This week we continue the series of posts on life in Algiers drawn from Relation de la captivité et liberté du sieur Emanuel d’Aranda, (The Relation of the Captivity and Liberation of Emanuel d’Aranda).
This week’s excerpt consists of three short tales about slaves.
My Patron, Alli Pegelin, had among his slaves one named John Motoza, who was as deeply infected as man could be in that which some call the Neapolitan, others the French, disease [i.e., syphilis], insomuch that he was thought incapable of performing any service whatsoever as a slave.
The Spring was coming on, and the gallies were to go out. John Motoza was commanded to go aboard, where his employment was to row. This command troubled him extremely, for he was of opinion that a relaxing hot bath would agree better with his body then the hard labor of rowing on a galley, a hardship not easily imaginable by those who have not had the trial of it.
So John Motoza went to his Patron and said: “Your excellency hath given command that I should go aboard the gallies, which labor I am absolutely unable to perform, as having not the use of either arms or legs.” Ali Pegelin responded by asking him, “What ails you?” John Motoza confidently replied, “I have got the Pox.” Pegelin said to him, smiling, “Go get you aboard the galley, it will contribute more to your health than if you did sweat in Spain, or endure the other tortures necessary for the cure of your disease.”
There was no appeal from what was positively said by Pegelin. John Motoza thus perforce went aboard the galley, was chained by the legs along with the other slaves who were to row, and with the help of a bull’s pizzle [a sort of whip/cudgel hybrid made form a desiccated bull’s penis] made to work as the rest. His daily sustenance consisted of old and dry biscuit, his drink of fair water. At the end of forty days (I was eyewitness to it), John Motoza was absolutely cured. The reason is that through extraordinary painstaking he had sweated extremely and had withal fed only on dry food.
If any are troubled with the pox, and are loath to venture into those chargeable and dangerous cures now practiced, they may make use of the aforesaid remedy, which will prove so effectual, that after trial made of it, they may give it their probatum est [“tried and proven”].
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A French slave belonging to Alli Pegelin had rowed for several voyages in the gallies. Not being able to brook that kind of life, he desired Pegelin’s permission to renounce the Christian religion and to embrace the Turkish, which Pegelin would not suffer him to do, because renegados [Christians who converted to Islam] are worth much less than the Christians, for being once turned Turk, they are not obliged to row, as the Christians are.
This Frenchman was laughed at by his companions, and to avoid being abused, and to force his patron to permit him to renounce, he addressed himself to some renegadoes and got some Turkish clothing from them. Having put it on, and having shaved himself after the Turkish mode, he gave himself the name of Mustapha. Being so accoutered he went to a garden of his Patron’s outside the city.
Those who kept the house knew him well enough and thought he had renounced his religion with the consent of his Patron. When the crafty Pegelin heard that the Frenchman was in his garden, he went thither, where he called for John, which was the name of the Frenchman. John came and appeared before Pegelin, answering resolutely, “My name is Mustapha and not John.”
Pegelin, seeing him dressed as he was, called four slaves, who having laid on the ground, cudgeled him for so long that at last he cried out, “My name is John, and not Mustapha! I am a Christian, and not a Turk. I will put on my Christian habit.”
Thus it may be said that Pegelin cudgeled a Christian into his Christianity, which he would have otherwise renounced.
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In the year 1641. there was among us a Dunkirk slave, named John Bellinck, brother to Cornelius Bellinck, Master of a Merchant ship which was taken by the Turkish pirates and brought to Algiers. Cornelius Bellinck was a resolute Dunkirker and lost his life in defending his ship. His Brother John was brought as a slave to Algiers.
John fell was chosen as part of the Pasha’s share [the Algiers Pasha, who was the Ottoman Governor of the city, was entitled to one eighth of all captives brought in]. The Pasha employed John as a mariner in one of his ships, for such was John’s profession. He had also made several cruises in the gallies as a rower, and in the ships as an ordinary seaman.
It so happened that one day I had some business with a Jewish merchant named Pharette concerning a bill of exchange, and Pharette asked me whether I knew not a Dunkirk slave named John Bellinck. I replied that I did, and Pharette then said to me, “Pray bring me to where he is. I would speak with him, for I have order to ransom him and send him home to his Country.”
I was very glad to bring this good news to Bellinck, and do that service for the Jewish merchant, (for I stood in need of his drugs), and so I brought him to the Pasha’s Bath [prison quarters for slaves]. There, meeting with Bellinck, I said to him,” Bellinck, I bring you good news. This Jewish merchant hath order to pay your ransom and send you home to your country.”
He was so surprised at those words that he cast himself at the feet of Pharette, saying to him in Dutch, “Ah good Master Jew, you have redeem me in penance for the death and passion undergone by Jesus Christ.” I could not forbear laughing at that complement. Pharette, observing this, asked me the reason of it. I told him in Spanish what Bellinck believed had motivated Pharette to work in his favor. Pharette also laughed, and he said to me, “Tell him in your language that what I intend to do for him is for no other account than his own—and for the profit it shall make for me.
For those who may be interested…
These three excerpts can be found in “Relation Twenty-One: A way to cure the Pox at Algiers without the help of either Doctor or Surgeon,” “Relation Twenty-Two: “Of a Frenchman who would have turned Turk, but continued a Christian in spite of his teeth,” and “Relation Twenty-Six: A pleasant piece of simplicity of a Dunkirker, a Slave,” in the seventeenth century English translation of d’Aranda’s Relation, titled The history of Algiers and it’s slavery with many remarkable particularities of Africk / written by the Sieur Emanuel D’Aranda, sometime a slave there; English’d by John Davies, pp. 172-173, 173-174, and 180-182 respectively.
As usual, I have edited the original seventeenth century text to make it more easily readable.
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