The true story of white European slaves in eighteenth century Algiers; Tunis; and MoroccoIn the summer of 1716; a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and fifty-one of his comrades were captured at sea by the Barbary corsairs. Their captors--Ali Hakem and his network of Islamic slave traders--had declared war on the whole of Christendom. France; Spain; England and Italy had suffered a series of devastating attacks. 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. Pellow and his shipmates were bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco; Moulay Ismail; who was constructing an imperial palace of such scale and grandeur that it would surpass every other building in the world; a palace built entirely by Christian slave labor.Resourceful; resilient; and quick-thinking; Pellow was selected by Moulay Ismail for special treatment; and was one of the fortunate few who survived to tell his tale.An extraordinary and shocking story; drawn from unpublished letters and manuscripts written by slaves and by the padres and ambassadors sent to free them; White Gold reveals a disturbing and long forgotten chapter of history.
#6346065 in Books 2016-09-12Original language:English 9.30 x .80 x 6.40l; #File Name: 352510149X211 pages
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