Barbary captives
an anthology of early modern slave memoirs by Europeans in North Africa
- ISBN: 9780231175258
- Editorial: Columbia University Press
- Fecha de la edición: 2022
- Lugar de la edición: New York. Estados Unidos de Norteamérica
- Encuadernación: Rústica
- Medidas: 24 cm
- Nº Pág.: 416
- Idiomas: Inglés
In the early modern period, hundreds of thousands of Europeans, both male and female, were abducted by pirates, sold on the slave market, and enslaved in North Africa. Between the sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, pirates from Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco not only attacked sailors and merchants in the Mediterranean but also roved as far as Iceland. A substantial number of the European captives who later returned home from the Barbary Coast, as maritime North Africa was then called, wrote and published accounts of their experiences. These popular narratives greatly influenced the development of the modern novel and autobiography, and they also shaped European perceptions of slavery as well as of the Muslim world.
Barbary Captives brings together a selection of early modern slave narratives in English translation for the first time. It features accounts written by men and women across three centuries and in nine different languages that recount the experience of capture and servitude in North Africa. These texts tell the stories of Christian pirates, Christian rowers on Muslim galleys, house slaves in the palaces of rulers, domestic servants, agricultural slaves, renegades, and social climbers in captivity. They also depict liberation through ransom, escape, or religious conversion. This book sheds new light on the social history of Mediterranean slavery and piracy, early modern concepts of unfree labor, and the evolution of the Barbary captivity narrative as a literary and historical genre.
1. Balthasar Sturmer, Account of the Travels of Mister Balthasar Sturmer (1558 German manuscript; captivity in Tunis 1534–1535; complete text)
2. Antonio de Sosa, Topography of Algiers: Attempted Escape of Miguel de Cervantes (1612 Spanish print edition; captivity in Algiers 1577; selection)
3. Ólafur Egilsson, The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson (undated Icelandic manuscripts; Icelandic raid and captivity in Algiers 1627–1628; selection)
4. Emanuel d’Aranda, Short Story of My Unfortunate Journey (undated Dutch manuscript; captivity in Algiers 1640–1641; complete captivity narrative)
5. Antoine Quartier, The Religious Slave and His Adventures (1690 French print edition; captivity in Tripoli 1660–1668; selection)
6. Andreas Matthäus and Johann Georg Wolffgang, Travels and Wonderful Fortunes of Two Brothers in Algerian Bondage (1767 German print edition; captivity in Algiers 1684–1688; complete text)
7. Isaac Brassard, The Tale of Mr. Brassard’s Captivity in Algiers (1878 French print edition; captivity in Algiers 1687–1688; complete captivity narrative)
8. Thomas Pellow, The History of the Long Captivity and Adventures of Thomas Pellow ([1740?] British print edition; captivity in Morocco 1715–1738; selection)
9. Hark Olufs, The Remarkable Adventures of Hark Olufs (1747 Danish print edition; captivity in Constantine 1724–1735; complete text)
10. Maria ter Meetelen, Miraculous and Remarkable Events of Twelve Years of Slavery (1748 Dutch print edition; captivity in Morocco 1731–1743; selection)
11. Marcus Berg, Description of the Barbaric Slavery in the Kingdom of Fez and Morocco (1757 Swedish print edition; captivity in Morocco 1754–1756; selection)
12. Elizabeth Marsh, Narrative of Elizabeth Marsh’s Captivity in Barbary (undated British manuscript; captivity in Morocco 1756; complete captivity narrative)
13. Felice Caronni, The Account of an Amateur Antiquarian’s Short Journey (1805 Italian print edition; captivity in Tunis 1804; selection)
Appendix: Selection of European and American Barbary Captivity Narratives
List of Works Cited and General Works on North African Piracy and Captivity
Index of Persons and Locations
