White Slavery in the Barbary States

by Charles Sumner

II.

The Barbary States, after the decline of the Arabian power, were enveloped in darkness, rendered more palpable by the increasing light among the Christian nations. As we behold them in the fifteenth century, in the twilight of European civilization, they appear to be little more than scattered bands of robbers and pirates,—"the land rats and water rats" of Shylock,—leading the lives of Ishmaelites. Algiers is described by an early writer as "a den of sturdy thieves, formed into a body, by which, after a tumultuary sort, they govern;"[²²] and by still another writer, contemporary with the monstrosity which he exposes, as "the theatre of all cruelty and sanctuarie of iniquitie, holding captive, in miserable servitude, one hundred and twenty thousand Christians, almost all subjects of the King of Spaine."[²³] Their habit of enslaving prisoners, taken in war and in piratical depredations, at last aroused against these states the sacred animosities of Christendom. Ferdinand the Catholic, after the conquest of Granada, and while the boundless discoveries of Columbus, giving to Castile and Aragon a new world, still occupied his mind, found time to direct an expedition into Africa, under the military command of that great ecclesiastic, Cardinal Ximenes. It is recorded that this valiant soldier of the church, on effecting the conquest of Oran, in 1509, had the inexpressible satisfaction of liberating upwards of three hundred Christian slaves.[²⁴]

The progress of the Spanish arms induced the government of Algiers to invoke assistance from abroad. At this time, two brothers, Horuc and Hayradin, the sons of a potter in the Island of Lesbos, had become famous as corsairs. In an age when the sword of the adventurer often carved a higher fortune than could be earned by lawful exertion, they were dreaded for their abilities, their hardihood, and their power. To them Algiers turned for aid. The corsairs left the sea to sway the land; or rather, with amphibious robbery, they took possession of Algiers and Tunis, while they continued to prey upon the sea. The name of Barbarossa, by which they are known to Christians, is terrible in modern history.[²⁵]

With pirate ships they infested the seas, and spread their ravages along the coasts of Spain and Italy, until Charles the Fifth was aroused to undertake their overthrow. The various strength of his broad dominions was rallied in this new crusade. "If the enthusiasm," says Sismondi, "which armed the Christians at an earlier day, was nearly extinct, another sentiment, more rational and legitimate, now united the vows of Europe. The contest was no longer to reconquer the tomb of Christ, but to defend the civilization, the liberty, the lives, of Christians."[²⁶] A stanch body of infantry from Germany, the veterans of Spain and Italy, the flower of the Castilian nobility, the knights of Malta, with a fleet of near five hundred vessels, contributed by Italy, Portugal, and even distant Holland, under the command of Andrew Doria, the great sea officer of the age,—the whole being under the immediate eye of the Emperor himself, with the countenance and benediction of the Pope, and composing one of the most complete armaments which the world had then seen,—were directed upon Tunis. Barbarossa opposed them bravely, but with unequal forces. While slowly yielding to attack from without, his defeat was hastened by unexpected insurrection within. Confined in the citadel were many Christian slaves, who, asserting the rights of freedom, obtained a bloody emancipation, and turned its artillery against their former masters. The place yielded to the Emperor, whose soldiers soon surrendered themselves to the inhuman excesses of war. The blood of thirty thousand innocent inhabitants reddened his victory. Amidst these scenes of horror there was but one spectacle that afforded him any satisfaction. Ten thousand Christian slaves met him, as he entered the town, and falling on their knees, thanked him as their deliverer.[²⁷]

In the treaty of peace which ensued, it was expressly stipulated on the part of Tunis, that all Christian slaves, of whatever nation, should be set at liberty without ransom, and that no subject of the Emperor should for the future be detained in slavery.[²⁸]

The apparent generosity of this undertaking, the magnificence with which it was conducted, and the success with which it was crowned, drew to the Emperor the homage of his age beyond any other event of his reign. Twenty thousand slaves, freed by treaty, or by arms, diffused through Europe the praise of his name. It is probable that, in this expedition, the Emperor was governed by motives little higher than those of vulgar ambition and fame; but the results with which it was crowned, in the emancipation of so many of his fellow-Christians from cruel chains, place him, with Cardinal Ximenes, among the earliest Abolitionists of modern times.

This was in 1535. Only a few short years before, in 1517, he had granted to a Flemish courtier the exclusive privilege of importing four thousand blacks from Africa into the West Indies. It is said that Charles lived long enough to repent what he had thus inconsiderately done.[²⁹] Certain it is, no single concession, recorded in history, of king or emperor, has produced such disastrous far-reaching consequences. The Fleming sold his privilege to a company of Genoese merchants, who organized a systematic traffic in slaves between Africa and America. Thus, while levying a mighty force to check the piracies of Barbarossa, and to procure the abolition of Christian slavery in Tunis, the Emperor, with a wretched inconsistency, laid the corner stone of a new system of slavery in America, in comparison with which the enormity that he sought to suppress was trivial and fugitive.

Elated by the conquest of Tunis, filled also with the ambition of subduing all the Barbary States, and of extirpating the custom of Christian slavery, the Emperor, in 1541, directed an expedition of singular grandeur against Algiers. The Pope again joined his influence to the martial array. But nature proved stronger than the Pope and Emperor. Within sight of Algiers, a sudden storm shattered his proud fleet, and he was obliged to return to Spain, discomfited, bearing none of those trophies of emancipation by which his former expedition had been crowned.[³⁰]

The power of the Barbary States was now at its height. Their corsairs became the scourge of Christendom, while their much-dreaded system of slavery assumed a front of new terrors. Their ravages were not confined to the Mediterranean. They penetrated the ocean, and pressed even to the Straits of Dover and St. George's Channel. From the chalky cliffs of England, and even from the distant western coasts of Ireland, unsuspecting inhabitants were swept into cruel captivity.[³¹] The English government was aroused to efforts to check these atrocities. In 1620, a fleet of eighteen ships, under the command of Sir Robert Mansel, Vice Admiral of England, was despatched against Algiers. It returned without being able, in the language of the times, "to destroy those hellish pirates," though it obtained the liberation of forty "poor captives, which they pretended was all they had in the towne." "The efforts of the English fleet were aided," says Purchas, "by a Christian captive, which did swim from the towne to the ships."[³²] It is not in this respect only that this expedition recalls that of Charles the Fifth, which received important assistance from rebel slaves; we also observe a similar deplorable inconsistency of conduct in the government which directed it. It was in the year 1620,—dear to all the descendants of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock as an epoch of freedom,—while an English fleet was seeking the emancipation of Englishmen held in bondage by Algiers, that African slaves were first introduced into the English colonies of North America—thus beginning that dreadful system, whose long catalogue of humiliation and woes is not yet complete.[³³]

The expedition against Algiers was followed, in 1637, by another, under the command of Captain Rainsborough, against Sallee, in Morocco. At his approach, the Moors desperately transferred a thousand captives, British subjects, to Tunis and Algiers. "Some Christians, that were slaves ashore, stole away out of the towne, and came swimming aboard."[³⁴] Intestine feud also aided the fleet, and the cause of emancipation speedily triumphed. Two hundred and ninety British captives were surrendered; and a promise was extorted from the government of Sallee to redeem the wretched captives, sold away to Tunis and Algiers. An ambassador from the King of Morocco shortly afterwards visited England, and, on his way through the streets of London, to his audience at court, was attended "by four Barbary horses led along in rich caparisons, and richer saddles, with bridles set with stones; also some hawks; many of the captives whom he brought over going along afoot clad in white."[³⁵]

The importance attached to this achievement may be inferred from the singular joy with which it was hailed in England. Though on a limited scale, it had been a war of liberation. The poet, the ecclesiastic, and the statesman now joined in congratulations on its results. It inspired the muse of Waller to a poem called The Taking of Sallee, in which the submission of the slaveholding enemy is thus described:—

Hither he sends the chief among his peers,
Who in his bark proportioned presents bears,
To the renowned for piety and force
Poor captives manumised, and matchless horse.

It satisfied Laud, and filled with exultation the dark mind of Strafford. "Sallee, the town, is taken," said the Archbishop in a letter to the latter, then in Ireland, "and all the captives at Sallee and Morocco delivered; as many, our merchants say, as, according to the price of the markets, come to ten thousand pounds, at least."[³⁶] Strafford saw in the popularity of this triumph a fresh opportunity to commend the tyrannical designs of his master, Charles the First. "This action of Sallee," he wrote in reply to the Archbishop, "I assure you is full of honor, and should, methinks, help much towards the ready cheerful payment of the shipping moneys."[³⁷]

The coasts of England were now protected; but her subjects at sea continued the prey of Algerine corsairs, who, according to the historian Carte,[³⁸] now "carried their English captives to France, drove them in chains overland to Marseilles, to ship them thence with greater safety for slaves to Algiers." The increasing troubles, which distracted and finally cut short the reign of Charles the First, could not divert attention from the sorrows of Englishmen, victims to Mohammedan slave drivers. At the height of the struggles between the King and Parliament, an earnest voice was raised in behalf of these fellow-Christians in bonds.[³⁹] Waller, who was orator as well as poet, exclaimed in Parliament, "By the many petitions which we receive from the wives of those miserable captives at Algiers, (being between four and five thousand of our countrymen,) it does too evidently appear, that to make us slaves at home is not the way to keep us from being made slaves abroad." Publications pleading their cause, bearing date in 1640, 1642, and 1647, are yet extant.[⁴⁰] The overthrow of an oppression so justly odious formed a worthy object for the imperial energies of Cromwell; and in 1655,—when, amidst the amazement of Europe, the English sovereignty had already settled upon his Atlantean shoulders,—he directed into the Mediterranean a navy of thirty ships, under the command of Admiral Blake. This was the most powerful English force which had sailed into that sea since the Crusades.[⁴¹] Its success was complete. "General Blake," said one of the foreign agents of government, "has ratifyed the articles of peace at Argier, and included therein Scotch, Irish, Jarnsey, and Garnsey-men, and all others the Protector's subjects. He has lykewys redeemed from thence al such as wer captives ther. Several Dutch captives swam aboard the fleet, and so escape theyr captivity."[⁴²] Tunis, as well as Algiers, was humbled; all British captives were set at liberty; and the Protector, in his remarkable speech at the opening of Parliament in the next year, announced peace with the "profane" nations in that region.[⁴³]

To my mind no single circumstance gives a higher impression of the vigilance with which the Protector guarded his subjects than this effort, to which Waller, with the "smooth" line for which he is memorable, aptly alludes, as

telling dreadful news
To all that piracy and rapine use.

