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Maria Fusaro is Senior Lecturer in History and Director of the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies, University of Exeter. Colin Heywood is Honorary Research Fellow, Maritime Historical Studies Centre, University of Hull. Mohamed-Salah Omri is Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Washington University in St. Louis.
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June 11, 2010
INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF HISTORICAL STUDIES Series ISBN: 978 1 84885 222 8 See www.ibtauris.com/ILHS for a full list of titles 61. Holy War, Just War: Early Modern Christianity, Religious Ethics and the Rhetoric of Empire Patrick Provost-Smith
68. Britain, Portugal and South America in the Napoleonic Wars: Alliances and Diplomacy in Economic Maritime Conflict Martin Robson
978 1 84511 675 0
978 1 84885 196 2
63. Coleridge and Liberal Religious Thought: Romanticism, Science and Theological Tradition Graham Neville
70. A Concise History of Early Christian Heresy Alastair Logan
978 1 84885 089 7
978 1 84885 406 2
64. The New Ways of History: Developments in Historiography Gelina Harlaftis, Nikos Karapidakis, Kostas Sbonias and Vaios Vaiopoulos (Eds)
71. Social Disorder in Britain 1750-1850: The Power of the Gentry, Radicalism and Religion in Wales J. E. Thomas 978 1 84885 503 8
978 1 84885 126 9
72. The Church in Council: Conciliar Movements, Religious Practice and the Papacy from Nicea to Vatican II Norman Tanner
65. Naval Shipbuilding in the Age of Sail: An Industrial History 1100-1800 Philip MacDougall
978 1 84885 513 7
978 1 84885 119 1
73. Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia Thomas A. Fudge
66. Spatial Conceptions of the Nation: Modernizing Geographies in Greece and Turkey Nikiforos Diamandouros, Thalia Dragonas and C¸aglar Keyder (Eds)
978 1 84885 142 9
74. The British in Egypt: Community, Crime and Crises 1882-1922 Lanver Mak
978 1 84885 131 3
67. Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Braudel’s Maritime Legacy Maria Fusaro, Colin Heywood and Mohamed-Salah Omri (Eds)
978 1 84885 709 4
978 1 84885 163 4
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TRADE AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE IN THE EARLY MODERN MEDITERRANEAN BRAUDEL‘S MARITIME LEGACY EDITED BY MARIA FUSARO COLIN HEYWOOD MOHAMED-SALAH OMRI
TAURIS ACADEMIC STUDIES an imprint of I.B.Tauris Publishers
LONDON ● NEW YORK
Published in 2010 by Tauris Academic Studies An imprint of I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © 2010 Maria Fusaro, Colin Heywood and Mohamed-Salah Omri The right of Maria Fusaro, Colin Heywood and Mohamed-Salah Omri to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. International Library of Historical Studies 67 ISBN 978 1 84885 163 4 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress catalog card: available Printed and bound in India by Thomson Press (India) Camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author With the Support of
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
xiii
1. After Braudel: a Reassessment of Mediterranean History between the Northern Invasion and the Caravane Maritime Maria Fusaro
1
2. The English in the Mediterranean, 1600-1630: A PostBraudelian Perspective on the „Northern Invasion‟ Colin Heywood
23
3. Plague and Seafaring in the Ottoman Mediterranean in the Eighteenth Century Daniel Panzac
45
4. In the Regency of Algiers: the Human Side of the Algerine Corso Fatiha Loualich
69
5. Slave Histories and Memories in the Mediterranean World Salvatore Bono
97
vi 6. The Maghariba and the Sea: Maritime Decline in North Africa in the Early Modern Period Nabil Matar
117
7. Sacra Militia, the Order of St. John: Crusade, Corsairing and Trade in Rhodes and Malta, 1460-1631 Ann Williams
139
8. Maritime Caravans and the Knights of St. John: Aspects of Mediterranean Seaborne Traffic (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries) Simon Mercieca
157
9. “Victims of Piracy?” Ottoman Lawsuits in Malta (16021687) and the Changing Course of Mediterranean Maritime History Molly Greene
177
10. Greek-Ottoman Captains in the Service of Spanish Commerce in the Late Eighteenth Century Eloy Martín Corrales
203
11. „The “Eastern Invasion”: Greeks in Mediterranean Trade and Shipping in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries Gelina Harlaftis
223
12. Rewriting the Sea from the Desert Shore: Equine and Equestrian Perspectives on a New Maritime History Donna Landry
253
13. Representing the Early Modern Mediterranean in Contemporary North Africa Mohamed-Salah Omri
279
Bibliography
299
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Maps 1. The Ottoman empire – XVII-XVIII centuries
202
2. Greek Ottoman Trade in Iberian harbours
222
3. The main regions of Greek shipping (late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries
233
Tables 1. The plague in Europe (14th-18th centuries), number of plague-stricken years
46
2. The plague in Ottoman lands, number of plaguestricken years in the eighteenth century
46
3. Plague mortality in Western European cities (17th-18th centuries)
47
4. Smyrna maritime traffic, percentage of European plague-stricken ships
57
5. Greek-Ottoman ships arrived in various Spanish ports (1797-1808)
205
viii 6. Greek-Ottoman ships arriving with wheat into Spanish Ports (1797-1808)
207
7. Arrivals of Ottoman ships in the port of Malaga, 1797-1807
241
8. Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the Western Mediterranean ports from Atlantic and northern European ports, 1780-1814 9. Mediterranean Merchant Fleets, 1787 and 1880
243
Figures 1. The ‗Eastern invasion‘. Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the ports of the Western Mediterranean, 1700-1821 (real data)
249
231
2. The ‗Eastern invasion‘. Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the ports of the Western Mediterranean, 1700-1821 (real data with estimated missing values)
231
3. Greek-owned ships in the Central Mediterranean (arrivals at Venice, Trieste, Ancona, Malta, Messina, Naples and Livorno)
236
4. Greek-owned shipping in the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian port-cities and in Malta, 1700-1780 (real numbers)
237
5. Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the Western Mediterranean, 1780-1821 (Venice, Trieste, Ancona, Malta, Messina, Naples, Livorno, Genoa, Marseilles, Barcelona, Malaga and Cadiz)
239
6. Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, French and Spanish ports, (1780-1821)
240
ix Appendices I. Greek-Ottoman Captains and Ships arriving at the Port of Barcelona (1788-1807)
218
II. A Greek-owned maritime caravane arriving at Livorno (20 April 1795)
250
III. Greek-owned maritime caravane arriving at Genoa (18 June 1796)
251
IV. A sample of Ottoman-Greek merchant armed vessels, July 1805
252
NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION
In transliterating Arabic terms, we have adopted a simplified but consistent system. Only the long vowels and the letters ‗ayn and hamza are transliterated. We adopt [â] for long a; [î] for long i; [û] for a long u. The consonant ‗ayn is represented by [‗] while alif is represented by [‘]. For names beginning with definite al-, we usually use [al- ] and capitalize the first letter for proper names. Turkish terms and words by and large follow the spelling practice of The New Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary (Istanbul, 1968).
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Salvatore Bono, Emeritus Professor, University of Perugia and President of the ―Société internationale des historiens de la Méditerranée‖ Maria Fusaro, Senior Lecturer in History and Director of the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies, University of Exeter Molly Greene, Professor of History and Hellenic Studies, Princeton University Gelina Harlaftis, Associate Professor in Maritime History, Ionian University Colin Heywood, Honorary Research Fellow, Maritime Historical Studies Centre, University of Hull Donna Landry, Professor of English and American Literature and Director of the Centre for Studies in the Long Eighteenth Century, University of Kent Fatiha Loualich, Maitre de Conference in Modern History, University of Algiers
xii Eloy Martín Corrales, Professor of Modern History, Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona Nabil Matar, Professor of English, University of Minnesota Simon Mercieca, Director, Mediterranean Institute, University of Malta Mohamed-Salah Omri, Associate Professor of Arabic Literature, Washington University in Saint Louis Daniel Panzac, Directeur de recherche emeritus, CNRS-University of Provence, Aix-en-Provence Ann Williams, Honorary Research Fellow, Exeter University
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
At the time of writing, two years have elapsed since the date of the Exeter Workshop; more than three since the idea for it was first proposed by one of the editors. Two years-plus is a long time, many debts of gratitude have been incurred in that time, and our list of acknowledgements is correspondingly quite a lengthy one. In the first place we wish to record our gratitude to the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which generously provided the bedrock funding without which we could never have got the Workshop project off the ground. We also pleased to acknowledge the contribution of the editors‘ own institutions: the University of Exeter, which hosted the Workshop, and in particular the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Department of History and the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies; the University of Hull and in particular the Department of History, together with the Maritime Historical Studies Centre and its Director, David Starkey; and the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Washington University in Saint Louis (US). We would also like to thank most profusely Claire Keyte without whose notable administrative talents and sustained enthusiasm the Workshop would not have been the success that it undoubtedly was. We would also like to thank, collectively, all those who participated in the Workshop, either as paper givers (regardless of whether or not their papers appear in the present volume) or as commentators and discussants, or as members of the audience, for helping to create the atmosphere of deep and involved discussions and creative
xiv disciplinary bridge-building which characterised both the formal sessions and the informal post-session gatherings. More specifically, Maria Fusaro would like to thank her colleagues at Exeter who participated in the Workshop and contributed to its success, especially Alex Walsham and Andrew Thorpe for their ongoing support, and Rex Maudsley for his technical expertise and his unfailing good humour. Colin Heywood would like to offer his particular thanks to David Starkey, not only for warmly endorsing the original idea for a ‗post-Braudelian‘ workshop, broached one winter‘s night over a pint in the appropriately seventeenth-century surroundings of the "Olde White Harte" in Hull, but for much sound advice and encouragement ever since. Mohamed-Salah Omri would like to express his gratitude to Abdeljalil Temimi for his contribution to the project and for his inspirational leadership in building research partnerships between Arab and Western scholars, Fatemeh Keshavarz for her support of the project and his co-editors for a rich and enjoyable collaborative venture. Our thanks are also due to I.B.Tauris and in particular to Joanna Godfrey for her encouragement and consistently sound advice during a lengthy and sometimes fraught editing process. We are grateful to the Trustees of the British Library for permission to make use of the 1650 map of the Mediterranean lands by Willem Blaeu which appears on the dust jacket. Finally, in the context of Ernesto Laclau‘s observation that ‗Many more ghosts than those of Marx are constantly visiting and revisiting us‘, we would like to recall with gratitude the spirit of Fernand Braudel which, we are sure, animated the proceedings of our Workshop and, we would like to think, might find the present work, written ‗after Braudel‘ in at least three ways, to its liking.
1 AFTER BRAUDEL A Reassessment of Mediterranean History between the Northern Invasion and the Caravane Maritime Maria Fusaro Sixty years after the publication of the French first edition of Braudel‘s La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l‟époque de Philippe II,1 and nearly forty years after the extremely influential English translation of its second French edition,2 there is no doubt that Braudel‘s masterpiece truly marked ―an epoch in world historiography‖.3 In fact, if anything, the intellectual reverberations in response to its novel interpretative scheme have amplified during the last two decades,4 a phenomenon that has involved several disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. 5 As is the case with seminal works – which, by their own intrinsic nature, raise more questions than they answer – Braudel‘s Mediterranean stimulated scholars to take up, but also to extend and challenge, his 1
Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée et le Monde méditerranéen à l‟époque de Philippe II (Paris, 1949; 2nd. revised edn., 2 vols 1966). 2 The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the age of Philip II (London, 1972); all references in this essay are to the 1995 printing of this edition. 3 Ernest Labrousse, as quoted in Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea – A Study of Mediterranean History, (Oxford, 2000), 36. For a critical analysis of Braudel‘s work refer to Ruggiero Romano, Braudel e Noi – Riflessioni sulla cultura storica del nostro tempo, (Rome, 1995). 4 Susan E. Alcock, ‗Alphabet Soup in the Mediterranean Basin: The Emergence of the Mediterranean Serial‘, in William V. Harris ed., Rethinking the Mediterranean (Oxford, 2005), 314-336. 5 Within Anglophone scholarship on the Mediterranean, the intersection of political and cultural elements has been a favourite topic. An interesting example of this is the fact that the English version of Les usages politiques du passé, François Hartog and Jacques Revel eds. (Paris, 2001), differs slightly from the French original and concentrates on the Mediterranean: Political Uses of the Past. The Recent Mediterranean Experience, Jacques Revel and Giovanni Levi eds. (London-Portland, 2002).
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methodology and interpretative angle. From Immanuel Wallerstein on the global pre-modern economy, to Kirti Chaudhuri on the Indian Ocean and Anthony Reid on South Eastern Asia, there have been several attempts at testing the ‗Braudelian approach‘ to different topics or geo-historical realities.6 More recently Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell published The Corrupting Sea. A Study of Mediterranean History, the first part of a twovolume project aiming at testing Braudel‘s interpretation over the extreme longue durée. Of all the works inspired by Braudel, this one is probably the most ambitious, and also the most comparable to The Mediterranean in its painstaking attempt at building a strong interpretative framework supported with a wealth of minute and accurate details based on primary evidence. Horden and Purcell‘s volume has, in its turn, fostered a general reappraisal of the topic of the ‗Mediterranean‘ at large, and reawakened a stimulating international dialogue of scholars on how best to approach and develop this kind of analysis.7 Within Anglophone historiography, critical engagement with Braudel‘s work has been mostly concerned on the one hand with an ongoing debate on the value and limits of the Annales‟ methodological approach, and on the other with the evaluation of ‗the Mediterranean‘ as a viable field of investigation. Outside Anglophone academia the situation is reversed and, whilst over the last sixty years there has been a constant stream of contributions aiming at detailing specific subtopics, there has been no comparable attempt at engaging with the ‗larger picture‘. The fortunes of Mediterranean history have been rather varied in the major European historiographical traditions. In Italy the Mediterranean (even before Braudel‘s magnum opus appeared) had always enjoyed a position at the centre of historians‘ concerns, and it is difficult to overestimate the role played in this continued interest by the geographical position of the peninsula itself, as Italy can easily be described as a pier dividing the internal sea in two halves. 8 In Spain, the traditional interpretation has been that, starting in the 1580s, Philip II‘s attention and cares turned towards the Atlantic, which then became the focus of Iberian commercial and political interests. Braudel himself not Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European-world Economy 1600-1750 (London, 1980); Kirti Chaudhuri, Asia before Europe. Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1990); Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680, 2 vols (New Haven, 19881993). See also: R. Bin Wong, ‗Entre monde et nation: les régions braudeliennes en Asie‘, Annales HSS, 56 (2001): 5-42, and Maurice Aymard, ‗De la Méditerranée à l‘Asie: une comparaison nécessaire‘, Annales HSS, 56 (2001): 43-50. 7 See the contributions in Harris ed., Rethinking the Mediterranean. 8 For a recent collective contribution to the topic, see: Rossella Cancila ed., Mediterraneo in armi (secc. XV-XVIII) 2 vols, (Palermo, 2007). 6
AFTER BRAUDEL
3
only supported this view, but it can even be argued that his own dissertation on Spanish policy in the Mediterranean (which was the basis for the book) acted as a brake to further investigations on the Mediterranean dimension of Spain. This might indeed have been the case, but for another factor which has contributed to this neglect: the pulling power of Anglo-American scholarship. This, in the last forty years, has fostered a growing attention towards the Atlantic as the new global centre of economic and political development, to the point of creating a new field of investigation: ‗Atlantic history‘.9 Its creation has not only influenced Anglo-American historiographical production, a special cause for regret in that England in particular played a crucial role in the early modern Mediterranean, a role which is still underestimated by its historiography.10 This trend also acted as an additional incentive for generations of historians of early modern Spain to concentrate on the Atlantic and not on the Mediterranean side of Spanish policy and trade. As regards to France, which like Spain enjoys a double sea exposure – Atlantic and Mediterranean – scholars there have instead divided their interests between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic dimensions of French history.11 If the history of the Mediterranean has therefore been the preferred topic of engagement for Anglophone scholarship, 12 the course of history in the Mediterranean has been favoured by other traditions. However both are necessary components for the organic development of the field, especially as the history of the Mediterranean needs histories in the Mediterranean to base its arguments on, and for this reason it would
9 A synthetic guide to a vast bibliography is Bernard Baylin, Atlantic History. Concept and Countours (Cambridge MA., 2005). 10 There are some exceptions to this such as the volume The Mediterranean in History, David Abulafia ed. (Los Angeles, 2003); interestingly the volume Anglo-Saxons in the Mediterranean. Commerce, Politics and Ideas (XVII-XX Centuries), Carmel Vassallo and Michela D‘Angelo eds. (Malta, 2007) is a ‗Mediterranean‘ and not British production. 11 For the Mediterranean the classic text is Paul Masson, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1896); more recently see: Gilbert Buti, Course, corsaires et forbans en Méditerranée (XIVe-XXIe siècles) (Paris, 2009) and ‗Entre échanges de proximité et trafics lointains: le cabotage en Méditerranée aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles‘, in Simonetta Cavaciocchi ed., Ricchezza del mare, Ricchezza dal mare, secc. XIIIe – XVIIIe (Florence, 2006), 287-316; André Zysberg, Marseille au temps du Roi-Soleil: la ville, les galères, l'arsenal (1660-1715) (Marseilles, 2007). For the Atlantic: Michel Mollat du Jourdin, Le Commerce maritime normand à la fin du moyen age. Etude d‟histoire économique et sociale (Paris, 1952); Alain Cabantous, Dix mille marins face à l'océan: les populations maritimes de Dunkerque au Havre aux xviie et xviiie siècles, vers 1660-1794 (Paris, 1991) and Les citoyens du large: les identités maritimes en France: (XVIIe-XIXe siècle) (Paris, 1995). 12 For a recent example see: Faruk Tabak, The Waning of the Mediterranean, 1550-1870. A geohistorical approach (Baltimore, 2008).
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be a good augury for the future of the subject if the proponents of these traditions were to engage more frequently in dialogue and exchange. In discussing the historiographical fortunes of the Mediterranean, there is also the need to consider that in the last decades of the twentieth century there has been a general tendency to treat early modern Mediterranean history as a ‗spent force‘, lacking the energy and vitality to compete for historians‘ attention not only with the New World, but also with Asia. The historical trope that, with the conclusion of the Spanish-Ottoman truce of 1580, the great powers withdrew from the Mediterranean,13 has been so fully internalised by contemporary scholarship, that it has almost been forgotten how the internal sea remained in reality an essential element of intra-European power and hegemony throughout the early modern period and beyond. The seventeenth century was indeed a period in which no hegemonic maritime or naval power emerged in the area,14 but this should not be interpreted as the result of a lack of interest by the European powers in its control, more a reflection of the fact that this century represented a period of transition and reassessment of the strategies employed by the traditional powers active in the Mediterranean (Ottomans, Venice, France and Spain), whilst the newcomers (England and the United Provinces) were busy carving for themselves a role within such a complex environment, and taking advantage of the economic crisis that had southern Europe in its grip. Even the Ottomans themselves experience a hiatus in naval activity between Lepanto (1571) and the war of Candia (1664-1669) – a period of only relative peace at sea, as corsairing activities boomed, becoming a sort of substitute for open naval war15 – but with the successful attack on Venetian Candia they actively re-entered into the fight for the control of the eastern Mediterranean.16 Because of these activities, both military and naval historians have instead long acknowledged that maintaining a military and commercial presence in the Mediterranean remained strategically crucial throughout those centuries in the fight for European supremacy.17 Just to provide one example, in all the wars fought by Britain Braudel, Mediterranean, 2: 1184-1185. Molly Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion: The Mediterranean in the Seventeenth Century‘, Past and Present, 174 (2002): 42-71. 15 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 2: 865-891. It needs though to be mentioned that the Ottomans were in these years busy fighting against the Cossaks in the Black Sea, see Victor Ostapchuk, ‗The Human Landscape of the Ottoman Black Sea in the Face of the Cossack Naval Raids‘, Oriente Moderno, xx n.s. (2001): 23-95, (I thank Colin Heywood for having brought this article to my attention). 16 Rhoads Murphey, ‗The Ottoman Resurgence in the Seventeenth Century Mediterranean: The Gamble and its Results‘, Mediterranean Historical Review, 8 (1993): 186-200, 187. 17 See Cancila ed., Mediterraneo in armi. 13 14
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during the eighteenth century, ―it was superiority in European waters which made possible successful operations overseas‖, a premise supported by the fact that the British Navy‘s presence in the Mediterranean was second only to its presence in Britain‘s home waters. 18 In reality the strategic importance of the Mediterranean for all the European powers always remained a paramount concern, as it still is to this day. It is important therefore to underline that, notwithstanding a continuing production of ‗Mediterranean histories‘, especially in countries bordering that sea, it has been only in the last decade that post-sixteenth century Mediterranean history has started to emerge from a period of relative historiographical neglect, a turn which has interestingly coincided with a new-found interest in the investigation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – the period of the so-called ‗decline‘.19 In this substantive ongoing dialogue between different national historiographies, and between different disciplines, the editors of this volume believe that ‗maritime history‘ as a field has a special contribution to make, as it can be utilised to bridge the differences between approaches: maritime history being both history in the Mediterranean – through the analysis of trade and conflict in these waters – and history of the Mediterranean – as the sea creates links between societies, economies and cultures. This volume has two ambitions: to introduce to an Anglophone readership the results of recent work on topics that have been the subject of research in other Mediterranean historiographical traditions, and to clarify and discuss some aspects of the socio-economic history of the early modern Mediterranean that stand in need of re-assessment, in that it is on their more precise analysis that a revision of more structural and encompassing arguments will need to be based in the future. To this end, contributors to this volume have focused on three major areas of study. The first is the organizational and structural nature of intra-Mediterranean early modern trade, which recent studies have shown to be much more complex than has been acknowledged either by Braudel himself, or by traditional economic historiography. The latter – taking as its unit of analysis the nation-states – has sometimes contributed to some Nicholas Rodger, ‗Sea-Power and Empire, 1688-1793‘, in Peter Marshall ed., The Eighteenth Century, vol. II The Oxford History of the British Empire (Oxford, 1998), 169-183, 179. 19 For example, see Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Princeton, 2000); Tabak, The Waning of the Mediterranean; Mediterraneo in armi (secc. XV-XVIII); Michel Fontenay, Navigation, commerce, croisade, esclavage et piraterie. Les formes de l‟échange Orient-Occident dans la Méditerranée des temps modernes (forthcoming). See also some recent issues of the Cahiers de la Méditerranée, 69 (2004) ‗Être marginal en Méditerranée (XVIe XXIe siècle)‘, and 70 and 71 (2005) ‗Crises, conflits et guerres en Méditerranée‘. 18
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misunderstandings regarding the real Mediterranean economic dynamic, and a re-evaluation of the protagonists of these trades helps to shed new light on the later economic development of several regions in the area. Connected to this is another topic at the centre of this volume: the interplay of economic and military activities in the Mediterranean, where commercial navigation – the ‗maritime‘ element – was sometimes rather difficult to disentangle from aggressive military action – the ‗naval‘ element. This leads to the third major topic covered in this volume: Mediterranean corsairing and slavery, both closely linked to the two above-mentioned issues, here their peculiarities are analysed also for the role they played within the economic and cultural exchange between the southern and northern shores of the internal sea. Geographically, we will focus only on the waters and coasts of the Mediterranean, on what Braudel called ―the very heart of its bewildering activity‖.20 But even if we will not attempt to encompass the entirety of the Braudelian ‗greater Mediterranean‘, our analysis will include the whole of the basin, extending into the Black Sea – which was reconnected to the Mediterranean for the first time since 1453 only after the 1774 Kutchuk Kainardji treaty re-established freedom of navigation there for non-Ottoman subjects – and also including the area of the socalled ‗Mediterranean of the Atlantic‘, that is to say the African and Iberian coasts from Agadir to Lisbon, which in this period was structurally integrated with Mediterranean commerce.21 Contributions in this volume will focus especially on Malta and on the North African Coast – the socalled Barbary States – centres, respectively, of Christian and Muslim corsairing, dedicating space to some less known aspects of their institutional, social and cultural history. Chronologically, we will direct our attention to the entirety of the early modern era from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth century, but a substantial amount of space will be given to the period between the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the beginnings of what Braudel called the ‗Northern Invasion‘ of the Mediterranean – when English and Dutch ships started to trade in the internal sea – and the eighteenth century, when the phenomenon known as the Caravane Maritime – the trade between different parts of the Ottoman empire performed on Western Braudel, The Mediterranean, 1: 170. Colin Heywood, ‗A Frontier without Archaeology? The Ottoman maritime frontier in the western Mediterranean, 1660-1760‘, in Andrew C.S. Peacock ed., The Frontiers of the Ottoman World, Proceedings of the British Academy, clvi (2009): 493-508, 502. Traditionally the expression ‗Mediterranean Atlantic‘ or ‗Atlantic Mediterranean‘ refers instead to the eastern Atlantic islands: see David Abulafia, Mediterraneans, in Harris ed., Rethinking the Mediterranean, 64-93, 66, 80-82. 20 21
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European ships – reached its quantitative apex. The editors of this volume believe these two maritime phenomena to be of special importance, as they created and fostered a series of sustained contacts between Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean regions and cultures that played a crucial long-term role in the future development of the area, not only economically but also politically, socially and culturally. Thematically, we shall concentrate on maritime history, and our interdisciplinary interests mean that we take this interpretative angle to go beyond its traditional technical and operational interests. ―Braudel was not a maritime historian‖, as Garrett Mattingly remarked in reviewing The Mediterranean, and it has been argued that, in it, the maritime dimension has been relatively neglected.22 Our goal, as editors of this volume, has been to try and partially fill this gap, as it is our contention that the maritime dimension can be profitably employed within different areas of specialization to clarify issues of political and institutional development, political economy and cultural interaction: the Mediterranean is for us a social, economic and cultural space. We are concerned with how the maritime Mediterranean functioned in practice, and we also believe that ‗maritime‘ and ‗naval‘ are two categories of analysis in constant interaction and that one is not conceivable without reference to the other. Sea-trade and sea-conflict have coexisted side by side for centuries, and the aim of this volume has been to discuss both these elements, giving special attention to ‗corsairing‘ activities – what Michel Fontenay has termed the ―Mediterranean corso‖ – which in those centuries was their most frequent point of contact.23 History of and history in the Mediterranean are both intrinsically linked with a landscape intersected by permeable frontiers,24 far more frequently than by a clash of civilizations. What characterises the Mediterranean, after the end of the Roman empire broke for ever its unity, has been the coexistence on its shores of different cultures and civilizations – competing states and empires which constantly interacted commercially and culturally on land and on sea, even when they were formally at war with one another. The fact that this wealth of differences was, and is, contained within a relative small space is a generally Garrett Mattingly, Review of La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen..., American Historical Review, 55 (1950): 349-351, quoted by Colin Heywood, ‗Fernand Braudel and the Ottomans: the emergence of an involvement (1928-50)‘, Mediterranean Historical Review, 23 (2008), 165184, 176; see also Hans Kellner, ‗Disorderly Conduct: Braudel‘s Mediterranean Satire‘, History and Theory, 18 (1979): 197-222, 206. 23 Michel Fontenay, ‗Corsaires de la foi ou rentiers du sol? Les chevaliers de Malte dans le ―corso‖ méditerranéen au XVIIe siècle‘, Revue d‟histoire moderne et contemporaine, 35 (1988): 361384. 24 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 2: 759. 22
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acknowledged peculiarity of this area, the foundation of its cultural and social diversity. In the words of Horden and Purcell ―the only way in which the Mediterranean is differentiated both from its neighbours and from comparable areas much farther away is [by] the sheer intensity and complexity of the ingredients‖.25 We take this to be the background of the researches here presented, but it is not the intention of this volume to enter into the heated debate on Mediterranean ‗exceptionalism‘.26 Its ambition is to contribute to the history of the maritime activities peculiar to the area, and the way these impacted the social, economic and cultural history of some European and African societies that had a strong engagement with the maritime dimension. A Microhistorical Approach? These apparently trivial details tell us more than any formal description about the life of the Mediterranean man.27 A frequent Anglo-American critique of Braudel‘s methodology has centred on his supposed disdain towards the so-called événementielle level of historical analysis.28 I personally disagree with this interpretation, after all Braudel himself declared that ―there is more to history than the study of persistent structures and the slow progress of evolution […] I am by no means the sworn enemy of the event‖. 29 The problem is that frequently, many of his critics seem to be confusing the événementielle level of historical analysis – concerned with ‗great battles‘ and ‗great men‘, a kind of history that already at the time of Braudel could be defined as ‗traditional‘ –30 with something conceptually rather different, that is to say with the detailed investigation of small episodes and case-studies, whose analysis throws light on larger phenomena by connecting individual stories with the bigger historical picture.31 In one way or the other, most essays in this volume Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, ‗The Mediterranean and ―the New Thalassology‖‘, American Historical Review, 111 (2006): 722-740, 734. 26 See Michael Herzfeld, ‗Practical Mediterraneanism: Excuses for Everything, from Epistemology to Eating‘, in Harris ed., Rethinking the Mediterranean, 45-63. 27 Braudel, Mediterranean, 2: 758. 28 An exception to this being: Kellner, ‗Disorderly Conduct‘, 222. 29 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 2: 901 30 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 2: 901. 31 On the complex, and highly ideologically charged, relationship between ‗microhistory‘ and histoire événementielle, there is quite a large body of literature, a good starting point is: Carlo Ginzburg, ‗Microhistory: Two or Three Things That I Know about It‘, Critical Inquiry, 20 (1993): 10-35, especially 12-14. On the link between micro and macro, some interesting observations in Matti Peltonen, ‗Clues, Margins and Monads: the Micro-Macro Link in Historical Research‘, History and Theory, 40 (2001): 347-359. 25
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base their analysis on ‗these apparently trivial details‘, which are taken to be the starting point of historical reconstruction, and, through them, highlight the hiatus between the normative institutional level of history and real life on the ground. 32 Behind this common methodological choice lies the belief that the employment of micro-analysis is most useful in order to reach larger conclusions, that is to say that it is necessary to concentrate on the smallscale in order to collect the kind of evidence on the basis of which largescale structural issues can be properly investigated, and established interpretations challenged. Seen under this light, the emergence of microhistory in the 1970s, although it certainly ―reflects a certain disillusionment with the traditional Grand Narrative of the progress of civilization‖, does not always have to be ―a critique of macro-history‖ – as has recently been argued by Peter Burke –33 but can also be seen as an alternative way to revise Grand Narratives, hopefully arriving at more nuanced conclusions. To use such an approach in a volume inspired by Braudel is therefore not an aberration: John Marino has perceptively observed that ―the possibility of microhistory is already contained within Braudel‘s global vision‖.34 Moreover, in recent years the interplay of different scales of analysis within historical scholarship has proved to be one of the most stimulating developments. 35 Consciously and subconsciously, this owes a lot to the Braudelian intellectual heritage, as the micro and macro level of analysis are engaged in a constant dialogue in The Mediterranean and, in fact, the pairing of such a powerful interpretative mainframe with a dazzling display of detailed documentary evidence, remains one of the great achievements and major strengths of that book, notwithstanding the fact that Braudel has been accused of arbitrariness in the choice of his examples and case-studies. Another reason to privilege this methodological approach, is that microhistory has proved itself particularly useful in analysing phenomena which lay outside the reach of the nation-state,36 in areas in which the hiatus between the ‗normative‘ and ‗practical‘ is wide, and which therefore display characteristics of fluidity and ambiguity which makes them easily fall outside traditional interpretative categories. This does not mean that the ‗state‘ is not a protagonist of these issues; the institutional level Braudel, Mediterranean, 2: 1243. Peter Burke, ‗The Invention of Microhistory‘, Rivista di Storia Economica, 24 (2008): 259-273. 34 John A. Marino, ‗The Exile and His Kingdom: The Reception of Braudel‘s Mediterranean‘, The Journal of Modern History, 76 (2004): 622-652, 643. 35 This even by historians who are rather critic of Braudel, see Jacques Revel, Jeux d'échelles. La microanalyse à l'expérience (Paris, 1996). 36 Peltonen, ‗Clues, Margins and Monads‘, 348-349 and the bibliography there cited. 32 33
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provided by state regulation remains in the background of all social and economic activities, and indeed it is in the relationship between institutions and individuals that the results of research are proving to be most fruitful and challenging. In my opinion though, it is crucial to underline how, in the study of trade and exchange in the early modern Mediterranean, it becomes immediately apparent that the constant renegotiation of terms between, on the one hand governments‘ regulations that decreed how trade should be organised and, on the other, the choices of the individual actors who traded, was of preponderating importance. Once this approach is put at the centre of the analysis it becomes possible to see, across the various Mediterranean frontiers – political, economic, cultural and religious – the emergence of a series of hitherto unknown customary and well established formal and informal systems of contractual enforcement that complicate the traditional image of a sea divided between different empires and religious blocks, as shown by the contribution of Eloy Martín Corrales to this volume. And the end result is a dazzling display of solutions in the way in which individual trajectories come alive and find a space of economic and social action frequently going beyond traditional system of values, a situation which is typical of periods of economic transition, religious changes and general transformations. From the Northern Invasion to the Caravane Maritime So the Dutch swarmed into the Mediterranean like so many heavy insects crashing against the window panes – for their entry was neither gentle nor discreet.37 When, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, Dutch and English ships started to regularly sail and trade within the Straits, it was the beginning of a new era in Mediterranean history, since for the first time its waters witnessed the growing presence and influence of maritime powers that were not centred on its shores. The onset of Venice‘s maritime crisis, which had caused the stoppage of its direct sea trade transporting Oriental and Mediterranean products to England and Flanders, and the crisis of the entrepôt of Antwerp, stimulated the arrival of the Northerners in the Mediterranean, a process which was facilitated by the absence of a hegemonic power capable of claiming these waters. 38 No one argues Braudel, The Mediterranean, 1: 634 Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution. Commercial Change, Political Conflicts, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653 (Cambridge, 1993); Maria Fusaro, L‟uva passa. Una guerra 37 38
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anymore that their arrival led inevitably and relatively quickly to their preeminence in the maritime trade of the Mediterranean, and it is true that the structures of cabotage shipping remained largely unchanged after their coming, but the Northerners‘ arrival had important repercussions particularly on the long-distance maritime trade, which they quickly came to dominate. In evaluating the impact of this invasion it is nonetheless important to distinguish between the activities of the Dutch and those of the English, and also between the various Mediterranean regions which were impacted by them in different ways. The Dutch role within the Mediterranean economy has been subject to a substantial reassessment in recent years. It is now accepted that their predominant role in the grain trade between northern and southern Europe – which grew exponentially during the southern European grain famines of the 1590s – did not manage to transform itself into a substantial role in the so-called ‗rich trades‘, that is to say in the trade of the spices and luxury Oriental goods that moved from Asia and the Middle East towards Western Europe.39 The ‗swarm‘ image evoked above by Braudel in reality works better if, instead of applying it to the Dutch, it is used for the English, as their entrance was swiftly followed by their capillary establishment in the crucial commercial nodes of the Mediterranean, in this way dramatically accelerating the demise of the traditional strong commercial leaders of the past.40 The consequences of their arrival on the Venetian economy makes this especially evident, as the beginning of English trading using the sea routes that for centuries had been her traditional ones, accelerated an existing maritime crisis that ended up downgrading Venice‘s commerce – and therefore her economy – to the level of a regional player.41 If the arrival of the Northerners did not substantially change the underlying structure of Mediterranean cabotage, it is true to say that from the beginning of the seventeenth century the English and Dutch started slowly to penetrate the short-distance inter-Mediterranean trade and in commerciale tra Venezia e l‟Inghilterra, 1540-1640, (Venice, 1997); Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion‘. 39 Jonathan Israel, ‗Phases of the Dutch Straatvaart, 1590-1713: A Chapter in the Economic History of the Mediterranean‘, in Tijdschrift von Geschiedenis, 99 (1986): 157-186; Paul van Royen, ‗The First Phase of the Dutch Straatvaart (1591-1605): Fact and Fiction‘, International Journal of Maritime History, 2 (1990): 69-102; Maartje van Gelder, ‗Supplying the Serenissima: the role of Flemish merchants in the Venetian grain trade during the first phase of the Straatvaart‘, International Journal of Maritime History, 16 (2004): 39-60. 40 Richard T. Rapp, ‗The Unmaking of the Mediterranean Trade Hegemony: International Trade Rivalry and the Commercial Revolution‘, Journal of Economic History, 35 (1975): 499-525. 41 Maria Fusaro, ‗Les Anglais et les Grecs. Un réseau de coopération commerciale en Méditerranée vénitienne‘, in Annales HSS, 58 (2003): 605-625; and L‟uva passa..
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this way, over the long-term, they contributed to its change. It is possible therefore to say that the Northern Invasion prepared the ground for the Caravane Maritime. A close reading of the relevant documentary evidence, and the peculiarities of Mediterranean sailing, show in fact that dividing long-distance – international – trade from cabotage is (and was) far less easy than it appears at first glance. Between 1664 and 1740, trying to survey and reorganise maritime trade, and with an eye at devising new forms of taxation through the issuing of increasingly detailed legislation, the French authorities attempted at providing some official definitions of what constituted ‗long-distance‘, ‗medium distance‘ and cabotage trade. This attempt ended up in confusion, without any satisfactory conclusion to the project, mainly because of the continuous intersection between these different levels of trade.42 English ships especially had a tendency to arrive in the Mediterranean on ‗medium distance‘ trade ventures and then to become involved in intra-Mediterranean trade.43 As Colin Heywood shows in his contribution to this volume, ―a trading voyage which started as a ‗pure‘ expression of international trade could seamlessly metamorphose into an equally ‗pure‘ manifestation of the Mediterranean caravane, once its initial international cargo had been discharged‖. But, even more importantly for the structural transformation of local commercial patterns, English merchants – mostly agents of the Levant Company in Ottoman and Venetian territories, and independent merchants in the rest of the Mediterranean – frequently invested directly in intra-Mediterranean shipping, sometime in association with local merchants and entrepreneurs, and these kind of contacts and deals ended up having a profound transformative power on local trading and commercial practices.44 Once these factors are taken into consideration, the Northern Invasion becomes a necessary preamble to the Caravane Maritime. The same reasons that had caused northern shipping first to enter the Mediterranean, and then to become very successful there – such as the demand for shipping service due to the crisis of the traditional local carriers, and the Northerners‘ competitive low freights costs and cheaper insurance –45 made the utilization of their services desirable also for the growing maritime trade internal to the Ottoman empire, which was Buti, ‗Entre échanges de proximité et trafics lointains‘, 289. Braudel, The Mediterranean, 1: 447. 44 Maria Fusaro, ‗Coping with Transition. Greek Merchants and Shipowners between Venice and England in the Late Sixteenth Century‘, in Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History, Gelina Harlaftis, Ina Baghdiantz-McCabe, Ioanna Pepelasis-Minoglou eds. (London, 2005), 95-123. 45 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 1: 624. 42 43
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expressing an increasing demand for shipping that could not be satisfied through its own resources. This phenomenon is connected to one of the truisms of Mediterranean and Ottoman history: that the beginning of the Ottoman economic decline are to be seen in what Bruce Masters described as the failure of the Islamic community to partake in the early modern maritime revolution.46 Notwithstanding the way in which further investigations into the role of Greek Ottoman subjects within maritime trade have shown that ‗Ottoman‘ shipping – albeit ‗non Muslim‘ – was active and successful, as detailed in Gelina Harlaftis‘ contribution to this volume;47 together with more recent studies which are starting to show how the maritime activities of the Northern Africans Barbary states were not exclusively confined to corsairing,48 the fact remains that the growing maritime commercial needs of the Ottoman empire could not be fully satisfied without a recourse to European shipping. The firsts to get involved were the English and Dutch in the seventeenth century, and it is in fact in the 1675 renewal of English capitulations with the Ottomans that is found the first official mention of the caravane phenomenon. This is evidence not only of the English participation in it, but also shows that already by that time, European shipping was providing such a substantial amount of transport for goods and men between Ottoman ports to warrant the issuing of specific legal clauses to regulate it. 49 From the end of the seventeenth century the French got also involved in the caravane, and extremely quickly they came to fully dominate it.50 Due to the risk of the plague in Ottoman territories, still endemic in the eighteenth century, participation in the caravane entailed rather severe risks for its participants. Plague was certainly an unwanted cargo, but also one that managed to take full advantage of the high connectivity of Mediterranean trade routes. In the words of Daniel Panzac, in his contribution to this volume, ―Dutch ships and, to a lesser extent, the 46 Bruce Masters, The Origins of Western Economic Dominance in the Middle East: Mercantilism and the Islamic Economy in Aleppo, 1660-1750 (New York, 1988). 47 I refer to the bibliographical references provided in the essay by Gelina Harlaftis in this volume. 48 See, for example, the works of Sadok Boubaker, especially La Régence de Tunis au XVIIe siècle: ses relations commerciales avec les ports de l‟Europe méditerranéenne, Marseille et Livourne (Zaghouan, 1987); ‗Négoce et enrichissement individuel à Tunis du XVIIe siècle au début du XIXe siècle‘, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 50 (2003): 29-62. See also Lemnaouar Merrouche, Recherches sur l‟Algérie à l‟époque ottomane. Monnaies, prix et revenus 1520-1830 (Paris, 2002). 49 Daniel Panzac, ‗Le contrat d‘affretement maritime en Méditerranée: Droit maritime et pratique commerciale entre Islam et Chretienté (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles)‘, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 45 (2002): 342-362, 344-346. 50 Daniel Panzac, La caravane maritime. Marins européens et marchands ottomans en Méditerranée (Paris, 2004).
