{"id":909,"date":"2008-06-20T02:41:06","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T06:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=909"},"modified":"2018-08-14T00:15:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T04:15:09","slug":"16305-%c2%a0-giles-milton-white-gold-%e2%80%95-the-extraordinary-story-of-thomas-pellew-and-north-africa%e2%80%99s-one-million-european-slaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=909","title":{"rendered":"16305. (Giles Milton) White Gold \u2015 The Extraordinary story of Thomas Pellew and North Africa\u2019s One Million European Slaves"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the more annoy\u00ading bits of non\u00adsense that crops up is the notion that there are forms of chat\u00adtel slav\u00adery which are some\u00adhow benign. It is often claimed that \u201ctra\u00addi\u00adtional\u201d slav\u00adery in the Islam\u00adic world was some\u00adhow less of an abom\u00adi\u00adna\u00adtion than the slav\u00adery in the Amer\u00adi\u00adcan South or the Caribbean. Clas\u00adsi\u00adcal his\u00adto\u00adri\u00adans often pro\u00admote a sim\u00adi\u00adlar Gone With the Wind<\/em>-ish inter\u00adpre\u00adta\u00adtion of slav\u00adery in ancient Rome, always con\u00adcen\u00adtrat\u00ading on the less numer\u00adous domes\u00adtic ser\u00advants while ignor\u00ading the mil\u00adlions who were worked to death in the mines, on plan\u00adta\u00adtions, or by the urban syn\u00addi\u00adcates that owned the water-carriers. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Those who are inclined to accept this con\u00adstant\u00adly resur\u00adfac\u00ading fan\u00adtasy are encour\u00adaged to read this book. It\u2019s an account of the life of Thomas Pellew, a Cor\u00adnish child cap\u00adtured by slave-raiders in 1716. He became a slave of the Moro\u00adcan sul\u00adtan Moulay Ismail (whose descen\u00addant still rules Moroc\u00adco today. In the 17th and 18th cen\u00adturies, slave traders from the Moroc\u00adcan port of Sal\u00e9 ter\u00adror\u00adized the Cor\u00adnish coast, often raid\u00ading vil\u00adlages and seiz\u00ading hun\u00addreds of men, women and chil\u00addren to sell in the lucra\u00adtive slave mar\u00adkets of North Africa. It is esti\u00admated the rough\u00adly a mil\u00adlion Euro\u00adpeans, Amer\u00adi\u00adcans and New\u00adfound\u00adlan\u00adders were cap\u00adtured in this way, dur\u00ading that peri\u00adod. British mon\u00adarchs dealt with these assaults with a com\u00adbi\u00adna\u00adtion of blus\u00adter, mis\u00addi\u00adrec\u00adtion, dou\u00adble-deal\u00ading, self-inter\u00adest\u00aded hypocrisy, fake sabre-rat\u00adtling, bribery, alliances with their own ene\u00admies, and over\u00adwhelm\u00ading cow\u00adardice that was vir\u00adtu\u00adally iden\u00adti\u00adcal to the Bush administration\u2019s response to 9\/11. Them\u00adselves active in a colos\u00adsal slave trade, Euro\u00adpean Chris\u00adt\u00adian aris\u00adto\u00adcrats and wealthy \u201centre\u00adpre\u00adneurs\u201d were hap\u00adpy to col\u00adlude with their Mus\u00adlim counterparts.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

In Thomas Pellew, who spent a great part of his life as a slave in a par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlarly good posi\u00adtion to form an over\u00adall eval\u00adu\u00adation of slav\u00adery in North Africa, and who escaped to tell the tale, we have plen\u00adty of tes\u00adti\u00admony to the bru\u00adtal\u00adity of slav\u00adery in North Africa. Even Pellew, who sur\u00advived as a \u201cpriv\u00adi\u00adleged\u201d per\u00adsonal slave, suf\u00adfered unspeak\u00adable tor\u00adtures, begin\u00adning at the age of eleven. The bulk of the cap\u00adtives were abused, tor\u00adtured, and quick\u00adly worked to death in mas\u00adsive con\u00adstruc\u00adtion projects, or laboured in chains in the fields. There was no \u201cbenign\u201d slav\u00adery, because there has nev\u00ader been any form of slav\u00adery that was benign, any\u00adwhere. Slav\u00adery is slav\u00adery, always filthy, evil and dis\u00adgust\u00ading, at any time, in any place, in any culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Giles Milton\u2019s book, tak\u00aden large\u00adly from Pellew\u2019s account, but well cor\u00adrob\u00ado\u00adrated and researched, is well-written.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the more annoy\u00ading bits of non\u00adsense that crops up is the notion that there are forms of chat\u00adtel slav\u00adery which are some\u00adhow benign. It is often claimed that \u201ctra\u00addi\u00adtional\u201d slav\u00adery in the Islam\u00adic world was some\u00adhow less of \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bs-reading-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8502,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions\/8502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}