Empire: World History - 53. Barbary Corsairs: Raiding the British isles

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Slave raids on the south coast of Britain. Islamic executioners from Exeter. North African pirates in the Mediterranean. The Barbary slave trade is quite extraordinary. Listen this week as William and Anita are joined by Nabil Matar to discuss it. Sign up to The Knowledge here: www.theknowledge.com/empire/ LRB Empire offer: lrb.me/empire This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/empirepod. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpower.com. And welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Dalrymple. So, today we are going to be talking about the Barbary slave trade. it's something, I mean, you might think it's something brand new to you, but we have actually touched upon this in Empire already during our Ottoman series. You will remember, and it was a

jaw-dropping fact for many people, me included, we talked about the slave raids taking place where Englishmen were lifted from Stepney Green, no less, in East London, and taken far, far away. And we just thought this was such a fascinating thing. We'd only scratched the surface of it, and we know how interested you were in it. So we have a... I've got the best man here we could think of to discuss this and dig into this story a bit further. It's Nabil Matar, Professor of the University of Minnesota, author of this great book, Britain and Barbary, 1589 to 1689. Welcome, Nabil. Thank you so much for being with this. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Nabil, I should say, is one of my favourite historians. And I remember very well walking down Charing Cross Road about 20 years ago and seeing in the window of an Islamic bookshop, His first great book that I came across certainly, Islam in Britain, 1558 to 1685. And I remember just pausing and thinking, there was Islam in Britain in 1558 to 1685. And I just sort of stopped, went straight into the bookshop and bought the book, which I do often do. And it was the beginning of a process of discovery of Nabil's books, which I have reviewed and loved and admired ever since then. And he has done extraordinary work bringing to life a whole world of early modern engagement between Europe and particularly Britain and the world of Islam, which are often considered to be two very different worlds. But Nabil's work has brought them together and shown how the extraordinary intimacy and strength of connection between, particularly Lisbith in England and Algeria, Morocco and the wider world of Islam.

And so, Nabil, as you know, from my many rave reviews of your work, I'm a huge, huge fan and delighted to get you on here. We are really very, very grateful. And it was one of the things that actually tantalised our audience the most was the kind of link that there existed between the Court of Elizabeth I. And, for example, the harems of the Ottoman Empire, you know, these are things that blew people's minds. It was amazing. Can we start this story at the end of the 16th century? I think first of all, it's really important to just state what we're talking about here. When we talk about the Barbary states, what are we talking about exactly?

First of all, the term itself, although I've used it earlier, I kind of discontinued using it, because Barbary is a term that was designed by European writers and historian, while you never find it in any Arabic source. And, of course, you find it in European maps, but not in local maps. So in a sense, it's a term, I don't know if it's pejorative or not, but it's a term that was imposed on that region. But the region basically was extending from Libya, modern-day Libya, through Tunisia, through Algeria, through Morocco.

These were the so-called Barbary states. And by the end of the 16th century, they've kind of more or less disengaged from their control by the Ottoman metropolis, I mean, in Istanbul. We got some criticism, in fact, Because we talked about this area as being part of the Ottoman world in earlier episodes, and several people pointed out that by the 17th century, certainly, that this was not Ottoman territory.

These were independent kingdoms. Well, the Ottomans were there through their genocaries and through sometimes the local government, but they had lost powers. But they were there until kind of basically the second part of the 17th century who still had base who were appointed from Istanbul coming with maybe like 2,000 or 3,000 genocaries, but really not having enough power or presence there as much as they had before. They're still within the kind of sphere, but not the sphere of influence. So we hear the term Barbary in Shakespeare,

and another term that we hear in Shakespeare is Moorish or the Moors, or, you know, through Othello, the most famous Moor of all time. Who were the Moors? Where did they live? Well, the term is morose. I mean, the term is based, it's coming from, again, European context, but chiefly, if we're talking about Moors, we're talking about kind of communities in North Africa who kind of were darker skin rather than the average, because again, there's a kind of mixed of populations in that region, where you had Ottomans who were, you know, different,

and you had the kind of local Arab and Berber populations. So the term is very vague, but ultimately we can say that Moors were the North Africans and Turks were seen to be the Ottomans coming from Istanbul, from Anatolia. So these are the two groups that were always mentioned in all the records, whether in literary works or in governmental texts. And, Nabil, in your wonderful book on the relationship of that part of the world with the Elizabethan court, you pulled together some extraordinary connections. Just give us a brief outline of what the connection between the Elizabethans and Barbary were. Well, Elizabeth was afraid of Spain, and therefore it wanted to establish contacts and relations with North Africa as an outlet and perhaps as an alternative to, well, it was an alternative.

