by Des Ekin
His words were wasted. Another three years had passed by without hope. By October 18, 1637, as the autumn winds blew in to herald yet another Algerine winter, Frizell’s spirits had reached rock bottom. Writing to the Lords Of The Privy Council in London, he complained strongly about ‘the miserable and depressed life’ of English subjects in Algiers. He reminded the Lords that he had been in Barbary since October 1625, ‘in most miserable and extraordinary troubles, to the danger of my life’.
The consul continued: ‘Yea, and I am now brought so low for want of means to maintain my charge withal that I am in condition to starve … I do verily believe that never any of his Majesty’s ministers hath been so neglected as I am.’
However, Frizell had a glimmer of good news to report. After listing the latest batch of captured ships, he added:
‘And of all of these captives, there is now of them ransomed 100 … by Mr Henry Draxer [?] of Leagorno and his Jewish Factor at costs from 150 to 1600 Rs of eight a head…’
So a hundred of the English slaves, with the aid of their families, had been able to buy their freedom in 1637, using the same Leghorn route used by ‘Mary’, the unknown Baltimore woman. Their ransom prices had varied from 150 Spanish dollars up to $1600: sums that showed just how much profit their investors had made over typical Badistan sale prices.
The despairing consul had continued to write to London begging for the ‘fruits of clemency’. But he was begging in vain. In England, the storm clouds of civil war had started to form on the horizon and the King had far too many problems of his own to worry about some dysfunctional diplomat in North Africa … or his irksome slaves.
As the months and years passed, Joane Broadbrook and the other Baltimore captives became so accustomed to slavery that they could imagine no other state of existence. The formidable walls of Algiers defined their horizons; their only ambition was to get through another working day. ‘[We were] so habituated to bondage,’ recalled the English slave William Okeley, ‘that we almost forgot liberty, and grew stupid and senseless of our slavery.’
Still, there could have been worse places to live. Algiers, the most civilised of Barbary cities, was often described as a miniature Constantinople.
‘The city of Algiers is built upon the declivity of a mountain, in the form of an amphitheatre,’ wrote one observer.
‘The roofs of houses are flat, and the citizens walk upon them in the evening to take the air. Several of the roofs are thinly covered with mould in which a multitude of flowers and shrubs are planted, which at once delight the eye and perfume the cool sea breezes. From these gardens, there is a most enchanting prospect of the environments of the city, where innumerable villas, gardens, paths, fountains and rivulets exhibit the combined magnificence of nature and art.’
Europeans arriving here for the first time were amazed how a city that had unleashed such terror could be so tiny. ‘This place which, for several ages hath braved the greatest powers of Christendom is not above a mile and a half in circuit,’ one Englishman marvelled.
Between the two main entrances – Bab-az-Zoun, the Gate Of Grief, and Bab-el-Oued, the Gate Of The Stream – snaked the city’s main thoroughfare, Great Market Street. Only 36 feet wide, this steep street was one lengthy souk where tradesmen of all descriptions jostled to sell their wares. There were stalls piled high with herbs and hemp; butchers and cobblers; candlemakers and book binders; earnest tailors and scribes. Colour wash splattered the walls near the dyeing workshops; and in the tanneries the rich smell of hide mingled with the stench of the dog faeces used to soften the leather.
The streets were so notoriously narrow that a horseman found it difficult to go through, and two men could not pass without one giving way.
Yet compared to European capitals, Algiers was a healthy city. Its cobbled streets were kept clean by an army of workers. In an era when Londoners emptied their bedpans in the street, Algiers had piped sewage and fresh running water – James Cathcart described this as ‘clear as crystal’.
Europeans ridiculed the citizens’ personal hygiene, with one Frenchman deriding the ‘foolish conceit’ of washing before meals.
Islamic medical science was far ahead of Europe, and had been for centuries. In Baghdad, a thousand years earlier, medical students had been taught the basics of modern anatomy, pharmacology and toxicology. From Cairo to Cordoba, doctors had diagnosed diseases as complex as meningitis.
