page_title: History of Zakynthos
section_title: Zakynthos Committee
hierarchical_section_title: History of Zakynthos / Greek War of Independence (1821–1832) / Zakynthos Committee
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Konstantinos Dragonas
context_page_description: Zakynthos is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands. Today, Zakynthos is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and its only municipality. It covers an area of 405.55 km² and its coastline is roughly 123 km in length. The name, like all similar names ending in -nthos, is pre-Mycenaean or Pelasgian in origin. In Greek mythology the island was said to be named after Zakynthos, the son of a legendary Arcadian chief Dardanus.
  The history of Zakynthos is long and complex, even by Greek standards. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, it has been held by the Kingdom of Naples, the Ottoman Turks, the Republic of Venice, the French, Russians, British, Italians and Germans.
context_section_description: The beginning of the Greek War of Independence resulted in a number of land and naval victories. By the beginning of 1823, this led to the liberation of most of the Peloponnese, Attiki and Roumeli; although, there were significant reversals in Macedonia, Crete, Cyprus and the eastern Aegean. Gradually, towards the end of 1823, Greek revolutionary activity became fragmented. However, the Greeks continued to withstand the periodic but uncoordinated Ottoman Turkish attacks. This led them to hiring Albanian-Muslim mercenaries to fight the Greeks.
  The First National Assembly was formed at Epidaurus on 20 November 1821. The Assembly drafted the first Greek Constitution and appointed the members of a Provisional Government including an executive and a legislative body, the Senate. The First National Assembly consisted almost exclusively of notables from the Peloponese. A delayed Second National Assembly was held in April 1823. The Senate in practice had little significance but was now led by the President, Ioannis Orlandos. Certain influential interests in the previous government and military leaders such as Theodoros Kolokotronis felt marginalized from the new Provisional Government. Furthermore, many distinct centres of power had developed in the Peloponnese. To appease them, the Senate proposed that Kolokotronis become a member of the Executive and Vice President of the Senate. Kolokotronis accepted but his supporters caused a serious rift when they prevented Mavrokordatos, who had been elected President of the Senate after the resignation of Orlandos, from assuming his position. There were now two opposing camps – those supporting the Executive and essentially Kolokotronis and those supporting the Senate.
  Towards the end of 1823, Kolokotronis resigned from the Executive. Shortly after, the Senate removed key people from their posts sympathetic to Kolokotronis. In response, members of the old Executive, senators sympathetic to their cause and Kolokotronis and his supporters set up a rival government in Tripolis. In early April 1824, the forces of the new Executive under the leadership of Andreas Londos besieged Tripolis and Nauplion, which was held by Kolokotronis's son. After one month of fighting an agreement was reached between Kolokotronis and Londos and his supporters. On 22 May, the first phase of the civil war officially ended; however, most members of the new Executive were displeased by the moderate terms of the agreement Londos had brokered. Despite the strengthening of the Senate and the new Executive's position, and further buttressed by an English loan, a second civil war broke out in October 1824 triggered by resistance to tax levies. However, with assistance of military captains from Roumeli, the rebels was crushed and Kolokotronis and his supporters were imprisoned.
  In the meantime, Dionysios Romas was eagerly following events from northern Italy. In the middle of 1824 he returned to Zakynthos and a short while later, just before the second civil war climaxed, formed the Zakynthos Committee with fellow Zakynthians, Panagiotis Stefanou and Konstantinos Dragonas. However, many members of the Filiki Etairia from Zakynthos were involved in the Committee. Their aim was to strengthen the Independence struggle via economic and political means often using their own fortunes. Freemasonry and the Filiki Etairia brought the three men into close cooperation.
  Dionysios Romas was inaugurated in the Filiki Etaireia in April 1819; and shortly after, he turned his mansion in Zakynthos town into a meeting place of many Revolutionary chieftains and fighters who had found refuge on the island – including Kolokotronis. Together with Kolokotronis they met with the French General, Danzello, who helped them develop the plans of the Greek War of Independence. In 1820, the British military police controversially raided Roma's mansion with the aim of finding secret patriotic documents. A lower ranking English Mason came to his defence, claiming the documents were Masonic and thus the British authorities ceased all action against him. N
caption: Portrait of Konstantinos Dragonas by unknown painter, c. 1825
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2988", "Image ImageLength": "5312", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2017:07:25 17:09:07", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "260", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "9/5", "GPS GPSAltitude": "0", "Image GPSInfo": "1284", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1426", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3702", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/14", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:07:14 13:26:10", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:07:14 13:26:10", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "959/250", "EXIF ApertureValue": "169/100", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-7/5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Unidentified", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "221/50", "EXIF SubSecTime": "600137", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "600137", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "600137", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1572", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1252", "EXIF SensingMethod": "Not defined", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}