16. ve 17. Yüzyıllarda Osmanlılarda Derya Beyliği (1534-1701)
Ottoman Derya Beys (Sea Lords) in the 16th and 17th Centuries (1534-1701)
Yazar: EMEL SOYER KOLÇAK
Danışman: PROF. DR. İDRİS BOSTAN
İstanbul Üniversitesi / Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü / Tarih Ana Bilim Dalı / Yeniçağ Tarihi Bilim Dalı
Derece: Doktora, 2024
Konu: Denizcilik = Marine ; Tarih = History

Özet:
Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa'nın Osmanlı hizmetine girmesiyle 1534 yılında kurulan Cezayir-i Bahr-i Sefid eyaleti öteden beri deniz seferlerine katılan sancakları bir araya topladı. Sınırları zamanla genişleyen eyaletin gemileriyle devlet merkezinden uzak bölgelerdeki denizcilik faaliyetlerini yürüten sancakbeylerine derya beyi denmekteydi. Bu çalışma 17. yüzyılda "ümerâ-yı deryâ" olarak isimlendirilen denizci beylerin oluşturduğu teşkilatın yapısını ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Cezayir-i Bahr-i Sefid eyaletine bağlı sancakların süreç içinde geçirdiği aşamalar, derya beylerinin görevleri, gelirlerinin kaynakları, gemilerinin türleri ve donatılmaları, muharip ve hizmetli personelin temini gibi meseleler Başkanlık Osmanlı Arşivi'nde bulunan defter serileri başta olmak üzere çeşitli arşiv belgeleri ve dönemin tarih yazarları tarafından kayda geçirilen bilgiler ışığında ele alınmıştır.

Abstract:
In the 16th century the Ottomans rose to a leading naval power in the Mediterranean. Their operative base in Istanbul was endowed with an imperial arsenal (tersane-i amire) that accommodated intensive and large-scale production, repair, and maintenance of sea vessels and their equipment comparable to any other prominent sea power of its age. The imperial navy (donanma-yı hümayun), as the central fighting power of the Ottomans on sea, implemented the naval policy of the empire. In this century, Ottoman flotillas launched naval campaigns one after the other in an admittedly vast area. Ottoman hegemony encompassed the Black Sea in the north whereas the Ottoman mariners sailed as far as India from their southern bases in the Red Sea. Ottoman naval commanders also engaged in a fierce power struggle in the Mediterranean where the imperial navy was militarily backed up by the regional fleets of newly established Ottoman provinces in North Africa against in their fight against the Venetians, Spanish forces, and other Christian powers. In order to keep up such an extensive naval organization demonstrating unchallenged prowess in several parts of adjacent seas simultaneously, Ottoman decision-makers deemed it necessary to set up minor administrative units tasked with naval duties in the seas under their rule. These captaincies, initially deployed in strategic locations yet independently from each other, were then integrated into a single system. Derya beys (sea lords) were without doubt the most prominent figures of the centralizing system.
In this endeavor, Ottoman bureaucracy initially rested upon a naval-administrative organization with fairly well-defined financial sources which had been officially set up in the first half of the 16th century. In 1534, following the admission of Hayreddin Barbarossa into Ottoman service, the Ottoman court established the administrative province of Cezayir-i Bahr-i Sefid (the isles of Mediterranean). This province, from the very beginning, brought several sancaks together that were customarily tasked with partaking in Ottoman naval efforts. The administrative boundaries of the province expanded in time. In Ottoman terminology, governors of the sub-districts who operated with their ships in distant seas were technically called derya beys.
Ottoman historiography lacks a monograph on the organizational structure of derya beys. This academic setback is particularly noteworthy in that Ottoman derya beys pursued a good variety of official tasks that can be discerned from historical sources during their tremendous naval efforts in coastal provinces. They held the status of a district bey in Ottoman administrative hierarchy; fulfilled critical tasks for the imperial navy; secured the functioning of the strategic sea route of Istanbul-Rhodes-Alexandria; protected Ottoman coastal line against enemy raids for the whole year; and maintained in these pursuits local flotillas by the financial sources assigned to them by the central government. Ottoman studies, however, failed thus far to offer well-grounded explanations on the means and methods derya beys accomplished the above-listed duties, which, in turn, led to a scholarly void in Ottoman naval studies. This thesis responds to this void by employing a wide range of archival documents in an effort to depict the institution of Ottoman provincial seamanship (derya beyliği).
The first chapter of the thesis discusses the administrative roles of derya beys in the 16th century with a special emphasis on the types of their ships, the official identification of the soldiers they employed aboard, the oarsmen they hired for service and the methods they resorted to when procuring the needed manpower. A depiction of the 16th century circumstances allows us to make a reasoned comparison with the Ottoman provincial naval affairs of the 17th century and to suggest with a degree of certainty that the Ottoman government endorsed the rigging of warships to derya beys in contrast to the previous century. As such, the derya beys in the 17th century owned their ships instead of being supplied from the imperial arsenal; paid directly to oarsmen from their pocket; and recruited private troops to fight on board in place of the garrison soldiers and prebendal cavalry that had customarily attended the naval excursions of derya beys. This chapter also includes a discussion of the province of Cezayir-i Bahr-i Sefid in its particular form of the 16th century; the administrative districts governed by derya beys were all officially tied to this province.
The second chapter of the thesis begins with an inquiry that aims to establish the administrative districts of the province of Cezayir-i Bahr-i Sefid in the 17th century. Derya beys of the 16th century were invariably district governors of a larger province but a fundamental change occurred in the next century. In Morea and Chios, the Ottoman treasury introduced a method of yearly stipends (salyane) in which the receiver of the lump sum was not necessarily a district governor although he served as a naval captain for Ottoman navy. The system of yearly cash payments was soon extended to sea lords readily receiving land revenues for their service. Ottoman government achieved in this way to increase the number of naval captains serving in Ottoman provincial waters. This decision on part of Ottoman treasury enabled the provincial captains to lay hands on larger financial incomes and they were now expected to serve with their own ships manned with rowers and soldiers directly paid by themselves. This chapter aims to highlight the changing roles of the derya beys who in the 17th century largely received cash payments for their service.
The third and the final chapter of the thesis offers biographies of prominent sea lord families such as Abdi Paşazade, Abdülkadir Paşazade, Keskin Paşazade, Köse Ali Paşazade, Maryolzade and Memi Paşazades. To avoid a dull repetition of well-established facts, I refrained from retelling the lives of all Ottoman sea lords that manifested themselves in historical records, but selected a few mariner families capable of representing the political career of an Ottoman provincial captain. This said, I did not hold myself back in providing brief data on derya beys appearing in the written text. This chapter also includes a discussion of the identities of the mariner families and their protégés, their degree of intimacy, the offices they held, and the influence of familial ties in procuring ships and oarsmen. This work may be classified within institutional history, a fact that might be exemplified by an emphasis on the administrative and financial role of derya beys. Here, in an attempt to produce biographical notes on derya beys, I sought to unfold the personal identities and the actions they carried out in Ottoman waters.
In short, the thesis aims to describe and analyze the structural features of the provincial naval organization led by Ottoman derya beys that took its palpable form in the 17th century. It addresses to questions such as the administrative development of the province of Cezayir-i Bahr-i Sefid, tasks fulfilled by the derya beys, their sources of income including salyane payments, the types of sea vessels mastered by them, the equipment of the ships, the recruitment of crew and fighting power etc. The thesis applies a wide variety of registers and documents preserved in Ottoman archives as well as the related passages noted in Ottoman chronicles of the period.