I don't see why. I think this is just an assumption and given that the Portuguese primary sources are riddled with mentions of "Rumes" serving as mercenaries in the Indies I think it's an innacurate one. Now don't get me wrong. I don't think that every "Turk" or "Rumes" serving in an Indian kingdom was an actual Jannisary.Mordoch said:The issue is this early we're talking about individuals who really were effectively a slave army of the Sultan with this being their position for the rest of their lives. A crucial point is they were indoctrinated to the be loyal to the Ottoman Sultan, and its not like they could just go and hire themselves out for mercenary service.
I'm actually pretty familiar with this. I've been heavily studying Ottoman history these past few weeks and have gone through about half a dozen Ottoman history books so far. Although, it isn't actually on account of this debate. It's really for my mod.Mordoch said:Eventually by the 19th century a substancial portion of those designated on the Jannisaries payroll were not even serving in the Ottoman military, but this is a totally different situation than around 1500. Basically it involved a progression of corruption where the Jannisaries got concession everytime they supported a male heir from the Sultan's many wives as the rightful Sultan. (A surprising element of Ottoman History was the oldest male was not considered to be automatically the rightful heir to the throne, so civil wars were actually extremely common, albeit frequently on a limited scale once the military decided which candidate to support.)
Mordoch said:The point is Jannisaries would only have gone out to support another military force on the Sultan's orders. Any Jannisary who served as a mercenary with some other military force would be considered to have engaged in treason against the Sultan and presumably would have been executed if not tortured first if caught. Any Jannisary still part of his unit would have to dessert in order to join a mercenary force and definately would have been executed if caught doing this.
I disagree with this assumption. I think they would leave. The fact is from an individual Jannisary's perspective the grass really was greener on the other side so to speak. The fact is that they were well paid in the Indies and usually given land too. Essentially they lived like nobles in the Indies. They were highly respected and feared and Indian rulers gave them quite a bit.Mordoch said:Its not impossible that a single Jannisary deserted at some point even during the early period, but you're talking about individuals taken from their parents at a young age, and then converted to Islam and indoctrinated to be absolutely loyal to the Sultan. They could potentially rise to higher positions in the Ottoman government than merely soldiers, but their honor and prestige was entirely in being part of this force serving the Sultan. Since they were generally pretty well taken care of materially, deserting or even leaving the Ottoman Empire to seek a career as a mercenary simply wouldn't be generally attractive since they giving up so much for the mere prospect of gaining some material wealth.
Now I'm not going to argue that working as a Jannisary was a bad deal and so they left because it was lousy. But the fact is that they had more to gain by going east. I don't think they were mindless zombies. I think they still thought for themselves and often DID decide to go east instead as is heavily supported by an abundance of primary source information.