George E. White (missionary)
George Edward White | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | April 27, 1946 Claremont, California, United States | (aged 84)
Occupation(s) | Missionary, President of the Anatolia College, and witness to the Armenian genocide |
George Edward White (October 14, 1861 – April 27, 1946) was an American
Early life
On October 14, 1861, George Edward White was born in
For three years, George E. White served as pastor of a local
Missionary career
White began his missionary career in 1890. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) sent him to Merzifon in the Ottoman Empire as treasurer and dean of the Anatolia College in Merzifon.[3] Anatolia College had opened in 1887 after incorporation under Massachusetts law.[4]
White was promoted to the college's president in September 1913.[5] The College's faculty then consisted of 11 Armenians, 10 Americans, and 9 Greeks.[6] By World War I, 2,000 students had graduated from the College.[7] White stated that the "Armenians have furnished the larger part of the students hitherto and the constituency is not merely local."[8]
Background
Armenian Christians had been an oppressed minority in the Ottoman Empire, often turning to Protestant missionaries as well as
The collapsing Ottoman Empire lost its
Armenian genocide
White considered the demographic situation as an "internal breach that would come to surface as a deadly wound."[13] He predicted that since many Christians lived in the area, conflict would be inevitable, merely awaiting an opportune time and conditions.[13]
When the Turkish government began deporting Armenians in 1915, White remained in Merzifon (which Armernians called Marsovan). At the time, half the city's 30,000 people were Armenian.[7] By spring, "the situation for Armenia, became excessively acute", White stated "the Turks determined to eliminate the Armenian question by eliminating the Armenians."[1] White found "the misery, the agony, the suffering (of the deportees) beyond power of words to express, almost beyond the power of hearts to conceive. In bereavement, thirst, hunger, loneliness, hopelessness, the groups were swept on and on along roads which had no destination."[1] White, estimated 11,500 deportees, or almost half Merzifon's population.[14] White also estimated that 1,200 Armenians converted to Islam to evade deportations and save their lives.[14] [15][16]
On August 19, Turkish authorities visited the Anatolian colleges and demanded deportation of all Armenian students and teachers.
White later described the events in a
On the pretext of searching for deserting soldiers, concealing bombs, weapons, seditious literature or revolutionists, the Turkish officers arrested about 1,200 Armenian men at Marsovan, accompanying their investigations by horrible brutalities. There was no revolutionary activity in our region whatever. The men were sent out in lots of one or two hundred in night 'deportations' to the mountains, where trenches had been prepared. Coarse peasants, who were employed to do what was done, said it was a 'pity to waste bullets,' and they used axes.[1]
In the same article, he claimed that girls were sold in the market for "$2 to $4 each."[1] White claimed he had personally ransomed "three girls at the price of $4.40".[1]
White also provided a detailed account of the
All the properties of the Armenians were confiscated, nominally to the state for the war fund. In this way all the Armenian houses, stores, shops, fields, gardens, vineyards, merchandise, household goods, rugs, were taken. The work was the charge of a commission, the members of which I met personally a number of times. It was commonly said that the commission did not actually receive enough for the government purposes to cover its expenses. Real estate was put up for rent at auction and was most of it bid in at prices ridiculously low by persons who were on the inside. This I know not only as a matter of common information but directly from a Turkish attorney who was in our employ and who provided himself with one of the best Armenian houses. Turks moved out of their more squalid habitations into the better Armenian houses whose owners had been 'deported.' All the property of the Armenians except some remnants left to the Armenians who had embraced Mohammedanism was thus plundered.[17][18]
Afterward, White headed a 250-person expedition funded by the Near East Relief Fund to aid Armenian refugees.[19] White also supported an independent Armenia because he believed that without a free Armenia, Armenians would have "no real security for the life of a man, the honor of a woman, the welfare of a child, the prosperity of a citizen or the rights of a father."[20] On 16 May 1916, Turkish authorities closed the college, displacing White and the remaining staff in order to establish a military hospital.[21][19] The staff of the College was eventually transported to Constantinople. The College remained a military hospital for the next two years.[21]
Return to Merzifon
