The Third Northern War and Plague Troubles in the Tayno Estate in the early 1700s

From Studia i Materialy Do Dziejow Pojezierza Augutsowiego, edited by  Jerzy Atoniewicz, Bialystok, 1967, pages 204-207.

Translated by Jay Orbik and Fred Hoffman.

Armies’ Passage and Plague Once More Destroy the Population. Another blow to the population was the Northern War.  Passing through from both one side and the other, the Swedish, Russian, Saxon, and Polish armies robbed the villages and brought along with them illness (plague), which from there spread all over Europe. Many inhabitants of what is today the county of Augustów fell victim to the epidemic.

Registers from Rajgród note the passage of the Muscovite army; on 15 Jan 1708 a great incursion of Muscovites; on 22 April 1708 the stay of soldiers from Pińsk and Upita. In 1707 Wojciech Bućko and Maciej Wyszko, serfs from Tajno, testified in the court in Goniądz, in the name of all the peasants of the Tajno lease [i. e., property leased out to a noble or official, who could then administer it as he wished and keep any profit left over after paying the lease amount—from here on I think it’s legitimate to translate this simply “estate”], that the detachment of Captain of the Horse Jakub Kreczewski and Lieutenant Mustafa Jabłoński of the Tatar Cavalry of Hetman Rzewuski, stationed in Augustów county during 1706 and 1707, robbed all the villages of sheep, rams, chicken, butter, salt, barley groats, and cheeses, as well as taking a rather large sum of money that was intended for the hyberna [winter quartering tax]. In addition they chased away the peasants from Orzechówka and badly damaged the newly-settled village of Uścianka, as well as the newly settled village of Piekutowo, until recently wilderness. Separately, Jan Znorowski, peasant from Tajno, accused these same people of invading his home and injuring his wife, Zofia. In 1708, Józef Bohusz and Roman Bogdanowicz, with the Tatar squadron of Captain of the Horse Daniel Adamowicz, of the army of Commander Józef Potocki, collected the hyberna from the villages of the Tajno estate.

In March 1709, Stanisław Antoni Szczuka, Deputy Chancellor of Lithuania and holder of the Tajno estate, commanded Rydyng to recruit 60 peasants from the Tajno estate, to drill them in the way of the foreigners, and to report with them in early May at Szczuczyn. Szczuka wanted to defend his private holdings with the help from these peasants. During the winter of 1709-1710, soldiers of the dragoon regiment Jakob Rybiński, chamberlain of Chełm and grand master of the hunt of the Kingdom of Poland, oppressed the starostwo [jurisdiction or property under the administration of a starosta] of Augustów as well as of and Rajgród, in addition to the Tajno estate. In 1712 Jerzy Zembocki, Augustów starosta, charged at the regional diet that his, starostwo, located on the road, was heavily ruined. He complained also that, when two years previously, Piotrowski’s squadron of Piotrowski, from Rybiński’s dragoon regiment, quartered for the winter in Augustów starostwo, quartermaster Stawski killed his brother. In the villages, stripped of peasants, crops, and money, the amount land sowed had diminished greatly. Peasants Gregorz Cichun from Wólka, Marcin Piątek from Tajno, and Jakub Sieńkowski from Polkowo testified under oath in 1710, and again in 1711, that in the villages of the Tajno estate, the following number of włókas of winter crops were sown: 

Once more the villages near Augustów began to decline. Military theft completely destroyed what was left of the peasants. As a result came starvation, and with it, disease. On 15 September 1710, in the court of Goniądz, created due to plague in the village of Zblutowo, the administrator of the Tajno estate, Adam Cichnicki, as well as peasants Józef Sosnowik, Krzysztof Matczyk, from Wózna Wieś, Wojciech Kordowski from Orzechówka, Wojciech Faszcza from Bargłówka, and Wawrzyniec Konoza from Polkowo, in the name of all peasants and Michał Jankowski, the wójt of Tajno, accused Stefens, a colonel of the regiment of dragoons, as well as captain Born, lieutenant Łuba, and Captain of the Horse Piotrowski of the rajter squadron, ensign Scheldenbeck, captain Essen, officer cadet Górecki, sergeant major Dąbrowski, and many soldiers, of robbing the Tajno villages ( they took sheep, meat, geese, chickens, vodka, etc.), of beating and wounding peasants, and raping one woman from Tajno (Dochodowa).

