This week we continue the series of posts on life in Algiers drawn from the book titled Relation de la captivité et liberté du sieur Emanuel d’Aranda, (The Relation of the Captivity and Liberation of Emanuel d’Aranda), written (not surprisingly) by Emanual d’Aranda.
Most of the excerpts drawn from d’Aranda’s Relation so far have been fairly bleak. This week’s story—of a renegade corsair and a Portuguese fisherman—is different. It’s almost… uplifting.
Saban Gallan Aga was a Spaniard born, near the frontiers of Portugal, and the son of a common seaman. He fell very young into slavery among the Turks, who persuaded him to renounce the Christian faith and become a renegade Muslim, which was easier for them to do with a child.
This Saban, for his noble demeanor towards all the world, had the military name of Gallan bestowed on him. He was very rich, and he employed himself in war both by sea and land, by which means he came to be Aga, that is, a field officer.
Passing one day through the market where the Christians are sold, Saban fell into discourse with some of the slaves there and by chance met with one of his countrymen, whom he bought at a low rate, for he was a fisherman and so no great ransom could be expected from him.
Saban brought the slave to his own house and said to him, “I have paid a hundred and fifty patacoons for you. If you will promise me to pay the like sum in your country to a man there who is my kinsman, and poor, I will order you to be set ashore in your country by the first pirate that shall go hence.”
The fisherman was well pleased with the proposal, and he promised to do what Saban desired. Saban accordingly sent him away with the first ship bound into the ocean and ordered him to be set ashore on the coast of Portugal, which was done.
The inhabitants of the village where he lived wondered to see him returned so soon out of slavery. He acquainted them with his adventures and all that had passed between him and Saban Gallan.
The fisherman then sold all he had and, according to his promise, paid him who was to have the hundred and fifty patacoons. This man, having received the money, wrote a letter of thanks to his kinsman, Saban Gallan.
Afterwards, the honest fisherman returned to his profession to get his livelihood, but it was his misfortune to be taken again by pirates and to be brought to Algiers. He sent notice of his misfortune to Saban, who bought him again, and having treated him some days in his house and furnished him with what clothes and linen he stood in need of, said to him, “Since you have shown yourself to be an honest man and kept your promise, you shall return once more to your country and pay what you cost me to the same person within six months.”
The fisherman replied, “I am not able to do what you ask, for I sold all I had in the world to pay my former ransom, and I would rather continue a slave then promise what I cannot deliver.”
Saban, hearing his reasons, said to him, “Pay it then at your own convenience within two years.”
The fisherman accepted that condition and, with the first opportunity, he was set ashore in his own country once again.
He went immediately to Saban’s kinsman, and promised to pay him the sum agreed upon within two years. After this, he returned to his trade.
But since he had sold his boat and all else requisite thereto to pay his previous ransom, and lost everything else when he was captured the second time, he was forced to become a servant to other fishermen, so that he could not get so much as when he was upon his own account. However, out of the little he got, he laid aside what he could towards the payment of his ransom.
The two years passed, and he had paid but a third part of the sum he ought. To make good his promise, he bethought himself of an expedient. He bought a hundred weight of tobacco, and took passage aboard a Portuguese ship bound for Algiers (where Tobacco was then very dear). The captain of this ship had a passport from the Pasha of Algiers authorizing him to enter Algiers and ransom slaves.
Being come to Algiers, the fisherman went straight to Saban’s house, who was astonished to see him.
The fisherman said to him, “Patron, I have only been able to pay but a third part of what I owe you, and for the remainder, having no other way to satisfy what I owe, I have brought hither a hundred weight of tobacco. If I can sell it with the advantage I am told it will yield, I will pay you. If not, I will return to be your slave rather than give your Lordship, of whom I have received such great kindness, any occasion to think me ungrateful.”
Saban, hearing the fisherman’s explanation, wondered at his fidelity and gratitude. He made him this answer: “You are an honest man, faithful, and grateful, too good to live in this world. Go. Sell your tobacco and return into your country and make the best advantage you can of both the money and your liberty.”
The fisherman sold his tobacco at a handsome profit, and Saban furnished him with meat and drink at his house till the same ship that had brought the fisherman to Algiers returned homewards.
He left behind him in Algiers a perpetual memory of his fidelity and gratitude, and he carried with him to Portugal an eternal commendation of the liberality of Saban Gallan.
For those who may be interested…
The story of Saban and the honest fisherman can be found in “Relation XIV: Two Examples of Liberality and Gratitude” 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. 146-149.
As usual, I have edited the original seventeenth century text to make it more easily readable.
The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627
Amazon listing