His vigorous sway was followed by the effeminate tyranny of Charles the Second, whose restoration was inaugurated by an unsuccessful expedition against Algiers under Lord Sandwich. This was soon followed by another, with a more favorable result, under Admiral Lawson.[⁴⁴] By a treaty bearing date May 3d, 1662, the piratical government expressly stipulated, "that all subjects of the King of Great Britain, now slaves in Algiers, or any of the territories thereof, be set at liberty, and released, upon paying the price they were first sold for in the market; and for the time to come no subjects of his Majesty shall be bought or sold, or made slaves of, in Algiers or its territories."[⁴⁵] Other expeditions ensued, and other treaties in 1664, 1672, 1682, and 1686—showing, by their constant recurrence and iteration, the little impression produced upon those barbarians.[⁴⁶] Insensible to justice and freedom, they naturally held in slight regard the obligations of fidelity to any stipulations in restraint of robbery and slaveholding.

During a long succession of years, complaints of the sufferings of English captives continued to be made. An earnest spirit, in 1748, found expression in these words:—

O, how can Britain's sons regardless hear
The prayers, sighs, groans (immortal infamy!)
Of fellow-Britons, with oppression sunk,
In bitterness of soul demanding aid,
Calling on Britain, their dear native land,
The land of liberty![⁴⁷]

But during all this time, the slavery of blacks, transported to the colonies under the British flag, still continued.

Meanwhile, France had plied Algiers with embassies and bombardments. In 1635 three hundred and forty-seven Frenchmen were captives there. Monsieur de Sampson was despatched on an unsuccessful mission, to procure their liberation. They were offered to him "for the price they were sold for in the market;" but this he refused to pay.[⁴⁸] Next came, in 1637, Monsieur de Mantel, who was called "that noble captain, and glory of the French nation," "with fifteen of his king's ships, and a commission to enfranchise the French slaves." But he also returned, leaving his countrymen still in captivity.[⁴⁹] Treaties followed at a later day, which were hastily concluded, and abruptly broken; till at last Louis the Fourteenth did for France what Cromwell had done for England. In 1684, Algiers, being twice bombarded[⁵⁰] by his command, sent deputies to sue for peace, and to surrender all her Christian slaves. Tunis and Tripoli made the same submission. Voltaire, with his accustomed point, declares that, by this transaction, the French became respected on the coast of Africa, where they had before been known only as slaves.[⁵¹]

An incident is mentioned by the historian, which unhappily shows how little the French at that time, even while engaged in securing the emancipation of their own countrymen, had at heart the cause of general freedom. As an officer of the triumphant fleet received the Christian slaves who were brought to him and liberated, he observed among them many English, who, in the empty pride of nationality, maintained that they were set at liberty out of regard to the King of England. The Frenchman at once summoned the Algerines, and, returning the foolish captives into their hands, said, "These people pretend that they have been delivered in the name of their monarch; mine does not offer them his protection. I return them to you. It is for you to show what you owe to the King of England." The Englishmen were again hurried to prolonged slavery. The power of Charles the Second was impotent in their behalf—as was the sense of justice and humanity in the French officer or in the Algerine government.

Time would fail, even if materials were at hand, to develop the course of other efforts by France against the Barbary States. Nor can I dwell upon the determined conduct of Holland, one of whose greatest naval commanders, Admiral de Ruyter, in 1661, enforced at Algiers the emancipation of several hundred Christian slaves.[⁵²] The inconsistency, which we have so often remarked, occurs also in the conduct of France and Holland. Both these countries, while using their best endeavors for the freedom of their white people, were cruelly engaged in selling blacks into distant American slavery; as if every word of reprobation, which they fastened upon the piratical, slaveholding Algerines, did not return in eternal judgment against themselves.

Thus far I have chiefly followed the history of military expeditions. War has been our melancholy burden. But peaceful measures were also employed to procure the redemption of slaves; and money sometimes accomplished what was vainly attempted by the sword. In furtherance of this object, missions were often sent by the European governments. These sometimes had a formal diplomatic organization; sometimes they consisted of fathers of the church, who held it a sacred office, to which they were especially called, to open the prison doors, and let the captives go free.[⁵³] It was through the intervention of the superiors of the Order of the Holy Trinity, who were despatched to Algiers by Philip the Second of Spain, that Cervantes obtained his freedom by ransom, in 1579.[⁵⁴] Expeditions of commerce often served to promote similar designs of charity; and the English government, forgetting or distrusting all their sleeping thunder, sometimes condescended to barter articles of merchandise for the liberty of their subjects.[⁵⁵]

Private efforts often secured the freedom of slaves. Friends at home naturally exerted themselves in their behalf; and many families were straitened by generous contributions to this sacred purpose. The widowed mother of Cervantes sacrificed all the pittance that remained to her, including the dowry of her daughters, to aid in the emancipation of her son. An Englishman, of whose doleful captivity there is a record in the memoirs of his son, obtained redemption through the earnest efforts of his wife at home. "She resolved," says the story, "to use all the means that lay in her power for his freedom, though she left nothing for herself and children to subsist upon. She was forced to put to sale, as she did, some plate, gold rings and bracelets, and some part of her household goods to make up his ransom, which came to about £150 sterling."[⁵⁶] In 1642, four French brothers were ransomed at the price of six thousand dollars. At this same period, the sum exacted for the poorest Spaniards was "a thousand shillings;" while Genoese, "if under twenty-two years of age, were freed for a hundred pounds sterling."[⁵⁷] These charitable endeavors were aided by the cooperation of benevolent persons. George Fox interceded in behalf of several Quakers, slaves at Algiers, writing "a book to the Grand Sultan and the King at Algiers, wherein he laid before them their indecent behavior and unreasonable dealings, showing them from their Alcoran that this displeased God, and that Mohammed had given them other directions." Some time elapsed before an opportunity was found to redeem them; "but, in the mean while, they so faithfully served their masters, that they were suffered to go loose through the town, without being chained or fettered."[⁵⁸]

As early as the thirteenth century, under the sanction of Pope Innocent the Third, an important association was organized to promote the emancipation of Christian slaves. This was known as the Society of the Fathers of Redemption.[⁵⁹] During many successive generations its blessed labors were continued, amidst the praise and sympathy of generous men. History, undertaking to recount its origin, and filled with a grateful sense of its extraordinary merits, attributed it to the suggestion of an angel in the sky, clothed in resplendent light, holding a Christian captive in his right hand, and a Moor in the left. The pious Spaniard, who narrates the marvel, earnestly declares that this institution of beneficence was the work, not of men, but of the great God alone; and he dwells, with more than the warmth of narrative, on the glory, filling the lives of its associates, as surpassing far that of a Roman triumph; for they share the name as well as the labors of the Redeemer of the world, to whose spirit they are the heirs, and to whose works they are the successors. "Lucullus," he says, "affirmed that it were better to liberate a single Roman from the hands of the enemy than to gain all their wealth; but how much greater the gain, more excellent the glory, and more than human is it to redeem a captive! For whosoever redeems him not only liberates him from one death, but from death in a thousand ways, and those ever present, and also from a thousand afflictions, a thousand miseries, a thousand torments and fearful travails, more cruel than death itself."[⁶⁰] The genius of Cervantes has left a record of his gratitude to this Anti-Slavery Society[⁶¹]—the harbinger of others whose mission is not yet finished. Throughout Spain annual contributions for its sacred objects continued to be taken for many years. Nor in Spain only did it awaken sympathy. In Italy and France also it successfully labored; and as late as 1748, inspired by a similar catholic spirit, if not by its example, a proposition appeared in England "to establish a society to carry on the truly charitable design of emancipating" sixty-four Englishmen, slaves in Morocco.[⁶²]

War and ransom were not the only agents of emancipation. Even if history were silent, it would be impossible to suppose that the slaves of African Barbary endured their lot without struggles for freedom.

Since the first moment they put on my chains,
I've thought on nothing but the weight of them,
And how to throw them off.