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English and Swedish ships, made more ‗direct‘ trips between their countries and the ports of the Levant thus running fewer risks [to be exposed to the plague] than the French, Venetians and the Ragusans who dominated [the caravane trade]‖, so the development of trade patterns can be seen as having important effect also from the epidemiological perspective. An interesting aspect of the development of the caravane is that throughout the period from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, the freight contracts that underpinned these trades remained remarkably similar, almost standardized, all across Europe and the Ottoman territories.51 This development of legal arrangements, and their continuity over time provide us with evidence of how well the system functioned, and also of the kind of practical solutions devised in the early modern period to manage trade across different legal systems and cultural divides. Both the Northern Invasion and the Caravane Maritime were phenomena that did not involve swashbuckling adventures and famous protagonists, instead involving slow and humdrum activities. But both of them proved to be powerful agents of social and economic change as they represented the reality of one economic system first infiltrating and then dominating new markets and, in a second stage, helping to transform this economic supremacy into a political one. The penetration of Northern and Western European commercial shipping in the Mediterranean was in fact swiftly followed by that of their navies. The growing dangers of Mediterranean waters in the seventeenth century, when corsairing activities thrived on both sides of the religious divide, pushed merchants towards the adoption of convoys – with merchantmen protected by menof-war – as a practical solution to increase the safety of navigation. In this way fleets started systematically to patrol and defend commercial spaces, an activity which by the nineteenth century was to play an important role in the establishment of European colonial regimes in North Africa. Another example of the connection of maritime and naval affairs is linked to the creation of new naval strongholds, a transformation experienced by several islands – such as Malta and Minorca – where commercial hubs grew out of outposts originally established for strategic and military concerns.
51
Panzac, ‗Le contrat d‘affretement maritime‘, 349.
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The North African Perspective I believe that this spectacle, the Mediterranean as seen from the opposite shore, upside down, had considerable impact on my vision of history. 52 The southern waters of the Mediterranean were for centuries the stage of confrontation between the two major religions of the region, and the crusader spirit remained active there far longer then anywhere else. In these waters Muslims and Christians were locked in a virtually permanent state of low level war, and at the forefront of this long conflict were the activities of Christian and Muslim corsairs: in the early modern period the former‘s headquarters were Malta and Livorno, the latter‘s were in the North African Regencies – the so-called Barbary States. The reputation of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli as the capitals of Muslim corsairing – the ‗scourge of Christendom‘ – was strong and longlasting all over Europe, thanks both to their exploits at sea against Christian shipping, and to their attacks on unprotected coastal areas. A consequence of this is that the history of the North African Regencies has only relatively recently entered the domain of historical research, as for a long time it was the dominion of ―fantasy and misunderstanding‖, more than of scholarship.53 Literature in fact, was for centuries the favoured medium through which the relationship between the Regencies and Western Europe expressed itself. In European travel narratives, memoirs of slaves – the subject of Salvatore Bono‘s essay in this volume – and even popular literature narrated these encounters, but interestingly – as Mohamed-Salah Omri shows in his contribution to this volume – this was not an exclusively European phenomenon as also North African literatures produced fiction on these very same topics. 54 However, in investigating these North African societies, and especially their relations with early modern Europeans, there is another important element that needs to be taken into account, and that is their ambivalent reputation in the eyes of Europeans. If the Regencies were feared for their military raids, their societies also represented for some Europeans the possibilities of a ‗new life‘, and throughout this period they Fernand Braudel, ‗Personal Testimony‘, The Journal of Modern History, 44 (1972): 448-467, 450. The upside-down map of the Mediterranean appears in Braudel, The Mediterranean, 1: 169. 53 Daniel Panzac, Barbary Corsairs. The End of a Legend: 1800-1820 (Leiden-Boston, 2005), 1. 54 I refer to the bibliographical references provided in the essays by Salvatore Bono and Mohamed-Salah Omri in this volume. It is important to mention that this topic was – and still is – favoured also by a more popular literary production, the bestselling French novel published in English under the name of Sergeanne Golon, Angélique and the Sultan, represents a classic example of this kind of narrative. 52
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maintained a reputation as places where social promotion was easier, and where a man with skills could easily make his way to the top, factors that acted as a powerful lure for all sorts of adventurers and Christian renegades.55 The Regencies‘ position vis-à-vis the Ottoman empire is an area about which still comparatively little is known, but what is clear is that, overall, they enjoyed a substantial amount of autonomy from Istanbul. Their connection with the Sublime Porte started at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when local rulers put themselves under the protection of the Sultan and, thanks to Ottoman military help, managed to expel the Spaniards from a number of their bases in the Maghreb, the last frontier of the Reconquista. With the growth of corsairing activities during the seventeenth century, and the Regencies‘ partial conversion to maritime trade in the eighteenth, their relationship with the Porte became somewhat looser. But during all this period the Barbary States‘ fleets went to war alongside the Ottoman empire, as their ships represented an important element of the Ottoman Imperial Navy. The quality and quantity of North African naval power was strengthened by the influx of European renegades, as these brought with them new nautical technology and expertise, and more technically advanced vessels manned with qualified crews. Particularly the demobilization of English privateering vessels at the end of the Anglo-Spanish conflict in 1604 provided the Regencies with the opportunity of welcoming a good number of men and ships who were ill inclined to abandon their activities against the Spaniards, and who frequently could not return to England as they were afraid that their redoubtable behaviour of the past could catch up with them, were they to return home. But this influx of Europeans into North Africa continued throughout the seventeenth century, as every time a peace treaty was signed between European countries, some European privateers went over to the Regencies.56 As Fatiha Loualich‘s contribution to this volume shows, the socio-economic life of North African corsairs at home bears witness to their multicultural and multiethnic origins, something which appears very vividly in how the presence of such a cosmopolitan group involved in maritime activities ended up influencing the development of local social mores, especially in the field of inheritance practices, which show a Murphey, ‗The Ottoman Resurgence‘, 196-197. Bartolomé and Lucile Bennassar, Les chrétiens d‟Allah. L‟histoire extraordinaire des renégats XVIe-XVIIe siècles (Paris, 1989); an excellent summary of the last stages of the corso in Panzac, Barbary Corsairs, 25-27; see also Salvatore Bono, I corsari barbareschi (Turin, 1964) and Corsari nel Mediterraneo. Cristiani e musulmani fra guerra, schiavitù e commercio (Milan, 1993); John S. Bromley, Corsairs and Navies 1660-1760 (London, 1987). 55 56
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remarkable convergence across the different social groups which made up this melting pot. What is striking in reviewing these recent and ongoing studies on North African early modern societies, is how under the cloak of their apparent differences and exoticisms, they all show remarkable similarities to other, and better studied, Mediterranean coastal regions. As Albert Camus wrote in the late 1930s, it could really be the case that ―the Mediterranean finds its fullest expression in North Africa as this is the place where East meets West‖.57 Notwithstanding that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a series of bilateral treaties had been signed with the Regencies by most European states, corsairing activities did not really stop. By the eighteenth century it had become obvious to European powers that any plan to control Mediterranean trade and commercial activity had to include the disabling of North African seafaring, as Nabil Matar details in his contribution to this volume. There is an active and lively debate both on what the motivations of the Western Europeans exactly were, and on how events really unfolded in this struggle, but the end result does not change, ―it was only through the establishment of European state sovereignty in North Africa that the Barbary corsairs were suppressed‖. 58 Malta as the Hinge of Mediterranean The essential point, without question, is the positive correlation between piracy and the economic health of the Mediterranean: and I would stress that it is positive: they rise and fall together.59 Malta‘s geographical position at the convergence of the eastern and western Mediterranean trade routes, and the peculiarities of its society and economy, gave it a pivotal role as the hinge of Mediterranean maritime activity. If the Barbary States were the headquarters of Muslim corsairing, the island of Malta was the centre of the activities of its Christian counterparts. The Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem had received the island in fief from Charles V in 1530, and the island remained their home until the French occupation in 1798. With an uncanny parallelism, as the Barbary States became the favourite destinations for renegade adventurers, after the arrival of the Knights Malta followed a Albert Camus quoted in Mohamed-Salah Omri, ‗History, Literature and Settler Colonialism in North Africa‘, Modern Language Quarterly, 66 (2005): 273-298, 284-5. 58 Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns: State Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe (Princeton, 1996), 112. 59 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 2: 887. 57
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similar path and welcomed its own share of adventurers willing to pursue corsairing activities from the Christian side. As a result of this, between the end of the sixteenth and the middle of the seventeenth centuries, the population of the island doubled, thanks also to the growing retinues of the Knights that swelled the islands‘ population.60 Continuing the Crusades‘ fight on the sea was the primary activity of the Knights, as proven by the fact that patents to pursue the corso were issued by the Grand Master of the Order himself, and recent researches have shown the activities of Christian corsairing to be as ruthless and indiscriminate as those of their Muslim equivalents. This kind of war had a long history in the Mediterranean, but experienced a massive quantitative increase in the seventeenth century, as did the predisposition of the Knights to also attack Christian shipping. This kind of behaviour was at the root of a growing sense of unease in Europe about their activities, which ended up playing an important role in the demise of the Order at the hands of the French at the end of the eighteenth century. Another common element between the North African Regencies and the Maltese Knights was the complexity of their political allegiances and loyalties and, mutatis mutandis, both represented very particular cases of institutional development, almost unique when compared with what was happening to the other states in the region. The Regencies of North Africa owed allegiance to the Ottoman sultan, but the pashas representing the Porte were frequently sidelined by locally elected military leaders, and the consequence of this was that frequently the Regencies ended up acting rather independently from Istanbul. For completely different reasons the Knights‘ government was equally complex and subjected to different forces, not necessarily in agreement with each other. The Grand Master of the Order owed feudal allegiance to the Spanish Crown, but was also subject to the authority of the Pope and to the growing influence of the French Crown, where the bulk of the Order‘s estates and patrimony was situated. This rather tangled set of allegiances, and the fact that the peculiarities of the Knights‘ status never really allowed in Malta the development of proper government structures, complicates the picture further, and is the topic of Ann Williams contribution to this volume. The way these competing factors shaped Maltese activities is reflected in the increasing activities of both Maltese and Western European Courts of Justice in processing litigation generated by Maltese corsairing activities, and in the growing diplomatic involvement that became necessary to solve such controversies. The analysis of these events gives us a privileged view Anne Brogini, Malte, Frontière de Chrétienté (1530-1670) (Rome, 2006); Peter Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary (London, 1970).
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into the variable and multiple jurisdictions that were typical of the early modern Mediterranean, and also allow us to see the practical origins and development of what were to become international commercial and maritime law, as analysed by Molly Greene in her contribution to this volume. The presence in Malta of a large slave population, as a result of the corso, is another point of similarity between Malta and the Barbary States. Mediterranean slavery was based not on race and/or skin colour, but on religious affiliation, but there were also substantive and important legal differences between this kind of slavery and the far better studied ‗American/Atlantic‘ one. Just to give two important examples: in the Mediterranean case religious conversion at any time could grant the slave freedom, and in the Ottoman empire the status of slave was not an impediment to worldly success and a rise up the social ladder, as the example of the janissaries shows us. 61 If corsairing was the primary activity of the Knights, and also involved a substantial part of the population of the island, since 1530 the provisioning needs of a booming population, and the relative barrenness of Maltese soil, also stimulated an increase of commerce. In this way Maltese merchants widened the geographical scope of their trades, and if in the sixteenth century this was confined mostly to the lower Italian peninsula, with the seventeenth it included France and in the eighteenth it reached the Iberian peninsula.62 For the whole period of the Knights‘ presence in the island, the two activities of ‗corsairing‘ and ‗trading‘ were practised side by side, an aspect which is the subject of Simon Mercieca‘s contribution to this volume. This was in theory an uneasy situation, but in practice it was smoothly performed even across the confessional divide, through the participation of Maltese ships in the caravane maritime. This happened notwithstanding the formal prohibitions of trading with the ‗Infidel‘, a powerful manifestation of the hiatus between institutional and practical states of affairs that so much characterises Mediterranean history. Various legal escamotages were set into place to avoid the Maltese merchants and sailors being legally prosecuted at home, the most common being to draw up these commercial agreements outside of the Island‘s jurisdiction. 63 An agile and nuanced summary of these issues, with an exhaustive bibliography on this topic is Michel Fontenay, ‗Routes et modalités du commerce des esclaves dans la Méditerranée des Temps Modernes (XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles)‘, Revue Historique, 108 (2006): 813-830. 62 Carmel Vassallo, Corsairing to Commerce: Maltese Merchants in XVIII Century Spain (Valletta, 1997). 63 John Debono, Trade and Port Activity in Malta, 1750-1800 (Valletta, 2000), 108. 61
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Institutions and Definitions, as a Conclusion The Mediterranean speaks with many voices; it is a sum of individual histories.64 In a most perceptive review of Purcell and Horden‘s Corrupting Sea, Mark Whittow argued that within this environment ―exchange is not a sign of modernity, but the very essence of survival in the Mediterranean world‖. 65 The multiple political divisions of the region, played out within a limited geographical space, shaped a world in which issues of trade and politics have always been very closely interconnected, a world in which antagonisms were constantly enmeshed with structural interdependencies that cut across political, cultural and religious ideas and in which, therefore, frontiers of all kinds turned out to be remarkably permeable. The peculiar structure of Braudel‘s book, itself the topic of several critical essays,66 seems to me to descend exactly from his focussing on Mediterranean economic history, and his emphasis on the patterns of commercial exchange. In this regard Samuel Kinser commented nearly thirty years ago that ―the geohistorical orientation of La Méditerranée dislodged the state from its role as the focal point of historical inquiry, making politics secondary to other historical ensembles of action in ways that economic and cultural historians had in vain tried to accomplish during the preceding hundred years‖. 67 However, even in the study of the socio-economic history of the sea, ‗states‘ and ‗empires‘ remain ever present in the background, and their crucial influence becomes evident especially in two fields: the institutional framework of commercial transactions, with the related problems of arriving at a quantitative evaluation of trade itself and, secondly, the delicate issue of ‗identities‘. I have already briefly touched on the legal implications of the complexity of the Mediterranean trading system. Some essays in this volume will deal further with this topic, but the long hand of state institutions played an important role in other aspects of trade, and further research will be necessary to better understand them. Just to provide two examples: states and empires did express a complex attitude towards foreign imports, and this was compounded by the difficult relationship that seems to have existed everywhere in the Mediterranean between Braudel, The Mediterranean, 1: 13. Mark Whittow, review of Purcell and Horden, The Corrupting Sea, The English Historical Review, 116 (2001): 900-902, 900. 66 Amongst many: Kellner, ‗Disorderly Conduct‘; Samuel Kinser, ‗Annaliste Paradigm? The Geohistorical Structuralism of Fernand Braudel‘, The American Historical Review, 86 (1981): 63105; Whittow, review of Purcell‘s and Horden‘s The Corrupting Sea. 67 Kinser, ‗Annaliste Paradigm?‘, 103. 64 65
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Custom and Sanità officials, whose personal economic interests were frequently divergent. Another area where the states‘ influence was paramount is the issue of clashing political interests of overlords with the economic interests of the ‗over-lorded‘ – the Barbary States versus the Ottoman empire and the Ionian Islands versus the Republic of Venice being just two examples of these dynamics.68 The state reappears also when dealing with attempts at quantitative evaluations of the volume of trade, now a most unfashionable topic of research. How to deal with national labels with regard to early modern shipping is an issue of extreme relevance for maritime history. It was – and still is – a rather delicate subject, and its study requires a finelytuned ear to the nuances of the evidence which emerges from primary sources, which frequently does not fit neatly with contemporary analytical categories which are still strongly connected with histories which remain centred on nation-states. In the early modern period, as today, there were various elements to consider when talking about shipping: who owns the vessel, who rents it, who owns the merchandise which is being transported, who crews it, who captains it, just to name the principal questions. And there is also the problem of the nationality of the ship and that of the cargo, two separate issues in the eye of the law, but conjoined in practice and rather complex to unravel. Labelling trade is as complex today for scholars as it was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the French authorities. From this derives the need to go beyond the forms of traditional economic analysis which uses the nation-state as the unit of measurement, as national statistics – quite apart from issues relating to their unreliability – give but an imperfect picture of the realities of trade. Last but not least there is the ambiguity of language, as under the same name it is possible to find rather different institutions. The history and usage of the term portofranco is a splendid example of such problems, as it means rather different things in different places and times. Livorno, the earliest and probably the most famous case in the Mediterranean, became a portofranco at the end of the sixteenth century, when the Livornine of 1590 and 1593 opened its harbour to traders – regardless of their nationality and religion – with the intention of kick-starting the Medici project for establishing a Mediterranean entrepôt on their territory. Tariffs were set very low, even more so after new legislation in this regard was issued in 1676, the spirit of this legislation being to attract foreign merchants and create a centre for the redistribution of goods for the entire Mediterranean. Genoa – intermittently – was a portofranco just for cereals, and only in the eighteenth century were its tariffs lowered or abolished for 68
Fusaro, ‗Les Anglais et les Grecs‘ and ‗Coping with Transition‘.
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other merchandise as well.69 Marseilles, notwithstanding this label, was never a proper portofranco, there existing there merely lower tariffs for foreign shipping, when compared to the usually extortionate ones of other French ports.70 In short all Mediterranean portofrancos had different characteristics, which need to be clearly specified for each of them, and for each phase of their development over time. There is one last element where the early modern state played a significant role even before the rise of the nation-state, and it is the thorny issue of ‗identities‘. In a Mediterranean world whose keywords are exchange and fluidity, where the frontiers between empires and states, cultures and religions were ever permeable, it is not a surprise that social and economic behaviours frequently involved the display of multiple identities. And Mediterranean maritime trade could also be a forger of ‗new cultural identities‘, as Donna Landry shows us in the contribution to this volume dedicated to the trade in horses between East and West. As Kinser briefly hinted in the passage quoted earlier, cultural and economic history do indeed share a common ground: whether relating to horses, ship-captains, slaves or corsairs, Mediterranean identities were multiple and constantly renegotiated, the high connectivity of the Mediterranean world does not allow the scholar the possibility of easy categorization. In the last decades the Mediterranean semi-closed space, characterised by high connectivity and capillarity has frequently moved scholars to employ the metaphor of a fractal to describe it.71 The aim of this volume is to take into account both the macro and the micro perspectives, and to accommodate under the same cover differing interpretations of the same phenomena. Without recourse to fractals, we, the editors, would like to think of our endeavour as one which represents Braudel‘s favourite vision of history as ―a song for many voices‖. 72 This is not only an act of homage to the mentor of Mediterranean history, but it is our favourite vision of history as well.
Thomas A. Kirk, Genoa and the Sea. Policy and Power in an Early Modern Maritime Republic, 1559-1684 (Baltimore and London, 2005), 166-181. 70 Masson, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant, 97 and 106. 71 Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, ‗Four Years of Corruption: A Response to Critics‘, in Harris ed., Rethinking the Mediterranean, 348-375, 360; see also Nicholas Purcell, ‗The Boundless Sea of Unlikeness? On Defining the Mediterranean‘, Mediterranean Historical Review, 18 (2003): 9-29. 72 Braudel, Mediterranean, 2: 1238. 69
2 THE ENGLISH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, 1600-1630 A Post-Braudelian Perspective on the ‗Northern Invasion‘ Colin Heywood If a measure of the greatness of a work, or at least of its influence on successive generations of historians, is the frequency with which it is used in either acceptance or rejection as the starting point for further enquiries, then Fernand Braudel`s La Méditerranée would appear to stand at the pinnacle of European historiography of the previous century. 1 Even now, more than forty years since the work appeared in an English guise and a full sixty after its first appearance, the scholia, the commentaries, the processes of re-evaluation and reformulation concerning the historian and aspects of his work, continue to appear, although perhaps less frequently than thirty years ago.2
My thanks are due to a number of participants in the Exeter workshop, in particular to Cornell Fleischer, Nabil Matar, Nicholas Rodger and David Starkey, as well as to my two coeditors, for their comments and critical observations on earlier versions of the present study; naturally, all remaining sins of omission or commission are mine alone. I would also like to thank Matti Peltonen (Helsinki) and Darío Barriera (Rosario), who kindly furnished me with copies of some of their work which is otherwise unobtainable in the U.K. 1 Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée et le Monde méditerranéen à l‟époque de Philippe II (Paris, 1949; 2nd. revised edn., 2 vols, 1966). Reference will be made to the English translation of the 2nd edition: The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols, (London, 1972). 2 Amongst more recent work on Braudel, the various studies, too numerous to list here, collected by Carlos A. Aguirre Rojas in the two volumes of the Primeras and Segundas Jornadas Braudelianas (San Juan Mixcoac, 1993 and 1995); William H. McNeill, ‗Fernand Braudel, Historian‘, Journal of Modern History, lxxiii (2001): 133-146; John. A. Marino, ‗The Exile and His Kingdom: The Reception of Braudel‘s Mediterranean‘, Journal of Modern History, lxxvi (2004): 622-652.
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One Braudelian theme that continues to stimulate lively discussion is the ‗Northern Invasion‘ of the Mediterranean in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In a recent contribution to this debate, Molly Greene takes a revisionist, even a reductionist stance, not so much to Braudel‘s work in its totality, but to his evocation of ‗the Northerners‘.3 She questions the acceptance by Braudel and by a later generation of Mediterranean historians of the historicity of ‗this sudden invasion by the Northerners‘, ‗this general overthrow of the Mediterranean‘ which has been seen by Michel Fontenay as one major aspect of the ‗peripherization‘ of the corsair-dominated middle sea from the beginning of the seventeenth century. The current essay refocuses on the English element in Braudel‘s compelling vision of the maritime Northern Invasion of the Mediterranean in the period 1590-1620.4 It builds on two recent papers of the author, 5 and offers a corrective to the revisionism of several aspects of Greene‘s article. In both contexts, a need to move beyond what might be termed Braudelian strategies in order to deepen our perspectives on the Northern Invasion is evident. Here, this is attempted through a reappraisal of the secondary literature, and by the introduction of what might be termed, with some hesitation, a microhistorical approach to the subject. Microhistory as a technique, an approach, offers a fruitful alternative to both the ‗grand narratives‘ of Braudel and his disciples and the post-modernist deconstructionism of Greene and others. Exemplified by the pioneering work of Edoardo Grendi, Carlo Ginzburg and Giovanni Levi, it first surfaced more than thirty years ago in the work of (mainly) Italian historians and in the pages of the Italian journal Quaderni storici.6 Molly Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion: the Mediterranean in the Seventeenth Century‘, Past and Present, 174 (2003): 42-71. 4 Braudel, Mediterranean, 1: 615-42. 5 Colin Heywood, ‗Braudel and the Ottomans: The Emergence of an Involvement (19281950)‘, Mediterranean Historical Review, xxiii (2008): 165-184; ‗A Frontier without Archaeology? The Ottoman maritime frontier in the western Mediterranean, 1660-1760‘, in Andrew C.S. Peacock ed., The Frontiers of the Ottoman World. Proceedings of the British Academy, clvi (2009): 493508. 6 There is a vast and often reduplicative literature on the theory and practice of microhistory, but see in particular Carlo Ginzburg, ‗Microhistory: Two or Three Things That I Know about It‘, Critical Inquiry, xx (1993): 1-34. For more recent useful overviews and studies see Justo Serna and Anaclet Pons, Cómo se escribe la microhistoria. Ensayo sobre Carlo Ginzburg (Valencia, 2000); Matti Peltonen, ‗Clues, Margins and Monads: The Micro-Macro Link in Historical Research‘, History and Theory, xl (2001): 347-359; Darío G. Barriera ed., Ensayos sobre microhistoria (Morelia, 2002); Sigurdur Gylfi Magnússon, ‗The Singularization of History: Social History and Microhistory within the Postmodern State of Knowledge‘, Journal of Social History, xxxvi (2003): 701-735; and ‗Social History as ―Sites of Memory‖?: The Institutionalisation of History: Microhistory and the Grand Narrative‘, Journal of Social History, xxxix (2006): 891913. 3
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And yet, despite its Italian, and hence Mediterranean intellectual origins, microhistory has been almost entirely a land-based phenomenon and its application to maritime history has been both recent and not altogether convincing: the peasants have won out over the mariners, and microhistorians have not yet discovered the maritime equivalent of Ginzburg‘s heretical Friulian miller.7 Nonetheless, elements of a microhistorical approach to ‗history from below‘, even if employed without using the term, can be identified in Maria Fusaro‘s work on the Ionian currant trade, and in the work of such maritime historians as John S. Bromley and Kenneth Andrews. Furthermore, it may be permitted to mention that the concept, if not the term, has been present, perhaps at a submerged level, in some of my own earlier work. 8 Two microhistorical cases, both drawn from research in progress, are presented in this essay to provide a deeper understanding of Braudel‘s (and Greene‘s) macrohistorical Northern Invasion in the first three decades of the seventeenth century. One makes use of preliminary work on an unpublished merchant‘s account book from the early seventeenth century. William Blois (d. 1621) was an Ipswich merchant, deeply involved in the Newfoundland and Mediterranean trades, whose account book covers his maritime trading ventures from 1611 to his death a decade later. 9 The other has emerged out of ongoing work on one specific well-documented event of the Northern Invasion, the Mediterranean voyage of the Prudence of London in 1628-30.10 Both the Blois account book and the surviving ship‘s papers from the Prudence allow a more microhistorical and prosopographic approach to the maritime history of the English Northern Invasion of the Mediterranean. Both sources bring forcibly to mind the A case in point: Lara Putnam, ‗To Study the Fragments/Whole: Microhistory and the Atlantic World‘, Journal of Social History, xxxix (2006): 615-630. 8 Maria Fusaro, Uva passa: una guerra commerciale tra Venezia e l‟Inghilterra (1540-1640) (Venice, 1997), the prefazione to which (vii-viii) is written by Giovanni Levi. See also several of the studies posthumously collected in John S. Bromley, Corsairs and Navies, 1660-1760 (London and Ronceverte, 1987), particularly ‗Outlaws of the Sea, 1660-1720: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity among Caribbean Freebooters‘ (1-20); Kenneth R. Andrews, Ships, Money and Politics: Seafaring and Naval Enterprise in the Reign of Charles I (Cambridge, 1991), especially ‗Anthony‘s Account‘ (84-105), which contain greater or lesser elements of a microhistorical approach to ‗history from below‘. For a prime case of Grendi‘s ‗exceptional normal‘ (Edoardo Grendi, ‗Micro-analisi e storia sociale‘, Quaderni Storici, 53 (1977): 506-520, 512) see Colin Heywood, ‗Ideology and the Profit Motive in the Algerine Corso: The Strange Case of the Isabella of Kirkcaldy, 1709-1714‘, in Carmel Vassallo and Michela D‘Angelo eds., AngloSaxons in the Mediterranean: Commerce, Politics and ideas (XVII-XX Centuries) (Malta, 2007), 17-42. 9 Suffolk County Record Office (Ipswich), Blois family papers (HA 30), Account Books of William and Sir William Blois, 787/3(A) and (B): (A) Accounts of William Blois, 1611-22. 10 The majority of the surviving ship‘s papers of the Prudence are to be found in the National Archives (henceforth NA) (London), State Papers (henceforth SP) 46/88 and 93/3. A fuller study and documentary dossier of the voyage of the Prudence is in preparation. 7
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truism that there are no ‗great names‘ in the Northern Invasion. Rather, it was populated by what Sigurdur Gylfi Magnússon has defined as ‗ordinary people‘, who should be the subject of history, written ‗from the bottom up‘, on their own terms.11 Braudel’s ‘Northern Invasion’ Revisited What was Braudel‘s l‟invasion des nordiques? Historians, from Braudel, who is generally credited with having been the first to isolate the phenomenon and to give it a name, down to his later commentators such as Fontenay and Greene – and, from the side of Dutch participation in the ‗invasion‘, Jonathan Israel and Paul van Royen – have taken Braudel‘s formulations at their face value as a reified conjoncture to be either broadly accepted (Fontenay) or fairly radically criticized and subjected to modification (Israel, van Royen, Greene).12 In addition, consideration needs to be given to non-Braudelian economic historians – notably Ralph Davis – whose work, although entirely un-Braudelian in spirit, dealt squarely with the Northern Invasion without actually using the term. 13 In the first place, the Northern Invasion was by no means a uniform process, either in time or place, or in its effects, or in the forms which it took. Certainly it deserves to be seen as part of a wider spectrum of population movements into, out of and across the Mediterranean in the seventeenth (and to a much lesser extent in the eighteenth) centuries, which cannot be dealt with here. It is not the purpose of the present essay to deal in any detail with the Dutch, the other seventeenth-century ‗northern‘ maritime power of the first order, but it is clear that Dutch (and even more so Hanseatic) involvement in the Mediterranean grain trade had little if any relevance for the ‗rich trades‘ of the Mediterranean, which is where international competition was focused.14 The Dutch presence, Gylfi Magnússon, ‗The Singularization of History‘: 701, 702. Jonathan I. Israel, ‗The Phases of the Dutch Straatvaart (1590-1713): A Chapter in the Economic History of the Mediterranean‘, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, xcix (1986): 1-30; Paul C. van Royen, ‗The First Phase of the Dutch Straatvaart (1591-1605): Fact and Fiction‘, International Journal of Maritime History, 2 (1990): 69-102; Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion‘. 13 Ralph Davis ‗Influences de l‘Angleterre sur le declin de Venise au XVIIème siècle‘, in Aspetti e cause della decadenza economica veneziana nel secolo XVII (Venice, 1961), 185-235, which covers much more ground than its title suggests. See also his The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Newton Abbot, 1962), especially 228-256, and ‗England and the Mediterranean‘, in Frederick J. Fisher ed., Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England in Honour of R.H. Tawney (Cambridge, 1961), 117-37. 14 Braudel, Mediterranean, 1: 629, 634-8; Israel, ‗Phases‘, 1-2, nn. 1,2, 4, citing Johannes G. van Dillen, Van rijkdom en regenten. Handboek tot de economische en sociale geschiednis van Nederland tijdens de Republiek (The Hague, 1970), and passim. See also for an overview, Jonathan I. Israel, ‗The Dutch Merchant Colonies in the Mediterranean during the Seventeenth Century‘, Renaissance 11 12
THE ENGLISH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
27
constantly fluctuating between preponderance and marginality throughout the seventeenth century, was, as Israel admits, a spent force, both navally and economically, even before the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713. This event marks the end of that long seventeenth century which, as Braudel realised eighty years ago, has its beginning in the conclusion of the drawn game by the Ottoman-Spanish truce of 1580, and the resulting withdrawal of the Ottomans and Spain from half a century of struggle for an unachievable Mediterranean hegemony. 15 Braudel says very little in his Mediterranean about the English invasion of the middle sea, and nearly all of what he does say comes from a single source: Richard Hakluyt‘s Principall Navigations of 1599-1600. Hakluyt‘s well-known work of compilation is a source of which – at least in the 2nd edition of the Mediterranean (1966) – Braudel made great use, and obviously enjoyed using and citing. It may be suggested that it was perhaps Hakluyt‘s own unashamedly triumphalist and patriotic stance which influenced Braudel‘s and by extension Greene‘s and Fontenay‘s formulations regarding the Northern Invasion, but, as Neville Williams pointed out more than sixty years ago, ―it is clear that the tale of Tudor commerce cannot be told exclusively from the pages of Hakluyt‖.16 But beyond Hakluyt, and a few scattered notices on the English from French and Spanish diplomatic despatches, there is virtually nothing in La Méditerranée on the English in the Mediterranean. We should not be too surprised at this: the definitive arrival of the English in the Mediterranean takes shape in the same decade of the 1580s which Braudel formally adopts to draw his work to a close. Perhaps, as with Braudel‘s view of the Ottomans, he had done his reading and formed his opinions on the English invaders in the 1930s.17 A couple of references in La Méditerranée are taken from the pioneering work by Mordecai Epstein, The Early History of the Levant Company (1908), and a few pages of Alfred Wood‘s A History of the Levant Company (1935) are drawn on, but Braudel and Modern Studies, xxx (1986): 88-108. Van Dillen, as Israel pointed out (‗Phases‘, 2, n. 4), also criticised Ralph Davis for underrating the importance of the Dutch Mediterranean trade; van Royen based his work on detailed data on Dutch shipping in the Mediterranean, collected in the 1970s by Simon Hart, ‗De Italië-vaart 1590-1620‘, Jaarboek Amstelodamum, lxx (1978): 42-60. 15 Braudel, Mediterranean, 2: 1186-1237. 16 Neville J. Williams, The Maritime Trade of the East Anglian Ports, 1550-1590 (Oxford, 1988 [but published posthumously; the book is his 1952 doctoral dissertation]), 2. See Braudel‘s use and evident enjoyment of Hakluyt‘s account of the Mediterranean voyage of the ―Great Bark Aucher‖ (1550) (Mediterranean, 2: 614). Such borrowings are not unknown in Braudel‘s work. I develop this point in my ‗Braudel and the Ottomans: the Emergence of an Involvement‘ (see footnote 5), 168. 17 See my ‗Braudel and the Ottomans‘, 171.
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makes no use or mention of the work of Ralph Davis. This is strange. Davis had been a participant along with Braudel at the 1957 symposium on the decline of Venice, and his epochal Rise of the English Shipping Industry had appeared in 1962, in good time for Braudel to have used it for the second edition of La Méditerranée.18 Nor does Braudel attempt to analyse the periodicity of the English Levant and Mediterranean trade in the seventeenth century in the way that – albeit erroneously – he had periodized that of the Dutch (perhaps because, unlike the Dutch, once the English had arrived in the Mediterranean they never left). 19 Thus, Braudel‘s use of boisterous and even violent metaphors to define his vision of the Northern Invasion, perhaps need to be taken at something less than their face value. Elsewhere in his Mediterranean he is less extreme, more sceptical. What did the Northern Invasion amount to in terms of its gross tonnage when set against the estimated tonnage of Mediterranean shipping as a whole? Braudel‘s estimate of the size of the Northern Invasion at the end of the sixteenth century is some 100 vessels of between 100 and 200 tons burthen – i.e., between 10,000 and 20,000 tons in all – or what he estimates as between one fifteenth and one thirtyfifth of all Mediterranean merchant tonnage: ―the Northerners were an anomaly‖.20 Braudel‘s remarkable statement that the presence of the Northerners did not drastically alter the pattern of Mediterranean shipping, ―which as we have seen was solidly based‖, a sentiment that would not have been shared by the Venetian diplomats, entrepreneurs and ship-owners of the period, may be countered by reference to Fusaro‘s work, which clearly shows that there was a qualitative element to the ‗arrival of the Northerners‘ which made the event substantially more important structurally than it might have appeared to be quantitatively for a very long time.21 Braudel also, and entirely unhistorically, belittles the Northerners‘ role in the Mediterranean carrying trade in remarking that ―in any case‖ a good half of them were in the service of Mediterranean ports and economies, ―sailing round the sea from port to port, picking up Davis, in terms of temperament and approach, stood at the opposite pole to Braudel as a historian, eschewing – as befitted a one-time company accountant – most (if not all) ‗poetic‘ influences or romanticising stances in favour of a hard-nosed, statistically well-armoured approach based exclusively on a vast range of English archival and contemporary printed sources. See the perceptive appreciation of Davis‘s work (by Donald C. Coleman) in Philip L. Cottrell and Derek H. Aldcroft eds., Shipping, Trade and Commerce: Essays in memory of Ralph Davis (Leicester, 1981), 1-5. 19 Michela D‘Angelo, ‗In the ―English‖ Mediterranean (1511-1815)‘, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, xii (2002): 271-285. 20 Braudel, Mediterranean, 1: 446-7. Braudel‘s ‗guesstimate‘ for Mediterranean tonnage was rather under 350,000 tons, roughly half [of] that engaged in Atlantic and global traffic. 21 Fusaro, Uva passa, 156, ff. 18
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29
cargoes, leaving through the Straits of Gibraltar now and then, to return later the same way‖.22 What were the limits of the ‗Mediterranean‘ in the postBraudelian, post-Lepanto era, the age of the Northern Invasion? There is an argument to be made for including in the trade and shipping patterns of the Mediterranean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries what we, with Braudel, may term ‗the Mediterranean of the Atlantic‘, that is to say in the present context the Iberian and Moroccan littorals ‗without the Straits‘, from Lisbon down to Santa Crux (i.e., Santa Cruz da Guer or Agadir). The importance of Lisbon as an entrepôt for the transiting and interchange of shipping bound ‗up the Straits‘, and as a base for, inter alia, English merchants and ships engaged in the Mediterranean carrying trade, has been well brought out by Stephen Fisher, and should not be underestimated by concentrating entirely on the fortunes of Livorno. 23 Equally, the limits of the Mediterranean corsairing world should be extended for both cultural and economic reasons to include the corsair stronghold of Salé, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco and the waters of the near Atlantic.24 In addition, the little-studied external trade of Santa Crux, where a tenuous trade with the western edge of the bilâd al-sûdân was carried on by English merchants linked with principals in Lisbon and London at the turn of the eighteenth century, also needs further study.25 What of the Northern Invasion within the Straits? Braudel‘s (and Greene‘s) triad of Northerners – England, France, Holland – is in itself a construct open to criticism. France was as much a Mediterranean as a northern polity, with an active maritime frontier on the Mediterranean as well as on the Atlantic. Thus, against the transient phenomenon of Braudel‘s French Northerners as participants in the grain rush of the late sixteenth century, must be set the undeniable fact that in the seventeenth 22 Braudel, Mediterranean, 1: 447. See Davis, Rise, 247, ff. for the reasons for the northerners‘ growing preponderance in Mediterranean cabotage. 23 Stephen Fisher, ‗Lisbon, its English merchant community and the Mediterranean in the eighteenth century‘, in Cottrell and Aldcroft eds., Shipping, Trade and Commerce, 23-44. On Livorno see the several studies by Gigliola Pagano De Divitiis, particularly ‗Il porto di Livorno nelle carte della Levant Company‘, Economia e Storia, 5 (1984): 397-415; ‗Il Mediterraneo nel XVII secolo: l‘espansione commerciale inglese e l‘Italia‘, Studi storici, 1 (1986): 109-148, and ‗Il porto di Livorno fra Inghilterra e Oriente‘, Nuovi Studi Livornesi, 1 (1993): 43-87. 24 The standard work on Salé is still considered to be Roger Coindreau, Les corsaires de Salé (Paris, 1948), but see the informed revisionist stance of Jerome B. Weiner, ‗New Approaches to the Study of the Barbary Corsairs‘, Revue d`Histoire Maghrébine, xiii-xiv (1979): 205-9. 25 Cf. the two fragmentary letter-books of English merchants from Santa Crux for Mar-Aug. 1697 and 1700-1, Great Britain, NA, SP, Foreign, 110/91-2 (mistakenly catalogued as deriving from the lost fifteenth-century Portuguese fortaleza of Santa Cruz del Mar Pequeña, which lies several hundred miles to the south) concerning trade and shipping movements.
