The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates

by Des Ekin

  The Stolen Village

  Shortlisted for the Argosy Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award.

  ‘Des Ekin vividly recreates the atmosphere of the West Cork village in 1631, the terror of the raid and the strangeness of the captives’ new lives in Algiers.’

  The Southern Star

  ‘It’s an enthralling read – not merely for the story of the raid itself, which Ekin recreates with bloodcurdling vividness – but for the parallels the author draws with the contemporary geo-political situation.’

  The Irish Times

  ‘This is a harrowing tale that sheds light on the little-known trade in white slaves … a fascinating exploration of a forgotten chapter of British and European history.’

  Giles Milton, author of Nathaniel’s Nutmeg and White Gold.

  ‘A fascinating new book by Des Ekin.’

  The Sunday Independent

  ‘This is a gripping account that’s exhaustively researched but wears its learning lightly … Proof, if it were needed that fact is often more interesting than fiction.’

  Metro

  For James and Molly Ekin

  – with gratitude

  Acknowledgements

  This book was a labour of love, and researching it was a joy from start to finish. I’d like to thank some of the kind and generous people who helped to make it so.

  The staff of the National Library of Ireland, which became my second home for quite some time.

  The long-suffering librarians at the Dublin City Council Library in Terenure, who never batted an eyelid when I asked them to track down rare books from all over Ireland and England.

  Iris Bedford at Trinity College, Dublin, who gave me access to the university’s library.

  Particularly warm thanks to Muriel McCarthy, keeper of Archbishop Marsh’s Library in Dublin, and her staff, who not only welcomed me into their unique and wondrous treasury of ancient books, but also shared their tea and biscuits with me (well away from the rare books, of course).

  My gratitude also to Stuart Gould of the British Library in London and to Kirsty Brown of the UK National Archives in Kew, who each went beyond the call of duty to ensure that rare documents were waiting for me on my ridiculously ambitious one-day research trips from Dublin to London.

  Robin Wiltshire, archivist with the Strafford Papers in the Sheffield Library Archives, procured a copy of a rare 1630 map of Baltimore.

  Hugh Alexander of the National Archives helped me obtain the rare document recording the captives’ arrival in Algiers.

  I’m also indebted to Jona Bjorg Gudmundsdottir, archivist at the Westmann Islands Library, who went to enormous trouble to find me material in English relating to Morat’s slave raid on the islands.

  In Reykjavik, Anna Einarsdottir also offered invaluable suggestions to guide my researches into the Iceland raid.

  Thanks to Frederic Messud of the website www.algerie.info.

  Many of the key source books from Algiers were in old French. Thanks to Michael Keating for helping me to make sense of some of them.

  In all these cases, any mistakes I may have made are my own.

  Michael O’Brien and Ide ní Laoghaire of The O’Brien Press shared my enthusiasm for this project and channeled my obsession into something publishable. Emma Byrne’s inspired graphic design evoked the flavour and atmosphere of the pirate era. Special thanks to editor Helen Carr for the perceptive insights and wise advice that shaped this book into its present form.

  As always, I’d like to thank Colm MacGinty, Michael Brophy and my other real-job bosses at the Sunday World, who’ve consistently encouraged my writing in all its forms, and have generously helped each new project on its way.

  Finally, heartfelt thanks to my family. Chris, Sarah and Gráinne were always an inspiration and often a practical help as well. And of course, my wife Sally who supported me, heartened me, offered valuable suggestions … and never once complained when my spirit wandered off for hours on end, time-travelling to the 1600s to walk among the corsairs and captives in the colourful slave bagnios of old Algiers.

  Contents

  Reviews

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  The Sack of Baltimore

  The Last Day

  Hunting for Humans

  The Spark and the Powderkeg

  The Warrior Monks

  The Wind Dog

  ‘All Was Terror and Dismay’

  Desperate Men, Shameless Women

  The Turning of Edward Fawlett

  The Dreadful Hour

  A Wretched Captivity

  Manifesting the Calamities

  A Bed of Thorns

  A Remedy for Grief

  Black Paste and Putrid Water

  The Diamond City

  Moving Next Door to Hell

  ‘A Good Prize! Prisoners! Slaves!’

  The Slave Market

  Condemned to the Oar

  ‘Dog Of A Christian, To Work!’

