In 1796, the rogue governor of the Sanjak of Vidin, Osman Pazvantoğlu, invaded the Pashalik of Belgrade, and Karađorđe fought alongside the Ottomans to quash the incursion.

His murder resulted in a violent, decades-long feud between his descendants and those of Obrenović, with the Serbian throne changing hands several times.

[1] Petrović worked for several landlords across Šumadija until 1787, when he and his family left the region and settled in the Austrian Empire, fearing persecution at the hands of the Ottoman janissaries.

[12][b] Following the outbreak of the Austro-Turkish War of 1788–1791, Petrović joined the Serbian Free Corps (German: Serbische Freikorps), and took part in fighting the Ottomans in western Serbia.

[21] He and his family once again sought refuge in the Austrian Empire, this time finding sanctuary in the Krušedol Monastery, at the foot of Fruška Gora, where Petrović worked as a forester.

He declared a general amnesty for former rebels and announced that Muslims would no longer serve as tax-collectors in areas where Christians formed a majority of the population.

[10] In 1796, Osman Pazvantoğlu, the renegade governor of the Sanjak of Vidin, who had rejected the authority of the Sublime Porte, launched an invasion of the Pashalik of Belgrade.

Thousands of villagers were displaced and forced to flee into the mountains, where over the next several years, the able-bodied men formed ad hoc guerrilla bands.

[27] The flow of arms from the Austrian Empire into the Pashalik, combined with their inability to crush the guerrillas in the countryside, made the Dahi leadership increasingly uneasy.

Austria sent weapons and supplies to the rebels, while Russia lobbied on their behalf, encouraging the Porte to grant the Serbs further autonomy following the Dahis' removal.

By late August, the most prominent Dahi leaders had been captured by Karađorđe's men, beheaded, and their severed heads sent to the Sultan as trophies.

[44] Whatever the case, Karađorđe entertained senior rebel leaders in his home while his brother's lifeless body dangled from the front gate—a warning to others to refrain from the behaviour in which Marinko had been engaging.

[12] Muslims, combatants and non-combatants alike, were killed unremittingly, as illustrated in this contemporary account describing the capture of the village of Čučuge, near Ub, in April 1806: In their flight the Turks threw away their arms and clothing in order to run the better, but to no purpose.

The outbreak of the Russo-Ottoman War that month, compounded by Russia's avowal to provide extensive materiel and financial support to the rebels should they continue fighting, convinced Karađorđe not to accept anything short of complete independence.

[49] In March 1807, Karađorđe issued a promise to Suleiman Pasha, the Governor of Belgrade, that he and his garrison would be granted safe passage if they vacated the city's besieged fortress.

Nenadović suggested that the rebels establish a central council to rein in Karađorđe's power and write a constitution based on the rule of law.

They repulsed an Ottoman attack on the village of Suvodol in early June, and seized Novi Pazar later that month, but failed to take its fortress.

[48] Lacking numbers and adequate military training, the rebels failed to establish a corridor to Montenegro and gain access to the Adriatic Sea, which Karađorđe had described as one of his key aims.

Knowing that he and his men would be impaled if captured, rebel commander Stevan Sinđelić fired at his entrenchment's gun powder magazine, setting off a massive explosion that killed him and everyone else in the vicinity.

On the site of the battle, the Ottoman commander Hurshid Pasha built a stone tower with the skulls of Sinđelić and his fighters embedded in its walls as a warning to others who wished to rebel.

Their advance was brought to a halt after the Russians crossed the Danube in September 1809 and attacked the Ottomans in northern Bulgaria, offering the rebels temporary respite.

In January 1811, he established the People's Governing Council (Serbian: Praviteljstvujušči Sovjet), a cabinet consisting of members who supported Karađorđe as well as those who opposed him.

Trepidation filled the rebel camp once it became clear that there was nothing to prevent the Ottomans from exacting reprisals against the Pashalik's Serb population after the Russians withdrew.

[66] "Men were roasted alive, hanged by their feet over smoking straw until they asphyxiated, castrated, crushed with stones, and bastinadoed," one eyewitness wrote.

[78] In late October 1813, Hurshid Pasha declared a general amnesty for the rebels that had survived, though Karađorđe and some senior Orthodox clerics were specifically exempted.

[84] By extension, Karađorđe's murder precluded the Serbs of the Pashalik from taking part in the Balkan-wide rebellion that the Filiki Eteria had been planning.

In 2011, the chief Mufti of the Islamic Community of Serbia, Muamer Zukorlić, filed a petition to rename a street in Sjenica named after Karađorđe.

[104] Karađorđe's exploits were popularized across Europe by the linguist and folklorist Vuk Karadžić, who recorded and published the ballads of the blind gusle player and epic poet Filip Višnjić, many of which pertained to the First Serbian Uprising.

While he was still alive, the Hungarian dramatist István Balog [hu] wrote a stage play about him, titled Black George, which premiered in August 1812.

[108] The Montenegrin prince-bishop and poet Petar II Petrović-Njegoš dedicated his 1847 epic poem The Mountain Wreath to "the ashes of the Father of Serbia", a reference to Karađorđe.