See here: The events that led to civil war are recounted in Pellow’s Adventures; Braithwaite, History; de Chenier, The Present State; and al-Qadiri, The Chronicles.
See here: Moulay Abdallah was to prove as unpredictable and violent as his father. See de Chenier, The Present State; and al-Qadiri, The Chronicles.
12: Long Route Home, See here
See here: Much of this is drawn from Pellow’s own account. See the notes in Morsy, La Relation de Thomas Pellow, especially here. For more information about French exploitation of Guinea, see P.E.H. Hair, Adam Jones and Robin Law (eds.), Barbot on Guinea: The Writings of Jean Barbot on West Africa, 1678-1712, 1992. See also William Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea, 1744.
See here: For more on John Leonard Sollicoffre’s mission to Morocco, see PRO; SP17/18. The mission is also discussed in Rogers, Anglo-Moroccan Relations. The Duke of Newcastle’s letter to Sollicoffre is in SP17/18, f. 97.
See here: This account is taken from Pellow’s Adventures. See also Colley, Captives. I tried, without success, to locate the newspaper article written about Pellow’s arrival in London.
Epilogue, See here
See here: The capture and enslavement of the Inspector’s crew is told in Thomas Troughton, Barbarian Cruelty, 1751. For general background to Sidi Mohammed’s reign, see Meakin, The Moorish Empire. For a much more detailed assessment of his character and foreign policy, see de Chenier, The Present State. De Chenier includes a list of all the treaties that Sultan Mohammed signed with European powers. See also Clissold, The Barbary Slaves.; Lloyd, English Corsairs, See here.; John B. Wolf, The Barbary Coast: Algiers under the Turks, 1500–1830, 1979; and Lane-Poole, The Barbary Corsairs, See here. Within a few years of American independence, American shipping was being hit hard by the Barbary corsairs. Sumner, White Slavery, offers an excellent overview of the various attacks on American vessels and the response they produced; see especially here. For a more detailed analysis, see James A. Field, America and the Mediterranean World, 1776–1882, Princeton, 1969; and R. W Irwin, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with the Barbary Powers, Chapel Hill, 1931.
See here: There were many in the early nineteenth century who believed it was time for a grand military offensive against Barbary. See Filippo Pananti, Narrative of Residence in Algiers, 1818. For more about Sir Sidney Smith, see Clissold, The Barbary Slaves. See also E. Howard (ed.), Memoirs of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, 1839, 2 vols.; see especially vol. 2.
The exact number of slaves being held in North Africa at any given time is extremely hard to calculate. Father Pierre Dan claimed in 1637 that the slave population had already topped one million—an assertion for which he provides little evidence. His claim that Algiers had a constant slave population of about 25,000 is almost certainly more accurate, for it is corroborated by many other reports. Diego de Haedo, writing in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, estimated that there were 25,000 Christian slaves in Algiers; see his Topografia, Valladolid, 1612. Father Emanuel d‘Aranda provides similar figures (25,000) for Algiers in the 1650s; see his Relation de la Captivité à Alger, Leyden, 1671. Felipe Palermo, a captive, wrote in September 1656 that there were 35,000 Christian slaves in Algiers; see Friedman, Spanish Captives. Chevalier Laurent d’Arvieux claims in his Mémoires du Chevalier d‘Arvieux, Paris, 1735, that there were almost 40,000. The diplomats Laugier de Tassy and Joseph Morgan, writing in the eighteenth century, paint a similar picture. See Laugier de Tassy, Histoire d’Alger, Amsterdam, 1725; and Morgan, A Voyage to Barbary.
The subject of the white slave population of North Africa has been addressed most recently and comprehensively in Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800 by Robert C. Davis, 2003. Davis has made a detailed study of corsair activity between the 16th and 18th centuries and has also compiled a list of all the available slave counts for this period. Furthermore, he has looked at the death rate of captives—whether through torture or sickness—and the numbers redeemed by padres and ambassadors. He concludes that between 1530 and 1780, “there were certainly a million, and quite possibly as many as a million and a quarter, white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary coast.” See part one, chapters 1 and 2.
