Abstract
With the 200-year anniversary of the start of the Greek War of Independence commemorated in March 2021, it is time to reflect on the meaning of the Greek War of Independence not only for those who inhabited the land that would become the modern Greek nation-state, but also for philhellenes abroad. There is a unique, understudied case of a philhellene from the United States, Vermont-born Jonathan Peckham Miller, who embodied many of the enlightenment ideals and romanticism that contributed to the mythos behind the Greek War of Independence. Miller, a veteran of the War of 1812, learned of the struggle and plight of the Greeks in part by reading Lord Byron. Eventually seeing the need to join the struggle himself, he travelled to Greece in 1824. Distinguishing himself in combat, for example at the historic Battle of Mylon, he eventually attained the rank of colonel in the Greek army. Leaving Greece in 1826, he travelled around the major cities and towns in the Northeast US, drumming up support for aid to Greece. He returned with this aid in 1827, and keeping a detailed diary, wrote a book about the condition of Greece in 1827–1828. Even more curious, Miller purchased the sword of Lord Byron, and brought it to Vermont where it resides today. After returning, his life was dedicated to the abolition of slavery in the United States. He famously took part in the International Conference on the Abolition of Slavery in London in 1840. This chapter will both detail J. P. Miller’s life both in Vermont and Greece, using primary sources located at the Vermont Historical Society, as well as highlight the international dimensions of the Greek War of Independence and how the ideals, principles, and values it embodied for philhellenes was transformative on both sides of the Atlantic.
With great enthusiasm we learned that Hellas was finally forced to take up arms in order to gain her freedom and the position that she once held among the nations of the world. Such a beautiful and just case and, most importantly, the first successes which have accompanied it, cannot leave Haitians indifferent, for we, like the Hellenes, were for a long time subjected to a dishonorable slavery and finally, with our own chains, broke the head of tyranny.
—Jean-Pierre Boyer, President of Haiti to A. Korais, K. Polychroniadis, A. Bogorides, and Ch. Klonaris
But though I have passed through scenes in this country which have been trying indeed, yet I bless God that he ever put it into my heart to visit Greece. I am, if it is his will, both ready and willing to die in her cause. I hope, however, yet to do much towards her emancipation and regeneration.
—Jonathan Peckham Miller, Letter dated 5 October 1825
The author thanks Paul Carnahan at the Vermont Historical Society and the library staff at Dartmouth College, Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Princeton University, and Harvard University for their help in securing sources and materials for this chapter. On 24 March 2021, Vermont’s Governor Philip B. Scott (R) signed the Greek Independence Day Proclamation (21–024) which I wrote and submitted to the Governor’s office. This proclamation highlights Jonathan Peckham Miller’s importance both to the Greek War of Independence and to the State of Vermont.
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Notes
- 1.
Frederick F. Anscombe, “The Balkan Revolutionary Age”, The Journal of Modern History, 84(3), 2012, 577.
- 2.
Leften Stavros Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1453, New York University Press, New York, 2000, 279.
- 3.
J. P. Miller’s birth year is disputed in various sources. According to D. P. Thompson, Miller was born in the year 1797. This is also on the official roadside historic marker in the town of Randolph, Vermont. However, according to the Records of the Vital Statistics Division, Office of the Secretary of State of Vermont, Miller was born in 1796.
- 4.
Laura E. Richards (ed). Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe: The Greek Revolution, Dana Estes & Co., Boston, 1909, 119.
- 5.
D. P. Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, From the Time it was First Chartered in 1781 to the Year 1860. Together with Biographical Sketches of its most noted Deceased Citizens, E. P. Walton, Montpelier, 1860, 249.
- 6.
Ibid., 249.
- 7.
Richards (ed.), Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, 119.
- 8.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 249.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 250.
- 11.
Ibid., 120.
- 12.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 250.
- 13.
Richards (ed.), Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, 119–20.
- 14.
Ibid., 120.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Ibid.
- 18.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 250–251.
- 19.
Constantine G. Hatzidimitriou (ed.), “Founded on Freedom and Virtue”: Documents Illustrating the Impact in the United States of the Greek War of Independence 1821–1829, Aristide D. Caratzas, New York, 2002, 22.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
For more see: C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, Vintage, New York, 1989.
- 22.
E. G. Sideris & A. A. Konsta, “A Letter from Jean-Pierre Boyer to Greek Revolutionaries”, Journal of Haitian Studies, 11(1), 2005, 167–71.
- 23.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 251.
- 24.
Greek Committee of Boston, Letters from Greece, Greek Committee of Boston, Boston, 1825, 1.
- 25.
Boston Telegraph, 9 September 1824; Stephen A. Larrabee, Hellas Observed: The American Experience of Greece, 1775–1865, New York University Press, New York, 1957, 144.
