whose diary served as the basis of an excellent article by Roleine, described a typical visit to the home of one of these boyars: When our traveller arrives, he is led to a couch, whereupon six young women appear. Discreetly, and with care, they wash his hands, while others serve him with refreshments. Their skins are hardly brown; some of them are blonde and beautiful. Handsome too are the boys who, in groups of three, will light his pipe. No, the domestics do not work themselves to death; it's not unusual some times to find a hundred or more working in the same household ... could this kind of life be Heaven on Earth for them? Let's rejoin Colson at the dinner table: "Misery is so clearly painted on the faces of these slaves that, if you happened to glance at one, you'd lose your appetite." The Gypsy slaves are addressed by Christian names. Basil seems to be the most common, but they are also given house-names, such as Pharoah, Bronze, Dusky, Dopey or Toad, or for the women, Witch, Camel, Dishrag or Whore. Never does a group revolt. In the evening, the master makes his choice among the beautiful girls - maybe he will offer some of them to the guest - whence these light-skinned, blonde-haired Gypsies. The next morning at dawn, the Frenchman is awakened by piercing shrieks: it is punishment time. The current penalty is a hundred lashes for a broken plate of a badly-curled lock of hair ... it is at this time that the abominable falague is finally outlawed: this was when the slaves were hung up in the air and the soles of their feet were shredded with whips made of bull-sinews (Roleine, 1979:111). The offspring from these unwelcome sexual unions automatically became slaves. It was this exploitation, as Colson noted, which was largely responsible for the fact that many Gypsies are now fair-skinned; Cohn (1973:63) estimates the mean percentage of white genetic mixture as 60 percent. The mixing of white and Romani blood was not able to take place among the Netoci or runaway slaves (discussed at pp. 38-39), who lived as fugitives in the forests and mountains away from settled habitation; Ozanne comments on the distinct physical types amongst Gypsies in Rumania, which he visited in the 19th century: There are two distinct types of Gypsies in Roumania. One set have crisp hair and thick lips, with a very dark complexion. The others have a fine profile, regular features, good hair and an olive complexion (1878:62). Ozanne wrongly attributed this difference to two separate waves of Romani migration into the area: the first, descendants of the original Gypsies, and the second, refugees from India as a result of the invasions of the 'Tatars' Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane in the Middle Ages, though it is clear that the lighter-skinned individuals, nearly all house-slaves, could in fact attribute their complexions to interbreeding with Europeans. While Romani women were thus used by their white owners, Romani men were evidently seen as a sexual threat to Rumanian womanhood. Among the sclavi domneshti, there was a category called the skopici, Gypsy males who had been castrated as boys and whose job it was to drive the coaches of the women of the aristocracy without their being in fear of molestation. [Illustration with caption] The forge of a ferari or iron-worker in Wallachia Another account from a much earlier period describes the peculiar cruelty of Vlad Tepov V, better remembered as Vlad the Impaler, who came to the Wallachian throne in 1476. He disposed of some scindromes, or Gypsy slaves, presumably for sport, thus: He invited them to a festival, made them all drunk, and threw them into the fire. Another amusement of his was the construction of an enormous cauldron, into which he thrust his victims. Then, filling it with water, he made it boil, and took pleasure in the anguish of the sufferers. When the people whom he impaled writhed in agony, he had their hands and feet nailed to the posts. Some ... were compelled to eat [a] man roasted (Ozanne, 1878:189-190). Seventeenth-century laws relating to Gypsies are found in the forty-article Code of Basil the Wolf, Hospodar of Moldavia (1634-1654). Examples include Section 8 If the Gypsy slave of a boyard or any other proprietor, his woman or one of their children steal once, twice or thrice a chicken, a goose or any other trifle, they shall be pardoned; but if they steal something more valuable, they shall be punished like robbers. Section 14 He who may discover a treasure by means of sorcery, shall not be allowed to touch it, the whole belonging to the hospodar. Section 28 A slave who rapes a woman shall be condemned to be burnt alive. Section 39 [The free man] who, yielding to love, meets a girl in the road and embraces her, shall not be punished at all. Those who have written about the treatment of the slaves have believed, probably as a salve to their own consciences, that Gypsies were actually well-disposed to this barbarity: "Once they were made slaves ... it seems that they preferred this state" (Lecca, 1908:181). Paspati wondered whether Gypsies did in fact "subject themselves voluntarily to bondage "because of the "mild[er) treatment" from their owners (1861:149, emphasis added), and Emerit believed that Despite clubbings which the slave-owners meted out at random, the former did not altogether hate this tyrannical regime, which once in a while took on a paternal quality ... (1930:132). Paternalism certainly was evident; Lecca tells us that Gypsy slaves were almost the only artisans ... the Gypsy women helped the mistress of the house with her work, and they were on such good terms that they were even allowed to assist in the beautiful embroidery done by the young Rumanian women which is admired throughout the world (ibid., 192), while Colson was able to report that, "always involved in the games and childhood life of their masters," Gypsies owned by the boyars had "developed a familiar relationship with the children of the nobility" (Vaux de Foletier, 1973:26). The rustling of legally-owned slaves was not unknown, and was probably common practice despite the low cost of the slaves. A document dated 1560 tells of the abduction of Gypsies from Wallachian estates who were brought into the towns for re-sale by their kidnappers, and warning of penalties against this (Furnica, 1931). In the 16th century, a Gypsy child could be bought for about 48 cents, though people were usually sold not individually but in lots, called either cete, salash or shatre, the latter term also referring to the communities in which Gypsies lived. Roleine's novel, Prince of One Summer, deals with 19th century Gypsy slavery in the Balkans, also the central theme of The Price of Freedom by the Gypsy author Matéo Maximoff: The slave market was in full swing. The auctioneer, with his Turk-like appearance, athletic shoulders and sweeping moustache, held a whip in his right hand and eyed his prospective customers. Gentlemen! I have the honor once more to offer for sale to you the finest slaves to be found in any market in the world! ... tears flowed in silence, for a Gypsy was not supposed to cry for the miserable destiny of the brothers of his race ... (1947:7-8). Other impassioned reflections of life under slavery in the Europe of the past century are found in the poems of César Bolliac. * * * Gypsy slaves could not marry without permission. Members of the same family were sold separately, and children often taken away. In 1757, however, the law involving the disposal of children was changed, and they could no longer be sold without their parents - a short-lived reprieve in the overall condition of the Gypsy slaves: by the middle of the following century, the definition of slavery had been revised, and had perhaps become even stricter. On January 25th, 1766, Grigore-Alexandru Ghica modified the law as it applied to marriages between Gypsies and whites. Both partners would henceforth be regarded as free, but the man, and any of their children over