For more information about Sir Edward Pellew, see Cyril Northcote Parkinson, Edward Pellew, Viscount Exmouth, 1934. The best single-volume account of Pellew’s campaign against Algiers is Roger Perkins, Gunfire in Barbary, Havant, 1982. Playfair, The Scourge of Christendom, contains lengthy quotations from Pellew’s dispatches, as well as the eyewitness account written by William Shaler; See here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My fascination with the story of white slavery began more than a decade ago while staying in Morocco with the late (and splendidly eccentric) Clive Chandler. Clive’s country retreat, Dar Zitoun, lay at the heart of the medina in the medieval village of Azzemour. A crumbling Portuguese mansion—lovingly restored—it was perched high above the great Oum er Rbia River. It had once been the residence of a local pasha: there were some who joshed that a pasha lived there still.
I’d telephoned Clive to ask how to find the place. “Follow the tarmac,” was his cryptic reply. It all made sense when I arrived. The local mayor had ordered a layer of tarmac to be sluiced along the dust-choked alleys that led to Clive’s iron-studded front door. He had done so to honor a quintessential Englishman—the first to have settled in this backwater.
Clive’s collection of antiquarian books opened my eyes to an extraordinarily colorful period in Moroccan history, while his enthusiasm for his adopted country quickly became infectious. “Look,” he said one evening as he whisked open some curtains in the tiled atrium. “Not many people have a Moorish holy man buried inside their house.”
Clive’s generosity and hospitality extended over five memorable trips to Morocco. Gin and tonic at sundown, Churchill’s speeches playing on the gramophone and the distant sound of Bou’chaib, cuisinier extraordinaire, chopping fresh mint in the kitchen. Dar Zitoun was another world.
Not all the research for White Gold was undertaken in such congenial surroundings. Each trip to Morocco was followed by many months in public libraries, where I slowly unearthed a wealth of original letters, journals and documents.
I am most grateful to the staff of The National Archives at Kew—home to much original correspondence—and to the helpful librarians in the Rare Books Reading Room of the British Library. I must also thank the staff at the Institute of Historical Research, the Middle East Library, St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, and the Cornish Studies Library.
Thanks are equally due to Christopher Phipps and the superb team at the London Library, where much of this book was written.
Thank you, also, to Jessica Francis Kane in America for tracking down a copy of Joshua Gee’s Narrative.
I am immensely grateful to all at Hodder & Stoughton, especially to my editor Roland Philipps and to Lizzie Dipple; to Juliet Brightmore, Karen Geary, Celia Levett and Briar Silich.
Many thanks, also, to my agent Maggie Noach and to Jill Hughes and Camilla Adeane.
Special thanks are due to Paul Whyles for reading the manuscript at short notice and suggesting much-needed changes. My thanks, as well, to Frank Barrett and Wendy Driver.
Last of all, a huge thank-you to the four women in my life—to Alexandra for all her encouragement and support, including many evenings spent translating eighteenth-century French documents; and to the chirpy trio-Madeleine, Heloïse and Aurélia.
INDEX
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages of your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Abdala, Kaid Ahmed ben Ali ben
Abdallah, Moulay: becomes sultan; building obsession; atrocities; land wrested from his control; and depletion of black army; breaches treaties with English a
nd Dutch; agrees to free slaves
Abdelmalek, Sultan (Moulay Ismail’s son)
Abigail (ship)
Achmet, Sidi (Laureano)
Adams, Robert
Addison, Joseph
Aden
Africanus, Leo
Agoory
Ahmed, Moulay
Alcoran of Mahomet, The
Alexandria