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century French participation in both the long-distance and the coasting caravane trade in the Mediterranean (not that it is always easy to distinguish the two modes, which blend one with the other) originated from Marseilles, where the entire trade, it would seem, was controlled by the Marseilles Chambre de Commerce, and from the small Provençal ports of La Ciotat, Antibes, St Tropez and the rest, which supplied the boats, the patrons and the crews, as well as much of the capital, for the French caravane maritime in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.26 True, the Northerners still came in to the middle sea as privateers in times of war between England and France or Spain, when les Flessinguois, like the English privateers, were – at least in official eyes – a curse and a menace to French shipping as far east as Cyprus, but trade between the French Atlantic ports – St Malo, Le Havre, La Rochelle – and the ports of the Mediterranean littoral seems hardly to have existed.27 Fifty years after Davis, it may not be entirely untrue to say that neither British historians nor their southern European colleagues have produced any considerable body of work on the English share in the southern European and Mediterranean trades which might lead to a fundamental revaluation of Braudel‘s Northern Invasion hypotheses. This compares unfavourably with the work of Dutch historians, both micrographically by Hart and van Royen, and on a larger, overview scale by Jonathan Israel. Equally, Braudel‘s and Fontenay‘s zoomorphic metaphors to describe the phenomenon – ―a swarm of bees‖, ―so many heavy insects crashing against the window-panes‖ – and Greene‘s deconstructions, do less than justice to the realities of a process which, as Davis long ago demonstrated within the context of the history of the English shipping industry overall, can only be studied successfully and with understanding through an examination of the surviving realia of the phenomenon – merchants‘ accounts and correspondence; ship‘s records and logs; shipmen‘s letters, bills of lading, and customs clearances, as well as the seriously under-utilised Admiralty court and consular records.28 It is from these last sorts of records, and particularly, though not exclusively, Gaston Rambert ed., Histoire du commerce de Marseille, IV ( de 1599 à 1660) and V (de 1660 a 1789: Le Levant) (Paris, 1954, 1957); Daniel Panzac, La Caravane maritime: Marins européens et marchands ottomans en Méditerranée (1680-1830) (Paris, 2004), 105, ff.; Michel Fontenay, ‗Le commerce des Occidentaux dans les Echelles du Levant vers la fin du XVIIe siècle‘, in Bartholomé Bennassar and Robert Sauzet eds, Chrétiens et Musulmans à la Renaissance (Paris, 1998), 337-370. 27 Bromley, Corsairs and Navies, 407, 409. 28 See John Appleby and David Starkey, ‗The Records of the High Court of Admiralty as a Source for Maritime Historians‘, in David J. Starkey ed., Sources for a New Maritime History of Devon (Exeter, 1986), 70-86, the use made of the above classes of material by Davis, Rise of the English Shipping Industry, esp. chs. xi and xvi, and Kenneth Andrews, ‗Anthony‘s Account‘. 26
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those of the High Court of Admiralty, analogous in their way to the legal records of the Inquisition utilised to such dramatic effects by the Italian pioneers of the microhistorical approach, that the history of the Northern Invasion may be recovered, not on the basis of quantitative, anonymous generalisations ‗from above‘, but by an examination in depth of the individual realities of a particular merchant, or of the participants in particular, well-documented voyages – the maritime equivalents, though more fugitive in time, of the peasant village – which, by the fact of their leaving a record, conform to the ―exceptional normal‖.29 Two Microhistorical Possibilities: William Blois of Ipswich (1611-22) and the voyage of the Prudence of London (1628-30) How can we escape from the mythopoeic and macrohistorical clutches of what has been termed ‗the grander narratives of the past‘ and to recontextualise the Braudelian Northern Invasion? Any attempt to demythify the process must avoid the general and the schematic, and take account of the local, the particular and the individual. In this sense, it may be wrong to speak of the English or the Dutch Northern Invasion: not so much whole countries or classes of society, but particular regions, particular towns, particular individuals came together to make up the whole. This points up a further historiographic weakness which has impacted negatively on our understanding of the English Northern Invasion, and by extension the whole history of English maritime trade into the Mediterranean in the early modern period: the tendency for historians to concentrate almost exclusively on the trade carried on through London, to the virtual exclusion of the provincial ports engaged in the southern European and Mediterranean trade.30 It also ignores the fact that many Levant and Mediterranean trade entrepreneurs, the ships they chartered and the shipmen they employed, also operated extensively in the wider world outwith the Straits of Gibraltar. Thus, in taking our examination of Braudel‘s Northern Invasion further, it should not be forgotten that neither the ships which came into the Mediterranean, nor the merchants who chartered or laded them, were necessarily involved exclusively with the Mediterranean either with one Grendi, ‗Micro-analisi‘, 512. Cf. the support given to this view by Carlo Ginzburg, ‗Checking the Evidence: The Judge and Historian‘, Critical Inquiry, xviii (1991): 79-92, 89. For a particularly well thought-out microhistoricist response to the challenge of post-modernism see Richard D. Brown, ‗Microhistory and the Post-Modern Challenge‘, Journal of the Early Republic, xxiii (2003): 1-20. 30 This attitude is particularly marked in Alfred C. Wood‘s old but still unsuperseded A History of the Levant Company (Oxford, 1935), which reflects the monopoly position regarding trade with the Mediterranean littorals of the Ottoman Empire enjoyed by the London-based company. Again, for correctives, see Fusaro, Uva passa. 29
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ship, one voyage or one year. This is clearly in line with Braudel‘s ‗flexible capitalism‘ – the activities of the ‗upper storey‘ of entrepreneurs, also analysed brilliantly by Immanuel Wallerstein, seeking the optimum opportunity wherever it presented itself, and not specialising in one particular trade, commodity or region.31 The English Northern Invasion of the Mediterranean, in particular, was not a national but a regional phenomenon, deriving in large part, it is true, from London merchants, capitalists and entrepreneurs, but with strong roots in the provinces, most particularly in East Anglia, in the regional centre of Norwich and the ports of Ipswich, Yarmouth and Lowestoft, where agriculture, manufacturing and a vigorous and opportunistic mercantile and maritime tradition came together to take advantage of a window of opportunity in part, but not entirely, centred on the Mediterranean, that suddenly opened up for East Anglia in the years around the battle of Lepanto.32 London was certainly central because of the Levant Company‘s legal (if not actual) monopoly on trade with the Ottoman empire and the Venetian territories, but it is from this overlooked East Anglia that there comes a vivid illustration from the early years of the Northern Invasion of both the provincial elements of English trade with the Mediterranean and of Braudel‘s flexible capitalism, in the shape of the one surviving account book of William Blois, an early seventeenth-century Ipswich merchant and entrepreneur.33 This rare document, which covers the years from 1611 to Blois‘s death in 1621, indicates that he was exporting a wide range of miscellaneous commodities, including ‗shamwaye‘ (chamois?), wax, soap, wormseed and train oil to ports in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy. He was also dealing in the staples of the Southern Europe trade, exporting fish, lead and broadcloth, and importing silk, saffron and cochineal from Granada. In 1617 Blois began dealing in sugar, which he bought in Lisbon or London, but his main interest seems to have been in an apparently eccentric choice of activity for an East Anglian merchant, the trade to southern Europe in dried fish from Newfoundland.34 That William Blois lived and carried on his extensive shipping and trading activities in Ipswich was not merely an accident of birth. The Jacobean publicist Tobias Gentleman, writing in 1614, considered the men of Ipswich as the ―chiefest Marchant Adventurers of all England for the Immanuel Wallerstein, ‗Review: Braudel on Capitalism, or Everything Upside Down‘, The Journal of Modern History, lxiii (1991): 354-61. 32 Williams, The Maritime Trade. 33 Ipswich County Record Office (henceforth Ipswich, CRO), HA30/787/3(a). 34 On the English Newfoundland trade see Gillian T. Cell, English Enterprise in Newfoundland, 1577-1660 (Toronto, 1969). 31
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East-lands‖.35 Although Neville Williams has noted that by the late sixteenth century Ipswich was becoming a commercial suburb of London, in both its coasting and its foreign trade, Astrid Friis, making a similar observation, also held that Ipswich was ―the only town in the vicinity of London that could in any degree hold its own‖. 36 William Harborne, the first English ambassador to the Ottoman Porte, was famously a Yarmouth man before he became a ‗merchant of London‘, but from the beginning of the organised trade in 1582 London merchants sought to gain a tight hold on the Turkey and Venice trades, but this, as Williams has noted, had remarkably little effect on the development of Yarmouth‘s trade with Livorno.37 The export trade to Italy of Yarmouth red herrings was a major sector of the town‘s economy, where many – perhaps most – of the herring fleet was still locally-owned at the end of the sixteenth century, the fishermen themselves helping to finance the voyages.38 Braudel‘s generalised Northern Invasion may have been in reality very much a local, and an individual phenomenon. Geoffrey Scammell has observed that Ipswich was in a class of its own for shipbuilding, second only to the Thames until the Civil War. It had built ships for the Spanish trade, in which Blois was involved, since the early 1500s.39 Blois‘s extensive Newfoundland interests are explained by his partnership with his ‗cozen‘, John Madock of Plymouth, who figures extensively in Blois‘s accounts. Madock, together with Thomas Foynes, also of Plymouth, and John Brooke of London and others, were dealing in Newfoundland fish, presumably cod, some of it purchased at Plymouth, some shipped directly from Newfoundland, and also in such North Sea fish as hake, pilchards and herring (including herrings from Lowestoft). In addition, Blois dealt as a reseller in lead, shipped from London or Newcastle and sometimes described as Derbyshire lead, as well as in Suffolk broad cloth, and towards the end of his life was also active in the West Indian sugar trade.40 It is clear that the Mediterranean trade was only a part of William Blois‘s many business interests. But his involvement in this business Tobias Gentleman, England‟s Way to Win Wealth (London, 1614), 23 quoted in Williams, The Maritime Trade, 259. Gentleman‘s little pamphlet makes no mention of the Newfoundland or Mediterranean trades. 36 See Williams, The Maritime Trade, 1-3, 262-4. 37 Williams, The Maritime Trade, 197. On Harborne see Susan Skilliter, William Harborne and the Trade with Turkey 1578-1582 (London, 1977); on Yarmouth in a later period, Perry Gauci, Politics and Society in Great Yarmouth, 1660-1722 (Oxford, 1996). 38 Williams, The Maritime Trade, 168. 39 Geoffrey Scammell, ‗British merchant shipbuilding, c.1500—1750‘, International Journal of Maritime History, 11 (1999): 27-52, 34. 40 Ipswich, CRO, HA30/787/3(a). 35
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provides an insight into the realities in social and human terms of the English men and women, from merchants and entrepreneurs to mariners and mariners‘ wives, who made the Northern Invasion. Neville Williams once remarked that what he termed ‗the maritime aspect‘ – the ―normal, regular life of the English coasting and foreign trades‖ – had remained largely unexplored.41 Matters have improved considerably in the more than half a century since he wrote, but sources which would allow us to deepen and qualify our understanding of the hyperbolic general overthrow of the Mediterranean remain both scarce and little studied. Where we are enabled by the rare survival of a ship‘s papers, if not in something like their entirety, but at least in considerable part, to reconstruct the actualities of an early seventeenth-century Straits voyage, the impression gained is not one of triumphalism, but of desperate perils, hard slogging, dogged grubbing for cargoes in ports from Livorno to Alexandria or Rodosto, ongoing disputes with shore-based factors and consuls, small profits and, possibly, at the end of a hard twenty months‘ voyage, boarding and attempted impressment in the Channel by the Royal Navy. This was the fate of one early-seventeenth century ‗Northerner‘ voyage into the Mediterranean for which we have, if not a complete, then a fairly full documentation. The voyage of the Prudence of London (master William Mellow), from London to Livorno, Zante, Smyrna, Constantinople and Cyprus, which lasted from the winter of 1628-9 to the early autumn of 1630, can be reconstructed in some detail from the ship‘s papers.42 They have probably survived in large part because the Prudence was boarded in the Solent by the crew of the Seventh Whelp, a naval vessel commanded by Dawtrey Cooper, in late August or early September 1630, while on the last stages of her homeward voyage. 43 The Prudence was owned by a small consortium of London businessmen – capitalist venturers – including as first owners George Langham, Thomas Meade, Robert Crane and Richard Swift, and with Henry Lee and William Wyche as secondary partners. She was a vessel of
Williams, The Maritime Trade, 215. The Prudence ship‘s papers are to be found principally in NA, SP 46/88, fos. 1-77. A few related items are scattered throughout SP 16 and there are also some documents in SP 93/3 (Tuscany), fos. 110-126, which clearly derive from the Prudence‘s stays at Livorno. 43 The ten Lion‟s Whelps were fast pinnaces ordered to be built in 1628 by the duke of Buckingham in the vain hope of overmastering the Flemish privateers operating out of Dunkirk. The Seventh Whelp did not survive for long after its encounter with the Prudence. It blew up in action later in the same year, when the gunner‘s mate entered the powder magazine with a lighted match (Rodger, Safeguard of the Sea, 390, 407). 41 42
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approximately 400 tons burthen,44 with a crew of fifty-two.45 The chronology of her Mediterranean voyage of 1628-30 can be briefly summarised. In the late summer or early autumn of 1628 the Prudence was loading cargo in London. The vessel left London, possibly at the end of November, certainly by early in the following month. In mid-December she is found loading skins at Dover, and was then lying in the Downs, departing in late December or possibly in the first days of January 1629. By mid-March she was at Livorno, departing probably in April. In May 1629 the Prudence was at Constantinople; in early June she was at Zante, discharging cargo. By the end of that month she was back at Livorno, where she seems to have stayed for some time. On 27 September 1629 an extensive charter party was drawn up and signed for a voyage from Livorno to the Aegean archipelago (‗the Arches‘); a bill of lading for the same sub-voyage is dated 22 October. In November the Prudence was still at Livorno, possibly involved in a court case, and was perhaps still there in February 1630, having laded goods in mid-December. Certainty returns in April-May 1630, when the ship is definitely at Zante, having probably been on a voyage – the ‗Arches‘ charter-party – to Negroponte, Smyrna and Cyprus in the meantime. In mid-May 1630 the Prudence was lading at Zante, and before midsummer had left Zante (possibly via Livorno) for home. In September-October there occurred the incident in the Solent involving the Seventh Whelp. The investigation of William Mellow by the Admiralty followed in mid-October, and by early December Mellow was ill, and making his will, at his house in Stepney. Some time in early 1631 he died. Paul van Royen has ably described and analysed the complexity of the freighting and charter-party arrangements made for Dutch interport trading voyages in the Mediterranean in the 1590s and the early years of the seventeenth century.46 The complex and repeatedly revised movements of the Prudence in the Mediterranean form part of an identical pattern. On 13 December 1628 the owners wrote to Mellow that they had come to an agreement with John Langham and Henry Lee to let out the ship to them [??] ―when she shall be cleare att Legorne‖. John Langham and Henry Lee were to give Mellow employment ―[to go] where they shall NA, SP 16/115, f. 16r: Warrant dated 29 June 1626 for issuing Letters of Marque to the Prudence of London, 400 tons. At that date the Prudence‘s owner and captain were recorded as Barnabas Mohan. 45 NA, SP 93/3, f. 124: ―la Naue Prudenza, capitano Guglielmo Mello di Londra, con marinari cinquantatre, compreso detto capitano‖ according to the bill of health issued in favour of the Prudence by Ottavio Cappelli, commissario of the Sanità of Livorno, on 12 October 1629 for a voyage to Zante and Smyrna. These figures, assuming they are reliable, give a crew/tonnage ratio of approximately one man to 7.75 tons. 46 van Royen, ‗First Phase‘, 76, ff. 44
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thinke fitt‖ until 15 October [1629], the charterers paying half the port charges incurred during that time, allowing £600, payable at four months, for which their factors would give Mellow bills on his arrival at Zante. Mellow was to [remit] 2,000 Spanish dollars to J. Langham and H. Lee‘s factors at Livorno, and to take bills for 1,000 dollars from each of them at 4s 6d per dollar, payable at four months from date. At Zante, Mellow would be allowed a stay of up to sixty days ‗if neede be‘ for his relading, their factors to pay freight at £3 15s per cent, or £3 10s ―if they shall lade her this Recolte [of currants]‖, ―prouided allwayes that presently upon her dischardge at Legorne they send her to Zantt to lade: and there dispatche her within the tyme aboue limited‖.47 Was the Prudence smuggling currants out of Zante? Or was she operating unofficially for some Levant Company men? 48 The eventual profitability or otherwise of the Prudence‘s venture remains to be ascertained.49 As Ralph Davis has emphasised, all voyages in this period were unique, yet all possessed many features in common. The contrast between the voyage of the Prudence and the expedition of Kenelm Digby, undertaken at exactly the same time in the same waters, and visiting many of the same ports, cannot be over-emphasised. Certainly, also, the voyage of the Prudence, in its combination of direct trading and unscheduled cabotage, demonstrates the lack of a clear line of demarcation between long-distance trade and the Mediterranean caravane. Of the principal personages involved, William Mellow, the master of the Prudence, remains a somewhat shadowy figure, whose possible origins in Stepney, Kent or Suffolk are still to some extent obscure. 50 Where did he fit in the hierarchy of what Neville Williams terms the ‗elite masters‘ of the great merchantmen in the rich trades beyond Europe, merchants coming from trade into shipping, or masters moving from shipping into trade? 51 NA, SP 46/88, f. 1 (the last cited sentence is much amended in the original). On English predominance in the Ionian currant trade at this time, and the often difficult relations between London and Venice which this preponderance (and other occasions of friction, such as the depredations of Sir Kenelm Digby against Venetian vessels at Scanderoon) generated, see Fusaro, Uva passa, and Kenneth R. Andrews, ‗Digby at Scanderoon‘, in Ships, Money and Politics, 106-27. 48 I am indebted to Maria Fusaro for this suggestion. For the problems of malversation and the avoidance by the English of Venetian export duties see Fusaro, Uva passa, 146, ff. 49 See the detailed studies of individual voyages and of the profitability of trading ventures of this period in Davis, Rise of the English Shipping Industry, chs.xvi and xvii. 50 William Mellow appears not to have been christened in St Dunstan‘s, Stepney. There may have been an ancestral link with Aldeburgh in Suffolk: if there were, the close links between Mellow and Bence Johnson, the probable descendant of the two great Aldeburgh and Ratcliffe shipbuilding and mercantile families of Bence and Johnson (on the latter families see Andrews, Ships, Money and Politics, 49) would be explained. 51 Andrews, Ships, Money and Politics, 12-13. 47
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On the basis of the surviving papers from the Prudence, there is no doubt that Mellow formed a part of that ―close network bound by business and family ties‖, with strong links both to the City and with its own corporation of the Trinity House of Deptford, although he was perhaps not amongst the most powerful and successful, or long lived, of these men.52 He was obviously fairly wealthy by the standards of the early seventeenth century: at the time of his death early in 1631 he owned what appears to have been a substantial house in the hamlet of Ratcliffe, in Stepney, and had accumulated upwards of £1,100 of ready money and other valuables, all which were to be utilised by his overseers Robert Bell and Bence Johnson to buy property to provide for the upkeep of his small daughter Anne, his ―full and sole executrix‖ and sole heir: the somme of Tenne or eleaven hundred pounds or thereabouts or with so much money as shal bee in their hands for the use of my daughter Anne Mellow aforesaid for the more better assurance and Information of my aforesaid Ouerseers for the obtayninge of such a somme of money for the purchasing of such lands and estate as aforesaid they shall finde remayning in my now dwelling house in a Chest with three locks the full and iust somme of eleaven hundred pounds of good and lawfull money of England besides other small sommes of readie money now remayning in my house with other bills bounds and specialties and accompts as by my booke of Accompt more at large appeareth besides plate and my moueable goods.53 In regard to the wider circle of Mellow‘s mercantile and maritime contacts, the ship‘s papers of the Prudence, which were seized in the Downs in 1630, contain documents written by or referring to at least forty-two adult individuals (thirty-nine men and three women), with whom Mellow was in personal contact or correspondence during his last voyage. Four men, George Langham, Thomas Mead, Robert Crane, and Richard Swift, appear as part-owners of the Prudence. Another part-owner was William Wycke (or Wyche), also a correspondent of Mellow‘s. Amongst merchants who did not own shares in the Prudence, William Gonnell (or Gunnell) was a shipper of goods from London; Jacob Disotte laded perpetuanas on the same ship, and Robert Sainthill signed a receipt for perpetuanas shipped on the Prudence. John Owesley was a further merchant in London whose name appears at least once in the Prudence‘s papers. 52 53
Andrews, Ships, Money and Politics, 13. NA, Probate Court of Canterbury (henceforth PROB) 11/159, 10 Dec. 1630.
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From London, John Langham and Henry Lee ordered William Mellow to let space on the Prudence to freight after the ship had been cleared at Livorno. Henry Lee, who had a factor, William Breare (or Beare), based at Livorno, was a rich City merchant, a member of the Drapers‘ Company, residing in the parish of St Martin in Vintry, with a country house at Binfield in Berkshire. He also had extensive landholdings in Northamptonshire.54 An indication of his wealth may be found in a parchment roll containing an inventory post mortem of the contents of Henry Lee‘s two houses, made on 18 December 1639, together with a listing of his four-fifths interests in ―wines leases, ready money, separate debts, voyages and adventures‖, etc., which is described as being ―over 8 yards long‖.55 James Franck, so far unidentified, was a co-signatory of a letter from Henry Lee to Mellow. Also at Livorno, Edward Abbott (or Abatt), Josias Bernard and William Gonnell, all English merchants residing in Livorno, formed a charter party for the Prudence to voyage to the ‗Arches‘, i.e. to the Aegean Sea and its coasts and archipelago. Richard Colte was another factor at Livorno. A smaller player at the outset of the Prudence‘s voyage was a certain Anthony Percivall, who freighted the Prudence at Dover with a lading of calf-skins. At the opposite end of the Prudence‘s trajectory, one Freeman was a lader of goods at Constantinople; Richard Gresswoulde consigned a parcel of figs at Zante. John Mun at Zante gives a receipt for money shipped in the Prudence to William Gunnell and others. At Smyrna William Salter, consul for England, was also a factor for one of the Langhams (John?) and for one of the Lees (Henry?). Edward Ramsden was a factor at Constantinople, while Grinlin Tindall was active at Zante (and also at Larnaca) and John Cowley was a merchant in Constantinople. John Hobson gives a receipt to Mellow for goods laded at Constantinople by Freeman. Other individuals who put in an appearance are Capt. George Lee (brother of Henry?),56 William Woodhouse, Thomas Moodie and John Bastrar. The English consul at Livorno at the time of the Prudence‘s stays in the port is not named in the ship‘s papers.57 There also survive a small number of personal letters among the Prudence‘s papers, including a single affectionate letter, now fragmentary and much damaged, from Mellow‘s wife Elizabeth, written on 2 April Henry Lee, christened in 1574; married (at the age of 49, possibly a second marriage) in Dec. 1622; died aged 65 in 1639. Henry Lee‘s will is at PROB 11/180. 55 Northamptonshire Record Office, see: <www2.northamptonshire.gov.uk/adlib/(1ia5h045frabnob5ze3wny2u)/default.aspx>, Th. 1794. 56 NA, SP 46/88, fos. 41, 33, 38. 57 NA, SP 46/88, fo. 18 54
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[1629] with news of her ‗brother‘ (i.e., brother-in-law) and sister(-in-law Anne) Sharpe and her ―onckell and aunt bell‖: Lovinge hosband my Love remembered to you hoping in god that you eare in good helth, as I & ower chillderen & all the rest of ower good frendes … I receaved a letter [one word illegible] from you the 9 march which mayd mee very glad to heare of your safe arrivall [at Livorno?] … soe committing you to the protecttion of allmightly god whowme I hope woll send us a happy mettinge … your ever loving wife till death Ellez[abeth] Mellow.58 The ‗happy meeting‘ was not to be: later that year, Robert Bell, mariner, of Stepney, whose son John was to be a beneficiary of Mellow‘s will, wrote to his ‗father-in-law‘ – i.e. William Mellow – sending presents of butter, etc., in the Samson of London, master Bense Johnson, but also sending news of the deaths of Mellow‘s son John and his wife Elizabeth in September and November 1629 respectively. Another correspondent whose surviving letter crosses the boundary between business and personal was James Francis, who wrote to Mellow, presumably from London, regarding the ship and the wages due its crew, and also the death of Mellow‘s wife. 59 And, finally, a certain Alice Thurgood wrote to Mellow [from London?] regarding the effects of her late husband, presumably a merchant, to be sold in Livorno, where he had died. What we may describe, on the basis of the surviving documentation, as William Mellow‘s circle, a group somewhat less than fifty strong, the interconnecting relations between which still remain largely to be explored, point up the utility of a microhistorical approach to Mellow‘s last voyage. It is the names – i.e., the proper names, ―the most individual and the least repeatable of indicators‖ – which can be used as markers for a type of social – and by extension, maritime – history, focussed on individuals in the relations with other individuals. 60 As Jacques Revel has stressed, and Sigurdur Gylfi Magnússon has underlined, it is precisely the complex interrelationship between human beings and their environment that makes it necessary to reduce the scale: ―only in this
NA, SP 46/88, fo. 19 (dirt-stained, much folded and defective; annotated (in pencil): ‗added from unsorted Miscellanea 15:6:1927‘) 59 NA, SP 46/88, fo. 53. 60 Carlo Ginzburg and Carlo Poni, ‗The Name and the Game: Unequal Exchange and the Historical Marketplace‘, in Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero eds., Microhistory and the Lost People of Europe, (Baltimore, 1991), 1–10, 5-7. 58
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way can we avoid the temptation to simplify the relations among people, phenomena and events‖.61 Microhistory and the Northern Invasion This essay suggests that to deepen our perspective on the Northern Invasion we might deploy microhistorical techniques. If we may, as we should, continue to revisit Braudel‘s construction of the Northern Invasion as one of the idées maîtresses of twentieth-century historiography, in order to further refine its evidential bases, and eventually to accept, modify or even reject its basic premise of a boisterous and revolutionary invasion of the Mediterranean at the end of the sixteenth century by les Nordiques, then this cannot be done on the basis of generalisations taken mainly from the secondary literature of the past half-century, but by the patient application of the principles of microhistory – multum in parvo – to a more detailed, evidence-based examination of Braudel‘s apotheistic evocation. Paul van Royen suggested that Braudel‘s idea was indeed little more than an evocation – ―[a] rather ephemeral construct based on individual trends and structures‖ and that Braudel ―did not misunderstand or underestimate the role of the Dutch; the reality was that the Dutch ‗insects‘ or ‗termites‘ were of no concern to him‖.62 There is no evidence for the Braudelian vision of Northern boisterousness which has coloured to such a high degree the collective historians‘ view of the arrival of the English and Dutch in the Mediterranean from the end of the sixteenth century, with its overtones of forceful (and self-regarding) good humour, expansiveness and rising expectations. Braudel‘s evidential base for his vision seems to have been thin; most particularly the boisterousness evident in Richard Hakluyt‘s collection of voyages, especially that of the bark Aucher, which seems to have had a significant attraction for Braudel. Perhaps there was something of this in the late sixteenth century, but whatever it was, it had disappeared by early in the following century. In another context Braudel once observed ―nous savons peu de choses encore de la Méditerranée réelle du XVIIIe siècle‖, but what is clear is that at the end of the second decade of the seventeenth century Europe and especially the Mediterranean, was plunged deep into an economic crisis. 63
Jacques Revel, ‗Microanalysis and the Structure of the Social‘, in Jacques Revel and Lynn Hunt eds., Histories: French Constructions of the Past (New York, 1996), 492-502, 495; Magnússon, ‗Singularization of History‘, 722. 62 van Royen, ‗First Phase‘, 69-102; the italic is mine. 63 Fernand Braudel, ‗L‘économie de la Méditerranée au XVIIe siècle‘, Cahiers de Tunisie, iv (1956): 175-197; cf. Ruggiero Romano, ‗Tra XVI e XVII secolo. Una crisi economica: 161961
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In the well-documented voyage of the Prudence there is no evidence of boisterousness, rather a deep heaviness of toil and effort, often in adverse conditions, and possibly for less than magnificent financial returns. Kenneth Andrews‘s observation that early seventeenthcentury English commercial shipping is poorly documented by comparison with the period after 1660, is perhaps even truer now than when it was made.64 Nonetheless, enough is known of individual voyages to suggest that Greene‘s contention that ―commercial histories of the Mediterranean often fail to distinguish adequately between the caravane trade and international trade‖,65 also needs to be re-examined. What often occurred, and what well-documented voyages such as that of the Prudence in 1628-30 demonstrate, was that a trading voyage which started as a ‗pure‘ expression of international trade could seamlessly metamorphose into an equally ‗pure‘ manifestation of the Mediterranean caravane, once its initial international cargo had been discharged at, say, Livorno. In this sense, the documentation on the Prudence provides some convincing evidence.66 It is perhaps in the wanderings of the Prudence, and its innumerable less-documented contemporaries, and the working lives of the men who commanded and crewed them, that the true human face of the Braudelian Northern Invasion may be most properly discerned. Nonetheless, we are still left with the macrohistorical legacy which can be neither ignored nor abandoned. As Gianna Pomata has observed, it would be impossible to conceive of a historiography without connections to the metanarrative.67 The classic explanation of the event which triggered the process was the emergence in the mid-1590s of a grain surplus in northern Europe and a dearth of grain in the south – particularly in Italy, where prices were three times higher than in Amsterdam – which provided the perfect entrepreneurial opportunity to offload a surplus at a profit. Other factors – the decline of Antwerp; the shift in England from exporting wool to exporting manufactured cloth; the political and diplomatic imperatives which pushed both the English and the Dutch to get into the Spanish market (after 1604 and 1609 respectively) while at the same time entering into close diplomatic relations with both the Ottoman Porte and its autonomous satellites in 1622‘, Rivista Storica Italiana, lxxiv (1962): 480-531; idem, ‗Encore la crise de 1619-22‘, Annales E.S.C. xix (1964): 31-7. 64 Andrews, Ships, Money and Politics, 2. 65 Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion‘, 47, n. 15. 66 NA, SP 46/88. 67 Gianna Pomata, ‗Close-Ups and Long Shots: Combining Particular and General in Writing the Histories of Women and Men‘, in Hans Medick and Anne-Charlotte Treppe, Geschlechtergeschichte und Allgemeine geschichte: Herausforderungen und Perspektiven (Göttingen, 1998), 99-124, cited in Magnússon, ‗Singularization of History‘, 718.
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North Africa – are all well known. But to go beyond these points: were there, at the end of the sixteenth century, other forces at work? Braudel, in describing the ―social crisis caused by the food shortage that dominated the end of the [sixteenth] century‖,68 was referring to the Mediterranean, but to what extent was it not just the laying up of the English fleet, or the conclusion of the Spanish-Dutch truce, that impelled quantities of men and ships from both countries into the Mediterranean? To what extent was population pressure a factor? And what of climate change, notably the so-called ‗Little Ice Age‘, which may have begun in the mid-sixteenth century, perhaps a little earlier or later? As Braudel observed: ―A further question remains. What would be the hypothetical effect of this Little Ice Age on life in Europe and the Mediterranean? […] Rain and cold, by persistently visiting the Mediterranean, dislocated certain patterns but to a degree that still escapes us‖.69 Greene poses a further question that is also macrohistorical in context, enquiring whether the countries surrounding the Mediterranean shared ‗something in common‘ around which they could, or should unite, or whether the sea was a border zone, where ―two more or less hostile civilizations meet‖,70 veers away from making a definite statement on the Northern Invasion but resurrects the Pirennian paradigm of a divided sea across which a stormy debate has raged for the past seventy years. 71 Braudel‘s vision, and Greene‘s critique of it, are thus concerned with mentalités. It was simply not the case that the ―growth of a more tolerant spirit‖ caused the corso, as Greene puts it, to go ―into a steep and, as it turned out, irrevocable decline‖ after the end of the seventeenth century. 72 There is little evidence that tolerance was any more of a significant factor in the eighteenth-century Mediterranean than it had been in the seventeenth. This can be determined by the apparently most trivial of phenomena, such as the difficulties placed in the way by the authorities of attempts to establish Protestant graveyards in, for example, Livorno or
Braudel, Mediterranean, 1: 270. Braudel, Mediterranean, 1: 274, 275. 70 Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion‘, 45. 71 Some remarks on Pirenne and Braudel can be found in my ‗Braudel and the Ottomans‘, 167, 177-8. On the Islamic/Christian Mediterranean frontier in a slightly later period I may also be permitted to mention my ‗A Frontier without Archaeology?‘ For an extensive overview and summary of the early modern period in this light see Michel Fontenay, ‗The Mediterranean World, 1500-1800: Social and Economic Perspectives‘, in Victor MalliaMilanes ed., Hospitaller Malta 1530-1798: Studies on Early Modern Malta and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (Malta, 1993), 43-110. 72 Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion‘, 45. 68 69
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Tripoli, or Muslim ones in Marseilles.73 In fact, the doom of the corso was brought about in the main by two factors. One was what may be termed ‗Phase Two of the Northern Invasion‘: the underpinning of earlier mercantile incursions (‗Phase One‘) by the armed might of blue-water navies, most particularly though not exclusively, that of the British. The other was the failure of the North African corsair republics to transform their economic base via a modulated shift from corsairing – which was becoming ever more uneconomic, in the strict sense of the term – to carrying. The Maltese ship-owners, armateurs and fitters-out were able to effect this transformation from the second half of the eighteenth century onwards, while the nascent Greek merchant marine had its origins in the economics of underdevelopment in the Greek islands at the same time. Traian Stoianovich put his finger on it unerringly when speaking of the flight of Greeks and Orthodox Albanians from the mainland and the Morea to ―the barren and hitherto virtually uninhabited‖ islands of Hydra and Spetses (settled by the Albanians) and Psara (by the Greeks). These new colonists lacked the inclination to work the islands‘ stony soil, and so embarked on what Stoianovich accurately describes as ―the sometimes fruitful but technically noneconomic, or extraeconomic, venture of piracy, or maritime and coastal brigandage‖.74 What happened next demonstrates that the energy and human resources put into piracy, or privateering, turns into legitimate trade when it becomes more profitable: for the Spetsiots and Psarans this happened when there arose ―the possibility of making a quick fortune by transporting wine surpluses from the Aegean to Russia and grain surpluses from the Balkan or Anatolian mainlands … to the graindeficient islands of the Aegean and to Naples, Marseilles, and other ports of the grain-hungry Mediterranean‖.75 A ‗greater spirit of tolerance‘, in other words, does not come into it. In that sense, it may be tempting to view the Northern Invasion (or Invasions) of the Mediterranean as a phenomenon of distinctly longue durée, with its origins deep in the last wave of late-Dark Age barbarian invasions, developing in waves of advance and recoil until the late sixteenth century, and then persisting for almost four centuries, its end For Livorno: John A. P. Lefroy, ‗The English factory at Leghorn. Some Huguenot Association‘, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, 22 (1971-2): 81-89. For Tripoli: Dorothy Thorn, ‗Consul-General Hanmer Warrington and the Old Protestant Cemetery in Tripoli, Libya‘, Libyan Studies, 37 (2006): 85-88; John Wright, ‗More light on Tripoli's Protestant Cemetery‘, Libyan Studies, 38 (2007): 53-60. For Lisbon: Sir Richard Lodge, ‗The English factory at Lisbon: Some Chapters in its History‘, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser, xvi (1933): 211-247, 214. 74 Traian Stoianovich, ‗The Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant‘, The Journal of Economic History, xx (1960): 234-313, 274 75 Stoianovich, ‗Balkan Orthodox merchant‘, 274. 73
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encapsulated in the disastrous latter-day Anglo-French crusade against Egypt in the fateful autumn of Suez and Hungary. Of Braudel's own quasi-microhistorical examples of phenomena concerning seafaring, his treatment of the Battle of Lepanto and of the Northern Invasion really stand out. The former, a world-famous event that has generated a vast literature, in the end led to nothing; the latter, equally noticeable since Thomas Mun in the 1620s, changed the Mediterranean forever, down to the eve of the post-modern era.76 Within this metahistorical narrative framework, Braudel‘s evocation of the Northern Invasion and its longterm significance thus remains a sustainable concept, but we need to revise our views of its character, scale and reach on the basis of detailed analyses of the people (and their vessels and voyages) who were engaged in an activity which was less-than-boisterous, and for the most part mundane and piecemeal, but well deserving of detailed study on a reduced and essentially micrographic scale. In looking at William Blois or William Mellow it is worth bearing in mind Carlo Ginzburg‘s reflection on the career of Jean-Pierre Purry, another ‗forgotten figure‘ of the capitalist conquest of the world, that ―[a] life chosen at random can make concretely visible the attempts to unify the world, as well as some of its implications‖.77
76 Thomas Mun, A Discourse of trade, from England unto the East-Indies (London, 1621), 32-3. Braudel, Mediterranean, 2: 1188, where the relative long-term consequences of outliers of the two events is at least alluded to (cf. my ‗Braudel and the Ottomans‘, 172). It has already been made by Matti Peltonen, ‗Fernand Braudel ja Välimeri. Uuden ajan murros Euroopan taloudessa‘ (‗Fernand Braudel and the Mediterranean: The Beginning of the Modern Era in European Economy‘), in Juha-Pekka Lehtonen and Leena Uushakala eds., Eurooppalainen ihminen (The European Man). Historian ja yhteiskuntaopin opettaijen vuosikirja (Yearbook of Finnish History Teachers), xxiii (1994): 51-70, 64-66. I am very grateful to Professor Peltonen for his kindness in communicating to me the gist of his article (personal communications, 5. and 23.2.2009). 77 Carlo Ginzburg, ‗Latitude, Slaves and the Bible: An experiment in Microhistory‘, Critical Inquiry, xxxi (2005): 665-683, 682.
3 PLAGUE AND SEAFARING in The Ottoman Mediterranean in the Eighteenth Century Daniel Panzac The ships that sailed during the eighteenth century ran three kinds of risk: storms, pirates and, finally, the illnesses that affected their crews and passengers. All of these troubles were known by sailors the world over, however – serious as they were – they usually affected only the ship and those on board. We can add to these afflictions another danger which vessels sailing the Mediterranean both suffered from and then passed on: the plague. This illness had the potential, as did the others, to wipe out a crew. But particularly, when transported by a ship, it could spread to the port of call‘s population and go on to ravage entire regions. This constant threat, that often became a reality, made Mediterranean seafaring an exceptionally efficient instrument in the spreading of plague during that period. We have numerous descriptions which demonstrate the keen observation skills of writers of the era. In 1736, the surgeon of the French nation of Cyprus handed to the consul his report on an illness which had appeared a while beforehand in the west of that island, and which presented the following symptoms: 1) Spontaneous fatigue, an unbearable heaviness in the whole body, with unusual pains in all the limbs as if the bones had been broken; 2) Intense and irregular shivering episodes; 3) A searing pain at the top of the stomach called cardialgy, associated with an insatiable thirst accompanied by a great feeling of dryness and a carbon-like blackening of the tongue; 4) Insomnia accompanied by permanent pain in the head and shoulders; 5) Red and gleaming eyes, and a number of bright marks of different colours in various areas of the body;
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Such symptoms testified to the presence of the plague, as the events which followed proved, but such symptoms were often ambiguous, with witnesses‘ accounts that were sometimes unclear, hence creating an understandable confusion. In addition to this, from time to time there was also the refusal to admit the terrible reality. This was the case at the emergence of the disease in Cyprus in 1736, evident in the fact that, from the onset, the aforementioned doctor described, but did not name explicitly the plague. This fear is linked to the two main characteristics of the plague: its frequency and its seriousness. Table 1: The plague in Europe (14th-18th centuries), number of plague-stricken years Periods 1347-1450 1451-1550 1551-1650 1651-1750
Provence
Northern Italy
Poland
30 43 29 4
61 54 29 3
37 44 61 45
Here we see only the recorded presence of the plague and these figures do not take into account the extent and seriousness of each particulat outbreak of the disease.2 Despite the unequal reliability of sources, we can see the very high frequency of the disease in Western Europe until the mid-seventeenth century and its far rarer presence thereafter. We do not have sufficient comparable data for the Ottoman empire for the period dating from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, however we may make use of figures pertaining to the eighteenth century. 3 Table 2: The plague in Ottoman lands, number of plague-stricken years in the eighteenth century Place Istanbul Aegean Anatolia Syria Moldavia-Wallachia
Plague-stricken years 64 57 49 45
Egypt Albania-Epirus Bosnia-Serbia Macedonia-Thrace
44 42 41 41
Archives des Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseilles), 200 E 33 c (26 February 1736). Data extracted from Jean Noël Biraben, Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens, 2 vols (Paris, 1975-1976), 1: 375-449. 3 Daniel Panzac, La peste dans l‟Empire ottoman 1700-1850 (Louvain, 1985), 198. 1 2
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47
The number of plague-stricken years in the Ottoman empire during the eighteenth century was equivalent to that of those recorded in Europe for the entire period between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed, if the plague was not the only disaster which devastated men‘s lives in the early modern period, it was the most widespread and the most fatal, as the example of Barcelona shows clearly.4 There, from 1348 to 1654 the plague was present for 49 years out of 306, which is roughly one year in every six. On 27 different occasions, the plague killed less than 3% of the population whilst, in four outbreaks, the plague removed over 20% of the population each time: 15,000 deaths in 1348 (36% of the population), 6,200 deaths in 1465 (20%), 12,400 deaths in 1589 (29%) and 20,000 deaths in 1653 (45%). Catastrophes of this scale were to be found everywhere around the Mediterranean. Looking solely to the towns of Southern Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we see: Table 3: Plague mortality in Western European cities (17th-18th centuries) 1636 1656 1657 1720 1743
Milan Naples Genoa Marseilles Messina
60,000 150,000 60,000 50,000 20,000
deaths out of ― ― ― ―
130,000 inhabitants 300,000 ― 100,000 ― 100,000 ― 44,000 ―
46% 50% 60% 50% 70%
We find the same scale of losses in cities of the Ottoman empire during the eighteenth century. The figures shown here below are evaluations which most likely reflect reality:5 Istanbul, out of a population of roughly 500,000 inhabitants: there were 60,000 to 80,000 deaths in the outbreak of 1705; roughly the same number in 1726; and around 100,000 victims in 1778. Salonika, out of a population of circa 80,000 inhabitants: there were 8,000 deaths in the outbreak of 1713; between 10,000 and 12,000 deaths in 1762; and, finally, 4,000 to 16,000 deaths in 1778. Smyrna, out of a population of crica 100,000 inhabitants: suffered 10,000 victims in the outbreak of 1709; 12,000 deaths in 1724; between 18,000 and 20,000 deaths in 1760; between 15,000 and 16,000 in 1765; and between 16,000 and 18,000 in 1784.
