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American Missionary Ray Travis and his Armenian Legacy

Author: Vahé Tachjian

Introduction

To this day, countless documents that chronicle the lives of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, both in print and handwritten, await discovery in all four corners of the world. Many such documents are stored in family collections, while others are kept in prominent or obscure libraries and archives. Every time one of these valuable documents is “discovered” and made available to the public, new light is shed on another obscure aspect of Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire. Such discoveries generate great excitement, because each of them helps reconstruct an era in the history of a people – an era that ended with tragedy and bloodshed.

Such was the excitement when Houshamadyan recently acquired more than 50 old photographs from Ayntab, portraying the life of Armenians in the city in the final years of their presence there.

This collection of photographs belonged to an American missionary, Ray P. Travis, who was in Ayntab in the years 1919-1920. Travis’ personal papers, in their entirety, would later be housed at the Yates County History Center in New York State.

This rich collection of photographs is a window into a very short period of time in the life of Armenians in Ayntab, specifically the years after the end of World War I, when Ayntab and the surrounding cities and villages were occupied by the French and British armies. The Ottoman Empire had been defeated, and the Armenians of Ayntab who had been deported and who had survived the Genocide had begun to return to their native city, in the hope of starting a new life under the protection of the Allied armies.

This was also the time when the monumental task of finding Armenian orphans who had survived the Genocide, and of placing them in Armenian orphanages, was undertaken, particularly in parts of the Ottoman Empire that had been occupied by the Allied powers. These were orphans who had been kidnapped during the Genocide, or had wandered the land for years, left to their own devices and without any protection.

At the time, the City of Ayntab, like many other cities in the area, became an important shelter for Armenian orphans. In 1919, the Orphans’ Union (headquartered in Egypt) opened an orphanage in the city. In that same year, the orphanage of the Near East Relief (NER) was also founded. It was in this last establishment that Ray Travis, the owner of this collection, worked.

Travis in Ayntab

Ray Travis was born in New York State, probably in 1899. During World War I, he volunteered for service and was sent to France, where he achieved the rank of sergeant and served as a quartermaster. At the conclusion of the war, instead of returning to the United States, Travis received a discharge from the American forces and joined American missionary organizations, who had launched an unprecedented humanitarian campaign to help the droves of refugees and orphans who had been driven away from their homes by the war. The primary theater of this humanitarian campaign was the Middle East, where tens of thousands of Armenian survivors were in need of urgent help.

Travis most probably arrived in the Middle East in the autumn of 1919. We know that in July 1919 he was still in Paris, but his correspondence in the ensuing months indicates that he traveled on to the Middle East shortly thereafter. He was in Beirut for some time, and then proceeded to Aleppo. In November of that year he was already in Ayntab, where he assumed the post of director of the NER orphanage.

This was a difficult job. Hundreds of orphans had to be provided with shelter, nourishment, and clothing. It was an undertaking that required enormous effort in post-war Ayntab. At first, the orphans were housed at Millet Khan (Inn), located in the Turkish neighborhood of the city. Some of the photographs in Travis’ collection were taken here, and show male and female orphans gathered in the courtyard of the inn. Not all of the orphans hailed from Ayntab. Many had been found in nearby villages and cities, but were sent to hubs in the region (Ayntab among them) where orphanages had been established. For example, we know that in December 1919 15 orphans were sent from Kilis to the NER orphanage in Ayntab [1].

The orphans of the NER did not remain in Ayntab for long. In early 1920, Turkish nationalist forces attacked Cilicia and the occupying French forces stationed in the east of it. Upon hearing of these battles, the local Turkish population also declared rebellion and increased the pressure on the French forces. In the period stretching from January to May of that year, the nationalist Turkish forces were able to lay siege to a host of cities, including Marash, Bozanti, Hadjin, Sis, Ekbes, Urfa, and Ayntab. In some places, particularly in Marash, the clashes were accompanied, from the very beginning, with massacres of Armenian civilians. The fighting that erupted in Marash in January resulted in the death of several thousand Armenians.

Heavy clashes began in Ayntab on April 1, 1920. Most of the French forces had already left the city. Under attack from the Turks, the local Armenian population organized self-defense forces, leading to the battle for the defense of Ayntab, which lasted until April 17, 1920, when two French squads re-entered the city. This brought about a short-lived ceasefire, after which, in late June 1920, clashes resumed between the Turks and the French. The participation of the French in these battles was bound to be inconsistent, given that the level of their presence in Ayntab was ever-changing. The fighting continued until February 9, 1921, when Turkish forces withdrew. Normal life resumed in the city until the permanent withdrawal of French forces in mid-1921, which was accompanied by a mass exodus of the city’s Armenian population.

