Gel Ap S250 ROE CES Ral Nie oe: Relves S WHITE SLAVERY IN THE BARBARY STATES CHARLES SUMNER errno Meera ‘Dooks ¢ aiWHITE SLAVERY mn 4 THE BARBARY STATES. BY e ° CHARLES SUMNER. —— Mutsto nomine, de to Fabula narratur. Horacr. And thinkest thom this, © man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt eseape the judgment of God? ‘Erwerue ro ras Rowaxs, Chap. il. v. 3, BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: JEWETT, PROCTOR, AND WORTHINGTON. LONDON: LOW AND COMPANY. 1853. ifi267, Uniy ¢ Of History has been sometimes called a gallery, where, in living forms, are preserved the scenes, the incidents, and the characters of the past. It may also be called the world’s great charnel house, where are gathered coffins, dead men’s bones, and all the uncleanness of the years that have fled. As we walk among its pictures, radiant with the inspiration of virtue and of freedom, we confess a 56 WHITE SLAVERY new impulse to beneficent exertion. As we grope amidst the unsightly shapes that have been left without an epitaph, we may at least-derive a fresh aversion to all their living representatives. In this mighty gallery, amidst a heavenly light, are the images of the benefactors of mankind — the poets who have sung the praise of virtue, the historians who have recorded its achievements, and the good men of all time, who, by word or deed, have striven for the welfare of others. Here are depicted those scenes where the divinity of man has been made manifest in trial and danger. Here also are those grand incidents which at- tended the establishment of the free institutions of the world ; the signing of Magna Charta, with its priceless privileges of freedom, by a reluctant monarch ; and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the annunciation of the inalienable rights of man, by the fathers of our republic. On the other hand, in ignominious confusion, far down in this dark, dreary charnel house is tumbled all that now remains of the tyrants, the persecutors, the selfish men, under whom mankind have groaned. Here also, in festering, loathsome decay, are the monstrous institutions or customs, which the earth, weary of their infamy and injug tice, has refused to sustain—the Helotism of Sparta, the Serfdom of Christian Europe, the Ordeal by Battle, and Algerine Slavery. From this charnel house let me to-night drawIN THE BARBARY STATES. 7 forth one of these. It may not be without profit to dwell on the origin, the history, and the char acter of a custom, which, after being for a long time a byword and a hissing among the nations, has at last been driven from the world. The easy, instinctive, positive reprobation, which it will receive from all, must necessarily direct our judgment of other institutions, yet tolerated in equal defiance of justice and humanity. I propose to consider the subject of White Slavery in Algiers, or perhaps it might be more appropriately called White Slavery in the Barbary States. As Algiers was its chief seat, it seems to have acquired a cur- rent name from that place. This I shall not dis- tarb ; though I shall speak of White Slavery, or the Slavery of Christians, throughout the Barbary States. If this subject should fail in interest, it cannot fail in novelty. Iam not aware of any previous8 WHITE SLAVERY attempt to combine its scattered materials in a connected essay. The territory now known as the Barbary States is memorable in history. Classical inscriptions, broken arches, and ancient tombs— the memo- rials of various ages — still bear instructive wit- ness to the revolutions which it has encountered.! Early Greek legend made it the home of terror and of happiness. Here was the retreat of the Gorgon, with snaky tresses, turning all she looked upon into stone ; and here also the garden of the Hesperides, with its apples of gold. It was the scene of adventure and mythology. Here Her- cules wrestled with Anteus, and Atlas sustained, with weary shoulders, the overarching sky. Pho- nician fugitives early transported the spirit of commerce to its coasts; and Carthage, which these wanderers here planted, became the mistress of the seas, the explorer of distant regions, the rival and the victim of Rome. The energy and subtlety of Jugurtha here baffled for a while the Roman power, till at last the whole country, from Egypt to the Pillars of Hercules, underwent the process of “annexation” to the cormorant repub- lic of ancient times. A thriving population and fertile soil rendered it an immense granary. It 1 The classical student will be gratified and surprised by the re- mains of antiquity described by Dr. Shaw, English chaplain at Algiers in the reign of George the First, in his Travels and Obserca- tos mralating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant, publishedIN THE BARBARY STATES. 9 was filled with famons cities, one of which was the refuge and the grave of Cato, fleeing from the usurpations of Ceasar. At a later day, Christianity was here preached by some of her most saintly bishops. The torrent of the Vandals, first wast- ing Italy, next passed over this territory; and the arms of Belisarius here obtained their most signal triumphs. The Saracens, with the Koran and the sword, potent ministers of conversion, next broke from Arabia, as the messengers of a new religion, and, pouring along these shores, diffused the faith and doctrines of Mohammed. Their empire was not confined even by these ex- pansive limits ; but, under Musa, entered Spain, and afterwards at Roncesvalles, in “dolorous rout,” overthrew the embattled chivalry of the Christian world led by Charlemagne. The Saracenic power did not long retain its unity or importance ; and, as we view this terri-10 WHITE SLAVERY tory, in the dawn of modern history, when the countries of Europe are appearing in their new nationalities, we discern five different communi- ties or states, — Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Barca, — the latter of little moment, and often included in Tripoli, the whole constituting what was then, and is still, called the Barbary States. This name has sometimes been referred to the Berbers, or Berebbers, constituting a part of the inhabitants ; but I delight to follow the classic authority of Gibbon, who thinks! that the term, first applied by Greek pride to all strangers, and finally reserved for those only who were savage or hostile, has justly settled, as a local denomination, along the northern coast of Africa. The Barbary States, then, bear their past character in their name. They occupy an important space on the earth’s surface ; on the north, washed by the Mediterra- nean Sea, furnishing such opportunities of prompt intercourse with Southern Europe, that Cato was able to exhibit in the Roman Senate figs freshly plucked in the gardens of Carthage ; bounded on the east by Egypt, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by the vast, indefinite, sandy, flinty wastes of Sahara, separating them from Soudan or Negroland. In the advantages of position they surpass every other part of Afri- ca,— unless we except Egypt,— communicating 4 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ix. chap. lvi. p. 485.IN THE BARBARY STATES. 