Piracy and Captivity in the Mediterranean: 1550-1810

Description

Piracy and Captivity in the Mediterranean explores the early modern genre of European Barbary Coast captivity narratives from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. During this period, the Mediterranean Sea was the setting of large-scale corsairing that resulted in the capture or enslavement of Europeans and Americans by North African pirates, as well as of North Africans by European forces, turning the Barbary Coast into the nemesis of any who went to sea. Through a variety of specifically selected narrative case studies, this book displays the blend of both authentic eye witness accounts and literary fictions that emerged against the backdrop of the tumultuous Mediterranean Sea. A wide range of other primary sources, from letters to ransom lists and newspaper articles to scientific texts, highlights the impact of piracy and captivity across key European regions, including France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Scandinavia, and Britain, as well as the United States and North Africa. Divided into four parts and offering a variety of national and cultural vantage points, Piracy and Captivity in the Mediterranean addresses both the background from which captivity narratives were born and the narratives themselves. It is essential reading for scholars and students of early modern slavery and piracy. Cover Title Copyright Contents Figures Acknowledgments Notes on contributors Introduction PART 1 Labor and Law 1 Trading identities: Balthasar Sturmer's Verzeichnis der Reise (1558) and the making of the European Barbary captivity narrative 2 Unkind dealings: English captivity narratives, commercial transformation, and the economy of unfree labor in the early modern period 3 Ambivalences of recognition: The position of the Barbary corsairs in early modern international law and international politics 4 "Free, unfree, captive, slave": António de Saldanha, a late sixteenth-century captive in Marrakesh PART 2 Home and Hybridity 5 "Renegades": Converts to Islam in American Barbary captivity narratives of the 1790s 6 Identity crises of homecomers from the Barbary Coast 7 "Arab speculators," states, and ransom slavery in the Western Sahara PART 3 Diplomacy and Deliverance 8 Michael Heberer: A prisoner of the Ottoman navy 9 Piracy, diplomacy, and cultural circulations in the Mediterranean 10 Confraternity models in the "redemption of slaves" in Europe: The Broederschap der alderheylighste Dryvuldigheyt of Bruges (Brugge) and the Scuola della Santissima Trinità of Venice PART 4 Oppositions and Otherness 11 Khayr al-Din Barbarossa: Clashing portraits of a corsair-king 12 A Huguenot captive in 'Uthman Dey's court: Histoire chronologique du royaume de Tripoly (1685) and its author 13 Two Arabic accounts of captivity in Malta: Texts and contexts Index