https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5621-5156
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Abstract
The esteemed naval engineer Henry Eckford and later his foreman Foster Rhodes served at the Imperial Arsenal between 1831 and 1839. Although their efforts to construct modernized war vessels, improve the technical infrastructure of the Arsenal, and educate Ottoman youth to become future naval engineers were admirable, due to the international and domestic problems that the Ottoman Empire faced, they could not accomplish naval modernization in the manner that both they and Sultan Mahmud II dreamed of. While they failed at this phase, they succeeded in establishing strong grounds for their countrymen by supporting them financially, mentally, and diplomatically. They extended their help towards American missionaries, who quickly expanded their activities in the educational field to include non-Muslim, as well as Muslim communities. They increased the prestige of American representatives, providing them with a high level of respect, and they supported American travelers who visited these engineers and recorded the honors showered upon them by the Ottomans in their travel narratives. This support successfully helped to construct future cooperation between the United States and the Ottoman Empire, and thus enabled many Americans from different fields to expand their industries and at the same time allowed the Ottoman Empire to benefit in return.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Ali İhsan Gencer, ‘XIX. Yüzyılın İlk Yarısında Osmanlı Denizciliği ve Amerika’ [Ottoman Maritime and America in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century], in Fındıklıoğlu Armağanı [Present for Fındıklıoğlu] (Istanbul: Fakülteler Matbaası, 1977), pp.359–74; Ali İhsan Gencer, Türk Denizcilik Tarihi Araştırmaları [Turkish Maritime History Research] (Istanbul: Türkiye Denizciler Sendikası, 1986); Ali İhsan Gencer, Bahriye’de Yapılan Islâhât Hareketleri ve Bahriye Nezâreti’nin Kuruluşu (1789–1867) [Marine Reform Movements and the Foundation of Ministry of Marine] (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2001).
2 İdris Bostan, Kürekli ve Yelkenli Osmanlı Gemileri [Ottoman Galleys and Sailing Ships] (Istanbul: Bilge Yayım, 2005); İdris Bostan, Osmanlılar ve Deniz [Ottomans and the Sea] (Istanbul: Küre Yayınları, 2007); İdris Bostan, Beylikten İmparatorluğa Osmanlı Denizciliği [Ottoman Maritime from Seigniory to Empire] (Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi, 2006).
3 Levent Düzcü, Yelkenliden Buharlıya Geçişte Osmanlı Denizciliği (1825–1855) [Ottoman Maritime in the time of Transition from Sailing Ships to Steamships] (Istanbul: Doğu Kütüphanesi, 2016).
4 Nurcan Bal, Osmanlı Bahriyesi: 19.Yüzyıl Osmanlı Bahriyesinde Değişim [Ottoman Marine: Transformation in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman Marine] (Istanbul, Kopernik Kitap, 2018).
5 Emir Yener, ‘Iron Ships and Iron Men: Naval Modernization in the Ottoman Empire, Russia, China and Japan From a Comparative Perspective 1830–1905’ (Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Boğaziçi University, 2009).
6 For a detailed account of Henry Eckford’s early biography see M. Steven Selig, Draughts: The Henry Eckford Story (Scottsdale: Agreka History Preserved, 2008); M. Fred Walker, Ships and Shipbuilders: Pioneers of Design and Construction (Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2010), pp.65–66; George William Sheldon, ‘The Old Shipbuilders of New York’, Harper’s Magazine, (July 1882), pp.223–41; Phyllis DeKay Wheelock, ‘Henry Eckford (1775–1832), an American Shipbuilder’, The American Neptune Vol.7, No.3 (July 1947), pp.178–95; Andrew C. A. Jampolar, ‘Who Was Henry Eckford?’, Naval History Vol.21, No.6 (December 2007), pp.8–45. Howard I. Chapelle, The History of the American Sailing Navy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1949), pp.223–28. Harvey Ardman, ‘Our Fantastic Shipbuilder in the War of 1812’, The American Legion Magazine, (July 1971), pp.16–20 and 53–54.
7 There are only a few sources that give limited information on Rhodes. Although the ZB Files at Naval History and Heritage Command is the most trusted sources, there are also articles in US periodicals, which should be used with caution, considering the possibility that some parts could be founded on rumors. ‘Personal Glimpses: The Sire of the Turkish Navy’, The Literary Digest, (July-December 1911), pp.748–50; ‘An American who Built Warships for the Sultan of Turkey Back in “40s”’, The Sun, (15 October 1911).
8 Bernd Langensiepen and Ahmet Güleryüz, Ottoman Steam Navy 1828–1923 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995).
9 James A. Field, America and the Mediterranean World, 1776–1882 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969).