These are the words of a slave in the play;[⁶³] but they express the natural inborn sentiments of all who have intelligence sufficient to appreciate the great boon of freedom. "Thanks be to God," says the captive in Don Quixote, "for the great mercies bestowed upon me; for, in my opinion, there is no happiness on earth equal to that of liberty regained."[⁶⁴] And plain Thomas Phelps—once a slave at Machiness, in Morocco, whence, in 1685, he fortunately escaped—in the narrative of his adventures and sufferings, breaks forth in a similar strain. "Since my escape," he says, "from captivity, and worse than Egyptian bondage, I have, methinks, enjoyed a happiness with which my former life was never acquainted; now that, after a storm and terrible tempest, I have, by miracle, put into a safe and quiet harbor,—after a most miserable slavery to the most unreasonable and barbarous of men, now that I enjoy the immunities and freedom of my native country and the privileges of a subject of England, although my circumstances otherwise are but indifferent, yet I find I am affected with extraordinary emotions and singular transports of joy; now I know what liberty is, and can put a value and make a just estimate of that happiness which before I never well understood. Health can be but slightly esteemed by him who never was acquainted with pain or sickness; and liberty and freedom are the happiness only valuable by a reflection on captivity and slavery."[⁶⁵]

The history of Algiers abounds in well-authenticated examples of conspiracy against the government by Christian slaves. So strong was the passion for freedom! In 1531 and 1559, two separate plans were matured, which promised for a while entire success. The slaves were numerous; keys to open the prisons had been forged, and arms supplied; but, by the treason of one of their number, the plot was betrayed to the Dey, who sternly doomed the conspirators to the bastinado and the stake. Cervantes, during his captivity, nothing daunted by these disappointed efforts, and the terrible vengeance which awaited them, conceived the plan of a general insurrection of the Christian slaves, to secure their freedom by the overthrow of the Algerine power, and the surrender of the city to the Spanish crown. This was in the spirit of that sentiment, to which he gives utterance in his writings, that "for liberty we ought to risk life itself, slavery being the greatest evil that can fall to the lot of man."[⁶⁶] As late as 1763, there was a similar insurrection or conspiracy. "Last month," says a journal of high authority,[⁶⁷] "the Christian slaves at Algiers, to the number of four thousand, rose and killed their guards, and massacred all who came in their way; but after some hours' carnage, during which the streets ran with blood, peace was restored."

But the struggles for freedom could not always assume the shape of conspiracies against the government. They were often efforts to escape, sometimes in numbers, and sometimes singly. The captivity of Cervantes was filled with such, in which, though constantly balked, he persevered with determined courage and skill. On one occasion, he attempted to escape by land to Oran, a Spanish settlement on the coast, but was deserted by his guide, and compelled to return.[⁶⁸] Another endeavor was favored by a number of his own countrymen, hovering on the coast in a vessel from Majorca, who did not think it wrong to aid in the liberation of slaves! Another was promoted by Christian merchants at Algiers, through whose agency a vessel was actually purchased for this purpose.[⁶⁹] And still another was supposed to be aided by a Spanish ecclesiastic, Father Olivar, who, being at Algiers to procure the legal emancipation of slaves, could not resist the temptation to lend a generous assistance to the struggles of his fellow-Christians in bonds. If he were sufficiently courageous and devoted to do this, he paid the bitter penalty which similar services to freedom have found elsewhere, and in another age. He was seized by the Dey, and thrown into chains; for it was regarded by the Algerine government as a high offence to further in any way the escape of a slave.[⁷⁰]

Endeavors for freedom are animating; nor can any honest nature hear of them without a throb of sympathy. As we dwell on the painful narrative of the unequal contest between tyrannical power and the crushed captive or slave, we resolutely enter the lists on the side of freedom; and as we behold the contest waged by a few individuals, or, perhaps, by one alone, our sympathy is given to his weakness as well as to his cause. To him we send the unfaltering succor of our good wishes. For him we invoke vigor of arm to defend, and fleetness of foot to escape. The enactments of human laws are vain to restrain the warm tides of the heart. We pause with rapture on those historic scenes, in which freedom has been attempted or preserved through the magnanimous self-sacrifice of friendship or Christian aid. With palpitating bosom we follow the midnight flight of Mary of Scotland from the custody of her stern jailers; we accompany the escape of Grotius from prison in Holland, so adroitly promoted by his wife; we join with the flight of Lavalette in France, aided also by his wife; and we offer our admiration and gratitude to Huger and Bollman, who, unawed by the arbitrary ordinances of Austria, strove heroically, though vainly, to rescue Lafayette from the dungeons of Olmutz. The laws of Algiers—which sanctioned a cruel slavery, and doomed to condign penalties all endeavors for freedom, and all countenance of such endeavors—can no longer prevent our homage to Cervantes, not less gallant than renowned, who strove so constantly and earnestly to escape his chains; nor our homage to those Christians also who did not fear to aid him, and to the good ecclesiastic who suffered in his cause.

The story of the efforts to escape from slavery in the Barbary States, so far as they can be traced, are full of interest. The following is in the exact words of an early writer:—

"One John Fox, an expert mariner, and a good, approved, and sufficient gunner, was (in the raigne of Queene Elizabeth) taken by the Turkes, and kept eighteen yeeres in most miserable bondage and slavery; at the end of which time, he espied his opportunity (and God assisting him withall) that hee slew his keeper, and fled to the sea's side, where he found a gally with one hundred and fifty captive Christians, which hee speedily waying their anchor, set saile, and fell to work like men, and safely arrived in Spaone; by which meanes he freed himselfe and a number of poor soules from long and intolerable servitude; after which, the said John Fox came into England, and the Queene (being rightly informed of his brave exploit) did graciously entertaine him for her servant, and allowed him a yeerly pension."[⁷¹]

There is also, in the same early source, a quaint description of what occurred to a ship from Bristol, captured, in 1621, by an Algerine corsair. The Englishmen were all taken out except four youths, over whom the Turks, as these barbarians were often called by early writers, put thirteen of their own men to conduct the ship as a prize to Algiers; and one of the pirates, a strong, able, stern, and resolute person, was appointed captain. "These four poor youths," so the story proceeds, "being thus fallen into the hands of merciless infidels, began to study and complot all the means they could for the obtayning of their freedom. They considered the lamentable and miserable estates that they were like to be in, as to be debarred forever from seeing their friends and country, to be chained, beaten, made slaves, and to eat the bread of affliction in the galleys, all the remainder of their unfortunate lives, and, which was worst of all, never to be partakers of the heavenly word and sacraments. Thus, being quite hopeless, and, for any thing they knew, forever helpless, they sailed five days and nights under the command of the pirates, when, on the fifth night, God, in his great mercy, showed them a means for their wished-for escape." A sudden wind arose, when, the captain coming to help take in the mainsail, two of the English youths "suddenly took him by the breech and threw him overboard; but, by fortune, he fell into the bunt of the sail, where, quickly catching hold of a rope, he, being a very strong man, had almost gotten into the ship again; which John Cook perceiving, leaped speedily to the pump, and took off the pump brake, or handle, and cast it to William Long, bidding him knock him down, which he was not long in doing, but, lifting up the wooden weapon, he gave him such a palt on the pate, as made his braines forsake the possession of his head, with which his body fell into the sea." The corsair slave dealers were overpowered. The four English youths drove them "from place to place in the ship, and having coursed them from poop to the forecastle, they there valiantly killed two of them, and gave another a dangerous wound or two, who, to escape the further fury of their swords, leaped suddenly overboard to go seek his captain." The other nine Turks ran between decks, where they were securely fastened. The English now directed their course to St. Lucas, in Spain, and "in short time, by God's ayde, happily and safely arrived at the said port, where they sold the nine Turks for galley slaves, for a good summe of money, and as I thinke, a great deal more than they were worth."[⁷²] "He that shall attribute such things as these," says the ancient historian, grateful for this triumph of freedom, "to the arm of flesh and blood, is forgetful, ungrateful, and, in a manner, atheistical."

From the same authority I draw another narrative of singular success in achieving freedom. Several Englishmen, being captured and carried into Algiers, were sold as slaves. These are the words of one of their number: "We were hurried like dogs into the market, where, as men sell hacknies in England, we were tossed up and down to see who would give most for us; and although we had heavy hearts, and looked with sad countenances, yet many came to behold us, sometimes taking us by the hand, sometimes turning us round about, sometimes feeling our brawny and naked armes, and so beholding our prices written in our breasts, they bargained for us accordingly, and at last we were all sold." Shortly afterwards several were put on board an Algerine corsair to serve as slaves. One of them, John Rawlins, who resembled Cervantes in the hardihood of his exertions for freedom,—as, like him, he had lost the use of an arm,—arranged a rising or insurrection on board. "O hellish slavery," he said, "to be thus subject to dogs! O God! strengthen my heart and hand, and something shall be done to ease us of these mischiefs, and deliver us from these cruel Mohammedan dogs. What can be worse? I will either attempt my deliverance at one time or another, or perish in the enterprise." An auspicious moment was seized; and eight English slaves and one French, with the assistance of four Hollanders, freemen, succeeded, after a bloody contest, in overpowering fifty-two Turks. "When all was done," the story proceeds, "and the ship cleared of the dead bodies, Rawlins assembled his men together, and with one consent gave the praise unto God, using the accustomed service on shipboard, and, for want of books, lifted up their voices to God, as he put into their hearts or renewed their memories; then did they sing a psalm, and, last of all, embraced one another for playing the men in such a deliverance, whereby our fear was turned into joy, and trembling hearts exhilarated that we had escaped such inevitable dangers, and especially the slavery and terror of bondage worse than death itself. The same night we washed our ship, put every thing in as good order as we could, repaired the broken quarter, set up the biticle, and bore up the helme for England, where, by God's grace and good guiding, we arrived at Plimouth, February 17th, 1622."[⁷³]

