Barbary Captives: An Anthology of Early Modern Slave Memoirs by Europeans in North Africa

by Mario Klarer (Editor)

Overview

In the early modern period, hundreds of thousands of Europeans, both male and female, were abducted by pirates, sold on the slave market, and enslaved in North Africa. Between the sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, pirates from Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco not only attacked sailors and merchants in the Mediterranean but also roved as far as Iceland. A substantial number of the European captives who later returned home from the Barbary Coast, as maritime North Africa was then called, wrote and published accounts of their experiences. These popular narratives greatly influenced the development of the modern novel and autobiography, and they also shaped European perceptions of slavery as well as of the Muslim world.

Barbary Captives brings together a selection of early modern slave narratives in English translation for the first time. It features accounts written by men and women across three centuries and in nine different languages that recount the experience of capture and servitude in North Africa. These texts tell the stories of Christian pirates, Christian rowers on Muslim galleys, house slaves in the palaces of rulers, domestic servants, agricultural slaves, renegades, and social climbers in captivity. They also depict liberation through ransom, escape, or religious conversion. This book sheds new light on the social history of Mediterranean slavery and piracy, early modern concepts of unfree labor, and the evolution of the Barbary captivity narrative as a literary and historical genre.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231555128
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	03/11/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	18 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Mario Klarer is professor of American studies at the University of Innsbruck. He is the editor of Mediterranean Slavery and World Literature: Captivity Genres from Cervantes to Rousseau (2020), among many other books.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Balthasar Sturmer, Account of the Travels of Mister Balthasar Sturmer (1558 German manuscript; captivity in Tunis 1534–1535; complete text)
2. Antonio de Sosa, Topography of Algiers: Attempted Escape of Miguel de Cervantes (1612 Spanish print edition; captivity in Algiers 1577; selection)
3. Ólafur Egilsson, The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson (undated Icelandic manuscripts; Icelandic raid and captivity in Algiers 1627–1628; selection)
4. Emanuel d’Aranda, Short Story of My Unfortunate Journey (undated Dutch manuscript; captivity in Algiers 1640–1641; complete captivity narrative)
5. Antoine Quartier, The Religious Slave and His Adventures (1690 French print edition; captivity in Tripoli 1660–1668; selection)
6. Andreas Matthäus and Johann Georg Wolffgang, Travels and Wonderful Fortunes of Two Brothers in Algerian Bondage (1767 German print edition; captivity in Algiers 1684–1688; complete text)
7. Isaac Brassard, The Tale of Mr. Brassard’s Captivity in Algiers (1878 French print edition; captivity in Algiers 1687–1688; complete captivity narrative)
8. Thomas Pellow, The History of the Long Captivity and Adventures of Thomas Pellow ([1740?] British print edition; captivity in Morocco 1715–1738; selection)
9. Hark Olufs, The Remarkable Adventures of Hark Olufs (1747 Danish print edition; captivity in Constantine 1724–1735; complete text)
10. Maria ter Meetelen, Miraculous and Remarkable Events of Twelve Years of Slavery (1748 Dutch print edition; captivity in Morocco 1731–1743; selection)
11. Marcus Berg, Description of the Barbaric Slavery in the Kingdom of Fez and Morocco (1757 Swedish print edition; captivity in Morocco 1754–1756; selection)
12. Elizabeth Marsh, Narrative of Elizabeth Marsh’s Captivity in Barbary (undated British manuscript; captivity in Morocco 1756; complete captivity narrative)
13. Felice Caronni, The Account of an Amateur Antiquarian’s Short Journey (1805 Italian print edition; captivity in Tunis 1804; selection)
Appendix: Selection of European and American Barbary Captivity Narratives
List of Works Cited and General Works on North African Piracy and Captivity
Index of Persons and Locations

Editorial Reviews

An important and deeply revealing collection of texts. Shedding light on the rise of the novel, the modern autobiography, and the reception of African American slave narratives, this book maps uncharted territory in literature and history alike.

Stephen Greenblatt

It provides a wealth of information from a variety of perspectives in ways that capture readers' attention and at a reasonable price, making Barbary Captives a treasure for any collection.

Pirates and Privateers

Barbary Captives is an immensely valuable resource both for the cultural history of Old World slavery represented in the memoirs of Europeans from Iceland to Spain held captive in Muslim lands and for the history of genre, the literary history of the novel and of later narratives of Black slavery with which the memoirs in this collection are intimately entwined. It is a work of global history in granular detail.

Thomas W. Laqueur

Barbary Captives is a singularly inventive anthology of captivity narratives that charts the experience of Mediterranean captivity and enslavement in the early modern era. These narratives of enslaved Europeans in North Africa provide a remarkably nuanced perspective on religious tensions and political conflicts within Europe and across the Mediterranean region. The experience of captured Europeans enhances our historical knowledge of the experience of Black slavery across the Atlantic. Mario Klarer’s anthology traces a wide interdisciplinary and intertextual arc that bridges historical archives with literary genres. Klarer’s careful editorial eye opens up a world of scholarly inquiry that was hitherto hidden and obscured.

Homi K. Bhabha

The published and manuscript narratives compiled by Europeans seized and enslaved by Muslim corsairs are rich but complex and controversial sources. Mario Klarer has done readers interested in the varieties of early modern captivity a great service by combining and editing examples of this genre from nine different European regions and over a span of three centuries.

Linda Colley

Gripping material, finally rendered accessible.

International Journal of Maritime History