seven years of age, would have to continue to work for their previous owner. Rather than separate a husband and wife, the husband would be substituted for by another man of equal age and skill. The pronouncement regarding mixed marriages, however, only applied to those unions already in existence; all further such marriages were to be illegal, and any priest discovered performing them was to be excommunicated. This did not prevent these relationships from developing, however, which required that a further anti-miscegenation proclamation be issued in 1776 by Constantin, Prince of Moldavia, against such an evil and wicked deed, [since ...] in some parts Gypsies have married Moldavian women, and also Moldavian men have taken in marriage Gypsy girls, which is entirely against the Christian faith, for not only have these people bound themselves to spend all their life with the Gypsies, but especially that their children remain forever in unchanged slavery ... such a deed being hateful to God, and contrary to human nature ... any priest who has had the audacity to perform such marriages, which is a great and everlasting wicked act ... will be removed from his post [and] severely punished (Ghibanescu, 1921:119-120). Just nine years after that, in 1785, a law was passed yet again forbidding such unions between Gypsies and whites, the justification this time being that it was causing individuals with Rumanian blood to become slaves. It was not considered, until the following century, that the same blood could alternatively have made the same children free. Eighty-five years later, Paspati reported that the Turks, who are not particularly punctilious in the choice of their wives, often marry Gypsy women. Not so with the Christians, who have kept themselves aloof from family connections with the Gypsies, and will rarely have any intercourse with them. No Gypsy is ever permitted to enter into any of the sacerdotal offices of the Greek church (1861:148). Unions between Gypsies themselves were arranged by their owners on occasion, in order to produce better stock. During his visit in the 1830s, Colson was invited to one such wedding, to which the man and the woman were brought struggling and in chains, to have the marriage blessed by a priest. So shocked by the hypocrisy of this was Colson, that he fled "in disgust, as though I'd assisted at a human sacrifice" (Roleine, 1979:111). Gypsies crossing into Moldavia and Wallachia from other countries were captured and automatically made slaves; indeed, this was a specific article of the Civil Code until as late as the 19th century. On the other hand, many of the semi-nomadic Netoci (singular Netoto) referred to above, were able to escape and form maroon communities in the Carpathians, where their descendants, feared by other Gypsies and by non-Gypsies alike, still live today. Again we can report from Paspati, who says The Netotsi, half savage, half naked, living by theft and rapine, feeding in times of want upon cats, dogs and mice ... are the most degraded and debased of all the Gypsy population (loc. cit.). Although the European observer saw them as the "most degraded and debased" of all Gypsies, the Netoci were the true heroes of an enslaved race, escaping subjugation and living under extremely adverse conditions in order to maintain their freedom and dignity. Ozanne, probably drawing upon Paspati for his description, also refers to the same people as ... the most savage and wild of all the Gipsy race. Half naked, and living only by theft and plunder, they feed on the flesh of cats and dogs, sleep on the bare ground or in some ruin or barn, and possess absolutely no property of any kind. They have a strong resemblance to the negro physiognomy and character (1878:65). Serboianu is rather more graphic: The Netotsi are terribly cruel, while other Gypsies have much more moderate customs. One could therefore suppose that the Netotsi were the tribe that led the way, while the others were merely slaves, who yielded unconditionally to their owners, with whom the power resided in the whips and knives they always carried about them. Of all Gypsies, only the Netotsi continue to wander, hated by all other Gypsies, since it is on their account, because of their wretched ways, that the whole world persecutes Gypsies ... From my own observations, together with what came to light at the trial [in May, 1929], I am convinced that the Netoci were, and today still are, cannibals (1930:36-37). His own observations were made at the scene of fighting following the end of the First World War, between Rumanians and Hungarians, at Szechalom in 1920. He remarked that some of the severed limbs of those slain in battle, which he had noticed earlier, were missing. His conclusion was that they had been removed by some Gypsies in the area to be cooked and eaten (ibid.). The idea of cannibalism among Gypsies was not new; a number of newspaper articles reporting this from the late 1700s are reproduced by Grellmann, who devotes several pages to it himself in a chapter entitled "On their food and beverage" (1807:15-20). Another, more humanely-disposed commentary on the Netoci is found, not unexpectedly, in Colson's journal: These are the descendants of people who managed to slip through the barriers and who kept their freedom by fleeing into the forest and uncultivated lands. Contact with non-Gypsies means capture ... they live, therefore, like primitives, by hunting and gathering, collecting plants and the like, and by poaching. Sometimes they will rob a passing traveler. Unarmed, without carts or tents, pagan, black and naked, they are perhaps more disturbing than alarming. [Illustration with caption] Portrait of a Wallachian slave When Paul Kisseleff revised the slavery laws in the Penal Code of 1833, he also ruled that the Netoci were to be recaptured and distributed between the landowners and the state. This initiated a period of guerilla warfare in the Transylvanian Alps which was to last until abolition a quarter of a century later, and during which both Netoci and white brigands fought side by side against the Prince's troops. Although by the first half of the 19th century, laws pertaining to slavery became less well-defined, according to Gaster "there seems to have been a fixed, or at any rate normal, price at which slaves were sold. For, when the Bucharest papers in 1845 announced the sale of 200 families of Gypsies, they added that they would be sold at a ducat less than usual" (1923:68), a ducat being worth 14 gold francs or four and a half piastres. A selection of statutes pertaining to Gypsies, taken from the Wallachian Penal Code of 1818, includes the following: Section 2 Gypsies are born slaves. Section 3 Anyone born of a mother who is a slave, is also a slave. Section 5 Any owner has the right to sell or give away his slaves. Section 6 Any Gypsy without an owner is the property of the Prince. Those from the Moldavian Penal Code of 1833 include: Section II:154 Legal unions cannot take place between free persons and slaves. Section II:162 Marriage between slaves cannot take place without their owner's consent. Section II: 174 The price of a slave must be fixed by the Tribunal, according to his age, condition and profession. Section II: 176 If anyone has taken a female slave as a concubine...she will become free after his death. If he has had children by her, they will also become free. [Illustration with caption] Vlad Tepov V (woodcut) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pariah Syndrome IV. Towards Abolition The old state laws instituted by Basil the Wolf in the mid 17th century had become forgotten, and efforts at legal administration were becoming increasingly disorganized. By the time of the terms of office of the hospodars (i.e. lords appointed by the Ottoman court) Caragea and Calimachi in the early 1800s, specific policies regarding slavery, as well as many other aspects of Moldavian and Wallachian law, were only vaguely understood; slave-owners meted