11 easily with the Christian nations, and thus, as it were, touching the very hem and border -of civ- ilization. Climate adds itsattractions to this region, which is removed from the cold of the north and the burning heats of the tropics, while it is enriched with oranges, citrons, olives, figs, pomegranates, and luxuriant flowers. Its position and character invite a singular and suggestive comparison. Itis placed between the twenty-ninth and thirty-eighth degrees of north latitude, occupying nearly the same parallels with the Slave States of our Union. Itex- tends over nearly the same number of degrees of longitude with our Slave States, which seem now, alas! to stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rio Grande. It is supposed to embrace about 700,000 square miles, which cannot be far from the space comprehended by what may be called the Barbary States of America.' Nor does the comparison end here. Algiers, for a long time the most obnoxious place in the Barbary States of Africa, the chief seat of Christian slavery, and once branded by an indignant chronicler as “ the wall of the barbarian world,” is situated near the parallel of 36° 30’ north latitude, being the line of what is termed the Missouri Compromise, marking the “ wall” of Christian slavery, in our country, west of the Mis- sissippi. 1 Jefferson, without recognizing the general parallel, alludes to ‘Virginia as fast sinking to be “ the Barbary of the Union.” — Writ- ings, wl. iv. p. 333.12 WHITE SLAVERY Other less important points of likeness between the two territories may be observed. They are each washed, to the same extent, by ocean and sea ; with this difference, that the two regions are thus exposed on directly opposite coasts — the African Barbary being bounded in this way on the north and west, and our American Barbary on the south and east. But there are no two spaces, on the surface of the globe, of equal extent, (and an examination of the map will verify what I am about to state,) which present so many dis- tinctive features of resemblance; whether we con- sider the parallels of latitude on which they lie, the nature of their boundaries, their productions, their climate, or the “peculiar domestic: institu- tion” which has sought shelter in both. introduce these comparisons in order to bring home to your minds, as near as possible, the pre- cise position and character of the territory which was the seat of the evil lam about to describe. It might be worthy of inquiry, why Christian slavery, banished at last from Europe, banished also from that part of this hemisphere which cor- responds in latitude to Europe, should have in- trenched itself, in both hemispheres, between the same parallels of latitude; so that Virginia, Car- olina, Mississippi, and Texas should be the Amer- ican complement to Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis. Perhaps the common peculiarities of cli- mate, breeding indolence, lassitude, and selfishness,IN THE BARBARY STATES. 13 may account for the insensibility to the claims of justice and humanity which have characterized both regions. The revolting custom of White Slavery in the Barbary States was, for many years, the shame of modern civilization. The nations of Europe made constant efforts, continued through succes- sive centuries, to procure its abolition, and also to rescue their subjects from its fearful doom. These may be traced in the diversified pages of history, and in the authentic memoirs of the times. Lit- erature also affords illustrations, which must not be neglected. At one period, the French, the Italians, and the Spaniards borrowed the plots of their stories mostly from this source.! The ad- ventares of Rob- inson Crusoe make our child- hood familiar with one of its forms. Among his early trials, he was pirati- cally captured by a rover from Salle, a port of Morocco, on the Atlantic Ocean, and reduced to slavery. “At this surprising change of circumstances,” he says, “from a mer- 1 Sismondi’s Literature of the South of Europe, vol. iii. chap. 29, p- 402.14 WHITE SLAVERY chant to a miserable slave, I was perfectly over- whelmed ; and now I looked back upon my fa- ther’s prophetic discourse to me, that I should be miserable, and have none to relieve me, which I thought was so effectually brought to pass, that I could not be worse.” And Cervantes, in the story of Don Quixote, over which so many gener- ations have shaken with laughter, turns aside from its genial current to give the narrative of a Spanish captive who had escaped from Algiers. The author is supposed to have drawn from his own experience ; for during five years and a half he endured the horrors of Algerine slavery, from which he was finally liberated by a ransom of about six hundred dollars.' This inconsiderable sum of money —less than the price of an intelli- gent African slave in our own Southern States— gave to freedom, to > his country, and to . : mankind the author of Don Quixote. In Cervantes free- dom gained a cham- pion whose efforts entitle him to grate- fal mention, on this threshold of our in- quiry. Taught in 1 The exact amount is left uncertain both by Smollet and Thomas ‘Roscoe in their lives of Cervantes. It appears that it was five hun-IN THE BARBARY STATES. 16 the school of slavery, he knew how to commiserate the slave. The unhappy condition of his fellow- Christians in chains was ever uppermost in his mind. He lost no opportunity of arousing his countrymen to attempts for their emancipation, and for the over- throw of the “peculiar institution” — pardon this returning phrase!