The territory now known as the Barbary States is memorable in history.
Classical inscriptions, broken arches, and ancient tombs--the memorials
of various ages--still bear interesting witness to the revolutions it
has undergone.[1] 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 apples of gold. It was the scene of adventure and
mythology. Here Hercules wrestled with Antæus, and Atlas sustained,
with weary shoulders, the overarching sky. At an early day Phoenician
fugitives transported the spirit of commerce to its coasts; and
Carthage, which these wanderers planted, became mistress of the seas,
explorer of distant regions, rival and victim of Rome. Here for a while
the energy and subtlety of Jugurtha baffled the Roman power, till at
last the whole region, from Egypt to the Pillars of Hercules, underwent
the process of "annexation" to the cormorant republic of ancient times.
A thriving population and fertile soil rendered it an immense granary.
It was filled with ancient cities, one of which was the refuge and
the grave of Cato, fleeing from the usurpations of Cæsar. At a later
day Christianity was here preached by saintly bishops. The torrent of
the Vandals, first wasting Italy, passed this way; and the arms of
Belisarius here obtained their most signal triumphs. The Saracens, with
the Koran and the sword, declared ministers of conversion, next broke
from Arabia, as 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 expansive limits, but, under Musa, entered
Spain, and afterwards at Roncesvalles, in "dolorous rout,"
overthrew the embattled chivalry of the Christian world under
Charlemagne.
[1] The classical student will be gratified and surprised by the
remains of antiquity described by Dr. Shaw, English chaplain at
Algiers in the reign of George the First, in his "Travels, or
Observations relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant,"
published in 1738.
The Saracenic power did not long retain its unity or importance; and
as we discern this territory in the dawn of modern history, when the
countries of Europe are appearing in their new nationalities, we
recognize five different communities or states, Morocco, Algiers,
Tunis, Tripoli, and Barca, the last 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 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, justly settled,
as a local denomination, along the northern coast of Africa.[2] 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 Mediterranean Sea, furnishing such opportunities for
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, mysterious, sandy, flinty waste of
Sahara, separating them from Soudan or Negroland. In advantage of
position they surpass every other part of Africa,--unless we except
Egypt,--communicating easily with the Christian nations, and thus, as
it were, touching the very hem and border of civilization.
[2] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. LI. Vol. IX. p.
465.
Climate adds attractions to this region, which is removed from the cold
of the north and the burning heat 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. It is placed between the twenty-fifth and thirty-seventh
degrees of north latitude, occupying nearly the same parallels with the
Slave States of our Union. It extends 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_.[3]
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 Mississippi.
[3] Jefferson, without recognizing the general parallel, alludes to
Virginia as fast sinking to be "the Barbary of the Union."--Memoir,
Correspondence, etc., ed. T.J. Randolph, Vol. IV. pp. 333, 334.
Other less important points of likeness occur. They are each washed,
to the same extent, by ocean and sea,--with this difference, that the
two are thus exposed on directly opposite coasts: the African Barbary
being water-bounded on the north and west, and our American Barbary on
the south and east. But there are no two spaces on the globe, of equal
extent, (and geographical testimony will verify what I am stating,)
which present so many distinctive features of resemblance, whether we
consider the parallels of latitude on which they lie, the nature of
their boundaries, their productions, their climate, or the "peculiar
domestic institution" which has sought shelter in both.
I introduce these comparisons that I may bring home to your minds, as
nearly as possible, the precise position and character of the territory
which was the seat of the evil I am 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 corresponds in
latitude to Europe, should have intrenched itself in both hemispheres
between the same parallels of latitude, so that Virginia, Carolina,
Mississippi, and Texas should be the American complement to Morocco,
Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis. Perhaps common peculiarities of climate,
breeding lassitude, indolence, and selfishness, may account for
that insensibility to the claims of justice and humanity which have
characterized both regions.
Illustrations Of White Slavery.
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 successive centuries, to procure
its _abolition_, and also to rescue their subjects from its fearful
doom. These may be traced in diversified pages of history, and in
authentic memoirs. Literature affords illustrations which must not be
neglected. At one period, the French, the Italians, and the Spaniards
borrowed the plots of their stories from this source.[4]
[4] Sismondi, Literature of the South of Europe, Chap. XXIX. Vol.