outjustice as they saw it, with little fear of reprisal, and with increasing cruelty. Caragea and Calimachi made efforts to incorporate statutes then current in the neighboring Austrian Empire into their own jurisdiction, a move which might have ultimately been effective except that in 1826, Russia invaded the two principalities and a new governor, Paul Kisseleff, was appointed, in 1829. He was a dogmatic and stern leader, instituting extensive, conservative revisions in 1833 in the Civil Code; he too, drew upon that of the Austrian Empire for his model. Kisseleff was sickened by the concept of slavery on moral grounds, and was initially quite determined to see it abolished, despite adverse pressure from the boyars. He was also determined to stamp out bribery and corruption within his domain. Word of his anti-slavery sentiments reached the slaves themselves, some of whom, according to Colson (op. cit.) sought an audience with him at which they promised him as much gold as a horse could carry if he would abolish slavery. Kisseleff, however, reacted with anger; He accused the Gypsies not only of trying to bribe him, but of stealing some of the gold they had washed from the rivers. Because of this, he said, they would have to remain as slaves forever. He made it illegal, furthermore, for a Gypsy to move out of his district without a pass obtained from his owner. * * * Bucharest, 1834. A square. There's no crowd, just a group of people in front of a waggon pulled there by buffaloes. The passersby quicken their steps and lower their eyes so that they don't have to look at the men and women tearing at their rags in anguish. Dishevilled, dark-skinned, these are Gypsies. You can't escape the entreaties of the mothers whose children are being torn from them, nor their sobs and screams of fear, nor their curses; you can't escape the cracking of the whips breaking down their stubborn resistance to the separations inevitably to come. Although this scene is commonplace, and has already been described a hundred times, it has suddenly shocked the inhabitants of Bucharest because of the immensity of the sale. The same thing has been going on for several days now; so why this huge auction? Because Barbu Shtirbei, a Wallachian hospodar, wants to renovate his palace and needs money, and is therefore selling all of his slaves. For liquidating the stock, his banker Oprano will keep 20,000 ducats for himself. One male is worth 15 ducats, and a female 12 ducats, and children under sixteen half those amounts. This will total about 3000 slaves belonging to Shtirbei-public opinion is therefore beginning to mount (Roleine, 1979:108). * * * [Illustration with caption] On September 25th, 1848, the Rumanian revolutionaries publicly tear up the statues relating to slavery (Roleine, 1979:112). Under influence from the western European nations, these Balkan countries were beginning to develop a conscience about slavery, especially because they were coming to rely upon the West more and more for their economy. The slave auction conducted by the hospodar Barbu Shtirbei, described above by Colson, caused such widespread indignation that he hurriedly suggested abolition as a means of regaining face - but this was at once overridden by the boyars. In 1837, however, Shtirbei's successor, Alexandru Ghica, freed the slaves on the estates under his jurisdiction, and granted them equal status with the white peasants who worked for him. He also allowed them the right to practice their customs and to speak Romani. Ghica was probably influenced by the writings of a number of journalists of his day. Mihail Kogalniceanu in particular, writing in the same year, stirred public conscience with his firsthand descriptions of what he had seen as a boy growing up in Wallachia: On the streets of the Jassy of my youth, I saw human beings wearing chains on their arms and legs, others with iron clamps around their foreheads, and still others with metal collars about their necks. Cruel beatings, and other punishments such as starvation, being hung over smoking fires, solitary imprisonment and being thrown naked into the snow or the frozen rivers, such was the fate of the wretched Gypsy. The sacred institution of the family was likewise made a mockery: women were wrested from their men, and daughters from their parents. Children were torn from the breasts of those who brought them into this world, separated from their mothers and fathers and from each other, and sold to different buyers from the four corners of Rumania, like cattle. Neither humanity nor religious sentiment, nor even civil law, offered protection for these beings. It was a terrible sight, and one which cried out to Heaven (1837:16-17). A similarly moving description, written some twenty years later, is found in Vaillant's history of the Romani people: What are those animals I can make out over there, through the haze of the evening? They're coming and going, sometimes on all fours, like rats, and sometimes on two feet, like monkeys ... certainly they're not men; they're animals. My God-they are men! Gypsies! There are six of them, and an overseer too, keeping an eye on them. Can you see? They're as naked as Adam, and their bodies are smeared all over with a thick coating of tar. There are shackles on their feet and yokes on their necks, and they are removing sand from the riverbed. They are wearing cangues, those vile, triangular yokes they put on pigs to stop them from breaking through the hedges, but whose three long spikes prevent the Gypsies from being able to rest their heads ... Since morning, they had been sweating blood, with nothing to drink but river water, and nothing to eat but bits of bread baked there in the ashes, with some boiled leeks and a little salt. At the risk of its being taken away from them by the guard, I gave them each a coin, and went on my way ... (1857:409-412). [Illustration with caption] A ferari or iron-worker In his small book, Kogalniceanu compared slavery in his own country with that in the Americas: The Europeans are organizing philanthropical societies for the abolition of slavery in America, yet in the bosom of their own continent of Europe, there are 400,000 Gypsies who are slaves, and 200,000 more equally victim to barbarousness (1837:iv). Protests were heard from further afield, too; the French publication Magasin Pittoresque ended an article on Balkan slavery by an anonymous writer with the following, which surely helped in bringing the attention of western Europe to the situation: In Rumania, Gypsy is always synonymous with "filthy animal." These Rumanians, who so often have words of humanity and justice on their lips! To work towards easing the degradation of these poor beings, beaten down by pain, to render them born again into the great family of mankind, to free their souls, would not only be a humanitarian act, it would be an act of justice. Where these victimized souls are concerned, the sons should be considered no less guilty than their fathers. Ghica's move in 1837 affected only a fraction of the total: just 5,582 families out of a Romani population of nearly half a million. Nevertheless, it began a succession of similar decisions; Mihai Sturdza freed his slaves in Moldavia in 1842, and two years later, the Moldavian church liberated its slaves, followed by the same decision from the Wallachian church in 1847. The boyars, however, stubbornly refused to capitulate, despite the entreaties of the Church and the public. In 1848, a revolution led by a group of radicals returning from studying in France replaced Bibescu in the central government in Bucharest with a provisional joint leadership, which immediately proclaimed that The Rumanian people reject the inhuman and barbaric practice of owning slaves, and announce the immediate freedom of all Gypsies who belong to individual owners. It seemed that Desrrobireja - Emancipation - was at last being achieved. But in December that same year, the principalities were overrun by Russians