(This post is a continuation of The Barbary Corsair Raid on Grindavík in 1627 – Parts 1 – 7. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read those posts before continuing on here.)
Last week’s post began to describe the details of how Guðrún Jónsdóttir was ransomed. This week, we look further into that ransoming process.
Guðrún and her brother Halldór were ransomed very quickly—they were back in Iceland by the summer of 1628. This was far too fast for the money to have been sent to Salé from Iceland or Denmark. So somebody had to have put up the required cash in Salé on the expectation of being reimbursed later by the family.
This was not such an unusual occurrence.
In 1622, for example, a young Englishman from a prominent family was captured, along with twelve of his companions, and taken to Salé, where they were all sold into slavery. This young man managed to convince his owner to permit him to try to arrange a ransom for himself. Here is his description of how the process worked:
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My master gave me leave to visit a French merchant to see if I could persuade him to redeem me. When I had opened my case to this merchant, he promised to do for me what he possibly could, and, having taken my name in writing, he presently told me he knew one of my name, whom (as it fell out) was my uncle, who was then the English Consul for the merchants at Saint Lucas, and thereupon having examined me and finding me to tell the truth, offered to my master six score crowns for my ransom, and so I was set at liberty.
Now I began to enquire after my companions, whom I found in the Castle, and in several private houses, who were scarce ever suffered to come abroad, especially the fairest and youngest, whose bodies the Moors abused with their sodomy. I went to the merchant, acquainting him with my companions, and entreating him to ransom them. He at first demurred, for he did not know them, and besides, they being so many in number, their ransom would amount to a far greater sum of money then he could well disburse. I however persuaded him that it would be an exceedingly charitable deed, and also profitable for him, their fathers and friends being men of great fashion in England.
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Notice that in both the case of the young Englishman and that of his companions, the French merchant needed to be convinced that those whom he was considering ransoming came from well-to-do families and so could reimburse the money he would put up. In fact, he was likely expecting to make a profit off the transaction. More than a few merchants made at least part of their living by serving as go-betweens in the ransoming process and charging a commission for their services.
Something along these lines must have happened with Guðrún. No doubt the anonymous Dutchman who ransomed her felt pity for her plight. But before coughing up any money, he no doubt also would have made the same sort of determination that the French merchant did to assure himself that the Járngerðarstaðir farm family had the means to pay him back.
Boye Laurens, known to the Dutch as a man of means, who was in the middle of arranging his own ransom, was the perfect person to vouch for Guðrún’s family’s ability to pay. It would not be at all surprising if the anonymous Dutchman, like the French merchant, expected to be able to both do good deed and also make a tidy profit from his actions.
And so Guðrún was as ransomed.
The only other member of the family ransomed along with her was her brother Halldór. Her other brother, Jón, remained as a slave in Salé, though why that should be is unclear. Guðrún’s sons remained behind as well. The owner of Héðinn, her youngest sone, refused to part with him. Helgi and Jón (her middle and oldest sons) were sold on to Algiers. In a letter dated 1630, written from Algiers, Jón mentions his mother’s ransom as if it were news to him. So perhaps he and Helgi were already gone from Salé before the ransom negations were concluded.
On the other hand, the explanation for why only a couple of the members of the family were ransomed might simply have been financial. Although the family had money, they did not have infinite resources.
In his 1630 letter, Guðrún’s son Jón wrote, “God be thanked that our blessed mother was liberated from here. I speak truly for myself, who is here still, knowing that all your money has been used up for her liberation.”
So the situation in Salé could actually have been quite simple: the family did not have unlimited funds and a decision had to be made. Guðrún was clearly the priority and, for whatever reasons, Halldór was redeemed with her—but nobody else.
It all happened with remarkable speed, and Guðrún and Halldór arrived back in Iceland as passengers aboard a Danish—likely a hired Dutch—merchant ship in the summer of 1628.
No details about it have come down to us, but Guðrún’s stay in Salé was probably not terribly unpleasant, for captive women of means were generally treated quite well. She would have been given a room in the house of the man holding her for ransom, and he would have kept her out of harm’s way and provided her with reasonable food and comfort. The grief of knowing she was to be parted from her children and brother must have been excruciating, but the days spent waiting for the ransom process to conclude would have been uneventful and placid.
And then along with her brother, she was gone.
For those who may be interested…
The quote from the young Englishman who git himself and his companions ransomed in Salé is from James Wadsworth, The English Spanish Pilgrime, published in 1629, pp, 41 – 44.
The owners of the companions of James Wadsworth (the young Englishman) were forced against their will to part with their slaves. As revenge, they poisoned the French merchant who ransomed them: “Before we had scarcely sailed [from Salé] the space of half an hour, the merchant began to wax sick, and to rave and complain. Seeing this, the master of the ship turned his course to Marmora, a town belonging to Spain, eight leagues from Salé, and anchored there that night. The morning tide being come, we carried our merchant to shore. As I was about to lay him on a bed, he expired in mine arms. The Next day he was buried with all the honour the Governor of that town and the soldiers there could exhibit” (pp. 44 – 45). (I have slightly modified the original text.)
The quote from the letter written by Guðrún’s son Jón comes from Karl Smári Hreinsson & Adam Nichols, The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson: The Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Iceland in 1627, p. 132.
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This post brings to close the story of Guðrún Jónsdóttir and the raid on Grindavík by the corsairs from Salé. The details presented in this series of posts, remember, come from The Northern Raid: The Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Grindavík in 1627, a book that my Icelandic colleague, Karl Smári Hreinsson, and I published in 2020.
Starting next week, I’ll post a new series of extracts taken from the book Karl and I published earlier this year: Stolen Lives: The Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Heimaey in 1627.
The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627
Amazon listing