Biraben, Les hommes et la peste, 1: 216-217. These figures are presented and discussed in details in Panzac, La peste dans l‟Empire ottoman, 339-380. 4 5
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These figures are comparable in scale to those of other large towns of the empire. From this we can see how the losses never exceeded 20 % of the population, whilst European towns sometimes lost half of their inhabitants. This difference is not due to the seriousness of the disease, which was the same everywhere, but to its frequency. Contrary to what happened in Europe, where the greatest epidemics emerged on average once a century, Ottoman towns suffered from epidemics very frequently as the disease was endemic in those regions, and the consequence of this was that the surviving populations were partially immunised against the disease. Health Defences and the Efficiency of the System When it came to issues regarding health and disease prevention, the Mediterranean world was divided in two areas: on the one hand the Ottoman empire, which still frequently suffered epidemics up to the eighteenth century, and on the other hand Europe where – in its Western parts from the end of the seventeenth century, and in its Central parts from the middle of the eighteenth century – protection measures devised to fight the disease worked quite effectively.6 In 1647, the plague appeared first in Malaga coming from the Maghreb before ravaging the rest of the Iberian peninsula from 1647 to 1652, and then passing over the Pyrenees. A few years later, in 1656, a ship travelling from the Levant to Sardinia brought the epidemic to the Italian peninsula, which was hard hit in all its length, from Genoa to Calabria, during the years 1656-1657. In 1663, a plague-stricken ship travelling to Amsterdam from Smyrna was the origin of an epidemic which spread to the Netherlands, Northern France, Rhineland and finally England. These spectacular epidemics, as well as the large number of the local population that got infected, had slowly led the inhabitants of the Mediterranean ports, which were the most at risk, to the conviction that the plague was a contagious disease, brought above all from the Levant and Barbary through maritime trade. The conviction that the spread of epidemics was connected to these three factors: contagiousness, Levant/Barbary origin, maritime trade, was the basis in Western Europe for action, undertaken especially in the seventeenth century, of essentially a protective nature. These preventative policies were hugely successful, and continued to be used consistently until the middle of the nineteenth century. From the middle to the end of the sixteenth century, Europeans did not stay inactive in face of the plague and tried to defend themselves 6
Daniel Panzac, Quarantaine et lazarets. L‟Europe et la peste d‟Orient (Aix-en-Provence, 1986).
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49
against it: towns which were infested with the epidemic elected provisional health representatives, disallowed entry within their walls to travellers who came from suspected areas and built special housing for the sick within their ramparts. Some cities, though, had already started to act a couple of centuries before: already in 1377, Dubrovnik (present-day Ragusa) and Venice started to put quarantine into action and, in 1423, Venice constructed the first lazaretto on the isle of Santa Maria di Nazaretto. This is to say that seventeenth century‘s authorities did not really invent new procedures to protect their populations from the disease; in general they just put into practice those which already existed. However, their actions were subject to a basic premise: the plague was permanently present in the Levant and in Barbary, thus the protection system must be preventative, permanent, rigorous and independent of the state of local health. This continuity depended on a series of administrative innovations the principals of which were: - The creation of specific and permanent administrations responsible for overseeing the efficient functioning of the preventative methods used; - The development of new regulations clearly establishing the number of days of quarantine for the men and the goods, according to the information found in the sanitary patent of the ship; - The construction of specific buildings, normally a lazaretto, which was the crux of this system, and within the walls of which defence against the plague was exercised. Following the lead of Venice, a permanent health administration (the Consiglio di Sanità) was created in Livorno in 1609, in order to facilitate maritime activity by assuring the best possible health protection in the port. In 1630, the Magistrato di Sanità of Venice was reorganised. The Bureau de Santé in Marseilles appeared in 1640, but at the end of the seventeenth century the whole issue of ‗health protection‘ increasingly became a centralised concern of the French state. Throughout the period legislative publications in Europe reflected a continued effort to adapt the application of preventative measures to an ever evolving knowledge on this subject: the principal regulations for Livorno were issued in 1648, those of Genoa in 1661, l‟Instruction pour les intendants de la santé de Marseilles appeared in 1689 and those of Venice were published in 1692. By the end of the seventeenth century, the regulatory corpus on this topic was fairly uniform across all these major European ports and, for the next century and a half, it served as model for all other ports wishing to establish their own health administration. For example, Venice‘s regulations directly
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inspired those implemented in Trieste in 1755, and in 1779 the United States adopted the same system that existed in Marseilles. 7 The key element of all policies of sanitary defence was the establishment of lazarettos, which came to be found in all ports of the Mediterranean that engaged in international maritime seafaring. Their size varied, but they all had identical characteristics: they were built on the shoreline outside the city ramparts, and they were surrounded by a fortification, sometimes even with two, as in Marseilles. They had two doors – one leading to the interior of the town and another opening out onto a quay on the coastline. The interior generally comprised several courtyards, with warehouses for goods and buildings for hosting passengers and sailors.8 An isolated bay on the surrounding coast, or even preferably an island, was kept reserved for the ships that, having discharged their passengers and cargo to the lazaretto, were purified along with their equipment, a procedure normally performed through fumigation and cleaning. In the lazaretto the passengers‘ and crews‘ goods were unpacked and exposed to the purifying wind, whilst the passengers and crews had to wait in isolation until the end of their period of quarantine under the supervision of the lazaretto staff. Once this period had passed without incident, the passengers and cargo were put back onto the ship and the vessel could finally make its entry into port. The length of this quarantine period, which was obligatory for all arrivals from the Levant and Barbary, was set by bureaucrats in accordance with the instructions specified on the health patent, the compulsory document that all ships had to carry. This was collected by the ship‘s captain at the port of departure, and had to be endorsed at each subsequent stopover by the relevant nation‘s consuls. These declarations – called patents – had to be delivered to the harbour officials by all captains on their arrival, and were subsequently officially recorded by the local sanitary authorities. These documents are rather succinct but numerically and geographically significant, and therefore constitute an important source of information for scholars as they report the ‗state of health‘ in the port (and surrounding area) where the ship in question had originated, or had last stopped. The patent was considered ‗clean‘ (nette) when no case of the plague was found in that town or in the surrounding area; it was classified as ‗suspect‘ (soupçonnée) when rumours circulated about the presence of the disease in the immediate surrounding area; and ‗high risk‘ (brute) when the Panzac, Quarantaines et lazarets, 31-33. For a more detailed description of Mediterranean lazarettos, see Panzac, Quarantaines et lazarets, 33-39, 153-204.
7 8
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disease had appeared in the interior of the town. The time to be spent in quarantine for men, goods and ships was decided in view of these patents: in the case of a high risk patent, quarantine lasted between 28 and 40 days for the passengers and the ships, and between 40 and 60 days for goods. This period was reduced in the case of a suspect patent, and was even shorter if the patent was clear, with 14 to 22 days for passengers and ships and 21 to 30 days for goods. Thanks to these developments, by the eighteenth century a vast international sanitary network was in place, which comprised two distinct but complementary elements: all the Mediterranean European countries had an almost identical sanitary policy, that is to say that the ports of the European coasts, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the border of Ottoman Albania, had all set up protection mechanisms to deal with ships arriving from the Levant and Barbary. At the same time, the Empire of Austria and the Republic of Venice had learned to patrol efficiently their seemingly endless land borders with the Ottomans – through the Balkans and Central Europe, from the Albanian coast to the shores of the Dniester. These borders formed a land sanitary frontier which was permanently surveyed and punctuated with lazarettos equivalent to their maritime counterparts.9 On the sea the situation was different. We have an excellent – albeit still incomplete – series of statistics for French ships, which dominated intra-Mediterranean trade during the eighteenth century, which allows us to judge the quantitative effects of the plague. During this period, the port of Marseilles received a total of 16,153 ships arriving from the Levant. According to surviving records, 140 of them had had the plague aboard; further to these, the disease appeared sixteen additional times in the Marseilles lazaretto, which means that sixteen ships would have arrived in the port contaminated with the plague amongst the passenger or the seamen, and that a certain number of them would have died in the city. In round numbers, we can thus say that one in one hundred ships was contaminated by the plague, and that only one in one thousand brought it to Marseilles, where it was at risk of spreading through Provence and further afield. In total, from 1716 to 1845, records show that 23 plague-ridden ships arrived at Marseilles without this entailing the disease spreading from the ships into the city and region. During this same period, we count 11 cases in Venice, 11 in Livorno, 18 in Malta and 6 others in 6 ports, this means that if we include Marseilles in the count, 69 plague-ridden ships arrived over the course of 130 years in Western European ports. In only three cases out of this total – the Grand 9
Panzac, Quarantaines et lazarets, 62-78.
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Saint Antoine in Marseilles in 1720, a vessel in Messina in 1743 and one in Malta in 1813 – the plague managed to escape the lazaretto infecting the city and beyond. In 66 out of 69 cases (96 %), the system of prevention had served its purpose. Modern Epidemiology10 All the measures against the plague which, slowly and clumsily, were put into effect during the early modern period were based on the scientific beliefs and doctrines of the time. The first credence regarding the plague‘s origin was religious, and was centred on a belief in divine punishment as a response to man‘s misdemeanours. In addition to God‘s wrath, an important role was also played by astrological factors, notably eclipses and comet sightings. These first two elements were coupled with the scientific theories of the time. Of these, the first – descending from Hippocrates and Galen – attributed the plague to a miasma resulting from various decays, including the air coming from the rooms of the sick, which was transported by the wind. This aerial conception became linked to the theory of an Italian doctor, Girolamo Fracastoro, who in 1546 published his treatise De Contagione, advancing the hypothesis that the plague was a contagious disease, i.e. transmitted by direct contact. 11 For contemporaries, these different explanations were neither contradictory nor mutually exclusive, but could be easily juxtaposed or combined, in varying proportions. Founded on erroneous scientific knowledge but, at the same time, also on accurate observation, European sanitary authorities had arrived at a series of empirical solutions which were cumbersome and contradictory, but ultimately efficient. It was effectively not until the end of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century that man penetrated the heart of the mysteries which surrounded this terrifying disease. In 1894, Alexander Yersin isolated, described and provided proof of the characteristics of the plague bacillus which thereafter was called Yersinia pestis.12 In 1898, Paul-Louis Simond provided experimental proof that the rat flea transmitted the disease by its bite. Research undertaken in India, where the disease was particularly deadly between 1898 and 1948, detailed the process of contamination: rat > rat flea > man. 13 All the same, these explanations did not satisfactorily take into account the complexity Panzac, La peste dans l‟Empire ottoman, 78-102, and 566-568 for the bibliography. Hieronymus Fracastoro, De contagione et contagiosis morbis et curatione, 2nd edn. (Lyon, 1554). 12 Henry H. Mollaret and Jacqueline Brossollet, Alexandre Yersin ou le vainqueur de la peste (Paris, 1985). 13 Albert Camus‘ La Peste, published in 1947, is the most developed literary expression of this dogma. 10 11
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of the phenomenon, and the apparent contradictions and unknown elements which it contained. It was only with researches undertaken between 1947 and 1960, that finally emerged a complete and coherent overview, seemingly satisfactory, of the conditions of existence and the spread of the plague.14 Natural and Temporary Breeding Grounds The plague was first, and foremost, a disease which affected wild rodents and it was among certain specific rodent species that it was maintained across the globe in a number of breeding grounds which were permanent and long-lasting. The cyclical process of the disease relied on the opposition between, on the one hand, species which were sensitive to the bacillus, and on the other hand, those which were resistant. During an epizootic of the plague, some sensitive species died in great numbers and their territories disappeared whilst the great majority of resistant species survived in territories which were already occupied. However, some of the resistant species succumbed to disease from inside their group, and even if their corpses and fleas disappeared, the bacillus was able to survive – virulently – for years in the ground. Eventually the plague disappeared from the soil surface and sensitive species multiplied again. On finding available areas, some of them penetrated into territories which had stayed open, foraging in the soil with their snouts, catching the plague which again took over their fleas and sucked their blood. A new epizootic thus started, independent of humans. Several different breeding grounds, generally situated in isolated regions little visited by humans, have been identified. In Asia, a particularly important breeding ground has been identified in Kurdistan, where several research project were undertaken which supplied quite a lot of our current knowledge of the disease. There were also breeding grounds in the Low Volga region, and on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, both eradicated by the Russians in th period between the two World Wars. Another important breeding area was the Asir massif situated between Yemen and the Hijaz. All these breeding grounds were directly implicated in the epidemics which historically devastated the Ottoman empire. We also find other probable places of origin of the infections: in Central and South-East Asia, both in Mongolia and in the mountainous regions of Vietnam; but also in Africa, in the area of the Western Sahara and the region of the African lakes. The infectious areas in America are of much more recent origin, and they were the result of the import of bacilli 14 Henry H. Mollaret, La peste, Encyclopédie medico-chirurgicale. Maladies infectieuses, 8035 E 10 (1972).
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by rats travelling on steamships around 1900. Once in the American continent, these found compatible species of wild rodent especially around all Western North America, but also in North-Eastern Brazil and in some remote regions of Argentina-Paraguay and Peru.15 From these natural territories, the whole of the surrounding area could became contaminated in two ways: firstly, by the rapid and intense spread of the disease or by contamination from afar. In the first case, during an epizootic centred in a permanent breeding ground, the disease spread by contamination from rodent to rodent through their fleas. Due to the close proximity between animals, the infection passed from wild rodents to rural rodents which, in turn, had contact with commensal rodents, for example in areas where wheat was separated from chaff, but also in rubbish dumps or in town sewers, and it was in this way that domestic rodents became infected. But the disease could also start via contamination from afar and, in this case, the most frequent, significant and best-known diffuser of the disease was the black rat, Rattus rattus. The latter was a real commensal of human beings, living close to them in granaries, wheat silos and warehouses; but crucially black rats also moved long distances as passive travellers aboard ships, barges, trucks and wagons. When these rats entered into contact with rural rodents they helped the spread of the disease. This is exactly what happened in the case of America, as in this way new temporary breeding grounds were created in the countryside, but above all in towns, notably in ports, which were usually home of sizeable populations of rats. A severe epizootic could completely destroy a rodent population until a new establishment took place. These breeding grounds could, however, subsist during several years, or even for several decades. In Europe and the Ottoman empire the most significant temporary breeding grounds, which were periodically reactivated, were in the Western Balkans, a mountainous region dominating the Adriatic; in Thessaly and the Vardar basin and in Kosovo. Still active in the eighteenth century, these all became inactive towards 1800. The regions of Moldavia and Wallachia (present-day Romania), and a possible extension of these into the Low Volga region, were perhaps another breeding ground. Until the nineteenth century Anatolia seems to have been just a vast extension of the breeding ground of Kurdistan, and it is probable that the entire Nile delta acted as a temporary breeding ground during the first half of the
15
Mollaret, La peste.
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nineteenth century. Istanbul was a good example of an urban breeding ground; Alexandria was another example of a temporary urban ground.16 Contamination took place through the bite of an infected flea which had remained near the site of a rodent‘s death. This could take place in or close to houses, in warehouses, on battlefields, on fallow or uncultivated land. At the outset, a person accidentally contracted the plague. On becoming sick, the person was cared for by family members and was visited by neighbours, something that happened frequently especially in the case of his/her death. The visitors could be bitten there by the sick person‘s already infected fleas, or later by the fleas which had stayed in the clothing of the deceased. The donation or sale of clothes, a very common occurrence, had already been associated with the spread of the disease for centuries. However it is important to remember that human ectoparasites were, until very recently, extremely common amongst the general population. Fleas lived in rugs, dust, bedcovers, clothes and it was very easy to pick them up in public places. For example, those who visited the hammams picked up the fleas at the same time as they re-dressed. It was in this way that an epidemic started.17 Very often, the human disease did not spread further than a small number of isolated cases, independent of each other. However, when temperature and humidity were favourable to the fleas, and no sanitary defence was undertaken, especially where large gatherings of population took place, for example during religious celebrations, the plague found favourable conditions in which to develop and spread. Couriers, merchants, sailors, soldiers, pilgrims, seasonal workers, nomads, in brief all travellers – whether habitual or occasional – were involuntary propagators of the disease. The vehicle par excellence of the plague was man; this was particularly true in the case of Mediterranean seafaring in the eighteenth century. Plague-Stricken Ships18 In the absence of Ottoman health licenses, which started to appear only in the 1830s, we have to rely only on European documentary evidence for the study of plague in the Ottoman empire. The ship captains‘ statements, recorded when they handed in their health and safety licenses to the port authorities upon arrival, constitute a primary source of information which, 16 Marcel Balthazard and B. Seydian, ‗Enquête sur les conditions de la peste au MoyenOrient‘, Bulletin World Health Organization, 23 (1960): 157-167. 17 Panzac, La peste dans l‟empire Ottoman, 175-178. 18 This analysis that follows in this essay is based on Panzac, La peste dans l‟Empire ottoman, 134-141. The statistics of plague-stricken ships are based on research done in the archives of Paris, Marseilles and Venice which is detailed in the footnotes of that chapter.
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as I have already mentioned, although succinct provides us with data that is both quantitatively and geographically significant. The second source of information is composed of the considerable correspondence, mainly consular in origin, produced by various representatives of different states posted in towns and ports of the Ottoman empire. Addressed to their governments, as well as to the sanitary and commercial administrations of their country, these thousands of letters represent a body of documents which is crucial for the understanding of the sanitary situation in the Ottoman empire, and which provides us with more information on coastal and urban zones, but also on the state of navigation in the case of an epidemic. These reports make up, in principle, a corpus of all serious health related incidents that occurred both in towns and on board eighteenth century ships.19 After having isolated the ships on which crews had suffered numerous attacks – described most commonly as of ‗fever‘ – records have been composed consisting solely of plague-stricken Mediterranean vessels for the years 1756-1798, counting a total of 137 cases. A majority of 129 of these cases concerns specific vessels for which we have detailed information (such as its name, flag, home port, the captain‘s name, the place of contamination, etc…). The remaining notices concern instead several boats grouped together, creating entries such as: two ‗tartanes dulcignotes‘, whilst some other times we have just a rough estimation of their number such as in: ―7 or 8 Alexandrian boats‖. However, often we have even less detail than that, with typical notices saying things like: ―all the ships docked at Acre‖, ―the Tunisian squadron‖ or ―the Kapudan Pasha‘s fleet‖. After the plague disasters of Marseilles (1720) and Messina (1743) European consuls at all Mediterranean ports became even more attentive to the problem. Their attention was focussed not only on European ships, the majority of which had always been kept under close scrutiny, but growingly also on Ottoman and Barbary vessels. The distribution of the plague-stricken ships (data collected for all the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries) is as follows: 64 French ships, 26 Venetian, 17 Ottoman, 10 Ragusan, 2 Neapolitan, 2 Spanish, 2 Austrian, 1 English, 1 Tuscan, 1 Dutch, 1 Danish, 1 Russian and 2 unknown.20 These figures are to be used with caution: the 19 Archives de la Chambre de Commerce de Marseille, série J 152 à 1337 and Fonds Roux série L IX ; Archives départementales des Bouches du Rhône, Intendance sanitaire de Marseille, 200E ; Archives nationals (Paris) (henceforth A.N.), Affaires étrangères (henceforth A.É.), correspondance consulaire, série BI ; Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Provveditori alla sanità. 20 A.N., Correspondance Consulaire, B I 76-114, 314-336, 340-358, 469-474, 628-642, 904-908, 1017-1069, 1114-1124; Police Sanitaire, F8 87-88. Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Provveditori e Sopra
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documentary sources being European in origin, they are naturally much more focused on European plague-stricken ships, as these had the potential to contaminate the consuls‘ home ports. This brings us back to the point that the information available about Ottoman vessels does not come from Ottoman sources and is, therefore, very much incomplete, so that we can never be entirely sure of what exactly the situation was in that area. In order to judge the reliability of this distribution, at least for European ships, we have compared them with those boats that frequented Smyrna, the most important port of the Levant in the eighteenth century. The table below presents, at a glance, the percentages, both of the ships that frequented this port between 1756 and 1776 and those that were plague-stricken: Table 4: Smyrna maritime traffic, percentage of European plague-stricken ships Ship Stops at Smyrna Plague-stricken ships French 54.4 57.5 Venetian 15.4 23.4 Ragusan 11.8 9.0 Dutch 8.0 0.9 Tuscan 3.3 0.9 English 2.9 0.9 Swedish 2.5 0.9 Others 1.7 6.3 Sources: The movements of the ships of Smyrna have been calculated with the data available in: A.N. (Paris), A.É. BI 271 (for 1756); and from A.N. (Paris), A.É. BIII 1066 (for 1776).
The ranking, in numerical order of European nationality in the Western Mediterranean, is for the most part, the same as the rankings for plaguestricken ships. The large number of French, Venetian and Ragusan ships affected reflects the predominance of France and the two Adriatic republics‘ maritime trading in Smyrna during the eighteenth century. Not partaking in the Caravane Maritime, the Dutch ships and, to a lesser extent, the English and Swedish ships, made more direct trips between their countries and the ports of the Levant thus running fewer risks than the French, Venetians and the Ragusans who dominated intraMediterranean trade. Provveditori alla Sanità, Lettere degli ambasciatori veneti, buste 371, 374, 376, 379, 380; Lettere dei consoli veneti ditette al magistrato di sanità, 550, 566, 594, 628, 630, 666, 667, 675. National Library of Malta, Manuscripts 810-814, 818, vols 1-14. Historijski Arhiv of Dubrovnik, LV, Scale, Marina e sanità, 1-14; LVI, Diversa navigationis, 5, 9, 11, 18.
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In the majority of cases, the presence of the plague on board was noted, though it was rarely explained. We normally have information on whether the illness existed in a specific port or aboard the ships anchored there, with their relative crews. In some specific cases we can have some more explicit information, for example, in the case of captain JeanBaptiste Masse, we learn that his sailors were infected in 1754 in Istanbul most likely at a tavern where there had already been an occurrence of the plague. What became of these plague-stricken ships? Sometimes they came to an abrupt end as was the case for captain Rebatu‘s vessel that, deprived of six of its sailors fallen ill with the plague at the island of Kos in the Aegean archipelago, was sunk on 28th January 1769 at Alexandria. The diminishing number of crew members was understandably one of the captains‘ obsessive fears, as replacing sailors under these circumstances was not an easy task. The tragic misadventures of Captain Cafre, recorded with an exceptional administrative dryness by the French consul at Smyrna, illustrate the kind of drama that could be experienced on these plague-stricken vessels: The plague manifested itself last May aboard Le Magdeline, a brigantine under the orders of Captain Cafre. The cargo of wool coming from Rodosto (Tekirdag) was destined for Marseille. The captain, the first mate, the writer and three sailors died from it on route to Cirigo [sic] which had led the rest of the crew to dock on arrival at Cania in order to obtain the supplies they needed. The governor would not allow the boat to enter the port however Mr. de Laydet [the consul], in exchange for allowing six Turks to board, received about one hundred piaster for each of them... Three other sailors and a Turk died between the departure from Cania and arrival at Stancho (Kos) where they had to employ eleven Turkish and Greek sailors at a cost of 30 piaster each. The boat arrived on the 4th of this month (August 1786). The only crew members who remained alive were one sailor and the captain‘s boy. Everyone else had fallen victim to the plague.21 The high wages demanded – 100 piastres per sailor (about 250 livres tournois or 20 Venetian sequins)22 to go from Cania to Smyrna – about a week‘s journey – can only be explained by the deadly risk these men were running 21 French consul‘s letter of 11th August 1786, Archives de le la Chambre de Commerce de Marseille, A. C. C. M., J 340. 22 At a time when the monthly salary of a sailor was usually between 20 and 30 livres tournois.
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by embarking on a plague-stricken ship. This was a risk of which the sailors, all coming from the Levant, were perfectly aware, and to compensate for which they demanded premium wages. The plague transformed Captain Ignace Sauzet of Saint Tropez‘s ship into a cursed vessel. On 12th April 1784 the ship, which had left from Alexandria, arrived at Tripoli of Barbary with a license brute. On learning that among the passengers – who were mostly pilgrims returning from Mecca – there were three who had fallen victim to the plague, the local pasha refused the boat entry to the port, forcing it to set sail again on 18 th April. Sauzet headed for Tunis, but the bey of Tunis had been warned about his arrival and therefore did not permit the ship to dock. The ship then made a stop at the island of Lampedusa for water and supplies. All the inhabitants of the island became infected, and only some members of religious orders and their households survived, whilst the majority of the population died. On 30th June, five weeks after having thrown overboard the bodies of the eight passengers and two sailors who had originally died, Sauzet approached Tripoli once again. The pasha of Tripoli maintained his decision refusing to allow the boat to dock. The unfortunate vessel headed then for Smyrna where it arrived at the end of the month having lost still more passengers on the way, and bringing the duration of this living hell of a voyage to a total of four months. From this most sad episode we can see that fear was sometimes the overwhelming factor in deciding the fate of these ships. In 1743, a vessel carrying olive oil was discovered just offshore from the port of Piran in Istria. Not a living soul was found aboard. The mystery of this modest local version of the Mary Celeste was solved in a report wrote by one of the Venetian health officers of the port. This report revealed that the ship had started its voyage with a crew of seven, out of which five had died from plague. The two survivors fled in terror in a rowing boat and then disappeared without any untoward consequences once they were ashore. This was to the great relief of the Venetian authorities, who, for several weeks, remained vigilant as they worried about the possibility of a further spread of the infection. We can evaluate rather precisely the deaths caused by the plague in four-fifths of the recorded cases; in the majority of cases (54 %), the losses endured were small with only one or two people, either sailors or passengers, losing their lives. On 31 % of these boats the plague manifested itself in a more serious manner, leading to the death of between one fifth and a half of all the people aboard. Finally, the epidemic was yet more deadly in the last 15 % of cases. It was in this way that ―captain Leroy arrived the day before yesterday in this harbour [Tripoli of Barbary] with the contagious illness on board, having thrown into the sea half of his passengers and some of his crew‖. Yet more serious; ―a Dutch
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ship on its way from Alexandria in Egypt, with a license brute, arrived at Malta on 20th April [1770] with only 8 people aboard, having lost 15 along the way due to the contagious illness‖: in this case a death rate of 65 %, compared with which only captain Cafre‘s ship had suffered a greater recorded loss. The tragic odyssey of the Venetian captain Padella‘s ship truly sums up these maritime dramas and their potential consequences. 23 At Alexandria in March 1781, captain Padella chartered his ship to some Tunisian merchants agreeing to take them to Sfax along with their cargo. The vessel set sail on 22nd May, but the plague quickly announced its presence on board, killing four of the nine crew members and ten of the eighteen passengers. Arriving, albeit with difficulty, at Sfax the ship was stopped by the authorities, refused entrance in the port and redirected to Malta. On 8th July the health officers on the island put the survivors into the lazaretto and burnt the ship and its cargo. Freed after 4 months, the Tunisians demanded reparations from the captain for the destroyed cargo and, on his refusal, asked for help and support from Ali Pasha, the bey of Tunis. He duly supported their cause and submitted it to the Venetian government. The affair progressed from commercial to diplomatic levels when, in 1782, Hammouda Pacha, his father‘s successor, increased the pressure on Venice. The failure of a Venetian diplomatic mission in 1783 led to a war between Tunis and Venice that lasted from 1784 to 1792. This case was extreme in two ways; firstly, in terms of the international consequences which resulted from it; secondly, in terms of the death rate on board, which was over 50 %. In only two other recorded cases had a boat and its cargo been destroyed: that of the Grand Saint-Antoine at Marseilles in 1720, and a Spanish frigate at Malta in 1788. As I have already mentioned before, the magnificent series of statistics available about French ships, by far the most numerous active in Mediterranean trade in the eighteenth century, allow us to judge with good approximation the quantitative effects of the plague. From 1710 to 1792, a total of 22,651 ships coming from the Levant and Barbary arrived in Marseilles. For this period there are 140 French ships that were noted as infected with the plague. On first impressions we are struck with the almost insignificant rate of contamination, only 0.6 % of ships having been affected. However, without denying the minute nature of this figure (for which we can, after all, be thankful), it is necessary to take a closer look. The plague was not a permanent feature, but it did make frequent appearances; plague-stricken vessels are recorded in 65 out of 101 years. Captain Padella‘s story is narrated in detail in Daniel Panzac, La caravane maritime, marins européens et marchands ottomans en Mediterranée 1680-1830 (Paris, 2004), 175-178.
23
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This means that during the periods of the epidemic, at an estimated 1 % on average, the rate of contamination of French vessels remained very modest. The Barbary States‘ region stands out, being rarely touched by the plague, for example the regency of Tunis remained unaffected between 1706 and 1784, in contrast with the Levant which was very often affected. We will now look at the years in which the plague was at its peak. In 1720 there were eight plague-stricken ships out of the 212 ships that came into Marseilles from the Levant, the only region contaminated, being 3.8 % of the total. In 1759 and 1760, under the same conditions, we find seven out of 167 boats, 4.2 % of the total. In 1785, 13 boats out of 327, coming from the Levant and Barbary, were infected, i.e. 4 % of the total. And finally, in 1791, the proportion of infected ships was 2.8 %. Thus, even in the worst years, only one ship in 25 experienced the dramatic conditions that came along with the plague. Throughout the eighteenth century Marseilles received 16,153 boats coming from the Levant. According to these records, which, although excellent are by no means complete, 140 of these boats were infected with the plague. Overall, the illness manifested itself on 16 occasions in Marseilles‘ lazaretto, meaning that 16 plague-stricken boats had arrived there with some of their crew and passengers infected, and who sometimes died in town. In round figures we can therefore say that one ship in 100 was infested with the plague and that only one in 1,000 brought it to Marseilles, from where it was liable to spread throughout Provence. Two conclusions emerge from this approximate estimate: the risks of contamination of the ships from the Levant were slim, and Western Europe faced minimal threats. However, it only took a single plaguestricken ship to trigger a catastrophe. The duration of the journey was an essential factor in the persistence or the disappearance of the illness on board, and thus in the risk of its diffusion. Bearing in mind that, over the eighteenth century, twenty two ships were put into quarantine in different harbours of the Levant, we note that, in five out of six cases, the illness died out of its own accord during the voyage from the Levant to Marseilles. The average length of that journey, at that time, was a month. The victims of Captain Padella‘s ship all died within two weeks of leaving Alexandria. In reality, on arrival in Sfax, the illness had already disappeared from Padella‘s ship, and the risk of contamination no longer existed! The distance separating the Western Mediterranean basin from the plague-contaminated foci of the Levant proved in itself to be a fairly efficient natural barrier, even with no sanitary measures in place. The Eastern Mediterranean, on the contrary, surrounded as it was by natural sources of active plague,
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scattered with islands and with ships‘ voyages punctuated with frequent stops, was a region highly susceptible to this kind of contamination. The reality was that the consequences of the plague went far beyond the ships directly infected by the illness, particularly in two areas: the spreading of the disease by maritime means, and its disruptive effects on economic activity. The Spreading of the Plague by Sea As pointed out above, the plague is, above all, an illness that affects various species of wild rodents. These animals play a decisive role in the chronic maintenance of the disease by means of a complex process in which fleas are equally important; what we call the natural source of the plague. With regards to the Ottoman empire, we have mentioned how the regions of Kurdistan, the Libyan Desert and the Asir massif, between Hedjaz and Yemen, were all natural habitats of the plague. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was from these places that rodents carried the illness to new temporary habitats, notably those of Albanian Epirus and Moldavia, to Istanbul, Anatolia and Egypt. In these new habitats the illness was passed on to humans, at random, by fleas. The illness, when it rose to epidemic levels, was then spread by land and sea throughout the empire, essentially by couriers, merchants, pilgrims, sailors, nomads, soldiers and runaways, that is to say, by all kinds of travellers. In 128 out of 137 cases (93.4 %), the place of contamination of an infected ship is known. A map can thus be marked out detailing the ports and regions from which maritime plague originated. Egypt stands out with 35 recorded cases, 34 of which came from Alexandria and 1 from Damietta (representing a total of 24 % of total cases), this led to the common misinterpretation that the plague originated from Egypt. Next in line was Istanbul with 31 reported cases (23 %). There were then 25 cases (18.5 %) concerning Barbary – from Tripoli to Algiers passing by Derna, Sfax and Tunis, the latter with 12 recorded cases. The Aegean coasts of Anatolia appeared to be equally dangerous, particularly Smyrna as well as Salonika, the latter with 6 reported cases. A series of ports then follows where the risk of the plague existed to a lesser degree: Cania, Cyprus, Acre, Saida, Tripoli of Berbery, Candia, Antalya, Sfax, Latakieh, Bône and Algiers; each of these were responsible for two to five contaminations over a 50 year period. Finally, there are some exceptional cases: there was one case in 40 years in Cheshme, Nauplia, Jaffa, Livadia, the Dardanelles and Tekirdagh (Rodosto). Therefore four ports – Alexandria, Istanbul, Smyrna in the Levant and Tunis in the Maghreb – make up for two-thirds of the contaminations of ships during the second half of the eighteenth century.
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The years in which the reported cases of the plague are the most abundant generally correspond to a geographical extension of the epidemic, and therefore to a multiplication of the ports infected. This is what happened, for example, in 1760, when the plague spread aboard ships to Istanbul, Salonika, Larnaca, Saida and Acre. In another case, in 1785, the same thing happened in Istanbul, Tunis, Sfax, Tripoli of Berbery, Cania and Damietta. Nevertheless, in analysing the pattern of the chronological and geographical diffusion of the contamination of ships, we must resist from making two assumptions. The first is that it is possible to formulate ideas about the intensity of the plague from this data alone. It is true that, in 1785, the Plague of Tunis infected ten French ships in ten months, but it needs to be considered that other factors played an equally important role in these contaminations. It is also important to keep in mind that certain epidemics, such as the outbreak of Alexandria in 1785, that were in fact more serious appear, for some reason, to have spared the ships present in the port. The second assumption is to deduct, from the hierarchy of contaminated ports established in this way, a ranking in order of economical and maritime importance. Alexandria and Istanbul were certainly among the principal Ottoman ports, but the amount of traffic experienced at Alexandria was a fourth of that of Smyrna, and a sixth of that of Salonika. The reasons behind this lack of direct connection between the importance of a port and the rate of plague contamination, remain still obscure. Of course, the reoccurrence of the plague in these ports is an element that must be taken into account; during the eighteenth century 20 plague-stricken years, benign or serious, were recorded at Saida, and 30 at Salonika in comparison with 55 at Smyrna, and 65 at Istanbul. The contaminations of ships are more numerous in these last two ports than in the first two ports, which appears normal when we consider that the ports of Saida and Salonika were far less busy than that of Smyrna. On the other hand, Alexandria was a truly dangerous place for ships that found themselves there, recording all-in-all 40 plague-stricken years for the eighteenth century! The living conditions on the ships, the relationships of the crews with the inhabitants, the contact between crews, the merchants and the passengers on board, and the precautions taken under the influence of the consuls, were all important factors that played a role in the degree of infection of vessels. The respective roles of these different factors are really difficult to evaluate, and for this reason it is risky to hypothesise in general terms about the patterns of contagion. Out of the five large ports of the Levant considered here, two of them, Istanbul and Smyrna, were situated in, or near, a natural source of the plague. This means that the illness first and foremost manifested itself
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on land and in towns, and that a ship‘s sailors and passengers caught it from inhabitants who were already infected. As Istanbul was the most active natural habitat of the plague, where it was more virulent than at Smyrna, contaminations there were more frequent. It has already been noted that Egypt was not a natural habitat of the plague in the eighteenth century, the disease was introduced there from outside, essentially by maritime trading.24 It was at Alexandria, by far the biggest port in the country, where the plague most frequently arrived by sea. This means that, contrary to Istanbul for example, strictly speaking the illness was first of all present in the port itself, on the infected vessels, before the town itself was ravaged by the infection. This diffusion of the disease from one docked ship to another was therefore presumably as frequent as an occurrence, as the diffusion caused by the crew‘s contact with the inhabitants of the town. In other circumstances this was at the origin of the contamination of other ships according to a process previously mentioned. Brief stops were often taken at intervals on longer journeys, at ports such as Rhodes, Chios or Lesbos, situated along the major maritime axis of the empire: Istanbul - Smyrna - Alexandria. These stops were normally short, lasting around three to four days. This limited the opportunities of contact between different crews, and between crews and the local inhabitants, thus largely reducing the risk of contamination if the plague was, indeed, present in the port. On the contrary, long stays in big ports favoured these contacts, thus increasing the chances of the plague being carried onto a vessel. In these conditions it is not surprising that, throughout the eighteenth century, on stopping at Alexandria and Smyrna, both busy ports where ships stayed for longer periods, a large number of ships are recorded as having become plague-stricken. Once infected, every ship that sailed in the Mediterranean with the plague on board became a threat to each port of call along the way. It is striking to consider that it took only one of these ships to trigger a catastrophe, whilst for years tens of boats roamed the western Mediterranean seas carrying death within their hulls. On numerous occasions, contemporary witnesses attribute the arrival of one of these plague-stricken vessels to the outbreak of the disease in a port previously ‗in good health‘, and considered exempt from the plague. Contamination by sea was thus something of a frequent occurrence, and in the eighteenth century alone, documentary sources point to numerous different origins of the plague. It is for this reason that the islands were most at risk and, accordingly, islanders had to be 24
Panzac, La peste dans l‟Empire ottoman, 128-132.
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particularly vigilant. In Cyprus, numerous outbreaks of the plague, although not all of them, were carried by sea from Syrian ports. The same thing happened on many other islands, particularly those in the Aegean Sea which were visited every year by the Ottoman fleet under the direction of Kapudan Pasha. It is a known fact that the Kapudan Pasha‘s fleet left Istanbul with an outbreak of the plague on board on numerous occasion, for example in 1760, 1765, 1788, and in 1784. From 1778 to 1787 there were outbreaks of the plague not only on islands such as the Cyclades, Crete, Cyprus and Rhodes, but also in Salonika, Egypt, Syria and Tunisia, all as a direct result of maritime trading. For the whole eighteenth century, there are 49 concrete cases of contamination by sea and by maritime trading which are widely accepted to be genuine. From the results of research carried out in this area, however restricted the statistical base may be, we can conclude that the sea and maritime trading played a significant role in spreading the plague at this time. One of the first reported cases of the plague was in Istanbul, with 21 outbreaks (42.8 % of the total) followed by Smyrna and Egypt (Alexandria) with 10 reported cases each (20.3 %), Syria with 7 cases (14.3 %) and Crete with one case (2.1 %). The presence of a natural source for an active plague in the capital of the Ottoman empire, combined with its busy port, explain why Istanbul was subject to so many outbreaks of the plague, as well as being responsible for spreading it further afield. The case of Smyrna is somewhat different, given that this port was quite close to Anatolia, another known source of the plague, it is highly likely that many of the ships had already been contaminated when they reached Smyrna, and thus were responsible for transmitting the disease further afield, as was the case with Istanbul. However, other ships coming to Smyrna from elsewhere were also responsible for triggering outbreaks of the epidemic. This was the sole element which was limited to Alexandria and the towns along the Syrian coast, where the effects of the deadly redistribution of the epidemic depended on the number of boats entering the harbours, and the length of their stay. The Plague and Maritime Trading Without wanting to brush over this subject, that still requires a more indepth study, we shall limit ourselves to looking at its most important aspects. For the second half of the eighteenth century, the maritime records for Smyrna for 1758-1760 show a drop of around 50 % in its maritime trade compared with previous years, and the years immediately following. A similar pattern applies to the year 1784. This temporary drop in trading is also reflected in Levantine and Maghrebian ports such as Tunis in 1785. The only satisfactory explanation for this drop is a violent
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outbreak of the plague at this time, which kept ships away, and this is confirmed by the consuls‘ reports.25 Although captains‘ fear of contamination was one of the primary factors that discouraged them from docking in ports such as Smyrna during outbreaks of the plague, this does not seem to be the only reason. In the past captains and sailors alike had routinely run this risk whenever they sailed to ports in the Levant, and this factor had never dissuaded them before; it was generally accepted as just one of the risks associated with the job. A far more serious concern for captains was the fear of losing valuable time in making futile stops; when a town was ravaged by the plague the ship charterers disappeared, European merchants locked themselves away, and many of the inhabitants abandoned town, stopping there would not only be potentially dangerous, but also financially pointless if not damaging. Outbreaks at epidemic levels were nonetheless very frequent. If we look at the outbreaks in the main ports of the Ottoman empire we see that in a century and a half, from 1701 to 1850, Egypt (Alexandria) was afflicted by the plague for 72 years, Syria (Sidon and Acre) for 50 years, Anatolia (Smyrna) for 83 years, while Macedonia (Salonika) was affected for 59 years, and Istanbul for 94 years. However, even though there were countless confirmed outbreaks of the plague at this time, it is worth remembering that these periods of the epidemic were usually quite short and not as destructive as we might imagine. Thus they only disrupted economic activity a little, if at all. Europeans were very unlikely to feel the affect of this in any case. In fact, outbreaks of the plague which were deemed sufficiently serious as to worry the citizens of the towns concerned, or to have a lasting effect on the economy, were relatively rare. Rarer still were the highly lethal outbreaks that inspired fear and brought chaos everyday life. The most notable cases are the following: 26 Istanbul: 1705, 1726, 1751, 1770, 1778, 1812, 1836; Salonika: 1713, 1724, 1762, 1781, 1814, 1837; Smyrna: 1709 1728, 1735, 1740, 1759-1762, 1765, 1769-1771, 1784, 1788, 1812, 1837; Alexandria: 1701, 1736, 1759, 1785, 1791, 1800, 1813, 1835. During these years we notice general lulls in the economical and maritime activity for weeks and, sometimes, for months at a time. When the plague died out, these ports would slowly resume their previous commercial and 25 26
Archives de la Chambre de Commerce de Marseille, ACCM J 1439. Panzac, La peste dans l‟Empire ottoman, 359-361.
