Ion Perdicaris
Encyclopedia
Playboy (lifestyle)
A playboy is a modern version of a public Casanova — a man of means with ample time for leisure, who demonstratively appreciates the pleasures of the world.The term has also been applied to a flashy womanizer, such as a player, pappagallo, or Don Juan....
who was the centre of a notable kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
known as the Perdicaris incident, which aroused international conflict in 1904.
Family life
Ion Perdicaris' father, Gregory Perdicaris, was a Greek who had emigrated to the United States from AthensAthens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, marrying into a wealthy family in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
and becoming a US citizen. He later returned to Greece as US consul. In 1846 the family moved to Trenton
Trenton, New Jersey
Trenton is the capital of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Trenton had a population of 84,913...
, New Jersey where Gregory Perdicaris became wealthy as one of the organizers of the Trenton Gas Company. His son Ion lived the life of a dilettante
Amateur
An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....
until the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. By 1862, the family's property in South Carolina was in danger of confiscation by the government of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
. Ion Perdicaris travelled to Greece, intending to renounce his United States citizenship and acquire Greek nationality to forestall any confiscation.
Perdicaris later moved to Tangier
Tangier
Tangier, also Tangiers is a city in northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 . It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel...
, where he built a house known as the Place of Nightingales and filled it with exotic animals. In 1871, Perdicaris met Ellen Varley, wife of the eminent telegraph engineer C.F. Varley in Malvern
Malvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
, England. Varley was away on a cable-laying expedition and Ellen abandoned him for Perdicaris. The Varleys divorced in 1873 and Ellen settled in Tangier with Perdicaris and her two sons and two daughters. Fascinated by Moroccan culture, Perdicaris wrote several books (few of them published to a wide audience) on Morocco, and became the unofficial head of Tangier's foreign community. He maintained business interests in England and the United States and frequently visited New York.
Perdicaris incident
On 18 May 1904, Perdicaris, and Ellen's son Cromwell, were kidnapped from their home by Mulai Ahmed er RaisuliMulai Ahmed er Raisuli
Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni was the Sharif of the Jebala tribe in Morocco at the turn of the 20th Century, and considered by many to be the rightful heir to the throne of Morocco...
's bandits. Several of Perdicaris's servants were injured by Raisuli's men, and Ellen was left behind alone. Shortly after leaving Tangier, Perdicaris broke his leg in a horse fall. Raisuli demanded of Sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
Abdelaziz of Morocco
Abdelaziz of Morocco
Abdelaziz of Morocco , also known as Mulai Abd al-Aziz IV, served as the Sultan of Morocco from 1894 at the age of sixteen until he was deposed in 1908. He succeeded his father Hassan I of Morocco...
, $70,000 ransom, safe conduct, and control of two of Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
's wealthiest districts.
Despite the circumstances, Perdicaris came to admire and befriend Raisuli, who pledged to protect his prisoner from any harm. Perdicaris later said: "I go so far as to say that I do not regret having been his prisoner for some time... He is not a bandit, not a murderer, but a patriot forced into acts of brigandage to save his native soil and his people from the yoke of tyranny."
US president Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
was angered by the kidnapping, and felt obliged to react. His Secretary of State
Secretary of State
Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
, John Hay
John Hay
John Milton Hay was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln.-Early life:...
, described the demands as "preposterous". At the urging of Hay and the Consul-General of Tangier, Samuel R. Gummere
Samuel R. Gummere
Samuel Rene Gummere was an American lawyer and diplomat who served as US Consul-General in Tangier, Morocco from 1898–1905, and Ambassador to Morocco from 1905–09, and became well known for his roles in the Perdicaris incident of 1904 and the Algeciras Conference two years later.Born in Trenton,...
, Roosevelt dispatched seven warships under the command of Admiral French Ensor Chadwick
French Ensor Chadwick
Rear Admiral French Ensor Chadwick USN was a United States Navy officer who became prominent in the naval reform movement of the post-Civil War era...
, and several Marine
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
companies, commanded by Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
John Twiggs Myers
John Twiggs Myers
John Twiggs Myers was a United States Marine Corps general who was most famous for his service as the American Legation Guard in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion.-Early life:...
, though with little idea of what US forces could achieve on such hostile foreign soil. They were not to be used without express orders from Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
; the only plan for using them was to seize the custom-houses of Morocco, which supplied much of its revenue, if the Moroccan government did not fulfill the demands of the United States, which were to make the concessions necessary to persuade Raisuli to release Perdicaris, and to attack Raisuli if Perdicaris were killed anyway. The only Marines actually to land on shore were a small detachment of a dozen men, carrying only side-arms, who arrived to protect the Consulate and Mrs. Perdicaris.
