They originated from Albanian clans that settled in the highlands of Thesprotia in the Late Middle Ages and established an autonomous confederation dominating a large number of neighbouring villages in the mountainous areas of Epirus, where they successfully resisted Ottoman rule for many years.

They are known for their military prowess, their resistance to the local ruler Ali Pasha, and later for their contribution to the Greek cause in the revolutionary war against the Ottoman Empire under leaders such as Markos Botsaris and Kitsos Tzavelas.

At the end of the 19th century Labridis proposed that Souli may derive from one of the earliest Cham Albanian clan leaders who settled in the area and gave his name to it as was the habit in tribal settlements.

All heads of clans gathered in the general assembly which Lambros Koutsonikas (himself a Souliot) recorded in Greek as Πλεκεσία, a term that can be linked to the Albanian pleqësia (council of elders).

[36] The Souliotes wore red skull caps, fleecy capotes over their shoulders, embroidered jackets, scarlet buskins, slippers with pointed toes and white kilts.

[37] In the mid-sixteenth century Souli is listed in an Ottoman tax register as a village inhabited by 244 taxpayers, located in the Christian nahiye of Ai-Donat, part of the homonymous kaza of the sanjak of Delvina.

The incorporation of the Souliots in the timariot system through the payment of taxes certified their legal standing, guaranteed them representation through the sipahi and allowed the continuation of their control and enrichment through activities such as brigandage and the provision of protection to subjugated populations.

[56][need quotation to verify] In a study by scholar Petros Fourikis examining the onomastics of Souli, most of the toponyms and micro-toponyms such as: Kiafa, Koungi, Bira, Goura, Mourga, Feriza, Stret(h)eza, Dembes, Vreku i Vetetimese, Sen i Prempte and so on were found to be derived from Albanian.

[57] Vasso Psimouli (2006) states that many of the placenames of the wider area of Souli are Slavic or Aromanian (Zavruho, Murga, Sqapeta, Koristiani, Glavitsa, Samoniva, Avarico), while those of the core of the four Souliotic settlements are mostly Albanian.

The Russian agent Ludovicos or Luigi Sotiri (a doctor from Lefkada) came to Souli probably in 1771, carrying a letter from Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov, guns and ammunition and urged Souliotes to revolt.

Ali Pasha managed to install as dervend agha (representative of the Pashalik of Yannina in Souli, one of his subordinates Andreas Iskos (relative of Georgios Karaiskakis)[68] As part of the same agreement he held five children of prominent Souliote families as hostages.

The main leaders were Fotos Tzavellas, Dimos Drakos, Tousas Zervas, Koutsonikas, Gogkas Daglis, Giannakis Sehos, Fotomaras, Tzavaras, Veikos, Panou, Zigouris Diamadis, and Georgios Bousbos.

While unsuccessful in this endeavor, they joined the Filiki Etaireia ("Company of Friends"), the secret society founded in Odessa in 1814 for the purpose of liberating Greek lands from Ottoman rule.

[87] As Ismail Pasha, also known as Pashobey, temporized, fearful of the Souliots's return to their stronghold, they decided, four months later, in November 1820, to change camps and began secret negotiations with their old enemy, Ali.

[108] In November they sent representatives to the assembly that established a constitutional charter for Western Continental Greece and they made a common attack on the city of Arta, which they captured and plundered, provoking the counterattack of Hurshid Pasha, the Sultan's new commander in chief in Yannina.

[109][110] Upon information of massacres of local Muslims in the Peloponnese after the beginning of the Greek revolts and after witnessing anti-Muslim actions in Messolonghi the Muslim Albanian agas perceived the religious character and divergent aims of the Greek Revolution and apprised of Ali's slim chances of success, they abandoned the Souliots and Ali and joined the Ottomans, accepting the proposals of the Albanian Omer Vrioni, a delegate of Hurshid Pasha, which the Christian Souliots, confident in their connection with the revolutionaries, rejected.

[119] In May 1822 the desperate resistance of c. 2,000 defenders of Souli managed to repel a 15,000-strong army, led by Hurshid Pasha, consisting mostly of Albanians, the agas of Chameria along with Ghegs, Labs and Tosks, who secretly aided the Souliots.

[126] On Mavrokordatos's orders, after the submission of most armed chiefs from Western Roumeli to the Ottomans, Botsaris was promoted to general and successfully assumed command of the defense of Messolonghi during its first siege in late 1822.

As they were poor and with no salary, they were eventually contracted by Mavrokordatos, who ordered them, in manner similar to the practices of the Ottomans and other Greek armed groups, to wage war against and plunder the province of Agrafa which was under the control of Georgios Karaiskakis.

[131] In an effort to release the tension and daily infighting between leaders of armed bands, all of them, including newly arrived from the Ionians Zygouris Tzavellas, were elevated to the generalship, leading Markos to tear apart the certificate of his rank in protest.

The armed clashes between them were frequent as Souliotes engaged in robberies and even took possession of parts of the houses of locals for their own families,[139] while claiming Greekness as a privilege enjoyed exclusively by themselves and berating other Christians in the city as rayah.

[139] Enraged at the troubles they provoked, Byron threatened to leave the city, if the Souliots stayed there, paid them part of the salaries due, accepting a request of the notables, and disbanded them, hiring fighters from various regions in their stead.

[143] Despite their inability to unify under the same command, due to the clan antagonism that determined their accession to opposing armed bands or political factions, the Souliots remained experienced and formidable warriors to be employed by the Greek Administration on a high pay scale.

[159] On July 24, 1829, the Souliotes submitted a new report which asked from the government of Ioannis Kapodistrias 1)to find land of their settlement 2)to pay them back wages for the participation in the war 3)to enact measures for widows and orphans.

As a reaction against the new decision, on September 26, 1834, the Souliotes from all three areas (Nafpaktos, Agrinio, Mesologgi) signed a petition and elected Kostas Botsaris as a representative to take all necessary measures for their requests to be accepted.

[166] In 1854, during the Crimean War, a number of Greek military officers of Souliote descent, under Kitsos Tzavelas, participated in a failed revolt in Epirus, demanding union with Greece.

[182] In 1851 British traveler Edward Lear wrote the "mountains of Suli" were "occupied by Albanians" in the early medieval period and stayed Christian after the surrounding area converted to Islam.

They were at times depicted as remote from European culture, exotic and simple mountaineers as proposed in orientalized prototypes by Lord Byron and later by various British poets who remained under the influence of the former.

[216] As a result of Byron's poetic refashioning of Albania as a "wild" landscape in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, travelogues from the early 19th century record a series of representations of the Souliots, already known as invincible warriors.

This depiction of armed mountaineers in a fierce landscape, supposedly encapsulating their warrior qualities, was massively reproduced in the 19th century, symbolizing Romanticism's Orientalist take of the heroic yet savage Other.