—under which they groaned. He became in Spain what, in our day and country, is sometimes called an “ Anti-Slavery Agitator” —not by public meetings and addresses, but, ac- cording to the genius of the age, mainly through the instrumentality of the theatre. Not from the platform, but from the stage, did this liberated slave speak to the world. In a drama, entitled El Trato de Argel, or Life in Algiers, — which, though not composed according to the rules of art, yet found much favor, probably from its sub- ject,—he pictured, shortly after his return to Spain, the manifold humiliations, pains, and tor- ments of slavery. This was followed by two others in the same spirit — La Gran Sultana Dona Cattalina de Oviedo, The Great Sultana the Lady Cattalina of Oviedo; and Los Banos de Argel, The Galleys of Algiers. The last act of the lat ter closes with the statement, calculated to enlist the sympathies of an audience, that this play “is not drawn from the imagination, but was born far dred gold crowns of Spain, which, according to his Spanish biogra- pher, Navarrete, is 6770 reals, (Vida de Cervantes, p. 371.) The real in supposed to be less than ten cents.16 WHITE SLAVERY from the regions of fiction, in the very heart of truth.” Not content with this appeal through the theatre, Cervantes, with constant zeal, takes up the same theme, in the tale of the Captive, in Don Quixote, as we have already seen, and also in that of El Liberal Amante, The Liberal Lover, and in some parts of La Espanola Inglesa, The English Spanishwoman. All these may be regarded, not merely as literary labors, but as charitable en- deavors in behalf of human freedom. And this same cause enlisted also a prolific contemporary genius, called by Cervantes “that prodigy,” Lopé de Vega, who com- mended it in a play entitled Los Cautivos de Argel, The Captives of Algiers. Ata later day, Calderon, some- times exalted as the Shakspeare of the Spanish stage, in one of his most remarkable dramas, El Principe Constante, The Constant Prince, cast a poet’s glance at Christian slavery in Morocco. To these works— belonging to what may be called the lit- erature of Anti-Slavery, and shedding upon our subject a grateful light — must be added a curious and learned volume, in Spanish, on the Topogra- phy and History of Algiers, by Haedo, a fatherIN THE BARBARY STATES. 1 of the Catholic Church, — Topografia y Historia de Argel por Fra Haedo,— published in 1612; and containing also two copious Dialogues—one on Captivity, (de la Captiudad,) and the other on the Martyrs of Algiers, (de los Martyres de Argel.) These Dialogues, besides embodying authentic sketches of the sufferings in Algiers, form a mine of classical and patristic learning on the origin and character of slavery, with arguments and prot- estations against its iniquity, which may be ex- - plored with profit, even in our day. In view of this gigantic evil, particularly in Algiers, and in the hope of arousing his countrymen to the gen- erous work of emancipation, the good father ex- claims, in words which will continue to thrill the soul,—so long as a single fetter binds a single slave, —“ Where is charity? Where is the love of God? Where is the zeal for his glory? Where is desire for his service? Where is hu- man pity and the compassion of man for man? Certainly to redeem a captive, to liberate him from wretched slavery, is the highest work of charity, of all that can be done in this world.” Not long after the dark experience of Cervan- tes, another person, of another country and lan- guage, and of a still higher character, St. Vincent de Paul, of France, underwent the same cruel lot. Happily for the world, he escaped from slavery, to commence at home that long career of charity 8 1 Pp. 140, 141.18 WHITE SLAVERY —nobler than any glories of literature—signal- ized by various Christian efforts, against duels, for peace, for the poor, and in every field of hu- manity—by which he is placed among the great names of Christendom. Princes and orators have lavished panegyrics upon this fugitive slave ; and the Catholic Church, in homage to his extraor- dinary virtues, has introduced him into the com- pany of saints. Nor is he the only illustrious Frenchman who has felt the yoke of slavery. Almost within our own day, Arago, the astrono- mer and philosopher, — devoted republican, I may add also, — while engaged, early in life, in those scientific labors, on the coast of the Mediterra- nean, which made the beginning of his fame, fell @ prey to Algerine slave dealers. What science and the world have gained by his emancipation I need not say.IN THE BARBARY STATES. 19 Thus Science, Literature, Freedom, Philanthro- py, the Catholic Church, each and all, confess a debt to the liberated Barbary slave. May they, on this occasion, as beneficent heralds, commend the story of his wrongs, his struggles, and his triumphs! These preliminary remarks properly prepare the way for the subject to which I have invited your attention. In presenting it, I shall naturally be led to touch upon the origin of slavery, and the principles which lie at its foundation, before pro- ceeding to exhibit the efforts for its abolition, and their final success in the Barbary States. I. The word slave, suggesting now so much of human abasement, has an origin which speaks of human grandeur. Its. parent term, Slava, signify- ing glory, in the Slavonian dialects, where it firet appears, was proudly assumed as the national designation of the races in the north-eastern part of the European continent, who, in the vicissitudes of war, were afterwards degraded from the con- dition of conquerors to that of servitude. The Slavonian bondman, retaining his national name, was known as.a Slave, and this term — passing from a race to a class— was afterwards applied, in the languages of modern Europe, to all in his un- happy lot, without distinction of country or color.’ 4 Gibbon’s Roman Empire, vol. x. chap. 66, p. 190.20 WHITE SLAVERY It would be difficult to mention any word which has played such opposite parts in history — now beneath the garb of servitude, concealing its early robes of pride. And yet, startling as it may seem, this word may properly be received in its prim- itive character, in our own day, by those among us who consider slavery essential to democratic institutions, and therefore a part of the true glory of the country! Slavery was universally recognized by the na- tions of antiquity. It is said by Pliny, in a bold phrase, that the Lacedemonians “invented sla- very.”1 If this were so, the glory of Lycurgus and Leonidas would not compensate for such a blot upon their character. It is true that they recog- nized it, and gave it a shape of peculiar hardship. But slavery is older than Sparta. It appears in the tents of Abraham ; for the three hundred and eighteen servants born to him were slaves. It appears in the story of Joseph, who was sold by 1 Nat, Hist. lib.IN THE BARBARY STATES. 