Roosevelt's resolve weakened still further when he was advised on 1 June that Perdicaris was not a US citizen, that in fact he had forfeited his American passport for a Greek one forty years earlier; but Roosevelt reasoned that, since Raisuli thought Perdicaris was an American citizen, it made little difference. Roosevelt tried to get Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
to join the US in a combined military action to rescue Perdicaris, but the two countries refused and France actually reinforced its garrison in anticipation of an American assault. Instead, the two powers were covertly recruited to put pressure on the Sultan to accept Raisuli's demands, which he agreed to do on 21 June. Hay saw the need to maintain face so he issued a statement to the Republican National Convention
Republican National Convention
The Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S...
:
According to all witnesses, the Convention, which had been lukewarm towards Roosevelt up until then, went wild at this remark. One Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
delegate exclaimed, "Roosevelt and Hay know what they're doing. Our people like courage. We'll stand for anything those men do." This famous catchphrase quickly caught on, and helped Roosevelt secure his election.
Perdicaris and Varley were met personally by Gummere and Chadwick, who had spent much of the time of their capture with Perdicaris's wife. When Ellen Varley asked for the admiral to provide a doctor for her husband, every medical officer in the American fleet volunteered.
The detailed facts of the incident (especially the fact that Perdicaris was not an American) remained secret until 1933, when historian Tyler Dennett
Tyler Dennett
Tyler Dennett was an American historian and educator. He is best known for his book John Hay , for which he won the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for biography....
mentioned it in his biography of John Hay.
Later life
Perdicaris and his family moved to England shortly after the incident, eventually settling in Tunbridge Wells. He occasionally returned to Trenton where he maintained business interests. Perdicaris Place, off West State Street, is named for him and his father. Ion Perdicaris died in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1925.
Popular culture
"Hostages to Momus", a short fiction story by the American author O. HenryO. Henry
O. Henry was the pen name of the American writer William Sydney Porter . O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.-Early life:...
was inspired by the kidnapping of Ion Perdicaris, who in the story is referred to as "Burdick Harris" ("Bur-dick-Harris" is a play on "Per-dic-aris", as both names rhyme with each other if pronounced as the author intended), a Greek citizen. The humorous story was written shortly after the incident.
In 1924, British author and adventurer Rosita Forbes
Rosita Forbes
Rosita Forbes, née Joan Rosita Torr was an English travel writer and explorer. In 1920-21 she was the first European woman to visit the Kufra Oasis in Libya , in a period when this was closed to westerners...
published The Sultan of the Mountains: The Life Story of the Raisuli, a full-length biography of Raisuli; the book is currently out of print in English, but a Spanish translation has appeared recently . Other books have discussed the incident, including David S. Woolman's Rebels in the Rif, Michael B. Oren's Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present and Bill Fawcett's Oval Office Oddities, and a lengthy, in-depth chapter on the kidnapping and President Roosevelt's reaction is included in Edmund Morris's second Roosevelt biography, Theodore Rex
Theodore Rex (book)
Theodore Rex is a biography of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt written by author Edmund Morris. It is the second volume of a trilogy, preceded by the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and succeeded by Colonel Roosevelt which was published on November 23, 2010.Theodore Rex...
.
The story of Ion Perdicaris's kidnapping was loosely adapted to film in the 1975 motion picture The Wind and the Lion
The Wind and the Lion
The Wind and the Lion is a 1975 adventure film. It was written and directed by John Milius and starred Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith and John Huston...
, with Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
in the role of Raisuli and Brian Keith
Brian Keith
Brian Keith was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his four decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the 1961 Disney family film The Parent Trap, the 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and the 1975 adventure saga The Wind and...
as Roosevelt. However, to add some spurious glamour to the tale, the 64-year-old bearded hostage was replaced with attractive young "Eden Perdicaris", played by Candice Bergen
Candice Bergen
Candice Patricia Bergen is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy Murphy Brown , for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama Boston Legal...
. While the movie incorrectly showed US Marines invading Morocco, not to mention their bizarre battle with non-existent soldiers of the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
, it succeeded in presenting the personality of Raisuli and his interaction with his prisoners. The incident is referenced in the book In Mortal Danger by Tom Tancredo
Tom Tancredo
Thomas Gerard "Tom" Tancredo is an American politician from Colorado, who represented the state's sixth congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009, as a Republican...
and in Inside the Asylum
Inside the Asylum
Inside the Asylum is a 2004 book by former U.S. undersecretary of defense Jed Babbin which accuses the United Nations of anti-Americanism....
by Jed Babbin
Jed Babbin
Jed Babbin is a former United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense who served during the first Bush administration in the United States, and is the author of the political book Inside the Asylum as well as Showdown and In the Words of Our Enemies....
.
External links
- Hunt, B.J. "Varley, Cromwell Fleetwood (1828–1883)" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 23 July 2005.