Posted on 09/20/2004 11:00:52 AM PDT by KeyLargo
I watched this cable channel program yesterday. Somehow I do not recall my history teachers, teaching about the Muslim hatred for Chistians. But then again I went to public schools.
"The hundred and nine men, women and children abducted by Murat Reis were at sea for nearly forty days.
GERALD O’BRIAN "They left Baltimore 4pm on June 20th 1631 and they arrived in Algiers on July 28th 1631, and as far as we know, everybody survived the crossing."
Some would wish they were no longer alive. For them the harbour entrance of Sale was the gate to a world of suffering. Contemporary records describe how some newly arrived captives died of fright.
One of the few captured by the Barbary Pirates to make it back to England, James Wadsworth, spoke of slaves being treated like poultry.
"We were carried to the Castle in Sale, and there crammed like capons, that we might grow fatter for sale; and being brought to the market, were shared amongst them, and sold."
It was once claimed that there were so many white captives in Algiers, you could exchange a Christian - for an onion.
Outside Rabat’s ramparts are the remains of the old slave market. The Irish captives would have found themselves on sale in similar surroundings. An astonishing number of other European captives shared their fate.
BOB DAVIS "After looking at some dozens of population estimates from a number of different kinds of sources we have an average, year in year out, especially between the years 1580 and 1680 of about 35,000, 34,000 slaves at any given time. Well, knowing this it then becomes a question of estimating simply how many slaves it would be necessary to be taken every year to keep that number. I’ve have estimated overall that between 1530 and 1780, that is about two and a half centuries, something of the order of a million to a million and quarter white Europeans were enslaved and taken to Barbary."
With such statistics it is hardly surprising how the horror of the Sally Men or the Turks, as the Barbary Pirates were also known, gripped the European imagination."
Go to: White Slaves Pirate Gold
http://www.iconfilms.co.uk/whiteslaves/slaveindustry.html
A second history program followed up on this story with a story about the Battle of Tripoli.
"From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli." Everyone knows the first line of the Marine's Hymn, but few are familiar with the dramatic battle that inspired these famous words. We tell the remarkable story of William Eaton and his heroic but outrageous plan to overthrow the powerful Mediterranean nation of Tripoli and free 307 American hostages in 1805. Filmed aboard the USS Constitution in Boston harbor and on location in Morocco, we relive the U.S. Marine's first battle on foreign soil. TV PG
Huh. So Muslims had been ravaging Europe, Asia and Africa for two centuries, but the second they messed with the USA, the Marines put a stop to the whole thing.
Would that it ever be so! (I'm not holding my breath)
DTOM
History Channel special bump
I watched both programs. The Marines' campaign in Tripoli (the state, not the city - present-day Libya) was the precursor to our action in Afghanistan 3 years ago. We hired some local and European mercenaries, marched 500 miles from Egypt, and took the second-largest city in the Barbary state, with the aid of U.S. Navy firepower. In the end though, we paid the random for the 300 sailors that were captured after the U.S.S. Philadelphia ran aground, after negotiating with the ruler there. It seems the United States has had a weak State Department since Jefferson's time.
Will Major Owens make a speach about the sharks on those slave routes that still have a taste for white meat?
bttt
William Eaton, 8 Marines and a midshipmen put a stop to the whole thing! One of the greatest stories of the United States Military's complete dominance over any enemy it faces. I'm writing a book about it if I can ever finish the book I'm writing now. The Tripolitan War, well forgotten by many, has great stories of valor.
Muslims were also more heavily invloved in the African slave trade than the Europeans...
I saw this, too. I knew it had gone on - Muslims raiding European coastal villages for slaves - but I had no idea the extent or how widespread it was. This was a great show.
There sure were! Women were raped and their children were raised just the same the children of native concubines. They were raised as Muslims: the girls married off and the boys following whatever career path was approved by their "families".
Islamic countries have long tradition of this sort of thing. There was no real "slave" population because the children of slaves intermarried into the general population. That's why they kept having to take more captives (and still do in some places).
With Semitic Muslims (and others) skin tones vary and some are very light indeed. Although lighter skin is usually preferred in multi-tone populations, color was probably not much of an issue here.
Here is another link.
Go to: British Slaves on the Barbary Coast
By Robert Davis
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/protest_reform/white_slaves_01.shtml
Thousands of Christian galley slaves in the Ottoman fleet were freed when the Christians beat the Turks in the battle of Lepanto (7 October 1571). Ironically, one of the Turkish commanders in the battle was an Italian renegade who had been captured as a young man and served as a galley slave until he converted to Islam.
Very cool! Good luck with the book!
No, actually the president of the time bought them off for a decade or so.
Then after an insult to the US, the Marines were sent in with some Mercenaries and some Sailors and took the Pasha's palace.
It was not a strictly Marine operation, but it was led by Marines, cooperating with Sailors, who also had some mercenaries with them, and the mercenaries outnumbered the Marines and Sailors combined.
Still, Lt Pressly O'Bannon led the charge.
Someone will post a link soon on the details of the raid and why.
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