Sophisticated anaesthetics had turned surgery into an art. Abulcasis, who died in 1013, described more than two hundred fine surgical instruments that could remove kidney stones, strip varicose veins, and excise cancer tumours. Islamic surgeons could even extract eye cataracts by suction through a hollow metallic needle.
While Europeans were tackling the Black Death through self-flagellation, physicians like Ibn Khatima had discovered that minuscule organisms could invade the body and cause disease.
And long before Jenner ‘discovered’ vaccination, Turkish women were routinely using small doses of cowpox to protect their faces against smallpox.
A diet rich in vegetables also helped to promote health. The climate was kind and the fields produced prolific yields. According to the Spanish monk Haedo, Algiers had an ‘infinite number of gardens and vineyards filled with lemon orange and lime trees [and] flowers of every kind.’
Even the weather was pleasant by North African standards. ‘The climate in this country is remarkably delightful,’ John Foss wrote. ‘The air is pure and serene.’
All these factors had a measurable effect on quality of life and longevity. Even then, Algerines were described as healthier and longer-lived than Europeans.
Westerners sneered at the Algerines’ minimalist tastes. ‘The furniture consists of carpets and mattresses on which they sit and lie,’ sniffed the same observer. ‘As for food, they have little taste in the preparation of their dishes, and eat in a manner at once slovenly and disgusting to a European.’
But today, Europeans will visit expensive restaurants to get a similar menu: tajines of lamb, couscous, stuffed tomatoes, stuffed vines, meatballs and vegetable kebabs.
During their set breaks – they were off on Fridays and public holidays – John Ryder and the other male slaves had the free run of the city. Amazingly, any slave with the money could visit the city’s bathhouses, restaurants or cafés without restriction. Anyone with enough change for a cup of coffee could sit at a pavement café, where musicians would play the distinctive Algerine music – a mixture of Spanish and Turkish influences – until late into the night.
Language was no barrier to the slaves. Everyone in Algiers spoke Sabir – French diplomats used it in their dealings with locals, thinking they were speaking pure Arabic, and the Algerines used it back, assuming they were speaking French.
Alcohol was commonplace despite the formal ban. There were also drugs, and not only the local kif.
One slave from Ireland – and in all likelihood from Baltimore – had an owner who took opium. Returning home after a drug session, the patron held out his own arm and told the slave to place a burning coal on the bare flesh. The slave did so. The master, unflinching, told him to blow on the ember to make it even hotter, and still he showed no evidence of pain.
Algiers had licensed brothels, supposedly reserved for the Janissaries, but also frequented by citizens and (illicitly) by slaves. Thomas Baker, English consul in neighbouring Tripoli, once reported: ‘Two whores, being last night taken in a Christian’s company, were with him this afternoon, being very wet weather, dragged bare-arsed at a mule’s tail through all the streets of town …’
Algerine justice was notoriously swift and harsh, with punishments ranging from the bizarre to the barbaric. A fraudster might be forced to ride backwards on a donkey. Traitors risked hanging or slow decapitation. Beating with sticks was the most common deterrent: a trivial misdemeanour could earn thirty strokes, and serious offences could warrant a thousand or more.
Life in Algiers was never dull. There were minor ear
thquakes, famines, plagues, uprisings and coups. In the two decades since 1631, there were no fewer than eight governors. On the plus side, the drudgery of the captives’ lives was lightened by the major feast days. These holidays gave the slaves an opportunity to earn extra cash with food or drink stalls. Everybody – captives included – was allowed to join in the fun. There would be wrestlers, stilt walkers, puppet shows and acrobats. ‘The oddest thing,’ marvelled the French diplomat d’Arvieux, ‘was to see old, white-bearded men enjoying themselves on swings like children.’
For Joane and the other women slaves, the dreary plod of domestic chores was also broken by family occasions such as weddings or circumcision ceremonies. Female domestics would accompany their mistresses on ceremonial visits to shrines or graves.
