APOLOGIES FOR WHITE SLAVERY.
Nor do we feel, from the narratives of captives and of travellers, that the condition of the white slave was rigorous beyond the ordinary lot of slavery. "The Captive's Story" in Don Quixote fails to impress the reader with any peculiar horror of the life from which he escaped. It is often said that the sufferings of Cervantes were among the most severe which even Algiers could inflict.[157] But they did not repress the gayety of his temper; and we learn that in the building where he was confined there was a chapel or oratory in which mass was celebrated, the sacrament administered, and sermons regularly preached by captive priests. Nor was this all. The pleasures of the theatre were enjoyed by these slaves; and the farces of Lope de Rueda, a favorite Spanish dramatist of the time, served, in actual representation, to cheer this house of bondage.[158]
The experience of the devoted Portuguese ecclesiastic, Father Thomas, illustrates this lot. A slave in Morocco, he was able to minister to his fellow-slaves, and to compose a work on the Passion of Jesus Christ, much admired for its unction, and translated into various tongues. Liberated at last through the intervention of the Portuguese government, he chose to remain behind, notwithstanding the solicitations of relatives at home, that he might continue to instruct and console the unhappy men, his late companions in bonds.[159]
Even the story of St. Vincent de Paul, so brutally sold in the public square, is not without gleam of light. He was bought by a fisherman, who was soon constrained to get rid of him, "having nothing so contrary except the sea." He then passed into the hands of an old man, whom he pleasantly describes as a chemical doctor, a sovereign extractor of quintessences, very humane and kind, who had labored for the space of fifty years in search of the philosopher's stone. "He loved me very much," says the fugitive slave, "and pleased himself by discoursing to me of alchemy, and then of his religion, to which he made every effort to draw me, promising me abundant riches and all his learning." On the death of this master he passed to a nephew, by whom he was sold to still another person, a renegade from Nice, who took him to the mountains, where the country was extremely hot and desert. The Turkish wife of the latter, becoming interested in him, and curious to know his manner of living at home, came to see him every day at his work in the fields, and listened with delight to the slave, away from his country and the churches of his religion, as he sang the psalm of the children of Israel in a foreign land: "By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion."[160] Here is a touch of romance, which is all the more interesting when we consider the great life in which it occurs.
The kindness of these slave-masters often appears. The English merchant, Abraham Brown, whose sale at Sallee has been already described, confesses, that, after he was carried home, his wounds were tenderly washed and dressed by his master's wife, and, "indeed, the whole family gave him comfortable words." He was furnished with a mat to lie on, "and some three or four days after provided with a shirt, such a one as it was, a pair of shoes, and an old doublet." His servile toils troubled him less than "being commanded by a negro man, who had been a long time in his patron's house a freeman, at whose beck and command he was obliged to be obedient for the doing of the least about the house or mill"; and he concludes his lament on this degradation as follows: "Thus I, who had commanded many men in several parts of the world, must now be commanded by a negro, who, with his two country-women in the house, scorned to drink out of the water-pot I drank of, whereby I was despised of the despised people of the world."[161] Here the free negro played the part so often played by the white overseer in our own country.
At a later day we are instructed by another authentic picture. Captain Braithwaite, who accompanied the British Legation to Morocco in 1727, on a generous mission of liberation, after describing their comfortable condition, adds: "I am sure we saw several captives who lived much better in Barbary than ever they did in their own country.... Whatever money in charity was ever sent them by their friends in Europe was their own, unless they defrauded one another, which has happened much oftener than by the Moors. In short, the captives have a much greater property than the Moors in what they get, several of them being rich, and many have carried considerable sums out of the country, to the truth of which we are all witnesses. Several captives keep their mules, and some their servants; and yet this is called insupportable slavery among Turks and Moors. But we found this, as well as many other things in this country, strangely misrepresented."[162] Listening to such words, I seem to hear the apologies for slavery among ourselves.
Candor compels the admission that these authorities—which, with those who do not place freedom above all price, seem to take the sting from slavery—are not without support from other sources. Colonel Keatinge, who, as member of a diplomatic mission from England, visited Morocco in 1785, says of this evil there, that "it is very slightly inflicted," and "as to any labor undergone, it does not deserve the name";[163] while Mr. Lempriere, who was in the same country not long afterwards, adds: "To the disgrace of Europe, the Moors treat their slaves with humanity."[164] In Tripoli, we are told, by a person for ten years resident, that the same gentleness prevailed. "It is a great alleviation to our feelings on their account," says the writer, speaking of the slaves, "to see them easy and well-dressed; and so far from wearing chains, as captives do in most other places, they are here perfectly at liberty."[165] We have already seen the testimony of General Eaton with regard to slavery in Tunis; while Mr. Noah, one of his successors in the consulate of the United States at that place, says: "In Tunis, from my observation, the slaves are not severely treated; and many of them have made money."[166] And Mr. Shaler, speaking of the chief seat of Christian slavery, says: "In short, there were slaves who left Algiers with regret."[167] How singularly present apologies for our slavery echo these voices from the Barbary States!
A French writer of more recent date asserts, with some vehemence, and with the authority of an eye-witness, that the white slaves at Algiers were not exposed to the miseries which they represented. I do not know that he vindicates their slavery, but, like Captain Braithwaite, he evidently regards many of them as better off than they would be at home. According to him, they were well clad and well fed, much better than free Christians there,—precisely as it is said that our slaves are much better off than free negroes. The youngest and most comely were taken as pages by the Dey. Others were employed in the barracks; others in the galleys: but even here there was a chapel, as in the time of Cervantes, for the free exercise of the Christian religion. Those who happened to be artisans, as carpenters, locksmiths, and calkers, were let to the owners of vessels; others were employed on the public works; while others still were allowed the privilege of keeping a shop, where their profits were sometimes so large as to enable them at the end of a year to purchase their ransom. But these were often known to become indifferent to freedom, preferring Algiers to their own country. Slaves of private persons were sometimes employed in the family of their master, where their treatment necessarily depended much upon his character. If he was gentle and humane, their lot was fortunate; they were regarded as children of the house. If he was harsh and selfish, then the iron of slavery did indeed enter their souls. Many were bought to be sold again for profit into distant parts of the country, where they were doomed to exhausting labor; in which event their condition was most grievous. But special care was bestowed upon those who became ill,—not so much, it is said, from humanity as through fear of losing them.[168] This whole story seems to be told of us, rather than of others.