JÓN JÓNSSON: A CAPTIVE’S TALE – PART 2

(This post is a continuation of Jón Jónsson: a Captive’s Tale – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read that post before continuing on here.)

After the Salé corsair ship had left Icelandic waters, the captive Icelanders aboard were allowed to come out on deck, free of their chains, and wander about to get a bit of air and exercise. This was standard practice for Barbary corsairs returning from a successful raid, their ship’s hold crammed with human cargo. After all, the corsairs wanted their captives to be in as good a shape as possible when they arrived—in this case in Salé—so that they would fetch the best price at auction in the slave market.

The Icelanders weren’t allowed up all together, though. They were brought up in small groups and set loose on deck. The Salé corsairs were fortunate enough to have a good tail wind for much of the voyage back to their home port, so for most days the ship would have been spanking along. No doubt the Icelanders enjoyed the bracing salt air and the sunlight after the claustrophobic confines of the ship’s dark hold, but there was nothing for them to do except stay out of the way of the corsairs on deck and wander about aimlessly. In every direction they looked, they would have seen nothing but empty sea from horizon to horizon. In all of their minds, no doubt, lurked the dread of what awaited them in Salé

Being loose on the deck of a sailing ship scooting along with a stiff wind at its back was not without risk.

Jón Jónsson and his uncle Halldór, who had been captured along with Jón, were both on deck one windy, sun-washed afternoon. Leaning against the gunwale near the bow, they watched the ocean and chatted, trying to distract each other to keep from brooding. Like most male Icelanders of the time, both had been at sea in oared fishing boats, but neither was familiar with larger, ocean-going sailing vessels.

They didn’t know it, but they were standing in the wrong place.

Jón was leaned against some coiled rope. As the wind shifted and the ship’s crew hauled on some of the halyards to re-adjust the yards, the rope Jón leaned against was pulled abruptly out from under him. He let out a cry and toppled over the gunwale into the heaving ocean.

Halldór frantically called out, “Man overboard!”

But only the Icelanders understood him.

He ran to the nearest corsair and tried to drag him to the gunwale to show him what had happened. The corsair cursed and shoved him away irritably.

“Look!” Halldór told him. He gestured over the ship’s side. “Look!”

It was another of the corsairs who finally grasped what had happened.

They turned the ship and sent a boat out after Jón, dragging him back onboard half drowned and shaking and blue-lipped from the frigid North Atlantic water.

“You should have let me drown,” Jón gasped to his uncle, back onboard the corsair ship.

Halldór said nothing.

There was nothing to say.

 

A little over a month after leaving Iceland, the corsair ship arrived at Salé.

Salé was, in fact, two cities straddling the Bu Regreg River, which flows northeastward out of the Atlas Mountains into the Atlantic on Morocco’s west coast: Old Salé on the river’s north bank, and New Salé on the river’s south bank. (See the illustration above for a view of what seventeenth century Salé would have looked like from the sea. You can see Old Salé on the left, the north bank of the river, and the Qasba, the fortress that defended New Salé, on the promontory on the right, the south bank, with the houses of New Salé behind it .) Old Salé, as its name implies, had a long history. It was a center of piety, filled with madrassas and Islamic marabouts and holy men. New Salé was a very different place. Only a few months earlier, it had declared itself officially an independent republic. The economy supporting that republic was piracy and human trafficking—fairly common economic drivers for the time, actually.

When the Salé corsairs arrived, the captain gave orders to fire a cannon salvo and have the ship’s trumpeter sound off triumphantly to announce a successful voyage. The Icelandic captives were then hustled ashore.

New Salé was a bustling, noisy place, stiflingly hot for the poor Icelanders, who were acclimated to the chilly north. They were paraded through the streets to draw attention to their arrival and imminent sale. By the time they were dragged into the center of the slave market, located near the Qasba, a crowd of people had gathered—some to gawk, some to offer bids.

Jón, remember, had been captured with his mother, his two brothers, and two of his uncles. His mother, along with his youngest brother, who only about seven, were put up for auction first. It was against Islamic law to separate a captive mother from her children if the children were seven or younger. So Jón’s mother and brother were put on display together. Potential buyers came to examine them, checking the boy’s limbs to see how sound they were, asking questions of the corsair captain to determine what sort of woman Jón’s mother might be and if there was any possibility of a good ransom being paid for her—which there was, as it turned out.

When it came time for the sale, the auctioneer, a grizzled old man with a long, straggling beard, shouted encouragements to the bidders, pushing up the price—like auctions anywhere. For the Icelanders it was all unintelligible, for the bidding took place in a combination of Spanish and Arabic. Once the process ended, the new owner of Jón’s mother and brother towed them away through the packed bodies of the crowd.

Both Jón’s uncles sold in the same way, though more slowly. They too were dragged away.

Jón’s brother was sold.

And Jón, too.

Jón had no idea what to expect from his new owner—from his new life. In Iceland, Jón had been an educated man from an important family, with a promising future ahead of him. Now, he was property, like a sheep or a cow.

His new owner was a short, stocky man in a turban. He had a large black mustache, staring black eyes, and a cutlass and brace of flintlock pistols shoved into a broad sash wound round his waist. He grabbed Jón by the arm and shouted something unintelligible at him. Jón just shook his head and shrugged, having not the slightest idea what the man might want. His new owner cuffed him impatiently across the side of the head and shoved him away through the crowd.

Jón was pushed stumbling through strange streets, people staring at him on all sides, until he and his master came to a tall house by the harbor front. His master shoved him through a swinging door, and Jón found himself in a shadowy inner courtyard. More shoving, and he ended up in a small, dim room with an earthen floor. The door slammed shut behind him, and Jón slumped to the ground, alone, exhausted, trembling with the brute shock of everything he had endured.

He was hungry, and so thirsty he could hardly swallow. But he barely noticed. He tried not to let himself be overwhelmed by the thought of what lay ahead for him here in this terrible place. He tried to pray to God, but the words died in his throat.

He had one consolation. At least he was not entirely abandoned and alone. Some of his family were here with him. Surely, once things had settled down a little, they would be able to locate each other again in this wretched city. Surely they would be able to find some way to talk, to confront and encourage one another.

The thought gave Jón a little shiver of relief. Things were not entirely hopeless, then.

But though Jón didn’t yet know it, even that small comfort was to be taken from him. For his new master wasn’t from Salé. He was an Algerian. Even as Jón sat slumped in his little room, his master was making preparations for the return journey to Algiers. Jón, his new acquisition, would be going along with him.

For a continuation of Jón’s story, and what happened to him in Algiers, go to Jón Jónsson: a Captive’s Tale – Part 3