The slave narrative is a type of literary genre involving the (written) autobiographical accounts of enslaved persons, particularly Africans enslaved in the Americas, though many other examples exist. Over six thousand such narratives are estimated to exist; about 150 narratives were published as separate books or pamphlets. In the United States during the Great Depression (1930s), more than 2,300 additional oral histories on life during slavery were collected by writers sponsored and published by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program. Most of the 26 audio-recorded interviews are held by the Library of Congress.
The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Tripolitan War and the Barbary Coast War, was a conflict during the Barbary Wars, in which the United States and Sweden fought against Tripolitania. Tripolitania had declared war against Sweden and the United States over disputes regarding tributary payments made by both states in exchange for a cessation of Tripolitatian commerce raiding at sea. United States President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay this tribute. Sweden had been at war with the Tripolitans since 1800. The First Barbary War was the first major American war fought outside the New World, and in the Arab world.
The Barbary Wars were a series of two wars fought by the United States, Sweden, and the Kingdom of Sicily against the Barbary states and Morocco of North Africa in the early 19th century. Sweden had been at war with the Tripolitans since 1800 and was joined by the newly independent US. The First Barbary War extended from 10 May 1801 to 10 June 1805, with the Second Barbary War lasting only three days, ending on 19 June 1815. The Barbary Wars were the first major American war fought entirely outside the New World, and in the Arab World.
The Second Barbary War (1815) or the U.S.–Algerian War was fought between the United States and the North African Barbary Coast states of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. The war ended when the United States Senate ratified Commodore Stephen Decatur's Algerian treaty on 5 December 1815. However, Dey Omar Agha of Algeria repudiated the US treaty, refused to accept the terms of peace that had been ratified by the Congress of Vienna, and threatened the lives of all Christian inhabitants of Algiers. William Shaler was the US commissioner in Algiers who had negotiated alongside Decatur, but he fled aboard British vessels during the 1816 bombardment of Algiers. He negotiated a new treaty in 1816 which was not ratified by the Senate until 11 February 1822, because of an oversight.
The Barbary Coast was the name given to the coastal regions of central and western North Africa or more specifically the Maghreb and the Ottoman borderlands consisting of the regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, as well as the Sultanate of Morocco from the 16th to 19th centuries. The term originates from the exonym of the Berbers.
The Barbary pirates, Barbary corsairs, or Ottoman corsairs were mainly Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from the Barbary states. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, in reference to the Berbers. Slaves in Barbary could be of many ethnicities, and of many different religions, such as Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing merchant ships, they engaged in razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in the British Isles, the Netherlands, and Iceland.
White slavery refers to the slavery of Europeans, whether by non-Europeans, or by other Europeans. Slaves of European origin were present in ancient Rome and in the Islamic world, such as the Arab slave trade, the Barbary slave trade, the Black Sea slave trade and the Ottoman Empire.
Captivity narratives are usually stories of people captured by enemies whom they consider uncivilized, or whose beliefs and customs they oppose. The best-known captivity narratives in North America are those concerning Europeans and Americans taken as captives and held by the indigenous peoples of North America. These narratives have had an enduring place in literature, history, ethnography, and the study of Native peoples.
James Leander Cathcart was an American diplomat, slave, and sailor of Irish descent. He is notable for his narrative as a slave in Algiers, Ottoman Algeria, for eleven years.
The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of slaves have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.
Slave raiding is a military raid for the purpose of capturing people and bringing them from the raid area to serve as slaves. Once seen as a normal part of warfare, it is nowadays widely considered a crime. Slave raiding has occurred since antiquity. Some of the earliest surviving written records of slave raiding come from Sumer. Kidnapping and prisoners of war were the most common sources of African slaves, although indentured servitude or punishment also resulted in slavery.
James Riley was the captain of the United States merchant ship Commerce.
The Turkish Abductions were a series of slave raids by pirates from Algier that took place in Iceland in the summer of 1627.
The Barbary slave trade involved the capture and selling of European slaves at slave markets in the Barbary states. European slaves were captured by African Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns from Italy to the Netherlands, Ireland and the southwest of Britain, as far north as Iceland and into the Eastern Mediterranean.
Robert Adams was a twenty-five-old American sailor who claimed to be enslaved in North Africa for three years, from 1810 to 1814. During this time, he claimed to have visited Timbuktu, which would have made him the first Westerner to reach the city, though his narrative is dubious. Upon his stated liberation and return to Europe, Adams' story was published in two heavily edited and divergent accounts, most notably The Narrative of Robert Adams in 1816.
Thomas Pellow, son of Thomas Pellow of Penryn and his wife Elizabeth, was a Cornish author best known for the extensive captivity narrative entitled The History of the Long Captivity and Adventures of Thomas Pellow in South-Barbary. Pellow's book chronicles his many adventures spent during his 23-year-long captivity giving a detailed account of his capture by Barbary pirates, his experiences as a slave under Sultan Moulay Ismail, and his final escape from Morocco back to his Cornish origins.
William Okeley was a Puritan who was taken into slavery in Algeria between the years 1639–44, and who wrote a captivity narrative of the 17th century, entitled Ebenezer; or, a Small Monument of Great Mercy, Appearing in the Miraculous Deliverance of William Okeley, John Anthony, William Adams, John Jephs, John --, Carpenter, from the Miserable Slavery of Algiers with the Wonderful Means of Their Escape in a Boat of Canvas; the Great Distress and Utmost Extremeties Which They Endured at Sea for Six Days and Nights; [and] Their Safe Arrival at Mayork, with Several Matters of Remark During Their Long Captivity and the Following Providences of God Which Brought Them Safe to England.. Okeley published his narrative in 1675, nearly 30 years after his escape from Algiers.
Slaves in Algiers, or A Struggle for Freedom is a play written by Susanna Haswell Rowson in 1794. It is her first and only surviving play. First staged at the New Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 30 June 1794, Rowson's comic opera engages with the Barbary captivity crisis.
Slavery existed in Morocco since antiquity. Morocco was a center of the Trans-Saharan slave trade route of enslaved Black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a center of the slave trade of Barbary slave trade of Europeans captured by the barbary pirates. The slave trade was suppressed in Morocco in the 1920s.
Slavery is noted in the area later known as Algeria since antiquity. Algeria was a center of the Trans-Saharan slave trade route of enslaved Black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a center of the slave trade of Barbary slave trade of Europeans captured by the barbary pirates.
