This story of the (estimated) million slaves seized from European ships and coastal towns by Barbary corsairs and enslaved in Moslem North Africa between about 1550 and 1820 focuses on one man: Thomas Pellow from Cornwall, who was captured as a ten year old boy, forcibly converted to Islam, became a house servant of the bloodthirsty ruler of Morocco and later one one of the leading soldiers of one of his armies, was forcibly married and became a father, made several escape attempts, was saved while on the scaffold on one occasion, and finally escaped at the age of thirty-three. It's a brilliant story and it is told with the flair of the author of Nathaniel's Nutmeg, Samurai William, and The Riddle and the Knight, amongst others.
The Moroccan trade properly got going after 1610, when King Philip III "expelled all one million Spanish Moors from his land" (Ch 1) providing a pool of dispossessed people longing for revenge.
Strangely, the man who ended this trade by leading a British fleet to bombard Algiers, was Sir Edward Pellew who was related to Thomas Pellow.
Selected quotes:
- "The flags on their mainmasts depicted a human skull on a dark green background" (Ch 1)
- "His extraordinary story had just been published in one of the capital's newspapers. Pellow was surprised and asked to be shown the article. ... Almost every detail in the report was wrong." (Ch 12) The standards of accurate journalism are - probably - better nowadays.
October 2022; 280 pages
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