No. 609.
Mr. Maynard to Mr. Evarts.
Constantinople, January 10, 1880. (Received February 9.)
Sir: Several times in these dispatches I have made reference to the Armenians. These ancient people have a hard history. Their present existence, though in greatly reduced numbers, illustrates the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of exterminating a whole race. Their geographical situation, on the eastern confines of Asia Minor, exposed them to the earliest incursions of the Turcomans, first under the Seljuks, then under the Osmanli Turks. They appear at once to have accepted their fate, and to have subsided into abject servitude, without much amelioration prior to the middle of the present century, particularly those who remained in their native land.
About thirty years ago, or a little more, the missionaries from the [Page 972] United States directed their efforts to the uplifting of this downtrodden people. Here, as in every other part of Turkey, they have been sedulously protected in their labors by this legation. The results are summed up by a late English writer of rare power and opportunities for observation:
The Armenians have advanced hut a very little way on the road of education. * * * A wish for instruction is everywhere beginning to be shown, and it has received a strong and most salutary impulse from the numerous American missionaries now established throughout Armenia. The untiring efforts of these praiseworthy and accomplished workers in the cause of civilization and humanity are beginning to bear fruit, especially since education has become one of their principal objects. They are working wonders among the uncivilized inhabitants of this hitherto unhappy country, where mission-schools, founded in all directions are doing the double service of instructing the people by their enlightened moral and religious teaching, and of stimulating among the wealthy a spirit of rivalry, which leads them to see their own ignorance and superstitious debasement, and raises a desire to do for themselves, by the establishment of Armenian schools, what American philanthropy has so nobly begun to do for them.
The moral influence that America is now exercising in the East through the quiet but dignified and determined policy of its legation at Constantinople, curiously free from political intrigues and rivalry, is daily increasing, and has the most salutary effect on the country. It watches with a jealous care over the rights and safety of the missionaries, who are loved and respected wherever they settle, and make their influence felt in the remotest corners of Turkey. Next to Greece, whose educational efforts are naturally greater throughout the country, it is America that will be entitled to the gratitude of the Christian for her ready aid in elevating the ignorant masses to the dignity of civilized beings. (Twenty Years’ Residence among the People of Turkey. Chapter V. Harper & Brothers, 1879.)
Recent events have stirred to life this the most torpid of the subject races in the Ottoman Empire. On the one hand the operations of the war intensified their misery and added a new badge of inferiority to their inherited lot; on the other, the Anglo-Turkish convention of June 4, 1878, awakened their hopes, and the example of their fellow-subjects in Bulgaria and other European provinces stimulated them to effort.
I have received to day from the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople copies in pamphlet of a memoir on the Armenian question, addressed to the great powers of Europe, and just published; it is inclosed.* The relief sought is very moderate—incommensurate, certainly, with the evils complained of.
I have, &c.,
- Omitted from the present publication, owing to its length.↩