for sale to the first purchaser. Accursed deed! infamous disgrace! that men, acting in a manner which brute instinct alone would have forbidden, should sell into slavery their relations, nay, even their own offspring!" From still another chronicler we learn, that, in 1172, when Ireland was afflicted with public calamities, there was a great assembly of the principal men, chiefly of the clergy, who concluded, as well they might, that these evils were sent upon their country for the reason that they had formerly purchased English boys as slaves, contrary to the right of Christian liberty, the poor English, to supply their wants, being "accustomed to sell even their own children, not to bring them. up" wherefore, it is said, the English slaves were allowed to depart in freedom. Earlier in Irish history a boy was stolen from Scotland, who, after six years of bondage, succeeded in reaching his home, when, entering the Church, he returned to Ireland, preached Christianity, and, as St. Patrick, became the patron saint of that beautiful land.3 On the Continent of Europe, as late as the thirteenth century, the custom prevailed of treating all captives in war as slaves. Here poetry, as well as history, bears its testimony. Old Michael Drayton, in his story of the Battle of Agincourt, says of the French: "For knots of cord to every town they send, The captived English that they caught to bind ; Those that alive they on the field should find." 4 1 Life of St. Wulstan, Book II. Chap. 20. 2 Chronica Hiberniæ, or the Annals of Philip Flatsbury (in the Cottonian Library, Domitianus XVIII. 10); quoted in Stephen on West India Slavery, Vol. I. p. 6. 3 Biographie Générale (Hoefer), Art. Patrice. 4 Battle of Agincourt, st. 144. Ꮓ And Othello, in recounting his perils, exposes this custom, when he speaks "Of being taken by the insolent foe And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence." It was also held lawful to enslave an infidel, or person who did not receive the Christian faith. The early Common Law of England doomed heretics to the stake; the Catholic Inquisition did the same; and the laws of Oléron, the maritime code of the Middle Ages, treated them "as dogs," to be attacked and despoiled by all true believers. Philip le Bel of France, grandson of St. Louis, in 1296 presented his brother Charles, Count of Valois, with a Jew, and paid three hundred livres for another Jew, as if Jews were at the time chattels, to be given away or bought. The statutes of Florence, boastful of freedom, as late as 1415 allowed republican citizens to hold slaves not of the Catholic Christian faith, — Qui non sunt Catholicæ fidei et Christiana.2 Besides captive Moors, there were African slaves in Spain, before Christopher Columbus; and at Venice Marco Polo for some time held a slave he had brought from the Orient in the age of Dante. The comedies of Molière, L'Étourdi and Le Sicilien, depicting Italian usages not remote from his day, show that at Messina even Christian women continued to be sold as slaves. This rapid sketch, which brings us down to the period when Algiers became a terror to the Christian nations, renders it no longer astonishing that the barbarous States of Barbary -a part of Africa, the great womb. of slavery, professing Mahometanism, which not only 1 Encyclopédie Méthodique (Jurisprudence), Art. Esclavage. 2 Biot, De l'Abolition de l'Esclavage Ancien en Occident, p. 440, — a work crowned with a gold medal by the Institute of France, which will be read with some disappointment. recognizes slavery, but expressly ordains "chains and collars" to infidels1- should maintain the traffic in slaves, particularly in Christians, denying the faith of the Prophet. In the duty of constant war upon unbelievers, and in the assertion of right to the service or ransom of their captives, they followed the lessons of Christians themselves. It is not difficult, then, to account for the origin of this cruel custom. Its history forms our next topic. II. HISTORY OF WHITE SLAVERY. THE Barbary States, after the decline of the Arabian power, were enveloped in darkness, rendered more palpable by increasing light among the Christian nations. At the twilight of European civilization they appear to be little more than scattered bands of robbers and pirates, "land-rats and water-rats" of Shylock, leading the lives of Ishmaelites. Algiers is described by an early writer as "a den of sturdy thieves formed into a body, by which, after a tumultuary sort, they govern," and by still another writer, contemporary with the monstrosity which he exposes, as the "theatre of all crueltie and sanctuarie of iniquitie, holding captive, in miserable servitude, one hundred and twentie thousand Christians, almost all subjects of the king of Spaine." 3 Their habit of enslaving prisoners captured in war and piracy arousing at last the sacred animosities of Christen 1 Koran, Chap. LXXVI. 2 A Discourse concerning Tangier: Harleian Miscellany, Vol. V. p. 522. 3 Purchas's Pilgrims, Vol. II. p. 1565. dom, Ferdinand the Catholic, after the conquest of Granada, and while the boundless discoveries of Columbus, giving to Castile and Leon a new world, still occupied his mind, found time to direct an expedition into Africa, under the military command of that great ecclesiastic, Cardinal Ximenes. It is recorded that this valiant soldier of the Church, on effecting the conquest of Oran, in 1509, had the inexpressible satisfaction of liberating three hundred Christian slaves.1 To stay the progress of the Spanish arms the government of Algiers invoked assistance from abroad. Two brothers, Horuc and Hayradin, sons of a potter in the island of Lesbos, had become famous as corsairs. In an age when the sword of the adventurer often carved a higher fortune than could be earned by lawful exertion, they were dreaded for abilities, hardihood, and power. To them Algiers turned for aid. The corsairs left the sea to sway the land, or rather, with amphibious robbery, took possession of Algiers and Tunis, while they continued to prey upon the sea. The name of Barbarossa, by which they are known to Christians, is terrible in modern history.2 MILITARY EXPEDITIONS AGAINST WHITE SLAVERY. WITH pirate ships they infested the seas, and spread their ravages along the coasts of Spain and Italy, until Charles the Fifth was aroused to undertake their overthrow. The various strength of his broad dominions was rallied in this new crusade. "If the enthusiasm," 1 Prescott, History of Ferdinand and Isabella, Vol. III. p. 308. Purchas's Pilgrims, Vol. II. p. 813. 2 Robertson, History of Charles the Fifth, Book V. Haedo, Historia de Argel, Epitome de los Reyes de Argel. says Sismondi, "which had armed the Christians in the old Crusades was nearly extinct, a new sentiment, more rational and legitimate, united the vows of Europe with the efforts of Charles against the infidels. The object was no longer to reconquer the tomb of Christ, but to defend the civilization, the liberty, the lives of Christians." A stanch body of infantry from Germany, veterans of Spain and Italy, the flower of the Spanish nobility, knights of Malta, with a fleet of near five hundred vessels, contributed by Italy, Portugal, and even distant Holland, commanded by Andrew Doria, the great sea-officer of the age, the whole under the immediate eye of the Emperor himself, with the countenance and benediction of the Pope, and composing one of the most complete armaments which the world had hitherto seen, were directed upon Tunis. Barbarossa opposed them bravely, but with unequal forces. While slowly yielding to attack from without, his defeat was hastened by unexpected uprising within. Confined in the citadel were many Christian slaves, who, asserting the rights of freedom, obtained a bloody emancipation, and turned its artillery against their former masters. The place yielded to the Emperor, whose soldiers soon surrendered to the inhuman excesses of war. The blood of thirty thousand innocent inhabitants reddened his victory. Amidst these scenes of horror there was but one spectacle that afforded any satisfaction to the imperial conqueror. It was that of ten thousand Christian slaves rejoicing in emancipation, who met him as he entered the town, and, falling on their knees, thanked him as their deliverer. 2 1 Histoire des Français, Tom. XVII. pp. 101, 102. |