In 1685, Thomas Phelps and Edward Baxter, Englishmen, accomplished their escape from captivity in Machiness, in Morocco. One of them had made a previous unsuccessful attempt, which drew upon him the punishment of the bastinado, disabling him from work for a twelvemonth; "but such was his love of Christian liberty, that he freely declared to his companion, that he would adventure with any fair opportunity." By devious paths, journeying in the darkness of night, and by day sheltering themselves from observation in bushes, or in the branches of fig trees, they at length reached the sea. With imminent risk of discovery, they succeeded in finding a boat, not far from Sallee. This they took without consulting the proprietor, and rowed to a ship at a distance, which, to their great joy, proved to be an English man-of-war. Making known to its commander the exposed situation of the Moorish ships, they formed part of an expedition in boats, which boarded and burned them, in the night. "One Moor," says the account, "we found aboard, who was presently cut in pieces; another was shot in the head, endeavoring to escape upon the cable; we were not long in taking in our shavings and tar barrels, and so set her on fire in several places, she being very apt to receive what we designed; for there were several barrels of tar upon deck, and she was newly tarred, as if on purpose. Whilst we were setting her on fire, we heard a noise of some people in the hold; we opened the scuttles, and thereby saved the lives of four Christians, three Dutchmen and one French, who told us the ship on fire was Admiral, and belonged to Aly-Hackum, and the other, which we soon after served with the same sauce, was the very ship which in October last took me captive." The Englishman, once a captive, who tells this story, says it is "most especially to move pity for the afflictions of Joseph, to excite compassionate regard to those poor countrymen now languishing in misery and irons, to endeavor their releasement."[⁷⁴]

Even the non-resistance of Quakers, animated by a zeal for freedom, contrived to baffle these slave dealers. A ship in the charge of people of this sect became the prey of the Algerines; and the curious story is told with details, unnecessary to mention here, of the effective manner in which the ship was subsequently recaptured by the crew without loss of life. To complete this triumph, the slave pirates were safely landed on their own shores, and allowed to go their way in peace, acknowledging with astonishment and gratitude this new application of the Christian injunction to do good to them that hate you. Charles the Second, learning from the master, on his return, that "he had been taken by the Turks, and redeemed himself without fighting," and that he had subsequently let his enemies go free, rebuked him, saying, with the spirit of a slave dealer, "You have done like a fool, for you might have had a good gain for them." And to the mate he said, "You should have brought the Turks to me." "I thought it better for them to be in their own country" was the Quaker's reply.[⁷⁵]

In the current of time other instances occurred. A letter from Algiers, dated August 6, 1772, and preserved in the British Annual Register, furnishes the following story:[⁷⁶] "A most remarkable escape," it says, "of some Christian prisoners has lately been effected here, which will undoubtedly cause those that have not had that good fortune to be treated with utmost rigor. On the morning of the 27th July, the Dey was informed that all the Christian slaves had escaped the over-night in a galley; this news soon raised him, and, upon inquiry, it was found to have been a preconcerted plan. About ten at night, seventy-four slaves, who had found means to escape from their masters, met in a large square near the gate which opens to the harbor, and, being well armed, they soon forced the guard to submit, and, to prevent their raising the city, confined them all in the powder magazine. They then proceeded to the lower part of the harbor, where they embarked on board a large rowing polacre that was left there for the purpose, and, the tide ebbing out, they fell gently down with it, and passed both the forts. As soon as this was known, three large galleys were ordered out after them, but to no purpose. They returned in three days, with the news of seeing the polacre sail into Barcelona, where the galleys durst not go to attack her."

In the same journal[⁷⁷] there is a record of another triumph of freedom in a letter from Palma, the capital of Majorca, dated September 3, 1776. "Forty-six captives," it says, "who were employed to draw stones from a quarry some leagues' distance from Algiers, at a place named Genova, resolved, if possible, to recover their liberty, and yesterday took advantage of the idleness and inattention of forty men who were to guard them, and who had laid down their arms, and were rambling about the shore. The captives attacked them with pickaxes and other tools, and made themselves masters of their arms; and, having killed thirty-three of the forty, and eleven of the thirteen sailors who were in the boat which carried the stones, they obliged the rest to jump into the sea. Being then masters of the boat, and armed with twelve muskets, two pistols, and powder, they set sail, and had the good fortune to arrive here this morning, where they are performing quarantine. Sixteen of them are Spaniards, seventeen French, eight Portuguese, three Italian, one a German, and one a Sardinian."

Thus far I have followed the efforts of European nations, and the struggles of Europeans, unhappy victims to White Slavery. I pass now to America, and to our own country. In the name of fellow-countryman there is a charm of peculiar power. The story of his sorrows will come nearer to our hearts, and, perhaps, to the experience of individuals or families among us, than the story of Spaniards, Frenchmen, or Englishmen. Nor are materials wanting.

Even in the early days of the colonies, while they were yet contending with the savage Indians, many American families were compelled to mourn the hapless fate of brothers, fathers, and husbands doomed to slavery in distant African Barbary. Only five short years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock,[⁷⁸] it appears from the records of the town, under date of 1625, that "two ships, freighted from Plymouth, were taken by the Turks in the English Channel, and carried into Sallee." A little later, in 1640, "one Austin, a man of good estate," returning discontented to England from Quinipiack, now New Haven, on his way "was taken by the Turks, and his wife and family were carried to Algiers, and sold there as slaves."[⁷⁹] And, under date of 1671, in the diary of the Rev. John Eliot, the first minister of Roxbury, and the illustrious apostle to the Indians, prefixed to the record of the church in that town, and still preserved in manuscript, these few words tell a story of sorrow: "We heard the sad and heavy tidings concerning the captivity of Captain Foster and his son at Sallee." From further entries in the diary it appears, that, after a bondage of three years, they were redeemed. But the same record shows other victims, for whom the sympathies of the church and neighborhood were enlisted. Here is one: "20 10m. 1674. This Sabbath we had a public collection for Edward Howard of Boston, to redeem him out of his sad Turkish captivity, in which collection was gathered £12 18s. 9d., which, by God's favor, made up the just sum desired." And not long after, at a date left uncertain, it appears that William Bowen "was taken by the Turks;" a contribution was made for his redemption; "and the people went to the public box, young and old, but before the money could answer the end for which the congregation intended it," tidings came of the death of the unhappy captive, and the money was afterwards "improved to build a tomb for the town to inter their ministers."[⁸⁰]

Instances now thicken. A ship, sailing from Charlestown, in 1678, was taken by a corsair, and carried into Algiers, whence its passengers and crew never returned. They probably died in slavery. Among these was Dr. Daniel Mason, a graduate of Harvard College, and the earliest of that name on the list; also James Ellson, the mate. The latter, in a testamentary letter addressed to his wife, and dated at Algiers, June 30, 1679, desired her to redeem out of captivity two of his companions.[⁸¹] At the same period William Harris, a person of consequence in the colony, one of the associates of Roger Williams in the first planting of Providence, and now in the sixty-eighth year of his age, sailing from Boston for England on public business, was also taken by a corsair, and carried into Algiers. On the 23d February, 1679, this veteran,—older than the slaveholder Cato when he learned Greek,—together with all the crew, was sold into slavery. The fate of his companions is unknown; but Mr. Harris, after remaining in this condition more than a year, obtained his freedom at the cost of $1200, called by him "the price of a good farm." The feelings of the people of the colony, touched by these disasters, are concisely expressed in a private letter dated at Boston, New England, November 10, 1680, where it is said, "The Turks have so taken our New England ships richly loaden homeward bound, that it is very dangerous to goe. Many of our neighbors are now in captivity in Argeer. The Lord find out some way for their redemption."[⁸²]

Still later, as we enter the next century, we meet a curious notice of the captivity of a Bostonian. Under date of Tuesday, January 11, 1714, Chief Justice Samuel Sewell, in his journal, after describing a dinner with Mr. Gee, and mentioning the guests, among whom were the famous divines, Increase and Cotton Mather, adds, "It seems it was in remembrance of his landing this day at Boston, after his Algerine captivity. Had a good treat. Dr. Cotton Mather, in returning thanks, very well comprised many weighty things very pertinently."[⁸³] Among the many weighty things very pertinently comprised by this eminent preacher, in returning thanks, it is hoped, was a condemnation of slavery. Surely he could not then have shrunk from giving utterance to that faith which preaches deliverance to the captive.