As the weeks turned into months and the months turned into years, the Baltimore slaves ceased to be surprised at the scenes around them. The exotic sights, the unearthly clamour, the rich smells of Algiers became a mere background to what was increasingly becoming a normal existence. As they walked through those narrow streets, pushing through the shouting street vendors and the braying donkeys, ducking out of the way to avoid a swaggering Janissary, they must have felt at times that they had never known any other life.
Then, after fifteen years in captivity, something happened that had the potential to change their lives forever.
It was a September day in 1646, and Joane was no doubt going about her usual round of duties in Algiers when she heard the news that made her heart pound with excitement and anticipation.
A new ship had appeared in the bay. It was an English ship, the Charles – and it was coming to take her home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Redemption Of Captives
Freeing hostages is like putting up a stage set, which you do with the captors, agreeing on each piece as you slowly put it together; then you leave an exit through which both the captor and the captive can walk with sincerity and dignity
—Terry Waite, hostage negotiator and captive in Beirut.
IN THE summer of 1645, after Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army had decisively defeated the Royalist forces at Naseby, a ship called the Honour set sail from England to Algiers. On board was Edward Cason, an envoy entrusted by Parliament with the difficult task of securing the release of hundreds of English and Irish slaves.
The intention had been there for years. At the start of the Long Parliament of 1640, while an uneasy peace still existed in England, the House of Commons had passed an Act resolving to redeem captives ‘taken by Turkish, Moorish and other pirates from the cruel thraldom which they lay under’.
It had been a dramatic break from the previous policy of laissez-faire and represented a determined effort to bring the hostages home.
The outbreak of full-scale civil war in 1642 had stopped the plan in its tracks, but as Cason put it, they had ‘kept up resolve amid the storm’.
The Honour would have made a rich prize in itself. The well-armed craft was laden with what Cason described as ‘a gargasoon of money and goods to great value’.
Tragically, the mission was plagued by the same bad luck that had dogged the Baltimore captives right from the beginning. Passing Gibraltar, the Honour encountered contrary winds that forced her to shelter in the bay.
Someone noticed smoke drifting out from below, and as the crew fought desperately to quench the flames of an onboard fire, they suddenly came under attack from shore. The aggressors overwhelmed the Englishmen and seized the Honour’s redemption money.
There was one consolation. The raiders had overlooked a small amount of cash. Cason transferred it to a nearby English ship, the Diamond. We can sense the despondency in his tone as he tells what happened next:
‘[T]he Diamond, a while after, before her return to England, was cast away near Cadiz and so the monies there were lost. Thus one affliction is added to another, and misery, like waves, tread one on the other’s heel.’
Cason returned home, his mercy mission a total disaster. However, his superiors obviously did not blame him for the fiasco, for the following year he was despatched on a similar mission in a ‘ship of strength’ named the Charles.
With the country enjoying comparative calm after four years of bloody Civil War, Cason could concentrate on his mission. His brief was twofold: to organise the captives’ release and to negotiate a permanent peace.
‘We arrived at this port in safety, thanks to God, on 21 September,’ Cason wrote home. ‘The Basha and the Duana [i.e., the Divan, the ruling council] sent me safe conduct next day.’
Amid the splendour of the Pasha’s court, he presented his letters of credential and launched into an opening gambit of conciliation and wounded rectitude. He said he wished to restore peaceful relations and ‘desired the subjects of England to be delivered unto me free, for we had not broke the peace’.
It was worth a try, but the Pasha had a ready answer. He could not hand over the English slaves because they didn’t belong to him. They had been sold on to individual buyers who could not give them up without compensation for their original outlay. Records of these sums, the Pasha added helpfully, could easily be obtained from the ledger books.
Cason was not impressed and the meeting ended inconclusively. ‘Being not content with this answer, I desired my letters to be read in the Duana, to have an answer from the Basha and Duana when they were in council.’
The English envoy cooled his heels for four days until the next session of the Divan, which was scheduled for Saturday.
