Monday, July 30, 2012

Antiparos

Antiparos had a fairly large population in the 17th century.

In 1675, Daniel, a Knight of the Order of Malta, was fighting the Ottoman Turks who were occupying Greece at the time. He used the straight between Antiparos and Despotiko islands as his hide­out from which to raid Turkish ships. He was of course declared a "pirate" by the Ottomans.

One day, off the coast of Despotiko, he found himself surrounded by a Turkish fleet. He and a few men barely managed to set the ships on fire (to prevent them from being captured by the Turks) and to disembark. They went to the inhabitants of Antiparos and asked for safe passage. They even offered great wealth for it.

The islanders pretended to be interested. But they alerted the Turks instead. Betraying the Frenchman and his men, the Antipariotes then turned them over to the Turkish occupiers. As "pirates" this meant certain death.

That could have been the end of the story. However, Daniel's friends, Orange, Honorat and Hugo de Crevellier found out about this act of treachery. They then sailed to Antiparos. Flags waving they disembarked and proceeded to search for and put to the sword ... every man, woman and child of the island. Not a single person survived.

The population of Antiparos thus went down to zero. And then it was as if a curse remained over the island. Every-time it repopulated it was attacked. In 1794, most of its population was again slaughtered and taken captive, by pirates from Kefalonia and Mani this time.