United States or Northern Mariana Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In the dead of the night a party of Dahis Cavasses would surround a house, drive open gates and doors with sledge-hammers; the awakened and affrighted inmates would rush to the windows, and seeing the court-yard filled with armed men with dark lanterns, the shrieks of women and children were added to the confusion; and the unhappy father was often murdered with the half-naked females of his family clinging to his neck, but unable to save him.
They frequently used the holiday dresses of the peasants as horse-cloths, interrupted the divine service of the Christian Rayahs, and gratified their licentious appetites unrestrained. The Dahis, as these brigand-chiefs were called, resolved to anticipate the approaching struggle by a massacre of the most influential Christians. This atrocious massacre was carried out with indescribable horrors.
Their ancestors had been either forcibly converted or had, as was not infrequent, voluntarily adopted Islam. The Moslem Serb was a far greater persecutor of the Christian Serb than was the Turk. We find that the leading Dahis of Belgrade hailed from Focha in the Herzegovina.
And of all the Jannisaries of the Empire none were more opposed to the Sultan than those of Belgrade. Their commanders called themselves Dahis and aimed at complete government of the province. It is a singular fact, and one which should be emphasized, that the Jannisaries were themselves to a very large extent, of Balkan origin.
In the name of the Porte he combated the Dahis, who had usurped local authority, in defiance of the Pasha of Belgrade.
Word Of The Day