and Turks, who reinstituted many of the old laws, including those supporting slavery. The boyars, with little difficulty, repossessed their slaves, many of whom had remained unaware of their short-lived freedom. For those who knew what was happening, this turn of events must have been a bitter blow. The Russian-Turkish Convention appointed Alexandru Ghica (grandson of Grigore-Alexandru Ghica), and Barbu Shtirbei to their Council, where they served from 1849 until 1855, in which year Grigore Ghica, a cousin of Alexandru, was made Prince of Moldavia, and Shtirbei was given control of Wallachia. But Grigore was not a strong leader, and while he claimed to deplore slavery, he hesitated to take any action. He made a show of concern by passing a law forbidding children to be sold separately from their parents, but it was nearly seven years before he finally capitulated. As a result of repeated urgings from his advisor, Edward Grenier, and in particular from his eldest daughter, Natalia Balsch, who had already liberated her own slaves and who had persuaded eight other households to follow her example, however, he finally brought the matter before the General Assembly, declaring that For many years, slavery has been abolished in all the civilized states of the Old World; only the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia retain this humiliating vestige of a barbaric society. It is a social disgrace. His proposal to abolish slavery met with unanimous approval, and on December 23rd, 1855, it became illegal in Moldavia. Shtirbei followed his lead, and the Wallachian slaves were freed a few weeks later, on February 8th, 1856. Complete legal freedom, however -- such as it was -- known as Slobuzenja and still cherished in the minds of eastern European Rom today, came in 1864. In this year, Prince Ioan Alexandru Couza, ruler of the now-united principalities (renamed Rumania in 1861) restored the liberated Gypsy slaves and the non-Roma serfs to the estates. In 1864, following a coup d'état, the government of the new Rumanian state, led by Mihail Koglniceanu who represented the progressive wing of the emerging middle class, passed a law abolishing serfdom and which provided for the redistribution of land to the peasants. This agrarian reform law created conditions favoring the development of capitalism, since it left most of the land still in the hands of the boyars, who did everything they could to limit its effects. In February, 1866, leaders from among the landowners, together with allies from the conservative middle class who were opposed to the peasants' growing power, conspired to force the abdication of Prince Couza, and replaced him on the Rumanian throne by the Prussian King Charles I of the House of Hohenzollern (Daicoviciu et al., 1959:120-122). While the land reforms were meant in theory to benefit both the freed Rumanian serfs and the liberated Gypsy slaves, they had little effect on the latter. Despite its new status, Rumania was still heavily dependent upon the Ottoman Empire, which had instituted feudalism in the first place, and which "cloaked and facilitated the economic subservience of the country to the capitalists of western Europe" (op. cit., p. 122). Roma in particular were kept in conditions hardly different from those they had endured as slaves. Writing at this time, Paspati (op. cit.) predicted optimistically that This people, so long oppressed, enslaved in body and mind, will probably, in a short time, as they rise in wealth and learning, under the fostering hand of freedom attain to some yet higher consideration, and Vaillant, in the introduction to his book which he dedicated to Alexandru and Grigore Ghica for their noble action, proclaimed that those who shed tears of compassion for the Negroes of Africa, of whom the American Republic makes its slaves, should give a kind thought to this short history of the Gypsies of India, of whom the European monarchies make their Negroes. These men, wanderers from Asia, will never again be itinerant; these slaves shall be free (1857:7). Events in Hitler's Germany eighty years later were to make sad mockery of Paspati's and Vaillant''s visions of freedom. Like Paspati, Clark believed that freedom would bring changes for the liberated Roma; he believed too that ultimately being assimilated out of existence would be the best thing for them. Such changes had still not made much impact by the end of the century, however, when Clark, who was probably the only American writer of the time to acknowledge Gypsy slavery, published his observations: ... until the accession of Prince Charles, the Roumanian Gypsies were more terribly oppressed, sunk to a lower depth of poverty, wretchedness and degradation than any otha part of their race, in any other region of the world. The great majority of the Roumanian Gypsies were slaves, held in a rigor of bondage which has never been surpassed; slaves with no rights, no protection and no hope; mere human cattle of whom their cruel, selfish owners would suffer no census to be taken. So long and relentless had this servitude been, that many of the Gypsy slaves had forgotten their own language ... The social condition of the free Gypsies of Wallachia and Moldavia was hardly to be preferred to that of the Gypsy slaves. They were living, many of them, in an utter squalidness of wretchedness and poverty, of nakedness and filth ... With the happiest of results, however, the Wallachian Gypsies have been emancipated, and all taxpayers among them are allowed to vote. What hope or promise there is in the future for such a race as this is difficult to say ... It may be that, rising from their low estate, under the genial influence of freedom of good government, Gypsies and Wallachs may rise together to the enjoyment of a common citizenship in a free and prosperous country. It may be that this is the beginning of a movement which will gradually extend into other lands, until the great body of the Gypsies throughout the civilized world, subsiding gradually into a quiet and settled life, will at length become merged and lost in the mass of the common people. Let us hope at least, that so it may be (1898:505-506). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pariah Syndrome V. The Post-Emancipation Situation After emancipation, Gypsies left in great numbers (discussed in more detail in Hancock, 1983 and 1987b), fearing that the old order would be re-established: it had happened once before in 1848. Families made for the nearest foreign border, and it is the time spent following this, in e.g. Serbia, Hungary, Russia and the Ukraine, which has led in part to the development of the linguistic, and to some extent social, divisions within the Vlax branch of Romani. Phonological developments in the different varieties of Vlax reflect interference from the regional dialects of Rumanian; the shift of original /t/ to /ch/ and /k/, for example. Some have as much as a third of their vocabulary adopted from that language; these linguistic features suggest that, among most of the Gypsies in Rumania, bilingualism was extensive. Migrations out of the Balkans went north-west from eastern Europe into Scandinavia and beyond, and through Jugoslavia into southern and western Europe. The first of these reached Paris in 1868. From Europe, considerable numbers continued on to North and South America, especially Argentina, and until their entry into the country was forbidden in the 1880s, thousands were able to make their way to the United States (see Chapter XIV). In spite of immigration policy, numbers of Vlax-speaking Rom continued to come into the U.S., especially between the two world wars. Others have settled more recently in Australia. Still others, after emancipation, with no money or possessions, and having nowhere to go, offered themselves for re-sale to their previous owners. Grauer indicates that until shortly before the Second World War at least, this was reflected in the patterns of distribution of the Romani