288 | Migrants, Revolutionaries, and Spies
that the growing population of Armenian migrants in the United States posed a
major political threat to the empire.
Mavroyeni’s information-gathering role took on a new urgency in the early
months of 1894, in the midst of a diplomatic controversy between the US and Ot-
toman governments. The row stemmed from the arrest and alleged mistreatment
by Ottoman officials of several Ottoman Armenian migrants apprehended upon
their return to the Ottoman Empire after having been found in possession of US
passports. Ottoman officials justified the arrests on the suspicion that these Ar-
menian migrants returning to the Ottoman Empire sought to use their passports
as proof of US citizenship. Under a set of agreements with various foreign powers
known collectively as the Capitulations, citizens of certain foreign powers, of
which the United States was one, were exempt from prosecution under Ottoman
law. Ottoman officials feared that these Armenian returnees, if recognized as
citizens of the United States, would be able to engage in seditious activities in the
Ottoman Empire without fear of legal backlash. The controversy over these ar-
rests only deepened Mavroyeni’s belief that Armenians in the United States were
actively plotting the empire’s demise. In February 1894, he sent a report to his
superiors in Istanbul claiming, with little substantiation, that Armenian revolu-
tionaries based in the United States were sending significant money and material
support back to Hunchak cells operating in the Ottoman Empire.
He contacted his consular representative in Boston, Thomas Iasigi. Like
Mavroyeni, Iasigi was of Greek Orthodox descent but had been born and raised
in the United States. A graduate of Harvard University and married into Bos-
ton high society, Iasigi was the ideal representative of the Ottoman government’s
interests. He was also the logical go-to person for Mavroyeni’s plan to monitor
Armenian political activities in the United States. By the mid-1890s, Boston and
its surrounding area had emerged as the epicenter of Armenian life in the United
States. Together, Mavroyeni and Iasigi hammered out a strategy to begin actively
spying on the political activities of local Armenian migrants. Mavroyeni laid out
the plan in a letter to his superiors in Istanbul:
To obtain the most in depth information about the [Hunchakian Revolution-
ary Party].... I have decided to put at the service of our Consulate General in
Boston for some time at least, a member of the secret police. I tasked the agent
with associating with [Hunchak members] in Massachusetts to get as much
information as possible.... I know that the Imperial Legation has no money
available and that it should not spend funds before seeking the prior approval
of Your Excellency. I decided, however, to use all possible means to provide
greater clarity on this matter—at least as is possible in the United States. As for
the costs of this plan, should Your Excellency not agree with what I have put
forth, I will gladly support your position.