And so the result was that Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth established contacts with North Africa, particularly in Morocco, because Morocco is the most powerful and the richest of the region. and as of 16, 1588, I mean, after the Armada, the kind of, you know, the relations developed quite strongly, ambassadors were exchanged, there was kind of an exchange of trade, there was exchange of military equipment, you know, England wanted Salt Peter, the North Africans wanted, or Moroccans wanted weapons, but I think one of the interesting things is kind of a proposition by the Moroccan ruler, Sulta Ahmed bin Mansook. that actually Morocco and England should join together invading Florida so that they can get rid of Spanish present. It's a brilliant, brilliant thing. It was not an idea that she took up, but he was actually excited about that. And he told her that, you know, you just help us with that.

And then, you know, you guys can't come and leave here. It's too hot. We'd send our own people to live in Florida. It was just an idea. It never worked. It's a remarkable, remarkable story. It was a really lucrative partnership for both sides equally. It was basically an attempt to circumvent Spanish peasants.

I mean, Spain was still the power that was feared. I mean, England was, you know, up until 1588, that was the main enemy. And then, of course, Spain continued to be a main enemy. But it would have been a very, very kind of, you know, a strong kind of interaction between the two, where Morocco had the goal, the wealth which it was getting from sub-Saharan Africa, and Britain or England at the time, had the military and the naval capability, which was needed. So it would have been a very beneficial, mutually beneficial. And, Nabil, one of the extraordinary things that you come up with in your work

is the number of Brits who voluntarily converted to Islam at this point and refused to go back and refused to reconvert when there was pressure on them to do so. That's very true, particularly after 1604 when King James kind of established peace with Spain and therefore discontinued naval activity and piracy, particular piracy against Spain, then many kind of wanted to find alternatives. And yes, many who kind of ended up in North Africa, whether, you know, of their own choice or not, and then found that that's a place where they could reside, they could, if they chose, they could convert.

But as long as they had some kind of, you know, profession, they were highly desirable. And so they were highly welcome, whether as mercenies and armies, or they're trainers, or they're builders. And, you know, you find reference to them throughout the Arabic sources as, you know, assisting in various enterprises there. So, yes. There's a lovely quote which you have in your book, and you said that Charles II sent Captain Hamilton to ransom and some Englishmen who'd been enslaved in the Barbary Coast. This mission was unsuccessful as they refused to return. The men had converted to Islam, risen in the ranks and were now, quote, partaking of the prosperous success of the Turks, living in a style to which they could not possibly have espired back home. And the frustrated Captain Hamilton was forced to return empty-handed.

And this is his quote when his official report. They are tempted to forsake their God for the love of Turkish women, he wrote. Such ladies, he added, are generally very beautiful. That's true. I mean, there was conversion, and it may well have been. because of ladies, but also because of meritocracy, that, you know, if you were there and you had a profession and it was kind of rewarded, then you kind of established yourself in society, unlike in English society where you had to have lineage and, you know, ancestry to kind of rise

in status. Now, we can understand the interest in gold. We can even maybe some of us understand the interest in ladies, but there was also an enormous interest in things like currents, And we should really explain why currents had such currency at the time. Currents were coming from the eastern part of Mediterranean. From North Africa, it was mainly gold, it was mainly saltpeter, it was mainly kind of animal skins. It was also horses. I think one of the most important kind of imports, where horses, particularly in the 18th century, and of course Shakespeare mentions that even Nothello, the Barbary horse.

So there was, you know, that kind of resource was very much in demand. especially when there were continental wars and Britain and England was fighting on the continent and needed support in that respect. But tell us, Nebiel, about some of the darker links between the two, because you do have the beginning of a very active slave trade and the quarry in this case is North Europeans and in this case specifically Englishmen. Yeah, I mean, definitely from the end of the, I mean, perhaps earlier, but definitely the records that we have of actual, you know, slaves being held or captive being held.

I distinguish between captives and slaves. Captives could be ransomed, slaves were kind of eternal and, you know, permanent there. But in the British case, in the English case, and in really all European cases, they were captives. And, yes, there were large numbers of captives taken for various reasons. Again, I think one does tend to ignore the fact, you know, why were they taken captive? First of all, some of them were mercenaries. So they were there fighting with adversaries of whoever captured them. Some were selling arms where, you know, the local government would find these subversive.

Some were innocent traders who were kind of just happened to be in the wrong place at the own time. I mean, so it's a variety of people. Largely, largely men, very, very few women. I mean, in my kind of counting, because I've done that in another project, I counted all, I listed all the names. of all the captives I could find in all the records I could consult from basically the middle of the 16th century until the middle of the 18th century. And I came up with around 3,500 to 4,000 actually named slaves, so captive. So we know that, you know, William Darimple was there as a captive.

I don't want generalization. And among these, maybe around under 100 were women who were captured. And it's very interesting. First of all, they were ransom sometimes. Sometimes they were ignored. Sometimes you're told that, you know, some women were taken, you know, by an attack on a coastal village and nobody bothered to ransom them. Some were ransom. Some were ransomed with their children.

