White Gold

by Giles Milton

  The consul was both surprised and delighted. He and Braithwaite had achieved their goal of ratifying the 1721 treaty and were at long last free to escape from the horrors of Meknes. “We were so rejoiced at the prospect of our liberty,” wrote Braithwaite, “for we had looked upon ourselves but in a sort of captivity, that we made all the haste we could home.” They set out for Tetouan almost immediately, and the freed slaves followed a few days later. What neither man realized was that all their work was about to be rendered futile. A series of bloody revolutions was to sweep the sultan and his successor from power, and the ensuing chaos would have dire consequences for Thomas Pellow, the European slaves and the thousands of renegades in Morocco.

  THOMAS PELLOW LEARNED of the turmoil within a month or two of his meeting with Russell and Braithwaite. He had returned to Agoory when he was told that the black army had mutinied against the sultan and declared their support for his brother Abdelmalek. “They had surprised Moulay [Ahmed] ed-Dehebi in his own house,” wrote Pellow, “keeping him there under a very strict guard.”

  The catalyst for their action was a shocking event that occurred in the spring of 1728. The sultan’s drunkenness had long scandalized his courtiers, who had done everything in their power to keep it concealed from the citizens of Meknes. But the townsfolk were soon given a graphic display of his debauchery. “Going one Friday to the mosque to prayer, he was so drunk that when he prostrated himself, according to the custom of the Mahometans, he vomited up his wine.” The assembled crowd was appalled, and the sultan was forced to retire to his palace where he faced a barrage of invective from his wives. According to John Russell, who immediately sent a report of the incident to London, these formidable women “reproached him with irreligion for defiling his body with strong liquor so nigh the ramadan.” They were so disgusted that they took to the streets, whipping up a storm of protest against their husband’s scandalous behavior.

  The Moroccan populace did not need much convincing that the sultan was unfit to govern. The city of Fez, already in revolt, refused to recognize “a prince immersed in the debaucheries of the table, and made stupid by wine.” Now, the people of Meknes followed suit. The sultan might yet have clung to power, but when the court’s ulama, or religious councillors, turned against him, even Ahmed ed-Dehebi realized his days were numbered. He fled from Meknes in panic, and the throne was offered to his brother Abdelmalek. According to the Arabic chronicle of Muhammad al-Qadiri, the new sultan was chosen for his “resolve, mastery, excellent conduct and policy, great justice [and] love of learning.” He may indeed have had all these qualities, but he was also foolish and careless. His first error was to allow his brother to escape from Meknes. His second was to voice public criticism of the black army.

  Thomas Pellow was extremely concerned about the consequences of serving under the new sultan, who intended to use his European renegades to punish all who opposed his rule. He was even more hesitant when he heard that the black army was wavering in its loyalty and looked set to throw its support behind Ahmed ed-Dehebi. When Pellow was brought news that the deposed sultan was in the vicinity and had assembled a huge number of troops to help him reclaim his throne, he “went directly to him and marched with him to Meknes.”

  The imperial city had been constructed in such a way that no invading army could ever hope to scale its walls. The only chance of capturing the place was to bombard the defenders into submission. Ahmed ed-Dehebi proceeded to do just that, ordering salvo after salvo to be fired into the heart of the city. Sultan Abdelmalek’s forces put up stiff resistance, but came under increasingly heavy fire from the besieging forces. For forty-eight hours, the battle raged around the city gates. Eventually, Ahmed ed-Dehebi’s soldiers—who included Thomas Pellow—managed to break through the defenses and seize the kasbah at the heart of Meknes. All inside were summarily put to the sword. “What was seen there,” wrote Adrian de Manault, “was not so much the image of a war, but of a butchery.”

  Once this initial slaughter was over, the victorious troops went on the rampage, looting, pillaging and attacking the undefended slave pens. “There was no distinction between Muslim, Jew or Christian,” wrote de Manault. “The fathers were killed or injured [and] sacred vases were profaned with indignity.” According to Muhammad al-Qadiri, there was “widespread looting and rape, and other shameful acts occurred back in the kasbah.” The city’s governor and the principal officers were accorded no mercy. “[They] were nailed by their hands and feet to one of the gates of the city,” wrote Pellow, “in which miserable manner they lived three days.” The governor’s hands and feet “were so torn by the weight of his body, being a lusty man, that he fell down from the gate.” He was fortunate to be dispatched by a whir of scimitars.