10 David H. Finnie, Pioneers East: The Early American Experience in the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967).
11 Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives (hereafter BOA), HAT 1417/57945, 29 Z 1223 (15 February 1809).
12 BOA, HAT 1197/47012, 6 Z 1233 (7 October 1818).
13 BOA, HAT 1265/48979 – D, 6 August 1816.
14 Field, America, p.141.
15 Hunter Miller (ed.), vol. 3 of Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America (Washington, DC: United States Printing Office, 1933), pp.578–79.
16 U.S. Congress, Senate Executive Journal, 21st Congress, 2nd Session, 1 February 1831, 148–49; Compilation of Reports of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 1789–1901, Vol. 8, p.31; Martin Van Buren to David Porter, 15 April 1831, M 77, National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA).
17 BOA, HAT 1212/47494, 29 Z 1246 (10 June 1831).
18 David Porter to Edward Livingston, 11 August 1831, M46, NARA.
19 BOA, HAT 1212/47497, 29 Z 1245 (21 June 1830). Although the date on the webpage of BOA is given as such, since the mühür (seal) on the document is illegible, it should be assumed that it was noted incorrectly.
20 David Porter, Constantinople and Its Environs, vol. 1 (New York: Harper, 1830), p.13.
21 Takvim-i Vekayi, 18 May 1832; BOA, HAT 576/28202, 29 Z 1244 (20 June 1829); BOA, AE_SMHD 28/1774, 10 Za 1247 (11 April 1832). Porter also writes back to the State Department that the purchase was completed and Eckford began preparing plans for new ships to be built for the Ottoman Navy in David Porter to Edward Livingston, 4 April 1832, M46, NARA.
22 BOA, HAT 1212/47497, 29 Z 1245 (21 June 1830).
23 The news regarding the sale of the United States and Eckford’s employment by the Sultan was also reported in American newspapers as proof of pride Americans felt via their countrymen. National Intelligencer, 25 December 1832; Pensacola Gazette, 25 January 1833.
24 Takvim-i Vekayi, 27 November 1831.
25 BOA, HAT 359/20045, 7 Ra 1248 (4 August 1832); Bal, Osmanlı Bahriyesi, pp.17–18; Düzcü Yelkenliden Buharlıya, p.93. Eckford’s successes and the high regard shown to him at Sultan’s court were occasionally printed in US newspapers, ex. New Hampshire Statesmen, 19 January 1833.
26 David Porter to Edward Livingston, October 1832, M46, NARA.
27 Mrs. Goodell to Sister Eunice, 21 November 1831, The Papers of William Goodell (hereafter WG), Box – 1, Library of Congress (hereafter LOC).
28 ‘Journal’, 25, 26, 28 August, 9, 17, 19, 23 September, 4 October 1831, WG, LOC.
29 The Lancastrian school system depends on mutual teaching and learning where more able or informed students teach new students, and thus transfer the information they obtained from their instructors to their students. This system is also named the ‘Monitorial System’.
30 ‘Journal’, 13 October 1831, WG, LOC.
31 ‘Journal’, 14, 16 October 1831; 29 April 1832, WG, LOC. Goodell writes in his letters to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (hereafter ABCFM) and in his diary that Eckford donated considerable amounts of money to both the Board and schools on several occasions, and that they visited each other frequently. Goodell’s diary and letters prove the social bond between the missionaries and the naval experts clearly, and demonstrate the moral support and financial philanthropy of Eckford until his death.
32 ‘Journal’, 12 November 1831, WG, LOC.
33 ‘Journal’, 28 April 1832, WG, LOC.
34 ‘Journal’, 10 May 1832, WG, LOC.
35 William Goodell to Rufus Anderson, 13 November 1832, 16.9 Mission to Turkey, ABCFM.
36 ‘Journal’, 12 November 1832, WG, LOC.
37 Ibid.; ‘Journal’, 31 October 1832, WG, LOC.
38 William Goodell to Rufus Anderson, 24 April 1833, 16.9 Mission to Turkey, ABCFM.
39 William Goodell to Rufus Anderson, 13 August 1833, 16.9 Mission to Turkey, ABCFM; William Goodell to Rev. D. Temple, 27 August 1833, 16.9 Mission to Turkey, ABCFM.
40 William Goodell to Rev. C.F. Schlienz?, 28 August, 1833, 16.9 Mission to Turkey, ABCFM.
41 William Goodell to Rufus Anderson, 28 January 1834, 16.9 Mission to Turkey, ABCFM.
42 Ayşe Aksu, ‘İngiltere-Amerika-Osmanlı Hattında Lancaster Öğretim Sistemi’ [Lancastrian Teaching System on English-American-Ottoman Line], Değerler Eğitimi Dergisi, no. 16 (December 2008), pp.45–50. The Muslim population reacted to the modernization efforts in general through an anti-Western perspective, accusing the Sultan and pro-modernist statesmen of leading the Empire towards infidelity. American missionaries were among the targets of the traditionalists to a small extent yet due to the imperial support for military and naval modernization, the Lancastrian method remained to be used at these schools.
