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 According to various archeological
findings in the place Episkopi of Hydra, scientists
have concluded that the emigration to the island had
begun long before the Homeric period, meaning the after
Neolithic time (3000 - 2600 B.C.). Hydra didn't manage,
to the centuries that followed, to evolve in a place
socially and historically capable of being.
Hydria, as Herodotus used to
call the island of Hydra, around the 13th century,
is becoming the place of Driops farmers,
fishermen and shepherds, who used to live to the Parnassus
and Oiti. Two centuries later, with the descent of Dorians,
Driops are disappearing and so the life in the island.
During Archaic times, Hydra didn't have to offer anything
of Historical value. The island was probably under the command
of the king of Mycenae , then it was bought
from Hermions until 525 B.C and then again
it was bought from political refugees from Samos to
be given to trizinians, who wanted the island
for farming and forager.
A small number of Historians make references to Hydra. Among
them are Herodotus, Ptolemaios the Geographer, Pausanias
and the lexicographers, Stefanos the Byzantios and Isixios.
Classic times - Roman times - Byzantine times
The only testimony that we have for
Hydra in Classis times is that of Stefanos the Byzantine,
who refers to one of the inhabitants of the island
by the name Euagis.
We do not have enough information for Hydra in Roman and Byzantine times.
This fact gave the impression that the island was uninhabited,
but archaeological findings in the place Episkopi show different.
It looks like that, because of pirate evasions from which
most of the citizens left from the Island and others gone
to the interior of it.
15th - 16th -
17th and 18th Century
In the beginning of the 15th century,
Hydra was inhabited by a few shepherd families.
From 1460, Orthodox Albanian refugees, who
fought to the side of the Venetians against the Turks, came
to the island and became fishermen. It is the time that the
building spree starts in Hydra and the first town in the
hill of the place Kiafa is created.
Because of the hostile climate in
greek cities in conjunction with the pirates in Mediterranean,
immigration becomes more intensive.
Greek families immigrate to Hydra. Some of them were the
Lazarou and Zerba family (from Hiperus), Mitarou family,
Nega family, Gini family and Gouma family (from the island
of Kythnos), Tompazi family (from Smirni), Tsamados family
(from Kranidi), Oikonomou family (from Epidauros).
More immigrants are coming to the
small island of Hydra during the 18th century.
That period we had the Venetian - Turk War and the Russian
- Tyerk war. That's why in the start of the Greek revolution
the island of Hydra had a population of 27.000 people. That
had got positive results, especially in sea commerce and
in shipping.
To the end of the 18th century Hydra became a great nautical
power with 150 ships. The island is in its peak.
The prerevolutionary times
This
demographic revolution certainly
had its positive and negative
effects on the evolution
of social Hydraian course. On
the more positive was the
promotion of trade development
and the major growth and
rapid development of shipping in
Hydra.
So
in the late 18th century and early 19th century, Hydra
turns into a great naval power with a commercial fleet
of 150 ships.
The
new features that gave the Greek merchant navy the Russo-Turkish
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) together with the favor
of the Ottoman administration, which relied much on
seamanship of Hydra, who served in the Turkish fleet,
the government ensured that the island and the appointment in
1802 his skilful and motivated George Voulgaris as deputy
commander and the Turks (lest notables) and especially
with the division of the Greek sailors of the blockade
imposed by England in the ports of France, during the
Napoleonic wars, for transportation
of grain, combined with the disappearance of the French
ships from the eastern Mediterranean, resulted at that
time, the island had the highest strength and thus the
economic and spiritual flourishing.
The
high level of development of maritime
and commercial activity demonstrates the foundation
of the naval school with the calling of Italian and
Portuguese teachers for the systematic teaching of seamanship,
and the adoption of specific laws and rules to regulate
such transactions.
Therefore is completely understandable,
that the moment of starting the Revolution
in 1821, found the small insignificant
until recently island of the Saronic
Gulf numbering about 27,000 inhabitants.
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