But leaving the imperfect records of colonial days, I descend at once to that period, almost in the light of these times, when our National Government, justly careful of the liberty of its white citizens, was aroused to put forth all its power in their behalf. The war of the Revolution closed in 1783, by the acknowledgment of the independence of the United States. The new national flag, then freshly unfurled, and hardly known to the world, seemed to have little power to protect persons or property from the outrages of the Barbary States. Within three years, no less than ten American vessels became their prey. At one time an apprehension prevailed, that Dr. Franklin had been captured. "We are waiting," said one of his French correspondents, "with the greatest patience to hear from you. The newspapers have given us anxiety on your account; for some of them insist that you have been taken by the Algerines, while others pretend that you are at Morocco, enduring your slavery with all the patience of a philosopher."[⁸⁴] The property of our merchants was sacrificed or endangered. Insurance at Lloyd's, in London, could be had only at advanced prices; while it was difficult to obtain freight for American bottoms.[⁸⁵] The Mediterranean trade seemed closed to our enterprise. To a people filled with the spirit of commerce, and bursting with new life, this in itself was disheartening; but the sufferings of our unhappy fellow-citizens, captives in a distant land, aroused a feeling of a higher strain.

As from time to time the tidings of these things reached America, a voice of horror and indignation swelled through the land. The slave corsairs of African Barbary were branded sometimes as "infernal crews," sometimes as "human harpies."[⁸⁶] This sentiment acquired new force, when, at two different periods, by the fortunate escape of captives, what seemed an authentic picture of their condition was presented to the world. The story of these fugitives will show at once the hardships of their lot, and the foundation of the appeal which was soon made to the country with so much effect.

The earliest of these escapes was in 1788, by a person originally captured in a vessel from Boston. At Algiers he had been, with the rest of the ship's company, exposed for sale at public auction, whence he was sent to the country house of his master, about two miles from town. Here, for the space of eighteen months, he was chained to the wheelbarrow, and allowed only one pound of bread a day, during all which wretched period he had no opportunity to learn the fate of his companions. From the country he was removed to Algiers, where, in a numerous company of white slaves, he encountered three of his shipmates, and twenty-six other Americans. After remaining for some time crowded together in the slave prison, they were all distributed among the different galleys in the service of the Dey. Our fugitive, with eighteen other white slaves, was put on board a xebec, carrying eight six-pounders and sixty men, which, on the coast of Malta, encountered an armed vessel belonging to Genoa, and, after much bloodshed, was taken sword in hand. Eleven of the unfortunate slaves, compelled to this unwelcome service in the cause of a tyrannical master, were killed in the contest, before the triumph of the Genoese could deliver them from their chains. Our countryman and the few still alive were at once set at liberty, and, it is said, "treated with that humanity which distinguishes the Christian from the barbarian."[⁸⁷]

His escape was followed in the next year by that of several others, achieved under circumstances widely different. They had entered, about five years before, on board a vessel belonging to Philadelphia, which was captured near the Western Islands, and carried into Algiers. The crew, consisting of twenty persons, were doomed to bondage. Several were sent into the country and chained to work with the mules. Others were put on board a galley and chained to the oars. The latter, tempted by the facilities of their position near the sea, made several attempts to escape, which for some time proved fruitless. At last, the love of freedom triumphing over the suggestions of humanity, they rose upon their overseers; some of whom they killed, and confined others. Then, seizing a small galley of their masters, they set sail for Gibraltar, where in a few hours they landed as freemen.[⁸⁸] Thus, by killing their keepers and carrying off property not their own, did these fugitive white slaves achieve their liberty.

Such stories could not be recounted without producing a strong effect. The glimpses thus opened into the dread regions of slavery gave a harrowing reality to all that conjecture or imagination had pictured. It was, indeed, true, that our own white brethren, heirs to the freedom newly purchased by precious blood, partakers in the sovereignty of citizenship, belonging to the fellowship of the Christian church, were degraded in unquestioning obedience to an arbitrary taskmaster, sold as beasts of the field, and galled by the manacle and the lash! It was true that they were held at fixed prices; and that their only chance of freedom was to be found in the earnest, energetic, united efforts of their countrymen in their behalf. It is not easy to comprehend the exact condition to which they were reduced. There is no reason to believe that it differed materially from that of other Christian captives in Algiers. The masters of vessels were lodged together, and indulged with a table by themselves, though a small iron ring was attached to one of their legs, to denote that they were slaves. The seamen were taught and obliged to work at the trade of carpenter, blacksmith, and stone mason, from six o'clock in the morning till four o'clock in the afternoon, without intermission, except for half an hour at dinner.[⁸⁹] Some of the details of their mode of life, as transmitted to us, are doubtless exaggerated. It is, however, sufficient to know that they were slaves; nor is there any other human condition, which, when barely mentioned, even without one word of description, so strongly awakens the sympathies of every just and enlightened lover of his race.

With a view to secure their freedom, informal agencies were soon established under the direction of our minister at Paris; and the Society of Redemption—whose beneficent exertions, commencing so early in modern history, were still continued—offered their aid. Our agents were blandly entertained by that great slave dealer, the Dey of Algiers, who informed them that he was familiar with the exploits of Washington, and, as he never expected to see him, expressed a hope, that, through Congress, he might receive a full-length portrait of this hero of freedom, to be displayed in his palace at Algiers. He, however, still clung to his American slaves, holding them at prices beyond the means of the agents. These, in 1786, were $6000 for a master of a vessel, $4000 for a mate, $4000 for a passenger, and $1400 for a seaman; whereas the agents were authorized to offer only $200 for each captive.[⁹⁰] In 1790, the tariff of prices seems to have fallen. Meanwhile, one obtained his freedom through private means, others escaped, and others still were liberated by the great liberator Death. The following list, if not interesting from the names of the captives, will at least be curious as evidence of the sums demanded for them in the slave market:[⁹¹]—

		Sequins.
Crew of the Ship Dolphin, of Philadelphia,
captured July 30, 1785.
Richard O'Brien,	master, price demanded,	2,000
Andrew Montgomery,	mate,	1,500
Jacob Tessanier,	French passenger,	2,000
William Patterson,	seaman, (keeps a tavern,)	1,500
Philip Sloan,	"	725
Peleg Loring,	"	725
John Robertson,	"	725
James Hall,	"	725
Crew of the Schooner Maria, of Boston,
captured July 25, 1785.
Isaac Stevens,	master, (of Concord, Mass.,)	2,000
Alexander Forsythe,	mate,	1,500
James Cathcart,	seaman, (keeps a tavern,)	900
George Smith,	" (in the Dey's house,)	725
John Gregory,	"	725
James Hermit,	"	725
		__________	____
		16,475
Duty on the above sum, ten per cent.,		1,647	½
Sundry gratifications
to officers of the Dey's household,		240	1/3
		__________	____
	Sequins	18,362	5/6
This sum being equal to $34,792.

In 1793, there were one hundred and fifteen American slaves in Algiers.[⁹²] Their condition excited the fraternal feeling of the whole people, while it occupied the anxious attention of Congress and the prayers of the clergy. A petition dated at Algiers, December 29, 1793, was addressed to the House of Representatives, by these unhappy persons.[⁹³] "Your petitioners," it says, "are at present captives in this city of bondage, employed daily in the most laborious work, without any respect to persons. They pray that you will take their unfortunate situation into consideration, and adopt such measures as will restore the American captives to their country, their friends, families, and connections; and your petitioners will ever pray and be thankful." But the action of Congress was sluggish, compared with the swift desires of all lovers of freedom.

Appeals of a different character, addressed to the country at large, were now commenced. These were efficiently aided by a letter to the American people, dated Lisbon, July 11, 1794, from Colonel Humphreys, the friend and companion of Washington, and at that time our minister to Portugal. Taking advantage of the general interest in lotteries, and particularly of the custom, not then condemned, of resorting to these as a mode of obtaining money for literary or benevolent purposes, he suggested a grand lottery, sanctioned by the United States, or particular lotteries in the individual states, in order to obtain the means required to purchase the freedom of our countrymen. He then asks, "Is there within the limits of these United States an individual who will not cheerfully contribute, in proportion to his means, to carry it into effect? By the peculiar blessings of freedom which you enjoy, by the disinterested sacrifices you made for its attainment, by the patriotic blood of those martyrs of liberty who died to secure your independence, and by all the tender ties of nature, let me conjure you once more to snatch your unfortunate countrymen from fetters, dungeons, and death."

This appeal was followed shortly after by a petition from the American captives in Algiers, addressed to the ministers of the gospel of every denomination throughout the United States, praying their help in the sacred cause of Emancipation. It begins by an allusion to the day of national thanksgiving appointed by President Washington, and proceeds to ask the clergy to set apart the Sunday preceding that day for sermons, to be delivered contemporaneously throughout the country in behalf of their brethren in bonds.[⁹⁴]

"Reverend and Respected,—

"On Thursday, the 19th of February, 1795, you are enjoined by the President of the United States of America to appear in the various temples of that God who heareth the groaning of the prisoner, and in mercy remembereth those who are appointed to die.

"Nor are ye to assemble alone; for on this, the high day of continental thanksgiving, all the religious societies and denominations throughout the Union, and all persons whomsoever within the limits of the confederated States, are to enter the courts of Jehovah, with their several pastors, and gratefully to render unfeigned thanks to the Ruler of nations for the manifold and signal mercies which distinguish your lot as a people; in a more particular manner, commemorating your exemption from foreign war; being greatly thankful for the preservation of peace at home and abroad; and fervently beseeching the kind Author of all these blessings graciously to prolong them to you, and finally to render the United States of America more and more an asylum for the unfortunate of every clime under heaven.

