SULIOTES

SULIOTES, a Græco-Albanian race who in the 17th century, to escape their Turkish oppressors, fled from their old settlement in Epirus to the mountains of Suli, in South Albania, where they prospered in the following century in independence; driven out by the Turks in 1803, they emigrated to the Ionian Islands; came to the aid of Ali Pasha against the sultan in 1820, but, defeated and scattered, found refuge in Cephalonia, and later gave valuable assistance to the Greeks in their struggle for independence. The treaty of 1829 left their district of Suli in the hands of the Turks, and since then they have dwelt among the Greeks, many of them holding high government rank.