And some of them had their babies with them. So either they had them there or, you know, or had babies. And what's interesting is that they were welcomed back in English society. I mean, they were not marked. They were not stigmatized. Because who knows what happened? I mean, we don't know. but in a sense they were accepted back.

Nabil, you talk about a ritual for reconversion in one of your books. That's true. I mean, that was kind of instituted by Archbishop Lord, because it's a time where there was kind of a lot of conversion as a result of the fact that, you know, England was undergoing major changes in the 1620s, 1630s, and there was migration, particularly going to the Americas, and they were captured on the road.

And many kind of, yeah, converted. I mean, why not? I mean, it was an advantage to convert. And again, if you're looking at the sailor, how much did he know about his religion? So they converted, you know, and Islam just expects you to say, you know, just a witness. So they converted. Now, when somehow for various reasons they went back home, they wanted to ensure that, you know, they are back in the fold of Christianity. So there was this long ritual of kind of readmission into the church around three weeks of that.

And, yeah, finally they were remitted, but it was also an issue of, you know, how do you verify that somebody who had converted really serious about his reconversion? So it was a very complicated business, but it didn't last too long, by the way. I mean, that conveying, I mean, which was actually also a model after a French example of, again, a ritual reconversion. But in a sense, you know, it was necessary for that period, after which there are no references to it. Nabil, I still think we need to clarify who was doing the slaving. I mean, we've heard and we've talked about on this podcast about sort of men being taken from the Cornish coast or from the Thames Estuary. Who is taking them?

And is it an organized slave trade? Like, you know, we have the Royal Africa Company in our minds at the moment. But who was doing this and how organized were they? In terms of organization, there was no kind of institution in terms of carrying out slave trade. These were basically ships that were financed by the local government with input from both local communities and the Turkish kind of elite. And the Turkish elite were genocaries. I mean, these were the better fighters, so to speak. And it was basically an attempt to kind of get back at what had been gotten back.

And they were there because Europeans had been in North Africa. I mean, in a sense, it was their reaction to the fact that nearly from Agadir, from Santa Cruz, all the way to Tunis, there were, you know, basically settlements, European settlements. So, I mean, in a way they were reacting at that. It was also a fact of making money. I mean, they would grab people, bring them back. Either they would be ransomed or they could integrate if they chose. And converting or not didn't matter.

Most cases they did, but they didn't. But basically, it was a matter of, yeah, and it was a matter of, yeah, income. Either we can make money by having them ransomed or we can exchange them by captives taken by Europeans, either Italians or Maltese or Spanish. You have lots of accounts where the English went around trying to find captives in other parts of Europe in order to exchange them with their own. Who's organizing this? This is the initiative of individual captains? The local governor. I mean, basically the two big spots were Saleh and Algiers. I mean, you know, AAA, Tunis, they had their own, but they're more or less operated in the eastern side of

Mediterranean. And again, the sort of numbers, if you take, you've said relatively no numbers of the ones we know by name, but estimates of the kind of of the number of European slaves in a place like Saleh, can you make that? I mean, that's difficult to come up with, but I mean, the names, as I say, are just around 4,000, but there are references to 2,000, 6,000. 8,000 in various parts. So it's very difficult to come up with an actual number to say this is how many people were taken. But numbers were there. I mean, there are high numbers. The point is that they're

coming from, you know, very, very small societies in England, very poor society. And that's why, in a sense, there was this momentum to try and bring them back because the parish isn't want to sustain families without the breadwinners. So that's why they're there was there. But in terms of numbers, it's very, very difficult. And as I say, I mean, one has to be very careful in saying, you know, what the numbers were. I mean, estimates are there and scholars have done that, but I don't know. I mean, this is difficult to final life. Okay. I mean, the concept of having a hostage makes sense, you know, a concept of taking a man and saying, you know, we will ransom him. Either you pay us and you can have him back or you exchange him for a prisoner swap. But slavery

in of itself is something different, isn't it? It's forcing somebody to labor without money and what's that happening to the slaves that were the people who were taken? That's why I like to prefer, I prefer to use this term captive because, I mean, they were not slaves. Slaves, I look at them as permanent. Captives were exchangeable. And when they were captured, depending where, depending who, depending who, I mean, it's a very kind of mixed picture. But once, and the stories we have from various captives who wrote about their experiences after they turned to England is that, you know, they were put to work and they were paid. And sometimes they had their own kind of income.

And we have stories about captives who actually smuggled some of their money out of Algeria back to their families in England. So it wasn't free. I mean, yes, they were captive. I mean, they couldn't leave. They were, it's against their will. But they were given labor. And they made money. I mean, it's not a big.

