The slavery of Christians by the Barbary States is regarded as an unquestionable outrage upon humanity and justice. Nobody hesitates in this judgment. Our liveliest sympathies attend these white brethren—torn from their homes, the ties of family and friendship rudely severed, parent separated from child and husband from wife, exposed at public sale like cattle, and dependent, like cattle, upon the uncertain will of an arbitrary taskmaster. We read of a "gentleman" who was compelled to be the valet of the barbarian Emperor of Morocco;[129] and Calderon, the pride of the Spanish stage, has depicted the miserable fate of a Portuguese prince, condemned by infidel Moors to carry water in a garden. But the lowly in condition had their unrecorded sorrows also, whose sum total must swell to a fearful amount. Who can tell how many hearts have been wrung by the pangs of separation, how many crushed by the comfortless despair of interminable bondage? "Speaking as a Christian," says the good Catholic father who has chronicled much of this misery, "if on the earth there can be any condition which, in its character and evils, may represent in any manner the dolorous passion of the Son of God, (which exceeded all evils and torments, because by it the Lord suffered every kind of evil and affliction,) it is, beyond question and doubt, none other than slavery and captivity in Algiers and Barbary, whose infinite evils, terrible torments, miseries without number, afflictions without mitigation, it is impossible to comprehend in a brief span of time."[130] When we consider the author's character, as a father of the Catholic Church, it will be felt that language can no further go.
In nothing are the impiety and blasphemy of this custom more apparent than in the auctions of human beings, where men were sold to the highest bidder. Through the personal experience of a young English merchant, Abraham Brown, afterwards a settler in Massachusetts, we may learn how these were conducted. In 1655, before the liberating power of Cromwell had been acknowledged, he was captured, together with a whole crew, and carried into Sallee. His own words, in his memoirs still preserved, will best tell his story.[131] "On landing," he says, "an exceeding great company of most dismal spectators were led to behold us in our captivated condition. There was liberty for all sorts to come and look on us, that whosoever had a mind to buy any of us on the day appointed for our sale together in the market, might see, as I may say, what they would like to have for their money; whereby we had too many comfortless visitors, both from the town and country, one saying he would buy this man, and the other that. To comfort us, we were told by the Christian slaves already there, if we met with such and such patrons, our usage would not be so bad as we supposed; though, indeed, our men found the usage of the best bad enough. Fresh victuals and bread were supplied, I suppose to feed us up for the market, that we might be in some good plight against the day we were to be sold. And now I come to speak of our being sold into this doleful slavery. It was doleful in respect to the time and manner. As to the time, it was on our Sabbath day, in the morning, about the time the people of God were about to enjoy the liberty of God's house; this was the time our bondage was confirmed. Again, it was sad in respect to the manner of our selling. Being all of us brought into the market-place, we were led about, two or three at a time, in the midst of a great concourse of people, both from the town and country, who had a full sight of us, and if that did not satisfy, they would come and feel of your hand, and look into your mouth to see whether you are sound in health, or to see, by the hardness of your hand, whether you have been a laborer or not. The manner of buying is this: He that bids the greatest price hath you; they bidding one upon another until the highest has you for a slave, whoever he is, or wherever he dwells. As concerning myself, being brought to the market in the weakest condition of any of our men, I was led forth among the cruel multitude to be sold. As yet being undiscovered what I was, I was like to have been sold at a very low rate, not above £15 sterling, whereas our ordinary seamen were sold for £30 and £35 sterling, and two boys were sold for £40 apiece; and being in this sad posture led up and down at least one hour and a half, during which time a Dutchman, that was our carpenter, discovered me to some Jews, they increased from £15 to £75, which was the price my patron gave for me, being 300 ducats; and had I not been so weakened, and in these rags, (indeed, I made myself more so than I was, for sometimes, as they led me, I pretended I could not go, and did often sit down;) I say, had not these things been, in all likelihood I had been sold for as much again in the market, and thus I had been dearer, and the difficulty greater to be redeemed. During the time of my being led up and down the market, I was possessed with the greatest fears, not knowing who my patron might be. I feared it might be one from the country, who would carry me where I could not return, or it might be one in and about Sallee, of which we had sad accounts; and many other distracting thoughts I had. And though I was like to have been sold unto the most cruel man in Sallee, there being but one piece of eight between him and my patron, yet the Lord was pleased to cause him to buy me, of whom I may speak, to the glory of God, as the kindest man in the place."
This is the story of a respectable person, little distinguished in the world. But the slave dealer applied his inexorable system without distinction of persons. The experiences of St. Vincent de Paul did not differ from those of Abraham Brown. That eminent character, admired, beloved and worshipped by large circles of mankind, has also left a record of his sale as a slave.[132] "Their proceedings," he says, "at our sale were as follows: After we had been stripped, they gave to each one of us a pair of drawers, a linen coat, with a cap, and paraded us through the city of Tunis, where they had come expressly to sell us. Having made us make five or six turns through the city, with the chain at our necks, they conducted us back to the boat, that the merchants might come to see who could eat well, and who not; and to show that our wounds were not mortal. This done, they took us to the public square, where the merchants came to visit us, precisely as they do at the purchase of a horse or of cattle, making us open the mouth to see our teeth, feeling our sides, searching our wounds, and making us move our steps, trot and run, then lift burdens, and then wrestle, in order to see the strength of each, and a thousand other sorts of brutalities."
And here we may refer again to Cervantes, whose pen was dipped in his own dark experience. In his Life in Algiers, he has displayed the horrors of the white slave market. The public crier exposes for sale a father and mother with their two children. They are to be sold separately, or, according to the language of our day, "in lots to suit purchasers." The father is resigned, confiding in God; the mother sobs; while the children, ignorant of the inhumanity of men, show an instinctive trust in the constant and wakeful protection of their parents—now, alas! impotent to shield them from dire calamity. A merchant, inclining to purchase one of the "little ones," and wishing to ascertain his bodily condition, causes him to open his mouth. The child, still ignorant of the doom which awaits him, imagines that the inquirer is about to extract a tooth, and, assuring him that it does not ache, begs him to desist. The merchant, in other respects an estimable man, pays one hundred and thirty dollars for the youngest child, and the sale is completed. Thus a human being—one of those children of whom it has been said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven"—is profanely treated as an article of merchandise, and torn far away from a mother's arms and a father's support. The hardening influence of custom has steeled the merchant into insensibility to this violation of humanity and justice, this laceration of sacred ties, this degradation of the image of God. The unconscious heartlessness of the slave dealer, and the anguish of his victims, are depicted in the dialogue which ensues after the sale.[133]
MERCHANT.
Come hither, child; 'tis time to go to rest.
JUAN.
Signor, I will not leave my mother here,
To go with any one.
MOTHER.
Alas! my child, thou art no longer mine,
But his who bought thee.
JUAN.
What! then, have you, mother,
Forsaken me?