population in Rumania: At the time of their liberation, Gypsies stayed mainly in the areas in which they had traditionally been located. Today, the densest concentrations are still found around the monasteries, which had owned many of the slaves (1934:108). [Illustration with caption] Rumania and surrounding territories at the end of the 19th century Observers such as Potra have commented on the passivity of the slaves, and have wondered why there was so little evidence of resistance, given the huge discrepancy in numbers on the estates. It was not unusual for there to be three or four hundred Gypsies working for a household of less than ten Rumanians, and yet there is no known record of any organized uprising. Grellmann (1783:13) maintains that there were such revolts, although he provides no documentation to support his claim. There is, however, a case on record from 1780 of a slave taking revenge on his master for having been tortured; the owner was overpowered and brought to the slave's hut, where he was tied up and slowly poisoned to death over a period of several months. An intensive search by the estate staff failed to find the man, suggesting that the Gypsy quarters were not usually frequented by members of the household. Centuries of powerlessness and abuse are probably the cause of this destruction of the spirit; many Gypsies, having been born to it, probably saw their enslavement as part of the natural order of things. But it is evident from examples such as the above, which could not have been an isolated incident, and from the success of the fugitive Netoci, that not everyone shared this feeling of helpless resignation. Eyewitness accounts of the condition of the Balkan Rom during the last century were generally not sympathetic. An exception is found in the notebook of Samuel Gardner, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, who visited south-eastern Europe in 1856, one year after liberation: The children, to the age of 10 or 12, are in a complete state of nudity, but the men and women, the latter offering frequently the most symmetrical form and feminine beauty, have a rude clothing. Their implements and carriages, of a peculiar construction, display much igenuity. They are in fact very able artisans and labourers, industrious and active, but are cruelly and barbarously treated. In the houses of their masters they are employed in the lowest offices, live in cellars, have the lash continually applied to them, and are still subjected to the iron collar and a kind of spiked iron mask or helmet which they are obliged to wear for every petty offence. They are subjected to other servile regulations ... they have the worst of reputations, as robbers, thieves, murderers even; ... for myself, I have never regarded them otherwise than a poor, outcast race, injured and ill-treated ... the force of prejudice is great, and the fears entertained of these poor helots are the strongest condemnation of their treatment. This contrasted clearly with the description given some years earlier by Bayle St. John, a British journalist who was obviously pandering to the middle-class sensibilities of the readers of Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words: The children go naked up to the age of ten or twelve, and whole swarms of girls and boys may sometimes be seen rolling about together in the dust or mud in summer, in the water or snow in winter, like so many black worms. As you pass by, a dozen heads of matted hair and a dozen pair of sharp eyes are raised towards you, and you are greeted with a mocking shout, which alone tells you that these hideous things are your fellow creatures. [Gypsies] use no plates or spoons, but dip their hardened fingers into the steaming kettle, and bring up a ball of porridge or a fragment of meat, which they cool by throwing from one palm to the other until they can venture to cast it down their throats. The women and children eat after the men who, as soon as they have wiped their hands in their hair, take again to their pipes and, if they can afford it, to drinking. They make themselves merry for an hour or two, until fatigue comes over them, and then go pell-mell to their huts, or stretch out by the embers of their fires. Nothing can be more abominably filthy than the habits of this degraded tribe ... we are sorry to be obliged to add that both men and women are, as a rule, exceedingly debauched. [Illustration with caption] A Gypsy habitation in Wallachia Even St. John's description of the slaves themselves reflects a literary cliché of the period, describing in stereotypical terms (like Ozanne, p.21 above), the kind of slave his Victorian audience was more likely to have been familiar with: The men are generally of lofty stature, robust and sinewy. Their skin is black or copper-coloured; their hair, thick and woolly; their lips are of negro heaviness, and their teeth white as pearls; the nose is considerably flattened, and the whole countenance is illumined, as it were, by lively, rolling eyes. Bayle St. John published his account anonymously. Another description by a writer who chose not to put his name to it, appeared in Chamber's Journal in 1856, and contains the same mixture of fascination and revulsion: On a heap of straw in the middle, in the full heat of the blazing sun, lay four gipsies asleep. They were all four tall, powerful men, with coal-black hair as coarse as rope, streaming over faces of African blackness; and as they lay relaxed in sleep, their figures seemed gigantic. Their dress, so to call it, was a collection of the vilest rags ... if an injury was committed on a gipsy, he had no redress ... Rascals as the zigeuners are, and living in the greatest misery and filth-in fact, the dirtier their huts, the better they like them - they are still a very handsome race, the women especially. These bold, brown, beautiful women only make one astonished to think how such eyes, teeth and figures can exist in the stifling atmosphere of their tents. A further eyewitness account, by yet another anonymous writer, appeared in the French journal Magasin Pittoresque and adds to the picture: Degraded by slavery, brutalized by ignorance and beatings, they have no material enjoyment by way of compensation. These are cattle, maintained by the boyar at the least possible cost; he feeds them with mamaliga, a kind of thick porridge made of corn meal. Their summer clothing consists of thick canvas which they wear until it rots off. Rain serves for their ablutions, and the children go completely naked. In winter, they drape themselves with rags scavenged from cast-offs: old suits, old coverlets, old carpets - all of these serve as their clothing. As for accommodation, they are not even allowed the luxury of dreaming about it. They ensconce themselves everywhere. In the morning, the vatave, or master's overseer, carefully wrapped in furs and with his whip in hand, assembles them together in order to assign them to the day's tasks. A distressing sight, this foul-smelling, haggard, half naked shivering group, everywhere appearing from stables, kitchens and sheds. The overseer, always hard and inflexible, beats them as much from fancy as from a desire to assert his authority. Simson, in his more moderate discussion of the Balkan Romani population, believed that "They seldom beg, and more rarely steal ... they are not an idle race; they ought rather to be described as a laborious race; and the majority honestly endeavour to earn a livelihood" (1865:74), a quotation lifted verbatim (and without acknowledgement) from Clarke (1800:592) and repeated in Hoyland (1816:261). At the same place, Simson reproduces part of a description of the Wallachian Gypsies which appeared in the 1839 Report of the Scottish Mission of Enquiry to the Jews: They are almost all slaves, bought and sold at pleasure. One was lately sold for 200 piastres, but the general price is 500. Perhaps 3 pounds is the average price, and the female Gipsies are sold much cheaper. The sale