And that's why many of them stayed because, in a sense, they felt it was a kind of much more comfortable, much more reliable kind of livelihood. there than elsewhere. What Hamilton caused the prosperous success of the Turks? Yeah, one captive who actually wrote his own account, or somebody wrote it for him and the, but one captive at one occasion during kind of 16th, during the Civil War in England, kind of, you know, had to reflect whether he should go back or not. He says, well, I have a good life here. I mean, I'm a captive, but my master treats me well. He pays me so, you know, it's a great life. And why should I go back to England where it's uncertain and, you know, future is dangerous. So, but he does go. I mean, that's free. But in a sense, you know, there is that tension between kind of a comfortable, you know,

comfortable for somebody who is from the lowest social class in England, you know, a sailor who has nothing in life or, you know, a farmer who is captured, you know, and having a manageable way of living in captivity. Okay. I mean, so I'm trying to picture this and it, to me, it feels more like indentured servitude than it does slavery. In a way. You're having payment for it. Does that mean, though, because again, when we talk about slavery, we often talk about people who are enslaved for the generations to come,

that your child will also be a slave or your grandchild? That's not the case here, is it? No, that's not the case. I mean, as I say, they were also always ransomable or exchangeable, as long as the price is right. You know, they would go back. Or they would die. I mean, again, conditions.

very difficult. Sure, but if you didn't have a ransom paid for you, if you were like this Cornish sailor who's living on subsistence in England, and then you're taken somewhere else to Algeria or wherever it is you end up, and you're working for somebody for whatever they decide that they're going to remunerate you for as an indentured labourer. If you then fall in love and get married and have a child, are you allowed to do that as an indentured Cornishman living somewhere in one of these countries? a male cannot marry a female I'm a Muslim woman

so he's going to have to convert which means that he integrates so he kind of basically loses his English or Cornish identity is going to be completely integrated the only way sometimes we know about captives who did integrate is because in Arabic they would always add a kind of an adjective that

you know so and so and so and so and so and Ranglii yeah they would mention that and actually in the 18th century there's one kind of slain slave whose name is Ahmed el-Englisi, who actually bent a mosque in Rabat. So, I mean, you know, they have to integrate. So your ideas, you know, if they stay and get married, they have to get married to a local woman.

There weren't English women or Cornish women who were, you know, all around the place. It's not like North America where, you know, women were taken over to be married. This is obviously not the case. But sometimes, I mean, again, depending where, but sometimes in the second part of the 17th century in McNess, we have kind of separate zones for captives. And if captives are families, they stay together. So if you know, you were traveling to, basically sailing to North America and you were captured with your wife and daughter or son,

you were actually kept in one specific zone for families. So depending where, depending how. But to marry a local means conversion, to convert means integration. You can't go back. You can't go back easily. Is Inglisi's mosque in Rabat still there? Can we go around the English mosque? It's actually, I have pictures of it in one of my books.

Yeah, I went there and visited the inside. Yeah, I mean, it's not to have been built by him. So, I mean, there's nothing distinct in a sense. It's just a regular mosque. Nabil, you talk in your book about Sir Thomas Rowe, who's a figure that's in the press a lot at the moment because it's just been a biography of him written, which I hope we'll be talking about later in the series.

But you mentioned that he complains that not enough money is being collected in parishes to be spent on ransoms. There's a crisis because these guys are languishing in North Africa and there was bothering to redeem them. Yeah. I think that was the main problem in England and that's why the issue of captivity becomes such a prominent issue, is that there are no ecclesiastical or royal institutions that tried to kind of ransom captives. And the way that in France or Spain, you had actually ecclesiastical institutions, mercadarians, the redemptonists, who went out with money collected either from local parishes or given to them by the monarchy.

That's what the redemptionists are when you see a redemptionist church. They're there to redeem captives taken by the moors. They were redeeming captives. And you don't have that in England. That was part of the problem is that there was no institution. That would be individual. The captive writes a letter back home. The father goes to somebody, asks for help.

I mean, all the parish collects a bit of money. then they have to give it to somebody the ransom. You don't know whether ransom is going to run off with the money or get to go off and actually do ransom. So that's where we get our information about how ransom occurred, is that we have records of sometimes names of captives who are ransomed, who are brought back. But sometimes we have letters by chiefly women who write and saying,

well, you know, we gave money to so-and-so. Nothing happened. You know, where's the money? I'm fascinated in the way in which they basically went window shopping around the British Isles. I mean, you know, this great success in Ireland, you know, sort of travelling quite audaciously up through the Thames or to the coast of Cornwall or the Bristol Channel

or the straits between England and Ireland. I mean, how and who was this successful and this audacious to do this? Who are we talking about? And why is the Navy not doing anything to stop them? Yeah. Well, I mean, the Navy builds up, you know, in the 1630s and 40s. And by the time of Cromwell, the Navy is powerful enough to put kind of more or less restrict the activities of the pirates, although they continue kind of coming in. But what's interesting is that many of these ships that kind of ended up in that part of, you know, either in Britain or in England or an island, is because they had local converts who kind of basically navigated them.

