own dark experience. In his Life in Algiers, he has displayed the
horrors of the white slave market. The public crier exposes for sale a
father and mother with their two children. They are to be sold
separately, or, according to the language of our day, "in lots to suit
purchasers." The father is resigned, confiding in God; the mother sobs;
while the children, ignorant of the inhumanity of men, show an
instinctive trust in the constant and wakeful protection of their
parents--now, alas! impotent to shield them from dire calamity. A
merchant, inclining to purchase one of the "little ones," and wishing to
ascertain his bodily condition, causes him to open his mouth. The child,
still ignorant of the doom which awaits him, imagines that the inquirer
is about to extract a tooth, and, assuring him that it does not ache,
begs him to desist. The merchant, in other respects an estimable man,
pays one hundred and thirty dollars for the youngest child, and the sale
is completed. Thus a human being--one of those children of whom it has
been said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven"--is profanely treated as
an article of merchandise, and torn far away from a mother's arms and a
father's support. The hardening influence of custom has steeled the
merchant into insensibility to this violation of humanity and justice,
this laceration of sacred ties, this degradation of the image of God.
The unconscious heartlessness of the slave dealer, and the anguish of
his victims, are depicted in the dialogue which ensues after the
sale.[133]
[Illustration]
MERCHANT.
Come hither, child; 'tis time to go to rest.
JUAN.
_Signor, I will not leave my mother here,
To go with any one._
MOTHER.
_Alas! my child, thou art no longer mine,
But his who bought thee._
JUAN.
_What! then, have you, mother,
Forsaken me?_
MOTHER.
_O Heavens! how cruel are ye!_
MERCHANT.
_Come, hasten, boy._
JUAN.
Will you go with me, brother?
FRANCISCO.
I cannot, Juan, 'tis not in my power;--
May Heaven protect you, Juan!
MOTHER.
O my child,
My joy and my delight, God won't forget thee!
JUAN.
O father! mother! whither will they bear me
Away from you?
MOTHER.
Permit me, worthy Signor,
To speak a moment in my infant's ear.
Grant me this small contentment; very soon
I shall know nought but grief.
MERCHANT.
What you would say,
Say now; to-night is the last time.
MOTHER.
To-night
Is the first time my heart e'er felt such grief.
JUAN.
_Pray keep me with you, mother, for I know not
Whither he'd carry me._
MOTHER.
_Alas, poor child!
Fortune forsook thee even at thy birth._
The heavens are overcast, the elements
Are turbid, and the very sea and winds
Are all combined against me. _Thou, my child,
Know'st not the dark misfortunes into which
Thou art so early plunged, but happily
Lackest the power to comprehend thy fate._
What I would crave of thee, my life, since I
Must never more be blessed with seeing thee,
Is that thou never, never wilt forget
To say, as thou wert wont, thy _Ave Mary_;
For that bright queen of goodness, grace, and virtue
Can loosen all thy bonds and give thee freedom.
AYDAR.
Behold the wicked Christian, how she counsels
Her innocent child! You wish, then, that your child
Should, like yourself, continue still in error.
JUAN.
_O mother, mother, may I not remain?
And must these Moors, then, carry me away?_
MOTHER.
_With thee, my child, they rob me of my treasures._
JUAN.
O, I am much afraid!
MOTHER.
'Tis I, my child,
Who ought to fear at seeing thee depart.
Thou wilt forget thy God, me, and thyself.
What else can I expect from thee, abandoned
At such a tender age, amongst a people
Full of deceit and all iniquity?
CRIER.
_Silence, you villainous woman! if you would not
Have your head pay for what your tongue has done._
[Footnote 133: This translation is borrowed from Sismondi's Literature
of the South of Europe, by Roscoe, vol. iii. p. 381. There is a letter
of "John Dunton, Mariner," addressed to the English Admiralty in 1637,
which might furnish the foundation of a similar scene. "For my only
son," he says, "is now a slave in Algier, and but ten years of age, and
like to be lost forever, without God's great mercy and the King's
clemency, which, I hope, may be in some manner obtained."--Osborne's
Voyages, vol. ii. p. 492.]