is generally carried on by private bargain. The men are the best mechanics in the country; so that smiths and masons are taken from this class. The women are considered the best cooks, and therefore almost every wealthy family has a Gipsy cook. Their appearance is similar to that of the Gipsies in other countries; being all dark, with fine black eyes, and long black hair. They have a language peculiar to themselves, and though they seem to have no system of religion, yet are very superstitious in observing lucky and unlucky days. They are all fond of music, both vocal and instrumental, and excel in it. * * * There exists a number of poems dealing with slavery and emancipation, which were composed in the mid 19th century by such writers as Coradini and Bolliac; some of these are found in the pages of Colocci (1889), translated into Italian. The originals were in French, and dwell on the magnanimity of the liberators as much as they do on the liberated - an indication of their non-Gypsy origin. English and Romani translations (by the present author) of two of these are given here, together with the original versions: Accourez tous, bien-aimés frères! Aujourd'hui accourez tous! Libres tous nous Fait le prince roumain, Ainsi soit-il! Dieu, la terre, soleil, la lune L'aurore, la forêt, l'humanité, En chœur célèbrant Tot Pour la bonté de la Moldavie Tous, les viellards, hommes faites, Jeunes hommes, agneaux de bercail, Enfants, ils ont brisé nos fers, Le prince et bon nombre de Roumains. Dieu grand! Et vous astres Qui nous avez faits à la lumière, Aimez tous les Roumains, Ils ont brisé notre esclavage. Come running, beloved brothers all- Today, come running all; For freed we are, by the Rumanian prince. Let us cry out with full voice, So let it be! God; Earth; Sun; Moon; Dawn; Forest; Humanity- In chorus they honor Tot For the goodness of Moldavia Everyone! The old, the grown, young men, babes yet in arms, and children! They have broken off our irons The Prince, and all his citizens. Great God, and all your stars which give to us the light, Love all Rumanian people, For breaking our bonds of slavery. Hajtar, prasten, kuch phralale, Te prasten orde akana; Ke slobozi kerdiljam le thagarestar rumunjako; Das baro muj Te gadzhja vorta si. O Del; o phuv; o kham; o tchon; zori, haj vosh, dzhene; Ekhetanes sharen el Totas le mishtimaske la Moldovjako Sarro! Phure, barile, le Romorre - ji bakre and'e mal; Dazhji cinorre - malade pa' mende amare lancurja - O princo thaj but rumunicka. Bare Devla! Thaj ji'l cherxa kaj kerenas amen e vedjara t'al Tume drazhi sa'l vlaxondar kaj furshosajle 'maro rrobimos! 2 Réjouissez-vous tous, nobles enfants de Rome, Vous tous, qui dans vos seins sentez battre un cœur d'homme; Plus d'esclaves chez nous! Le grand mot est lancé. Heureux qui, le premier, chez nous l'a prononcé! "Réjouissez-vous en, Moldaves! Nos divins autels sont lavés; Notre Eglise n'a plus d'esclaves." Honneur à qui les a sauvé! Ils avaient tous un cœur, ils avaient tous une âme, Tous avaient Dieu pour maître, Et pour mère une femme. Et tous au joug de fer avaient été rivés! Honneur! Honneur à vous qui les avez sauvés! Be glad, ye nobles sons of Rom, In all whose breasts do beat the hearts of men. No longer slaves! The Good Word has come down. Happy he must be who first among us said "Rejoice at this, Moldavians! Our holy altars now are all washed clean! Our Church has slaves no more!." Honor to he who freed them! For each had a heart, and each a soul, Each had God as his master, and each was born of woman- Still, each was clamped into the iron yoke. Honor! Honor to you who freed them! T'aves vojako, Rroma pachvalo, And'e kolin kaske si jilo murshano; Ma naj rroburja! Kol drazhi vorbi amenga avile. Vesolo kaj pervo mothodja "Pa kadoleste radujsavon Moldovaja; Amari svunci altarja vortosajle Ma naj la khangeriake kak rrobi." Pachiv das les kaj kerdo len mekhle. Ke svakoske sas o Del o raj pesko Thaj anda manushni kerdo. Ma svako xutilajlo ande dzhuto sastruno. Pachiv, Pachiv das les kaj kerdo mekhle. After emancipation, the freed slaves attempted to improve their condition, and safeguard against any future domination by outsiders by working together toward some kind of political unity. A pan-European congress was held in September, 1879, in Kisfalu in Hungary, with the intention of establishing civil and political rights for Gypsies throughout Europe. Little came of this. The affair was mocked in the press, who found the concepts of intellectualism and 'Gypsiness' incompatible - an attitude still very prevalent today. Lecca blamed the lack of achievement on the Gypsies themselves, believing that "laziness is one of the greatest obstacles to the[ir] development" (1908:183). In 1913, a statue of Kogalniceanu was erected at Piatri Neamts, and was reported in the western press in the Near East magazine for June 12th that year, as follows: A touching episode occurred in connection with the unveiling of the statue of Mihail Kogalniceanu at Piatra Neamtz. Mihail Kogaliniceanu was a well-known reformer, and one of his principal acts had been to secure liberty for the many thousands of Roumanian gipsies, who had hitherto been in a condition approximating to servitude. Two days after the unveiling ceremony, a vast concourse of gipsies arrived at Piatra Neamtz and proceeded to the monument. Before the statue they placed a wreath of oak leaves and wild flowers, and then, to the wierd accompaniment of a gipsy band, the whole party joined in a national dance round the statue of their liberator. In 1933, another conference, widely attended and publicized, was held by the General Association of the Gypsies of Rumania in Bucharest. It sought, among other things, to erect a monument to Grigore Ghica, and to make the date of emancipation a national holiday, and to establish a library, a hospital and a university for Rom (Haley, 1934). Although he made brief reference to this in his widely-influential book Zigeuner, which appeared three years later, Martin Block (1936:210) minimized its significance, stating (op. cit., 8) that "Gypsies offer no contribution to civilization, have no history, and do themselves in no way help to elucidate the problem of their survival." Distorted scholarship of this type, written during the time of the Nazi regime, helped justify Hitler's later program of genocide against the Romani people. [Illustration with caption] Poster advertising a slave auction in Wallachia in 1852*. It reads"For sale: a prime lot of Gypsy slaves, for sale by auction at the Monastery of St. Elias, May 8th, 1852. Consisting of eighteen men, ten boys, seven women and three girls, in fine condition." *A photostat of this poster was kindly sent to me by Mr. Nicolae Oprescu of Bucharest. The poster appears to have provided the model for a similar illustration in Colocci (1889:89). The general attitude in Rumania has not improved, as Beck has shown. Two American visitors to that country some years ago reported that poisoning Gypsies has been one means of dealing with them: Later that day, we came to a Gypsy camp by a stream. A small, dark-skinned boy - barefoot and dirty - ran to beg for money. Bill tried a few words of Rumanian he had learned, but the child would not come close. Bill then offered him a piece of chocolate, whereupon the boy suddenly screamed "Moarte! Moarte! - Death! Death!" and scurried away. Many times in the past, we were told, the unwanted Gypsies were given poisoned food. One of the first lessons drummed into a Gypsy child is never to accept food from strangers (Durrancell and Knight, 1979:820). It is the almost total lack of concern for anything except the traditional, from governmental and academic bodies, which has, more than any other factor, hindered the advancement of the Romani people. The wonder is rather that, since emancipation, Gypsies have continued to fight vicious discrimination in every country they have been in, and from every government. Yet with practically no help whatsoever from