STOLEN LIVES: THE BARBARY CORSAIR RAID ON HEIMAEY – PART 2

This week, we continue with another excerpt from Stolen Lives: The Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Heimaey in 1627 .

This book, remember, is newly available on Amazon.

Stolen Lives – Amazon listing

Stolen Lives focuses on the raid, by corsairs from Algiers, on the island of Heimaey, one of the Westman Islands off Iceland’s south coast, and on what happened to the Icelandic captives when they arrived in Algiers.

The excerpts from the book here in this blog look at what happened in Algiers.

This week we look at the process of being sold into slavery in Algiers.

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All newly arrived captives in Algiers had to be officially processed before they could be put up for auction in the Badestan. The Icelanders, the miscellaneous booty the corsairs had seized, and the Danish merchant ship they brought with them all had to be formally declared a ‘good prize’—that is, legal and legitimate plunder.

The adjudication took place in official residence of the Ottoman Governor of Algiers, the Dar al-Soultan (the House of the Sultan), an imposing three-story structure that was often described as the most beautiful in the city,

Set into the northern face of the Dar al-Soultan was a courtyard about twenty-five meters square. In this courtyard, much of the official business of Algiers was conducted: the Divan (the governing council of Algiers) met there, janissary troops received their pay, criminals were judged and condemned, ransoms for European captives were paid—and captives and prizes declared legal.

Sometimes there were disputes over the legality of a particular group of captives or of a prize. For the captive Icelanders, though, the process was no doubt perfunctory. Iceland was a Danish possession, but there was no Danish consul in Algiers, and so there was nobody to speak up on the Icelanders’ behalf. And there were no other complications, either. Word would have gone out quickly: “A good prize! A good prize! Slaves and booty!”

The Pasha to legally entitled to one eighth of the captives—one out of every eight of the men, women, and children brought in. It was now time for him to make his choices.

This choosing process occurred not in the outdoor courtyard of the Dar al-Soultan but inside the building itself, where it was no doubt cooler and more comfortable for the Pasha. An Englishman who was enslaved in Algiers in the late 1640s included the following description of what it was like to pass through the outdoor courtyard in preparation for going inside the Dar al-Soultan:

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We entered into a large and spacious courtyard paved with white Marble. There was a high Brick wall that enclosed us, and before us opened a large gate, patterned with diverse colours, which led into a great hall, where our keepers led us.[1]

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Stumbling from the blindingly sunlit courtyard through this gate into the cool dimness of the interior, the captive Icelanders were suddenly confronted with unimaginable Oriental luxury.

The Dar al-Soultan was a three-story building. Accounts (as usual) differ, but it was large: something like 50 meters long by half that wide. The upper two stories were divided into arcades, each framed by columns separated by graceful arches serving as entranceways to the innumerable rooms the building contained. The whole place was inlaid with mosaics, the walls illuminated with decorative abstract painting.

The Icelanders would have been led into a long, open space, lined by stone columns, that reeked of opulence, the walls intricately painted, the floor made of painted and enamelled earthenware tiles, an octagonal fountain set into the middle of it, filled with clear, bubbling water.

There the Icelanders would have waited nervously, staring at the—to them—outlandish and exotic architecture, until the Pasha deigned to inspect them.

The Pasha of Algiers during this period was Hussein-Khodja. No description of him has come down to us, but we do have descriptions of other Pashas. Here is one from the early 1640s:

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He was seated, in the middle of a rather large but poorly lit room, on an elevated platform covered with Persian rugs, his legs crossed like a tailor. Any defects the room might have had were hidden by a large brocade cloth that hung on the wall, displaying a great array of different colours, well matched and nuanced. The Pasha reclined upon several silk cushions. The cushion on the right, which he leaned upon, was larger and more variegated, shining, and adorned with four long tassels of gold and silver mixed with some intertwined jewels. On this, he supported a copy of the Koran, covered with gold and ornamented with precious stones.[2]

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Pasha Hussein-Khodja no doubt had the same opulent appearance as the Pasha described above. One can imagine him easily enough: an imperious man in a large turban and a sumptuous robe, a feather fan or a Koran in his hand, perhaps—likely also a long-bladed knife or a sword in an embroidered sheath slid into a sash at his waist, the times being what they were (the image at the top of this post is a depiction of what Pasha Hussein-Khodja might have looked like).