21 his brothers to the Midianites for twenty pieces of silver! It appears in the poetry of Homer, who stamps it with a reprobation which can never be forgotten, when he says?— Jove fixed it certain, that whatever day ‘Makes man a slave takes half his worth away. In later days it prevailed extensively in Greece, whose haughty people deemed themselves justified in enslaving all who were strangers to their man- ners and institutions. “The Greek has the right to be the master of the barbarian,” was the senti- ment of Euripides, one of the first of her poets, which was echoed by Aristotle, the greatest of her intellects.3 And even Plato, in his imaginary re- public, the Utopia of his beautiful genius, sanctions slavery. But, notwithstanding these high names, we learn from Aristotle himself that there were persons in his day —pestilent abolitionists of ancient Athens—who did not hesitate to main- tain that liberty was the great law of nature, and to deny any difference between the master and the slave ; declaring openly that slavery was founded upon violence, and not upon right, and 1 Genesis xiv. 14; ibid. xxvii. 28. By those and other texts of the Scriptures, slavery, and even the slave trade, have been vindicated. See Bruce’s Travels in Africa, vol. ii. p. 319, After quoting these + texts, the complacent traveller says he ‘cannot think that pur- chasing slaves is either cruel or unnatural.” * Odyssey, book xvii. > Pol. lib, i.e. 1.22 WHITE SLAVERY that the authority of the master was unnatural and unjust! “God sent forth all persons free ; nature has made no man a slave,” was the protest of one of these dissenting Athenians against this great wrong. I am not in any way authorized to speak for any Anti-slavery society, even if this were a proper occasion ; but I presume that this ancient Greek morality substantially embodies the princi- ples which are maintained at their public meet- ings— so far, at least, as they relate to slavery. ~ It is true, most true, that slavery stands on force, and not on right. It is one of the hideous results of war, or of that barbarism in which sav- age war plays a conspicuous part. To the victor, it was supposed, belonged the lives of his captives ; and, by consequence, he might bind them in per- petual servitude. This principle, which has been the foundation of slavery in all ages, is adapted only to the rudest conditions of society, and is wholly inconsistent with a period of real refine- ment, humanity, and justice. It is sad to confess that it was recognized by Greece ; but the civili- zation of this famed land, though brilliant to the 1 Pol. lib. i.e, 8, In like spirit are the words of the good Las Casas, when pleading before Charles the Fifth for the Indian races of America. “The Christian religion,” he said, “ is equal in its op- eration, and is accommodated to every nation on the globe. It robs no one of his freedom, violates none of hia inherent rights, on the ground that he is @ slave by nature, as pretended ; and it well becomes your ‘Majesty to banish so monstrous an oppression from your kingdoms in the beginning of your reign, that the Almighty may make it long and glorious.” — Prescott’s Conquest of Mezico, vol. i. p 379IN THE BARBARY STATES. 23 external view as the immortal sculptures of the Parthenon, was, like that stately temple, dark and cheerless within. Slavery extended, with new rigors, under the military dominion of Rome. The spirit of free- dom which animated the republic was of that self- ish and intolerant character which accumulated privileges upon the Roman citizen, while it heeded little the rights of others. But, unlike the Greeks, the Romans admitted in theory that all men were originally free by the law of nature ; and they ascribed the power of masters over slaves not to any alleged diversities in the races of men, but to the will of society The constant triumphs of their arms were signalized by reducing to captiv- ity large crowds of the subjugated people. Paulus Emilius returned from Macedonia with an un- counted train of slaves, composed of persons. in every department of life; and at the camp of 1 Institute i. tit. 2.24 WHITE SLAVERY Lucullus, in Pontus, slaves were sold for four drachme, or seventy-two cents, a head. Terence and Phedrus, Roman slaves, have, however, taught us that genius is not always quenched, even by a degrading captivity ; while the writings of Cato the Censor, one of the most virtuous slave- holders in history, show the hardening influence of a system which treats human beings as cattle. “Let the husbandman,” says Cato, “sell his old oxen, his sickly cattle, his sickly sheep, his wool, his hides, his old wagon, his old implements, his, old slave, and his diseased slave ; and if any thing else remains, let him sell it. He snould be a seller, rather than a buyer.” » The cruelty and inhumanity which flourished in the republic, professing freedom, found a natural home under the emperors— the high priests of despotism. Wealth increased, and with it the maultitude of slaves. Some masters are said to have owned as many as ten thousand, while ex- travagant prices were often paid, according to the fancy or caprice of the purchaser. Martial men- tions a handsome youth who cost as much as four hundred sesteria, or sixteen thousand dollars.? It is easy to believe that slavery, which pre- vailed so largely in Greece and Rome, must have existed in Africa. Here, indeed, it found a pecu- liar home. If we trace the progress of this 1 Re Rustica, § 2. * Rp. iii. 62,IN THE BARBARY STATES. 