Soon plague gripped the area of Augustów. In the baptismal register of Rajgród parish, as early as June and July of 1710, there is a mention of “spreading plague.” From Rajgród many ran off to forests and villages in the middle of the marshes (for example, Ciszewo). On 13 November 1710 in the Goniądz court in Zblutowo, the peasants Michał Korzun from Bargłowka,  Wawrzyniec Greda from Wozna Wieś, and Wojciech Kulesza from Piekutowo, testified under oath that many peasants died in the time of the plague.

The owner of the Tajno estate, Konstancja nee Potocki of Szczuczyn, attempted to save the Tajno villages from complete destruction. On 23 October 1710, she attempted to get commander Adam Sieniawski to exempt the Tajno estate from the stationing and winter quartering of the army. Before the commander’s letter arrived from Brzeżany in Podolia, however, a great deal of time had passed (it was not read in the Goniądz court until 23 February 1711), and the robbery continued.

On 29 December 1710, Andrzej Bieniak, a peasant from Wozna Wieś, accused Mikucki, servant of the Captain of the Horse of Januszewski’s Hussars, of injuring him and his servant. In the end, it did no good. In March 1711, administrator Cichnicki madder accusations in connection with the robbing of Tajno. Peasants presented a detailed register of expenditures on the boarding of this squadron. In November 1711, Cichnicki also accused Antoni Paderewski, commissioner, prosecutor of Wyrozębski, of quartering of army in Uścianek for five weeks and robbery of this village.

Again in April 1712, Cichnicki submitted a new register of damages inflicted by the Tatar squadron in Tajno, in which 19 peasants were robbed. A separate charge was made to military court against the German army in the service of Poland, which also robbed the Tajno estate. In 1713 Szczukowa filed a suit in Gordno against the army for restitution of damages.

At this point, the period of military robbery ended. Subsequent passages of armies were not so destructive (for example, in 16 December 1735, the Russian army was in Augustów, as recorded in the Augustów register).  

However the greatest losses were caused by plague. In February 1711 peasants compiled a register of “people who died of pest air”. According to them, from January 1710 until January of 1711, 233 people died in Tajno, and 104 in Wólka. They did not indicate how many died in the other villages. In Tajno these families survived: Dorsz, Kiersztan, Koniecko, Kolęda, Sienko, and Orbik; in Bargłówa: Faszcza, Korzun, Kulesza, and Sikora; in Wozna Wieś, Bęćko, Jęczko, and Wiertel; in Wólka, Cichun, Jaskółka, Kępka, Kozłowski, Sikora Popko, and Sowicki. For the most part, there was no harvesting (for example, in the fields in Wólka, rye, oats, wheat, buckwheat, and peas were left unharvested). The number of włokas sown was not large (see at table on page 205). Part of the deserted land undoubtedly resulted from peasants’ fleeing oppression and plague. The Tajno peasants had good opportunities for hiding in the area’s forest and bogs. It may be some of them also moved to settlements in the Perstuń and Jaminy forests. Destruction also affected manorial farmsteads; in Wólka, for example, there was no more sowing “for pest air and shortage of people.” In 1711 there were only 4 bushels of rye in the folwark field.

It is impossible to establish what percent of the people died, due to the lack of the appropriate materials. It is known that as early as 1716 Uścianki and Lipowo were deserted, as well as Krosiówka and Dręstwo in Rajgród county. For example, from the number of farmers in the four villages from which we have data, we can get an idea how great the decline in population was.

[Stanisław Mateusz Rzewuski (1642-1728) Field Crown Hetman since 1706, voivode of Podlasie Voivodship since 1710]