“Not a Single Turkish Olive Tree”

On 22^nd February 1899 at the village of Kastelli in Pediada district, Hakis Vaemarakis, a former inhabitant of Peza "already temporarily residing in Heraklion" sold Emmanouil Miliarakis a field measuring three mouzouria (unit of measurement based on potential crop yield), "which before the latest political unrest contained approximately seventy young olive trees and one pear tree, of which the roots alone have survived." (Act no. 1091 in the archive of G. Drakopoulos, notary at Kastelli - E. G. Drakakis, Turco-Cretans and Christians: Relations Between the Two Communities as Emerging from Legal Documents, The Final Phase of the Cretan Question, S.C.H.S. 2001, p. 147 - in Greek).

In the course of the revolution, Muslim properties in rural areas suffered large-scale destruction: trees were burnt or cut down, vineyards were uprooted, houses, barns and stables were burnt down or dynamited. The revolutionaries often worked to a plan:

"Thus they have written to us that in order to force the Turks to abandon their homeland, we must actively begin destroying their property, leaving not a single Turkish olive tree.... This work must begin at once and be systematic"

(Document by the Archanes Defence Committee to the Commanders, 17-3-1898, no. 610, in: Manolis Peponakis, Turco-Cretan Migration in 1897/1899, The Final Phase of the Cretan Question, S.C.H.S. 2001, p. 129 - in Greek).