25 unfortunate continent, from those distant days of fable, when Jupiter the merchandise in slaves will be found to have contributed to the abolition of two hateful cus- toms, once universal in Africa — the eating of cap- tives, and their sacrifice to idols. Thus, in the march of civilization, even the barbarism of slavery is an important stage of Human Progress. It isa point in the ascending scale from cannibalism. Tn the early periods of modern Europe, slavery ‘was a general custom, . which yielded only gradually to the hu- mane influences of Christianity. It pre- vailed in all the coun- tries of which we have any record. Fair- haired Saxon slaves from distant England arrested the attention of Pope Gregory in the markets of Rome, and were by him hailed as angels. A law of so vir- tuous a king as Alfred ranks slaves with horses and * Mind, book i.26 WHITE SLAVERY oxen ; and the chronicles of William of Malmesbury show that, in our mother country, there was once a cruel slave trade in whites. As we listen to this story, we shall be grateful again to that civiliza- tion which renders such outrages more and more impossible. “Directly opposite,” he says,! “to the Irish coast, there is a seaport called Bristol, the inhabitants of which frequently sent into Ire- land to sell those people whom they had bought up throughout England. They exposed to sale maidens in a state of pregnancy, with whom they made a sort of mock marriage. There you might see with grief, fastened together by ropes, whole rows of wretched beings of both sexes, of elegant forms, and in the very bloom of youth, —a sight sufficient to excite pity even in barbarians, — daily offered for sale to the first purchaser. Accursed deed! infamous disgrace! that men, acting in a manner which brutal instinct alone would have forbidden, should sell into slavery their relations, nay, even their own offspring.” From still anoth- er chronicler? we learn that, when Ireland, in 1172, was afflicted with public calamities, the people, but chiefly the clergy, (precipue clericorum,) began to reproach themselves, as well they might, believing that these evils were brought upon their fe of St. Wolston. 1 Book ii. chap. 20, 2 Ghronica Hibernie, or the Annals of Phil, Flatesbury in the Cottonian Library, Domitian A. xviii. 10; quoted in Stephens on West India Slavery, vol. i. p. 6IN THE BARBARY STATES. 27 country because, contrary to the right of Christian Freedom, they had bought as slaves the English boys brought to them by the merchants ; where- fore, it is said, the English slaves were allowed to depart in freedom. As late as the thirteenth century, the custom prevailed on the continent of Europe to treat all captives, taken in war, asslaves. To this, poetry, as well as history, bears its testimony. Old Michael Drayton, in his story of the Battle of Agincourt, says of the French, — For knots of oord to every town they send, ‘The captived English that they caught to bind ; For to perpetual slavery they intend. ‘Those that alive they on the feld should find. And Othello, in recounting his perils, exposes this custom, when he speaks Of being taken by the insolent foe, And sold to slavery ; of my redemption thence. It was also held lawful to enslave any infidel or person who did not receive the Christian faith. The early common law of England doomed here- tics to the stake; the Catholic Inquisition did the same; and the laws of Oleron, the mari- time code of the middle ages, treated them “as dogs,” to be attacked and despoiled by all true believers. It appears that Philip le Bel of France, the son of St. Louis, in 1296, present-28 WHITE SLAVERY ed his brother Charles, Count of Valois, with a Jew, and that he paid Pierre de Chambly three hundred livres for another Jew; as if Jews were at the time chattels, to be given away, or bought.!' And the statutes of Florence, boastful of freedom, as late as 1415, expressly allowed republican cit- izens to hold = slaves who K were not of es the Christian . faith; Qui non A sunt Catholice fide et Chris tiane® And still further, the comedies of Moliére, L’Etourdi, Le Sicilien, L’ Avare, depicting Italian usages not remote from his own day, show that, at Naples and Messina, even Christian wo- men continued to be sold as slaves. This hasty sketch, which brings us down to the period when Algiers became a terror to the Christian nations, renders it no longer astonish- ing that the barbarous states of Barbary, —a part of Africa, the great womb of slavery, — professing 1 Encyclopédie Méthodique, (Jurisprudence,) Art. Esclavage. 2 Biot, De l Abolition de PEsclavage Ancien en Oocident, p. 440; a work crowned with a gold medal by the Institute of France, but which will be read with some disappointment.IN THE BARBARY STATES. 29 Mohammedanism, which not only recognizes sla- very, but expressly ordains “chains and collars” to infidels, should maintain the traffic in slaves, par- ticularly in Christians who denied the faith of the Prophet. In the duty of constant war upon unbe- lievers, and in the assertion of a right to the ser- vices or ransom of their captives, they followed the lessons of Christians themselves. It is not difficult, then, to account for the origin of the cruel custom now under consideration. Its history forms our next topic. II. The Barbary States, after the decline of the Arabian power, were enveloped in darkness, rendered more palpable by the increasing light among the Christian nations. As we behold them in the fifteenth century, in the twilight of Euro- pean civilization, they appear to be little more than scattered bands of robbers and pirates, — “the land rats and water rats” of Shylock, —lead- ing the lives of Ishmaelites. Algiers is described by an early writer as “a den of sturdy thieves, formed into a body, by which, after a tumultuary sort, they govern; ” and by still another writer, contemporary with the monstrosity which he ex- poses, as “the theatre of all cruelty and sanctu- arie of iniquitie, holding captive, in miserable ser- 1 Koran, chap. 76. * Harleian Miscellany, vol. v. p. 622—.A Discourse concerning Tangiers,30 WHITE SLAVERY vitude, one hundred and twenty thousand Chris- tians, almost all subjects of the King of Spaine.” 2 Their habit of enslaving prisoners, taken in war and in piratical depredations, at last aroused against these states the sacred animosities of Christendom. Fordinand the Catholic, after the conquest of Granada, and while the boundless dis- coveries of Columbus, giving to Castile and Ara- gon a new world, still occupied his mind, found time to direct an expedition into Africa, under the military command of that great ecclesiastic, Cardinal Ximenes. It is recorded that this val- iant soldier of the church, on effecting the con- quest of Oran, in 1509, had the inexpressible 1 Purchas’s Pilgrims, vol. i. p. 1565.IN THE BARBARY STATES. 