  It was a desperate time for the European slaves, who had neither guns nor swords with which to defend themselves against the black army. “We believe we must comment here on the glory of the French,” wrote the Frenchman Adrian de Manault. “Amongst the Christians which were compelled during this disorder to change their religion, there was none of that nation which renounced the faith of Jesus Christ.” Once every area of the city had fallen under Ahmed ed-Dehebi’s control, the surviving slaves were forced to cleanse the streets in preparation for the victorious leader’s triumphant entry.

  Ahmed ed-Dehebi had killed huge numbers of people in his battle for Meknes, but one key insurgent was not among them. “As to Abdelmalek,” wrote Pellow, “[he] fled thence through. a by-gate in the night time, as was rumoured, to Old Fez.” The rumor was true. He had indeed fled to Fez, where he was given a cautious welcome into the city. No one was in any doubt that the offer of sanctuary was tantamount to a declaration of war.

  Thomas Pellow was one of the 60,000 troops sent to capture and kill Abdelmalek. “Now I am one in the above number before Old Fez,” he wrote, noting that the city’s defenders were “strongly fortified, resolutely resolved and well provided.” There was nevertheless a feeling of optimism among Ahmed ed-Dehebi’s soldiers, for they made a formidable sight as they assembled on the hillsides outside the city’s ancient walls. “[They] encircled Fez,” wrote al-Qadiri, “as tightly as a ring on a finger.”

  The battle began in earnest on 16 August 1728, when wave after wave of the black guard attempted to storm the city ramparts. The European renegades meanwhile set to work with their great guns. “[They] pounded it with cannonballs and bombs from all sides,” wrote al-Qadiri, “[and] the bombs caused much destruction.” Each shot caused the walls to shudder and crumble, but they failed to open any breach through which the crack troops could pour. Renegade sappers mined the walls and detonated explosives, but still failed to open a passage. “Thanks to God’s kindness,” wrote al-Qadiri, “although the wall went up in the air from the blast, it returned to its original place without having suffered any damage.” The bombardment was so intense that the sultan’s gun carriages began to fall to pieces. Ahmed ed-Dehebi was beside himself with frustration. It was imperative that the carriages were replaced with the utmost urgency, but he knew that the best craftsmen were in Salé, almost one hundred miles away. The sultan needed someone dependable for a mission that could quite possibly decide the outcome of the siege. He turned to Thomas Pellow, whom he had witnessed fighting alongside his forces at the battle for Meknes. Pellow and his men were ordered to head to Salé and commission “the making of new carriages for our field pieces, the old ones being, through the so frequent shocks of such weighty and high metalled cannon … to that degree shaken as they were become in a manner unserviceable.”

  Pellow set off to Salé as requested and oversaw the construction of the new gun carriages. He then had them dragged overland to Fez, “where I was by Moulay [Ahmed] ed-Dehebi, most kindly received.” Pellow’s service earned him praise and gratitude from the sultan. Instead of having to abandon his offensive against Fez, as he had feared, Ahmed ed-Dehebi was now able to redouble his attack. Once his cannon were remounted on the new gun carriages, his forces “kept al
most a continual battering upon the town.”

  Yet still the defenders held out against the besieging forces, growing increasingly confident that the great walls would save them. Emboldened by the black army’s lack of success at storming the city, they began infiltrating the sultan’s camp and killing men in hand-to-hand combat. One of these sorties pushed deep into Pellow’s battalion. His men first realized something was amiss when there was a flash of light and a resounding boom. Seconds later, they found themselves being fired on from all sides. “It was my mishap,” wrote Pellow, “ … to receive two musket shots within a few minutes’ time of each other, one passing through my right thigh and the other through my left shoulder.” He also received a “shrewd cut” to his left hand, which bled profusely. “And now am I in a bloody condition,” he wrote later,“ … being tapped in three several places, insomuch that from my excessive loss of blood from them all, I really thought that I could not have long survived it.”

