Sometimes there’s just no substitute for the original. So this week’s post (and several more to follow) consists of a seventeenth century captivity narrative. I have abridged the original a little and modernized the spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary (to make the text clearer). Otherwise, what follows is a first-hand account written by a man named William Okeley, who was captured by Algiers corsairs and sold into slavery in the Algiers.
In the month of June, in the year of our Lord 1639, in pursuance of a commission from the Right Honorable Earl of Warwick, we took ship at Gravesend, in the Mary of London, carrying six guns, Mr. Boarder being master and James Walker the master’s mate. The ship was chiefly laden with linen and woolen cloth, having in her seamen and passengers above sixty, bound for the West Indies.
We companioned with two other ships and were now three ships in company. One of the others, I remember, carried nine guns, Mr. Church, master. The sixth day after our setting sail, by break of day in the morning, we discovered three ships about three or four leagues to leeward. The masters of our ships presently consulted what was most advisable, whether to stay and speak with them, or to make the best of our way and flee. At last (upon what reasons I know not), it was determined that we should stay.
It was not long before we discovered those other three ships to be Turkish men-of-war, who, spying their prey, endeavored to come up with us, which, about nightfall, they effected. While they were coming up, the masters of our ships seemed resolved to fight them, and accordingly made preparations to receive them. But in the night, the master and company of the ship I was on altered their counsels, let their resolutions die, and agreed to run for it.
The Turks, perceiving us begin to run, sent one of their ships to chase us, whilst their other two ships attended the remaining two of our company till the morning. At break of day they began to fight us, and after a short dispute boarded us, and took us all three. On the Mary of London, six were slain and many wounded.
We found many Englishmen in their ships, slaves like ourselves, from whom we had no other comfort but the condoling of each other’s miseries. From them, we learnt a smattering of the common language, which would be of some use to us when we should come to Algiers, whither, after five or six weeks, we were brought.
On our first night ashore in Algiers, we were locked down in a deep and nasty cellar. Some inconveniences we felt, but they were nothing to what we feared. The next day, we were carried, or led, or, rather, driven to the Vice Roy’s, or Bashaw’s palace, who, according to their custom, has the right to claim every tenth man amongst the captives for his own.
When the next market day came, we were driven like beasts to the slave market and exposed to sale.
Their manner of selling slaves is this: they lead them up and down the fair, or market, and when a potential buyer bids any money, they presently cry, “Arache! Arache!” That is, “Here is so much money bidden. Who bids more?”
The first policy of the buyers is to look in the captives’ mouths. A good, strong, entire set of grinders will advance the price considerably. The buyers have good reason for this practice, for they are rational creatures and know that they who have not teeth cannot eat; and they that cannot eat, cannot work; and they that cannot work are not for them. For they intend to keep their slaves on hard meat all the year, and it must not be gums, but solid teeth (nay, if it were possible, casehardened teeth) that must chew it. And, when all is done, they had need of an Ostrich’s stomach to digest it.
The buyers’ next process is to feel the captives’ limbs, to see whether there be any fracture or dislocation in the bones, anything analogous to spavin, or ringbone in horses, for these will bring down the price wonderfully. To be clean·limbed, close coupled, and well jointed will advance it much.
The seller commends his goods to the sky, while the buyer, on the other hand, as much undervalues them. The true market price lies commonly just between them. But so it is all the world over.
“Oh,” says the seller, “mark what a back this one has, what a breadth he bears between the shoulders! What a chest! How strongly set! How fitted on the nonce for carrying burdens! He’ll do too much work!”
“Pish,” says the buyer. “He looks like a right pillard, like a very peacock at his provender, and one that seems to be surfeited.”
The buyers are very curious to examine the captives’ hands, for if they be calloused and brawny, the buyers will shrewdly guess the captive has been inured to labor. If a captive’s hands are delicate and tender, the buyers will suspect some gentleman or merchant, and then the hopes of a good price of ransom make him valuable.
When captives are sold, they must be trotted once more to the Vice-Roy’s, that he may have the review of them, and if he likes any of them at the prices they went off at, there is no more dispute: they are his own.
As for myself, I was sold the first market day to a Tagareen.
So that the reader may not stumble at that hard word, he may understand that when the Moors were driven out of Spain by Ferdinand the Great, they, upon their return into Africa, assumed names that might argue gentility, and be an evidence or their origin in such places where they had been great Dons, and, accordingly, there are many families thus denominated as Tagareens, Tarbeens, etc.
Those miseries which it is dreadful to endure can yet still be delightful to remember; and there’s a secret pleasure to chew the cud, and ruminate upon escaped dangers. However, the reader may afford to run over with his eye in an hour that which I ran through in five years, and, supposing himself safe upon the amphitheater, may behold poor slaves combating with beasts below.
The first adventure I met with after I was brought to my patron’s house (for so I must now style him) well nigh cost me my life.
To find out what happened, go to The Adventures of William Okeley: A Captive’s Tale – Part 2.
Corsairs and Captives
Narratives from the Age of the Barbary Pirates
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The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627
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