43 Henry Howe, Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics (New York: Harper, 1847), p.216.
44 Sarah Rogers Haight, Letters from the Old World by a Lady of New York, Vol.1 (New York: Harper, 1840), p.33.
45 New York Evening Post, 7 February 1833.
46 David Porter to Edward Livingston, 18 November 1832, M46, NARA.
47 David Porter John Forsyth, 25 October 1834, M46, NARA.
48 Foster Rhodes to David Porter, 18 October 1834, M46, NARA.
49 David Porter to John Forsyth, 25 October 1834, M46, NARA.
50 David Porter to Edward Livingston, 16 December 1832, M46, NARA.
51 Şakir Batmaz, Bilinmeyen Yönleriyle 19. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Bahriyesi [Unknown Aspects of Nineteenth Century Ottoman Marine] (İzmir: Yitik Hazine Yayınları, 2010), pp.17–19; Düzcü, Yelkenliden Buharlıya, p.102.
52 Takvim-i Vekayi, 12 June 1835. These lines mostly highlighted the elegance and beauty of the vessel. Batmaz, Bilinmeyen Yönleriyle, pp.21–22.
53 Adolphus Slade,Turkey, Greece and Malta, vol. 2 (London: Saunders and Otley, 1837), p.17.
54 Takvim-i Vekayi, 30 August 1837. The four vessels mentioned in the newspaper are Nizamiye, Kavs-ı Zafer, Müjde-Resan and Sür’at, all launched on 20 August 1837.
55 Valentine Mott, Travels in Europe and the East, in the Years 1834–1841 (New York: Harper, 1842), p.407.
56 John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia and Poland (Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1839), p.49.
57 Charles Mac Farlane, Turkey and Its Destiny: The Result of Journeys Made in 1847 and 1848 to Examine into the State of that Country, vol. 2 (London: J. Murray, 1850), p.349.
58 Mac Farlane, Turkey and Its Destiny, pp.349–50.
59 Andrew Lambert, Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992), p.7 and p.21.
60 Edward Joy Morris, Notes of a Tour through Turkey, Greece, Egypt, and Arabia Petraea, to the Holy Land (London: N. Bruce, 1843), p.37.
61 Stephen Olin, Greece and the Golden Horn (New York: J.C. Derby, 1854), pp.285–86.
62 Düzcü, Yelkenliden Buharlıya, p.194.
63 Olin, Greece, p.254.
64 David Porter to John Forsyth, 9 September 1838, M46, NARA.
65 Foster Rhodes to David Porter, 22 May 1835, M46, NARA.
66 Field, America, p.168.
67 David Porter to Edward Livingston, 17 September 1832, M46, NARA.
68 Field, America, p.168.
69 BOA, HAT 1212/47500, 29 Z 1250 (28 April 1835).
70 Daniel Todd Patterson to Levi Woodbury, 30 November 1833, M125, NARA.
71 David Porter to Louis McLane, 24 October 1833, M46, NARA.
72 Valentine Mott, Travels in Europe and the East, in the Years 1834–1841 (New York: Harper, 1842), p.438.
73 Mott, Travels, p.407.
74 Henry B. Humphrey Diaries 1839–1841, Ms. N-1451, Massachusetts Historical Society (hereafter MHS).
75 Yener, ‘Iron Ships’, p.79.
76 Düzcü, Yelkenliden Buharlıya, p.55; Ali Fuat Örenç, ‘Deniz Kuvvetleri ve Deniz Harp Sanayii’ [Naval Forces and Naval War Industry], in Gütekin Yıldız (ed.), Osmanlı Askeri Tarihi: Kara, Deniz ve Hava Kuvvetleri [Ottoman Military History: Ground, Naval and Air Forces] (Istanbul: Timaş, 2013), p.136; Bostan, Kürekli ve Yelkenli, pp.366–7, 407. In the year 1831, fourteen war vessels of different kinds were also being constructed in other navy yards as reported in Takvim-i Vekayi, 27 November 1831. The following year twenty more ships entered the registers according to the Takvim-i Vekayi, 4 October 1832, which proves the claim that Ottomans were industrious.