I mean, how would somebody in Alger know about, you know, a village up in an island? I mean, they had local converts who had joined them, became part of the whole community, game, you know, made a living, and they navigated. And we know that because, for instance, the one who attacked the Irish village, Murat Reyes, was actually from Algeria, but he was a convert. He was a Dutch convert. So, I mean, and in England, you had John Ward. I mean, he's not stories.

Tell us about him. What's his story? John Ward was an English pirate who, when King James kind of decided to discontinue piracy against Spain, well, where does he turn? He turned to the Mediterranean. And so he actually joined, goes and lives in Tunisia, gets very wealthy, and because he was well-trained in navigational technology, actually is able to attack and kind of, you know, take captives. Now, he always claimed he never took English captive.

But who knows? but when he was visited in 1615 by, you know, Scots traveler, I mean, he was amazed at the number, you know, the wealth that he had. But he was English and, you know, clearly he must have converted. And who's the Scots traveler? Tell us this story. Who's the Scotsman wandering around pirate dens in? The traveler was let go and he stops in, I mean, he was going to the only land, he was going to Palestine. And he stops and he kind of goes by sea.

and so he stops in various cities in, you know, coastal city in North Africa. And he visits John Ward, and he describes him. And, you know, and you can imagine. I mean, people in England reading about somebody who was English, went there, made money. You know, he was very wealthy. I mean, the description is that he has a harem. Now, we don't know if that's accurate, but that's how he described it. And so readers would have loved that.

Did John Ward convert? Did he become Absalom Ward? The only reference I found of him was in a late 17th century Tunisian text who mentions his name, along with another Dutch version. Now, he doesn't mention whether they convert in a lot, but I mean, I think it goes without saying that for him to have his substance so well. I mean, what does it take to convert? As I say, one sentence in terms of witnessing to God and to the prophet. And that is it. I mean, it's not a theology that he had to learn.

And what's interesting is that, you know, he dies of the plague in, I think, 1621 or 22. But a play in England was kind of written in 1611, just at the time of the tempest, where he is actually killed off in the play. And it's called a Christian turned Turk. So they didn't like the idea that, you know, somebody like him can go there and make money and convert and make money. So they actually end of the plea, they kill him off. But he was still happily living. I mean, I'm thinking there are lots of things that England won't like about this.

I mean, that's one of the least of their problems. But there's also, surely, for a reigning monarch, and I'm thinking probably this applies more to James I first than anyone else, the fact that you've got somebody pilfering your men, your young men, from your own country and taking the way, what were the ramifications for the English monarch that this was happening?

Why would they care? I mean, these are kind of sailors. These are can nobody's. You know, I mean, nobody. See, the whole point is, that nobody cared about the captives, except their families, of course, the parishes, the parish because they didn't want to sustain families without the breadwinner, and the trading communists, because they relied on them, you know, to sail the ships. But why would the monarch care? I mean, why would the royal courts care? I mean, these are nobody. So that's why,

in a sense, throughout the 17th century, I mean, it was sporadic when the monarch would intervene. Otherwise, it was the trading companies, and they would charter their own individual ransomers if they had the money and the will. And the poor families and the parishes just had to take it. But we have stories about, you know, King James being followed and by women asking for help, we have all the petitions. Women kind of signing petition.

I mean, the first Me Too movement in Europe. Was bringing back my husband? Women assembled together, signed. I don't know if they signed or maybe just done, but anyway, we have, you know, they demanded action from the monarch, from parliament, nobody can't I mean who cares about this sailor nabil we have to take a break in a second but before we do you must tell us one of my favorite stories that we briefly referred to in an earlier pod

this is this english captive who gets captured in a sea battle in 1648 taken to algeria's and is made to put to work as a cook but this proves a mistake because his cooking is so terrible that he gets sent back to the slave this can't be a true story how could this be a bad English cook. What's the source for this? You know, the English were the most active writers about captivity. I mean, we have an account of captivity every 10 years. And so we have by far more information about how they viewed the whole experience than

other Europeans. I mean, you know, the French, the Spanish didn't write as much. The English were writing constantly. And so we have really a very mixed and very complicated image of how captivity was. Somewhere, as I say, perfectly okay as long as they could make a living. Some, you know, like to play the role of the martyr. You know, we're here because, you know, we're suffering because of, you know, we're Christians, etc. And, you know, others try to escape.

And some did. And then they wrote about it. In this account, you say that his master says he made such mad sources and strange ragu that has such a loathsome taste that he gives him 10 bastinados as a punishment. I don't know. I mean, that account is kind of a bit imaginative. So I don't know. But it was entertaining.