31 satisfaction of liberating upwards of three hundred Christian slaves.’ The progress of the Spanish arms induced the government of Algiers to invoke assistance from abroad. At this time, two brothers, Horuc and Hayradin, the sons of a potter in the Island of Lesbos, had become famous as corsairs. In an age when the sword of the adventurer often carved a higher fortune than could be earned by lawful exertion, they were dreaded for their abili- ties, their hardihood, and their power. To them Algiers turned for aid. The corsairs left the sea to sway the land ; or rather, with amphibious rob- bery, they took possession of Algiers and Tunis, while they continued to prey upon the sea. The name of Barbarossa, by which they are known to Christians, is terrible in modern history.* With pirate ships they infested the seas, and spread their ravages along the coasts of Spain and Italy, until Charles the Fifth was aroused to undertake their overthrow. The various strength of his broad dominions was rallied in this new crusade. “If the enthusiasm,” says Sismondi, “which armed the Christians at an earlier day, was nearly extinct, another sentiment, more rational and legitimate, now united the vows of Europe. 1 Prescott’s History of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. iii. p. 308; Purchas’s Pilgrims, vol. ii. p. 813. * Robertson's Charles the Fifth, book v.; Haedo, Historia de Argel, Epitome de los Reyes, de Argel.32 were SLAVERY The contest wie_po longer to reconquer the tomb of Christ, but to defend the civilization, the liberty, the lives, of Christians.”1 A stanch body of infantry from Germany, the veterans of Spain and Italy, the flower of the Castilian nobil- ty, the knights of Malta, with a fleet of near five hundred vessels, contributed by Italy, Portugal, and even distant Holland, under the command of Andrew Doria, the great sea officer of the age,— the whole being under the immediate eye of the Emperor himself, with the countenance and bene- diction of the Pope, and composing one of the most complete armaments which the world had then seen,— were directed upon Tunis. Barba- rossa opposed them bravely, but with unequal forces. While slowly yielding to attack from without, his defeat was hastened by unexpected insurrection within. Confined in the citadel were many Christian slaves, who, asserting the rights of freedom, obtained a bloody emancipation, and turned ita artillery against their former masters. The place yielded to the Emperor, whose soldiers soon surrendered themselves to the inhuman ex- cesses of war. The blood of thirty thousand in- nocent inhabitants reddened his victory. Amidst these scenes of horror there was but one spectacle that afforded him any satisfaction. Ten thousand Christian slaves met him, as he entered the town, 1 Sismondi, Histoire des Frangais, tom. xvii. p. 102.IN THE BARBARY STATES. 33 and falling on their knees, thanked him as their deliverer.' . In the treaty of peace which ensued, it was expressly stipulated on the part of Tunis, that all Christian slaves, of whatever nation, should be set at liberty without ransom, and that no subject of the Emperor should for the future be detained in slavery.* The apparent generosity of this undertaking, the magnificence with which it was conducted, and the success with which it was crowned, drew to the Emperor the homage of his age beyond any other event of his reign. Twenty thousand slaves, freed by treaty, or by arms, diffused + Robertson’s Charles the Fifth, book v. * Ibid.3¢ WHITE SLAVERY through Europe the praise of his name. It is probable that, in this expedition, the Emperor was governed by motives little higher than those of val- gar ambition and fame; but the results with which it was crowned, in the emancipation of so many of his fellow-Christians from cruel chains, place him, with Cardinal Ximenes, among the earliest Abo- litionists of modern times. This was in 1535. Only a few short years before, in 1517, he had granted to a Flemish cour- tier the exclusive privilege of importing four thousand blacks from Africa into the West Indies. It is said that Charles lived long enough to repent what he had thus inconsiderately done.’ Certain it is, no single concession, recorded in history, of king or emperor, has produced such disastrous 1 Clarkson’s History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, vol. i. P38.IN THE BARBARY STATES. 35 far-reaching consequences. The Fleming sold his © privilege to a company of Genoese merchants, who organized a systematic traffic in slaves be- tween Africa and America. Thus, while levying @ mighty force to check the piracies of Barbaros- sa, and to procure the abolition of Christian sla- very in Tunis, the Emperor, with a wretched incon- sistency, laid the corner stone of a new system of slavery in America, in comparison with which the enormity that he sought to suppress was trivial and fugitive. Elated by the conquest of Tunis, filled also with the ambition of subduing all the Barbary States, and of extirpating the custom of Christian slavery, the Emperor, in 1541, directed an expedi- tion of singular grandeur against Algiers. The Pope again joined his influence to the martial array. But nature proved stronger than the Pope and Emperor. Within sight of Algiers, a sudden storm shattered his proud fleet, and he was obliged to return to Spain, discomfited, bearing none of those trophies of emancipation by which his former expedition had been crowned.! The power of the Barbary States’ was now at its height. Their corsairs became the scourge of 1 Robertaon’s Charles the Fifth, book vi.; Harleian Miscellany, vol. iv. p. 604; — A lamentable and piteous Treatise, very necessarye for euerye Christen manne to reade, [or the Expedition of Charles the Fifth,] truly and dylygently translated out of Latyn into Frenche, and out of Frenche into English, 1642. -36 WHITE SLAVERY Christendom, while their much-dreaded system of slavery assumed a front of new terrors. Their ravages were not confined to the Mediterranean. They penetrated the ocean, and pressed even to the Straits of Dover and St. George’s Channel. From the chalky cliffs of England, and even from the distant western coasts of Ireland, unsuspect- ing inhabitants were swept into cruel captivity.