White Gold
The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
15
The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and fifty-two of his comrades were captured at sea by the Barbary corsairs. Their captors - fanatical Islamic slave traders - had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Thousands of Europeans had been snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Salé in Morocco to be sold to the highest bidder. Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco, who bragged that his white slaves enabled him to hold all of Europe to ransom. The sultan was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale and grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. Thomas Pellow was selected to be a personal slave of the sultan, and he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of the imperial Moroccan court, as well as experience daily terror. For twenty-three years, he would dream of his home, his family and freedom. He was one of the fortunate few who survived to tell his tale. WHITE GOLD is an extraordinary and shocking story. Drawn from unpublished letters and manuscripts written by slaves, and by the padres and ambassadors sent to free them, it reveals a disturbing and forgotten chapter of history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.
Reviews with the most likes.
The story of white slavery in the 18th century generally, but following specifically the story of Thomas Pellow, an eleven year old cabin boy, who was captured by the Moroccan Corsairs in 1716. North Africa - Morocco and Algeria mainly, but making use of markets in Tunisia and Libya also, engaged in piracy, and ravaged the coasts of Spain, Portugal, France and Britain, taking prisoners from land and capturing ships seemingly at will. It seems amazing the Barbary Corsairs were so much more dominant than what is made to sound a feeble British and French Navy.
Twenty three years Thomas Pellow remained captive in Morocco. First as a slave, then tortured into renouncing Christianity and taking up Islam, he is considered a renegade, but in reality is no less free. His intelligence and guile, some remarkable luck and an ability to recover from his injuries keep him alive long enough to serve the Sultan as a labourer, a personal servant, and interpreter and then as a soldier.
Rewarded with a wife, a child follows, and this family restrains his ambition to return home, while he tries to plan their escape from Morocco. Outliving the Sultan, and surviving the turmoil of another three Sultans (in quick succession) he makes two unsuccessful escape attempts before a third, and makes his return to his home on the Cornish coast.
Well paced, well written, readable and enjoyable.