From this scene we gladly avert the countenance, while, from the bottom
of our hearts, we send our sympathies to the unhappy sufferers. Fain
would we avert their fate; fain would we destroy the system of slavery,
that has made them wretched and their masters cruel. And yet we would
not judge with harshness an Algerine slave owner. He has been reared in
a religion of slavery; he has learned to regard Christians, "guilty of a
skin not colored like his own," as lawful prey; and has found sanctions
for his conduct in the injunctions of the Koran, in the custom of his
country, and in the instinctive dictates of an imagined self-interest.
It is, then, the "peculiar institution" which we are aroused to
execrate, rather than the Algerine slave masters, who glory in its
influence, and,
so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before.
But there is reason to believe that the sufferings of the white slaves
were not often greater than is the natural incident of slavery. There is
an important authority which presents this point in an interesting
light. It is that of General Eaton, for some time consul of the United
States at Tunis, and whose name is not without note in the painful
annals of war. In a letter to his wife, dated at Tunis, April 6, 1799,
and written amidst opportunities of observation such as few have
enjoyed, he briefly describes the condition of this unhappy class,
illustrating it by a comparison less flattering to our country than to
Barbary. "Many of the Christian slaves," he says, "have died of grief,
and the others linger out a life less tolerable than death. Alas!
remorse seizes my whole soul, when I reflect that this is, indeed, a
copy of the very barbarity which my eyes have seen in my own native
country. And yet we boast of liberty and national justice. How
frequently have I seen in the Southern States of our own country weeping
mothers leading guiltless infants to the sales with as deep anguish as
if they led them to the slaughter, and yet felt my bosom tranquil in the
view of these aggressions upon defenceless humanity! But when I see the
same enormities practised upon beings whose complexion and blood claim
kindred with my own, I curse the perpetrators, and weep over the
wretched victims of their rapacity. _Indeed, truth and justice demand
from me the confession that the Christian slaves among the barbarians of
Africa are treated with more humanity than the African slaves among the
professing Christians of civilized America_; and yet here sensibility
bleeds at every pore for the wretches whom fate has doomed to
slavery."[134]
[Footnote 134: Eaton's Life, p. 145.]
Such testimony would seem to furnish a decisive standard or measure of
comparison by which to determine the character of White Slavery in the
Barbary States. But there are other considerations and authorities. One
of these is the influence of the religion of these barbarians.
Travellers remark the generally kind treatment bestowed by Mohammedans
upon slaves.[135] The lash rarely, if ever, lacerates the back of the
female; the knife or branding iron is not employed upon any human being
to mark him as the property of his fellow-man. Nor is the slave doomed,
as in other countries, where the Christian religion is professed, to
unconditional and perpetual service, without prospect of _redemption_.
Hope, the last friend of misfortune, may brighten his captivity. He is
not so walled around by inhuman institutions as to be inaccessible to
freedom. "And unto such of your slaves," says the Koran, in words worthy
of adoption in the legislation of Christian countries, "as desire a
written instrument, allowing them to redeem themselves on paying a
certain sum, write one, if ye know good in them, and give them of the
riches of God, which he hath given you."[136] Thus from the Koran, which
ordains slavery, come lessons of benignity to the slave; and one of the
most touching stories in Mohammedanism is of the generosity of Ali, the
companion of the Prophet, who, after fasting for three days, gave his
whole provision to a captive not more famished than himself.[137]
[Footnote 135: Wilson's Travels, p. 93; Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxviii.
p. 403; Noah's Travels, p. 302; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 168;
Shaler's Sketches of Algiers, p. 77.]
[Footnote 136: Sale's Koran, chap. 24, vol. ii. p. 194. The right of
redemption was recognized by the Gentoo laws. Halhed's Code, cap. 8, Sec.
1, 2. It was unknown in the British West Indies while slavery existed
there. Stephens on West India Slavery, vol. ii. pp. 378-384. It is also
unknown in the Slave States of our country.]
[Footnote 137: Sales's Koran, vol. ii. p. 474, note.]