  Beyond the Gate of Felicity

  Through The Silk Tunnel

  The Children

  Cursed With Iscariot

  The Sweetest Voice

  Apostasy Now

  Fleeing The Pirates’ Nest

  Bagnio Days, Bagnio Nights

  Habituated To Bondage

  The Redemption of Captives

  Homeward Bound

  The Legacy of Baltimore

  The Three Knights

  Endgame: The Battle for Control of Baltimore

  Appendix: The Taken

  Bibliography and Recommended Reading

  Source Notes

  Picture Credits

  Plates

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Other Books

  Preface

  Shortly before daybreak on Monday 20 June 1631 a joint force consisting of 230 elite troops of the Turkish Ottoman Empire and pirates from the Barbary coast of North Africa stormed ashore at the little port of Baltimore, West Cork, and spirited almost all the villagers away to a life of slavery in Algiers. The victims were mostly women and children: altogether fifty youngsters ‘even those in the cradle’ were abducted, along with thirty-four women and nearly two dozen men.

  Today the ‘Sack of Baltimore’ has been virtually forgotten by the world.

  Yet it is extraordinary in all sorts of ways.

  It would go down in history as the most devastating invasion ever carried out by the forces of the Islamist jihad on Britain or Ireland.

  In an era when it was commonplace for white traders from England to land on the African coast and to seize black people as slaves, this was one of the comparatively rare occasions when the boot was on the other foot: a slaving mission from Africa landing on English-held territory and seizing white slaves.

  The invasion was recognised at the time as an unprecedented act of aggression by the Islamist empire. It left King Charles I incandescent with rage and provoked him into a reaction extreme enough to help create a revolution in England.

  Yet nothing about this crucial episode in history was quite what it seemed.

  Baltimore may have been a remote harbour town in the southwest of Ireland, but its population was made up almost entirely of new English settlers from Cornwall, Somerset and Devon.

  And although the attack was part of the endless jihad or holy war waged against the Christian nations of northern Europe, the man who led it was not some Turkish general from Constantinople, but a fanatical Dutch renegade with an agenda all of his own.

  The story of the raid on Baltimore is a tale of plott
ing and intrigue, of conspiracy and betrayal, and it involves allegations of corruption in the highest ranks of the King’s Navy.

  And perhaps most fascinating of all is the theory that the raid may have not been a chance event, but a mission of revenge: a pre-planned act of ethnic cleansing aimed at removing the English newcomers and restoring the village to its original Irish owners.

  I first heard about the Sack of Baltimore in the mid-1990s, on a Sunday afternoon radio programme. It was a mere mention in passing, a casual aside to the main topic under discussion. The reference left me intrigued and hungry for more information. But a quick skim through the bookshops and libraries failed to find any books about the invasion, and I was too busy preparing my first novel for publication to embark on any detailed research.

  Years passed, but I could not forget the Baltimore episode. It stayed at the back of my mind, niggling me, constantly demanding my attention. Eventually I stopped resisting and decided to find out more.

  A few weeks later I was sitting under the magnificent domed ceiling of the National Library of Ireland, feeling awestruck and decidedly uneasy. Placed on the desk in front of me was a stack of aged books and documents which, I’d been informed, were essential reading for anyone who wanted to understand the Baltimore saga. I flicked through them despondently. Some sections were in old Irish script. Others were in Latin.

  My spirits slumped. What on earth was I doing here? I was a journalist by trade, not an academic and certainly not a professional historian.

  But I persevered. Lifting another weighty tome, I gingerly turned the pages to a document headed A List Of Baltimore People Who Were Carried Away By The Turk, The 20 Of June 1631.

  Within seconds, I was engrossed. At first glance, it was nothing special: just a dull catalogue of over a hundred names. But viewed in context, it transformed into a roll-call of personal tragedy on an almost unimaginable scale. Down through the centuries, every single line, every single name, cried out its own tale of heartbreak and loss.

  A Mr William Gunter had been left devastated by the abduction of his wife and all seven sons. John Harris had lost his wife, his mother and three children. Robert Chimor – his wife and four children were torn away from him. Stephen Broadbrook had lost his pregnant wife Joane, his two children and, of course, his unborn third baby.

  Entire families had vanished into the gaping maw of the Barbary slave machine: John Ryder and Tom Paine, each with his wife and two children; Corent Croffine with his wife, daughter and three male servants; Richard Lorye with his wife, his sister, and four children. Bessie Flood was captured along with her son; Bessie Peeter escaped, but lost her daughter.

  Altogether a total of 107 slaves were stuffed into the hold of the pirate vessel and shipped off to Africa for sale like so many cattle.

  The Baltimore List fascinated me. It showed me that these were not dry statistics from a history book. These had been living, breathing human beings – people with good and bad relationships and everyday anxieties, people with hopes and frustrated dreams. These were families very much like my own family. They were ordinary folk who’d been quietly getting by as best they could when, in the calm of a midsummer night, their lives had been shattered forever.

  From that moment, I knew there could be no turning back.

  I had to tell their story.

