(This post is a continuation of The Barbary Corsair Raid on Grindavík in 1627 – Parts 1 – 3. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read those posts before continuing on here.)
Last week’s post covered the Salé corsairs’ attack on the Grindavík area and the capture of the Járngerðarstaðir farm family. This week follows their voyage to Salé.
Before the members of the Járngerðarstaðir farm family caught their first uneasy glimpse of Salé, they had to endure a sea voyage that lasted over a month.
During that time, remember, they were forced to wear neck shackles connected to heavy chains and were kept confined in the hold, deep in the interior of the ship’s hull—an area in which to store cargo, not human beings. A few oil lanterns were hung from the low beams overhead to create some light for the captives, but it was a dark, malodorous, claustrophobic space. Chained up there as they were, it was hard for the captives to move around, find a comfortable position, or relieve themselves.
Food was also an issue. The Salé corsairs had little opportunity to stock up on supplies during their short sojourn in Icelandic waters (particularly the sorts of supplies that could be preserved during a long sea voyage) and everybody on board was on short rations—just half of a small loaf of bread per day. The corsairs brought some beer (stolen from Heimaey) aboard, but there was not very much of it, and it did not last the whole voyage.
Here is an English captive’s description of what it was like to be a captive aboard a corsair ship:
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New slaves are put into irons in the hold and are not able to stand on their legs, nor suffered to come on deck, being confined either to sit or lie down, without the least provision of bedding to ease themselves. In this sorrowful case we found ourselves, and we were almost weary of our lives. You may imagine that the food we had to sustain nature was answerable to the rest of their kindness; and indeed, this generally was only a little vinegar (about five or six spoonfuls), half a spoonful of oil, and a few olives, with a small quantity of black biscuit and a pint of water a day.
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Since the Salé corsairs wanted as many of their captives as possible to survive the voyage and reach Salé in reasonably good health—they would fetch higher prices at the slave market that way—the captives were not kept confined down in the hold for the whole journey and were periodically allowed up on deck to walk about, sluice themselves with seawater, breath some fresh air, and generally decompress.
These outings might have prevented their health from deteriorating too drastically, but the inevitable return to the dark, fetid hold must have been acutely distressing. A Scotsman who was captured by Salé corsairs had this to say about his experience in the hold of their ship:
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We lay in a miserable condition, oppressed with many inconveniences. I especially remember the stench and nastiness of our lodging [down in the hold]. Sometimes in the day we were permitted to come above deck, to suck in a little fresh air, and to wash ourselves, but this small comfort was soon forgot by returning to our irons.
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Added to the captives’ physical discomfort, of course, was the constant dread of what the future night hold for them. The days must have seemed interminable down there in the dark and claustrophobic hold, and their time on deck in the sunlight and fresh air all too short.
It was a practical necessity for the corsairs to keep their captives chained up most of the time in order to demoralize them and to insure that they did not make any sort of group attempt to overwhelm the crew and take over the ship—such things did happen sometimes to corsairs who allowed too many captives up on deck at once.
Strange as it might seem, though, beyond confining them to the hold much of the time, the corsairs treated their captives with reasonable solicitude. Reverend Ólafur Egilsson observed that “after the people came aboard the ship, the pirates did not annoy anyone except me but behaved well towards them all, and were even kind to the children—though this does not make the story any happier.”
It was surely not compassion that prompted this sort of behaviour on the part of the corsairs. Rather, it was common sense and self-interest: conflict of any sort aboard ship was to be avoided at all costs, for it threatened the ship’s very survival, and abusing the captives more than was absolutely necessary just lowered their sale price in the slave market.
So the voyage to Salé would have been a strange and unnerving one for the captives, chained up in the uncomfortable confines of the dark hold for much of it, suffering from hunger and thirst and fear, but also allowed up on deck to stroll about, observe the corsairs, and no doubt interact with some of them.
The voyage lasted a little over a month. During this time, the captives and a significant proportion of the corsairs—most of whom, remember, served as fighters rather than sailors—had nothing to do. In the stultifying boredom that they endured, day after day after day… it is even possible that something akin to friendship might have emerged between some of the captives and some of the corsairs—a sort of maritime version of something akin to Stockholm syndrome.
All things pass, and eventually the corsair ship on which the members of the Járngerðarstaðir farm family were confined reached its destination—Salé.
When the ship arrived, the state of the sea made it impossible to cross the sandbar that lay across the mouth of the Bou Regreg River(the river upon which Salé was situated) and enter upstream into the port. So the ship lay moored in the Salé roadstead for several days (the term “roadstead,” sometimes shortened to just “road,” was used to refer to the deeper, and so safer, water outside a harbor; in this case, beyond the mouth of the river).
The members of the Járngerðarstaðir farm family (and all the other captives aboard the ship) no doubt all had an opportunity to come up on deck at some point during the long days the vessel was stuck there at anchor in the roadstead.
They would have stood at the gunwales, staring at the city before them, observing with a shiver the dark bulk of the Qasba atop the promontory on the south bank at the river’s mouth, the new town beyond it, the walls of Old Salé across the river from the Qasba, Hassan Tower rising up in the distance upriver like a massive stone finger pointing into the sky—all the while wondering uneasily what dreadful things might lie in wait for them in this strange and frightening place.
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To find out what happened to the members of the Járngerðarstaðir farm family after they entered Salé, go to the next post in this series.
For those who may be interested…
The quote from the English captive about confinement and food on a corsair ship comes from Joseph Pitts, A faithful account of the religion and manners of the Mahometans, p. 6.
The quote from a Scotsman about being brought up on deck aboard a corsair ship comes from Adam Elliot, A Modest Vindication of Titus Oates the Salamanca-Doctor from Perjury: Or an Essay to Demonstrate Him Only Forsworn in Several Instances, p. 4.
The quote from Reverend Ólafur Egilsson about Barbary corsairs who were “even kind to the children” comes from Karl Smári Hreinsson & Adam Nichols, The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson: The Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Iceland in 1627, pp. 17-18
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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