I mean, that's the whole point. They were writing text because they wanted to sell. And so in a sense, they were appealing to an audience who, you know, 10 bastinados. I mean, of course, that would not have gone down well. But the texts are complicated in that respect. You don't know how much truth there is in them or how much they're just kind of projecting an image or how much they're actually accurate. And many of them seem to be specifically accurate in terms of geography, particularly if they don't get published. You know, they kind of, then we know that they wrote them just for themselves and they wanted to keep a record.

While if they're writing because they want to, you know, sell them, then they would kind of, you know, elaborate on them. You're raising the issue of accuracy, and I'm glad you did because join us after the break when we'll talk about numbers again, because Nabil has done the work, has gone through the books, has counted the names. but there are some pretty extraordinary claims out there about the number of people who are enslaved. Join us after the break. Welcome back. Now, Nabil, you were speaking to us about the kind of work you've done identifying the names of people and where they may have been taken. And you said it numbers in the thousands. There are those, and I'm thinking of one particular historian called Robert Davis, who says that the pirates of Barbary enslaved between 1 to 1.25 million.

people. Now, can we just talk about that for a minute? Because there's a big gap between you and him. So where is that coming from? Well, that was the reason why I did what I did. I mean, I was taking aback by the figure that I saw. And I decided I'm going to look at one country, which is Great Britain, because I know it well, and I know the archives, I know everything. And what I'm going to do is go and basically try and find every name of every captive that I could find, which I did. I mean, as far as I could find. I mean, obviously there must be some. And of course, and that's what I came around with 3500 to 4,000. Now, of course, there were more. Of course there were, I mean, there's no question about that. But Britain, you know, was from the beginning of the 17th century,

was one of the two more powerful countries in the Mediterranean. Later, it'll be France. So when we look at Britain and France, these were the more active countries with their navies, with their merchant pleats, et cetera, in the region, in the Mediterranean. If one country like Britain, which had active trading with the Eastern Mediterranean, if their records show only this small number, even if you multiply it by, you know, add another 10,000, 15,000, you're never going to get to that number, to the million. I mean, that's Britain. I mean, and then if you look at France, again, the numbers that you have there will never reach

that number, and the same with others. So, you know, this is really interesting because in this conversation that we're having in Britain about slavery and about Britain's part in slavery and the British Empire's role in slavery, it is often brought up. Well, you know, all empires do this. Of course, British people are also slaves at one point. I mean, first of all, what you're describing doesn't sound strictly to me the same as being manacled and being tied and badly treated and then your children and your children's children and everybody else who comes after you will also be a slave. It's It feels different. I think it sounds more to me like indentured labour. Yeah. But also where you're saying that people who had a terrible life in England can have a better life elsewhere, also the numbers. So, I mean, what do you think about those people who bring up this comparison, that, you know, all empires are bad and, you know, Brits were enslaved to and making a moral equivalence of this? Even a numerical equivalent in some cases often claimed. Yeah, I mean, first of all, captivity and slavery are bad.

And whoever commits, I mean, there's no question, whether it commits against Britain or against North Africans, I mean, because everybody was doing it. And so, I mean, let's make that very clear. There's no kind of justification. But in terms of empire, I mean, yes, empires do that. But, I mean, the North Africans at the time had no defense mechanisms against the kind of attacks that later would be carried out by Britain and France and basically demolish whole sea towns. I mean, British attacked Tripoli, the French attacked Algiers. I mean, they leveled them. I mean, thousands and thousands of bombs were thrown at this area. What data, what date you're talking about? The attack, the French attacks on Algiers were twice in the 1680s. The attack on Tripoli by

Britain was 1675. And there were earlier attacks. The point is that from the middle of the 17th century, the European, basically Britain and France, developed long-range projectiles, which the North Africans never had. And for obscure reason, never. received from the Ottomans. I mean, the Ottomans had them, but they would never send them to them. And so the result was that the bridge fleet could kind of, you know, be at, you know, at a distance and simply, you know, cast these projectile, demolishing the whole place. And we have descriptions of actually people who survived this and telling you this was a day of judgment. I mean, they had never seen anything from that. So in terms of empire, I mean, you know, there are no

North African empires. They're small kind of city-state. The others are much more organized and they are thinking in a larger scope, which is where, you know, yes, these are imperial, initial imperial ventures. And that's all. I mean, the North Africans had no way of retaliating. They never bombarded or attacked Portsmouth in the way that the British attacked Tripoli. Just but going back to this idea of people taken from their homes, I mean, I still, I still to see and feel and understand that, you know, you've got this, this poor Cornishman who's taken away from his home, his family, the people who love him, the people who are petitioning James the First and not being listened to, who have children to raise and all of that. What happens

to him? Because, I mean, at the moment, it sounds like, you know, he could have a lovely life, but I'm absolutely convinced that that can't be so. You don't take somebody and, no, I mean, it can't be like a holiday camp, surely. So what was their treatment then? So how were they treated. Yeah, no, no, I agree. In no way will I say it's a holiday. So tell me what happened to those who nobody paid for or cared about. They either stayed there and died, or they converted and managed to kind of continue living a better life. No, but stayed there and died. I mean, were they put to work, were they beaten? Were they starved? I mean, I think we need to talk about that because it's not that they just suddenly expired because nobody want them. Okay, they arrive there on a ship.

