When a British naval commander suggested in 1822 that Greece should accept autonomy under the Ottoman Sultan, Theodoros ...

When a British naval commander suggested in 1822 that Greece should accept autonomy under the Ottoman Sultan, Theodoros Kolokotronis gave him an answer that became the soul of a nation. Admiral Hamilton had come to Nafplio fresh off congratulating the Greek general on his victories, including the crushing rout at Dervenakia, and proposed that England mediate a deal with Constantinople. Kolokotronis shut it down without hesitation. "This can never happen; freedom or death," Kolokotronis told him, according to his own memoirs. He explained that Greeks had never signed a treaty with the Ottomans, not in 1453 and not since. Their king had been killed on the walls of Constantinople, their fortresses had never fallen, and their fighters had never stopped waging war. Hamilton was confused. He asked which king, which guard, which fortresses. Kolokotronis pointed him to Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine emperor, who died on May 29, 1453, refusing an Ottoman offer of safe passage. Constantine had reportedly said that surrendering the City was not his to do, and that all were resolved to die. No surrender document was ever signed. In Kolokotronis's framing, the Klephts in the mountains were the emperor's unbroken royal guard. Mani and Souli were the fortresses that never submitted. The Revolution of 1821 was not a new chapter but the continuation of a war that had been running for 369 years since the fall of Constantinople. Hamilton, according to the account, never spoke to Kolokotronis again. The exchange did not make Greece a principality under Ottoman suzerainty. It made "Eleftheria i Thanatos," Freedom or Death, the motto that Greece still carries today, more than two centuries later. #GreekHistory #WarOfIndependence #Kolokotronis