AN AMERICAN IN ALGIERS – PART 6 – Corsairs & Captives

This week, we continue with another excerpt from the captivity narrative of John Foss, the American who, in October, 1793, was captured by Barbary corsairs from Algiers.

Last week’s excerpt focused on the punishments slaves in Algiers were forced to endure.

This week’s excerpt provides more examples of those punishments.

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In the month of July, 1795, a Mahometan woman was found sitting among some bushes at a small distance from where some slaves were at work. The Turk who found her asked her several question concerning the business she had there. Not receiving satisfactory answers, he decided to bring her before the Cadi (who is the supreme judge in ecclesiastical matters), since this was deemed a breach of their religion, her being found sitting so near to the Christian slaves. It was supposed that she had been waiting until some one of the slaves should find an opportunity of meeting with her.

As the Turk who found her was going along with her, they met a slave who had been sent by one of the taskmasters to bring a jug of water from an adjacent spring. The slave asked what crime the woman was guilty of, that she was dragging her along in such a manner, with her hands tied behind her. He was answered that she had been sitting among some bushes waiting for the embraces of some Christian.

The slave, having some humanity, and knowing the woman would be punished for mere suspicion if she was carried before the Cadi—and being confident these wretches are in general easily bribed—offered three sequins, which was all the money he was master of, for her release. The villainous Turk, not being as easily bribed as the slave supposed, answered, “You are the Christian dog whose embraces she has been seeking!”

Calling another Turk to his assistance, who was at a small distance from them, they dragged the two poor innocent victims before the Cadi, where they were not being allowed to speak in their own defense. The accusation was laid before the judge in words to this purpose: “We found these two persons outside the gate Babazoone, among some bushes, in actual embrace.” The Cadi then ordered the man to be brought before the Dey’s palace, and there be beheaded, and the woman to be sewed up in a sack, with a bomb shell at her feet, to be carried one mile at sea and thrown overboard.

A few minutes after this sentence was passed, and they had been ordered to their respective places of execution, the Cadi was credibly informed that they had not been found together as it had been reported to him. He then ordered them both to be bastinadoed for suspicion. This message arrived at the Dey’s Palace just when the Novagi, (who is one of the Dey’s corps of guard) was drawing his scimitar to deprive an innocent Christian of life. The poor slave however, received five hundred bastinadoes, which disabled him in such a manner that he was unable to speak for near forty eight hours, and was not capable of walking for upwards of two months afterwards.

While they were preparing to inflict his punishment, he was incessantly beseeching them, to execute the former sentence and exclaiming, “Oh! that the Cadi had not been undeceived, that I might have died at one blow, and escaped these tortures.”

Alas, the messenger arrived too late for the poor woman, for she was cast into her watery grave a few minutes before the message arrived. About four days afterwards, she was found upon the seashore, disengaged from the sack and bomb shell, looking nearly as fresh as when she was alive. She was then taken and interred near the place where she washed on shore, and there is now a large marble monument built over her remains. Peope pray at her monument as a saint; and they say if she had not been innocent she could not have disengaged herself from the sack and bomb shell.

The poor Christian, however, (though these bigoted superstitious beings accepted the innocence of both these unhappy sufferers) never received any redress. They would often deride him in this manner: “You was the occasion of an innocent woman’s death!”

I was an eye witness of these inhuman scenes of diabolical barbarity, which will never be effaced from my memory.

We meet with such events in the annals of Algiers as almost makes us doubt the veracity of the most authentic history. Had I not been an eyewitness of these and the like scenes of inhuman cruelty, I should scarcely have believed that such torturous barbarity had ever been committed by the inhabitants of this globe, and by beings of the same species with ourselves.

While we are viewing the history of Barbary and acquainting ourselves with the infernal tortures these godless wretches inflict on members of their own species whom chance has unluckily thrown into their power, we are apt to think we are perusing the records of hell.

A Turk who commits a capital offence is strangled in the following manner. The criminal is confined, with his back against a wall, in which are two holes, directly opposite the back of his neck. Through these holes is reaved a rope, with the two ends on the opposite side, from where the criminal is, and the bite, or double, of the rope coming about the criminal’s neck. Then the two ends are knotted together, and the executioner puts a stick in between the rope and wall. Then he turns the stick round (as the sea phrase is) like a Spanish windlass, which, twisting the two parts of the rope together, brings it tight about the criminal’s neck, and he is soon dispatched. The executioner does not see the criminal while performing his office.

This is accounted the most honorable death for persons who are executed. Beheading is considered the most ignominious. A Turk for offences not capital is commonly bastinadoed. Moors or Arabs, for enormous crimes, are sometimes cast upon the hooks, and at other times, hanged or beheaded. For small crimes, they are enslaved (condemned to share the fate of Christian captives) for a certain term of time. For theft, they sometimes have the right hand cut off, and hung about their neck. The criminal is then set upon an ass and led through the city, with his face toward the asses tail, and sometimes has to wear his hand, hung by a string about his neck, as he passes through the city for a period of several years.

The Jews have various punishments for different offences, all similar to those of the Christian slaves, and with no less severity. Such is the gross indignation the Mahometans bear toward the Jewish religion that a Turk may with impunity, (if he flees to a Marabout Mosque, or pays a small penalty) murder ten of them. If he kills the eleventh, he is then strangled. No Mosque or penalty will excuse him. Nothing will save his life, unless he is pardoned by the Dey, whose word is absolute.

A slave may, with the same impunity, beat and abuse the Jews in the streets as he passes. While the poor Israelites are not allowed to lift their hand in their own defense, upon penalty of having it cut off. All the consolation they will have from the Mahometans in such cases is encouragement for the slaves to continue their abuse.

I have known fifty Jews to receive, in one day, five hundred bastinadoes each for being found with a red sash about their waists—for they are not allowed to wear any color except black.

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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. 35-41.

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