- 26.
Boston Telegraph, 9 September 1824.
- 27.
Christos D. Lazos, Η Αμερική και ο Ρόλος της στην Επανάσταση του 1821: Τόμος Β’ [America and its Role in the Revolution of 1821: Volume II], Papazisis, Athens, 1984, 102.
- 28.
Lazos, Η Αμερική και ο Ρόλος της στην Επανάσταση, 116–7.; Stephen A. Larrabee, Hellas Observed, 109–10.
- 29.
Spooner’s Vermont Journal, 19 September 1825.
- 30.
Panayiotis S. Kapetanakis, “The Ionian State in the “British” Nineteenth Century, 1814–1864: From Adriatic Isolation to Atlantic Integration”, International Journal of Maritime History, 22(1), 2010, 170.
- 31.
Greek Committee of Boston, Letters from Greece, 6.
- 32.
Ibid., 7.
- 33.
Richards (ed.), Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, 29.
- 34.
Thanos K. Vagenas & Evridiki Dimitrakopoulou, Αμερικανοί Φιλέλληνες Εθελοντές στο Εικοσιένα [American Philhellene volunteers in 1821], Athens, 1949, 57.
- 35.
Richards (ed.), Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, 70.
- 36.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 253; Lazos, Η Αμερική και ο Ρόλος της στην Επανάσταση του 1821, 118; Vagenas & Dimitrakopoulou, Αμερικανοί Φιλέλληνες εθελοντές στο Εικοσιένα, 58; Christophorus Plato Castanis, The Greek Exile, or a Narrative of the Captivity and Escape of Christophorus Plato Castanis, During the Massacre on the Island of Scio, by the Turks, Together with Various Adventures in Greece and America, Lippincott, Grambo, & Co., Philadelphia, 1851, 109.
- 37.
Lazos, Η Αμερική και ο Ρόλος της στην Επανάσταση, 122–4.
- 38.
Richards (ed.), Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, 29.
- 39.
Samuel G. Howe, An Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution, White, Gallaher & White, New York, 1828, 248.
- 40.
Miller is honoured on the monument to the American Philhellenes of the Greek War of Independence located on P. Kyriakou road in the Ampelokipoi neighbourhood of Athens, near the U.S. Embassy. On the monument, Miller is listed as the second name, albeit misspelled, as ΤΖΟΧΑΝΑΜ ΜΥΛΛΕΡ ΤΗΣ ΒΕΡΜΟΝΤ, (JOHANAM MILLER OF VERMONT).
- 41.
Col. Jonathan Peckham Miller, The Condition of Greece, in 1827 and 1828; Being An Exposition of the Poverty, Distress, and Misery to Which the Inhabitants Have Been Reduced by the Destruction of Their Towns and Villages, and the Ravages of their Country, by a Merciless Turkish Foe. As Contained In His Journal, J. & J. Harper, New York, 1828, 9.
- 42.
Ibid., 275–90.
- 43.
Ibid., 10.
- 44.
Ibid., 16–20.
- 45.
Angelo Repousis, “‘The Cause of the Greeks’: Philadelphia and the Greek War of Independence, 1821–1828″, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 123(4), 1999, 360.
- 46.
William St Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, 2008, 340.
- 47.
Miller, The Condition of Greece, in 1827 and 1828, 195.
- 48.
Ibid. 1828, 197.
- 49.
St Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free, 342.
- 50.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 258–59.
- 51.
John Ellsworth Goodrich, General Catalogue of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, Burlington, Vermont: 1791–1901, Free Press Association, Burlington, 1901, 51, 221.
- 52.
Goodrich, General Catalogue of the University of Vermont, 51.
- 53.
Burlington Free Press, Burlington, VT, 4 July 1828.; Farmers Herald, St. Johnsbury, VT, 8 July 1828; Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 260.
- 54.
Journal of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at their session begun and held at Montpelier, Washington County, on Thursday, 14th October, A.D. 1830, Rufus Colton, Woodstock, 5.; Journal of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at their session begun and holden at Montpelier, Washington County, on Thursday, 13th Day of October, A.D. 1831, Rufus Colton, Woodstock, 5.; Journal of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at their session begun and holden at Montpelier, in the County of Washington, on Thursday, 10th October, A.D. 1833, Eben’r Eaton, Danville, 5.
- 55.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 260.
- 56.
Journal of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at their session begun and holden at Montpelier, in the County of Washington, on Thursday 13th October, A.D. 1832, Eben’r Eaton, Danville, 83; Journal of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at their session begun and holden at Montpelier, in the County of Washington, on Thursday, 10th October, A.D. 1833, 165.
- 57.