Such precepts and examples doubtless had their influence in Algiers. It
is evident, from the history of the country, that the prejudice of race
did not so far prevail as to stamp upon the slaves and their descendants
any indelible mark of exclusion from power and influence. It often
happened that they arrived at eminent posts in the state. The seat of
the Deys, more than once, was filled by humble Christian captives, who
had tugged for years at the oar.[138]
[Footnote 138: Haedo, _Historia de Argel_, p. 122; Quarterly Review,
vol. xv. pp. 169, 172; Shaler's Sketches of Algiers, p. 77; Short
Account of Algiers, pp. 22, 25. It seems to have been supposed, that,
according to the Koran, the condition of slavery ceased when the party
became a Mussulman. Penny Cyclopaedia, art. _Slavery_; Noah's Travels, p.
302; Shaler's Sketches, p. 69. In point of fact, freedom generally
followed conversion; but I do not find any injunction on the subject in
the Koran.]
Nor do we feel, from the narratives of captives and of travellers, that
the condition of the Christian slave was rigorous beyond the ordinary
lot of slavery. "The Captive's Story" in Don Quixote fails to impress
the reader with any peculiar horror of the life from which he had
escaped. It is often said that the sufferings of Cervantes were among
the most severe which even Algiers could inflict.[139] But they did not
repress the gayety of his temper; and we learn that in the building
where he was confined there was a chapel or oratory, in which mass was
celebrated, the sacrament administered, and sermons regularly preached
by captive priests.[140] Nor was this all. The pleasures of the theatre
were enjoyed by these slaves; and the farces of Lope de Rueda, a
favorite Spanish dramatist of the time, served, in actual
representation, to cheer this house of bondage.[141]
[Footnote 139: _De los peores que en Argel auia._ Haedo, _Historia de
Argel_, p. 85; Navarrete, _Vida de Cervantes_, p. 361.]
[Footnote 140: Roscoe's life of Cervantes, p. 303.]
[Footnote 141: _Banos de Argel._]
The experience of the devoted Portuguese ecclesiastic, Father Thomas,
illustrates this lot. A slave in Morocco, he was able to minister to his
fellow-slaves, and to compose a work on the Passion of Jesus Christ,
which has been admired for its unction, and translated into various
tongues. At last liberated through the intervention of the Portuguese
ambassador, he chose to remain behind, notwithstanding the solicitations
of relatives at home, that he might continue to instruct and console the
unhappy men, his late companions in bonds.[142]
[Footnote 142: _Biographie Universelle_, art. Thomas de Jesus; Digby's
Board Stone of Honor, Tancredus, Sec. 9, p. 181.]
Even the story of St. Vincent de Paul, so brutally sold in the public
square, is not without its gleams of light. He was bought by a
fisherman, who was soon constrained to get rid of him, "having nothing
so contrary except the sea." He then passed into the hands of an old
man, whom he pleasantly describes as a chemical doctor, a sovereign
maker of quintessences, very humane and kind, who had labored for the
space of fifty years in search of the philosopher's stone. "He loved me
much," says the fugitive slave, "and pleased himself by discoursing to
me of alchemy, and then of his religion, to which he made every effort
to draw me, promising me riches and all his wisdom." On the death of
this master, he passed to a nephew, by whom he was sold to still another
person, a renegade from Nice, who took him to the mountains, where the
country was extremely hot and desert. A Turkish wife of the renegade
becoming interested in him, and curious to know his manner of life at
home, visited him daily at his work in the fields, and listened with
delight to the slave, away from his country and the churches of his
religion, as he sang the psalm of the children of Israel in a foreign
land: "By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept when we
remembered Zion."[143]
[Footnote 143: _Biographie Universelle_, art. Vincent de Paul.]
[Illustration]
The kindness of the slave master often appears. The English merchant
Abraham Brown, whose sale at Sallee has been already described, makes
known, in his memoirs, that, after he had been carried to the house of
his master, his wounds were tenderly washed and dressed by his master's
wife, and "indeed the whole family gave him comfortable words." He was
furnished with a mat to lie on, "and some three or four days after
provided with a shirt, such a one as it was, a pair of shoes, and an old
doublet." His servile toils troubled him less than "being commanded by a
negro man, who had been a long time in his patron's house a freeman, at
whose beck and command he was obliged to be obedient for the doing of
the least about the house or mill;" and he concludes his lament on this
degradation as follows: "Thus I, who had commanded many men in several
parts of the world, must now be commanded by a negro, who, with his two
countrywomen in the house, scorned to drink out of the water pot I drank
of, whereby I was despised of the despised people of the world."[144]
[Footnote 144: MS. Memoirs.]