  First of all, I want to make a hands-up, full disclosure about the limitations of this book. It is the true story of an entire village – well, almost an entire village – that disappeared. Only two or three Baltimore people ever made it home; the remaining survivors of the raid simply made the best of their lot and merged quietly into the fabric of their new African homeland. Some married and had children. Some prospered financially. They became used to life by the Mediterranean, and they seem to have had no great urge to return home, even when the opportunity was offered to them. I found this concept fascinating. However, it does send the narrative plunging off a cliff, stylistically speaking.

  As a writer, I faced a dilemma. This is a true-life book. Nothing in it has been made up. I did not want to use fiction or novelisation to complete the Baltimore story.

  However, as I carried on my research to greater and greater depths, I began to realise that there really wasn’t a problem. The individual tales of these stolen villagers may be unknown, but that does not mean that their story is unknowable. I could still tell what happened to them without resorting to fiction. I could tell it through the parallel experiences of the other Irish, English and European captives who were sold as slaves in Barbary at around the same time. Through their written recollections, we can get an exceptionally accurate picture of what life must have been like for the Baltimore captives who ended up in the slave galleys, the harems, the souks and the chain gangs.

  These accounts fill the gap in the Baltimore saga, but much more that that – their stories are fascinating in their own right. You will read about the enslaved clergyman Rev. Devereux Spratt, who turned down his chance of freedom to remain with his slave congregation in Algiers, and helped mastermind one of the most audacious escapes from Barbary under cover of his prayer meetings. You will read about Irish captive Richard Joyce, who picked up the design for his world-famous Claddagh ring while enslaved to a jeweller in Algiers. You will read about the American war hero James Cathcart from Westmeath in Ireland, who was reduced to stealing meat from the lions while working as a slave in the royal zoo of Algiers, but who rose through the ranks of slaves to become one of the highest ranking civil servants in Barbary. You will also read about another Irish slave who became so well-in with his slavemasters that he lived like a lord, ate like a prince and had slaves of his own.

  But most of all, I hope, this is still the story of how the ordinary men, women and children of Baltimore adjusted to an extraordinary situation and forged new lives for themselves under the burning African sun.

  They are the real heroes, and this book is dedicated to their memory.

  D.E.

  A note on the text:

  I have modernised spellings for greater accessibility. Anything in quote marks is a faithful quotation from the source. Where I use quotation dashes, it signifies indirect speech: that is, an accurate reflection of what was said, but not a direct quote.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Sack Of Baltimore

  LIKE black sharks scything through the sea towards their prey, the boats of the Barbary corsairs moved soundlessly across the moonlit surface of Roaring Water Bay.

  The oars of their stolen fishing smacks moved in and out in perfect time, the blades wrapped in caulking material to muffle even the smallest splash. It was two hours before dawn, and the element of surprise was crucial.

  The corsairs landed on the shingle beach, taking care to prevent the wooden hulls scraping hollowly across the stones, and silently assembled along the shoreline.

  Nearby, the villagers of Baltimore slept soundly and peacefully – unaware that a small guerrilla army of more than two hundred men was massing for attack just a few yards away from their homes.

  They had no reason to be on the alert. The little harbour town in the southwest of Co. Cork had been invaded before, a generation ago, but in that case the aggressors had been the Catholic troops of King Philip II of Spain. Peace had been made, and that particular threat had passed.

  But these invaders were different.

  They would have made a terrifying sight – the Barbary pirates, carrying muskets and iron bars to force open the doorways; and the bare-armed Turkish troops in their bright red waistcoats and plumed caps, armed to the teeth with guns and curved yatagan sabres.

  These soldiers were the legendary Janissaries – a hand-picked elite, highly trained and skilled in the art of war.

  Originally formed as a celibate order of religious warriors, they still retained a monkish, contemplative demeanour off the battlefield. But at full charge, their terrifying appearance and loud, crashing war music could strike fear into the toughest troops in Christendom.
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br />   ‘The famous Janissaries,’ one western diplomat wrote home in awe, ‘whose approach inspires terror everywhere.’

  Tonight, however, their foes would mostly be defenceless mothers and children.

  The attack had yet to begin, but the fate of Baltimore was already decided.

  Morat Rais, alias Jan Jansen, alias Matthew Rice, alias Captain John, was one of the most experienced pirate chieftains on the Barbary Coast. A veteran of daring raids on targets as far away as Iceland, he had honed his attack strategy to perfection.

  His intelligence information was immaculate too. The corsair chieftain had been well briefed in advance, and had personally carried out a reconnaissance of the village earlier in the evening. He had already been shown the homes where the toughest villagers were likely to show most resistance.

  His first objective was the lower part of town, an area known as The Cove, where twenty-six thatched cottages were arranged in three concentric arcs around the curve of the shoreline. The inhabitants were mostly fishing folk – seine-netters and workers who salted the fish at the processing works nearby.