George E. White returned to the Ottoman Empire and the College's presidency, reopening in 1919.[22] However, many Armenian teachers and staff had been killed, and the buildings damaged and deteriorated during the military occupation.[22] Nonetheless, White immediately began providing relief to victims of the Genocide.[22] He described the relief efforts and the College:
Inquiries are already being made by all races as to when our College will open. For the present we must press the relief work, but by fall we hope to take up also the school work. We shall need several first-class American tutors. You will remember that eight of our Armenian teachers were killed by the Turks. Everywhere girls are coming back who were carried away and forcibly married to Turks. Two of our Marsovan schoolgirls were taken into the homes of Turks in Marsovan. They ran away together and got to Constantinople in some way. I saw in one orphanage of this sort a few days ago thirty girls. They expect to have seventy-five. They have sad stories to tell. Most of those who had had babies have left them in the Turkish homes. I heard of one of our Marsovan girls, married to an Arab, who might come back now; but her face had been tattooed in such a way that she was ashamed to show it among people who had known her. The poor mistreated girls! How shall we bring new hope, new life, to them?[23]
White helped establish various additions to the campus which included an agriculture section.[22] By 1919, an orphanage was established within the premises of the school which sheltered as many as 2,000 Armenian orphans.[8] In addition, a "baby house" was established to house Armenian girls and babies displaced by the Genocide.[7]
However, the Turkish government in 1921 ordered the Anatolian College in Merzifon closed. The College ultimately relocated to
Later life
After a total of forty-three years of missionary service, White retired in 1934 and returned to the United States.[2]
On 27 April 1946, George E. White died in his home, 287 4th Avenue, Claremont, California at the age of 84.[2] He is buried at Hazelwood Cemetery in Grinnell, Iowa. [24]
Grinnell College has offered a named scholarship to select Anatolia College graduates in White’s honor, since 1986.[25][26]
See also
- American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
- Witnesses and testimonies of the Armenian genocide
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Armenians Killed with Axes by Turks". New York Times Current History Edition: "The European War". 13. 1917.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Dr. White, Headed College in Greece". New York Times. 4 May 1946. p. 15.
- ^ Grabill 1971, p. 26.
- ^ Shaw, Albert (1921). "The College Closed by Kemal". The American Review of Reviews. 64: 318.
- ^ Frank Andrews Stone 2004, p. 219.
- ^ ISBN 978-0231138642.
- ^ a b c d e f Shenk 2012, p. 37.
- ^ a b White, George E. (February 1919). "A Sacred Trust". The New Armenia. 11 (2). New Armenia Publishing Company: 20–21.
- ISBN 1-84885-561-3
- ^ Kévorkian 2011, pp. 146–147.
- ISBN 9781441194787
- ISBN 9780691153339.
- ^ a b Kieser 2010, p. 178.
- ^ a b Bartov & Mack 2001, p. 211.
- ^ Akçam 2007, p. 293.
- ^ Morley 2000, p. x.
- ^ Sarafian 1998, p. 82.
- ISSN 1773-0546.
- ^ a b "NEAR EAST RELIEF EXPEDITION LEAVES" (PDF). New York Times. February 17, 1919.
- ^ Winter 2003, p. 262.
- ^ a b Frank Andrews Stone 2004, p. 220.
- ^ a b c d Peterson 2004, p. 63.
- ^ Francis Rufus Bellamy (September 1919). "News from Marsovan, Turkey". The Outlook. 123: 33.
- ^ "Dr George Edward White (1861-1946) - Find a Grave..." www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- ^ "Υποτροφίες Κληροδοτήματος - Anatolia College". anatolia.edu.gr (in Greek). Retrieved 2022-09-29.
- ^ Edwards, Jon (30 September 2022). "RE: George White Scholarship confirmation". Letter to Donna Dralus.
Bibliography
- Grabill, Joseph L. (1971). Protestant Diplomacy and the Near East: Missionary Influence on American Policy, 1810-1927. U of Minnesota Press. ISBN 1452911312.
- Peterson, Merrill D. (2004). "Starving Armenians" : America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1930 and after (1. publ. ed.). Charlottesville [u.a.]: University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0813922674.
- ISBN 1-884630-04-9.
- Shenk, Robert (2012). America's Black Sea fleet the U.S. Navy amidst war and revolution, 1919-1923. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1612513027.
- ISBN 978-1-84885-561-8.
- Morley, Bertha B. (2000). Hilmar Kaiser (ed.). Marsovan 1915: the diaries of Bertha B. Morley (2. ed.). Ann Arbor, Mich.: Gomidas Inst.[u.a.] ISBN 0953519139.
- Bartov, Omer; Mack, Phyllis (2001). In God's name: genocide and religion in the twentieth century. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 1571812148.
- ISBN 978-1-4399-0224-0.
- Frank Andrews Stone (2004). Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.). Armenian Sebastia/Sivas and Lesser Armenia. Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publ. ISBN 1568591527.
- Winter, J. M. (2003). America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-16382-1.