any outside agency, they have gained admittance to the United Nations Organization and the Council of Europe. Since 1971, there have been three international congresses, and the World Romani Union which sponsors these, now has bureaux in 27 countries. In March, 1982, twenty years after its founding, another Romani organization, the Comité International Rom held a ceremony commemorating the 125th anniversary of abolition, and has made this a recurrent event. Kogalniceanu predicted that the abolition of slavery would herald the demise of Romani, since "in becoming civilized, they will experience new concepts, and not retain so defective a language" (1837:36). Since the end of the Second World War, however, and in particular since the Romani people obtained permanent consultative status in the UN in 1979, through Romani language journals and newsletters and its increasing use at the international congresses, the language has come to serve more and more as the principal binding factor of Jekhipe - Oneness. [Illustration with caption] A satra or Gypsy village in Wallachia, 1862 ("Un village des Tsiganes chrétiens", Lancelot, 1868:307) "In these strange houses, which are more like gutters, one serves for each family, the roofs are made of branches daubed with mud, upon which grass grows. At least ten people, on average, live here. There are no furnishings, just a kettle, a pan, a water-jug, one spoon and one knife, and a few sheepskins and tattered blankets: it is a home under a hole in the roof. Lacking any wood, cow-dung is used as fuel. Torches do for light. Rain comes through the roof, and rheumatism follows it. No clean water is available, and yet the boyars stigmatize the Gypsies for being filthy. They go in rags, even in temperatures of minus twenty degrees, their feet wrapped in rags and the skins of dogs" (Colson, in Roleine, 1979:112). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pariah Syndrome VI. Treatment Elsewhere in Europe: Transylvania, Hungary and Russia The instituionalized Oppression of Gypsies existed in other places besides Moldavia and Wallachia; Wlislocki has written about the "appalling and unmentionable punishments" inflicted upon Gypsies in Transylvania (also part of greater Rumania) "not only for attempting to escape, but for such trivial offences as stealing [a piece of fruit]"; another incident, also from Transylvania and recorded in 1736, is found in the journal of a landowner who entered the details of the recapture of an escaped Gypsy slave as follows: At my dear wife's request, I had him beaten with rods on the soles of his feet until the blood ran, then made him bathe his feet in strong caustic. Afterwards, for unbecoming language, I had his upper lip cut off and roasted, and forced him to eat it (Anon., 1912:45). The case of a free Gypsy in Transylvania selling himself for life to one General Farkas Macskasy for "fifteen florins, a horse, three and a half bushels of wheat and four cups of wine" is on record from 1755 (Ursutsiu, 1974). When Gypsies first reached Hungary, their experience was similar to that in Moldavia and Wallachia. King Mathias authorised the City of Harmannstadt to employ them as slave labor in 1476; since they were slaves of the Crown, they were distributed in this way throughout the land, most often employed in blacksmithing and the manufacture of weapons and implements of torture. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Gypsies were also made the property of the landowners. Certain individuals were given administrative positions by them, as shown in the following document, a letter originally written in Hungarian and dated October 25th, 1776, which permitted its bearer to collect taxes from other Gypsies. The original remains in a private collection in Nashaud, in Rumania: You are strictly enjoined by the present letter that such State Gypsies as have hitherto been under your authority, and in addition the Gypsies Dombi Stoika, Adam Stoika, Samu Stoika and Adam Cuka, shall remain under your command. It is your duty also to collect tax-money for haymaking and the quota which in virtue of the conscription list is due to His Majesty ... the holder of this document, Dimitru Borcza, Gornik ... must not impose anything on, nor exact anything from, the four guilder Gypsy tax (Lebzelter, 1933: 213-214). [Illustration with caption] "Imagination will easily conceive how dismal and horrid the inside of such Gipsey huts must be to civilised humanity. Air and daylight excluded, very damp, and full of filth, they have more the appearance of wild beasts'dens, than of the habitations of intelligent beings. Rooms or separate apartments are not even thought of, all is one open space: in the middle is the fire, serving both for the purpose of cooking and warmth; the father and mother lie half naked, the children entirely so, round it. Chairs, tables, beds or bedsteads, find no place here; they sit, eat, sleep on the bare ground, or at most spread an old blanket or, in the Banat, a sheepskin, under them. Every fine day the door is set open for the sun to shine in, which they continue watching so long as it is above the horizon; when the day closes, they shut their door and consign themselves over to rest. When the weather is cold, or the snow prevents them opening the door, they make up the fire, and sit round it till they fall asleep, without any more light than it affords. The furniture and property of the Gipseys ... consist of an earthen pot, an iron pan, a spoon, a jug and a knife; when it happens that everything is complete, they sometimes add a dish; these serve for the whole family" (Grellman, 1807:34-35). During the reign of Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780), daughter of the Hapsburg King Charles VI, measures were taken to settle and assimilate the Gypsy population: they were conscripted into the army, and forbidden to speak Romani or call themselves Rom (they were instead referred to as Uj Magyar, "New Hungarians"). The children were sent to school, and their parents were no longer allowed to pursue any of the traditional occupations. The means of achieving this were sometimes quite cruel and ruthless; no regard was paid at all to Romani values or culture, and the forced assimilation was seen by the Gypsies themselves as an effort to exterminate them as a distinct people. Violent anti-Gypsyism from the Hungarian people continued to be a fact of life, however, and Gypsies increasingly became scapegoats for the most insignificant of charges. The more imaginative crimes of vampirism and cannibalism were also attributed to them: In 1782 some forty were broken on the rack and cut into pieces because they were accused of roasting and eating several dozen Hungarian peasants, even though Maria Theresa's successor, Joseph II subsequently proclaimed that the charges were baseless. The policy of assimilation was not a success. The government of Catherine the Great of Russia during this same period (1729-1796) passed laws to make Gypsies Slaves of the Crown (Clébert, 1963:74)*. The earliest, and most complete firsthand account of Gypsies in Europe two hundred years ago is found in the works of Edward Daniel Clarke, who describes the Gypsies in Russia thus: In their dress, they lavish all their finery upon their heads. Their costume in Russia is very different to that of the natives. The Russians hold them in great contempt; never speaking of them without abuse; and feel themselves contaminated by their touch, unless it be to have their fortunes told. Formerly they were more scattered over Russia, and paid no tribute; but now they are collected, and all belong to one nobleman, to whom they pay a certain tribute, and work among the number of his slaves (1800:208). The circumstances of the post-abolition migration of the Russian Gypsies to the Americas is discussed in Chapter XIV. While the eastern European states were enslaving and otherwise making use of Gypsies as a source of labor within their own territories, countries in western Europe were attempting to rid their soil of Gypsies altogether. *The name for these slaves is given as Slaves of the Crown. Professor Victor Friedman tells me, however, that this is a religious term in Russian for "human beings" (lit. "slaves of the lord"). