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 is a little different from previous ones. It deals with Algiers only tangentially and focuses, instead, on the story of a young Spaniard who was captured at sea, sold into slavery, and then was ransomed… almost.
In the year 1639, a young man about eighteen years of age, born at Ceuta in Africa, was put into the [Spanish] King’s service by his master in a company of recruits intended to serve as reinforcements for the military garrison at Naples. This young man was named Francisco Mendez, and he had been a page to Dom Francisco de Villegas, a Spanish knight who lived at Gibraltar and who was his godfather.
The recruits were put aboard a vessel from Hamburg that, for want of other conveyance, had been pressed into service to transport them—as is ordinarily done in Spain when the King’s service requires it.
They set sail from Cadiz and went into the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar where, when they were close to the island of Majorca, the wind turned contrary. This occasioned the Captain and some others to go ashore, with a design to return to the ship as soon as the wind should sit right for the prosecution of their voyage.
In the meantime, however, the soldiers who had been forced to serve, and whose numbers exceeded the volunteers, persuaded the latter to mutiny, arguing how unfair it was that their officers enjoy themselves ashore, while they endured the hardships of the sea. They then plotted together to render themselves masters of the ship and to return to Spain. The ship’s crew, who were Hamburgers, knew nothing of their design. The mutineers easily seized them and secured them in the ship’s cargo hold, with a guard set upon them.
To govern the ship, the mutineers chose two soldiers who, having been in the Indies, who thought themselves the most expert among them and consequently the most fit to undertake that employment. All went very well while they faced no adversary. But then, having sailed for some hours, they spotted a ship with green colors on the topmast. There was not any so ignorant among them but knew it to be a pirate ship from Algiers.
Perceiving that it made straight towards them, they put themselves into a posture of defense, disposing eighty men on the decks armed with muskets and half-pikes, and sending the rest below decks to manage the cannons.
The pirate ship got the wind of them, and gave them a volley of sixteen guns, which killed two or three men and damaged the sails and rigging. The Spaniards who were between decks answered the pirate ship with a salvo from twelve cannons, but to no effect, for they knew not how to take their aim, and, which was worse, having discharged the guns, they knew not how to charge them again, nor how to properly fasten them down. As a result, the gun carriages began to roll about with the motion of the ship.
The two commanders were busy at the stern, from whence they gave orders for what was to be done. Their people, however, did not understand the sea-terms, and they often acted contrary to what was commanded.
The pirates, seeing so many people on deck, thought it not safe to board. Observing that the enemy made no further use of their guns, they imagined it was for want of powder, and, hoping to get the better of them, the pirates fired at them as fast as possible. At this, the soldiers began to see that they had undertaken the government of the ship as Phaeton did that of the sun’s chariot, and thereupon minding their safety, they resolved to free the ship’s crew from their irons and to employ them on the guns while they defended the deck.
They sent an ambassador, who made this speech to the manacled crewmen: “Gentlemen Lutherans, the ship is set upon by Turks. We will grant you your liberty on condition that you assist us against our common enemy.” He thought this news would be acceptable to the imprisoned Hamburgers, and that they would be glad of that favor. The ambassador, however, was much astonished to hear them bluntly reply that they should make an end of what they had begun, and that they were resolved to be slaves to their enemies in order to be revenged for the affront done to them by those pretended friends by whom they had been treated like beasts.
The ambassador made a report of his negotiation to his companions, who were at such a loss that they knew not what to do or say.
Meanwhile, the pirates gave them another volley. This time, the guns were loaded with iron bars, which ripped apart the rigging, tore through the sails, shattered the masts, and littered the deck with wounded and dead. The commanders’ orders, ill-given and, on the other side, ill understood and executed, caused disorder and confusion amidst the dreadful outcries of the wounded, whose wounds could not be dressed, since the ship’s surgeon was one of those who were in chains in the hold. As a result, the rest began to flag and lose their courage.
The Algerine pirates, perceiving what condition those aboard the Hamburg ship were in, cried out for them to surrender. But those poor desperadoes understood not a word, though they wished nothing so much as to yield, which they could have done by letting down the mainsail yard to the deck and lowering the colors from the stern.
The pirates took their ignorance for contempt and drew near to give them a double charge. However, perceiving that they laid down their arms and made signs with their handkerchiefs fastened to their hats, the pirates sent a boat to them with fifteen Turks in it who, getting on deck, understood what shape the ship was in and immediately began pillaging it. Out of compassion, they sent for the Turkish surgeon to dress the wounded. The dead, and those they considered irrecoverable, they cast into the sea. The rest, they made slaves.
The Spaniards were chained up in the pirate’s vessel, and the Hamburgers stayed where they were, with six Turks to guard them.
The pirates then returned to Algiers, where all those captives were sold into slavery.
Among them was Francisco Mendez [the young Spaniard from at Ceuta], who sent an account of his misfortune to his mother, a poor widow living at Ceuta, who, passing up and down Spain. Begged for what alms she could. Eventually, she gathered together two hundred and fifty patacoons, and wrote to her son that his patron should send him to Tetuan, where she would pay his ransom.
Having received this news, Francisco was embarked with us [i.e., he was placed aboard the ship in which d’Aranda and his companions were travelling]. He was altogether transported with joy for the recovery of his liberty, which he had despaired of ever regaining because of the poverty of his mother and the small chance of getting any money. We came together to Tetuan and were there put into the Mattamore [a kind of subterranean slave pen]. While there, I received letters from my companion, Saldens, dated at Ceuta. At the bottom whereof, he wrote that there was with me a Christian slave, named Francisco Mendez, to whom he desired me to give a patacoon or two if he stood in need thereof, and that his old master, Dom Francisco Villegas, would give the fifty patacoons which were needed to pay his full ransom, and that his mother was travelling from Ceuta to Gibraltar to meet him.
These tidings filled Francisco with joy, but this did not last long, for while we were talking about his liberty, we heard a voice calling, at the grate above, for “Francisco Mendez.”
Lifting up his eyes, Francisco saw his mother, who had been made a slave that very day, being taken in the brigantine that ordinarily sails from Ceuta to Gibraltar, the Portuguez soldiers aboard having neglected their duty through drunkenness.
This sad accident put both mother and son into despair of ever recovering their liberty… on the same day they had expected to have embraced one another and to have taken Francisco out of slavery.
For those who may be interested…
This excerpt can be found in “Relation Forty-Two: The Disappointment,” 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. 242-246.
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