The Departure of the Orphans from Ayntab

Travi’s personal papers include correspondence addressed to him from local Armenian organizations; the Cairo headquarters of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU); the French military authorities in Ayntab; and Sabri, Governor of Ayntab. Most of these letters pertain to issues related to the orphanage, to the procurement of supplies for the city’s Armenian population (especially during the city’s siege), to the gathering of orphans, and later to the departure of the orphans from Ayntab.

One of the most important items in Travis’ personal collection is the diary he kept during the siege and defense of the city. The entries stretch from April 1, 1920, to May 30. The entries covering the period April 1 to April 19 consist of seven typewritten pages. The rest of the diary is handwritten, and consists of an additional 26 pages. The entries contain descriptions of military operations, the shelling of Armenian neighborhoods by Turkish forces, deaths, the general state of the orphanage, and the efforts to supply the orphans with food and clothing. In his writings, Travis praised Adour Levonian, the leader of the Armenian self-defense forces.

Did Travis personally participate in these battles? His papers make no mention of this. But later, some of the graduates of the orphanage reported that he constantly fired on the Turkish positions from the orphanage building with his machine gun [2].

We also know that when the clashes began, Travis moved the orphans from Millet Khan and moved them to a building called “Ali Bey”, after which the orphans were moved to the courtyard of the hospital of the American mission. This was salvation for the orphans, as Millet Khan was in the Turkish neighborhood of the city, while the American hospital was in the Armenian neighborhood. But the hospital had its disadvantages, too, as it was located on high terrain and was often the target of Turkish forces. The orphans once again had to be moved, this time to an underground cave located in one corner of the courtyard of the Haladjian orphanage. The orphans stayed there for more than two months, until the signing of a short-lived ceasefire between the French and Turkish forces (May 29, 1920) [3].

The bulk of the French forces left Ayntab on June 2, during the 20-day ceasefire that had been agreed. The retreating French columns were joined by approximately 800 orphans, including the orphans of the NER orphanage. Travis accompanied his orphans on this journey, which led them first to Kilis, then to Aleppo, and finally to Beirut.

The Jbeil Orphanage and Travis’ Legacy

It was in late June when the orphans of the Ayntab NER orphanage reached Beirut from Aleppo. First, they settled down in the neighborhood of “Karantina” (Quarantine), near the port of Beirut. The orphans were housed in tents in a large campsite, and Travis was appointed director of the campsite [4].
 
The NER aimed to house all orphans arriving in Lebanon in stone-built orphanages. Travis searched for an appropriate site, and eventually settled on a building in Jbeil/Byblos. The building was a defunct silk factory, and was partially in ruins. The orphans were moved to this location in September 1920. Most of Travis’ papers focus on the period of time from 1920 to 1925 when he served as the director of the Jbeil NER orphanage.
 
The post-war and post-Genocide years were a watershed for the process of the rebuilding of Armenian identity in the newly created Armenian Diaspora, especially in the Middle East. Those who led this movement were convinced that the rupture between the Armenian nation and the Ottoman-Turkish world was final and permanent. The “New Armenian” had to be fluent in the Armenian language, had to be well-versed in Armenian culture, and had to form an Armenian family, thus participating in the effort to revive the Armenian nation after the Genocide. This movement, guided by a nationalist ideology, was an attempt to transform the memory and trauma of the Genocide, as well as the fervent hatred of the Turks among Armenians, into the cement that would hold together the nascent Armenian nation rising from its ashes. These two elements of the post-Genocide Armenian psychology became the main thrusts of national and ideological indoctrination within the Armenian orphanages of Syria and Cilicia, and later in Lebanon, Egypt, and Greece.
 
The Armenian orphanages were mostly supervised by NER, the American missionary organization, which focused on providing religious/Protestant instruction to the orphans. Conflict often arose between the tenets of missionary instruction and the then-dominant philosophy of Armenian nationalism. During his tenure as the director of the Jbeil orphanage, Ray Travis sought to distance his institution from such conflicts. Many of the Armenian teachers he invited to teach in the orphanage were champions of Armenian national revival. Many prominent Armenians were invited to speak to the orphans of Jbeil, including Catholicos Sahak II, Yervant Odian, Vahan Tekeyan, Nigol Aghpalian, Yervant Khatanasian, Khosrov Tutunjian, and many others. The institution boasted a rich library of Armenian books, as well as athletic and literary clubs, a theater troupe, and a marching band. The orphans also published their own official newspaper.

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