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economic activities without there being any notable lasting effects. The efficiency of Italian and Maltese authorities in dealing with potentially infected ships, forbidding them to dock in their harbours, provides us with some interesting confirmation of the impact of these outbreaks on maritime activities and trade. In 1768, twenty six ships from Smyrna had arrived in Italian ports, but the following year (1769) there were only six, in 1770 there were eleven, in 1771 only six ships were recorded, their number suddenly rising to twenty three in 1772. From this Italian data we have indirect confirmation that from 1769 to 1771 Smyrna was being ravaged by yet another violent plague epidemic. Changes Over Time In the first half of the nineteenth century the issues which for two centuries had helped to shape a coherent and efficient theory concerning the plague, were completely put into doubt by three new elements. A first, and most important, change was the establishment of a sanitary system in the Levant and North Africa, which was directly inspired by European practices. With regards to Tunisia, it seems that already in the 1780s there had been an attempt to creation a sort of lazaretto by selecting a small island on the Lake of Tunis, which should have been used to put down and store goods that had been brought from plague-infested regions. This practice, embryo of a real sanitary organisation, had no real effect and the disease appeared and spread in the Regency from around 1784. It was only in the period 1830-1850 that, with the help of Western Europeans, structures for sanitary administration, regulations, and lazaretto started to be introduced in the Ottoman empire, in Egypt and, to a lesser extent, in Tunisia and Morocco. The result of these developments was that the plague quickly disappeared from the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. From 1845 onwards, ships thus invariably arrived in European Mediterranean ports with a clear patent. Secondly, at a time when European sanitary theory had success in the East, the European medical community was shaken by a considerable disagreement between ‗contagionists‘ and ‗anti-contagionists‘ regarding the theory of infectious diseases in general, and the plague in particular. Medical practitioners involved in this debate had exercised or were still exercising their skills in the Levant, and had arrived at their convictions on the basis of their own experience. It was a long and bitter dispute, which did not remain secluded in the academic environment, and which had important consequences regarding the maintenance or abandonment of sanitary practices, all matters which weighed heavily on the maritime economy.
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The third innovation was the development of steam navigation which took an increasingly important role in Mediterranean maritime traffic. In Marseilles, in 1840, steamships represented 3.3 % of armed ships in tonnage, but 10.7 % in movement of the traffic which arrived from the Levant; in 1850, these figures had risen respectively to 6.6 % and 22.8 %. The six days taken by steamers to travel between Alexandria and Marseilles were certainly an improvement on the 15 to 30 days that had been necessary for a sailing boat to cover the same distance. However, the regulatory fourteen days at the lazaretto, which has been established for sailing ships, was now increased to twenty one days for steamers, and this cancelled out the benefits of the steamship for the passengers and weighed heavily in fixed costs on the ship-owner.
4 IN THE REGENCY OF ALGIERS The Human Side of the Algerine Corso Fatiha Loualich The history of the Algerian navy in the early modern period – that is to say, the history of the Algerian corso as a fighting force and as an institution, one might even say, an industry – has only in part been studied on the basis of the surviving indigenous archival records. In the present essay an attempt is made to target some aspects of the social history of Algerian corsairing and corsairs by exploiting some of the relevant records in the Algerian national archives. Aspects of daily life are approached through specific samples, which include varied case-studies, giving priority to what relates concretely to the navy and to the corsair establishments in particular. Exceptional destinies are ignored in order to reveal the ordinary cases, with a view to establishing some paradigms that will be necessary for any generalization. The period covered is the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which corresponds to the period for which we have the largest amount of documentary evidence, which makes it possible to apply the most rigorous selection to the data. The sample of archives that have been utilized for this essay covers this period perfectly. 1 The relevant corpus of archival material, which is mainly constituted by legal documents, well describes the happenings of ordinary lives, detailing daily social life: the loadings and unloading of ships, the relationship of individuals with the city, their places of residence, their choice of investment, and other similar occurrences. From these records we can see how sailors and corsairs made the sea their home, their space both of life and of death. The structure of the maritime population of Algiers was very hierarchical, composed as it was of admirals (qubtân),
Translated by Anissa Daoudi. See ‗A Note on Archival Sources in Algiers and elsewhere‘, at the end of this essay. The following abbreviations are adopted: AN Algiers for Archive National Alger; FO for Fonds ottomans, and M. Sh. for Mahâkim Shar„iyya (Records of the Algiers Shari‗a Court).
1
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captains (raïs) and ordinary seamen, and through the analysis of this documentary material, several questions regarding their life and work can be answered: what was their relationship with their land-based families? What kind of social ties did they maintain with their relatives? What was their attitude to land-based property, and what forms of transmission did they favour for it? How did members of this ‗maritime‘ population, whose life expectancy was very reduced and full of uncertainties and unpredictability, organise their careers and life on land? How did they protect their descendents and close relations? Did their practice of the sea, or of a specific trade, influenced their way of life, and did it have an influence on the bonds and the forms of transmission of their property? What were the repercussions of an uncertain maritime existence on their behaviours and mentalities? Who were these Sailors and Corsairs? Janissaries, sailors and and raïs constituted a most diversified body, which gave Algiers its cosmopolitan makeup. Among these fighting men, in addition to the notable presence of several nationalities from the northern shore of the Mediterranean, there is also evidence of immigrants to Algiers from the southern shore of the sea, in particular from Salé, Alexandria, Fez and Tripoli.2 There are also several cases of corsairs moving to Algiers from Tetouan and its region.3 During the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century, a considerable number of the corsairs, and sometimes their majority – especially amongst the raïs – was made up of new converts. Of the twenty two governors of Algiers mentioned by Diego de Haedo, eleven were of Christian origin.4 Often these adventurers, in fact, had neither nation nor religion, as corsairing was just a trade, a means of making a living; in fact, it was an ‗old trade‘ practised in the Mediterranean since remote times, as described so well by Fernand Braudel.5 The growing number of janissaries arriving in Algiers from Asia Minor from the middle of the sixteenth century, and the fact that from 1567-8 onwards the janissaries obtained the right to participate in corsairing enterprises, meant that from that date it was opened for them the possibility to participate in the fruitful profits of the corso and, with
AN Algiers, FO, Registers of the Bayt al-Mâl (Public Treasury), box 3, register n° 9. AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 14/1, acts n° 41, and 42. 4 Cited in Bartolomé and Lucile Bennassar, Les chrétiens d‟Allah.L‟histoire extraordinaire des renégats XVIe-XVIIe siècles (Paris, 1989), 366. 5 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the age of Philip II, (London, 1972), 2: 866. 2 3
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time, they eventually started to mount their own corsairing expeditions, fully participating in this enterprise and reaping its economic profits. 6 This social and ethnic diversity of Algiers was one of the consequences of the success of the Algerian corso. The labour force increased quickly, and it was both made up of many nationalities, and varied in regard to technical qualifications and skills. Renegades, converts, white slaves, all contributed with their numbers and technical knowledge to make this group a skilled and valuable labour force: free men were normally engaged for the adventures at sea, and slaves were put to the oars.7 From the sailor captured at sea during a raid, to someone who took refuge in Algiers of his own will, there were varying degrees of captivity, which corresponded to rather different experiences. While there were happy cases of individual captives who found success and sometimes even glory in Algiers, there were also tragic stories, as this great mass of enslaved people was the subject of commercial deals and speculations like any other sort of merchandise.8 The number of prisons (bagnios) where they remained before their sale rose to three during the eighteenth century, the most important of which was the beylik prison.9 The surviving data shows that most of these people made their living, and sometimes even their careers, within the navy (as raïs or corsairs) or alternatively entered the administration as scribes or secretaries. 10 Not considering singular destinies and exceptional cases – the success stories frequently noted in the literature on this topic –11 the great majority of the captive population was made up of simple workers, frequently employed in building sites or as mere domestics in private households. Others were employed in menial jobs around the city, such as that of water carrier, spending his days moving between the public fountains of the streets of Algiers, criss-crossing the city in order to sell his merchandise. 12 The ‗golden age‘ of Algiers started in the sixteenth century, but the defining moment in the history of this Regency was the failed Christian attack of 1541, which had been mounted under the command of 6 Farid Khiari, Développement historique et contradictions de formation social du pachalik d‟Alger de 1560 à 1670. Une approche socio-économique à partir de documents internes et inédits: exemple de la province d‟Alger, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Paris VII (1989-90), 229. 7 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 2: 870. 8 Magali Morsy ed., La relation de Thomas Pellow, une lecture du Maroc au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1983), 22. 9 Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis, Tunis et Alger au XVIIIe siècle. Mémoires et observations rassemblés et présentés par Joseph Cuoq (Paris, 1983), 153. 10 Mention may be made of the case of Thédenat, secretary of Bey Mehmed el-Kebîr, bey of ‗Algiers of the West‘ (Jezâ‟ir Gharb) at the end of the eighteenth century. 11 Venture de Paradis, Tunis et Alger, 195. 12 François de Rocqueville, Relations des moeurs et du gouvernement des Turcs d‟Alger (Paris, 1675).
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the emperor Charles V. After this episode it can be argued that the city authorities and its population found a new confidence in their destiny, 13 and a corollary of this new attitude was the increase and spread of Algerian corsairing activities from the Central to the Eastern Mediterranean, but also into the Atlantic waters all the way to England and Iceland.14 Father Dan, who visited Algiers in 1634, gives us some figures which, however questionable they may be, provide evidence of the prosperity and richness of the city; according to his figures, the city could count on a fleet of 600 vessels, an army of 22,000 janissaries, and around 36,000 slaves, with each family in the city owning one or more of the latter.15 These domestic slaves were either Christian prisoners captured in the corso, or blacks brought in by the trans-Saharan slave trade.16 The highest numbers of slaves were attached to the service of the dey and his entourage. A governor of a province could have up to seventeen slaves, a craftsman could have up to six; Ali Pitchinin, chief of the corporation of the corsairs, even had his own prison, housing 800 slaves. 17 The interest some sections of the population expressed towards slaves lies in the fact that a slave was considered to be much more a real ‗commodity‘ than just a source of labour energy. But a commodity has value only if one finds a buyer for it; in addition to assessing and appreciating the physical qualities of the slave, there were also other considerations to make, such as the slave‘s origins and his socio-economic Abd-El-Hadi Ben Mansour ed., Alger XVIè- XVIIè siècle. Journal de Jean Baptiste Gramaye, èvèque d‟Afrique (Paris, 1998), 63. 14 Pierre Boyer, L‟évolution de l ‟Algérie médiane, 1830- 1956 (Paris, 1960), 131. 15 I have published work on slaves and freed slaves, as follows: ‗Les affranchies à Alger, fins XVIIIe-début XIXe siècle, d‘après les actes des Mahâkim Shar‗iyya d‘Alger‘, Arab Historical Review for Ottoman Studies, 25 (2002): 181-196; ‗Les esclaves noirs à Alger, fin du XVIIIedébut du XIXe siècle: De l‘esclave à l‘affranchi, vers une relation d‘allégeance‘, Mélanges de l”Ecole Française de Rome, 115 (2003): 513-522; ‗Alger au XVIIè siècle: le regard d‘un captif porteur d‘eau (Le sieur de Rocqueville)‘, in Alia Baccar Bournaz ed., L'Afrique au XVIIe siècle. Mythes et réalités (Tübingen 2003), 181-188; ‗Emancipated female slaves in Algiers: marriage, property and social advancement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries‘, in Stephanie Cronin ed., Subalterns and social protest. History from below in the Middle East and North Africa (London-New York, 2008), 200-209; ‗Les femmes affranchies: un autre rapport aux biens, Alger 16e-17e siècles‘, in Mélanges à Abderahim Abderahim, forthcoming issue of Revue d‟Histoire Maghrébine. A more general study of the slave and manumitted population of Algiers, written on the basis of the Ottoman archives in Algiers, is also forthcoming. 16 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh. In the series, Mahâkim Shar„iyya, notarial (kadi court of Algiers) there is an important collection of acts relating to the purchase, sale and emancipation of slaves. 17 Pierre Boyer, ‗Alger en 1645 d‘après les notes du R. P. Herault. Introduction à la publication de ces dernières‘, Revue de l‟Occident Musulman et de la Méditerranée, 17 (1974): 19-41, 29. 13
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milieu. Members of the nobility and priests were naturally the most sought after, their purchase was a form of investment which allowed for some speculation, as they normally were the most targeted for repurchase. The Fathers of the several ‗redeeming orders‘ (such as Trinitarians and Mercedarians) privileged the clergy in their repurchase policy, and also intervened as mediators for the repurchase of nobles and aristocrats; only in the last instance charity seems to have reached the remainder of the captives. The traffic of slaves, as was practised in the Mediterranean waters, was one of the major components of maritime activity, allowing the transfer of monies and the rise of commercial dynasties whose corsairing activities were motivated by profit. 18 It was in full swing in the Maghreb region as a whole, and it was sizable sector of Algiers‘ economy, where the whole of the population took part in the traffic of captives and goods seized during corsairing ventures. 19 Quite apart from private gains, repurchases and ransoms also provided important income for the State treasury, especially during the seventeenth century, which was for Algiers the most successful period of corsairing activities.20 But in fact, corsairing as a source of income and enrichment did not concern Algiers alone: ―Malta and Leghorn were Christendom‘s Algiers, they too had their bagnios, their slave-markets, and their sordid transactions‖.21 The files of the Ottoman archives of Algiers reveal the palpable presence of captives who had become more fortunate than most of their fellow captives.22 These ‗lucky ones‘ became themselves owners of properties in and around the city.23 Some of them became traders and merchants, or ended up managing sections of the local markets at a time when the acquisition of wealth gave access to the fortunes of the city. Mention may be made of the case of ‗Euldj Ali, whose personal fortune became rather considerable, including houses and shops in various districts of the city. Another case is that of Ali Pitchinin, who became Claude Larquié, ‗Captifs chrétiens et esclaves musulmans au XVIIe siècle: une lecture comparative‘, in Bartolomé Bennassar and Robert Sauzet eds., Chrétiens et Musulman à la Renaissance (Paris, 1998), 391-404, 404. 19 Boyer, ‗Alger en 1645‘, 132. 20 Albert Devoulx, Tachrifat, recueil des notices historiques sur l‟administration de l‟ancienne Régence d‟Alger (Algiers, 1852). This work is a summary of a manuscript written by Mohammad alKâtib in 1691 in the reign of the dey Sha„ bân. Dafter Al Tashrîfât, MS 1649, Salle des manuscripts, Bibliothèque Nationale, Algiers. See also his Le Registre des prises maritimes. Traduction d‟un document authentique et inédit concernant le partage des captures amenées par les corsaires algériens (Algiers, 1872). 21 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 2: 867. 22 Acts of property registered by qubtân, raïs and sailors, as well as their post-mortem inventories, are numerous in the various series of the Ottoman archives of Algiers. 23 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., 146-147, act n°15 (1580). 18
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chief of the corporation of the corsairs (tâ‟ifa of the raïs) around the middle of the seventeenth century, and whose real estate portfolio was rather substantial, including one funduq, several shops, houses, and baths. He even built a mosque in Algiers which bears his name, as a way of inscribing himself in the memory of the city. 24 On the basis of this evidence, and of other similar cases, it is possible to state that, starting from the seventeenth century, the raïs as group, whether they were born Muslims or they became converts (a„lâj), started to invest seriously in real estate and land ownership and became real economic players in the city. 25 The seventeenth century, was not only the golden age for Algiers and her corsairs,26 but witnessed also important developments for the city in general. Maritime prizes could reach considerable value and on this seaborne income was based the growing opulence and prosperity of the city at large.27 Corsairing activities accelerated also the dynamism of international relations, and by shifting the city‘s interests towards the sea, brought the maritime dimension centre-stage also for the political relations of the Regency. Thus – politically – a crucial corollary of corsairing was the re-orientation of political activity towards the protection and consolidation of Algiers‘ maritime interests, the safety of sailors and of navigation, and issue of the freedom of navigation. All these issues became the bases of the relation between Algiers and other states in this period.28 An important consequence of these developments was a substantial change on the social make up of the city itself: Algiers became home to a significant number of unmarried janissaries, corsairs and soldiers. By the middle of the sixteenth century these obtained a degree of freedom to exercise trades, even though corsairing remained the field which absorbed the greatest number of them. It has already been mentioned that janissaries won the right to belong to corsairing crews, and how this opened the way for them to a profitable participation in the revenues from this activity, and later to assemble their own corsairsing expeditions.29 What is important about these developments is how this newfound financial autonomy paved the way for a new kind of existence and social life: as soon as a janissary married, he would leave the barracks Boyer, ‗Algiers en 1645‘, 29. AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Inventories after death. 26 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 2: 882-886. 27 Devoulx, Le Registre des prises, 12-13; see also Devoulx, Tachrifat. 28 Fatiha Loualich, ‗Alger et la correspondance consulaire durant la Révolution française‘, in Marcel Dorigny and Rachida Tlili-Sellaouti eds., Droits des gens et relations entre les peuples. Dans l‟espace méditerranéen autour de la Révolution française (Paris, 2006), 29-42, 41. 29 Khiari, Développement historique, 229. 24 25
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and settle in the city, and this provided him with advantageous opportunities for social advancement. In Algerian society birth privilege hardly counted, it was individual merit, audacity and know-how that made it possible for many of them to accumulate a fortune.30 The present essay is dedicated to the neglected social history of these groups. As the exploits of the great corsairs have been studied from various perspectives,31 this essay will instead tackle other, less-known, aspects of their lives such as their relationship to the city and to property, the choices which gave meaning to their lives. How did they deal with family, parenthood and social bonds? And what was their relationship to patrimony?
Raïs and Sailors: Attitudes towards Family, Bonds and Property
Documents related to the transmission of property reveal several aspects of the daily lives of sailors and raïs. For example, they reflect choices of succession and forms of transmission; they help us to learn the number of their children, who were the members of the family who are included in their economic choices, and the role of their wives in the transmission and usage of property, especially regarding endowments (habous). Thus we learn that, in the absence of descendants and close relatives, freed slaves frequently stood to benefit. Acts of acquisition and transmission of properties reveal also two important aspects of their social lives. An examination of the Ottoman records – especially the series of the Sharî‘a court records of Algiers (Mahâkim Shar„iyya) and that of the Registers of the public treasury (Bayt al-Mâl) – reveals the almost total absence of polygamy, and only a few instances of remarriage within this group, two peculiarities that explain how much living conditions influence people‘s behaviour. Since sailors and raïs were certainly the most cosmopolitan group living in Algiers, it could be argued that this fact is at the root of the absence of polygamy. However, it also needs to be taken into account that sailors were not sedentary people and that, amongst them, the ones who died of old age were not numerous. Connected to this is the fact that descendants of sailors were somewhat rare, and several studied cases show that sailors left behind few children, if any, and only rarely concubines. Several works investigating various areas of the Ottoman empire on the basis of inventories and inheritances have contributed to a more precise evaluation of the data concerning the economic practices of families and their components. The results of these investigations provide Bennassar, Chrétiens d‟Allah, 19. Lemnouar Merouche, Recherches sur l‟Algérie à l‟époque ottomane II. La course mythes et réalité (Paris, 2007), 178-206. 30 31
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some clarifications to the ideas on polygamy, and the research at the basis of this essay agrees with findings relevant to other parts of the Ottoman space. In all my researches in the archives of Algiers, in a documentary series that contains several thousands of deeds, I found only twenty cases of polygamy. Polygamy is thus not a phenomenon characteristic of the Maghreb; it certainly existed, but as a relatively limited institution and, interestingly, while it was not frequent, polygamy was not synonymous with wealth either.32 Work done on Bilâd al-Shâm, for Damascus and Hama and for Istanbul also testifies to low rates of polygamy, and therefore this data agrees with findings for the Maghreb. For example in Damascus, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, only twenty-three men out of the 227 cases studied were polygamous (10.6 %). This average drops slightly if one extends the analysis to all the inventories after deaths relating to Damascenes as well as to foreigners, in this case standing just at 8 %. Similar data is available for Istanbul at the end of the nineteenth century. Moreover, if there was a group where the rate of polygamy was very weak, it was that of sailors and raïs. Examination of the archive files reveals the almost total absence of polygamy and few cases of remarriage. We have already commented how, because of the precariousness of their own lives, sailors often died young, unmarried, and without heirs. When these sailors were instead married, they generally had only one wife and few heirs. In the transmission of their proprieties, they had the tendency to choose habous constitutions and testamentary legacies, again to protect themselves and their heirs from possible unforeseen events. In this research I have found only two janissaries who had two wives each. The first was Ahmed b.33 Sha‗bân who died in 1717 and left two widows, Râdhiya bt. Hassan and Habâra with her two children. 34 The second one had become an artisan, his name was Hassan al-Yenisheri al-Dabbâgh (‗The Tanner‘) b. Muhammad Khûdja, and he left two widows, Fatima bt. al-Shâmi and Khadûdja bt. Ahmed.35 The group which experienced the weakest rate of descendance was that of sailors of all ranks, including the most famous amongst the raïs. The raïs Ja‗far al-Janawizi (‗The Genoese‘) had only one descendant, as it is recorded in an act dated 1681, which also details the house of his son Musâ, located next to the mosque of ‗Ali Petshinin and close to the Colette Establet and Jean-Paul Pascual, ‗Famille et démographie à Damas autour de 1700: quelques données nouvelles‘, in Daniel Panzac ed., Histoire économique et sociale de l‟Empire ottoman et de la Turquie (1326-1960) (Paris 1995), 429-445, 444. 33 ‗B.‘ means ‗son of‘; ‗bt.‘ means ‗daughter of‘. 34 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 14/1, act n° 34. 35 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 134/135, act n° 39. 32
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house of the pasha of Algier‘s daughter.36 The site of this property reveals the wealth and fortune of its owner, living as a neighbour of the pasha's daughter.37 One mentions the neighbourhood to reinforce the distinction: ‗Who are the neighbours‘? The entourage is a major element in the occupation of space, an asset to emphasize an old property, a heritage or a new acquisition. This property is located in the district of the navy, the district of the raïs with the beautiful built residences in the vicinity of the port: the house of Mourad Raïs, the house of Mustafâ Raïs, the palaces of Yahyâ Raïs, and Mami Arnaout and, later, the palace of Hamidou Raïs, close to Bâb D‘zira. It is also in this area that the palaces of the highranking dignitaries were situated: Dâr Ahmed Pasha, Dâr Mustafâ Pasha, Dâr Hassan Pasha. Another raïs, Sulaymân b. Abdullah around 1720 had only two children,38 whilst Ibrâhim – known by the name of ‗Le Bougiote‘ –39 and the admiral Salim Raïs – known as ‗The Buffoon‘ –40 had both only one descendant, a daughter each.41 Even the most famous of the raïs did not escape this general rule. Some of them even died without issue, mention can be made in passing of the case of the famous raïs Hamidû who, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, did not have any descendants; his mother and his sisters inherited his wealth. 42 Moreover, it is interesting to note that he died at the age of forty two, only two months after his third marriage to Maryûma, daughter of Sfindja.43 The choice of which form of transmission to utilise are, interestingly, not so much justified by the value of the wealth of the testator/founder, but more a reflection of his temperament, moulded by the uncertainties of his own life experience. In the transmission of wealth, sailors and raïs frequently circumvented the rigidities of Islamic inheritance law, and chose other forms of transmission, which freed the will of property owners to manage and plan the disposition of their property according to their own personal choices and strategies. 44 Among these AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 136/137, act n° 53. See André Raymond, Grandes villes arabes à l‟époque ottomane (Paris, 1985), 385. 38 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 123, act n° 46. 39 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 39, act n° 62. 40 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 9/2, act n° 17. 41 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 71/72, act n° 23. 42 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt Al-mâl, box 18, register n° 109. 43 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 13/1, act n° 8. 44 Succession law, in its interpretation and its practice, often causes much wrong to those having the right at the time of the division of inheritance because it takes into account the widened agnatic family. The indivisibility of the inheritance is its basic reference; when the division is essential, one operates according to a denominator of proximity in the degree of relationship (qurb), with the share of the ‛âsib (collateral relation) for the closest; in the absence of close relation, it is the community, through the Bayt al-Mâl, which becomes the 36 37
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forms, mention should be made of donations; it was generally avoided to make donations among the living, and was instead preferred to bequeath property after death, as a way of protecting themselves against the risks of life.45 In other words, sailors and raïs frequently chose forms of transmission which corresponded to their way of life, namely testamentary legacies and pious foundations (habous). Testamentary legacies (Al-wasiya) consist in bequeathing one‘s possessions through a will. Two important rules limit the effects of this kind of instrument: on the one hand, it cannot affect more than one third of the whole of the inheritance, calculated once funerary expenses and debts have all been settled. On the other hand, it cannot be authorized in favour of those who have the ordinary right to the inheritance. In other words, testamentary legacies cannot benefit direct heirs; Muslim law recommends instead the establishment of these types of legacies to fathers, mothers and close relatives. The rule is never to make a legacy to an heir who is a direct and legitimate descendant (lâ wasiya li-wârith).46 Legacies can relate to two types of beneficiaries: in the first place, the progeny and the descendants of the children; in second place, adopted children, freed slaves as well as destitute people and pious and public foundations. The Constituents of the habous In Muslim law, the habous is a legal instrument according to which the owner of a property makes it inalienable, in order to assign the enjoyment of it (and of its profits) to a pious establishment or for the general good; this can happen either directly (in this case we talk of ‗immediate devolution‘) or after the extinction of the beneficiaries who have been indicated by the owner at the moment of the habous establishment (in this case we talk of ‗deferred devolution‘). Immediate devolution related to
‛âsib and recovers this share, causing the dismemberment and the scattering of the assets. The Treasury intervened through its officials in three circumstances to recover assets: in the first case in the absence of a direct male heir it collected the third of the heritage; in the second one the Treasury would acquire the shares of the absent heirs in order to preserve them; and in the third one the Treasury would acquire the totality of the succession in the absence of heirs. 45 Donations among the living take a character of charity and are granted to those having the right, to the close relations, to the children in priority where necessary, and other people without specific family ties. The donations are often justified and their amount is not limited, they can engage the resort to them only in cases of extreme urgency, when one of the children, a relative, a collateral or other s in the need. The giver gives up his property immediately and allots it to the beneficiary. 46 Louis Milliot, Introduction à l‟étude du droit musulman, (Paris, 1953), 677.
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certain pious foundations was used especially to finance the construction of fountains, roads and barracks, and this was known as ‗public habous‘. In practice, the habous consists in the transmission of the tenure of property – its usufruct – by rendering it inalienable. In the Maghreb the term hubus (pl. ahbâs), designates property and possessions held under mortmain; the term employed in the Middle East for the same institution is waqf (pl. awqâf). While testamentary legacies can affect only one third of the property, the prescriptions of habous can involve the entirety of an estate. Indeed, it should be recognized that the constitution of property in habous is equivalent to a real will and can relate to the entirety of an inheritance, without restriction or limit. Testamentary legacies, on the other hand, can be applied to only one third of the estate and cannot benefit the direct heirs, whose rights are guaranteed by law, but is designed instead to take care of individuals who are ‗strangers‘ to the succession – that is to say people who are not direct relatives of the deceased – or those relatives who are disadvantaged by jurisprudence, such as grandsons whose parents died before the grandfather, and who are therefore not entitled to the inheritance. Thus, in the absence of specific testamentary arrangements the habous replaces the will in a flexible way. Moreover it allows the circumvention of some strictures of Islamic inheritance law, which does not normally make it possible to bequeath one‘s wealth to whomever one wants. Therefore, the option of establishing and habous fills provides a legitimate avenue to modifying the given order of succession, thus allowing the testator a larger degree of freedom in choosing his heirs, and also preventing fortunes that had been slowly and patiently built from being lost.47 It has also been argued that the massive numbers of habous which were set up were, on the one hand, a way to avoid the abuses of the government in matters of taxation and dues and, on the other, a mean to protect estates from the bad administration of the heirs. 48 It is instead my contention that the frequency of habous establishments tallies perfectly with the universally human concerns and anxieties regarding one‘s estate and its succession. Its goal was not only to face the unknown while running the least possible risks, but it was also an attempt to provide for one‘s designated heirs and to protect estates against the vagaries of fate. It also provided a legal avenue through which it was possible to redress injustices and to control dissent as, through its several clauses, the habous allowed its founder an ample margin of freedom in arranging his affairs as he preferred. 47 Jean François Rycx, ‗Règles islamiques et droit positif en matière de succession: Présentation générale‘, in Marceau Gast ed., Hériter en pays Musulman (Paris, 1987), 19-41, 23. 48 Nasrdin Saïdouni, ‗Les terres habous dans le Fahs d‘Alger‘, in Faruk Bilici ed., Le waqf dans le monde musulman contemporain ((19e – 20e siècles) (Istanbul, 1994), 99-117, 100.
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More than that, it can be argued that, in a certain sense, this kind of institution represented a way by which the founder arranges to take some part in the management of his estate after his death. By going through the thousands of acts which constitute the Ottoman habous/waqf records of Algiers, one clearly perceives in these deeds the desire of habous founders to inscribe themselves in perpetuity. 49 What makes habous an incredibly rich source for social, economic and cultural historian are the peculiar legal requirements of establishing one, namely the fact that the constitution of an asset into habous needs to be preceded by a complete history of it, and of its circulation in the past: in this way the history of the property is connected with the human relationships that are linked with it. Compared with simple wills, and even post-mortem inventories, the documentation pertaining to a habous establishment is therefore much richer of detailed information. Moreover the personality of the habous founder emerges very vividly from the long narratives and detailed clauses that form part of it, and this again makes them a most wealthy source of information in reconstructing individual lives and attitudes. In addition to the traditional kind of habous beneficiaries mentioned above, there was another category of recipients in the devolutions of these assets, namely, relatives and other people, selected without specification of the ties or the relationship with the founder. The inclusion of this category of beneficiaries aroused a particular interest, and was the subject of several consultations addressed by the habous‟ founders to the authority – the high religious council – to know if they could include beneficiaries of their choice (aqârib mukhtârîn or ‗chosen relatives‘ and unâs mukhayarîn or ‗selected people‘). The fatwas were often positive. This is again evidence of the flexibility of this instrument, as devolution by way of habous made it possible for the persons who established them to also express their personal affinities and their friendship, the habous‘ beneficiaries being not only people who had some rights on the estate. The present research reveals that among this category of beneficiaries there were: close friends, „âlims (religious scholars),50 adopted children, freed slaves and other categories of people who had no other relationship with the founder than those of friendship or personal affinity. Therefore if some people benefited their relatives, others benefited their freed slaves by including them in the devolution of the habous assets. In other cases, they acquire for them assets made into habous. Mustafä Raïs, constituted in habous in 1748 a house located at the fish 49 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh. In the series of the mahâkim shar„iyya, acts of habous are in the thousands and cover the period which extends from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. 50 „âlim (sing.): an individual Muslim learned in Islamic law. The collective plural is „ulamâ‟.