"Reverend and Respected,—

"Most fervent are our daily prayers, breathed in the sincerity of woes unspeakable; most ardent are the imbittered aspirations of our afflicted spirits, that thus it may be in deed and in truth. Although we are prisoners in a foreign land, although we are far, very far from our native homes, although our harps are hung upon the weeping willows of slavery, nevertheless America is still preferred above our chiefest joy, and the last wish of our departing souls shall be her peace, her prosperity, her liberty forever. On this day, the day of festivity and gladness, remember us, your unfortunate brethren, late members of the family of freedom, now doomed to perpetual confinement. Pray, earnestly pray, that our grievous calamities may have a gracious end. Supplicate the Father of mercies for the most wretched of his offspring. Beseech the God of all consolation to comfort us by the hope of final restoration. Implore the Jesus whom you worship to open the house of the prison. Entreat the Christ whom you adore to let the miserable captives go free.

"Reverend and Respected,—

"It is not your prayers alone, although of much avail, which we beg on the bending knee of sufferance, galled by the corroding fetters of slavery. We conjure you by the bowels of the mercies of the Almighty, we ask you in the name of your Father in heaven, to have compassion on our miseries, to wipe away the crystallized tears of despondence, to hush the heartfelt sigh of distress; and by every possible exertion of godlike charity, to restore us to our wives, to our children, to our friends, to our God and to yours.

"Is it possible that a stimulus can be wanting? Forbid it, the example of a dying, bleeding, crucified Savior! Forbid it, the precepts of a risen, ascended, glorified Immanuel! Do unto us in fetters, in bonds, in dungeons, in danger of the pestilence, as ye yourselves would wish to be done unto. Lift up your voices like a trumpet; cry aloud in the cause of humanity, benevolence, philosophy; eloquence can never be directed to a nobler purpose; religion never employed in a more glorious cause; charity never meditate a more exalted flight. O that a live coal from the burning altar of celestial beneficence might warm the hearts of the sacred order, and impassion the feelings of the attentive hearer!

"Gentlemen of the Clergy in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia,—

"Your most zealous exertions, your unremitting assiduities, are pathetically invoked. Those States in which you minister unto the Church of God gave us birth. We are as aliens from the commonwealth of America. We are strangers to the temples of our God. The strong arm of infidelity hath bound us with two chains; the iron one of slavery and the sword of death are entering our very souls. Arise, ye ministers of the Most High, Christians of every denomination, awake unto charity! Let a brief, setting forth our situation, be published throughout the continent. Be it read in every house of worship, on Sunday, the 8th of February. Command a preparatory discourse to be delivered on Sunday, the 15th of February, in all churches whithersoever this petition or the brief may come; and on Thursday, the 19th of February, complete the godlike work. It is a day which assembles a continent to thanksgiving. It is a day which calls an empire to praise. God grant that this may be the day which emancipates the forlorn captive, and may the best blessings of those who are ready to perish be your abiding portion forever! Thus prays a small remnant who are still alive; thus pray your fellow-citizens, chained to the galleys of the impostor Mahomet.

"Signed for and in behalf of his fellow-sufferers, by

"RICHARD O'BRIEN
"In the tenth year of his captivity."

The cause in which this document was written will indispose the candid reader to any criticism of its somewhat exuberant language. Like the drama of Cervantes, setting forth the horrors of the galleys of Algiers, "it was not drawn from the imagination, but was born far from the regions of fiction, in the very heart of truth." Its earnest appeals were calculated to touch the soul, and to make the very name of slavery and slave dealer detestable.

And here I should do injustice to the truth of history, if I did not suspend for one moment the narrative of this Anti-Slavery movement, in order to exhibit the pointed parallels then extensively recognized between Algerine and American slavery. The conscientious man could not plead in behalf of the emancipation of his white fellow-citizens, without confessing in his heart, perhaps to the world, that every consideration, every argument, every appeal urged for the white man, told with equal force in behalf of his wretched colored brother in bonds. Thus the interest awakened for the slave in Algiers embraced also the slave at home. Sometimes they were said to be alike in condition; sometimes, indeed, it was openly declared that the horrors of our American slavery surpassed that of Algiers.

John Wesley, the oracle of Methodism, addressing those engaged in the negro slave trade, said, as early as 1772, "You have carried the survivors into the vilest of slavery, never to end but with life—such slavery as is not found among the Turks at Algiers."[⁹⁵] And another writer, in 1794, when the sympathy with the American captives was at its height, presses the parallel in pungent terms: "For this practice of buying and selling slaves," he says, "we are not entitled to charge the Algerines with any exclusive degree of barbarity. The Christians of Europe and America carry on this commerce one hundred times more extensively than the Algerines. It has received a recent sanction from the immaculate Divan of Britain. Nobody seems even to be surprised by a diabolical kind of advertisements, which, for some months past, have frequently adorned the newspapers of Philadelphia. The French fugitives from the West Indies have brought with them a crowd of slaves. These most injured people sometimes run off, and their master advertises a reward for apprehending them. At the same time, we are commonly informed that his sacred name is marked in capitals on their breasts; or, in plainer terms, it is stamped on that part of the body with a red-hot iron. Before, therefore, we reprobate the ferocity of the Algerines, we should inquire whether it is not possible to find in some other region of this globe a systematic brutality still more disgraceful."[⁹⁶]

Not long after the address to the clergy by the captives in Algiers, a publication appeared in New Hampshire, entitled "Tyrannical Libertymen; a Discourse upon Negro Slavery in the United States, composed at —— in New Hampshire on the late Federal Thanksgiving Day,"[⁹⁷] which does not hesitate to brand American slavery in terms of glowing reprobation. "There was a contribution upon this day," it says, "for the purpose of redeeming those Americans who are in slavery at Algiers—an object worthy of a generous people. Their redemption, we hope, is not far distant. But should any person contribute money for this purpose which he had cudgelled out of a negro slave, he would deserve less applause than an actor in the comedy of Las Casas.... When will Americans show that they are what they affect to be thought—friends to the cause of humanity at large, reverers of the rights of their fellow-creatures? Hitherto we have been oppressors; nay, murderers! for many a negro has died by the whip of his master, and many have lived when death would have been preferable. Surely the curse of God and the reproach of man is against us. Worse than the seven plagues of Egypt will befall us. If Algiers shall be punished sevenfold, truly America seventy and sevenfold."

To the excitement of this discussion we are indebted for the story of "The Algerine Captive;" a work to which, though now forgotten, belongs the honor of being among the earliest literary productions of our country reprinted in London, at a time when few American books were known abroad. It was published anonymously, but is known to have been written by Royall Tyler, afterwards Chief Justice of Vermont. In the form of a narrative of personal adventures, extending through two volumes, as a slave in Algiers, the author depicts the horrors of this condition. In this regard it is not unlike the story of "Archy Moore," in our own day, displaying the horrors of American slavery. The author, while engaged as surgeon on board a ship in the African slave trade, is taken captive by the Algerines. After describing the reception of the poor negroes, he says, "I cannot reflect on this transaction yet without shuddering. I have deplored my conduct with tears of anguish; and I pray a merciful God, the common Parent of the great family of the universe, who hath made of one flesh and one blood all nations of the earth, that the miseries, the insults, and cruel woundings I afterwards received, when a slave myself, may expiate for the inhumanity I was necessitated to exercise towards these my brethren of the human race."[⁹⁸] And when at length he is himself made captive by the Algerines, he records his meditations and resolves. "Grant me," he says, from the depths of his own misfortune, "once more to taste the freedom of my native country, and every moment of my life shall be dedicated to preaching against this detestable commerce. I will fly to our fellow-citizens in the Southern States; I will, on my knees, conjure them, in the name of humanity, to abolish a traffic which causes it to bleed in every pore. If they are deaf to the pleadings of nature, I will conjure them, for the sake of consistency, to cease to deprive their fellow-creatures of freedom, which their writers, their orators, representatives, senators, and even their constitutions of government, have declared to be the unalienable birthright of man."[⁹⁹]

But this comparison was presented not merely in the productions of literature, or in fugitive essays. It was distinctly set forth, on an important occasion, in the diplomacy of our country, by one of her most illustrious citizens. Complaint had been made against England for carrying away from New York certain negroes, in alleged violation of the treaty of 1783. In an elaborate paper discussing this matter, John Jay, at that time, under the Confederation, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, says, "Whether men can be so degraded as, under any circumstances, to be with propriety denominated goods and chattels, and, under that idea, capable of becoming booty, is a question on which opinions are unfortunately various, even in countries professing Christianity and respect for the rights of mankind." He then proceeds, in words worthy of special remembrance at this time: "If a war should take place between France and Algiers, and in the course of it France should invite the American slaves there to run away from their masters, and actually receive and protect them in their camp, what would Congress, and indeed the world, think and say of France, if, in making peace with Algiers, she should give up those American slaves to their former Algerine masters? Is there any difference between the two cases than this, viz., that the American slaves at Algiers are WHITE people, whereas the African slaves at New York were BLACK people?" In introducing these sentiments, the Secretary remarks, "He is aware he is about to say unpopular things; but higher motives than personal considerations press him to proceed."[¹⁰⁰] Words worthy of John Jay!

