Ottoman Greece - Uprisings Before 1821

Uprisings Before 1821

Greeks in various places of the Greek peninsula would at times rise up against Ottoman rule, mainly while taking advantage of wars the Ottoman Empire would engage into. Those uprisings were of mixed scale and impact. During the Ottoman–Venetian War (1463–1479), the Maniot Kladas brothers, Krokodelos and Epifani, were leading bands of stratioti on behalf of Venice against the Turks in Southern Peloponnese. They put Vardounia and their lands into Venetian possession, for which Epifani then acted as governor.

Local, quickly-crushed revolts such as the Epirus peasant revolts of 1600 and 1611 would occur throughout the peninsula.

In 1571, the Christian fleet in the Battle of Lepanto included a dozen of ships with Greek captains and crew from Crete and the Ionian islands, one of them manned with funds of El Greco. The success of the battle by the Holy League triggered uprisings in places of the peninsula such as Phocis (recorded in Chronicle of Galaxidi) and the Peloponnese, led by the brothers Melissinoi and others. All of these revolts were crushed by the following year. During the Cretan War (1645–1669), the Maniots would aid Francesco Morosini and the Venetians in the Peloponnese. Greek irregulars also aided the Venetians through the Morean War in their operations on the Ionian Sea and Peloponnese.

A major uprising during that period was the Orlov Revolt (Greek: Ορλωφικά) which took place during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) and triggered armed unrest in both the Greek mainland and the islands. In 1778, a Greek fleet of seventy vessels assembled by Lambros Katsonis which harassed the Turkish squadrons in the Aegean sea, reclaimed the island of Kastelorizo and engaged the Turkish fleet in naval battles until 1790.