Whatever the reason is, they are captured. They are brought. to the, you know, let's take Algiers. It's the kind of, it was one of the bigger centers of sales. They brought there, they're divied up, you know, one, and a certain number goes to the ruler, to the local governor, the others, and are kind of

divided among the sailors and among the shipmaster, etc. Each will take whatever number of captives they've come up with. Then they put them, either they put them to sail, they sell them, or they keep them themselves. Now, once they're kept there, they could either be working in the

of the owner, which was usually okay, or in the fields, which means a farmer, or they could basically be taken as galley slaves, so that basically they're rowing. Now, depending if they stay on in that, the worst condition was to be on a galley ship, because that is, you know, that's devastating. Do we have any estimates of the sort of life expectancy of galley slaves? How long would you last in an Algerian galley? I don't know. I mean, it's just that some of the lists I had where, you know, you have a list of the names of the captives. You have many who died. Now, how they died, I don't know. But one main kind of cause of that was if they served on the galley's.

How much they lived, you know, depending on their physique, on their strength, but we don't know. But that was the worst condition. Okay. But on the galley's, and we've talked about this when we did the Ottoman Empire, the conditions were appalling. I mean, they were chained together. They didn't have any space for their things. Those who were promoted had a little more space. We had wonderful Barnaby Rogerson describing about having,

if you were a preferred and an obedient slave, you would have a little porthold to put your belongings out of. And if not, you would just sit in your own filth and life would be miserable. Yeah, no, absolutely. On a galley, I mean, it's always going to be tough. Those who are kept on farms or in households clearly had a better experience. some of them ended up kind of working for the governors and traveling around the region. More importantly is that to a large extent, but not always, to a large extent,

conversion could get you out of your captivity. Was that an option open to everybody? Could everyone choose to convert and get their... Absolutely. I mean, conversion was definitely encouraged. But whether they would be freed or not was always kind of dependent on the owner. But the kind of the card is the local kind of government would actually urge the many mission of captives, of slaves. That is there.

Whether they did that or not, obviously varied. And many of the European sources would tell you that don't count on conversion to get you out of slavery. On the other hand, you know, what you see in the Arabic source is that, you know, conversion did get people out of slavery. They ended up kind of, you know, getting, I mean, settling down. I mean, and that's it, integrating in the new society. So I think that's a major difference in the two contexts, that, you know, the empires were empires. They had a larger vision of how to kind of dominate and move beyond their limit. These were not empires.

I mean, these were city-states, more or less, within, you know, kingdoms, you know, Morocco's kingdom. I mean, and, you know, the other states were kind of limited in their scope. but what they were trying to do is also kind of get people to work. I mean, they needed populations. And that's why, in a sense, the early captives were integrated because they wanted people. They needed. I mean, if you're good at something, they would take you in. If you converted, that's better.

But if you didn't, they take you in. If we captured you and you had a good profession that you can use, yeah, I mean, soon and soon enough you can make enough money to buy your own freedom. So, I mean, it was much more flexible than. the mothers in America. And Nabil, in your books, you have many examples of characters such as Absalom the Moorish Kings Executioner, who turns out to be in an earlier life a butcher from Exeter, but who's risen up in the service, or there's that character from Great Yarmouth who becomes a eunuch in the Ottoman court. There do seem to be these elevators available

in this system, whereby someone that is captured, if he converts, can rise up in service. In most cases, yes, and I would say that that kind of option was basically up until the end of the 17th century. After that, these areas from Morocco to Algeria become extremely impoverished. They don't longer kind of attract the attention of people seeking a new life. I mean, then it's kind of the Americas that takes over. But in terms of the, in terms from the Elizabethan period on, until I would say the restoration, yes, there are numerous examples of men who write. in status. And many of the names of naval commanders are, you know, the lists will mention,

so on so, a renegade. I mean, these are Europeans, I think. When the Arabs are writing, they will just mention the name of the country, El Genoa from Genoa or Namsawi from Ramsa. So, I mean, they will tell you, so you would know that. But, you know, by the 18th century, that's gone. I mean, it's no longer an option because these countries don't have anything to offer. And you also talk about how at the same time you've got a growing sea power from Britain, that under Cromwell, the Navy gets far more efficient at taking on the Barbary Pirates, and that that earlier ability they had to snatch people and to dominate the seas so that they were much feared diminishes under Cromwell. I think Cromwell was the first, you know,