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market (sbât al-hût) and designated as beneficiaries his two freed slaves, Balkhayr the minor and Lalûna, and their descendants, and in the last position the poor of Haramayn (the two holy shrines of Mecca and Medina).51 The late Admiral (qubtân), Mohammad b. ‗Abdullâh, in 1636 constituted as habous an apartment of six rooms located near the vegetable market, for the benefit of his seven freed slaves, including six men and a Christian woman, nasrâniya, and their descendants and, again as ultimate beneficiaries, the poor of Haramayn. 52 Sometimes, the descendants of the „âlims were included among the beneficiaries; thus Sha‗bân b. ‗Abdullah ‗the Genoese‘ and his wife Sûltâna bt. Mâmi Aghâ, who were the owners of a large multi-storey house, and of a small house and two shops located in a cul-de-sac in a residential district close to the Great Mosque of Algiers, not far from the bath of Ali Petchinin, constituted their assets a habous and named their son as first beneficiary; then his own children (Ahmed and Nafîsa), and their own progeny. After the extinction of their direct line of descent, they named as beneficiaries the children of al-Hâjj Mohammed b. Râsil 53 and of Ahmed al-Fûnduqji with all their descendants, the ultimate beneficiary being the Great Mosque of Algiers.54 The legal aspects of habous were, however, complex and by no means uniform across the Muslim legal schools. While the malikite rite immediately deprived the founder of the habous of his assets, the hanafite rite made him/her the first beneficiary, and that is why the founder was not mentioned in the act. The opinion of Abû Yûsuf, disciple of Abû Hanifa, who granted the founder the right to profit from the usufruct of the habous led to a situation where almost all the founders of habous assets chose the hanafite rite whose interpretation was perfectly appropriate to them, insofar that it combined charitable work and material security for the family.55 The founder had the power to choose a different legal school while passing another property; just as he could adopt different clauses of devolution according to assets. He could also revise the acts by the insertion of provisions, conditions or optional procedures to respond to new situations; all he needed was to predict in advance these kinds of provisions in the acts of habous. The programs of transmission of assets AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 122, act n° 44. AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 9/2, act n° 6. 53 The ibn Râsil were a family of the hanafite rite, from whom came a mufti, Mohammed b ‗Abd al-Rahmân b. Râsil, at the beginning of nineteenth century. 54 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 134/135, act n° 6, and act n° 40. 55 Muhammad Aziz Ben Achour, ‗The habous or Waqf: legal institution and the Tunisian practice‘, in Sophie Ferchiou ed., Hasab wa nasab. Parenté, alliance et patrimoine en Tunisie (Paris, 1992), 51-78, 62. 51 52
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are very revealing: the constitution in habous is a manner of stabilizing the assets and of maintaining them within the family ties in case of unforeseen events, a programme, which tallies well with uncertainty: he constitutes the property into habous. In the event of safe life, he can intervene in the form of circulation of the assets. The case of Sulaymân Raïs b. ‗Abdullâh is revealing. In 1720, after acquiring a house located in the area of the Great Mosque of Algiers, he constituted it in habous according to the hanafite rite, with himself as the first beneficiary. After him, his other beneficiaries were his two children (‗Umar and Fatima), and his wife, Yamûna bt. al-Hâjj ‗Abd al-Rahmân. At the moment of establishing the habous, he also stipulated that, if further births should take place in his family, both boys and girls and their descendants would inherit in equal shares. After the total extinction of his own direct line, the habous was to be turned over to the children of Al-Hâjj ‗Abd al-Rahmân (his father-in-law), again with the division in equal shares between boys and girls if further births were to take place. In the last instance, he stipulated that the entire estate would revert to the poor of the Haramayn.56 Research reveals only one case where the number of children as inheritors of an estate was more than two; in this case, this raïs had five children and it was that of Al-Mukarram (‗The Venerated‘) Sulaymân Raïs wardiyân bâshi; before becoming raïs he had been a chief of the corporation of the watchmen, and it is possible that he produced his children at that time. After acquiring an apartment and a shop in 1728, he constitutes those into habous and designates as beneficiaries his two sons and his three daughters and their mother Maryam bt. al-Hâjj Ahmed.57 Al-Sayid al-Hâjj Husayn Raïs b. Hassan, in 1782 constituted into habous a house he owned located in the district of Algiers known as Hûmat bir al-zanq; the beneficiaries of the habous were his son and his mother, the wife of the founder of the habous, Al-Waliya Amina bt. Ahmed, with equal shares. If one of them died, his/her share would return to the other then, after the latter's death, to their descendants, with male beneficiaries being allocated double shares; in the last instance the estate would be devolved to the Great Mosque of Algiers.58 Amina daughter of Al-Hâjj ‗Isâ, who was chief of the corporation (ta‘ifa) of the corsair raïs, inherited from her father in 1767 a house located near the fountain of the shaykh Husayn. At her death, her heirs were her mother and her husband Husayn Al Bahhâr (‗The Sailor‘), AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 123, act n° 46. AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 76/77, act n° 30. 58 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 39, act n° 62. 56 57
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the public Treasury, in its capacity as „âsib, sold the inheritance and gave the shares to the two heirs.59 This limited number of the descendants is discernible through the number of beneficiaries mentioned in the acts of habous endowments, and most often there‘s only one or, at most, two. Such is the case of the descent of the admiral Salim Raïs – known as ‗the Buffoon‘ – whom has already been mentioned before. In the series of Algiers Sharî‟a court records, there are two acts relating to estates in the name of his daughter. In the first act, of 1677, Qâmir daughter of the admiral Al qubtân Salîm Raïs is registered to have acquired a house located at the lower part of the old barracks of the janissaries; in the second, dated 1678, after dividing the house with her son-in-law, Al-Adham Hassan Raïs, and his young daughter, Kâdin, Qâmir sells the estate. 60 Raïs and sailors often died without leaving descendents, and the frequency of such cases can be seen from the post-mortem inventories made for the Bayt al-Mâl. Frequently, in the absence of children, other branches of the family were designed as beneficiaries. As an example, the two children of Mustafâ khûdja – a brother and a sister named Mohammad khûdja and Fatima – put into habous a house with its dependences located near Dâr al-Hamrâ. After Mohammad's death, his beneficiaries are his children, including Al-Hâjj Ahmed, Mohammad Raïs and Nafisa. Their paternal aunt, Fatima, dies and leaves as beneficiaries the children of her brother. Nafisa dies and leaves as beneficiaries a daughter called Lalâhum, the daughter of Ahmed khûdja. Mohammad Raïs dies without leaving heirs.61 Partnerships with Wives and Relatives Men and women were frequently partners both in investments and in the transmission of property, such as the case of the couple made up of the corsair husband ‗Ali Raïs b. Hamza al-Turki, and his wife, Ourida bt. ‗Ali. They bought in joint ownership (ishtirâk) a multi-storey house and a store located in Hûmat bir Jawur ‗Ali. The husband owned two-thirds and his wife one-third; the property was to be passed to their son and, at his death, it was passed to his children and his wife. 62 In other cases, a couple recorded acquisitions with equal shares. This was the case of Sha‗bân b. Abdullâh ‗the Genoese‘ and his wife Sûltâna bt. Mâmi Aghâ, already
AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 71/72, act n° 23. AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 9/2, act n° 17. 61 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 45/1, act n° 13. 62 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 122, act n° 41 59 60
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mentioned above, who registered their properties in equal shares when they turned their estate into habous in December 1645.63 Partnership between spouses was frequently used by soldiers and administration officials, but was especially popular amongst raïs and corsairs. These made a partnership with their wives in the registering of properties and sometimes in their wills as a way of guaranteeing for their wives a comfortable financial future in the event of unforeseen events, such as the death of the husband at sea. This research reveals the presence of many officers, admirals, raïs and sailors of all ranks in the establishment of habous in the various districts of Algiers, but especially in the area of the markets. The beneficiaries were instead primarily women: daughters, wives, mothers and sisters, whilst the final destination of their estates was generally the foundation of the poor of the Haramayn.64 If the number of women who appear among the beneficiaries of the habous foundations was considerable, there were also women who were founders of their own habous or co-founders in association with their husbands. Throughout this period, I estimate this participation to be 15 % in the case of Algiers.65 At the level of the Ottoman empire, the participation of the women in the habous foundations varies between 15 and 20 %, slightly less than a third in Tunis, and only 10 % in Egypt.66 In certain cases, it is noticeable that the various members of the family, descendants and relatives all practiced the same trade as sailors, and in certain cases, they belonged to the same corporate body, for example, the corporation of the raïs. Such was the case of Qamîr b. alQubtân Salim Raïs, whose son-in-law was a raïs too.67 These professional groups were consolidated by internal alliances and by a strong group endogamy. These were particularly evident in the strong team spirit (esprit de corps) displayed by the janissaries whose common destiny, sharing of living conditions, adventures experienced together strengthened their unity and lead them to make similar life choices. Even after they left the barracks, their sense of belonging to a particular group and their social ties remained similar, and are visible in their choices of spouses, strongly influenced by logic of statutory and social proximity within and between ranks. Solidarity among members of this category was noticeable on several levels. It was what constituted and created the group identity and AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 119/120, act n° 29. Saïdouni, ‗Terres habous‘, 101. 65 Fatiha Loualich, ‗Femmes et pouvoir juridique à travers les actes de biens habous, Alger 17ème -18ème siècles‘, Cirta, special issue (‗Femmes et pouvoir‘), (2000): 25-32, 29. 66 Sophie Ferchiou, ‗Catégories des sexes et circulation des biens‘, in Ferchiou ed., Hasab wa nasab, 251-270, 257. 67 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 88, act n° 11. 63 64
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was maintained in several forms visible both in daily business, and especially at critical moments: such as requests for help and support, the witnessing of legal deeds, the signing of declarations and mandates. Time spent in the barracks wove solid bonds and this solidarity was concretized by a common practice: as soon as a janissary left the barracks and acquired assets, he constituted a habous for the benefit of his companions of barracks, or created partnerships with them. For example, two janissaries bought half of the shop of a broker (sbâysî), located in the zone of the ironmongers in the Bab ‗Azûn quarter; the property was registered to them in 1722.68 Gestures of this kind gave rise to an institution which functioned by managing assets, like a social fund at the service of a specific body of people. Adapted at the time, this fund was public; it was a foundation of habous properties to the profit of the janissaries and barracks. Other institutions profited from properties bequeathed by this category. Legacies through Wills The corsairs and the raïs had also constituted charitable habous (habous khayrî), to the benefit of the Great Mosque of Algiers, to the shrine of Sidi Abd Al-Rahmân Al Tha‗âlibi (the ‗patron saint‘ of Algiers), and to the Haramayn, as in the case of Sulaymân Raïs b. Abdullâh, who in 1727 gave the quarter of a house as a habous for the benefit of the Great Mosque. 69 Often, the participation of corsairs in habous khayrî was done in the form of testamentary legacies, carried out by the managers of the foundations in accordance with the will of the deceased. For instance, Sulaymân Qubtân b. Dâli Mâmi had bequeathed by will an amount of money for the acquisition of two shops and their constitution into habous for the benefit of the Great Mosque of Algiers; the grand mufti of Algiers, Sidi Sa‗îd Qaddûra, executed the will in 1643, taking into account the wishes of the testator.70 In general, a significant number of unmarried janissaries, corsairs and soldiers in Algiers envisaged the placing of their assets in habous for the benefit of pious or public foundations, the wakîls (administrators) of which would be in charge of implementing. Often, they bequeathed cash, with precise instructions for its investment; the wakîls then carried out the wills according to the wishes expressed by the donors. But in certain cases, corsairs or soldiers died suddenly without leaving a will, and what happened in this case will de detailed later in the essay. AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 84/86, act n° 41. AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 134/135, act n° 64. 70 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 39, act n° 10. 68 69
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The Signs of a Transitory Life Several signs reveal the transitory character of sailors‘ lives, the absence of some landmarks that generally appear at certain times in a life, at quite precise decades, is a strong indicator of this. Particularly noticeable is the absence of two elements which are usually accomplished by a certain age, specifically when one crosses the threshold of the fourth decade. The first index is that very few sailors carry the title of hajj. By looking through the deeds relating to sailors, one notices the presence of various honorary titles (the honourable, the venerated), but the absence of the title of hajj shows that very few amongst mariners managed to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, and this can be seen as evidence that these sailors often die young, and almost never at retirement age. The second index has to do with the age at which a master would free his slaves; in land-based society this often occurs at an age around forty, frequently, it was done before carrying out the pilgrimage. The master, anxious to perform a pious act, a gesture of charity which will be rewarded in the afterlife, testified in favour of the freeing his slave(s) following his own death, or made a declaration of freedom. In the first case the heirs were to carry out the act; in the second, the slave was freed once the act was registered.71 Given their life filled with uncertainty, or simply brusquely cut short, it was frequently the descendents of sailors and raïs who carried out such acts, dedicating them to the memory of their missing fathers. Amongst the cases of manumission from slavery, effected by the children of raïs and sailors: Âmina bt. Yûsuf Raïs freed her slave Mebârka in 1826. 72 In 1825, Al-Sayyid al-Hâjj al-‗Arbî, son of the late Al-Sayyid Mustafâ, himself the son of a raïs, freed his slave Sâlem.73 Some other examples, subsequent to the French conquest of Algiers, may also be cited: AlHanafi b. al-Marhûm Mustafâ b. Ibrahim Raïs freed his slave Mebârka, in 1831,74 and in the same year Âmina bt. Yûsuf Raïs, by means of an agent, freed her slave Hassîna, a minor.75
Fatiha Loualich, ‗Les esclaves noirs à Alger (fin du XVIIIe – début du XIXe siècles). De l‘esclave à l‘affranchi, vers une relation d‘allégeance‘, Mélanges de l”Ecole Française de Rome, 115 (2003): 513-522, 518. 72 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 3, act n° 78. 73 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 3, act n° 79. 74 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 3, act n° 109. 75 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., Box 2, act n° 2. 71
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Inventories after Death (al-Mukhallafât, al-Tarikât) In the absence of both heirs and a will, the Bayt al-Mâl intervened to recover estates on the basis of inventories made after death. These documents appear in the registers of the Bayt al-Mâl archive, and are classified under the following heading: ‗Inventories after death of people without heirs, concerning the missing, the absent and prisoners abroad‘. From the analysis of these documents, it is possible to see represented in its papers a large and diverse section of the population, the most significant portion of which were corsairs who had died at sea, 76 followed by high officers who were stationed in the other provinces and cities of the Regency. For these latter, the drawing up of their inventories after death was done by the agents of the beylik administration, who sent the inventories to the Bayt al-Mâl. For example, Hassan Bey, a civil servant stationed in Mostaghanem (a port in north-western Algeria) left jewellery. For missing persons, once their death was established, the Bayt al-Mâl recovered their assets and proceeded to sell them at an auction; in Tlemcen (an important centre in north-western Algeria), the effects of the disappeared Ibrâhim Yoldash were thus transferred to the Public Treasury in Algiers.77 In some of these cases of disappearance the country of death was known, such was the case of ‗Abd al-Rahmân, who died in Sudan, and whose death was reported by Al-Hâjj Sulaymân al-Qûqji.78 But there were also others whose place of residence at death was unknown, and these were recorded only as ―missing from the Regency of Algiers‖. 79 To the status of missing persons – and of intestate successions – is dedicated an important section of Muslim jurisprudence, how did the courts proceed in these cases? But first, who is a ‗missing person‘? The ‗missing‘ was someone about whom there had been no news for a given time; nor it was known whether he was dead or still alive. Knowing the date of death of the missing person was important because, before talking about inheritance, it must be specified whether his death occurred before or after the death of the person from whom he would have theoretically inherited, to evaluate whether he was entitled to this inheritance in the first place. This would help determine who was entitled to the inheritance.80 The Treasury recovers the assets of the declared missing person, and the distribution of the inheritance could only take place after the lapse of a determined period of time, the length of which was fixed by AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 2. AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 1, (1699/1700- 1700/1701). 78 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 22. 79 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 133/2- 134, act n° 9, in 1135/avril 1723. 80 Muhammad Sa‗fân and Mustafâ Mu‗awadh, Al-Mîrâth fî al-Sharî„a al-Islâmiya (Inheritance in Islamic Law) (Cairo, 1929), 63. 76 77
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jurists. In addition, when a missing person appeared among the heirs to an estate, the Bayt al-Mâl initiated the procedure of dividing the succession in order to recover the missing person's share. The share of missing persons constituted a real obstacle for the distribution of the shares in an inheritance, as any action in this regard had to be made in presence of both the kadi (judge) of the same rite as the missing person and the wakîl (representative) of the Bayt al-Mâl. The latter‘s role was to supervise the procedure and authorize the auction sale. Thus, in a significant number of successions, the Bayt al-Mâl intervened in a dual capacity: as recipient of an estate on behalf of the missing person, and as the institution of financial control.81 If there was a category which was very often concerned with these absent heirs, it was the political class, with several members belonging to these families declared absent at the time of opening successions‘ procedures, as has been mentioned above. In these cases it was the supervisor (nâzir) of the public Treasury who took charge of the affairs of the missing person (or of the captive abroad), and who intervened to recover their estates. Often these missing persons were the only heirs, like the son of Bakîr khûdja.82 In several other cases, the absent person had delegated an agent to rent, sell or manage an asset; frequently this power of attorney was given to close relatives, neighbours or friends. The high number of extant deeds in the Algiers‘ archives that grant power of attorney of this kind is evidence to networks of trust that existed in the city‘s society. In the absence of such an agent, the kadi became by law the manager of the inheritance of the missing person, but he could only exercise the kind of action that was essential to the conservation and the administration of the estate. His role as agent ended only after the death of the missing person was proven. 83 In sum, the management of the personal property and real estate was entrusted to Bayt al-Mâl while awaiting the return of a missing person, the announcement of his effective death or the declaration of presumption of death at the end of the legal waiting period.84
AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 136/137, act n° 12. AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 9/2, act n° 9. 83 Marcel Duclos, Précis élementaire de droit musulmane mis à jour avec la jurisprudence la plus récente (Algiers, 1940), 149. 84 The various rites are in disagreement on this subject: for the malikis, the term of life lies between 75 and 80 years; for the hanafis, it goes up to 100 years while the Kabyle custom brings it down to 70 years. It is in waiting for a return or possible return that Bayt al-Mâl recovers the shares of the missing persons, but after the expiry of the period, it becomes their heir by law. 81 82
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Inventories after death also were drawn up for the estates of those who disappeared on the way towards the Hijâz on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (hâjj), or had already arrived in the Hijâz. Moreover, before leaving, the believer (i.e., the person going on pilgrimage to the Hijâz) had the duty to settle all debts: s/he must put his affairs in good legal order, pay his/her debts, and make alms. Considering the fact that the journey was long and painful, and the chances of a safe return doubtful, several people – the majority of whom women – registered declarations of property before their departure, and it was frequent for them to relinquish their estates in advance to their relatives so as to avoid the intervention of the authorities, and the possible dispersal of the inheritance, were they to die during their pilgrimage. 85 Many inventories after death related to foreigners, Maghrebians, Turks or others, who died in Algiers leaving no heirs. As an example, one may cite Mohammed al-Sharîf al-Haffâf (possibly from his name a dealer in cheap shoes), whose personal effects were recovered at the fondouk of Bâb al-Wâd in Algiers. Mohammed al-Sharîf died in Turkey and left a missing son.86 In the context of the present essay, research has uncovered several cases of individuals who had disappeared at sea, in the course of making the pilgrimage or corsairing, and who had left absent heirs, thus creating complicated legal problems. For example, in May 1701, Sulaymân Bulukbâshi Shâwush al ‗Asker died in the Hijâz while on pilgrimage, leaving as his estate to a half-sister who was absent in Turkey.87 Some of these inventories concern instead soldiers and other civilians who were serving in the Mahalla of Tunis;88 there died both Sulaymân Yoldash and Yûsuf al-‗Alj, who at the time of their deaths were working in the tax collection administration.89 The public Treasury recovered also the goods of officers with no heirs who were on duty in other cities and areas of the Ottoman empire. It recovered and sold a house located close to the hammâm of Hamza Khûdja, belonging to Al-Shâb Husayn al-yenisheri (‗The Janissary‘) b. `Uthmân, who died in the mahalla of the east in 1698.90 See, for example, AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 17, act n° 103; box 31, n° 103 and 241. AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 4 87 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 1. In this register, relating to the years 1700/1701, all the deceased and the missing are listed, together with precise reference to the corresponding conditions, their inventories, the close relations if they existed and the place where they are, debts due and the value of their inventoried estates. 88 The mahalla of Tunis was the mobile military camp which was the seat of that Regency‘s government, from which was run not only the military, but also tax collection in the hinterland. 89 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 24. 90 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 76/77, act n° 68. 85 86
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Those who had died at sea during battles or corsairing expeditions were registered alongside those who had died during their pilgrimage, or exercising their professions; in all the inventories after death registered in these cases, details on time and place of death are mentioned, as we have seen how these were essential in the businesses of succession. 91 The registration of the place of death informs us about the mobility of Algiers‘ population; the diversity of the places mentioned indicates that they possessed great freedom of movement, mostly for reasons of pilgrimage, study and economic activities. When a death was recorded, the authorities concerned were informed, either to recover property left in Algiers or acquired abroad, in order to settle the situation for the benefit of the heirs or the public Treasury. This was how was settled the succession of Al-Hâj Ibrâhim bayt al-mâldji (an employee, or possibly the head, of the Bayt al-Mâl), who had died in Tetouan. 92 The assets of freed slaves were treated the same way; they had often been servants in the houses or in the second homes (jnân) of their former masters; thus the inventory of ‗Ayesha ‗the servant‘ (khâdim) reveals that she ―died in the jnân of Hasan Aghâ‖.93 Even given the same procedure, the inventories after death of sailors and corsairs have their own specificity. What constitutes this difference? Inventories after Death of Sailors and raïs: two instead of one The corsairs who died at sea were numerous. Once their ship returned to the port, the secretary of the ship (kâtib al-markab) – also known as ‗the khodja of the disappeared‘ (khûjat al-hâlikîn) – reported to the authorities the names of the crew members who were dead or missing, so as to inform the heirs or the Public Treasury. As we have seen before, the latter recovered the totality of the inventories after death in the absence of an heir, as it did for Ahmed al-nasrâni (‗the Christian‘, that is to say a convert), who had died on the ship of Qâra al-Hûki.94 There are several descriptions of daily life on board ships for the early modern period, and we have evidence of the living conditions in the galleys both from Western European and in North African sources; some of them are in captives‘ narratives, but also those penned by Christian slaves employed in Turkish and North African ships are not rare.95 Ship officers were also expected to give accounts to Algiers‘ government of all For instance, Al-Haj Ahmed al-‗Attâr, died on the way towards the pilgrimage AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 23. 92 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 28. 93 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 1. 94 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 24. 95 Salvatore Bono, Les corsaires en Méditerranée. (Paris, 2000), 128-129. 91
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the events which occurred during an expedition, 96 and this included detailed descriptions of human losses; hence the role of the kâtib almarkab, the secretary of the ship. These secretaries recorded, as a matter of priority, the human losses occurred on board, providing precise details such as: ―died in the ship‖, ―died drowned‖, and ―died at sea‖. Part of their charge was also to identify the dead and write down the preliminary inventories of their possessions, namely the personal effects they had on board. These were often modest, frequently qualified as çulaq (coarse clothing / garments of no value), such as a change of clothes or two; the canvas bag in which the janissaries put their provisions; a little cash, frequently small quantities of silver coin which were probably what was left from the preceding expedition booty.97 In some of these inventories, there is also mention of rifles and swords. 98 The inventories after deaths relating to corsairs were numerous and often carried the specification: ‗died‘ or ‗died drowned‘. Thus we learn that Küçük Mohammed Yoldash died ‗drowned‘ whilst on the ship of Qâra Mustafâ, thanks to the information reported by Uzun Mohammed Raïs.99 In some cases, the inventory after death was rather detailed, as in the just mentioned succession of Yûsuf al-‗Alj where the information was supplied by the wakîl al-harj, who specified that the deceased was indebted to the Janissary ûjâq. We may also mention the inventory of Sulaymân, a prisoner, who died in the ship of Ibn Habîb, as reported by Mohammed al-Harrâr b. Qâsim al-Sharif; the inventory of ‗Yoldash‘ who died in the ship of Al-Hâj Qâra Bursâli;100 and the inventory of Hâj al-Maghribi alSûsi.101 In the cases of the freed sailors or raïs who had no close relatives, the masters or their descendants recover the succession. As an example, ‗Azîza bt. Mustafâ Bey, known as bû Ra‗da, recovered the inventory after death of the slave Hassan Raïs Al-tabbâl, freed by her father.102 Once the ship came back to port, a second inventory was drawn up, this time including the whole estate of the deceased. On this occasion, declarations of possessions were made by a close relative or, for unmarried men, by the odabashi – the room steward of the janissaries barracks – or by the aghâ for those who instead lodged in the funduq. In this second Merouche, Recherches sur l‟Algérie à l‟époque ottomane II, 158. AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Box 1, register n° 1. 98 Farid Khiari, ‗Les corsaires meurent aussi. Tout est question de méthode‘, Arab Historical Review of Ottoman Studies, 34 (2006): 67-87, 84. 99 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 1. 100 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 4F.) 101 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 59. 102 AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Box n° 5, Registre n°23. 96 97
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inventory, debts and credits were specified, and the heirs were recorded, if there were any. The scribe (kâtib) of the Bayt al-Mâl then added up the content of the two inventories, recovered the debts of the deceased and authorized the auction sale. Lastly, if there were heirs, the estate was distributed according to quotas. In most cases, these inventories are composed just of personal goods. In 1705, the late Al- Mukarram al-Raïs Ahmed al-Djnâdi left behind a wife, Amina bt. Balqâsim and a son, Mohammad, under the guardianship of his mother. The inventory includes personal property: his clothes, carpets and covers, kitchen utensils made of copper and ceramics. Everything was sold at an auction. Some jewellery, which was the share of the under-age son, was put in a trunk in the presence of his paternal aunt and deposited at the dukkân al-Haramayn.103 In other cases, the inventory also included very modest real estate. In November 1748, ‗Alal al-Bahhâr b. al-Hâj Ahmed, ‗the Sailor‘, acquired shares of an orchard located at Al-Hamma. In December 1748, he sold the 2/5 of it to Mohammad Pasha; the latter put into habous this share for the benefit of the fountains and the water canals of the city of Algiers.104 In 1778, Al hâdj ‗Alal al-Bahhâr died, and left as heirs his wife Fatima bt. Al-Hâj Mohammad al-Mâzûnî, his children Mohammad and ‗Ayesha, as well as his father, Al-Hâj Ahmed, his estate was composed only of a share of the orchard in Al-Hamma.105 Conclusion The lifestyles of the Algerine raïs and sailors were characterized by transience; they led simple lives, frequently cut short by an early death, and their lives on land were lived within a rather restricted social group. They were the most monogamous category of people in Algerian society, very rarely owning concubines. Their wills and testaments reveal the existence of a small number of direct heirs, and just a few slaves and servants, frequently freed by the raïs and sailors or by their descendants. From their strategies of transmission emerge acts of transmission of property which reveal to us details about their lives which would otherwise have remained unknown. Unmarried sailors usually chose testamentary legacies, whilst amongst the others there was a strong preference for the establishment of habous, with close relatives being the beneficiaries in the vast majority of cases, although also more distant relatives and friends appear as beneficiaries. Through choices connected AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 14/1, act n° 176. AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 68, act n° 11. 105 AN Algiers, FO, M. Sh., box 106/107, act n° 22. 103 104
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with their inheritance we can then explore the social and economic specificities, which characterized sailors and corsairs‘ relationships to property and to their social world. Raïs and sailors who died at sea emerge as the absolute protagonists of the deeds recorded in the registers of the Public Treasury. In fact it can be said that if there was an over-represented category within the Public Treasury, it would be that of sailors of all ranks. The Bayt al-Mâl recovered the totality of the succession in the event of absence of heirs. It preserved it for the legally predetermined duration in the case of absent heirs, and took its own share in the event the absence of a male heir. 106 Through these public procedures connected with their inheritance it is possible to reveal details on their social life and relationship to property, and in this way one can attempt to grasp, however imperfectly, their private lives. The life of corsairs, their exploits at sea, their spoils, their victories, their unpredictable lifestyles, and their singular destinies have been chronicled for a long time. But if we focus on their private lives, we discover another aspect, made of misfortunes and daily struggles. How did their wives live in this unstable life, filled with uncertainty, and with the repeated and prolonged absences their husbands? To have an idea of this, it is sufficient to browse through the complaints formulated by the wives in search of a legal status (maslak shar„î) in a society where everything had to pass via judiciary control. Indeed, the well-known story made of expeditions at sea, life on the galley and daring war exploits seems to imply that these corsairs never set foot on land, or did so just to divide the spoils on the quayside. But in reality human relationships were made and unmade, friendships and marriages were indeed based on land and the wives and families of these raïs and sailors lived difficult daily lives which are waiting to be investigated. Far from the sea, in the institutions, the houses and the streets of Algiers, these corsairs experienced similar lives to those of any other maritime and military community in the early modern period. A Note on Archival Sources in Algiers and elsewhere The history of the Regency and particularly the history of the Algerian navy, has its local and international archival sources, the latter particularly important to investigate the contacts and relationships of Algiers with other states and port cities all around the Mediterranean. Local sources can be divided into two categories.
106
AN Algiers, FO, Registers of Bayt al-Mâl, Register n° 2
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The first one comprises the archives specific to the state, for example, the registers of payments of the janissaries, a source which remains little exploited to date and is instead a veritable mine of data, whose use will enrich surely our knowledge in the field the naval history. 107 Another important document for the naval history of Algiers is a register of the maritime prizes. This rare document provides details on the economic and social importance of the prizes, a topic of which we still know relatively little as only bits of information have reached us in a dispersed manner through the translation of a lost manuscript.108 Then there are the extremely rich Ottoman records of Algiers, whose several documentary series cover the most varied of topics. Albert Devoulx affirmed in the mid-nineteenth century that thousands of documents had passed through his hands,109 and, in fact, this source was so abundant that he used to give away some manuscripts as presents.110 Other more recent works on the Algiers Ottoman archives, give an account of the losses and the damage suffered by these records during and after colonization. 111 The second category includes registers containing information pertaining to the navy: the registers of the state (Sijillât al-Beylik), those of the Public Treasury (Sijillât Bayt al-Mâl),112and acts of the kadis‟ courts („uqûd al-Mahâkim al-Shar„iyya), the latter comparable to Western European Archives related to the Algerian navy exist elsewhere in the various repositories in Mediterranean or Atlantic countries. If the files of Istanbul occupy the second place thanks to the presence of important registers and collections emanating from administrative apparatus of Istanbul, and the third is Smyrna, a port in direct contact with Algiers, the first repository of archives for a history of this kind is indeed Algiers. The national library in Algiers, houses a rare collection of manuscripts: the registers of balances of the janissaries, they were 33, they are now 28, covering the period of 1696 - 1830, coming from the offices of the Regency of Algiers and used to register the janissaries upon their arrivals, and their balances, according to rank. They represent a complete statement of the janissaries and an essential tool for maritime history. We may find there their proper names, as well as their origin, ranks, and balances. But these registers remain a tool of first rate for a study of the Algerian navy. Written in osmanli and cyphred, they are difficult to decipher, surely deserving a study done by a team of multi-disciplinary researchers; this fund is worthy of a mission within the framework of UNESCO. There have been individual attempts to use the funds and present it, see Jean Deny, ‗Les Registres des soldes maritimes‘, Revue Africaine, 61 (1920): 19-46. 108 Devoulx, Le Registre des prises. 109 Jean Deny, ‗A propos du fonds Arabe- Turc des archives du Gouvernement Général de l‘Algérie‘, Revue Africaine, 62 (1921): 375-378. 110 Abdeljalil Temimi, ‗Inventaire sommaire des registres Arabes et Turcs d‘Alger‘, Revue d‟Histoire Maghrébine, 1 (1974): 84-96, 87. 111 Temimi, ‗Inventaire sommaire‘, 95. 112 The Registers of Beylik and those of Bayt al-Mâl number 586, of which the majority are the registers of the beylik. But the registers of Bayt al-Mâl (64 Registers) interest us more in regard to this topic, because it was in these registers that the inventories after death were recorded, and of which a significant number remain those of the raïs and sailors. 107
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Notarial archives.113 It needs to be specified that the original documents are held at the national archives of Algiers, but copies are available in the form of microfilms and microfiches also in foreign archives and libraries making their consultation and examination rather easy. 114 For the research at the basis of this essay, several documentary series, including documents which have never been studied before –namely the ‗Book of ceremonies‘ (Daftar al-Tashrîfât) –115 have been used. The use of these sources is necessary to grasp the context in which corsairing activities developed, and also to evaluate the roles of both individual and collective actors. The material preserved in archives of Algiers can be supplemented with and checked against other sources. Especially precious in this regard are the Mühimme, Mâliye, and Bahriye defterleri series in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. Cross-referencing Algerian with Turkish documentary evidence it is possible to clarify the history of the empire in general and of the navy in particular. The above-mentioned documentary series (Mâliye, and Bahriye defterleri) are the preferred archival sources for the study of the Navy throughout the Ottoman empire.116 This is despite the fact that the navy and the maritime world occupy an important place also in series such as the Muhimme defterleri (Registers of Important Affairs
113 The acts of the Mahâkim Shar„iyya is the series of Ottoman court records of Algiers, composed of various acts recorded and authenticated by kadis in the presence of witnesses. The judges in Algiers sat indifferently in both courts – the malikite and the hanafite. In the event of great litigations and complex cases these two authorities called upon the high judicial council which sat at the Great Mosque of Algiers and was composed of kadis and muftis of the two rites as well as a representative of the government in certain cases. The three legal institutions worked in close cooperation. The acts emanating from these authorities are numerous and varied, they are in connection with relations and properties, they cover the period of the beginning of the sixteenth until the middle of the nineteenth centuries. We found several acts whose actors are qubtân, raïs and sailors, equally also their parents and relatives. 114 Microfilm copies are held at Centre des Archive d'Outre-Mer in Aix in Provence (CAOM). It is classified in the Turkish-Arab records and divided into two series: the series 15 Mi includes 54 reels, the second series, 1 Mi, known as series Z, includes 70 reels. Registers 64 to 70 are the product of the colonial administration. A second set of this collection of films is preserved in the Archives Nationales in Paris and classified under reference 228 MI in 49 reels. Mention should be made of work carried out on the basis of these two microfilm collections: Miriam Hoexter, ‗The Shurta or the repression of crimes in Algiers during the Turkish period‖, Studia Islamica, 56 (1982): 117-146; Khiari, ‗Développement historique‘; Mohamed Amine, Commerce extérieur et commerçants d‟Alger à la fin de l‟époque ottomane (17911830), unpublished thesis, Université d‘Aix-en–Provence (1991). The same observation is made by Tal Shuval, La ville d‟Alger vers la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Population et cadre urbain (Paris, 1998). 115 Devoulx, Tachrifât. 116 Archives of the Prime Minister‘s Office, Istanbul (Başbakanl׀ık Osmanl ı׀Arşivi, Istanbul: BOA)
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[of State]),117 and the Hatt-i Hümayun defterleri (Registers of Imperial Commands) – both preserved in the Ottoman Archives of the Prime Minister in Istanbul (Basbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivleri – BOA). In this archive it is possible to study other documentary series – such as the Cevdet Evkâfi – where there is plenty of material concerning admirals, raïs and other corsairs who created public endowments (habous) for the benefit of pious and public institutions in the capital of the empire, Istanbul, and in its suburbs.118
117 See the corpus of files of the Mühimme defteri series published by Abdeljalil Temimi, ‗L‘ottomanisation des Régences d‘Alger, de Tunis et de Tripoli à travers al-Muhimme defteri (1559- 1595)‘, Revue d‟Histoire Maghrébine, 34 (2006): 19-189. 118 Istanbul, BOA, series Cevdet Evkafı, files 15. 19. 36. 111. 127. 252. 289. 292. 535. 564. 604. 390. 408. 443. 465. 381. 385. This series of habous property was registered between 106/1694 and 1234/1819 by different the admirals and pashas from Algiers.
5 SLAVE HISTORIES AND MEMOIRS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD A Study of the Sources (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries) Salvatore Bono Between the last decade of the previous century and the first decade of the present one, research, analysis and debate on the subject of slavery in the Mediterranean world have been greatly extended and deepened, above all with regard to slavery in European countries – a subject which was almost completely ignored up to around 1950. The area under discussion here is the persistence of the phenomenon of slavery in the modern period – or early modern, in Anglo-Saxon terminology. From the 1950s, knowledge concerning this complex phenomenon has been enriched, and has become more precise and consolidated in relation to various aspects of slavery in various countries. It can also be noted that the current state of knowledge has benefited from contributions from research centres and from individual scholars, including some from non-Mediterranean countries; this seems to confirm that slavery, in its two aspects – European and Christian on the one hand and Turkish/North African and Islamic on the other – has affected countries far from the shores of the Mediterranean, albeit to different extents and in varying proportions.1 It is for this reason
Translated by Sarah Barrett. Henri Bresc ed., Figures de l‟esclave au moyen-age et dans le monde moderne (Paris, 1996); María Luisa Sánchez León and Gonçal López Nadal eds., Captius i esclaus a l‟antiguitat i al món modern (Naples, 1996); Anita Gonzalez-Raymond ed., Enfermement et captivité dans le monde ispanique, special number of Les Cahiers de l‟ILCE, 2 (2000); Giovanna Fiume ed., La schiavitù nel Mediterraneo, special issue of Quaderni Storici, 107 (2001) ; Giovanna Fiume ed., Schiavi, corsari, rinnegati , special issue of Nuove Effemeridi. Rassegna Trimestrale di Cultura, 14 (2001); Jean-Michel 1
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that the title of the present study refers to the ‗Mediterranean world‘; and the term ‗Mediterranean‘ will be taken in its most common and accessible sense, to indicate an area which extends beyond a geographical region, or a given number of countries with a coastal border. Such countries have moreover changed over the course of time: between the sixteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth, some countries which no longer have a coastline – such as Austria and Hungary – had access to the sea. 2 Even the USA, a few decades after its birth as a nation, was involved in Mediterranean life to an extent that also entailed the enslavement of some Americans by the North African regencies. 3 The quantitative growth, so to speak, in knowledge about the phenomenon of slavery has been closely matched by a growing recognition of the importance of this phenomenon in the history of the Mediterranean, together with the related factors of corsair warfare and religious conversion, increasingly considered under both their European and their Islamic aspects. If I may be allowed a personal comment: when, by chance or destiny, I undertook research on the subject of slavery and ransom, there were, even in Italy, many historians who did not know what the subject consisted of, and who considered it as marginal, if not indeed more suited to literary fiction, even children‘s books, rather than as worthy of ‗serious‘ research and historiographical reconstruction.4 Fernand Braudel‘s great work had only recently (1949) been published, and was not at that stage as well known as it was to become after the fine Italian translation published in 1953, followed by translations into other languages, as well as by the author‘s own revised and updated second edition in 1966. The fundamental merit of Braudel‘s Méditerranée Deveau ed., L‟esclavage en Méditerranée à l‟époque moderne, special issue of Cahiers de la Méditerranée, 65 (2002); Salvatore Bono, ‗D‘esclaves à marins dans la Méditerranée de l‘époque moderne‘, in Carmen Bernard and Alessandro Stella eds., D‟esclaves à soldats. Miliciens et soldats d‟origine servile, XIIIe–XXIe siècles (Paris, 2006); Giovanna Fiume ed., Schiavitù e conversioni nel Mediterraneo, special issue of Quaderni Storici, 126 (2007). 2 On the ‗coastal countries‘, albeit conventionally understood, on ‗Mediterraneanness‘, albeit in various degrees, and on historical variations in the idea of ‗coastal‘, see Salvatore Bono, Un altro Mediterraneo. Una storia comune fra scontri e integrazione (Rome, 2008), 35-38, 235-38. 3 Among the most recent publications on US presence in the Mediterranean, and on disputes with the North African states, see: Robert J. Allison, The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815 (Oxford, 1995); on Libya, Richard B. Parker, Uncle Sam in Barbary. A Diplomatic History (Gainesville, 2004), and Paolo Soave, La rivoluzione americana nel Mediterraneo: prove di politica di potenza e declino delle Reggenze barbaresche (1795-1816) (Milan, 2004). 4 On the start of my research, see Bono, Un altro mediterraneo, 11-12. My early publications include: ‗Genovesi schiavi in Algeri barbaresca‘, Bollettino Ligustico, 5 (1953): 67-72; ‗La pirateria nel Mediterraneo. Romagnoli schiavi dei Barbareschi‘, La Piê, 22 (1953): 205-210; ‗La pirateria nel Mediterraneo. Bolognesi schiavi a Tripoli nei sec. XVII e XVIII‘, Libia, 2.3 (1954): 25-37; ‗La missione dei Cappuccini ad Algeri per il riscatto degli schiavi cristiani nel 1585‘, Collectanea Franciscana, 25 (1955): 149-163, 279-304.
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was to contribute to the history of the Mediterranean world an exemplary method and broad perspective, in addition to offering a persuasive argument for the unity of Mediterranean history in the early modern period. In this conceptual and historical framework the corsair war and its consequences were accorded all their prominence and significance. 5 When Braudel‘s book first appeared, the most recent work then available was that of the German Otto Eck, Seeräuberei im Mittelmeer (1940);6 further back in time, it was necessary to go back to the 1800s to find works such as Charles de Rotalier‘s Histoire d‟Alger et de la piraterie des Turcs dans la Méditerranée à dater du seizième siècle (Paris, 1841), or the panoramic, dense, and well-structured articles of Henry de Grammont in the Revue Historique.7 Slaves and captifs Historical sources and historiography up to the present time have nearly always used the term ‗slave‘, whether referring to Christians, Muslims, or others. When, from the 1960s onwards, more and more Maghrebi scholars entered the field, some of them began to feel uneasy in talking about ‗slaves‘ when referring both to Europeans detained in the Maghreb and to their own fellow countrymen held by European individuals and governments. They therefore began to use the term captifs, or, even more detached from the historical context, the term ‗prisoners‘, used for example by Moulay Belhamissi, the historian of the Algerian navy. 8 Later, it appears, even European scholars began to differentiate, now using the word ‗slave‘ only when the slavery of the individual in question dated from their arrival in the Mediterranean world – i.e. blacks transported to the Iberian peninsula (and thence to other parts of Europe) in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (the term being used with even more justification for those transported from the African continent to America). For Muslims too – Maghrebis or Turks, strictly speaking – the word ‗slave‘ is used because in the majority of cases there was no possibility of ransom or liberation (or so it is maintained). A topic considered in a different light F. Braudel, Civiltà e imperi del Mediterraneo nell‟età di Filippo II, vols (Turin, 1986 (1953)), 1: xxv. The first edition in English, which had the strongest historiographical impact, appeared much later: The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols (London, 1972). On the reception of Braudel‘s work, see John A. Marino, ‗The Exile and his Kingdom: The Reception of Braudel‘s Mediterranean‘, Journal of Modern History, 76 (2003): 622-652. 6 Otto Eck, Seeräuberei im Mittelmeer. Dunkle Blätter europäischer Geschichte (Munich and Berlin, 1940), published during a period of war, is not well known; the bibliography includes rare works in German, but the apparatus criticus is somewhat unsatisfactory. 7 Henri Delmas de Grammont, ‗Etudes Algériennes. La Course, L‘Esclavage et la Rédemption à Alger‘, Revue Historique, 25 (1884): 1-42; 26 (1884): 1-44; and 27 (1884): 1-37. 8 Moulay Belhamissi, Les captifs algériens et l‟Europe chrétienne (Algiers, 1996). 5
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is the situation of Europeans captured by Muslims, from the Maghreb or elsewhere, who intended to obtain a ransom for them – a not inconsiderable source of income in the Barbary states; in such cases, individuals were therefore captifs, detainees or prisoners, awaiting ransom. It is true that the hope of being ransomed and freed was always more realistic for Europeans, as opposed to those who fell into European hands; but there was never a period in which a captured Christian could be sure of benefitting from ransom negotiations, which in any case were more difficult if they related to a ‗public‘ slave as opposed to one in private hands. It was therefore possible to distinguish slaves from captives only after their eventual return to their homeland – an outcome which applied only to a small percentage of the total number of captured individuals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – although the proportion was to increase with the more straightforward liberations of the eighteenth century and the fading away of the practice around 1830. From the point at which an individual fell into the hands of corsairs (or pirates) or, in any way, those fighting for the ‗other side‘, every one of them, whether Christian or Muslim, lost all freedom, and became liable to being traded, like objects or goods, and moved from one place to another, or from one type of work to another, completely outside their control and with no restriction. Given all these factors, it seems justified to speak of ‗slavery‘ and ‗slaves‘. A notably different fate, however, awaited a few individuals on both sides (who amounted to only a small proportion of all captives): these were individuals of dynastic or noble rank, military commanders and government mandarins, churchmen and those belonging to religious orders, who were accorded respectful treatment, with only a few limitations on their freedom of movement, in the anticipation that their freedom would be negotiated – mostly through exchange, and through gestures of generosity between sovereigns and other authorities. As regards the phenomenon of slavery in North Africa, and ransom attempts, the principal sources have been travel narratives and other works edited by members of religious orders dedicated to that task, Trinitarians and Mercedarians. Such sources ignored the dual nature (i.e. European and Ottoman-North African) of the corsair war and slavery, and were characterized by expressions of reproof towards the ―Berbers‖ – whose name already evoked the ‗barbarians‘, and who were termed ‗pirates‘ rather than ‗corsairs‘, the latter term being more appropriate to the reality of the situation.9 As I mentioned at the beginning of the essay, On the distinction between corsairs and pirates, now increasingly recognized and applied, see my books: Corsari nel Mediterraneo. Cristiani e musulmani fra guerra, schiavitù e commercio (Milan, 1993), 9, and Il Mediterraneo. Da Lepanto a Barcellona (Perugia, 1999), 63-65, in chapter 3, ‗Guerra corsara e pirateria nel Mediterraneo. Considerazioni storiografiche‘. 9
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from the 1950s onwards, research on the enslavement of Christians in North African lands increased. This growth was fuelled both by stories of famous individuals, like Cervantes and St Vincent de Paul, and by the activities of particular institutions, which specialized in freeing slaves under the aegis of states or regions, and which had up to then remained almost unknown, yet whose activities in nearly every Italian state of the period surpassed those of the medieval religious orders. 10 As regards slavery in Christian countries, it may be said that up to the middle of the twentieth century, historiographical contributions were fragmentary, relating to single locations and precise dates, or to limited periods; more significantly, they were not located within a historical Mediterranean framework, seen as a whole. It appears that even those scholars who talked of the phenomenon tended to set chronological limits, and to play down its importance. It could be argued that the subject was long ‗repressed‘ in the collective memory, and in scholars‘ knowledge.11 Beyond these cultural factors, knowledge of slavery in Europe has, in the modern period, remained more or less buried up to the present day for a ‗technical‘ reason: the wide dispersal of documentary sources hidden among various heterogeneous collections (for example tax and fiscal records, administrative records, and correspondence of fleet commanders, parish baptismal registers) or among discouragingly vast For an overall view of various Italian institutions dedicated to liberating slaves (Real Casa Santa della redentione de‟ captivi, of Naples; Opera pia del riscatto, run by the Arciconfraternita del Gonfalone, of Rome; the confraternita di S. Maria della Neve o del Gonfalone, of Bologna; Opera della Redenzione, of Palermo), together with reports, many unpublished, in particular relating to Opera romana, whose archive I traced, see: Salvatore Bono, I corsari barbareschi (Turin, 1964), 283-309. Other institutions mentioned include those from Venice, Genoa, Ferrara, Malta, Hamburg, and Lübeck. On the activity of the two religious orders, among more recent and noteworthy contributions see: Paolo Castignoli ed., I Trinitari, 800 anni di liberazione. Schiavi e schiavitù a Livorno e nel Mediterraneo, special issue of Nuovi Studi Livornesi, 8 (2000) (including my ‗Istituzioni per il riscatto di schiavi nel mondo mediterraneo. Annotazioni storiografiche‘: 2943); Hugues Cocard, ‗Les Mercédaires français et le rachat des captifs entre 1574 et 1789‘, Analecta Mercedaria, 18 (1999): 75-143; Juan Devesa Blanco, ‗Catálogos, Relaciones y Memorias de redenciones de cautivos‘, Analecta Mercedaria, 18 (1999): 145-195; Bonifacio Porres Alonso, Libertad a los cautivos. Actividad redentora de la Orden Trinitaria, 2 vols (Cordoba and Salamanca, 1997-8); Manuel Rodriguez Carrajo, ‗Modo práctico de llevar cabo una redenciñn de cautivos durante los siglos XVII y XVIII‘, Analecta Mercedaria, 18 (1999): 455521; Antonio Rubino, ‗La redenzione degli schiavi in Italia‘, Analecta Mercedaria, 18 (1999): 773. On the general theme of ransom activities and of the possible return of slaves to liberty, see Bono, I corsari barbareschi, 267-349, 455-475. 11 ‗Una storia taciuta‘ (A hushed-up story) was the title I gave to the opening section of my Schiavi musulmani in Italia (Naples, 1999), 1-13, in which I quote inter alia the following remark of the great historian of the papal navy: ―Many have described the sufferings of Christian slaves in Barbary, but as regards Muslim slaves among us, I can find no source to consult for information and comparisons‖, see Alberto Guglielmotti, Gli ultimi fatti della squadra romana da Corfù all‟Egitto. Storia dal 1700 al 1807 (Rome, 1884), 94. 10
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collections such as notaries‘ archives.12 To the sources first consulted must also be added urban or state censuses (which listed slaves not as persons but as material goods), and inquiries to ascertain the presence of slaves in private hands with a view to their possible acquisition by the state. 13 Slavery in the Early Modern Mediterranean The most significant new factor in knowledge about slavery in the Mediterranean consists of the realization – alluded to at the beginning of this essay – that the phenomenon persisted beyond the medieval period not only in the countries of the Mediterranean but even, to some extent, in others more distant from the sea. These slaves originated from the countries of the Ottoman empire and from the Maghreb, captured as a consequence of warfare, or as ‗goods‘ to be trafficked commercially. Research currently available on slavery in Europe from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries already allows us to have a reasonable idea of the phenomenon. The majority of studies concern the Iberian peninsula, from large cities (Madrid, Lisbon, Valencia, Granada, Malaga) to smaller towns such as Valladolid, Porto, Evora, Orihuela, Cartagena, and Lucena.14 We still await, however, a synthesis for the entire peninsula or rather, for each of the two states, Spain and Portugal. Godfrey Wettinger‘s weighty thesis excellently documents slavery in the Maltese islands, related primarily to the corsair activities of the Knights of Malta; the work of Michel Fontenay is also significant. 15 The substantial monograph on Italy published a decade ago by the present author
12 Gennaro Maria Monti, ‗Sulla schiavitù domestica nel Regno di Napoli dagli Aragonesi agli Austriaci‘, Archivio Scientifico dell‟Istituto di Scienze Economiche e Commerciali, 6 (1931-2): 127-153, at p. 132 stated: ―the Neapolitan Archivio Notarile has unfortunately not been systematically explored, so that we are only minimally aware of the treasure house of information hidden within its hundreds of thousands of deeds‖. 13 See e.g. Antonio Franchina, ‗A census of slaves in 1565‘, Archivio Storico Siciliano, 2nd series, 32 (1907): 374-420; in this case, 645 male slaves fit to carry arms were registered. 14 From the now rich literature relating to the Iberian peninsula, we can select a few, more recent and/or more comprehensive, works: Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, ‗La esclavitud en Castilla durante la edad moderna‘, Estudios de Historia social de España, 2 (1952): 369-428; Bernard Vincent, ‗La schiavitù nella penisola iberica‘, in Schiavi, corsari, rinnegati, 62-68; Maximiliano Barrio Gozalo, ‗La esclavitud en el Mediterráneo occidental durante el siglo XVIII. Los ―esclavos del Rey‖ en Espaða‘, Critica Storica, 17 (1980): 199-256; José Ramos Tinhorâo, Os negros em Portugal. Uma presença silenciosa (Lisbon, 1988); Alessandro Stella, Histoire d‟esclaves dans la péninsule ibérique (Paris, 2000). 15 Godfrey Wettinger, Slavery in the Islands of Malta and Gozo, c. 1000-1812 (Valletta, 2002), a magisterial work with a rich bibliography; Michel Fontenay, ‗Il mercato maltese degli schiavi al tempo dei Cavalieri di San Giovanni (1530-1798)‘, in Fiume, La schiavitù nel Mediterraneo, 391-413. See also the densely written pages of Anne Brogini, Malte, frontière de Chrétienté (15301670) (Rome, 2006), 658-65.
