Summary
The Hydriots, descendants of an Albanian colony that settled the island around 1730, displayed the typical characteristics of the Albanian race: proud, insolent, turbulent, and greedy. While the elites were jealous and exacting, and the people rude and violent, they possessed notable virtues — especially a strong love of truth and strict honesty in their engagements. They were widely respected as the most punctual merchants and the most careful sailors in the Levant. The island was governed by a capitalist class of shipowners and retired captains, who elected elders (plekjeria) to manage local affairs under Ottoman suzerainty, paying only a modest annual tribute.
Cited:
“HYDRA. BOOK I. CHAP. II.
Rich Hydriot usually displayed his wealth in erecting a large building near the sea, which served as a dwelling for his family and a warehouse for his goods. In some of the rooms the sails and cordage of his ships were stored; in others he lived.¹
The Hydriots of every rank displayed the peculiar character of the Albanian race. They were proud, insolent, turbulent, and greedy of gain. The primates were jealous and exacting, the people rude and violent.
But both possessed some sterling virtues; and they were distinguished from the Greeks by their love of truth, and by the honesty with which they fulfilled their engagements. There were no traders in the Levant who paid more punctually than the merchants, and no sailors who took better care of ship and cargo than the mariners of Hydra.
The civil government, conceded by the sultan and protected by the capitan-pasha, was entirely in the hands of the shipowners and retired captains, who formed a class of capitalists.
About the year 1730, when the Albanian colony established itself in the then deserted island in order to escape the exactions of the pasha of the Morea, the local administration of the small trading community was intrusted to three elders, called, in the Albanian dialect, plekjeria, who were chosen by the people.
The annual tribute paid to the sultan amounted to 200 piastres, a sum at that time not equal to £30 sterling. When the islanders grew richer and more numerous, the number of elders was gradually increased, until it reached twelve. But
¹ Both Gordon (History of the Greek Revolution, i. 164) and Waddington (Visit to Greece, 102) speak of the costly marbles and splendid furniture at Hydra. The marbles were only flags from Leghorn with which the courts were paved; and the richest furniture consisted of a few damask chairs from Marseilles. Generally, the best houses of the Hydriot primates were not so expensively furnished as those of the Moreots. The houses were built at considerable expense, but were solid, not splendid. They still stand to bear…”
Source
George Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1861), Volume I, Book I, Chapter II, pp. 37–38.
