ALI PASHA, ii'le ( 1741-1822). An Albanian ruler, notorious for cruelty, and known as "the Lion ofJanina." He was born at Tepeleni, in the Albanian province of Janina. His father, One of the Albanian beys, died in Ali's boyhood, and the rearing of the child was thus left to his mother, a vindictive and merciless woman, who apparently instilled into him her own spirit. Ilis youth was passed in peril and hardship, seek ing to recover the possessions of which the neigh boring pashas had robbed his father. Young Ali at last had to betake himself to the mountains, and even to pledge his sword to save himself from dying of hunger. At length a change came in his fortunes, and lie returned to Tepeleni in triumph. On the very (lay of his return. he inur tiered Ids brother, and then imprisoned his mother on the charge of poisoning him. He helped the Porte to subdue the Pasha of Scutari and thereby obtained the lands taken from his father and several Greek cities. He also at tacked and slew (with the permission of the Sul tan) Selim, Pasha of DC1Vino, and, as a reward, was appointed lieutenant to the new Pasha of Dervent. He used this office to enrich himself by sharing the profits of brigandage. For this he was deposed, but he bought his way back into favor. For his services in the Turkish military service in the war of 1787 he was named Pasha of Trikala in Thessaly; at the Caine time lie seized Janina and had himself appointed pasha of that province. Having thus won a position of power by the most unscrupulous means, lie displayed marked administrative ability. The swept his old friends, the robbers, from the mountain roads, incorporated them into military troops, quelled the wretched factions that prevailed, and every where introduced order in the place of anarchy by the vigor and vigilance of his administration.
Ali formed an alliance with Napoleon Bona parte, who sent him engineers. On the collapse of the French expedition to Egypt, he seized the places which the French held in Albania. For sub duing the Suliotes he was in 1804 made a governor of Rnmelia. About this time, he revenged upon the inhabitants of Gardiki an injury done to his mother forty years before, by the murder of 739 male descendants of the original offenders, who themselves were all dead. In the interior of his
dominions Ali maintained order and justice. Security and peace reigned, high roads were eon structed, and industry flourished, so that the European travelers, with whom he willingly held intercourse, considered him an active and intelli gent governor. From the year 1807, when lie once more entered into an alliance with Napoleon, the dependence of Ali on the Porte was merely nom inal. Having failed, however, to obtain through the influence of Napoleon, Parga, on the coast of Albania, and the Ionian Islands, he now en tered into an alliance with the English, to whom he made many concessions. In return for these, they granted Parga, nominally to the Sultan, but really to Ali. As he now considered Ids pow er to be securely established, he caused the com manders of the Greek armatole or Greek mili tia), who had hitherto given him assistance, to be privately assassinated one by one. while at the same time he put to death the assassins, to save himself from the suspicion of having been their instigator. The Porte at length determined to put an end to the power of this daring rebel: and in 1820 Sultan Malumul sentenced him to be deposed. All resisted for a time several pashas that were sent against him: but at last surrendered, on the security of an oath that his life and property would be granted him. Re gardless of this, he was put to death February 5, 1822. Ali, like many other half-civilized mon archs and chiefs who have lived within the sphere of European influence, was keenly alive to whatever occurred among the powers of Christen dom. Though utterly illiterate himself, he had all the foreign journals translated and read to him. He watched every political change, as if conscious that the interests of his little region depended for their future prosperity on the west, and not on the east, and made friendly advances to both the French and English. Consult: Ibrahim IManzour Effendi, Memoires sur la Greee et l'Al banie pendant le yourernement d'Ali Par:ha (Paris, 1827) ; Pencker, Die Sulioten and ihre Kriege nit Ali Pascha von Janina (Breslau, 1834) : Davenport, The Life of Ali Pasha (Lon don, 1837).