Algiers; slave market; alliances with Hornacheros; al-ghuzat attack merchant vessels; Cason redeems slaves; anguish of those left in; slaves’ shackles; apostasy; circumcision; slave population; American slaves released; parties of renegades in; consul harangued by dey; French mission; Spanish mission; American slaves released; Pellew destroys; slaves liberated
Algiers, dey of
Algiers corsairs
Americas
Amizmiz
Amsterdam
Andalusia
animal sacrifice
Anne, Queen
Anti-Atlas
apostasy
Arabian peninsula
El-Aricha River
Arzila
Assiento license
Atlantic coast
Atlantic Ocean
Atlas Mountains
el-Ayyachi, Sidi Mohammed
el-Aziza, Halima
Azzemour
Bab Mansour, Meknes
Bab Mrisa, Salé
Babylon, Hanging Gardens of
al-Badi palace, Marrakesh
Bagg, James,Vice Admiral of Cornwall
Baltic Sea
Baltimore, West Cork, Ireland
Banqueting Hall, Whitehall Palace, London
Barbados
Barbary: large number of English slaves in; slaves’ shackles; bastinading; slave conversion; Cornwall’s mission; farces set in; tensions flare on the coast; Smith leads call to arms against
Barbary corsairs; Englishmen seized and marched to Meknes; launch raids on the heart of Christendom; attacks on Cornwall; alliance with Murad Rais; attacks extended; indiscriminate choice of victims; Pellew plays for high stakes
Barbot.Jean
Barker, Andrew
Barnicoat, George
Bashaw, Omar
Basque provinces, Spain
bastinading
Bawden, Joshua
Bay of Biscay
Beaver, John
Bedouin
Beels’ Wharf, London
Bellemy, Captain
Berbers
Berryman, Reverend William
black guard. See bukhari
black slaves: the middle passage; statistics of African enslavement; Castlereagh and black slave trade
Bologna: Spanish college
Boston, Massachusetts
Bou Regreg river
Boufekrane valley
Boussacran
Braithwaite, John
Brest prison
Bristol; mayor of
British government: impotence over white slaverychurches collect money to buy back slaves; and apostasyand Ismail’s despotism
Brooks, Francis
Brown, John
Browne,Abraham
Bruster, Mary
Buckingham, Duke of
bukhari (black guard)
Busnot, Father Dominique
Cairo
Calabria
Calpe, Spain
Cambridge
Cambridge University
Cap Spartel
Cape Cantin
Cape Coast Castle
Cape Finisterre
Cardiff
Caribbean
Carr (weapons expert)
Carter, Argalus
Castlereagh, Lord
Catherine (ship)
Catherine of Braganza
Catholics
Cavelier, Germain
Ceuta
Charles I, King: sends Harrison to Salé; and Spain; declines to act on slaves’ petition; vows to crush slave traders; treaty with Moroccan sultan
Charles II, King
Chenier, Louis de
ech-Cherif, General Moulay
Cherrat River
Chingit
Christian Turned Turk, A (a farce)
Christianity, Prideaux’s book defends
Church, Captain Benjamin
Church, the: and captured seamen; Laudian rite
circumcision
Clarke, Briant
Congress of Vienna
Constant John, The (ship)
Constantinople
Cornwall
Cornwall, Admiral Charles
Corsica
Cottingham, Sir Francis
Council of State
Cragg, James
Crimes, John
Cunningham, Mr. (minister on Gibraltar)
Daily News
Daily Post
Dan, Father Pierre
Dar al-Mansur palace, Meknes
Dar el Makhzen, Meknes
Dar Kbira palace, Meknes; Koubbat el-Khayyatin (a storehouse)
Dar Oumm es-Soltan
David (ship)
Davies, George
Davies, Lewis
Daws (a British renegade)
de la Faye, Father Jean
Defoe, Daniel
ed-Dehebi, Ahmed: succeeds his father; first acts as sultan; megalomania; lacks his father’s ruthlessness; gourmet and dilettante; meets Russell; appearance; debauchery and hard-drinking; ratifies 1721 treaty; swept from power; Pellow helps take Meknes for; battles for Fez; sultan of Meknes; Abdelmalek murdered; sudden death
del Puerto, San Juan
Delaval, Captain George
Delgarno, Captain
Denmark
Deptford
des Boyes, Chastelet
Desire (ship)
Devon
Dewstoe, Captain Anthony
Djenne
Douglas, John
Dover
Downs, the
Draa, the
Dumont, Pierre-Joseph
Dunnal, John
Dunton, John
Dutch, the
Dutch captives
Eagle
earthquake (1755)
East India Company
Elliot, George
Elliot, Matthew
Endeavour (ship)
England: Salé corsairs attack; black slave trade; Ottur’s visit; treaty with Morocco (1682); treaty of treaty of ; exploits Guinea region; treaty with Sultan Mohammed
English Channel