77 John Houghton, The Navies of the World 1835–1840 (Melbourne: Minuteman Press, 2011), p.49.
78 Tuncay Zorlu, ‘III. Selim ve Osmanlı Deniz Gücünün Modernleşmesi’ [Selim III and the Modernization of Ottoman Naval Force] in Zeki Arıkan and Lütfü Sancar (eds), XVIII. Yüzyıl Başından XX. Yüzyıla Kadar Türk Denizcilik Tarihi [Turkish Maritime History from the Beginning of the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century], vol. 2 (Istanbul: Deniz Basımevi Müdürlüğü, 2009), p.68.
79 Langensiepen and Güleryüz, Ottoman Steam Navy, p.1; Yener, ‘Iron Ships’, pp.89–90.
80 Düzcü, Yelkenliden Buharlıya, p.247.
81 Yener, ‘Iron Ships’, p.90.
82 Langensiepen and Güleryüz, Ottoman Steam Navy, p.2.
83 Örenç, ‘Deniz Kuvvetleri’, p.134.
84 Langensiepen and Güleryüz, Ottoman Steam Navy, p.1.
85 Clemuel Green Ricketts, Notes of Travel in Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land including a Visit to the City of Constantinople, in 1841 and 1842 (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1844), p.200; the same excerpt was also given in John Murray, A Handbook for Travelers in Turkey (London: J. Murray, 1854), pp.94–95.
86 Charles MacFarlane, vol. 2 of Constantinople in 1828: A Residence of Sixteen Months in the Turkish Capital and Provinces, vol. 2 (London: Saunders and Otley, 1829), p.228.
87 George DeKay to Fitz-Greene Halleck, 29 Chevval [Şevval] in ‘Documents’, The American Neptune 6, no. 1 (January 1946), p.85.
88 George A. Porter to David Porter, 26 November 1836, M46, NARA.
89 John Forsyth to David Porter, 16 May 1837, M77, NARA.
90 John P. Brown to David Porter, 1 February 1839, M46, NARA.
91 Şakir Batmaz, ‘Osmanlı Devletinde Donanma ve Tersane İdaresi (XIX. Yüzyıl ve Sonrası)’ [Navy and Arsenal Administration in the Ottoman State (Nineteenth Century and After)] in Zeki Arıkan and Lütfü Sancar (eds), XVIII. Yüzyıl Başından, vol. 2, pp.223–25.
92 New York Spectator, 11 June 1840.
93 ‘An American’, The Sun, 15 October 1911; Troy Daily Whig, 23 November 1846.
94 New York Morning Courier, 11 May 1843.
95 Memorial of John Reeves, Box 1851, MHS.
96 BOA, HR. TO. 566/23, 17 May 1844.
97 MacFarlane, Turkey and Its Destiny, vol. 1, p.350; MacFarlane, Kısmet; or, The Doom of Turkey (London: Thomas Bosworth, 1855), p.83.
98 Memorial of John Reeves, Box 1851, MHS; Daniel Webster to George P. Marsh, 14 January 1852, M77, NARA.
99 Örenç, ‘Deniz Kuvvetleri’, p.137.
100 Zekeriya Işık, ‘Osmanlı Modernleşmesi Sürecinde İngiltere’nin Rolü 1789–1876’ [The Role of England in the Process of Ottoman Modernization], Hitit Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 2, no. 20 (February 2011), p.237.
101 MacFarlane, Kısmet, p.3.
102 Darina Martykanova and Meltem Kocaman, ‘A Land of Opportunities: Foreign Engineers in the Ottoman Empire’ in Concha Roldan (ed.), Philosophy of Globalization (New York: De Gruyter, Routledge, 2012), p.245.
103 Frederick Stanley Rodkey, ‘Lord Palmerston and the Rejuvenation of Turkey, 1830–41’, The Journal of Modern History 1, no. 4 (December 1929), p.577.
104 Cyrus Hamlin, Among the Turks, (New York: American Tract Society, 1877), p.57.
105 Frederick Stanley Rodkey, ‘Lord Palmerston and the Rejuvenation of Turkey, 1830–41: Part II, 1839–41’, The Journal of Modern History 2, no. 2 (June 1930), p.201.
106 Örenç, ‘Deniz Kuvvetleri’, p.138.
107 Finnie, Pioneers East, p.81.
108 From John M. Clay to George P. Marsh, 28 June 1850, M77, NARA.
109 Ali İhsan Gencer, Ali Fuat Örenç and Metin Ünver, Türk-Amerikan Silah Ticareti Tarihi [History of Turkish-American Arms Trade] (Istanbul: Doğu Kütüphanesi, 2008), p.40.
110 James A. Field, ‘Trade, Skills, and Sympathy: The First Century and a Half of Commerce with the Near East’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 401 (May 1972), p.5.