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represents a fundamental point of departure, subsuming as it does all previous research.16 The 2007 bicentenary of Great Britain‘s abolition of the transport of slaves across the Atlantic prompted renewed and lively interest in this theme, interest which extended to the presence of black slaves in Europe, particularly in those countries, such as Britain and France, with vast colonial territories. These were ‗colonial‘ slaves for the most part, following their masters to the ‗mother country‘; it has been suggested that during the second half of the eighteenth century there were some 15,000/20,000 slaves in London, and 30,000 in the entire kingdom. 17 In the last few years there have likewise been published new general histories of slavery, but in these, as in past studies, the prolongation of slavery into the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries has been ignored.18 As far as ‗Mediterranean‘ slavery is concerned, the most promising avenues of research in my view involve the analysis of quantitative data from both sides, which is still to a large degree fragmentary. Such data include: numbers of slaves in various environments (urban, regional, state) and periods; duration of slavery, considered according to various parameters (characteristics of the slave, differences according to country, period, etc.); the overall number of those individuals who experienced slavery (returning to their own country or moving elsewhere after a certain period); the price of slaves as property transferred in internal and international markets; ransom prices, also analysed according to age, gender, nationality, or other criteria.19 In the Bono, Schiavi musulmani; subsequently, see Luca Lo Basso, Uomini da remo. Galee e galeotti del Mediterraneo in età moderna (Milan, 2003); Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, The Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800 (Basingstoke, 2003). For a few other contributions, see the proceedings and special numbers edited by Giovanna Fiume (see footnote 1). 17 On the presence of slaves in France and Great Britain, see: Jules Mathorez, Les étrangers en France sous l‟Ancien Régime (Paris, 1919); J. Jean Hecht, Continental and Colonial Service in Eighteenth Century England (Northampton, MA., 1954); James Walvin, Black and White: The Negro and the England Society, 1555-1945 (Harmondsworth, 1973); Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London, 1984); Sue Peabody, „There Are No Slaves in France‟: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime (Oxford, 1996); Nabil Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (New York, 1999); Erick Nöel, Être noir en France au XVIII siècle (Paris, 2006); Pierre Boulle, Race et esclavage dans la France d‟Ancien Régime (Paris, 2007). 18 Including: James Walvin, A Short History of Slavery (Harmondsworth, 2007); a critique of it in Salvatore Bono, ‗Schiavitù transatlantica e schiavitù transsahariana. A proposito di recenti libri‘, Africa, 63 (2008): 57-63. 19 Wolfgang Kaiser has in various works investigated the concrete and symbolic dynamics of slavery: see ‗La centralité du rachat dans l‘histoire de la captivité. Expérience et narration‘, in Anne Duprat and Émilie Picherot eds., Récits d‟Orient dans les littératures d‟Europe (xvie-xviie siècles) (Paris, 2008), 137-143; ‗Les mots du rachat. Fiction et rhétorique dans les procédures de 16
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most recent perspectives of research and historiographical reconstruction, it has become ever more important to bear in mind the two aspects of the phenomenon, European and Arab-Ottoman (without however neglecting other factors, such as Jewish involvement), and also to distinguish within each of the two groups (among the Christians: Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, etc.).20 The separation of slaves from their geographical and social origins, together with their return or their integration within the new society, gave rise to inter-breeding and multiculturalism which are characteristic of the Mediterranean area, and which need to be researched in relation to the phenomenon of slavery. It also remains to deepen the comparison between Mediterranean and Afro-American slavery – a connection which has been made by some US authors, albeit perhaps unconsciously, from the outset (i.e., from the end of the eighteenth century). Such a comparison helps in any case to highlight particular characteristics of the two realities. It does not, however, seem appropriate to suggest (as has once again become the custom recently) a symmetry between the two phenomena: on the one hand, in America, ‗white masters, African slaves‘, and, on the other, in the Mediterranean, ‗white slaves‘ (European and American Christians) and ‗African masters‘. 21 Black Africans were victims only, not perpetrators, of the slave trade, transported from Africa to the American continent but also in increasing numbers arriving in Mediterranean countries, both Islamic and European, there to be held in conditions of slavery. No European or Mediterranean Muslim was taken as a slave to any sub-Saharan country by black Africans. In the Mediterranean world, however, ‗Christians‘ (Europeans from various nations) and ‗Muslims‘ (Maghrebis and Ottomans) were simultaneously predators, merchants, slave masters, and victims of slavery; both groups, European and Arab-Islamic, similarly detained African slaves, as they did individuals belonging to other cultures. The total number of those who endured a period of slavery (and who, having fallen into slavery, remained in that condition until the end of rachat de captifs en Méditerranée, xvie-xviie siècles‘, in François Moureau ed., Captifs en Méditerranée (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles). Histoires, récits et légendes (Paris, 2008), 103-117. 20 Investigation of national groups and of specific categories of slaves, for example according to type and age, has already begun. We should mention: Bartolomé Bennassar, ‗Conversions, esclavage et commerce de femmes dans les péninsules ibérique, italienne ou balcanique aux xvie et xviie siècles‘, Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica, 2 (1996): 101-109; and Moulay Belhamissi, ‗Captifs musulmans et chrétiens au XVIe-XVIIIe siècles: le cas des femmes et des enfants‘, in Abdeljalil Temimi ed., Chrétiens et musulmans à l‟époque de la Renaissance (Zaghouan, 1997), 53-64. 21 See Paul Blaepler ed., White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives (Chicago, 1999), and Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters.
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their lives) is one of the points on which it is less easy to provide answers – and indeed, few have so far attempted this task. Data concerning the numbers of slaves present in particular areas and periods have hitherto been accurately gathered and compared.22 It is also possible to add together and calculate numbers relating to larger areas or longer periods; but clearly every evaluation becomes more risky and tentative the more the relative area or period is extended. Such attempts are however necessary, in order to gain an idea of the global dimension of slavery in the Mediterranean world, and to be able to compare this dimension with analogous phenomena in other parts of the world or in other eras. I have attempted a conjecture, based on evaluations of the presence of slaves and on a hypothesized turnover rate necessary to maintain known levels. From this calculation it emerges that from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century at least two million slaves from the Muslim Mediterranean world entered European countries, while a million European slaves and at least double that number of black slaves crossed over (directly or indirectly) into the Islamic world – giving a total of five million.23 Other questions need to be investigated, with the aim of pursuing plausible statistical results, such as the price of slaves in the internal European or Muslim markets, ransom prices, the average time spent in slavery in relation to the characteristics of the slave in question, the periods of time involved, and possibly the places of detention. Finally, it remains to calculate the relationship of gender, age, and other characteristics with the data listed above. To some extent, detailed information (place of birth, age, date and place of capture, duration of slavery) concerning hundreds and sometimes thousands of slaves can be uncovered from lists of names of ransomed slaves, in conjunction with the accounts of redeemers and with their Catalogues – as they were often called – of redeemed slaves.24 Among the few works available are: Federico Cresti, ‗Gli schiavi cristiani ad Algeri in età ottomana: considerazioni sulle fonti e questioni storiografiche‘, in Fiume ed., La schiavitù nel Mediterraneo, 415-436, and Robert C. Davis, ‗Counting European slaves on the Barbary coast‘, Past and Present, 172 (2001): 87-124. Solid statistical analyses concerning slaves at Salé are offered by Leïla Maziane in Salé et ses corsaires (1666-1727). Un port de course marocain au XVIIe siècle (Caen, 2007). 23 Numerical data summarizing the presence of slaves in various European and Arab-Islamic countries, with an estimate of the the total figure for the early modern period are provided in Salvatore Bono, La schiavitù in Europa e nel Mediterraneo, in Roberto Bizzocchi ed., Storia d‟Europa e del Mediterraneo, vol. X Ambiente, popolazione, società, (Rome, 2009) 539-584, 545-554. 24 Various kinds of these catalogues have survived, here three examples will suffice: the relation of three ransoms arranged in Algiers by the Mercedarian Father Melchor García Navarro (Redenciones de cautivos en Africa, 1723-1725, Manuel Vázquez Pájaro ed., (Madrid, 1946 (1726)) lists 1,070 individual slaves with the following information: name, place of birth, age, lenght of period spent in slavery, details on their capture and price of the ransom. In the 22
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Individual Slave Histories and Memoirs Within the overall framework of research and study, a new interest has emerged: autobiographical testimonies by slaves who have written memoirs have been the object of examination and specific analysis by both literature and language specialists (that is, prior to the establishment of the Paris-Sorbonne IV research group) – and there has in general been an interest in individual histories. In these texts, literature specialists have been attracted by opportunities to apply their analytical frameworks, to establish comparisons and evolutions of narrative structure, of references, and of images in both reality and fiction. 25 The common reader, the public at large, may well be attracted to these histories on account of their human interest, their stories of adventure, that flavour of the exotic and the curious which inheres in the background of the events narrated. In fact, these histories convey, to a greater or lesser degree, the real atmosphere and character of the Mediterranean: the ‗texture of life‘, the constantly changing and unforeseeable nature of individual destinies, the dense web of connections between the different coasts, individual mobility between one place and another, between one condition and another, between adversity and grief or fortune and pleasure. From their study of these histories and the texts which reconstitute them, researchers have drawn, and continue to seek, similar trajectories and comparable parameters in order to define, as far as possible, a series of typologies. To some extent it is permissible and useful to do so, but it should be pointed out straightaway that beyond every category to which each individual story can be allocated there remains an irreducible variety of innumerable stories, each different from the others. No generalization, however necessary and valid, should make us forget this, or deprive us of the fascinating qualities of each of these stories – a Catalogo delli schiavi cristiani (Rome, 1754), whose extremely long frontispice provides us information on the 1752 ranson expedition to Algiers of the Mercedarians, there is a list of 248 slaves, and in addition of the data described above, this text gives also details in the value of their personal contribution. The Descrizione della pubblica presentazione degli schiavi veneti riscattati in Algeri, e Tunis (Milan, 1765), which details the 1764 ransoming expedition of the Venetian Trinitarians, provides us details for 91 slaves (name, place of birth, age, length of period in slavery and cost of the ransom). 25 See e.g. the numerous essays, significant in their variety, collected in the volume edited by Duprat and Picherot, Récits d‟Orient. Contributors include: Christian Zonza, ‗Le récit de captivité entre fiction et histoire‘, 145-160; and Dominique Orsini, ‗Récits de captivité fictifs: imaginaire barbaresque et esthétique romanesque dans le roman-mémoires du premier xviie siècle‘, 321-340. Equally valid are the texts in the volume edited by Moureau ed., Captifs en Méditerranée; contributions include Walter Kaiser, ‗Les mots du rachat. Fiction et rhétorique dans les procédures de rachat de captifs en Méditerranée, xvie-xviie siècles‘, 103-118; and Anne Duprat, ‗Fiction et formalisation de l‘expérience de captivité. L‘exemple des ―retours d‘Alger‖ (1575-1642) en Espagne‘, 215-225.
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small minority by comparison with the total number of those who experienced captivity. As has been previously stated, this field of study – taking into account Christians, Muslims, and others – involves millions of individuals, even if the time period is restricted to the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Of how many of these individuals can anything be known apart from their names, years of birth and death, and a few other personal details, above all the chronological extent of their experience of slavery? It is difficult to say, but such individuals are certainly a small minority compared to the millions which experienced slavery. Thanks to current computer software, we can nevertheless envisage and develop the creation of a database which will bring together all the names which can be discovered – from lists, published and private, and from every other possible source – of slaves held in this or that locality, and of ransomed slaves. With regard to these slaves – ransomed, converted and assimilated, or who died in captivity – so far we have been able to list only their names, and very little else. We can talk of individual ‗histories‘ of slavery only if we know – beyond the generalities of date and place of slavery (and eventually of capture and of ransom) – something more personal and specific, knowledge which can be gleaned from a source which tells us something about a particular slave or a particular group, beyond a simple list of names. There are probably a few hundred such stories available in Western European archives; in fact a considerable number are already known, scattered here and there.26 Before continuing, it needs to be repeated that the argument so far applies theoretically to all slaves, regardless of the region from which they came or in which they experienced slavery. It is certain, however, that we are aware of a far greater number of Western European slaves – or, to put it another way, Christians, Catholics and Protestants – than of slaves belonging to other countries and other cultures. We could however also draw up lists of names of these ‗others‘, with a few data, at least on the basis of Western sources already noted; a particular difficulty would be
To give a few examples: Luca Procacini, in a letter from Tunis dated 1588, provides details about his capture and slavery ((Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato 4279, f. 42); Georg Albrecht von Erbach, a German nobleman captured by Tunisians in May 1617 (Thomas Freller, Knights, Corsairs and Slaves in Malta (La Valletta, 1999), 62); Louis Marot, pilot of the French galleys, enslaved in Tunis around 1670 (Robert Laurent-Vibert, Routiers, pélerins et corsaires aux echelles du Levant (Paris, 1923)); Alessandro Pini, a florentine traveller, and prolific writer, was a slave in Istanbul in 1715 (Giornale de‟ Letterati d‟Italia, XXVIII, 1717, 364-374). 26
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that of identifying such individuals with any certainty, since their names appear in many different forms in our sources. We come now to ‗memoirs‘ proper, linked above all to texts which go back to the actual protagonists: (a) autobiographical texts in their original linguistic form; (b) texts which have been put together by others on the basis of direct narrative from the individual slave; or (c) texts constructed on the basis both of evidence given by the particular slave and of other documents directly relating to that slave, even if such texts have been compiled at a date later than the events described and the lifetime of the protagonist. Almost all the known memoirs are considered autobiographical (group (a) in the classification above), even if one can hypothesize (in the absence of more detailed inquiry) that there has been some revision to the text, in cases where there is reason to doubt the linguistic capabilities of the individual concerned, in other words when it is a question of an individual of a very modest social level. Group (b) includes – to choose an example which has recently come to light – the narrative of the misfortunes of the German Hans Nikol Fürneisen. 27 Group (c) includes all publications – under a title such as Narrative or Report, depending on the country and language in which it was compiled – usually published under the aegis of the institution which negotiated the ransom, or at least its financial details. Until now, the majority of known texts – some fifteen – were produced by the Arciconfraternita di Santa Maria della Neve of Bologna.28 About the same number of individuals from Ferrara was ransomed from slavery during the 1700s by the Confraternita del Riscatto of Ferrara, who publicized their activities by printing booklets. 29 A Dictionary of Slaves Slave memoirs and histories are now the focus of attention – along with other themes – of a research group directed by Anne Duprat, of the Centre de recherches en Littératures comparées (CRLC) of the University of Paris IVSalvatore Bono, ‗La schiavitù di Hans Nikol Fürneisen ad Algeri e Istanbul (1712-1719)‘, Oriente Moderno, new series 25 (2006): 211-222. 28 On the activity of this Bolognese institution, see Bono, I corsari barbareschi, 299-300 and 464-465; and the references in footnote 4. The Bolognesi in question were ransomed by the local institution. The activity of the confraternity has recently been investigated, including research drawn from archive documentation, by Raffaella Sarti, ‗Bolognesi schiavi dei ―Turchi‖ e schiavi ―turchi‖ a Bologna tra Cinque e Settecento: alterità religiosa e riduzione in schiavitù‘, Quaderni Storici, 107 (2001): 437-473; see also other contributions by the same author. 29 Giada Spirito, Schiavi del Turco infedele. La confraternita del Riscatto nella Ferrara del Settecento (Ferrara, 1999). The events in the case of each slave are presented one by one in ch. 5, ‗Relazioni di riscatti‘, along with citations of the original sources. 27
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Sorbonne, as part of the programme ‗Islam and Christianity on the threshold of the modern age: images and representations of the corsair war in Europe (1500-1750)‘.30 Under the aegis of this research programme is a projected Dictionary of Slaves in the Mediterranean World (16th-19th centuries), to be made available largely on-line, by means of continuous revision and amplification (to be published in print form only at a later stage). The index (the exact arrangement is still under consideration) will above all assemble the names of those slaves who either produced written autobiographical testimony of their experience of slavery or in some way entrusted their testimony to others, to be used to produce a written reconstruction; it will also collect the names of slaves whose experience was more or less exhaustively reconstructed, or at least mentioned, in their own lifetime, in sufficient measure to allow the construction of a biographical profile.31 The most ‗celebrated‘ slaves – like Miguel Cervantes and Vincent de Paul (although the truth of the latter‘s account remains doubtful) 32 – will obviously be included in the Dictionary, but their entry will be restricted to agreed limits – that is to say that it will not reflect their personal importance or the significance to their life of the experience of slavery. There are some, including the present author, who maintain that the scientific value of the Dictionary will reside in the entries for many ‗minor‘ figures, for whom there hardly exists sufficient data to compile an entry; the inclusion of entries for these individuals will enable and stimulate further research. Documentation for an entry could consist of a single letter from the slave, as in the case of Giacomo Capitani, whose history I have related elsewhere.33 An entry may also be based itself on an account or information drawn from another source; such, for example, is the case of the Englishwoman Mrs Jones, who was taken to Algeria with 30 The programme, approved and financed by the Agence Nationale de Recherche (ANR) and launched in 2006, organized two seminars, in Paris (March 2006) and Tunis (May 2008); one of the first fruits of this research was the collection Récits d‟Orient. 31 The project is noted in Salvatore Bono, Récits d‟esclaves au Maghreb. Considérations générales, in Duprat and Picherot eds., Récits d‟Orient, 115-122. The collaborators on the Dictionary, i.e. the editors of the bio-bibliographical entries, will be carefully selected either from among the group of scholars taking part in the research or from among those who have already done research on one individual or another. All the scholars involved and all those who in the future become aware of the project will be able to indicate further names worthy of attention. 32 On St. Vincent: Bono, I corsari barbareschi, 396-403, significantly updated in Peter Weinmann, ‗La vie à l‘épreuve. Sur la captivité de Saint Vincent de Paul‘, in Duprat and Picherot eds., Récits d‟Orient, 223-235. 33 Salvatore Bono, Lumi e corsari. Europa e Maghreb nel Settecento (Perugia, 2005), 120-121; the source was a letter in the archive of the Opera del Riscatto of Rome (Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Arciconfraternita del Gonfalone, 1157, fascicles 37 and 44), see also references in foonote in 10.
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her 19-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son, and who was killed by a Turk because she would not yield to his desire. We do not, however, know the final outcome of this story.34 The research coordinators have already compiled a list of some 200 names, almost all on the basis of an autobiographical account or a report produced by the institution which brought the ransom.35 It has been reiterated that the word ‗slave‘ encompasses Europeans, Maghrebis and Turks (in the sense of direct subjects of Turkey), and individuals belonging to other ethnic, cultural or religious communities. If the projected biographical index keeps the title of Dictionary of Slaves in the Mediterranean World, it should also include the names of Muslims and others whose stories are known, to be selected on the basis of the same criteria as are used for Europeans. Some will ask, however, whether narratives of Muslims, Blacks or those belonging to various Mediterranean minorities exist, or whether we can discover their stories in other ways. Very few extended autobiographical texts – perhaps a handful – are presently known to exist. We can recall a few here, apart from the now famous name of Leo Africanus. As far as Muslims are concerned, a search for true and genuine autobiographical narratives yields the bitter memories of the Ottoman kadi, or judge, detained on Malta at the end of the sixteenth century,36 and the long and detailed memoirs, entitled Life and Adventures, of the interpreter Osman ibn Ahmed, a native of Temesvar, an official during the Austro-Turkish conflicts and prisoner of the Habsburgs between 1688 and 1699, when he succeeded in escaping from Vienna.37 If it is enough to find a few individuals with their own particular story, the harvest is better. We might begin, for example, with Diego el Negro, a Black African captured by the Moroccans and then sold to Christians, resold in Seville and involved in an inquiry into cryptoMuslim slaves at Cuenca in 1528; condemned by the Inquisition, he was however allowed to be reconciled with severe and prolonged acts of penitence.38
Bono, I corsari, 237, from Robert L. Playfair, Scourge of Christendom: Annals of British Relations with Algiers prior to French Conquest (London, 1884), 187. 35 See references in footnotes 25 and 26. 36 Andreas Tietze, ‗Die Geschichte vom Kerkermeister-Kapitän‘, Acta Orientalia, 19 (1942): 152-210. 37 Richard F. Kreutel and Otto Spies eds., Leben und Abenteuer des Dolmetschers Osman Aga; eine türkische Autobiographie aus der Zeit der grossen Kriege gegen Österreich (Bonn, 1954); French translation: Prisonnier des infidèles. Un soldat ottoman dans l‟empire des Habsbourgs. Osmân Agha de Temechevar, Frédéric Hitzel ed. (Arles, 1998). 38 Bernard Loupias, ‗Destin et témoignage d‘un marocain esclave en Espagne (1521-1530)‘, Hespéris-Tamuda, 17 (1976-7): 69-84. 34
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An individual who was certainly African was Anton Wilhelm Amo – thus named at his baptism in June 1708, at the age of five, after his godfathers (and masters), Duke Anton Ulrich von BraunschweigWolfenbuttel and his son, August Wilhelm. ―Der kleiner Mohr‖, or ‗the little Moor‘, a native of Ghana, was given to German nobles in Amsterdam; he was given a careful upbringing and set upon a course of study, obtaining academic titles in the universities of Halle and Wittemberg and later, around 1740, becoming a valued lecturer at the University of Jena.39 While Amo took a chair in a German university, another individual, the son of slaves, African or Maghrebi, rose to sainthood in the Catholic Church. His story took place in Sicily, from Messina, where he was born, to the Franciscan monastery of Santa Maria del Gesù in Palermo, where he was admitted as a kitchen employee and subsequently became the caretaker. He died in the monastery, on 4 April 1589, already revered as a holy man; he was declared protector of the city in 1652, alongside Santa Rosalia, and in 1807 was declared a saint by Pius VII.40 The Dictionary of Slaves will be very useful, like all similar resources, in that it will be easy to find the detailed information necessary to begin assessment and comparison. But its very creation can give significant impetus to research on dozens and dozens of individuals, on which information is currently sparse, fragmentary, and uncertain; the compiler of each entry will as far as possible carry out a work of inquiry and verification. Another result to be expected from the work on compiling the Dictionary is that of encouraging research on the stories of unknown slaves, especially those belonging to countries for which so far we have few or no names. Examples include Greeks, those from the various Balkan regions, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Magyars, Scandinavians and those from the Baltic countries, but also Dutch, Portuguese, Austrians, and, if we look at other cultural and geographical areas, Jews of various regions, Ottoman Turks, Maghrebis, and Balkan Muslims, as well as Islamized Europeans. His status as ‗pet slave‘ [schiavetto], a phenomenon widely found in the European courts, is obvious, but this description is absent from the article in which, half a century ago, this story was made known: Norbert Lochner, ‗Ein Gelehrter aus Ghana im Deutschland des 18. Jahrhunderts‘, Uebersee Rundschau, 10 (1958): 22-25; the literature has expanded considerably since then. 40 I mentioned this figure in ‗Due santi negri: Benedetto da San Fratello e Antonio da Noto‘, Africa 21 (1966), 76-79; among later publications, the work of Giovanna Fiume stands out: Il Santo Moro. I processi di canonizzazione di Benedetto da Palermo (1594-1807) (Milan, 2002); Giovanna Fiume ed., Il santo patrono e la città. San Benedetto il Moro: culti, devozioni, strategie di età moderna (Venice, 2000). On the cult of the saint in America, see also Alessandro Dell‘Aira, Da San Fratello a Bahia. La rotta di San Benedetto il Moro (Trent, 1999). 39
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Some of these slaves were captured during boundary disputes and land wars on various fronts, others were captured at sea, when ships sailing under various European flags with the object of trading descended the Atlantic coastline of the Iberian peninsula, or subsequently entered the Mediterranean; it is known how infested with corsairs were the Tago and Guadalquivir estuaries, as well the straits of Gibraltar and the neighbouring areas. When the compilation of the Dictionary has made some progress – that is, within a few years – interested researchers will have easy access to data (including bibliographical data and details of original sources) concerning a number of slaves of whom even the names cannot at present be listed. Thanks to this access, scholars will be able to plan and carry out comparative research and analysis of various kinds: on concrete aspects of the corsair war, of slavery and ransom; on narratives of such misfortunes subsequently produced by the protagonists or by others; or even on the many purely fictional literary accounts created by other authors. A few narratives of the lives of enslaved Europeans have been known since the years in which their misfortunes befell them, and such texts have for that reason been widely used by historians; examples include Emanuel de Aranda and Filippo Pananti, whose narratives have been published and republished, and even translated. 41 Other memoirs of slavery were made known, in their complete form or in synthesis, in the colonial era, for the most part within the field of the history of the Maghreb (in most cases appearing in the pages of the famous Revue Africaine published in Algiers from 1856).42 Others came to light during the second half of the twentieth century, such as the story of the Dutch woman Maria ter Meetelen, a slave of the sultan of Morocco from 1731 to 1743, and that of the Portuguese João Carvalho Mascarenhas, captured by Emanuel d‘Aranda, Relation de la captivité et liberté du sieur Emanuel de Aranda mené esclave à Alger en l‟an 1640 et mis en liberté (Bruxelles, 1656); for a description of the work and information on successive editions and translations, see Guy Turbet-Delof, Bibliographie critique du Maghreb dans la littérature française, 1532-1715 (Algiers, 1976), 155-157; Filippo Pananti, Avventure e osservazioni sopra le coste di Barberia (Florence, 1817) was republished with the title Relazione di un viaggio in Algeri (Genoa, 1830) a French translation was published in Paris in 1820. On Pananti, see Bono, I corsari barbareschi, 407-411. 42 The work of René du Chastelet du Boys concerning Algiers, L‟Odyssée ou diversité d‟aventures, rencontres et voyages en Europe, Asie et Afrique. Divisé en quatre parties (La Flèche, 1665), was republished in the Revue Africaine 1866-70; see Turbet-Delof, Bibliographie, 172-174. The same Algerian journal in 1948 published the Mémoires of the sieur de Thedenat, edited in 1785 (see Bono, I corsari barbareschi, 450). The Revue Tunisienne of 1916-1917 published extended extracts, albeit in summary form, from Ragguaglio del viaggio compendioso of Felice Caronni, a Barnabite priest briefly imprisoned in Tunis in 1804, on which see Bono, I corsari barbareschi, 424; I oversaw an integral reprint: Felice Caronni, Ragguaglio del viaggio in Barberia, Salvatore Bono ed. (Cinisello Balsamo, 1993 (1805)). 41
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Algerian pirates while returning from India, and held for five years in the Maghrebi city.43 In the last few decades, the memoirs and histories of many other unfortunate individuals have been brought to light, but original and complete texts remain difficult to find. American scholars have discovered and made use of testimony and memoirs of Americans detained in the Maghreb, from Morocco to Tripoli, and full and precise details have recently been made available; but these texts have so far been little used by European researchers, since they are obviously difficult to obtain. 44 Even texts published today remain little known and used, whether for linguistic reasons, because of limited publication, or owing to other circumstances and influences. Twenty years ago, for example, the autobiographical narrative of slavery in Morocco written by the Dutchman Jan Cornelisz Dekker, who returned a free man in 1743 after 42 years, was republished, but from that date Dekker‘s adventures have not been mentioned by a single specialist scholar.45 Thanks to the research of Ernst-Peter Ruhe, scholars‘ attention has been directed to the collection of numerous memoirs of slavery written in German, dating from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries and acutely analysed by Ruhe with regard to their historical content and their literary expression. Ruhe examined some dozen texts – that of Johann Michael Kühn (Gotha, 1741) is certainly pure fiction, but no less interesting for that – dating from the middle of the sixteenth century to the first decades of the nineteenth. Among them are the texts of Balthasar Sturmer (1558), who was present at the conquest of Tunis by the emperor Charles V; of the two brothers Wolffgang, Andreas Mattheaeus and Johann Georg, whose narrative was published in 1767, by the son and grandson of one of the brothers, a full 83 years after the two ransomed men returned to their home town of Augsburg; and finally of the apprentice doctor Simon Friedrich Pfeiffer (1832), in the service of the Dutch navy, who was a slave in Algiers from 1825 until the French
On the events and narratives of the slavery of ter Meetelen (Hoorn, 1748; Leiden, 1750), see Bono, Lumi e corsari, 121-123. The memoirs of Mascarenhas have been published under the title Esclave à Alger. Récit de captivité de João Mascarenhas (1621-1626), Paul Teyssier ed. (Paris, 1993). 44 One of the first publications is that of Henry G. Barnby, The Prisoners of Algiers: An Account of the Forgotten American-Algerian War 1785-1797 (London, 1966). Among more recent works: Baepler ed., White Slaves, African Masters, and Daniel J. Vitkus ed., Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England (New York, 2001). 45 On Dekker, whose autobiographical text, first published in 1743, was reprinted in 1987, see Bono, Lumi e corsari, 114. 43
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occupation of the city, thanks to which he was freed. 46 Another German slave, Hans Nikol Fürneisen – moved between Algiers and Istanbul between 1712 and 1719 – long remained unknown, as previously mentioned.47 As in the case of Germany, other scholars have turned their attention to slaves originating from other European countries which did not border the Mediterranean, but which were nonetheless involved in Mediterranean history. Daniel J. Vitkus, a linguistic and literary scholar, a few years ago produced a careful anthology; and Nabil Matar, in the course of his research on relationships between British society and culture and that of the Islamic Mediterranean world, has come across and noted in his work British slaves in the Maghreb and in the Ottoman empire, as well as Muslim slaves in England.48 The conditions of slaves, as well as their provenance and fate, were very varied. At times the title of their story of slavery is not sufficiently indicative to categorize them exactly; this is the case with William Davies and his True Relation of the Travels and most miserable Captivity of William Davies, Barber-Surgeon of London, 1614.49 Shortly after Matar‘s mention of this account, but apparently quite independently of it, an Italian Anglicist produced a translation, published together with an anastatic reproduction of the original text. The Italian title indicates the unusual circumstances of the author: Uno schiavo inglese nella Livorno dei Medici (An English slave in the Livorno of the Medici). 50 Davies, a native of Hereford, was on board a British vessel as ship‘s surgeon. The ship, which had visited North African ports and transported ‗Turkish‘ people and goods, was captured in 1598 by the galleys of the grand duke of Florence, and our man ended up at Livorno as a slave. After a few years of labour on public work projects and at the oar in Tuscan galleys, he travelled in the service of the grand duke as far as the Amazon River. On his return he was caught up in a hearing before the Inquisition, but he 46 Of the varied publications of Ernst-Peter Ruhe, a member of the above-mentioned research group of Sorbonne IV, the two most recent contributions are: ‗L‘aire du soupçon. Les récits de captivités en langue allemande (xvie-xixe siècles)‘, in Duprat and Picherot eds., Récits d‟Orient, 185-200, and ‗Dire et ne pas dire: les récits de captifs germanophones et les cérémonies de retour‘, in Moureau ed., Captifs en Méditerranee, 119-133. 47 I found traces of his story in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin; his memoirs were edited by others and published a century later: see Bono, ‗La schiavitù di Hans Nikol Fürneisen ad Algeri e Istanbul‘. 48 Vitkus ed., Piracy, Slavery and Redemption; Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen, esp. ch. 2, ‗Soldiers, pirates, traders, and captives: Britons among the Muslims‘; and Nabil Matar, Islam in Britain 1558-1685 (Cambridge, 1998). 49 Indicated by Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen, 234; Davies is mentioned at 55, 97 and 113. 50 Algerina Neri, Uno schiavo inglese nella Livorno dei Medici (Pisa, 2000).
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succeeded in escaping and returning to his home country.51 In his True Relation, Davis gives little information about himself, but reports, with curious details and personal comments, on the cities he came to during the course of his travels and during the misfortunes which followed his capture – two pages on Civitavecchia, rather more on Algiers, some ten pages on Livorno, and so on for Naples, Malta, Cyprus and other localities, Mediterranean and otherwise. Narratives and memoirs of slaves therefore constitute – to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how they were shaped by their authors – a source of information on cities and countries of the Mediterranean world, for the most part Arab-Ottoman countries; from this point of view also they deserve more careful attention. Another example – a pleasing one, since it has only recently come to light, and adds a new nationality to the list of slaves – is that of the Norwegian sailor Niels Moss. He embarked in the autumn of 1769 on a ship bound for Lisbon but which in Atlantic waters came up against and was defeated by an Algerian corsair. Moss, taken as a slave, witnessed the ship‘s return to Algiers. In his account of his slavery, Historisk Efterretning (1773), after giving information on the city and population of Algiers, and in particular on European slaves, he gives a detailed account of the Danish attack on the Mahgreb city between the 6th and 8th July 1770, in the course of hostilities between the two countries during 1769-1772 (Norway at that time belonged to Denmark). 52 Information and commentary set out in this range of texts show the variety of aspects and approaches available to students of slavery in the Mediterranean world. Someone whose interest in this field dates back a long way, to when the subject appeared extremely marginal, today can note with satisfaction and encouragement that the question has assumed a central role in research into the history of the Mediterranean.
Biographical entry in Dictionary of National Biography, (London, 1888), 14: 161. Niels Moss, Un norvégien à Alger 1769-1772 (Fredrikstad, 2007). On page 31, after a preface by Moulay Belhamissi and a text by Torbjørn Ødegaard on the Danish-Norwegian Union and Algiers, appear sources and bibliography, with indication of the long original title of Moss‘s narrative (Trondheim, 1773). Among other things the narrative provides information on slaves (prisonniers) and on converts to Islam. 51 52
6 THE MAGHARIBA AND THE SEA Maritime Decline in North Africa in the Early Modern Period Nabil Matar In a letter dated in 1699, Mulay Ismail of Morocco (r. 1672-1727) wrote to the exiled James II in Paris that had he not been an ―an Arab‖, belonging to ―a people who knew nothing of the sea, or had he had someone [under him] who did know something about the sea‖, he would have sent him a fleet to help in invading Britain and regaining his throne.1 Although Morocco had a long coastline, and although there was a history of Moroccan seaborne commercial and military activity, Ismail no longer viewed his country as a maritime power. A few years earlier, the English diplomat Sir William Temple (d. 1699) had expressed a similar view concerning ―the Neglect of their [the Muslims‘] Marine Affairs, or of their former Greatness at Sea, so as for many Years they hardly pretend to any Successes on that Element, but commonly say, That God has given the Earth to the Mussulmans, and the Sea to the Christians‖.2 Some historians have associated the retreat from the sea with the general social and economic decline that befell the Maghariba by the end of the seventeenth century.3 The causes of that decline, as Humphrey J. Fisher wrote, were: disease and malnutrition of humans and animals; drought and locusts and other causes of crop failure; the relative poverty, or paucity, of natural resources and fertile soils; the depredations of livestock, especially goats; raiding, slaving and warfare; polygamy, 1 For the text and study of the letter, see Comte Henry de Castries, Moulay Ismail et Jacques II (Paris, 1903). 2 William Temple, The Works of Sir William Temple (London, 1740), 226. 3 By Maghariba, I mean the inhabitants of the triple Maghrib of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, along with Libya.
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Other historians argued that the decline was partly self-inflicted, resulting from the Maghariba‘s confrontation with the militarily and technologically advanced fleets of Britain and France. As Daniel Panzac states: The regencies suffered the consequences of their activities in the almost total demise of their maritime trade, in reprisals that took the form of attacks against their coastal populations and naval bombardments of their ports and especially their capitals. 5 For Panzac, the decline of the region was brought about by the Maghariba after Europeans retaliated against them for their piracy and privateering. Although he recognized that the attacks by the Maghariba were a result of the capture, abduction, and enslavement of Muslims, this factor was less significant than the ―djehad . . . against the infidels‖6 that the Muslims waged. The decline of the Maghrib might not have happened had not Europeans, Britain and France chiefly, been forced to launch reprisals against the unruly and zealous Muslims. 7 There were internal causes of decline in North Africa that should not be dismissed, nor natural disasters, such as plagues and earthquakes (23 January 1716 in Algiers).8 But Panzac‘s view that the decline of
4 Allan J.B. Fisher and Humphrey J. Fisher, Slavery in the History of Muslim Black Africa (New York, 2001), 1. I thank Colin Heywood for this reference, which he used in the version of his paper read at the Workshop, for reasons of space, the sections of his paper dealing with North Africa will now be published elsewhere. I am very grateful to Professor Heywood for sending me copies of his articles. 5 Daniel Panzac, Barbary Corsairs, The End of a Legend 1800-1820 (Leiden, 2005), 21. Molly Greene had anticipated this position: ―The French, for example, bombarded Algiers no less than three times in the 1680s, as part of an ultimately successful campaign to force the Algerians to sign and respect peace and commercial treaties‖ (italics mine), Molly Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion: The Mediterranean in the Seventeenth Century‘, Past and Present, 174 (2002): 42-71, 64. 6 Panzac, Barbary Corsairs, 21. For an alternative view, see my discussion of ‗retaliation‘ in chapter 4 of Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689 (Gainesville, 2005). 7 I shall be using modern nomenclature for the North African regions and their peoples: Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, and Libyan, fully aware that these terms were not all used in the period under study. 8 For a study of the earthquake and its consequences, see Colin Heywood, ‗A ―forgotten frontier‖? Algiers and the Ottoman maritime frontier from the French bombardment (1682) to the Algiers earthquake (1716)‘, Revue d‟Histoire Maghrébine, 31 (2004): 35-50. For an analysis of the internal causes of decline, see my ‗Confronting Decline in Early Modern Arabic
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maritime activity was caused by English and French destruction of North African fleets and port cities is the most decisive. What Panzac ignored, however, was that the English and French attacks, which destroyed the maritime infrastructure in the Maghrib, were not ‗reprisals‘ that the European superpowers were compelled to undertake. Rather, and from the middle of the seventeenth century on, these ‗reprisals‘ were part of a formal strategy aimed at disabling North African seafaring in order to monopolize Mediterranean trade and commercial activity. Both Britain and France wanted to dominate the Mediterranean waters and completely exclude ―Muslims from the commercial and maritime life of the sea‖. 9 In 1650 and 1651, the Navigation Acts were passed in England, whereby all exports and imports from Britain were to be carried on English bottoms. The Acts were to increase English shipping profit, but at the same time, they were tantamount to a declaration of war because they denied the Maghariba participation in the lucrative transportation of cargo with one of their chief trading counterparts in Christendom. The Maghariba wanted to share in maritime commerce (what numerous English observers called Free Trade)10 but the English – and the French – strategy was to exclude them (and cut each other out as well). The British settlement of Tangier in 1662 aggravated the situation as British ships tried to dominate trade in the Western Mediterranean. After the evacuation of Tangier, Lord Dartmouth grew worried that the French were trying to ―set up a Trade with ye Moores,‖ but hoped that as war was looming between France and Spain, English ships would ―infallibly become the chief (if not ye only) Traders of this Part of the World‖.11 Such exclusion was not unplanned, and was openly voiced. In December 1660, for instance, Lord Winchelsea advised King Charles II: If a fleet of [English] ships taking advantage of a southerly wind fire their broad sides on the Forts, they may quickly make their deffendants retire, at which time boats well manned may fire their [Algerian] ships wch wil be so great a damage to that City that 40 yeares will scarce repaire.12
Thought‘, Journal of Early Modern History, 9 (2005): 51-78, and a more detailed discussion in the conclusion of my Europe through Arab Eyes, 1578-1727 (New York, 2008). 9 Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion‘, 46. 10 ―If the Moors or Jews have the Liberty of a free Trade…‖ in the National Archives (henceforth NA) (London), State Papers (henceforth SP) 89/90/37v, Charles Stewart to James Craggs (10 February 1721). 11 NA, Colonial Office (henceforth CO) 279/33/58r (5 February 1684). 12 NA, SP 71/1/f. 188.