At a later day we are furnished with another authentic picture. Captain
Braithwaite, who accompanied the British minister to Morocco in 1727, in
order to procure the liberation of the British captives, after
describing their comfortable condition, adds, "I am sure we saw several
captives who lived much better in Barbary than ever they did in their
own country. Whatever money in charity was sent them by their friends in
Europe was their own, unless they defrauded one another, which has
happened much oftener than by the Moors. Several of them are rich, and
many have carried considerable sums out of the country, to the truth of
which we are all witnesses. Several captives keep their mules, and some
their servants; and yet this is called insupportable slavery among Turks
and Moors. But we found this, as well as many other things in this
country, strangely misrepresented."[145]
[Footnote 145: Braithwaite's Revolutions in Morocco, p. 353.]
These statements--which, to those who do not place freedom above all
price, may seem, at first view, to take the sting even from slavery--are
not without support from other sources. Colonel Keatinge, who, as a
member of a diplomatic mission from England, visited Morocco in 1785,
says of this evil there, that "it is very slightly inflicted, and as to
any labor undergone, it does not deserve the name;"[146] while Mr.
Lempriere, who was in the same country not long afterwards, adds, "To
the disgrace of Europe, the Moors treat their slaves with
humanity."[147] In Tripoli, we are told, by a person for ten years a
resident, that the same gentleness prevailed. "It is a great alleviation
to our feelings," says the writer, speaking of the slaves, "to see them
easy and well dressed, and, so far from wearing chains, as captives do
in most other places, they are perfectly at liberty."[148] We have
already seen the testimony of General Eaton with regard to slavery in
Tunis; while Mr. Noah, one of his successors in the consulate of the
United States at that place, says, "In Tunis, from my observation, the
slaves are not severely treated; they are very useful, and many of them
have made money."[149] And Mr. Shaler, describing the chief seat of
Christian slavery, says, "In short, there were slaves who left Algiers
with regret."[150]
[Footnote 146: Keatinge's Travels, p. 250; Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p.
146. See also Chenier's Present State of Morocco, vol. i. p. 192; ii. p.
369.]
[Footnote 147: Lempriere's Tour, p. 290. See also pp. 3, 147, 190, 279.]
[Footnote 148: Narrative of Ten Years' Residence at Tripoli, p. 241.]
[Footnote 149: Noah's Travels, p. 368.]
[Footnote 150: Shaler's Sketches, p. 77.]
A French writer of more recent date asserts with some vehemence, and
with the authority of an eye witness, that the Christian slaves at
Algiers were not exposed to the miseries which they represented. I do
not know that he vindicates their slavery, but, like Captain
Braithwaite, he evidently regards many of them as better off than they
would be at home. According to him, they were well clad and well fed,
_much better than the free Christians there_. The youngest and most
comely were taken as pages by the Dey. Others were employed in the
barracks; others in the galleys; but even here there was a chapel, as in
the time of Cervantes, for the free exercise of the Christian religion.
Those who happened to be artisans, as carpenters, locksmiths, and
calkers, were let to the owners of vessels. Others were employed on the
public works; while others still were allowed the privilege of keeping a
shop, in which their profits were sometimes so large as to enable them
at the end of a year to purchase their ransom. But these were often
known to become indifferent to freedom, and to prefer Algiers to their
own country. The slaves of private persons were sometimes employed in
the family of their master, where their treatment necessarily depended
much upon his character. If he were gentle and humane, their lot was
fortunate; they were regarded as children of the house. If he were harsh
and selfish, then the iron of slavery did, indeed, enter their souls.
Many were bought to be sold again for profit into distant parts of the
country, where they were doomed to exhausting labor; in which event
their condition was most grievous. But special care was bestowed upon
all who became ill--not so much, it is admitted, from humanity as
through fear of losing them.[151]
[Footnote 151: _Histoire d'Alger: Description de ce Royaume, etc., de
ses Forces de Terre et de Mer, Moeurs et Costumes des Habitans, des
Mores, des Arabes, des Juifs, des Chretiens, de ses Lois, etcs._ (Paris,
1830,) chap. 27.]