The same comparison was also presented by the Abolition Society of Pennsylvania, in an Address, in 1787, to the Convention which framed the Federal Constitution. "Providence," it says, "seems to have ordained the sufferings of our American brethren, groaning in captivity at Algiers, to awaken us to a sentiment of the injustice and cruelty of which we are guilty towards the wretched Africans."[¹⁰¹] Shortly afterwards, it was again brought forward by Dr. Franklin, in an ingenious apologue, marked by his peculiar humor, simplicity, logic, and humanity. As President of the same Abolition Society, which had already addressed the Convention, he signed a memorial to the earliest Congress under the Constitution, praying it "to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage; and to step to the very verge of the power vested in them for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men." In the debates which ensued on the presentation of this memorial,—memorable not only for its intrinsic importance as a guide to the country, but as the final public act of one of the chief founders of our national institutions,—several attempts were made to justify slavery and the slave trade. The last and almost dying energies of Franklin were excited. In a remarkable document, written only twenty-four days before his death, and published in the journals of the time, he gave a parody of a speech actually delivered in the American Congress—transferring the scene to Algiers, and putting the American speech in the mouth of a corsair slave dealer, in the Divan at that place. All the arguments adduced in favor of negro slavery are applied by the Algerine orator with equal force to justify the plunder and enslavement of whites.[¹⁰²] With this protest against a great wrong, Franklin died.

Most certainly we shall be aided, at least in our appreciation of American slavery, when we know that it was likened, by characters like Wesley, Jay, and Franklin, to the abomination of slavery in Algiers. But whatever may have been the influence of this parallel on the condition of the black slaves, it did not check the rising sentiments of the people against White Slavery.

The country was now aroused. A general contribution was proposed for the emancipation of our brethren. Their cause was pleaded in churches, and not forgotten at the festive board. At all public celebrations, the toasts, "Happiness for all," and "Universal Liberty," were proposed, not less in sympathy with the efforts for freedom in France than with those for our own wretched white fellow-countrymen in bonds. On at least one occasion,[¹⁰³] they were distinctly remembered in the following toast: "Our brethren in slavery at Algiers. May the measures adopted for their redemption be successful, and may they live to rejoice with their friends in the blessings of liberty."

Meanwhile, the earnest efforts of our government were continued. In his message to Congress, bearing date December 8, 1795, President Washington said, "With peculiar satisfaction I add, that information has been received from an agent deputed on our part to Algiers, importing that the terms of the treaty with the Dey and regency of that country have been adjusted in such a manner as to authorize the expectation of a speedy peace, and the restoration of our unfortunate fellow-citizens from a grievous captivity." This, indeed, had been already effected on the 5th of September, 1795.[¹⁰⁴] It was a treaty full of humiliation for the chivalry of our country. Besides securing to the Algerine government a large sum, in consideration of present peace and the liberation of the captives, it stipulated for an annual tribute from the United States of twenty-one thousand dollars. But feelings of pride disappeared in heartfelt satisfaction. It is recorded that a thrill of joy went through the land when it was announced that a vessel had left Algiers, having on board all the Americans who had been in captivity there. Their emancipation was purchased at the cost of upwards of seven hundred thousand dollars. But the largess of money, and even the indignity of tribute, were forgotten in gratulations on their new-found happiness. The President, in a message to Congress, December 7, 1796, presented their "actual liberation" as a special subject of joy "to every feeling heart." Thus did our government construct a Bridge of Gold for freedom.

This act of national generosity was followed by peace with Tripoli, purchased November 4, 1796, for the sum of fifty thousand dollars, under the guaranty of the Dey of Algiers, who was declared to be "the mutual friend of the parties." By an article in this treaty, negotiated by Joel Barlow,—out of tenderness, perhaps, to Mohammedanism, and to save our citizens from the slavery which was regarded as the just doom of "Christian dogs,"—it was expressly declared that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."[¹⁰⁵] At a later day, by a treaty with Tunis, purchased after some delay, but at a smaller price than that with Tripoli, all danger to our citizens seemed to be averted. In this treaty it was ignominiously provided, that fugitive slaves, taking refuge on board American merchant vessels, and even vessels of war, should be restored to their owners.[¹⁰⁶]

As early as 1787, a treaty of a more liberal character had been entered into with Morocco, which was confirmed in 1795,[¹⁰⁷] at the price of twenty thousand dollars; while, by a treaty with Spain, in 1799, this slave-trading empire expressly declared its desire that the name of slavery might be effaced from the memory of man.[¹⁰⁸]

But these governments were barbarous, faithless, and regardless of the duties of humanity and justice. Treaties with them were evanescent. As in the days of Charles the Second, they seemed made merely to be broken. They were observed only so long as money was derived under their stipulations. Our growing commerce was soon again fatally vexed by the Barbary corsairs, who now compelled even the ships of our navy to submit to peculiar indignities. In 1801, the Bey of Tripoli formally declared war against the United States, and in token thereof "our flagstaff [before the consulate] was chopped down six feet from the ground, and left reclining on the terrace."[¹⁰⁹] Our citizens once more became the prize of man-stealers. Colonel Humphreys, now at home in retirement, was aroused. In an address to the public, he called again for united action, saying, "Americans of the United States, your fellow-citizens are in fetters! Can there be but one feeling? Where are the gallant remains of the race who fought for freedom? Where the glorious heirs of their patriotism? Will there never be a truce between political parties? Or must it forever be the fate of Free States, that the soft voice of union should be drowned in the hoarse clamors of discord? No! Let every friend of blessed humanity and sacred freedom entertain a better hope and confidence."[¹¹⁰] Colonel Humphreys was not a statesman only; he was known as a poet also. And in this character he made another appeal to his country. In a poem on "The Future Glory of the United States," he breaks forth into an indignant condemnation of slavery, which, whatever may be the merits of its verse, should not be omitted here.

Teach me curst slavery's cruel woes to paint,
Beneath whose weight our captured freemen faint!
— — — — — — — — — — — —
Where am I! Heavens! what mean these dolorous cries?
And what these horrid scenes that round me rise?
Heard ye the groans, those messengers of pain?
Heard ye the clanking of the captive's chain?
Heard ye your free-born sons their fate deplore,
Pale in their chains and laboring at the oar?
Saw ye the dungeon, in whose blackest cell,
That house of woe, your friends, your children, dwell?—
Or saw ye those who dread the torturing hour,
Crushed by the rigors of a tyrant's power?
Saw ye the shrinking slave, th' uplifted lash,
The frowning butcher, and the reddening gash?
Saw ye the fresh blood where it bubbling broke
From purple scars, beneath the grinding stroke?
Saw ye the naked limbs writhed to and fro,
In wild contortions of convulsing woe?
Felt ye the blood, with pangs alternate rolled,
Thrill through your veins and freeze with deathlike cold,
Or fire, as down the tear of pity stole,
Your manly breasts, and harrow up the soul?[¹¹¹]

The people and government responded to this voice. And here commenced those early deeds by which our navy became known in Europe. The frigate Philadelphia, through a reverse of shipwreck rather than war, falling into the hands of the Tripolitans, was, by a daring act of Decatur, burned under the guns of the enemy. Other feats of hardihood ensued. A romantic expedition by General Eaton, from Alexandria, in Egypt, across the desert of Libya, captured Derne. Three several times Tripoli was attacked, and, at last, on the 3d of June, 1805, entered into a treaty, by which it was stipulated that the United States should pay sixty thousand dollars for the freedom of two hundred American slaves; and that, in the event of future war between the two countries, prisoners should not be reduced to slavery, but should be exchanged rank for rank; and if there were any deficiency on either side, it should be made up by the payment of five hundred Spanish dollars for each captain, three hundred dollars for each mate and supercargo, and one hundred dollars for each seaman.[¹¹²] Thus did our country, after successes not without what is called the glory of arms, again purchase by money the emancipation of her white citizens.

The power of Tripoli was, however, inconsiderable. That of Algiers was more formidable. It is not a little curious that the largest ship of this slave-trading state was the Crescent, of thirty-four guns, built in New Hampshire;[¹¹³] though it is hardly to the credit of our sister State that the Algerine power derived such important support from her. The lawlessness of the corsair again broke forth by the seizure, in 1812, of the brig Edwin, of Salem, and the enslavement of her crew. All the energies of the country were at this time enlisted in war with Great Britain; but, even amidst the anxieties of this gigantic contest, the voice of these captives was heard, awakening a corresponding sentiment throughout the land, until the government was prompted to seek their release. Through Mr. Noah, recently appointed consul at Tunis, it offered to purchase their freedom at three thousand dollars a head.[¹¹⁴] The answer of the Dey, repeated on several occasions, was, that "not for two millions of dollars would he sell his American slaves."[¹¹⁵] The timely treaty of Ghent, in 1815, establishing peace with Great Britain, left us at liberty to deal with this enslaver of our countrymen. A naval force was promptly despatched to the Mediterranean, under Commodore Bainbridge and Commodore Decatur. The rapidity of their movements and their striking success had the desired effect. In June, 1815, a treaty was extorted from the Dey of Algiers, by which, after abandoning all claim to tribute in any form, he delivered his American captives, ten in number, without any ransom; and stipulated, that hereafter no Americans should be made slaves or forced to hard labor, and still further, that "any Christians whatever, captives in Algiers," making their escape and taking refuge on board an American ship of war, should be safe from all requisition or reclamation.[¹¹⁶]

It is related of Decatur, that he walked his deck with impatient earnestness, awaiting the promised signature of the treaty. "Is the treaty signed?" he cried to the captain of the port and the Swedish consul, as they reached the Guerriere with a white flag of truce. "It is," replied the Swede; and the treaty was placed in Decatur's hands. "Are the prisoners in the boat?" "They are." "Every one of them?" "Every one, sir." The captive Americans now came forward to greet and bless their deliverer.[¹¹⁷] Surely this moment—when he looked upon his emancipated fellow-countrymen, and thought how much he had contributed to overthrow the relentless system of bondage under which they had groaned—must have been one of the sweetest in the life of that hardy son of the sea. But should I not say, even here, that there is now a citizen of Massachusetts, who, without army or navy, by a simple act of self-renunciation, has given freedom to a larger number of Christian American slaves than was done by the sword of Decatur?

