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 yet more examples of those punishments—and of calamitous accidents..
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A Renegado hath the same punishments as a Turk. If any Renegado, after embracing the Mahometan religion, deviates from its principles, the most ignominious death immediately follows.
I once knew an instance of this, during my captivity, which occurred in the month of February, 1795, when a French merchant ship arrived at Algiers.
One of the crew (through a mistaken zeal) expressed an inclination of embracing the Mahometan religion. He was accordingly circumcised and made, as they express it, a true believer. On his renouncing the Christian religion for that of Mahomet, the principal men in the city made him a present of 5,000 Algerine Sequins.
He had not continued above four months in this benighted superstition before his conscience smote him, and he repented his folly of having abandoned the true worship of Jesus Christ and having embraced that of the imposter Mahomet. Behold him now with a conscience stung with remorse. His sleepless nights are spent in meditating the possibility of his escape. His livid countenance, haggard form, and gloomy aspect all denote some weighty remorse is preying upon his mind.
About the first of July, 1795, two English frigates anchored in the bay. That same night he abandoned his riches, stripped himself naked and endeavored to swim to one of them. However, he was perceived by the sentinels on board a guard boat that was placed between the frigates and the shore to prevent any slave making his escape. They rowed after him and brought him back.
They kept him confined on board the boat until morning, and then carried him before the Dey, who ordered him to be beheaded immediately. Thus ended the existence of a wretch who was born a Christian but who exchanged the true religion for Mahometanism.
In the month of May, 1794, as all hands were at work dragging large rocks to the quay, one of the slaves, a Neapolitan, happened to fall down near the sled. Before it could be stopped, he was entirely crushed to pieces. The taskmasters apparently rejoiced at the accident, and, with smiling countenances, ordered two slaves to gather the remains of his body in a basket, and bury them at the Christian burial ground, ordering the rest to go on with the rock, not giving them time to enquire what accident had happened, only telling them a Christian dog was gone to his own country. Many of them did not know what had happened for sometime afterwards.
Another singular accident happened about four months afterwards. As we were hauling rocks in the same manner, a Corsican slave accidentally fell down, and the sled went over his legs and knees, taking them both off, just above the joint of the knees, his legs and feet being crushed in such a manner that it was impossible to distinguish one part from another. His father and six brothers, who were also slaves, were witnesses of this dreadful accident. The father, his seven sons, and five grandsons, had been captured altogether on board one vessel about fifteen days before this accident happened. As the unfortunate Christian did not expire immediately, he was sent to the hospital, where he remained two days in the most exquisite agony. The king of terrors then put a period to his existence.
When any such accident happens among the slaves, it is immediately reported to the Dey. On hearing this, his obdurate heart was a little softened, and he gave permission that the father might attend his son in the hospital while he lived. This melancholy event deprived a father of his son, six unhappy men of a brother, three children of a father, and a woman of her husband. In addition to the horrors of slavery, these miserable relatives had to bemoan the untimely death of the unfortunate sufferer.
On the 16th of November, 1794, about forty slaves were employed in carrying some pieces of old timber from an ancient building (that had formerly been a shelter for their gun boats on shore but which time had now reduced it to ruins) to where building a powder magazine was being built. Among these ruins were many venomous insects. A slave having a piece of timber upon his shoulder, was stung by a tarantula on his left cheek. Since this happened around three o’clock in the afternoon, he was obliged to work ’till night. His head by this time swelled up to a very large size. After work, he was sent to the hospital, where he expired the next day, in the greatest agony. When he died, his head measured four feet and one inch in circumference. Another Captive shared a similar fate a few weeks afterwards.
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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. 41-44.
As usual, I have lightly edited and abridged the original text to make it more accessible for modern readers.
Corsairs and Captives
Narratives from the Age of the Barbary Pirates
The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627