He would have been a thoroughly daunting presence for the bedraggled Icelanders, who, remember, had just spent a month in cramped quarters aboard ship, unable to bathe, and who stood there in the same clothes they had been captured in.

Here is a description of the process by which the Pasha chose the captives that would be his:

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The Pasha marched to the upper end of the chamber, where there was a canopy of state and two Turkish carpets and a large pillow covered with damask, which he sat upon. The owners of the ship that had captured us presented themselves before him, kissing the hem of his garment. They discoursed amongst themselves for about an hour, showing him our bills of lading…

The Pasha then commanded us to come before him one by one. He looked upon us with a stern countenance and took notice of our features and stature, for it seems the Turks are excellent in the art of physiognomy; they know a man and his inclinations at the first view, just as an expert farrier can know the good or ill qualities of a horse. It concerns them much, especially those who trade in slaves.

The Pasha made jokes about every one of us, which gave the company in the hall a great deal of mirth but only increased our sadness…

At last, when he had considered us all, he commanded us to stand before him together and began to make his choices.[3]

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In just such a manner would Pasha Hussein-Khodja have taken his pick among the Icelanders.

His first choice among the children was Reverend Ólafur’s son. Here is Reverend Ólafur’s recollection of the moment:

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His [the Pasha’s] first choice amongst the boys was my own poor son, eleven years old, whom I will never forget as long as I live because of the depth of his understanding and knowledge. When he was taken from me, I asked him in God’s name not to forsake his faith nor forget his catechism. He said with great grief, “I will not, my father! They can treat my body as they will, but my soul I shall keep for my good God.”

I have to say with Job: What is my strength, that I should hope? Were one to try to weigh my misery and suffering altogether on a scale, they would be heavier than all the sand in the sea.[4]

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The Pasha need not even have said anything when he took Reverend Ólafur’s son from him. A mere flick of his finger… and guards would have hustled the boy away. There was nothing Reverend Ólafur or anyone else could do about it.

That day, Pasha Hussein-Khodja acquired somewhere close to fifty new slaves—whom he could keep for his own use or sell at a huge profit (since he had paid nothing for them). It was a very lucrative day for him. He was likely quite used to such affairs, though, given the large number of captives corsairs were bringing into Algiers at this time. He no doubt considered such a bounty as nothing less than his rightful due.

At the end of the choosing process, he would have simply turned his back on the remaining Icelanders and dismissed them with a negligent wave of his hand.

The remaining captives were then led away, out of the audience chamber, through the marble-paved outdoor courtyard—blinking in the bright-hot sunlight—and back through the maze of dim alleyways.

They were headed, finally, to be auction off at the Badestan.

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For a description of how captives were auctioned off in the Badestan, see the next post in this series: Stolen Lives: The Barbary Corsair Raid on Heimaey – Part 3.

[1] A. Roberts, ed., The Adventures of (Mr T.S.) an English Merchant Taken Prisoner by the Turks of Argiers, and Carried into the Inland Countries of Africa, with a Description of the Kingdom of Argiers, of all the Towns and Places of Note thereabouts (originally published in 1670), p. 23.

[2] René du Chastelet Desboys, L’Odyssée ou diversité d’aventures en Europe, Afrique et Asie (The Odyssey, or a Diversity of Adventures in Europe, Africa, and Asia) (originally published in 1665), p. 46.

[3] A. Roberts, ed., The Adventures of (Mr T.S.), 1670, pp. 25-28.

[4] Karl Smári Hreinsson & Adam Nichols, The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson, p. 28.