Meanwhile, word of the negotiations spread like wildfire among the slave community. For captives like Joane Broadbrook and Ellen Hawkins from Baltimore, this was the most excrutiating time of all. After fourteen years in captivity, freedom lay almost within their grasp – they could actually see the Charles lying out in the bay, and watch the English crew going about their work. And yet they knew that everything could still go spectacularly wrong and the Charles might still sail away without them. It was a time of exhilaration, but it was also a time of dread.
The slave John Foss recalled one such disappointment. ‘[At first] our hearts were joy. We imagined ourselves already freemen … our chains were falling off and our taskmasters no longer at liberty to torture us. In imagination we were already traversing the ocean – hailing our native shore, embracing our children and our wives. This delirium of joy was of short duration, like a dazzling meteor in a dark night, which blazes for a moment, making the succeeding darkness more dreadful.’
Joane and Ellen have left no record of their feelings, but we can get some idea of their emotions through the words of Mary Rowlandson, the minister’s wife who was abducted and enslaved in Massachusetts in 1676.
‘My heart was so heavy before [I heard of my ransom] that I could scarce speak or go in the path; and yet now so light, that I could run,’ she recalled. ‘My strength seemed to come again, and recruit my feeble knees, and aching heart …
‘Yet I had not a comfortable night’s rest … I did not sleep for three nights together … I could not rest, I was so full of fears and troubles.’
Mary’s reaction was classic. At the time of imminent rescue, a captive can lose control of her emotions to an extent that she becomes a danger to herself and others. Modern hostage negotiators are well aware of the cruel syndrome that can prompt a captive on the brink of safety to make rash, impulsive gestures. During the siege at Entebbe, for instance, the rescuers accidentally shot a hostage who jumped up with arms outstretched to greet them.
For Ellen and Joane, there was nothing to do but endure the agonising days and the sleepless nights and wait until the vital council meeting at the weekend.
If Edmund Cason attended the meeting of the Divan that Saturday, he would have witnessed an extraordinary spectacle. The Divan’s rules of procedure were unique. Everyone shouted at once, and the cacophony was heightened by the cries of the translators. Tempers frayed and speakers would often resort to force. There were bizarre rules dictating ex
actly how much violence was acceptable. ‘Obliged by order of the Divan to keep their thumbs within their girdles,’ explained one diplomat, ‘they durst express their anger by punches and thrusts of their elbows.’
Another English visitor marvelled: ‘They stand in ranks … jetting each other with their arms or elbows, raising their voices as if in a choler, or as a pot boileth with the addition of fire.’
Unsurprisingly, the Divan adopted exactly the same position as the Pasha. Cason was asked to meet the Pasha a second time. These negotiations proved more fruitful, with the English envoy agreeing to pay cost-price for the slaves and the Pasha agreeing a peace which would leave all English ships unmolested. The pact was celebrated with lavish banquets.
‘The Basha entertained me with all courtesy, feasted me in his house and afterwards in the fields,’ Cason wrote.
The following month, the peace treaty was formalised with a historic letter jointly written by the Pasha, the Divan, the Mufti and the Cadi and addressed to the Parliament in London:
The agent which it hath pleased God to bring hither from the Parliament and England, we give God thanks, for that he has come hither to make peace and love betwixt us until the end of the world, and that he hath given us a letter: and that Edmund Cason is come agent by consent and allowance of the Grand Signior and safety to the harbour of Algiers … and that he came ashore unto us in love and peace, and that a good peace was agreed upon by both parts, and he demanded the English Christians that were slaves to be delivered unto him, which could not be granted because they were bought by Turks and soldiers that were in the pay, and they would not deliver them till they had the money they cost them at first in the market; and if he will take them upon those conditions, as they had been upon the former peace, we will have a good peace with them, as they have in Constantinople with the Grand Signior, upon this good peace concluded, we, both small and great in the Duana, were upon those agreements well content, for the slaves as they have been sold first in the market, so shall they have them upon that price again, as shall appear on their books at the time of their sale.