Background

John Porter Brown was born on August 17, 1814 at Chillicothe, Ohio, the son of an obscure tanner and of Mary (Porter) Brown, daughter of David Porter, a captain in the American navy during the Revolution. Navy Department records do not confirm the statement of Admiral David D. Porter that Brown was in 1829 an acting midshipman in the navy.

Career

In 1832 John Brown joined his uncle, Commodore David Porter, minister resident at Constantinople, where he began the study of Turkish and Arabic. He became assistant dragoman of the legation the following year and was then successively commissioned consul (1835), dragoman (1836), consul-general (1857), and secretary of legation (1858). He was nine times chargé d'affaires ad interim.

In 1850 he helped to secure the first Turkish mission to the United States, by suggesting to the Grand Vizier, Reshid Pasha, the advisability of sending an agent to inspect American military and naval establishments, Brown having in mind the eventual displacement by Americans of the British in the service of the Sultan.

Without credentials, Amin Bey was brought to the United States in the U. S. S. Erie, received by the president and cabinet, entertained by Secretary Webster at Marshfield, and with his suite, accompanied by Brown, toured the United States as the guest of the nation.

The mission was featured by the widely copied denunciation of Brown that characterized Amin Bey as an impostor. Characteristically Brown attempted to secure the appropriation of entertainment money by Congress through his friend Lewis Cass, without consulting the Department of State. This independence and audacity was even more strikingly exemplified in the Koszta affair. A certain Martin Koszta, a Hungarian refugee and an adherent of Kossuth's insurrection against Austria, came to the United States in 1851 and in the following year declared his intention of becoming an American citizen, in the New York court of common pleas.

After a residence of nearly two years he went to Turkey, where he traveled by means of tezkerehs (Turkish passports) procured by the American consul in Smyrna and by Brown in Constantinople. He was seized at Smyrna by order of the Austrian consul and imprisoned on the Austrian brig Hussar. Although not subject to Brown's instructions, Capt. Ingraham of the United States sloop of war St. Louis appealed to the chargé for counsel. Brown advised him to demand Koszta's surrender, and if it were not complied with, to "take him out of the vessel".

Ingraham served his ultimatum on the Austrian commander at eight o'clock on the morning of July 2, 1853, and demanded a reply by four o'clock in the afternoon, in the meantime clearing the decks and preparing to fight it out in Smyrna harbor. The Austrian consul-general prevented bloodshed only by delivering Koszta in chains into the custody of the French consul-general. After months of negotiation he was released and returned to the United States.

The action of Brown and Ingraham, while high-handed and of questionable legality, was fully upheld by the United States Government. Although admitting that Koszta was not an American citizen, President Pierce declared that he was "clothed with the nationality of the United States".

After forty years of official life in the Orient Brown died at Constantinople of heart disease, so poor that his widow, Mrs. Mary A. P. Brown, was able to return home only through the generosity of the Sultan.

Achievements

• John Brown attained a considerable reputation as an Orientalist among his contemporaries. His translations of the Turkish version of al-Tabari's "Conquest of Persia by the Arabs, " Muhammad Misri's "On the Tesavuf, or Spiritual Life of the Soffees", and of Patriarch Constantine's Greek guidebook to Constantinople and its environs (Ancient and Modern Constantinople, London, 1868), while interesting, are now of little value. His best translation was Ahmad bin Hamdan Suahili's "Wonders of Remarkable Incidents and Rareties of Anecdotes, " a seventeenth-century Turkish collection of Arabic and Persian fairy tales, published under the title of Turkish Evening Entertainments (1850). The Dervishes, or Oriental Spiritualism is a fairly accurate account based on first hand knowledge.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Dervishes: Or Oriental Spiritualism

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • The darvishes;: Or, Oriental spiritualism,

Connections

John Brown was married to Mrs. Mary A. P. Brown.

Mother:

Mary P. Brown

unknown–1842

Wife:

Mary A. P. Brown

Uncle:

David Porter

Commodore

References

• One of Morgan's Men: Memoirs of Lieutenant John M. Porter of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry