AN AMERICAN IN ALGIERS – PART 4 – Corsairs & Captives

This week, we continue with the captivity narrative of John Foss, a crewmember aboard an American merchant ship who, in October, 1793, was captured by Barbary corsairs from Algiers.

Last week, Foss described the the daily labors of slaves in Algiers. In this week’s excerpt, he describes the sorts of food slaves were given.

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About eight o’clock in the morning the slaves are called by one of the taskmasters from their work to take breakfast. They receive this in the following order.

When they are called, they all leave their work, and go to where there are some sacks of bread. As they pass by, they are counted by one of the drivers, while another gives each man a loaf of bread. He gives every eighth man a wooden bowl with about a pint of vinegar in it. In this manner, they pass until all have received their allowance.

They then sit down upon the ground to eat, but they are commonly called to work again in about ten minutes, and are seldom allowed more than 12. The same ceremony is passed at 12 o’clock, when they receive the same allowance. At night when the roll is called they receive another loaf of bread, but no vinegar. This is all the provision they have allowed them from the Regency.

However, oftentimes when they are at work on board the corsair ships, the steward will give them a little sweet oil, and sometimes some olives. This they count a feast. These loaves of bread weigh about three ounces and a half. I have weighed several and never found one to exceed three ounces and eleven drachms. So what bread each man has allowed him for a day, will not exceed eleven ounces, and it is so sour that a person must be almost starving before he can eat it The reason of its being so sour is their mixing the dough three days before it is baked. To make this bread they sift the bran of wheat after the flour and middling’s are taken out.

Perhaps you may think what I have already related could not be augmented with additional severity, but alas, this is not all. The Bagnio in which the slaves sleep contains several galleries, one above another. In each gallery are numerous small rooms in them the slaves sleep. For the use of these rooms, they must pay a certain sum of money every moon to the Guardian Bachi, or else sleep in the open Bagnio, where they have nothing but the firmament to cover them.

On the evening after the moon changes, the keeper of the Bagnio calls out for all hands to pay for their rooms. If anyone who has slept in a room during the moon has not procured the money, and cannot pay it down, his hands are put into irons behind him, and his legs chained to a pillar every night until the money is paid. They are released in the morning to go to their work and are chained again at night. Those miserable objects are commonly relieved by the rest of their fellow-sufferers.

Some of the slaves are allowed a small pittance from their country, which enables them to pay this demand. Others are mechanics and work at their trades in the night, to procure this sum. Others get it by theft, though they often hazard their lives by so doing. Many are obliged to sleep every night upon the cold stones, with nothing but the heavens to cover them, for want of money to pay this tribute.

In the Bagnio, where the slaves sleep, is a kind of galleria belonging to the Dey that contains a great number of animals of prey. They are confined with chains in different apartments from where the slaves sleep and are maintained by them with bullock’s and sheep’s heads. This money must be paid every moon when they pay for the rooms they sleep in.

There is still another demand as unreasonable as any of the former. After their Ramadan, which is a fast that continues a whole moon during which time they cannot eat, drink, smoke, or even wet their lips while the sun is above the horizon (what they do eat, is in the night), they have a great feast, which continues two days. On the evening previous to the feast, each slave must carry 2 fowls to the taskmaster as a present. Also, a certain number of sheep are given to them, for which each slave must pay his proportionable part.

During those two days, the slaves are locked in the Bagnio and are allowed no kind of subsistence from the Regency except one small loaf of bread, as I mentioned before, and this they receive each night when the roll is called. The drivers, on the first morning of the feast, give each slave a loaf of good white bread, weighing about half a pound, for which they had received two fowls from each slave the evening before.

When I left Algiers, upwards of 1,200 Christian captives were in this deplorable situation, dragging out a miserable existence, with the woeful appellation of ‘slave’ preying upon their minds.

The clothing which is allowed them for a year is such a suit as was contained in the bundle which I explained in a former part of this book. They receive this on the first Friday after Christmas, as before observed. The first Friday in January, when it begins on Friday excepted, then the second, all the captives belonging to the Regency, are obliged to go about seven miles into the country, and gather reeds, and carry them to the Dey’s garden, for Beans, Peas, &c. to grow upon. This is a very tedious day’s work. At this season of the year the rains fall in abundance in that country, which renders the walking very disagreeable, as we do not follow the road but are obliged to cross fields, and meadows.

The distance those reeds are carried is about eight miles. We go out at the easternmost gate of the city called Babazoone, and it is near 7 miles from this gate to the place where they are gathered, and from thence they must be carried to the Dey’s garden, which is near a mile westward of the gate called the Babalwed, which is the west gate of the city. This day’s work they tell us (by way of derision) is to pay for the clothes which we had received a week before, and which by this time all already generally half worn out.

Having described the daily provisions slaves are allowed to subsist on and expounded upon the lamentable conditions of their lives, I will now proceed to give you an account of the punishments that are most commonly meted out to them.

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For the next installment of John Foss’s narrative, see the next post here in this blog.

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For those who may be interested…

The above excerpt from John Foss’s narrative comes from A journal, of the captivity and sufferings of John Foss; several years a prisoner at Algiers: together with some account of the treatment of Christian slaves when sick—and observations on the Manners and Customs of the Algerines, second edition, originally published in 1798, pp. 27-31.

As usual, I have lightly edited and abridged the original text to make it more accessible for modern readers.