* The English government was aroused to efforts to check these atrocities. In 1620, a fleet of eighteen ships, under the command of Sir Rob- ert Mansel, Vice Admiral of England, was de- spatched against Algiers. It returned without being able, in the language of the times, “to destroy those hellish pirates,” though it obtained the liberation of forty “poor captives, which they pretended was all they had in the towne.” “The efforts of the English fleet were aided,” says Purchas, “ by a Christian captive, which did swim from the towne to the ships.”* It is not in this 1 Guizot’s History of the English Revolution, vol. i. p. 69, book ii.; Strafford’s Letters and Despatches, vol. i. p. 68. Sir George Radcliffe, the friend and biographer of the Earl, boasts that the latter “secured the seas from piracies, so as only one ship was lost at his first coming, [as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland,] and no more all his time; whereof every year before, not only several ships and goods ‘wore lost by robbery at sea, but also Turkish men-of-war usually landed, and took prey of men to be made slaves.” —Tbid. vol ii. p. 484, # «Purchas's Pilgrims, pp. 885, 888; Southey’s Naval History of England, vol. v. pp. 60-63. There was a publication especially re- lating to this expedition, entitled Algiers Voyage, in a Journall or briefe Repertory of all Occurrents hapning in the Fleet of ShipsIN THE BARBARY STATES. 3T respect only that this expedition recalls that of Charles the Fifth, which received important assistance from rebel slaves; we also observe a similar deplorable inconsistency of conduct in the government which directed it. It was in the year 1620,— dear to all the descendants of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock as an epoch of free- dom,— while an English fleet was seeking the emancipation of Englishmen held in bondage by Algiers, that African slaves were first introduced into the English colonies of North America — thus beginning that dreadful system, whose long catalogue of humiliation and woes is not yet complete. The expedition against Algiers was followed, in 1687, by another, under the command of Captain sent out by the Kinge his most excellent Majestic, as well against the Pirates of Algiers as others. London. 1621. 4to. 1 Bancroft’s History of the United States, vol. i. p. 187.38 WHITE SLAVERY Rainsborough, against Sallee, in Morocco. At his approach, the Moors desperately transferred a thousand captives, British subjects, to Tunis and Algiers. “Some Christians, that were slaves ashore, stole away out of the towne, and came swimming aboard.”’ Intestine feud also aided the fleet, and the cause of emancipation speedily tri- umphed. Two hundred and t ninety British * captives were surrendered ; and @ promise / was extorted - from the gov- ernment of Sallee to re- deem the wretched captives, sold away to Tunis and Algiers, An ambassador from the King of Morocco shortly afterwards visited England, and, on his way through the streets of London, to his audience at court, was attended “ by four Barbary horses led along in rich caparisons, and richer saddles, with bridles set with stones; also some hawks ; many ofthe captives wham he brought over going along afoot clad in white.” * 1 Osborne's Voyages — Journal of the Sallee Fleet, vol. i. p. 493, ‘See also Mrs. Macanlay’s History of England, vol. ii. chap. 4, p. 219, * Strafford’s Letter and Despatches. vol. ii. pp. 88, 116, 129.IN THE BARBARY STATES, 39 The importance attached to this achievement may be inferred from the singular joy with which it was hailed in England. Though on a limited scale, it had been a war of liberation. The poet, the ecclesiastic, and the statesman now joined in congratulations on its results. It inspired the muse of Waller to a poem called The Taking of Sallee, in which the submission of the slaveholding enemy is thus described : — Hither he sends the chief among his peers, ‘Who in his bark proportioned presents bears, To the renowned for piety and force Poor captives manumised, and matchless horse. It satisfied Laud, and filled with exultation the dark mind of Strafford. “Sallee, the town, is taken,” said the Archbishop in a letter to the latter, then in Ireland, “and all the captives at Sallee and Morocco delivered ; as many, our mer- chants say, as, according to the price of the markets, come to ten thousand pounds, at least.” Strafford saw in the popularity ‘of this triumph a fresh opportunity to commend the tyrannical designs of his master, Charles the First. “This action of. Sallee,” he wrote in reply to the Archbishop, “I assure you is full of honor, and should, methinks, help much towards the ready cheerful payment of the shipping moneys.” * 1 Straford’s Letters and Despatches, vol. ii. p. 131. » Ibid. p. 198.40 WHITE SLAVERY The coasts of England were now protected ; but her subjects at sea continued the prey of Algerine corsairs, who, according to the historian Carte, now “carried their English captives to France, drove them in chains overland to Marseilles, to ship them thence with greater safety for slaves to Algiers.” The increasing troubles, which dis- tracted and finally cut. short the reign of Charles the First, could not divert at- tention from the sorrows of English- men, victims to Mohamme- dan slave drivers. At the height of the struggles between the King and Parliament, an earnest voice was raised in behalf of these fellow-Chris- tians in bonds? Waller, who was orator as well as poet, exclaimed in Parliament, “ By the many petitions which we receive from the wives of those miserable captives at Algiers, (being between four and five thousand of our country- men,) it does too evidently appear, that to make us slaves at home is not the way to keep us from 1 Carte’s History of England, vol. iv. book xxii. p. 231. * Waller's Works, p. 271.IN THE BARBARY STATES. 4 being made slaves abroad.” Publications plead- ing their cause, bearing date in 1640, 1642, and 1647, are yet extant! The overthrow of an oppression so justly odious formed a worthy object for the imperial energies of Cromwell ; and in 1655,— when, amidst the amazement of Eu- rope, the English sovereignty had already settled upon his Atlantean shoulders,—he directed into the Mediterranean a navy of thirty ships, under the command of Admiral Blake. This was the most powerful English force which had sailed into that sea since the Crasades.