William Arba Ellis, Norwich University 1819–1911, Her History, Her Graduates, Her Roll of Honor, Volume 2: Sketches of the Trustees, Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Professors, Alumni, and Past Cadets, 1820–66, The Capital City Press, Montpelier, 1911, 10.
- 58.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 260.
- 59.
Journal of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at their session begun and holden at Montpelier, in the County of Washington, on Thursday, 10th October, A.D. 1833, 35.
- 60.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 260.
- 61.
Wilbur H. Siebert, Vermont’s Anti-Slavery and Underground Railroad Record with a Map and Illustrations, Spahr and Glenn Co., Columbus, 1937, 25.
- 62.
Sammler [Pseudonym?], “Anti-Slavery ‘Riot’ at Montpelier in 1835”, The Green Mountain Freeman (Montpelier, VT), 11 July 1877.
- 63.
Letter from Mrs. Abijah Keith [Sarah Miller] to Wilbur Siebert, 28 March 1897.
- 64.
Letter from Mrs. Abijah Keith [Sarah Miller] to Wilbur Siebert, 4 April 1897.
- 65.
Letter from Mrs. Abijah Keith [Sarah Miller] to Wilbur Siebert, 28 March 1897.
- 66.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 261.
- 67.
Greek Committee of Boston, Letters from Greece, 4. Years after Miller left, Russia, Britain, and France met for the London Conference (1832) where they decided that in order to stabilize the country from civil war and strife, the Kingdom of Greece was established under Otto I, a Bavarian prince.
- 68.
Mountain Bard, “Greece—A Fragment”, Vermont Gazette, Bennington, VT, 24 January 1826.
- 69.
Maddon’s Travels, “The Slave Market at Constantinople”, Vermont Gazette, Bennington, VT, 8 September 1829.
- 70.
Steve Frangos, “Appendix: The Greek Slave”, in Hatzidimitriou (ed.), Founded on Freedom and Virtue, 377.
- 71.
Ibid., 379.
- 72.
Ibid., 380.
- 73.
Proceedings of the General Anti-Slavery Convention, called by the Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and held in London, from Friday, June 12th, to Tuesday, June 23rd, 1840, British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, London, 1841, 31.
- 74.
Ibid., 181.
- 75.
Ibid., 416.
- 76.
Ibid., 205.
- 77.
Ibid., 136.
- 78.
Ibid., 326.
- 79.
Ibid., 438.
- 80.
Ibid., 468.
- 81.
Ibid., 556.
- 82.
Ibid., 556–7.
- 83.
Richards (ed.), Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, 120.
- 84.
For the origin of Crusading ideals, the war on Islam, and what it ultimately meant for the Conquest of the Americas, Africa, and Asia see, Christopher Helali, “From Crusaders to Conquistadors: Religion, Colonialism, and the Imperialist Expansion of the Capitalist World-System” presented in the Racism and Religion: Concepts and Genealogies session at the conference “Racism and Religion” at Uppsala University (Sweden) on November 7, 2019.
- 85.
Sereno Edwards Dwight, The Greek Revolution: An Address, Delivered in Park Street Church, Boston, on Thursday, April 1, and Repeated at the Request of the Greek Committee, in the Old South Church, on the Evening of April 14, 1824, Crocker & Brewster, Boston, 1824, 34.
- 86.
Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1453, 288.
- 87.
Ibid.
- 88.
Yianni John Charles Cartledge, “The Chios Massacre (1822) and early British Christian-humanitarianism”, Historical Research, 93(259), 2020, 61.
- 89.
Ibid., 64.
- 90.
Photini Tomai, The American People’s Support to the Greek War of Independence 1821, Papazisis, Athens, 2010, 76.
- 91.
J. P. Miller, “Letter from Greece”, Spooner’s Vermont Journal, Windsor, VT, 19 September 1825.
- 92.
Edward Mead Earle, “American Interest in the Greek Cause, 1821–1827”, The American Historical Review, 33(1), 1927, 62.
- 93.
Edward Mead Earle, “Early American Policy Concerning Ottoman Minorities”, Political Science Quarterly, 42(3), 1927, 346–7.
- 94.
William M. Malloy, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776–1909: Volume II, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1910, 1786.
- 95.
Earle, “Early American Policy Concerning Ottoman Minorities”, 349–50.
- 96.
Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, 262.
- 97.
Editor(s) [J. Poland?], Green Mountain Freeman, Montpelier, VT, 25 February 1847.
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Helali, C. (2022). Devoted to the Cause of Freedom: Jonathan Peckham Miller, Philhellenism, and the Transatlantic Struggle for Liberation. In: Cartledge, Y., Varnava, A. (eds) New Perspectives on the Greek War of Independence. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10849-5_11
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