AN AMERICAN IN ALGIERS – PART 5 – Corsairs & Captives

Welcome to a new year. Let’s hope it’s a good one without any tears.

This first week of the year, we continue with another excerpt from the captivity narrative of John Foss. Foss, remember, was a crewmember aboard an American merchant ship who, in October, 1793, was captured by Barbary corsairs from Algiers—and who wrote a book chronicling his experiences as a slave in Algiers, titled A journal, of the captivity and sufferings of John Foss.

Last week’s excerpt focused on “the daily provisions slaves are allowed to subsist on” and upon “the lamentable conditions of their lives.”

This week’s excerpt focuses on the punishments slaves in Algiers were forced to endure.

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The punishment most common for small offences is the bastinado, of which I shall say but very little, having already related the manner of inflicting it. I shall, however, relate a few instances of people being bastinadoed for very small offences, or rather no offence at all.

In the month of October, 1793, which was before I had the misfortune of being an eyewitness, but of which I had a verbal account, 14 slaves of different nations made an attempt to run away with a boat but were overtaken after they were several leagues at sea and brought back to Algiers. When they were landed and carried before the Dey, he ordered the steersman and bowman to be beheaded and the rest to receive five hundred bastinadoes each, to have a chain of 50 weight fastened to each man’s leg for life, and a wooden block of about 70 pounds to the end of that, which they were obliged to carry upon their shoulder when they walked to do their work.

When they were at work, they laid the block down, and could only work within the length of their chain. When they had occasion to go further, they had to carry the block to the place where the work called them. Those of them who were living when I left Algiers, which was the July 13, 1796, were still in this miserable situation.

The Algerines have different punishments for capital offences. Sometimes the victims are burned, or rather roasted alive. At other times they are impaled. This is done by placing the criminal upon a sharp iron stake and thrusting it up his posterior, by his back bone, until it appears at the back of his neck. For being found in company with a Mahomet woman, a slave is beheaded, and the woman is put into a sack and carried about a mile at sea and thrown overboard, with a sufficient quantity of rocks, or a bomb, to sink her. For suspicion of being with one, the slave is castrated and the woman bastinadoed. A slave for murder of another slave is immediately beheaded.

For murder of a Mahometan, he is cast off from the walls of the city upon iron hooks, which are fastened into the wall about halfway down. These catch him by any part of the body that happens to strike them, and sometimes the poor victim hangs in this manner in the most exquisite agonies for several days together before he expires. Should the part that catches not be strong enough to hold them (for sometimes this is the case, and the flesh tears out), the victims fall to the bottom of the wall and are dashed to pieces upon sharp stones, placed there for this purpose.

If a slave endeavors to make his escape and is brought back, he is nailed to a gallows by one hand and the opposite foot, and in this way he expires in the most indescribable torture. But this method is not always practiced for desertion, for sometimes they are only bastinadoed. At other times they are beheaded. I never knew an instance of the former, during my captivity, though I have been an eye witness to the latter several times.

A slave for speaking disrespectfully of the Mahometan Religion is impaled or burnt. For striking a Turk, he is executed in the same manner.

On April 16, 1794, as all hands were at work in the mountains, Joseph Keith and Peter Barry, being very much fatigued, went to a spring of water about fifty yards distant from where the rest of the slaves were at work. After having drunk some water, they felt faint and sat down upon the grass.

The Guardian Bachi, observing them, sent two taskmasters who brought them to him. He ordered them one hundred bastinadoes each, which was inflicted without hesitation. This was for being about five minutes absent from their work, and this at a time when they ought to have been attended by a physician.

I witnessed many instances of this kind.

For instance, on August 14, 1794, when a slave received three hundred bastinadoes for no greater offence than pulling six hairs cut of a horse’s tail, which belonged to one of the great men of the Regency. In the month of November, 1794, as the slaves, were returning from work, and passing through the gate Babazia, (where they are searched by the taskmasters) one of them, being found with three board nails in his pocket, was carried before the Viguilhadge [the minister of the marine], who commanded him to be punished with a hundred bastinadoes.

His indictment ran as follows: “You unbelieving Christian dog! What occasion could you have for these nails, unless you intended to open some lock and steal?” In the month of November, 1795, one of the Oran slaves, having grown desperate, was drinking wine one evening in the Bagnio and making some noise. One of the Guards beat him without mercy. The slave drew a knife and stabbed the Guard in the heart, and he fell instantly dead.

The rest of the Guards commanded the slaves to endeavor to secure the slave with the knife. When they attempted this, he killed one slave and wounded three more. He was eventually taken, secured until morning, and then beheaded.

Another circumstance of this kind happened in March, 1796. Another of these Oran slaves was informed that the money for the redemption of the Spaniards who deserted from that place was lodged in the hands of a Spanish priest, then resident at Algiers, and that he had neglected their liberation. The slave went to the priest and asked if he had money for the redemption of the Spaniards. Being answered in the negative, he drew a knife and stabbed the priest in fourteen different places and left him to all appearance dead (the priest, however, recovered).

This same slave then went to the house of the Spanish Consul, intending to kill him. Finding he was at his garden, he went to the Bagnio, where he killed a Christian slave with whom he had had some prior dispute. He then threw down his knife, delivered himself up, and was beheaded that same evening.

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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. 31-35.

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