* Its success was complete. “General Blak,” said one of the foreign agents of government, “has ratifyed the articles of peace at Argier, and included therein Scotch, Irish, Jarnsey, and Garnsey-men, and all 1 Compassion towards Captives, urged in Three Sermons, on Heb. xiii, 8, by Charles Fits-Geoffrey, 1642. Libertas; or Relief to the English. Captives in Algiers, by Henry Robinson, London, 1647. Letters relating to the Redemption of the Captive in Algiers, at Tu- nis, by Edward Cason Laud, 1647. A Relation of Seven Years’ Slavery under the Turks of Algiers, suffered by an English Captive Merchant, with a Description of the Sufferings of the Miserable Captives under that Mercilest Tyranny, by Francis Knight, London, 1640. ‘The last publication is preserved in the Collection of Voyages and Travels by Osborne, vol. i. pp. 465-489. + Hume says, (vol. vii. p. 629, chap. Ixi.,) “No English fleet, ex- cept during the Crusades, had ever before sailed in those seas.” Ho forgot, or was not aware of the expedition of Sir John Mansel al- ready mentioned, (ante, p. 224,) which was elaborately debated in the Privy Council as early as 1617, three years before it was finally un- dertaken, and which was the subject of a special work. See South- ey’s Naval History of England, vol. v. pp. 149-167.42 WHITH SLAVERY others the Protector’s subjects. He has lykewys redeemed from thence al such as wer: captives ther. Several Dutch captives swam aboard the fleet, and so escape theyr captivity.”! Tunis, as well as Algiers, was humbled ; all British captives were set at liberty; and the Protector, in his remarka- ble speech at the opening of Parliament in the next year, announced peace with the “profane” nations in that region.* To my mind no single circumstance gives a higher impression of the vigilance with which the Protector guarded his subjects than this effort, to which Waller, with the “smooth” line for which he is memorable, aptly alludes, as telling dreadful nows To all that piracy and rapine use. His vigorous sway was followed by the effeminate tyranny of Charles the Second, whose restoration was inaugurated by an unsuccessful expedition against Algiers under Lord Sandwich. This was soon followed by another, with a more favorable result, under Admiral Lawson By a treaty bearing date May 3d, 1662, the piratical govern- ment expressly stipulated, “ that all subjects of the 1 Thurloe’s State Papers, vol. iil. p. 627. * Carlyle’s Lotters and Speoches of Cromwell, vol. i. p. 236, part x, speodh ¥. » Rapin’s History of England, vol. ii. pp. 868,964.IN THE BARBARY STATES. 483 King of Great Britain, now slaves in Algiers, or any of the territories thereof, be set at liberty, and released, upon paying the price they were first sold for in the market ; and for the time to come no subjects of his Majesty shall be bought or sold, or made slaves of, in Algiers or its territo- ries.”1 Other expeditions ensued, and other treaties in 1664, 1672, 1682, and 1686—showing, by their constant recurrence and iteration, the little impression produced upon those barbarians.* Insensible to justice and freedom, they naturally held in slight regard the obligations of fidelity to any stipulations in restraint of robbery and slave- holding. During a long succession of years, complaints of the sufferings of English captives continued to be made. An earnest spirit, in 1748, found ex- pression in these words :— , how can Britain’s sons regardless hear ‘The prayers, sighs, groans (immortal infamy !) Of fellow-Britons, with oppression sunk, In bitterness of soul demanding aid, Calling on Britain, their dear native land, ‘The land of liberty!* But during all this time, the slavery of blacks, transported to the colonies under the British flag, still continued. 1 Recueil dee Traites de Paix, tom. iv. p. 43. * Ibid. pp. 907, 476, 708, 756. ? The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 631,“4 WHITE SLAVERY Meanwhile, France had plied Algiers with em- bassies and bombardments. In 1635 three hun- dred and forty-seven Frenchmen were captives there. Monsieur de Sampson was despatched on an unsuccessful mission, to procure their libera- tion. They were offered to him “for the price they were sold for in the market;” but this he refused to pay.! Next came, in 1637, Monsieur de Mantel, who was called “that noble captain, and glory of the French nation,” “with fifteen of his king’s ships, and a commission to enfranchise the French slaves.” But he also returned, leaving his countrymen still in captivity.* Treaties followed at a later day, which were hastily concluded, and abruptly broken ; till at last Louis the Fourteenth did for France what Cromwell had done for Eng- land. In 1684, Algiers, being twice bombarded * by his command, sent deputies to sue for peace, 1 Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 468; Relation of Seven Years’ Slavery in Algiers, + Thid, p. 470. 2 In the melancholy history of war, this is remarked as the earli- est instance of the dombardment of ‘town. Sismondi, who never fails to regard the post in the light of humanity, says, that “Louis the Fourteenth was the first to put in practice the atrocious method, newly invented, of bombarding towns,—of burning them, not to Bismondi, Histoire dee Francais, tom. xxv. p. 452. How much ofIN THE BARBARY STATES. 45 and to surrender all her Christian slaves. Tunis and Tripoli made the same submission. Voltaire, with his accustomed point, declares that, by this transaction, the French became respected on the coast of Africa, where they had before been known only as slaves.’ An incident is mentioned by the historian, which unhappily shows how little the French at that time, even while engaged in securing the emancipation of their own countrymen, had at heart the cause of general freedom. As an officer of the tri- umphant fleet re- ceived the Christian slaves who were brought to him and liberated,he observed among them many English, who, in the empty pride of nationality, maintained that they were set at liberty out of regard to the King of England. The Frenchman at once summoned the Algerines, and, returning the foolish captives into their hands, said, “These people pretend that they have been delivered in the name of their monarch ; pms. 5 this is justly applicable to the recent murder of women and chil- dren by the forces of the United States at Vera Cruz! Algiers was bombarded in the cause of freedom ; Vera Cruz to extend slavery! 1 Sidele de Lowis XIV. chap. 14.