III. p. 402.
The adventures of Robinson Crusoe make our childhood familiar with
one of its forms. Among his early trials was his piratical capture
by a rover from Sallee, a port of Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean, and
reduction to slavery. "At this surprising change of my circumstances,"
says Crusoe, "from a merchant to a miserable slave, I was perfectly
overwhelmed; and now I looked back upon my father's prophetic discourse
to me, that I should be miserable and have none to relieve me, which
I thought was now so effectually brought to pass that it could not be
worse." And Cervantes, in the story of Don Quixote, over which so many
generations 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 less than
seven hundred dollars.[5] This inconsiderable sum of money--scarcely
the price of an ordinary African slave in our own Southern States--gave
to freedom, to his country, and to mankind the author of Don Quixote.
[5] The exact amount in our money is left uncertain both by
Smollett and Roscoe, in their lives of Cervantes. It appears that
it was five hundred gold crowns of Spain, which, according to his
Spanish biographer, Navarrete, is equal to 6,770 reals, in the
currency of the present day. (Vida de Cervantes, p. 371). The real
is reckoned at ten cents.
In Cervantes freedom gained a champion whose efforts entitle him to
grateful mention on this threshold of our inquiry. Taught in 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 inciting attempts for their emancipation, and
for the overthrow of the "peculiar institution"--pardon the recurring
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, according to the genius of
the age, mainly through the theatre. Not from the platform, but from
the stage, did this liberated slave speak to the world. In a play
entitled _El Trato de Argel_, or Life in Algiers--which, though not
composed according to rules of art, found much favor, probably from its
subject--he pictured, shortly after his return to Spain, the manifold
humiliations, pains, and torments of slavery. This was followed by
two other plays in the same spirit,--_La Gran Sultana Doña Cathalina
de Oviedo_, and _Los Baños de Argel_, or, The Galleys of Algiers. The
last act of the latter 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 from the regions of fiction, in the very
heart of truth." More could not be said of a tale of Slavery in our
day. Not content with this appeal through the theatre, Cervantes, with
constant zeal, takes up the same theme in the tale of "The Captive"
which he introduces into Don Quixote, and also in that of _El Amante
Liberal_, and in some parts of _La Española Inglesa_. All these may be
regarded not merely as literary labors, but as charitable efforts in
behalf of human freedom.
This same cause enlisted a contemporary genius, prolific beyond
precedent, called by Cervantes "that great prodigy of Nature," Lope de
Vega, who freely borrowed from it in a play entitled _Los Cautivos de
Argel_. At a later day, Calderon, sometimes exalted as the Shakespeare
of the Spanish stage, in one of his most remarkable dramas, _El
Principe Constante_, cast a poet's glance at Christian slavery in
Morocco. To these works, belonging to what may be called the literature
of Anti-Slavery, and shedding upon our subject a grateful light, must
be added a curious and learned volume on the Topography and History
of Algiers (_Topographia e Historia de Argel_), by Haedo, a Spanish
father of the Catholic Church, published in 1612, and containing also
two copious Dialogues,--one on Captivity (_de la Captividad_), and
the other on the Martyrs of Algiers (_de los Martyres de Argel_).
These Dialogues, besides embodying authentic sketches of suffering in
Algiers, form a mine of classical and patristic learning on the origin
and character of slavery, with arguments and protestations against
its iniquity, which may be explored 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 generous work of emancipation, the
good father exclaims, in words which must 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 human 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."[6] The reports of the good fathers who visited this land
of bondage for the redemption of captives testify likewise. One of
these thus speaks from the depths of the heart: "The charity of Jesus
Christ obliges us; and I question not but that whosoever had seen those
miseries I have been a witness to, and the deplorable condition I left
our captives in, would have no less ardent a desire to relieve them."[7]
[6] Pp. 140, 141.
[7] Busnot, History of the Reign of Muley Ismael: Preface.
Not long after the bitter experience of Cervantes, another person,
of another country and language, and of a higher character, St.
Vincent de Paul, one of the saintly glories of France, encountered
the same cruel lot. Happily for the world, he escaped from slavery,
to commence at home that long career of charity--nobler than any fame
of literature--signalized by various Christian efforts against duels,
for peace, for the poor, and in every field of humanity, by which he
is enrolled among the great names of Christendom. Princes and orators
have lavished panegyrics upon this fugitive slave; and the Catholic
Church, in homage to his extraordinary virtues, has numbered him with
the saints. Nor is he the only illustrious Frenchman who has felt the
yoke of slavery. Arago, astronomer and philosopher,--devoted republican
also,--while on the coast of the Mediterranean, engaged in those
scientific labors which made the beginning of his fame, came within the
clutch of Algerine slave-dealers. What science and the world gained by
his liberation I need not say.
Thus Science, Literature, Freedom, Philanthropy, the Catholic Church,
each and all, owe a debt to the liberated Barbary slave. Let them, on
this occasion, as beneficent heralds, commend the story of his wrongs,
his struggles, and his triumphs!