  Pellow was indeed in a serious condition. The wound to his hand was extremely deep, and he soon collapsed from the loss of blood. “Now am I laid on a bier,” he later recalled, “in order to be carried to an hospital.” As he lay in severe pain, the sultan himself rode past and, recognizing Pellow, expressed regret that such a trusted comrade was so badly wounded. “He said he was very sorry for me,” wrote Pellow, “ … and ordered three surgeons to go along with me and to use the best of their skill for my recovery.” In reward for Pellow’s earlier service, he presented him with fifty gold ducats and also ordered that “I should have a quarter of fresh mutton brought in every day.”

  Events in Fez were meanwhile reaching their denouement. As neither side saw any prospect of breaking the deadlock on the battlefield, in mid-December 1728, emissaries from each camp met to negotiate a possible truce. To everyone’s surprise, their discussions bore fruit almost immediately. It was agreed that Morocco—which had remained united throughout Moulay Ismail’s long reign—should now be divided in two. Abdelmalek would be installed as ruler of Fez, while Ahmed ed-Dehebi would reign as sultan in Meknes. It was also decided that the brothers should meet face-to-face, in order to seal a bond of trust between them.

  Pellow, who had been nursed back to health by German renegade physicians, was witness to the extraordinary events that followed. As Abdelmalek was conducted toward his brother’s tent, he was searched by the captain of the guards who found him concealing a poignard and a pistol with which he was clearly plotting to murder his brother. The weapons were confiscated and he was led sheepishly into Ahmed ed-Dehebi’s presence. The sultan feigned insouciance and let his brother off with a mild rebuke. “Instead of venting his wrath and vengeance upon him,” wrote Pellow, “[he] contented himself with making some reproaches, and those without sharpness.” But Ahmed ed-Dehebi was inwardly seething and was not content to leave the matter there. Abdelmalek was arrested and put in the custody of one of the sultan’s most feared black guards. He was then taken to Meknes and kept prisoner until further notice. Six weeks later, he was visited by Ahmed ed-Dehebi’s henchmen and strangled to death. “And lest he might not be dead enough,” wrote Pellow, “they gave him each a stab with their long murdering knives through his body.”

  Sultan Ahmed ed-Dehebi had every reason to celebrate his triumph, for he was now the undisputed master of Morocco. His rebellious brother had been sent to an early grave and the city of Fez had surrendered unconditionally. But the sultan was not to enjoy the fruits of his victory for long. On 5 March 1729—just four days after his brother’s murder—he suddenly and dramatically dropped dead.

  “His death was occasioned,” wrote Pellow, “ … by his drinking a small bowl of milk at his entrance into Meknes from Fez.” This milk was rumored to have been poisoned by the mother of Moulay Abdallah, yet another of Moulay Ismail’s sons. If so, her stratagem proved entirely successful. On the day of the sultan’s death, Moulay Abdallah was granted the throne.

  IN THE MIDST of all the butchery and bloodshed, which had lasted for many months, the slaves in Meknes had been temporarily freed from hard labor. But Moulay Abdallah had no intention of discharging any of them. He had dreams of remodeling his late father’s pleasure palace, repairing its war-battered ramparts and creating ever more lavish chambers. The Christian slaves were ordered back to the building works and Moulay Abdallah assumed personal control of the construction. “He had them strengthen the walls of the seraglio with twenty-six bastions,” wrote de Manault, “ … on which he installed several batteries of cannon.” The sultan was unhappy with the view from his principal harem, which overlooked the vast imperial quarters known as Madinat el-Riyad. This section of the palace contained the mansions of many of the greatest courtiers, as well as bazaars, baths and a college. It was held by many to be “the pride and joy of Meknes,” and much of it had been personally overseen by Moulay Ismail. Now, Sultan Abdallah had it razed to the ground, ordering his slaves to destroy it with picks and shovels. The sultan derived particular pleasure from watching them getting injured while engaged in the demolition. “While the slaves were working,” wrote de Manault, “ … one of his pleasures was to put a great number of them at the foot of the walls which were about to collapse, and watch them be buried alive under the rubble.”