Enys,Valentine
Estelle, Jean-Baptiste
Ettabba, Queen Umulez
Eugene, Prince of Savoy
Euphrates (ship)
Europe: white slave trade from across Europe; nearly every country under attack
Evelyn, John
Falmouth
Falmouth Pier
Ferris, Captain Richard
Fez; Ismail made viceroy; dereliction; Jews in; depletion of black army; in rebellion; refuses to recognize ed-Dehebi; Abdelmalek flees to; ed-Dehebi battles for; Abdelmalek rules in; surrenders to ed-Dehebi; Pellow wounded in second battle for
Fez, mufti of
Fiolet, Nicolas
Flats, the
Foster, John
Fowey
Fowler, Captain Robert
France: Salé corsairs attack; hit-and-run raids by Barbary corsairs; favors slaves from River Senegal region; French trading vessel ransacked; treaty with Sultan Mohammed
Francis (ship)
Francis, Captain
Franciscans
Freeholder, The
French captives
French navy
French slave-freeing missions
Gambia River
Gee, Joshua
Genoa
Genoese captives
George (ship)
George I, King
Georgian captives
German renegade physicians
al-ghuzat
Gibraltar
Glasgow (ship)
Gold Coast
Gonsalez, Dom Louis
Gonzales, Gaspar
Goodman,Thomas
Gravesend
Greek captives
Guardian
Guinea
Guzlan rebels
Habsburg Empire
Hae, Sergeant
Hakem, Captain Ali
Hamet, Basha
Hampton
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
al–Harrani, Moulay
Harrison, John; The Tragkall Life and Death of Muley Abdala Melek
Hatfeild, Anthony
Hattar, Moses ben
Hayes, Alice
Hayes, Richard
Hearne,Thomas
Henry and Mary (ship)
Heppendorp, Jan Smit
Heraclius, Emperor
High Atlas
Hill, James
Holy Roman Empire
Hornacheros: expelled from Spain; settle in New Salé; alliances with pirates; Rainsborough’s mission
Hudson, Charles
Hull
Hussey, William
Hyde Park, London
Ibn Batouta
Iceland
Ilfracombe, Devon
al-Ifrani, Mohammed
Impregnable (ship)
Inspector (ship)
Irish captives
Irish parliament
Islam: conversion of British and French kings demanded; women captives forced to convert; Pellow’s forced conversion; on LundySpanish enforced conversion; conversion to escape punishment; conversion earns a position at court; dietary laws; voluntary apostasy; backlash against; Pitts’s conversion; and Ross’s Alcoran; fear of; principal apologist for; death of woman refusing to convert; conversion to escape hard labor
Ismail, Sultan Moulay; demands absolute deference; examines recently captured slaves; interest in Thomas Pellow; megalomania; work of his male slaves; female captives put in his harem; obsession with building projects; seizes the treasury at Fez; his first slave; made governor of Meknes and viceroy of Fez; proclaims himself sultan; military successes; Omar instructed to capture Tangier; meeting with Kirke; Leslie’s failed negotiations; displeased with gifts; sends ambassador to England; and the 1682 treaty; Delaval’s persistence; last captives released; British vessels and mariners seized again; uses captives as instruments of his foreign policy; 1714 treaty; response to non-receipt of gifts; closes Salé slave market; daily tour of the palace works; appearance; decapitates el-Mediouni; execution of Moulay es-Sfa; Mamora capture; Larache campaign; and the Meknes slave pen; slaves’ unexpected meal; hand-picked black guards. See bukhari; lack of sympathy for sick slaves; alcohol for the slaves; and Addison; and Admiral Cornwall; contempt for visiting envoys; Norbury’s arrogant display; agrees to presence of a British consul; tests Thomas Pellow; Pellow becomes his personal attendant; matchmaking; his animals; and religious festivals; use of renegade Europeans to fight his battles; execution of rebels; dissatisfaction with booty; respect for Carr; exiles unruly renegades; breeding farms and nurseries; relations with Jews; ruled by his first wife; retains his grip on power; willing to hold Europe to ransom; religious orthodoxy; ears of Guzlan rebels; and Shott’s execution; meets Stewart; treaty of 1721 resistance to his freeing British slaves; liberation of some British/American slaves; Father Jean’s negotiations; death and burial; choice of slaves