But, whatever deductions may be made from the familiar stories of White
Slavery in the Barbary States,--admitting that it was mitigated by the
genial influence of Mohammedanism,--that the captives were well clad and
well fed, much better than the free Christians there,--that they were
allowed opportunities of Christian worship,--that they were often
treated with lenity and affectionate care,--that they were sometimes
advanced to posts of responsibility and honor,--and that they were
known, in their contentment or stolidity, to become indifferent to
freedom,--still the institution or custom is hardly less hateful in our
eyes. Slavery in all its forms, even under the mildest influences, is a
wrong and a curse. No accidental gentleness of the master can make it
otherwise. Against it reason, experience, the heart of man, all cry out.
"Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! thou art a bitter
draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of
thee, thou art no less bitter on that account." Algerine Slavery was a
violation of the law of nature and of God. It was a usurpation of rights
not granted to man.
O execrable son, so to aspire
Above his brethren, to himself assuming
Authority usurped, from God not given!
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation; but man over men
He made not lord, such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free.[152]
Such a relation, in defiance of God, could not fail to accumulate
disastrous consequences upon all in any way parties to it; for injustice
and wrong are fatal alike to the doer and the sufferer. It is notorious
that, in Algiers, it exerted a most pernicious influence on master as
well as slave. The slave was crushed and degraded, his intelligence
abased, even his love of freedom extinguished. The master, accustomed
from childhood to revolting inequalities of condition, was exalted into
a mood of unconscious arrogance and self-confidence, inconsistent with
the virtues of a pure and upright character. Unlimited power is apt to
stretch towards license; and the wives and daughters of Christian slaves
were often pressed to be the concubines of their Algerine masters.[153]
[Footnote 152: Paradise Lost, book xii. 64-71.]
[Footnote 153: Noah's Travels, p. 248, 253; Quarterly Review, vol. xv.
p. 168. Among the concubines of a prince of Morocco were two slaves of
the age of fifteen, one of English, and the other of French extraction.
Lempriere's Tour, p. 147. There is an account of the fate of "one Mrs.
Shaw, an Irish woman," in words hardly polite enough to be quoted. She
was swept into the harem of Muley Ishmael, who "forced her to turn
Moor;" "but soon after, having taken a dislike to her, he gave her to a
soldier."--Braithwaite's Morocco, p. 191.]
It is well, then, that it has passed away! The Barbary States seem less
barbarous, when we no longer discern this cruel oppression!
But the story of slavery there is not yet all told. While the Barbary
States received white slaves by sea, stolen by corsairs, they also, from
time immemorial, imported black slaves from the south. Over the vast,
illimitable sea of sand, in which is absorbed their southern
border,--traversed by camels, those "ships of the desert,"--were brought
those unfortunate beings, as merchandise, with gold dust and ivory,
doomed often to insufferable torments, while cruel thirst parched
the lips, and tears vainly moistened the eyes. They also were ravished
from their homes, and, like their white brethren from the north,
compelled to taste of slavery. In numbers they have far surpassed
their Christian peers. But for long years no pen or voice pleaded
their cause; nor did the Christian nations--professing a religion
which teaches universal humanity, without respect of persons, and
sends the precious sympathies of neighborhood to all who suffer, even
at the farthest pole--ever interfere in any way in their behalf. The
navy of Great Britain, by the throats of their artillery, argued the
freedom of all _fellow-Christians_, without distinction of _nation_;
but they heeded not the slavery of other brethren in bonds--Mohammedans
or idolaters, children of the same Father in heaven. Lord Exmouth did
but half his work. In confining the stipulation to the abolition of
Christian slavery only, this Abolitionist made a discrimination, which,
whether founded on religion or color, was selfish and unchristian. Here,
again, was the same inconsistency which darkened the conduct of Charles
the Fifth, and has constantly recurred throughout the history of this
outrage. Forgetful of the Brotherhood of the Race, Christian powers
have deemed the slavery of blacks just and proper, while the slavery
of whites has been branded as unjust and sinful.
[Illustration]