  Thomas Pellow was also witness to some of these atrocities. He was particularly concerned for the slaves being held at Boussacran, just outside Meknes, who were treated in “a most grievous and cruel manner.” The sultan set them to work, “digging a deep and wide ditch through a hard rock round his pleasure house, himself with his severe eye being their overseer.” It was back-breaking labor, and Abdallah compounded their woes by slashing their rations to the absolute minimum.

  Pellow was soon troubled by far more terrible news. He was still recuperating from his wounds received at Fez when a messenger galloped up on horseback to inform him that “though he never cared to be the bearer of ill news, yet he could not forbear telling me that my wife and daughter were both very lately dead, dying within three days, one of the other.”

  Pellow was utterly distraught. He had been married for almost a decade, and the birth of his daughter had been an occasion of great pride. She had provided him with comfort from suffering and had helped him battle against the constant loneliness and homesickness. Now she was gone and it was almost too much to bear. “[I was] often reflecting on the loss of my wife and daughter,” he wrote, “ … especially the child.”

  She had delighted Pellow and he had often speculated as to whether he would one day take her back to Penryn. Now, her death had robbed him of that distant dream. His only consolation was the thought that amidst the slaughter and bloodshed that were a daily reality in Morocco, his wife and daughter were, perhaps, “better off than they could have been in this troublesome world.” .

  12

  LONG ROUTE HOME

  TURBULENT MONTHS FOLLOWED the death of Pellow’s wife and daughter. The country was riven by warfare and brigandage, while tribal chieftains wrested great tracts of land from Sultan Moulay Abdallah’s control. The citizens of Fez rose up again, refusing to accept the barbarous sultan as their ruler. He responded by ordering the black army to crush them once and for all.

  Pellow had hoped to escape from Morocco during these troubled times, but he was forcibly drafted into the second battle for Fez. He found himself “swimming through a fresh sea of blood, the scene opening in new and deeper colours.” The black army behaved with utter depravity during this new campaign, raping and torturing with undisguised glee. Pellow was horrified, witnessing “nothing but death and horror … for the space of some seven months.” Eight hundred of his European comrades were slaughtered, and he was once again wounded. “[I had] two musket shots in my left shoulder and fleshy part of my buttock,” he wrote. When he had recovered, he was sent to fight against truculent tribes in the interior of the country. Even this did not mark the end of his woes. In the autumn of 1731, the sultan ordered Pellow to take part in a slave-gathering expedition to Gu
inea, on the west coast of Africa.

  Pellow was deeply troubled by this news. “[It] really gave me some disquiet,” he wrote, “ … as being work cut out for me for at least two years.” He was now twenty-seven years of age and had survived countless dangers in the sixteen years since he had left his native England. This new voyage was certain to be extremely dangerous, for it involved crossing the vastness of the Sahara Desert, traversing wind-sculpted sands where water was rare or nonexistent. Entire caravans had gone missing in previous years—their terrible fate only discovered when search parties stumbled across bleached bones in the sand. The slave gathering itself was also a hazardous business, as the tribes of Guinea were ferociously hostile to such expeditions. Pellow feared that he would meet his end in some violent skirmish in equatorial Africa.

  Yet he retained a glimmer of hope that the expedition might facilitate his escape from Morocco. His caravan was heading for the River Senegal, a swamp-choked artery that discharged its waters into the Atlantic Ocean. French slave traders had been exploiting this river since the 1630s, and had built a little settlement on St. Louis Island at the mouth of the river. Pellow knew that if he could reach this trading post and make contact with the French, he stood a very real chance of securing a passage home.

  He had an even greater chance of success if he could press on toward the River Gambia, which lay some 150 miles to the south. There was a British slave-trading post on James Island, in the river estuary, which was permanently occupied. Pellow knew that the governor was almost certain to offer him refuge if he managed to reach it unscathed.

  Such hopes seemed remote as he contemplated the long journey ahead. The expedition was being planned on a truly grand scale, for which more than 12,000 camels had been assembled. As the Sahara could only be traversed in the six months between autumn and spring, preparations were extremely rushed. As soon as the camel train was ready, the caravan set off for the deep south.