Thus, not by money, but by arms, was emancipation this time secured. The country was grateful for the result; though the poor freedmen, ingulfed in the unknown wastes of ocean, on their glad passage home, were never able to mingle joys with their fellow-citizens. They were lost in the Epervier, of which no trace has ever appeared. Nor did the people feel the melancholy mockery in the conduct of the government, which, having weakly declared that it "was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion," now expressly confined the protecting power of its flag to fugitive "Christians, captives in Algiers," leaving slaves of another faith to be snatched as between the horns of the altar, and returned to the continued horrors of their lot.

The success of the American arms was followed speedily by a more signal triumph of Great Britain, acting generously in behalf of all the Christian powers. Her expedition was debated, perhaps prompted, in the Congress of Vienna, where, after the overthrow of Napoleon, the brilliant representatives of the different states of Europe, in the presence of the monarchs of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, were assembled to consider the evils proper to be remedied by joint action, and to adjust the disordered balance of empire. Among many high concerns, here entertained, was the project of a crusade against the Barbary States, in order to accomplish the complete abolition of Christian slavery there practised. For this purpose, it was proposed to form "a holy league." This was earnestly enforced by a memoir from Sir Sidney Smith, the same who foiled Napoleon at Acre, and who at this time was president of an association called the "Knights Liberators of the White Slaves in Africa,"—in our day it might be called an Abolition Society,—thus adding to the doubtful laurels of war the true glory of striving for the freedom of his fellow-men.[¹¹⁸]

This project, though not adopted by the Congress, awakened a generous echo in the public mind. Various advocates appeared in its behalf; and what the Congress failed to undertake was now especially urged upon Great Britain, by the agents of Spain and Portugal, who insisted, that, because this nation had abolished the negro slave trade, it was her duty to put an end to the slavery of the whites.[¹¹⁹]

A disgraceful impediment seemed at first to interfere. There was a common belief that the obstructions of the Barbary States, in the navigation of the Mediterranean, were advantageous to British commerce, by thwarting and strangling that of other countries; and that therefore Great Britain, ever anxious for commercial supremacy, would rather encourage them than seek their overthrow—the love of trade prevailing over the love of man.[¹²⁰] This suggestion of a sordid selfishness, which was willing to coin money out of the lives and liberties of fellow-Christians, was soon answered.

At the beginning of the year 1816, Lord Exmouth, who, as Sir Edward Pellew, had already acquired distinction in the British navy, was despatched with a squadron to Algiers. By his general orders, bearing date, Boyne, Port Mahon, March 21, 1816, he announced the object of his expedition as follows:—

"He has been instructed and directed by his Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, to proceed with the fleet to Algiers, and there make certain arrangements for diminishing, at least, the piratical excursions of the Barbary States, by which thousands of our fellow-creatures, innocently following their commercial pursuits, have been dragged into the most wretched and revolting state of slavery.

"The commander-in-chief is confident that this outrageous system of piracy and slavery rouses in common the same spirit of indignation which he himself feels; and should the government of Algiers refuse the reasonable demands he bears from the Prince Regent, he doubts not but the flag will be honorably and zealously supported by every officer and man under his command, in his endeavors to procure the acceptation of them by force; and if force must be resorted to, we have the consolation of knowing that we fight in the sacred cause of humanity, and cannot fail of success."[¹²¹]

The moderate object of his mission was readily obtained. "Arrangements for diminishing the piratical excursions of the Barbary States" were established. Certain Ionian slaves, claimed as British subjects, were released, and peace was secured for Naples and Sardinia—the former paying a ransom of five hundred dollars, and the latter of three hundred dollars, a head, for their subjects liberated from bondage. This was at Algiers. Lord Exmouth next proceeded to Tunis and Tripoli, where, acting beyond his instructions, he obtained from both these piratical governments a promise to abolish Christian slavery within their dominions. In one of his letters on this event, he says that, in pressing these concessions, he "acted solely on his own responsibility and without orders, the causes and reasoning on which, upon general principles, may be defensible; but, as applying to our own country, may not be borne out, the old mercantile interest being against it."[¹²²] A similar distrust had been excited in another age by a similar achievement. Admiral Blake, in the time of Cromwell, after his attack upon Tunis, writing to his government at home, said, "And now, seeing it hath pleased God soe signally to justify us herein, I hope his highness will not be offended at it, nor any who regard duly the honor of our nation, although I expect to have the clamors of interested men."[¹²³] Thus, more than once in the history of these efforts to abolish White Slavery, did commerce, the daughter of freedom, fall under the foul suspicion of disloyalty to her parent!

Lord Exmouth did injustice to the moral sense of England. His conduct was sustained and applauded, not only in the House of Commons, but by the public at large. He was soon directed to return to Algiers,—which had failed to make any general renunciation of the custom of enslaving Christians,—to extort by force such a stipulation. This expedition is regarded by British historians with peculiar pride. In all the annals of their triumphant navy, there is none in which the barbarism of war seems so much "to smooth its wrinkled front." With a fleet complete at all points, the Admiral set sail July 25, 1816, on what was deemed a holy war. With five line-of-battle ships, five heavy frigates, four bomb vessels, and five gun brigs, besides a Dutch fleet of five frigates and a corvette, under Admiral Van de Capellan,—who, on learning the object of the expedition, solicited and obtained leave to coöperate,—on the 27th of August he anchored before the formidable fortifications of Algiers. It would not be agreeable or instructive to dwell on the scene of desolation and blood which ensued. Before night the fleet fired, besides shells and rockets, one hundred and eighteen tons of powder, and fifty thousand shot, weighing more than five hundred tons. The citadel and massive batteries of Algiers were shattered and crumbled to ruins. The storehouses, ships, and gun boats were in flames, while the blazing lightnings of battle were answered, in a storm of signal fury, by the lightnings of heaven. The power of the Great Slave Dealer was humbled.

The terms of submission were announced to his fleet by the Admiral in an order, dated, Queen Charlotte, Algiers Bay, August 30, 1816, which may be read with truer pleasure than any in military or naval history.

"The commander-in-chief," he said, "is happy to inform the fleet of the final termination of their strenuous exertions, by the signature of peace, confirmed under a salute of twenty-one guns, on the following conditions, dictated by his Royal Highness, the Prince Regent of England.

"First. THE ABOLITION OF CHRISTIAN SLAVERY FOREVER.

"Second. The delivery to my flag of all slaves in the dominions of the Dey, to whatever nation they may belong, at noon to-morrow.

"Third. To deliver also to my flag all money received by him for the redemption of slaves since the commencement of this year, at noon also to-morrow."

On the next day, twelve hundred slaves were emancipated, making, with those liberated in his earlier expedition, more than three thousand, whom, by address or force, Lord Exmouth had delivered from bondage.[¹²⁴]

Thus ended White Slavery in the Barbary States. It had already died out in Morocco. It had been quietly renounced by Tripoli and Tunis. Its last retreat was Algiers, whence it was driven amidst the thunder of the British cannon.

Signal honors now awaited the Admiral. He was elevated to a new rank in the peerage, and on his coat of arms was emblazoned a figure never before known in heraldry—a Christian slave holding aloft the cross and dropping his broken fetters.[¹²⁵] From the officers of the squadron he received a costly service of plate, with an inscription, in testimony of "the memorable victory gained at Algiers, where the great cause of Christian freedom was bravely fought and nobly accomplished."[¹²⁶] But higher far than honor were the rich personal satisfactions which he derived from contemplating the nature of the cause in which he had been enlisted. In his despatch to the government, describing the battle, and written at the time, he says, in words which may be felt by others, engaged, like him, against slavery, "In all the vicissitudes of a long life of public service, no circumstance has ever produced on my mind such impressions of gratitude as the event of yesterday. To have been one of the humble instruments in the hands of divine Providence for bringing to reason a ferocious government, and destroying forever the insufferable and horrid system of Christian slavery, can never cease to be a source of delight and heartfelt comfort to every individual happy enough to be employed in it."[¹²⁷]

The reverses of Algiers did not end here. Christian slavery was abolished; but, in 1830, the insolence of this barbarian government aroused the vengeance of France to take military possession of the whole country. Algiers capitulated, the Dey abdicated, and this considerable state became a French colony.

Thus I have endeavored to present what I could glean in various fields on the history of Christian Slavery in the Barbary States. I have often employed the words of others, as they seemed best calculated to convey the exact idea of the scene, incident, or sentiment which I wished to preserve. So doing, I have occupied much time; but I may find my apology in the words of an English chronicler.[¹²⁸] "Algier," he says, "were altogether unworthy so long a discourse, were not the unworthinesse worthy our consideration. I meane the cruell abuse of the Christian name, which let us for inciting our zeale and exciting our charitie and thankfulness more deeply weigh, to releeve those in miseries, as we may, with our paynes, prayers, purses, and all the best meditations."