ruler, to recognize that the trading companies are very important and that they needed kind of governmental support, parliamentary support. I think that was a problem with James and Charles, that both of them kind of ignored them. I mean, they didn't care about them. He recognizes that trade in the Mediterranean, as well as elsewhere, but definitely trade in the Mediterranean was crucial to, you know, the financial situation in England and therefore, you know, advance the Navy as a means of support. And as I say, associated with that, the development of the long-range projectile, once you have these two things together, then the numbers are going of bridge captives is going to definitely decline. And the only captives are going to be there

are captives who kind of basically ships, sinks near a Moroccan coast or Algerian coast, then the men are captured and taken. But in terms of actual attacks at sea, it's going to be much, much less. And, you know, we know that because, you know, by the time, by the early 18th century, I mean, they're not the, you know, North African ships are not even allowed to kind of enter into European waters. I mean, particularly England. I mean, Queen Anne makes it a point that you're not, you know, you're not allowed to sail in the, in the channel. And they had no cloud by that time. It's gone. And so by this point, the same time that the Cromwellian fleets are developing these projectiles, improved cannons, taking on the Barbary vines, is also the same period that the

slave trade is really getting going within Britain, that they're not only no longer being in slaves, but they're actively becoming slavers at the same time. That's true. But they have been that for a long while. And, you know, let's not forget that Tangier becomes a British colony in 1662 or 61, and they will have North African captives there as slaves. So this is a British colony with its own slave force. And we have the names of the slaves. I might not write the peeps actually ends up in Tangiers at one point and writes his diary from there. Yeah, yeah.

Well, he worked with the Navy, so I mean, he's involved in that. But you have actually a list of the names of the slaves, the North African slaves, who were in Tangier. And the reason is because, you know, they wanted to keep track of them. And obviously they were dispersed, you know, everybody, whoever had his own slaves. So you have, you know, we have the names and the owners of that. So, I mean, yeah, you know, slavery was, everybody was doing that. It just depends what the options were if you were captured. That's kind of basically it.

In the North African scene, you could convert and get out of your kind of socioeconomic, you know, condition. Or not convert, not always conversionism necessarily. while, you know, for slaves in the Americas or slaves elsewhere, you know, convert or no convert, you're going to stay as a slave. So that was a major fool. The other thing is that there's no, there's no structure. There's no imperial structure that governed them. And these were separate city-states, often fighting with each other or aligning themselves with Europeans, either France or Britain, and then fighting, you know, capturing Britons because they're on the side of France or capturing Frenchmen because they're on side of Britain. So, and then protected, obviously,

the British fleet or the French fleet. I mean, by the end of the 17th century, they've lost their club. I mean, you know, they're still there. They're still trying to kind of, you know, keep business going, but they're no longer in any way able to threaten that. And as I say, the list of the captives that we have, the list of name, were nearly all captured after their ships sank rather than at open sea. So, Nabil, so far, we've been talking a lot about the British slaves that ended up in Barbary states, what do we know of North African slaves and where they end up and who's taking them and what are they doing with them? In Britain and England, at least at the very beginning of the 17th century, there were captives who were kept in England and there were discussions of what to

do with them, you know, some were to be hanged, some, you know, but more in terms of France, in terms of Spain, in terms of Italy, in terms of Malta, they had thousands of North African captives, much more than Britain. And the reason England didn't do that is because they didn't need the galley slaves. The others still needed them. England developed its own naval technology which kind of marginalized the need for, you know, the rowers, while France continued to rely on that for quite a while, and therefore they needed late. And therefore, you have thousands of slaves there, and we have, the lists are there. So, I mean, we know who they are. And the French actually kind of, you know, looked at slaves, and they described them, how they look, what kind of marks they had on their

faces, et cetera. I mean, we have actual description of these slaves, plus the fact that in ecclesiastical art, so many cathedrals in Western Europe, even all the way to Bucharest, you find slaves, you know, you find the kind of the cardinal or the monarch, you know, and under him are the slaves. So, I mean, this was a common feature in European society. Now, North African didn't have the kind of, you know, figure a lot, but in a sense, as I say, they opened up the door for possible integration. But in all cases, whether there or in North Africa, slavery is a horrible thing.

I mean, everybody suffered. There's no question. Once you're captured, you lose your freedom, you lose contact with your family. I mean, it's horrible. And what do you do? What do you do? Nabil, we're so grateful to you. Thank you very much.

It's absolutely fascinating. It's an door on a world that most people will know nothing about. So thank you very much indeed. That is all from us on Empire this week. It's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. Goodbye from me, William Duremberg.