If you were captured by Barbary corsairs, and you came from a Catholic country—and you weren’t rich—your best chance for freedom lay in being ransomed by one of the Catholic redemptionist orders—like the Mercedarians or the Trinitarians. These religious orders collected funds and organized expeditions to North Africa to ransom captives, sometimes buying the freedom of hundreds of people at a time.
Father Pierre Dan was a member of the Trinitarians. He helped lead an expedition to Algiers in the summer of 1634 to ransom French captives there. That expedition, remember was a failure. Father Dan and his fellow the Trinitarians failed to ransom anybody at all. From Algiers, however, they went on to Tunis, where they succeeded in ransoming 42 French captives.
When such captives were returned to their homeland, however, they didn’t just disperse quietly to their homes. Ransoming captives was expensive, and the redemptionist orders were constantly trying to raise funds. One of the ways they did this was to stage dramatic public ceremonies in which they showed off the newly freed captives, demonstrating both their own success and the worthiness of their mission—all in hopes of inspiring people (especially rich people) to donate money to the cause.
The excerpt from Father Dan’s Histoire de Barbarie below follows the course of events after the ransoming of the 42 French captives in Tunis. The ship carrying them arrived in Marseilles on April 2, 1635. Before they could return to their homes, however, these newly freed captive had to spend the better part of two months parading about in public ceremonies advertising the Trinitarians’ success.
One suspects they really just wanted to get back home again.
Here is Father Dan’s narrative.
Along with the other Trinitarian Fathers, Father Charles of Arras and I worked so diligently on this affair that it was God’s pleasure to grant us our wish, and, after three months, we were able, in the city of Tunis, to buy the freedom of forty-two French slaves.
The oldest of them was a native of Rouen, a man named Noël Dubois, who was seventy-two. He had suffered the misery of enslavement for thirty-one years, having been a captive in Constantinople for twenty-nine years, and two in Tunis.
Among the captives we redeemed was another who, by a very strange wonder, was only a slave for five days and never saw Barbary, although he had was there some considerable time. He was a native of Marseille named Sébastien Lombar, and only about seventeen years old at the time. His adventure is so extraordinary & so memorable, that it is worth telling here for the satisfaction of the curious.
This young man had embarked as a sailor aboard a ship out of Genoa, bound for Lisbon. This ship encountered several corsairs from Tunis, who gave chase. However, the Genoa ship lacked neither cannon nor brave men, and they defended themselves very well. They were struck by misfortune, though, when one of the pirates’ cannon balls hit the ships’ powder magazine, causing it to explode. The crew all leaped overboard into the sea. Among them was the young man from Marseilles, who had suffered powder burns on his hands and the whole of his face—making him blind.
The corsairs dragged him out of the water, along with his companions, and brought them all to Tunis to sell as slaves. The Bâcha [the ruler] of Tunis, seeing this young man, wanted him immediately, hoping to heal him and then to send him to the Great Lord in Constantinople, where, because of his youth, he would be coerced into taking the Turban.
However, God, who wanted to save him from this disgrace, allowed his blindness to continue, and he was not cured of it while in Tunis. The Bâcha, after having received a report made to him by a surgeon, judged that the young man would never recover his sight, and that thus he would be useless and a dependent upon him, so he decided, for his own benefit, that it was better to get rid of him. So he sold the young man, including him among the other slaves whose freedom we bought, with whom the young man left Barbary. However, almost immediately after the he returned to Marseilles, this young man’s eyesight returned and he recovered from his burns.
Upon our arrival in Marseilles, the whole of the city was delighted with the happy success of our voyage. This was especially true since we have there a Convent, one of the oldest in the city, where there are a good number of religious friars. They all came down to the port to receive us and the returning captives. For this purpose, they made a very solemn procession on the fifth of April [1635], around two o’clock in the afternoon. There was very beautiful music, and they welcomes us by singing the Te Deum as we disembarked from our ship.
People from all the religious communities and monasteries of the city accompanied us when we entered Marseilles. Two hundred confreres and penitents of the trinity walked first, after them came all the clergy, followed two-by-two by our forty-two slaves, each of whom carried a chain across his shoulder and wore a scapular of our order. The other Fathers and I, who had liberated them, walked immediately after, and, after us, came the gentlemen Consuls. We thus arrived at our monastery accompanied by a large crowd of people and gave thanks to God there. From there we were at the Marseilles Cathedral where I gave a Sermon. After that, we returned to the monastery, and there all our captives were housed and treated as charitably as possible
The next day, which was the sixth of the month, we left Marseille for Paris.
We passed through the city of Aix, where we made another procession. We then went on to Lambesc, Arles, Tarascon, and Avignon, where we have monasteries. From there, we took the main road to Lyon. After that, we went on to Nevers, where, with great devotion, we made a beautiful procession. From Nevers, we continued our journey to Fontainebleau, where we made the same acts of devotion that we had done in other places. Since our liberated captives were tired, we allowed them to rest in our monastery for three days. After that, we set off again, with the extreme satisfaction of knowing ourselves so close to Paris.
We entered Paris by the gate of St. Antoine, at one o’clock in the afternoon, on the twentieth of May, 1635, and were there solemnly received by the members of our monastery there, who came to meet us the candles lit, and made a very beautiful ceremonial procession.
After that, we went to our Church, where the Blessed Sacrament was served. As we entered it, the trumpets and the organ made themselves heard. Then our Reverend Father General, clothed in his ordinary habit, with a surplice over it, received the captives, embracing one after another until all were ranged around the Altar. We then recited the prayers that we commonly perform in such a ceremony. Banners and pennants were displayed around the great altar, and the Te Deum was solemnly sung to music. Then the Abbot of Cerify gave a very learned and very eloquent sermon.
The next morning, the twenty-first of the month, we worshipped in the same way as described above, apart from the music, thanking God and his holy Mother in the great Church which is consecrated to him. After that, we went to St. Nicolas des Champs to celebrate Mass, which was done solemnly, with a sermon given by Monsieur d’Hardiviliers, Doctor of the Sorbonne. From there, we returned to our monastery, where, after we had confessed and offered communion to the poor captives, we invited them to thank God for the mercy he had granted in delivering them from the slavery of the Turks. We gave clothes to those who needed them, and as much money as they needed to go back to their homes. We also supplied each with a certificate of their redemption, in case of necessity.
With that, they were free to go home.
For those who may be interested…
The above is excerpted from Book 1, Chapter 8, Part 4 of Father Pierre Dan’s Histoire de Barbarie. As with the other excerpts from Histoire de Barbarie in this blog, I translated this directly from the seventeenth century French. This excerpt is considerably abridged, though. Histoire de Barbarie can be a fascinating read, but Father Dan does tend to go on at times, especially when the subject he is discussing is of a religious nature.
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