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pariah Syndrome VII. Treatment Elsewhere in Europe: Spain, Portugal and France In 1568, Pope Pius V attempted to drive all Gypsies from the domain of the Roman Catholic Church; similar expulsion orders were already in effect in individual countries, resulting in an ongoing shuffling back and forth of Gypsy populations between them. With the maritime expansion, and the establishment of a colonial plantation economy, however, a way was finally found to clear Gypsies out of western Europe more efficiently. The Spanish were the first Europeans to convey Gypsies to the Americas, although a reference dated February 11th, 1581, indicates that the earliest made their way there on their own. Referring to Charcas Province in Peru (corresponding to part of present-day Bolivia), it tells of Gypsies who had "passed secretly to some parts of our Indies [and ...] who go about with their native dress and language...among the Indians, whom they dupe easily, on account of their simplicity" ("pasado a algunas partes de las Nuestras Yndias xitanos ... que andan en su traxe y lengua ... entre los yndios, a los quales por su simplicad engañan con facilidad"). (Colección, 1872:138-139). Ironically, this early document asked that those Gypsies be rounded up and returned to Spain, although that country had begun ordering their expulsion as early as 1499. Before that, it had briefly considered attempting their assimilation into the Spanish population, possibly because a labor force was needed to replace the expelled Moors and Jews (Alfaro, 1982). Evidence that Gypsies could be made the property, for perpetuity, of Spanish citizens in the sixteenth century is found in a document published in Valladolid in 1538: Gypsies are not to move about these kingdoms, and those that may be there, are to leave them, or take trades, or live with their overlords under penalty of a hundred lashes for the first time, and for the second time that their ears be cut off, and that they be chained for sixty days, and that for the third time that they remain captive forever to them who take them. Decree of their Highnesses given in the year 1499, and Law No.104 in the Decrees; confirmed and ordered to be observed in the court which was celebrated in Toledo in the year 1525, Law No.58, in spite of any clause which may have been given to the contrary (de Celso, 1538). Moraes (1886), Coelho (1892) and more recently Couto (1973) and Locatelli (1981) have all documented the shipment of Gypsies out of Portugal. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Ciganos were being sent to work in the Portuguese colonies in South America, Africa and India. One can only imagine how the latter individuals must have reacted upon finding themselves in the land of their ancestors. Boxer mentions briefly the victimization of entire communities of Gypsies, against whom King John V seems to have conceived an obsessive hatred, for no reason that I can discover. These unfortunates of all ages, and both sexes were shipped off in successive levies to Brazil and Angola, without any specific charge being brought against them, in a (largely futile) attempt to banish the Romany race from Portugal altogether (1969:314). It was in this particular respect that the trans-Atlantic shipment of the Africans differed from that of Gypsies: the former were transported for economic reasons; the latter, for reasons of hate. A decree which came into effect in August, 1685, redirected the shipments from the African settlements at Cabinda, Quicombo and Mossamedes to Maranhão, a vast colony to the north of Brazil. In 1718, the Brazilian city of Bahia became the central offloading point for Gypsies from Portugal. The governor was ordered at that time to make it illegal for Gypsies to speak Romani or to teach it to their children, in order that it should quickly become extinct: Foram degrados os ciganos do reino para a praça da cidade da Bahia, ordinando-se ao governador que ponha cobro a cuidado na prohibição do uso da sua lingua e giria, não permitindo que se ensine a seus filhos, a fim de obter-se a sua extincção (Moraes, 1886:24). Expulsion orders in France go back to 1427, but were applied only sporadically at that early date. By 1560, Gypsies were being ordered to leave that country at once, or be committed to the galleys, a practice which was also in effect in Spain at that time. In 1682, Louis XIV ordered bailiffs throughout France to arrest, and cause to be arrested, all those who are called Bohemians or Egyptians ... to secure the men to the convicts' chain to be led to our galleys and to serve there in perpetuity, [and as for the women, they were to be] flogged and banished out of the kingdom; all this without any other form of trial (de Fréminville, 1775:305). Gypsies were probably reaching North America within two or three decades after this order was effected; Jones, writing of these transportees from France, says that There is a colony of 'Gypsies' on Biloxi Bay in Louisiana [now in Mississippi] who were brought over and colonized by the French at a very early period of the first settlement of the state [i.e., ca.1700]. They are French 'Gypsies' and speak the French language, they call themselves 'Egyptians' or 'Gypsies' (1834:189). Olmsted provides a further interesting account of Gypsies in French North America, in the form of a conversation with a local planter while he was visiting Louisiana: I afterwards spent the night at the house of a white planter, who told me that, when he was a boy, he had lived at Alexandria. It was then under the Spanish rule, and 'the people they was all sorts. They was French and Spanish, and Egyptian and Indian, and Mulattoes and Niggers'. 'Egyptians?'. 'Yes, there was some of the real old Egyptians there then'. 'Where did they come from?. 'From some of the Northern islands'. 'What language did they speak?. 'Well, they had a language of their own, which some of 'em used among themselves, Egyptian, I suppose it was, but they could talk in French and Spanish too'. 'What color were they?. 'They was black, but not very black. Oh! they was citizens, as good as any. They passed for white folks'. 'Did they keep close by themselves, or did they intermarry with white folks?. 'They married mulattoes mostly, I believe. There was heaps of Mulattoes in Alexandria then-free niggers-their fathers was French and Spanish men, and their mothers right black niggers. Good many of them had Egyptian blood in 'em too ...' The Egyptians were probably Spanish Gypsies; though I have never heard of any of them being in America in any other way (1861:638). The population Olmsted refers to were probably from France rather than Spain as he suggests, and related to the earlier transportees mentioned by Jones. Spanish shipments to Louisiana, their solución americana, part of a proclamation issued in 1749, is discussed by Alfaro (1982:318,329). Roma had already been transported out of Spain with Columbus on his third voyage in 1498 (Wilford, 1984:C1,3; Lyon, 1986:604), and were similarly expelled during the time of the Inquisition (Ortega, 1985). A mixed Afro-Romani community lives near Atchefalaya in St. Martin Parish, some seventy-five miles south-east of Alexandria, though it shuns social intercourse with the surrounding black, white and American Indian populations, as well as with the Vlax and Romanichal Gypsies who live in the state. A further account from the same region from about 1780 of another mixed Romani population, though here with the local Indians, is found in Milfort (1802:39): On leaving Mobile, I went to Paskagola. The inhabitants of this village are very lazy; but, since they have little ambition, they are happy, and le