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Lord Winchelsea was correct: neither Algiers nor the other port cities of North Africa were able to repair the damage inflicted on their commercial and naval infrastructures. The systematic and destructive bombardment by European fleets of Muslim ships and port infrastructures (docks, shipbuilding facilities, and depots) brought navigational growth to a standstill. ―They have already done such prejudice,‖ wrote Robert Cole (later consul in Algiers) about the French bombardment of Algiers in 1688, ―that it is said twenty years won‘t make the town as beautiful as before the French coming […] Three-quarters of the town is defaced, and I believe it will never be rebuilt in its former splendour‖. 13 This essay will specifically focus on two North African ports in the period which saw Britain and France rise to Mediterranean supremacy. The two ports are Tripoli, which possessed the smallest fleets, and Algiers, which possessed the largest fleets. As will be shown, the strategy pursued by the English and the French was to carry out naval bombardments the purpose of which was to destroy the fleets and ports of those two regencies – thereby ending their commercial and navigational participation in Mediterranean trade, transport, and privateering. These bombardments brought about the failure of the Maghariba to develop their merchant marine and naval fleets and to join in Mediterranean shipping and commerce. As Lucette Valensi succinctly put it, ―the Europeans prevented such [North African maritime] developments by blocking efforts to create commercial fleets or establish direct Muslim trade with Christian countries‖.14 Tripoli The Ottoman iyala/regency of Tripoli/Tarâblus Gharb, poor and not very fertile, possessed the smallest fleet in North Africa (in August 1661, it had 8 ships).15 Like other North Africans, and along with the Maltese, the Neapolitans, the English, the French, and other Euro-Christians, the Libyans were involved both in pillage and honest exchange, fully aware that their most important source of national income was maritime trade. It was the sea that ensured their livelihood. In the summer of 1674, the Libyans seized an English ship, the Hunter, on its way to Smyrna, and discovered that some of her crew were from countries with which Tripoli did not have peace agreements. The Libyans confiscated the non-Britons‘ cargo and returned the ship and the
Quoted in Robert L. Playfair, The Scourge of Christendom (London, 1884), 157, 158. Lucette Valensi, On the Eve of Colonialism: North Africa before the French Conquest (New York, 1977), chapter 5, although her focus is after the middle of the eighteenth century. 15 NA, SP 71/22/10r. (22 August 1661). 13 14
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rest of the cargo to the Levant Company. 16 Angered at the seizure (although the 1662 treaty neither anticipated nor proscribed such action), the Levant Company merchants looked for punishing the Libyans, and soon after in that same month, July 1675, Sir John Narbrough, Admiral of the English fleet in the Mediterranean, seized a Libyan ship near Tripoli and took ―98 negroes, men, women, and children, and 24 Greeks‖, all of whom he proceeded to sell as slaves.17 On 23 July, Narbrough attacked the port of Tripoli and burned three ships: ―This is a great losse unto Tripoly, they depending much on these three vessels to defend their Port‖, he reported (possibly) to Samuel Pepys, secretary of the affairs for the navy since 1673. Narbrough was eager to continue his attack: ―Wth God‘s assistance I am of the ye opinion wee should burne most of their ships‖, but he did not have enough ―Small Vessells‖.18 A week later, 31 July, Narbrough conveyed to the ―Dey of Tripoly & Bassa‖ his demands that the perpetrators who had seized the English ship be punished by cutting ―off their heads‖.19 When the dey replied that some of the perpetrators had since fled to ―Turkey‖ while the rest had died, Narbrough demanded ―restitution‖ for the seized cargo: ―eighty thousand Dollars, fourty thousand to be payd onto mee [...] & ye other fourty thousand to be pay‘d to ye King‖. He also demanded that all English captives in Tripoli be released. The dey and the diwan deliberated on these matters: the sum Narbrough demanded was by far higher than the cargo they had taken, while English captives were a totally separate matter since Narbrough had sold the Muslim captives into slavery and not offered to exchange them with the English captives. On 7 August, the dey and members of the diwan informed Narbrough that they had no money but would be willing to give him ―salt in lieu of restitution of ye wrongs‖. 20 Narbrough knew that the dey was leaning towards ―compliance‖ and was indeed short of money, and so he informed Pepys that an alternative to money would be for the dey to send to Narbrough a number of non-English Christian captives whom he would subsequently sell in Europe. The money from the sale would compensate for the cargo. Narbrough asked Pepys to find out what the See the description of this episode in Sonia Anderson, An English Consul in Turkey: Paul Rycaut in Smyrna, 1667-1678 (Oxford, 1989), 191-92. 17 A Descriptive Catalogue of The Naval Manuscripts in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, ed. Joseph R. Tanner, 4 vols (London, 1923), 4: 219. 18 NA, SP 71/22/part II, 111v and 112r, the letter was written on 5 August 1675. 19 NA, SP 71/22/II, 112 (5 August 1675). Panzac states that the ―restitution‖ was of ―vessels that had been captured by Tripolitan corsairs and refused to return them‖, Barbary Corsairs, 33. Panzac does not corroborate his statement. There are no allusions to such ships in the correspondence of Narbrough while the destruction of all ships in the port suggests that there were no English ones there. 20 NA, SP 71/22/115 (9 August 1675), to Samuel Pepys. 16
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king‘s wishes were,21 again repeating that the Libyans had no money (―For money I doubt I shall get none of them‖). He concluded his letter by expressing his personal preference to finish off the negotiations by bombarding the whole port: I wish I had small fire vessels now wth mee, & wth God‘s assistance, I am of ye Opinion I should burne their ships as now they ly in Port. These Galleys being burnt they have lost halfe the strength of their Port.22 By 24 September, Narbrough‘s message had reached London and had been passed on to the members of the admiralty who, with the king, agreed that money did not matter. They decided that the bombardment of Tripoli would project Britain‘s naval power and bring ―honour to his majesty‖,23 as Narbrough had urged. On 14 January 1676, Narbrough received his much-desired orders to bombard the port. A pious man, Narbrough felt that in obeying the admiralty, he fulfilled God‘s will, for the destruction of Tripoli, as he later described the attack, was part of the divine vengeance over the infidels: [...] being resolved by Gods permission that Night to Attaque ye Enemy‘s ships in their Port [...] [he] seized ye Guard-Boat, boarded ye Ships, fired them, & utterly destroyed them all [the four ships were of 50, 34, 24, and 20 guns] [...] to ye great Astonishment of ye Turkes that endeavoured to Impede Our Designe, by plying several Great, & innumerable small Shot att our Boats & Men [...] Such was ye Wonderfull Mercy of Almighty God towards us that not One Man of Ours was killed, wounded or touched, nor a Boat was disabled. Our Men employed in ye Boates, in this particular Action were (157) they All behaveing themselves as becometh English Men. To God alone be ye Glory. Two days later, 16 January, Narbrough continued: I fired about (100) Shot into ye City of Tripoly amongst the Inhabitants. The 1st & 3rd of February I tooke & destroyed five Corne-Boats on ye Coast, to ye Eastward of Tripoly 20 Leagues: & Landed & burnt a Stacke of Wood & Timber, wch was for their In another letter addressed to the Privy Council, he explained that the salt offer was ―not worth his Majesty‘s taking‖, A Descriptive Catalogue, 4: 225. 22 NA, SP 71/22/Part II/116. 23 A Descriptive Catalogue, 4: 225. 21
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building their New Ship, & some small Masts & Yards, & some Bags of Bread brought off, & two Guns spiked up. 24 The English fleet did not only attack ships in harbour, but also food supplies, harbours, and anything that floated. The intent was to disable the city from operating – and its inhabitants from eating, as the burning of the corn shows (a burning that was very much like the burning of food supplies of native Americans in what was to become in that same year, King Philip‘s War). The technology used by the English fleet ensured complete safety for the attackers: there was not a single casualty among the English, perhaps because the Libyans, and their Ottoman masters, used ―small shott,‖ not the kind that could be effective against the cannons and the fire boats. The Libyans had been completely disabled so much so that the reverend Henry Teonge, sailing with the fleet, declared on 23 February 1676: ―We are all for Tripoli, and resolved for mischief. And if those gallants of Malta do so much admire us, certainly we shall much terrify the Turks‖.25 After bombarding them, there was nothing more to fear from the ―Turks‖. Narbrough followed his military victory with commercial restrictions. He forced the bey to sign a treaty in favour of English traders over the French. The ―Articles of Peace & Commerce‖ of 5 March 1676 ensured the complete safety of English ships, prohibited Libyan ships from sailing too close to Tangier (which was then under English rule), permitted Englishmen to export or import merchandize in Tripoli without paying customs, and prohibited Libyans to trade in booty or captives taken from English ships. Further, Narbrough forced a change on the earlier 1662 treaty that had been signed with Libya. In the 1662 treaty, article XI read as follows: That in case any slave in the Kingdom of Tripoli, of any nation whatsoever, shall make his escape, and get on board any ship belonging to His said Majesty, the Consul shall not be liable to pay his ransom, unless timely notice hath been given him to give order that no such be entertained; and then, if it appear that any slave hath so gotten away, the said Consul is to pay the patron the price for which he was sold in the market; and if no price be cut, then to pay 300 dollars, and no more.
NA, SP 71/22/131 r and v, and 131A. The report continues, ―On the 10th of February‖, we ―tooke a Samberkeen in her Ballace 30 Leagues to ye Eastward of Tripoly, belonging to that Government‖. 25 Henry Teonge, The Diary of Henry Teonge, ed. George E. Manwaring (London, 1927), 129. 24
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The post-victory treaty changed the article in favour of Britain: That when any of His Majesty‘s ships of war shall appear before Tripoli, upon notice thereof given to the English Consul, or by the Commander of the said ships, to the chief Governors of Tripoli, public proclamation shall be immediately made to secure the Christian captives; and if after that any Christians whatsoever make their escape on board any of the said ships of war, they shall not be required back again, nor shall the said Consul or Commander, or any other His said Majesty‘s subjects, be obliged to pay anything for the said Christians.26 The new treaty also ensured the English fleet of freedom to ―trade and traffic in any part of the Kingdom of Tripoli‖ at the same time that it prohibited the Libyans from cruising ―in sight of the Ports of the Island of Minorca, and the City of Gibraltar, to disturb or molest the trade‖. 27 By forcing the treaty on the Libyans, Narbrough made them not only agree to weaken their own economy – they could not charge custom duties, nor be permitted to sail to nearby ports – but also to concede that they had caused injury to the English which is why the English had been forced to retaliate with Narbrough‘s bombardment. The English were ensuring themselves of the moral high ground as well as the commercial advantage. In August 1679, the English consul Thomas Baker listed 13 vessels (including a sitea, a small man-of-war) with 297 guns and 3,000 men belonging to the Libyans.28 But the bombardment and economic restrictions had taken their toll on the port city so much so that on 10 January 1682, he wrote: ―This is a place scituate in a Barren blind comfortlesse corner of Barbary [...] and the commerce here founded on Sea Reprisals wholly enjoyed by French Pedlers and sorry Jewes‖. 29 Still, the Libyans tried to resume their ship-building and two years later, in October 1684, Baker was surprised at their resilience: ―Here was lately launched a ship that been above Ten Yeares a building, shee‘s a compleat thing, has sixty Ports and will bee mounted wth fifty six Guns‖.30 But then, the French took their turn at bombardment and in April 1685, their fleet attacked Tripoli at a time when Ahmad ibn NA, Foreign Office, (henceforth FO) 881/2774. Jacob C. Hurewitz ed., The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics (New Haven – London, 1975) 62, article XXIV. 28 Richard J. Pennell ed., Piracy and Diplomacy in Seventeenth-Century North Africa: The Journal of Thomas Baker, English Consul at Tripoli, 1677-1685 (London and Toronto, 1989), 106. 29 NA, SP 71/22/I 33r. 30 NA, SP 71/22/part I, 54r. 26 27
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Muhammad ibn Nasir, a Moroccan Sufi who was on his way to the Hajj, was there. He left behind a rare eye-witness account. Whatever the Libyans had rebuilt after Narbrough‘s attack was now, ten years later, destroyed by the French: After the evening prayer on Saturday, the infidels, may God destroy them, began hurling their bombs from their canons. We saw what we had never seen, and heard what we had never heard. . . First you saw the powder lighting up from the mouth of the cursed cannon – then a flaming ball, brighter than a shooting star, rose in the air. Immediately, they would fire another which would rise even higher than the first. As it turned and swooped down, it produced a deafening sound and then exploded, spreading [shrapnel] all around. If the bomb fell on a building, it demolished it; on level ground, it dug a crater; on a [water] tank or an upper room, it pulverized it; on a tree, it uprooted or burned it. Sometimes the bomb remained in the ground for a while and then exploded, producing a sound more terrifying than the first. Whenever their cannons fired a bomb, we thought it was going to hit us. Sometimes the bomb fell near us, sometimes it passed above us; more often it fell inside the city or in the sea outside the city walls. All that night, we raised our helpless hands in despair to God almighty, our eyes unable to sleep. . . They continued firing bombs all through the night until dawn of the following day. They did not halt for a single hour. Some jurists told me that they had fired a thousand bombs.31 Defeated, the dey Hajj Abdallah agreed to pay 60,000 piasters in the form of ―bled [blé], orge, et autres merchandises‖ 32 to the French. In December of the following year, he sent to France two ships laden with wheat along with a present: ―cinq quntr de dates que nous vous prions d‘accepter de notre part et de excuser la franchise avec la quelle nous vous faisons un present de si peu de consequence‖. He also reported that the diwan had agreed on selling all Libyan property in Tunis – their foreign reserve – consisting of ―Jardins, maisons, et oliviers a fin d‘en paier nos debtes‖. 33 The Libyans were being bankrupted, and without proper munitions, remained vulnerable to further attacks. In May 1691, and hoping that a change of allegiance might bring some help, the dey turned away from the 31 Ahmad ibn Khaled al-Nasiri, Tal„at al-Mushtarî fî al-Nasab al-Ja„farî (The Ascendancy of [the planet] Jupiter in the Ja „fari Genealogy) 2 vols (Fez, 1892/A.H.1310), 2: 29. 32 Archives Nationales (henceforth AN) (Paris), Marine, B/7/210, 119. 33 AN, Marine B/7/213, 3-4.
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French and asked the English consul for ―Powder, shott, masts, yards, Cables, anchors att an Easy rate‖.34 In reprisal for this change of allegiance, in September 1692, the French fleet bombarded Tripoli again, ―fireing two thousand Bombs, but doeing Little damage‖, as English Consul Nathaniel Lodington reported.35 His report was accurate, because within a month, on 28 October, he wrote to Secretary of State Lord Nottingham that the Libyans ―have found out the way to make Bumbs‖. Against all odds, the Libyans were trying to improve their technology of naval warfare. Lodington continued that the Libyans gathered ―up those the French sent ashore [and] doe melt the pieces & new molde them but how to continue a mortar they know not‖. That is why they begged him to bring them from London ―2 mortars that will throw a bumb of thirty inches circumference‖.36 The Libyans knew that they could not develop sophisticated cannons similar to those manufactured by the Europeans. So they sought to purchase the weapons from the European powers, only to find that they were sold munitions that would be useful for local conflicts with North African rivals, not for naval defence. By 1692, the Libyan fleet included ―seven Ships from 40 to 60 guns each, besides some small vessels & Gallies‖37 – one ship less than in 1661. While the European fleets had been expanding, the Libyan fleet had been shrinking and would never recover from the devastating bombardments of Britain and France. Algiers Algiers was the strongest naval power in North Africa. 38 In 1659, a report about the Algerian fleet stated that it consisted of 16 ships, with 408 guns/cannons.39 By December of the following year, 1660, the Earl of Winchelsea counted ―28 to 30 saile, their biggest gunne carrying not above ten pound Bullet‖.40 The Algerians maintained amicable commercial dealings with England, and permitted English ―Men of Warre and Lodington to Nottingham, 4 May 1691: NA, SP 71/22/III, 98. NA, SP 71/22/126r (8 September 1692). 36 NA, SP 71/22/132r. 37 NA, SP 71/22/Part III, 103. 38 For studies of the Algerian navy see L. Lacoste, ‗La marine algèrienne sous les Turcs‘, Revue maritime, 142 (1931): 471-514; and Moulay Belhamissi, Marine et Marins d‟Alger (1518-1830), 3 vols (Algiers, 1996). Belhamissi‘s is an exhaustive study of the French archives, but it completely ignores the British ones. 39 Bodleian Library (Oxford), Rawlinson MSS, A 185, f. 77, reproduced in FO 113/1/366. The report by the captive Emanuel D‘Aranda that ‗Ali Pichtin, the general of the Algerian galleys, had 65 vessels in 1641; and by Father Dan that the fleet consisted of 70 ships in 1649 could well be exaggerations: Stanley Lane-Poole, The Barbary Corsairs (New York, 1984 (1901)), 195. 40 NA, SP 71/1/f. 191v (3/13 December 1660). 34 35
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Merchant Ships [...] Libertie of our Port and Marketts‖. But the English deceived them and brought to harbour Ships of Enimies (wearinge English Colours) pretending them to be English, and belonginge to them whereas indeed they were the ships of such wth whom we have no peace. But this meanes they have manie times caused the ships, together wth the goods of Enimies to escape out of our hands, for wch our minds have beene much troubled.41 The Algerians thus seized some ships whereupon the English fleet attempted to intimidate them. But having a strong fleet, 42 the Algerians were able to repel them – at least that is how a late-eighteenth century Algerian historian remembered his compatriots: In the year 1071, during the reign of Ramadan Bulkbashi [r. 16601661], the English fleet came with twenty-three large ships. The English [Admiral] wanted to renew the peace treaty with Algiers and demanded that when Algerian ships meet English ships, the former ships should sail under the English wind, and if the English showed their pass, the Algerians would not search but release them. The Algerian reply was that such demands were unacceptable, and that if the English wanted peace with the Algerians, they would have to sue for it on the same terms as before. Otherwise, there would be no peace and the English could do what they wanted. The Algerians then expelled the English [Admiral]. For twenty-three days, the cursed [infidels] lurked awaiting the answer they wanted. When they realized the futility of their demands, they lined the ships across from Algiers and started bombing the turrets and the rest of the town. The people of Algiers fired back from the turrets and the city wall. Fighting continued until the evening of that day. Then, the infidel ships weighed anchor and spread their sails and left back to their land, with loss and despair. Only one [Algerian] man was killed in that battle; another was wounded and died after twenty-three days. As for the cursed Christians, more than a hundred died. The Admiral‘s ship was damaged and reached Majorca after much hardship. NA, SP 71/1/199. 17 Rabî‗ al-Thânî (20 December 1660). ―Thus in spite of the English and Dutch fleets in the Mediterranean the Barbary corsairs are constantly making booty and become powerful,‖ (27 January 1662); Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, 38 vols (London, 1864-1947), 33: 100. 41 42
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TRADE AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE At that time, there were in Algiers forty-two ships of war. So [the Algerians] prepared their ships and sent them out to sea and started seizing English ships. After six months, there were sixty-two English ships in the Algiers harbour. Upon seizing the Christians and their possessions, the Algerians distributed most of the booty to the people. The war continued between the Algerians and the English until the latter came to Algiers suing for peace. The Algerians did not accept the terms, so the English gave the Algerians fifteen quintals of gunpowder, and 12,000 musket-balls. In this war, until there was peace between the infidels and the Algerians, the former destroyed seventeen ships that belonged to the Algerians, while the Algerians destroyed more than 500 English ships. God be thanked, and may He have great mercy on all those men. 43
The Algerians lost a number of ships in the encounter because by October 1663, Consul Brown counted 23 ships with 656 guns. 44 Still, the Algerians were strong enough to repel a French invasion of Jijel in October 1664 and seize ―35 brass guns‖.45 Their land and sea forces were growing so much so that in May 1666, the London Gazette reported two ―Turks Men of War in the channel, which we find contribute much to the security of these Seas at present‖.46 London was relying on Algiers to protect its navigation – and only after the departure of the men-of-war was the Dutch fleet able to sail up the Thames and inflict heavy losses on the English fleet. Three years later, in 1668/9, the ―List of the shipes of Warr belonging to Algier‖ included 25 ships with two galleys and two satties; and six ships ―upon the Stockes‖ along with two tartans and one galley – ―Totall is 40 Sayle‖. The number of cannons was 758. 47 From 5 September to 21 November 1669, the English fleet under Sir Thomas Allin, attacked the Algerians, inflicting heavy damage. 48 The Algerians recouped, seized 32 English ships, and then launched their fleet of ―28 ships abroad, and are fitting out a new ship of 54 guns and
Mohammad bin Mohammad bin Abd al-Rahman bin al-Jeelani al-Tlemsani al-Jadiri, ‗alZahra al-Nayyira: What transpired when the Infidel Soldiers raided Algiers‘, Revue d‟Histoire et de Civilisation du Maghreb, 3 (1967): 19-23. A French translation of the whole text was made by Alphonse Rousseau, Chroniques de la Régence d‟Alger (Algiers, 1841). 44 NA, SP 71/1/242 and another copy 244r-246r. 45 Calendar of State Papers Domestic (henceforth CSPD), Charles II, 1664-65, 4: 53. 46 London Gazette, May 28 to May 31, 1666. Milford, May 21. 47 NA, SP 71/1/360. 48 CSPD Charles II, 1668-1669, 9: 632-633. 43
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600 men‖.49 On 17 August 1670, the English fleet attacked again, this time destroying six ships with 222 guns; one ―of considerable force and bulk‖ was boarded and sent back to England.50 Nine more ships with 132 guns were also destroyed by the Genoese and the Spaniards. 51 The Algerians blamed the destruction of their ships on their pasha because he had sent the ships with heavy gun to protect his own possessions52 – leaving the rest of the fleet vulnerable to the more advanced English firepower. As a result, there was a revolt and a change of government: the agha who had led the diwan (1659-71) was ousted and the rule of the deys began – the dey being a naval officer by profession. A year later in May, Sir Edward Spragg attacked Algiers again, destroying the ―castles and town [...] with an infinite number of the inhabitants killed and wounded, and that which fell out very luckily to send this success was, that all their chirurgeons‘ chests were burnt on board their ships, that they have not the least medicine to dress a wound with‖.53 Despite all the devastation, the Algerians tried to rally and in June 1674, the English consul reported the following: Their Navall forces 4 yeares since was the greatest part destroy‘d by ye English at Cape Spartell & Bugia but they have since built above 25 sayle of ship & good men of warre from 20 to 40 Gunns & have at present 32 Men of Warr three Galleyes . . . the manner of maintaining them is different to any that I have either seen, or heard of, for of all these shipps & galleys, not one of them belong‘s to the Publick, but all to private Persons, armed out as our Privateers are in England or rather in Jamaica. 54 He then added the ―List of the shipps in Algeirs‖: 35 ships with 1,006 guns and 8,080 men.55 A list of ships given by the traveller A. Helstein in 1676 included 37 ships with one ―Sithea,‖ ―seven Brigantins,‖ and three
49 Log of Sir Thomas Allin in April 1670, CSPD Charles II, 1670. With addenda, 1660-1670, 10: 186. 50 CSPD Charles II, January to November 1671, 11: 170. 51 NA, SP 71/1/Part IV, 466. Panzac mentions that 2,200 Algerians were killed in these attacks, although he does not provide a reference, Barbary Corsairs, 32. 52 NA, SP 71/1/470 (19 September 1670). 53 13 May 1671, CSPD Charles II, January to November 1671, 11: 235. 54 NA, SP 71/2/67r-67v (10 June 1674). 55 NA, SP 71/2/ 72r-v.
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galleys.56 By February 1676-77, the number had fallen to 33 ships with 952 guns and 7,790 men.57 Clearly, Algerian ship-building was fast, efficient, but not without problems. Despite their losses, and perhaps with financial assistance from Istanbul that had sought the regency‘s help during the 25-year long siege of Crete (1645-1669), the Algerians moved quickly toward recovery. The lists collected in c. 1676 of English ―shipps brought in, and Distroyed by ye Argeriens‖ included 41 ships (although there is no indication over what period of time those ships were seized). What is significant is that the vast majority of the ships were small, with few guns. Of the 41 ships listed, 20 had under 10 guns, 15 had between 10-20 guns, and only 1 ship had 29 guns and one other with 40.58 The Algerians could overpower the small ships, but could not confront the English fleet with its heavy guns. While the English fleet with ships that could carry 80-100 guns could destroy the biggest ships in the Algerian fleet, and destroy the moorings in the harbour,59 the Algerians could only capture/destroy small ships, and could never envisage attacking Plymouth or Portsmouth. Without cannon similar to those on the English and French fleets, the Algerians knew they would be at a disadvantage – which is why they turned to the Dutch, and signed a peace agreement with them that included the request of ―an hundred pieces of Brass Cannon‖. 60 Even so, by 1 July 1680, ―ye Algerin ships wch were left in all [were] 19‖ (italics added). Only three had more than 40 guns on board (44, 52, and 42). 61 In December 1681, King Charles II authorized attacks on Algiers by granting letters of marque to various privateers – until a peace treaty was signed on 10 April 1682.62 But the Algerian ruler, Baba Hasan, disowned it because the English did not deliver ―the 22 Turks‖ in captivity.63 The English fleet, under the command of Admiral Herbert, bombarded ―the coastal towns‖ and destroyed ―14 Algerine corsairs,
British Library (henceforth BL) Sloan MS 2755, 52. NA, SP 71/2/Part II, 137 and 167. This list, as well as all following ones, is reproduced in Colin Heywood, ‗What‘s in a Name? Some Algerine Fleet Lists (1686-1714) From British Libraries and Archives‘, The Maghreb Review, 31 (2006): 103-127. 58 NA, SP 21/174 and 202, the two lists are the same. 59 Panzac, Barbary Corsairs, 32. 60 A Letter written by the governour of Algiers, to the States-General of the United Provinces... (London, 1679), 2. 61 BL, Sloan MS, 2755, 54. 62 CSPD Charles II, 1 September 1680 to 31 December 1681, 22: 618. 63 CSPD Charles II, 1 September 1680 to 31 December 1681, 22: 481 (18 October 1682). At least two Algerian ships were taken, with 38 and 22 guns respectively: Playfair, The Scourge of Christendom, 138. 56 57
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leaving 13 corsairs at the peace of 1682‖.64 Apprehensive of further attacks, the Algerians hastened to fortify their port, sending ―for engineers to view their mole, and order[ing] all workmen to work on it, till it be made a very regular fortification‖.65 But the preparations did not anticipate the new technology of bombardment that the French introduced: the long-range cannon. These cannon were carried on the new ―galiote[s] à bombes‖,66 and enabled the French to bombard enemy ships in harbor with impunity. As Jean-Charles-Léonard Simonde Sismondi (1773-1842) wrote in his Histoire des Français, King Louis XIV was the first to put in practice the atrocious method, newly invented, of bombarding towns, – of burning them, not to take them, but to destroy them, – of attacking, not fortifications, but private houses, – not soldiers, but peaceable inhabitants, women and children – and of confounding thousands of private crimes, each one of which would cause horror, in one great public crime. 67 With that attack began a method of European destruction that had been unprecedented, and that the Maghariba did not and could not replicate. An illustration of the attack, based on a Dutch account, shows the trajectory of bombs from the French ships onto the city, but nothing in return.68 An extract from a memorandum of Sieur de Bellislerard about Algiers, written on 2 January 1682, emphasized how safe it was for the big ships to draw up to the harbour and ―faire lavie leur canon‖ whereupon ―aucune boulet ne sera perdu‖. The French would easily destroy the front Algerian cannons, and whatever remained, ―les autres sont de peu 64 Peter Le Fevre, ‗‗It will be a charge to the king to no effect‘: The Failed Attempt to Burn the Algerine Fleet in 1679‘, The Mariner‟s Mirror, 89 (2003): 272-280, 278. 65 CSPD Charles II, January 1 to June 30, 1683, 25: 41 (February 1683). 66 Belhamissi, Marine et Marins, 2: 102, n. 62: ―bâtiment d‘une longeueur de 23 m et d‘une largeur de 8. Très solide d‘échantillon, ayant deux massifs formeé de fascines recouvertes de terre bien battues, au-dessus desquels reposent des plates-formes destines à recevoir les deux mortiers qui composent l‘armement‖. 67 Jean-Charles-Léonard Simonde Sismondi, Histoire des Français, 31 vols (Paris, 1821-44), 25: 452, translated in Charles Sumner, White Slavery in The Barbary States (Boston, 1847), 20-21. As Daniel Panzac commented, with this attack the French turned sea warfare into land warfare: instead of just attacking and burning ships and naval supplies, they also attacked and destroyed cities, in ‗Course et diplomatie: Les provinces ottomane du maghreb et de l‘Europe (XVIIe-XVIIIe siecles)‘, Revue Maroc Europe, Course et jihad maritime, 11 (1997-1998): 139-153, 148. Panzac ignored the attack on Tripoli. Playfair commented: ―These actions are celebrated in history as being the first occasion on which shells were used on board vessels of war‖, The Scourge of Christendom, 142. 68 Gabriel Esquer, Iconographie historique de l‟Algerie depuis le XVIe sciècle jusqu‟á 1871 (Paris, 1929), illustration XVII.45.
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d‘importance [...] La ville manquant de powder ne poura pas tirer longtemps‖.69 A French letter written at the end of July 1683 stated that the Turks ―tirerent environs trois cent coupe de canon sans blesser personne‖.70 Another letter repeated that the Turks were not able to inflict any ―dommage que quelques arbres de galiottes sans blesser personne [...] ils ne nous ont fait aucun dommage‖. 71 English Consul Philip Ricaut (the nephew of Paul) wrote from Algiers on 16 August 1683: By the best Computation I can make the French have spent 4,000 Bombas out of ye 6,000 they first brought with them and ye damage to this towne is about 800 houses & shops beat downe besides 4 ships 3 fettezes & one gally sunk, and two half Galleys upon ye Rockes.72 The devastation was so overwhelming that in vengeance, the Algerian populace ―fired to death‖ sixteen Frenchmen, and ransacked the consulate, thereby destroying all the archive of Franco-Algerian relations for the previous century.73 But such a desperate act could not hide the fact that the Algerians had been soundly defeated. The illustration of the Algerian delegation to Paris, led by Hajj Ja‗far Pasha, shows turbaned Moors on their knees with their hands on their heads in submission before the French king, seated on his throne, with his left leg forward, and French courtiers gazing at the humbled delegation. There was such elation over this victory that commemorative medallions were issued showing ―Louis XIV divinisé recevant les tribus d‘un More‖ (with the king standing like a Roman god); another medallion showed ―un More agenouillé devant Louis XIV‖, accompanied by the following legend: ―Africa supplex‖. 74 Before the power and destructiveness of the French, the Algerians could AN, Marine, B/7/210/ p. 6. Bibliothèque Nationale de France (henceforth BnF) (Paris), Clairambault 501, f. 409. 71 The letter continued: ―. . . les bombes [of the Turks] allant dru et sans tomber a faux tout le monde estait en ioie dans notre armée,‖ BnF, Fonds Français, MS 5561, ff. 44, 45. 72 NA, SP 71/2/1136. See another account of the bombardment that appeared in print: ―Multitudes of People dayly Flocking out to the Gardens, for fear of the Bombs crying out with a General Voice, that the World must needs be now at an end, that never such things as these were seen, that they certainly were not of mans Invention, but sent by the Devil from Hell, and that Algiers is now Ruined‖, in the anonymous The Present State of Algeir: Being A Faithful and True Account of the most Considerable Occurrences That happened in that Place, during the lying of the French Fleet before it (London, 1682). 73 Albert Devoulx, Les Archives du Consulat Général de France a Alger (Algiers, 1865), 7. 74 Esquer, Iconographie historique de l‟Algérie, plates 62-66. See also the description of the Algerian ambassador at Versailles presenting himself on 4 July 1684 with ―pleine de soumission,‖ Eugène Plantet ed., Correspondance des Deys d‟Alger avec la Cour de France, 15791833, 2 vols (Paris, 1889), 1: 90. 69 70
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do nothing but prostrate themselves in supplication. The bombardment of Algiers, as Sir Godfrey Fisher stated, ―was, like Guérnica . . . intended to illustrate to the world at large the power and resources of a superior [military] civilization‖.75 In June 1685, the Algiers fleet had 17 ships with 460 guns left, along with 4 siteas of 20 guns. On the docks, there were three ships and ―Fifteen Rowe Friggts that doe mischiefe to Xias in the summer‖. 76 The naval weakness was now apparent to the dey and members of the diwan, and in April of the following year, 1686, they signed a ―peace and commerce‖ treaty with England; earlier that year, they had been so vulnerable that an ―Algerin Man of Warre‖ had sailed ―into the English Channel and Harboured at Harwich, from whence came to Whitehall severall Turkes [Muslims] Officers of the said Ship, and there made their Applicacon to the late King James for a Supply of Provisions‖. The ship, which stayed for twenty days, was accompanied by two English men-ofwar so that no injury would come to it.77 Twenty years earlier, the English had been protected by the Algerians; now it was the Algerians who needed English help. Toward the end of the year, October 1686, Algiers had only 15 ships with 507 guns.78 As a result, trade with the Ottoman Levant, Morocco, and southern Europe, which had brought a reliable source of income to the Algerians, came to a standstill: from 1687-1698, only one ship carrying supplies sailed out from Algiers. 79 Between 1 and 16 July 1688, the French fleet bombarded Algiers again, hurling 10,420 bombs that destroyed ―les mosques, les maison du Dey, le fort Maifou, les casernes, les bagnes et le mole s‘écroulèment sous les ruines ou furent gravement denommagés. 800 maisons seulement resterent habitables sur 10,000‖.80 The commander of the French expedition, Vice-Admiral d‘Estrées, had been instructed to ―ruiner la ville, pénétrer dans le mole, y brûler les vaisseaux‖. 81 Again, the Algerian defences were ineffective, as an English eyewitness reported. 82 The Sir Godfrey Fisher, Barbary Legend (Oxford, 1957), 274. NA, SP 71/3/18. 77 NA, SP 71/3/187r-v 78 Reproduced in Heywood, ‗―What‘s in a Name?‖‘, 117-118. 79 Daniel Panzac, ‗Négociants ottomans et activité maritime au Maghreb (1686-1707)‘, in Daniel Panzac ed., Les Villes dans l‟Empire Ottoman: Activités et Sociétés, 2 vols (Paris, 1991), 1: 221-252, 223. 80 Plantet, Correspondance des Deys d‟Alger, 1: 158, n. 1. 81 Quoted in Belhamissi, Marine et Marins, 2: 106. See the documents reproduced about this attack in Pierre Grandchamp, ‗Le Maréchal d‘Estrées devant Alger: Documents Inédits de 1687 et 1688‘, Revue Tunisienne, 25 (1918): 285-299. 82 Robert Cole quoted in Playfair, The Scourge of Christendom, 156. ―The Pasha, seeing how little injury his cannon did the bomb-vessels, was very sparing in the discharging of them‖. 75 76
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Algerians submitted to a peace treaty (May 1689), promising not only to suspend any activities against French ships, but more importantly for the French, to provide protection for any French ship that docked in Algiers – from the English with whom the French were at war (The Nine Years War had started at the end of 1688).83 Meanwhile, the Algerians tried to rebuild, and by May 1690, the ―Present force of Algier By Sea‖ had come to consist of 19 ships and caravels with 520 guns, along with three ships on the stocks and two galleys and ―Severall Rowed boates armed but in Summer‖.84 In August 1690, Mustapha Raïs commanded 12 ships with 228 guns, and 4 caravels with 50 guns, along with 5 other ships of 134 guns. On the docks were two ships, two galleys and two row boats. 85 The Algerians could not afford not to venture out to sea, but may have felt safer sailing east rather than west.86 In September 1694, the Algerians possessed 15 ships with 398 guns;87 by 7 April 1698, they had 20 ships and vessels with 568 guns, along with three new ships on the stocks, one galley, and ―Divers Row frigatts which in summer time pick Christians off the Coast of Spaine‖.88 By the end of the century, the Algerian fleet settled at 20 ships and 568 guns. The lists for the years 1710 and 1712 reveal a decline in the number of ships to 17 and 16 respectively.89 Instead of continuing to grow from the middle of the century on, the Algerian naval force was stagnating. While the English and the French fleets were increasing in number and sophistication, and while ports like Marseilles and Plymouth, Brest and Bristol were never exposed to the kind of systematic and concerted bombardment that befell Algiers or Tripoli, the Algerians, the Libyans, and others were having to face the most advanced weapons of modern naval technology, and repeatedly having to rebuild, reconstruct, and start anew. As Colin Heywood succinctly stated, at the end of the seventeenth century, the Algerian and other North African frontiers were
Adrien Berbrugger, ―1689 – Traité de Paix‖, Revue Africaine, 7 (1863): 433-445. NA, SP 71/3/162. 85 NA, SP 71/3/166. 86 A report from Algiers in November 1690 stated that seven ships had sailed to the Levant ―to the Grand Seignior‘s service‖, see CSPD, William and Mary, May 1690-October 1691 (London, 1895-1937), 2: 171. The report adds that there were ―19 sail of ships belonging to that place [Algiers]‖. 87 Reproduced in Heywood, ‗―What‘s in a Name?‖‘, 122-123. 88 NA, SP 71/3/343. 89 As Heywood shows, ‗―What‘s in a Name?‖‘, 124-125, although on 3 September 1712, it was reported that ―There are Nine Algereen Men of Warr cruising off this Coast [Salé] & they expect to be joined by six more. I suppose they have an eye upon the Bahia fleet that is expected‖ (NA, SP 89/22/129r). 83 84
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vulnerable ―to attacks from the sea‖90 by the English and the French who had become so powerful that they reshaped ―the contours of Mediterranean commerce‖ in their own favour. 91 Britain and France did not as much retaliate against the seizure of their ships: they pursued a strategy to eliminate the regencies as a maritime power. In 1715, the Dutch cartographer Herman Moll produced a map of ―The Turkish Empire in Europe, Asia and Africa‖ in which he described Tripoli in the following words: ―Sr John Narborough [sic] burnt all the men of war in this port in 1674‖. Although the date was wrong by two years, the event was memorable because it had brought an end to Libyan commercial rivalry and naval activity. And about Algiers he wrote: ―In 1671 Sr Ed. Spragg destroyed and Burnt under ye Guns of this Place 9 of the best Algerian men of war‖.92 This time the date was correct. With no access to the hard currency that was pouring into the English and French national coffers from trade (and piracy and privateering), and with the ever-present difficulty of procuring wood for ship-building – the North African regions did not have the tall trees that were especially needed for masts93 – and with their maritime infrastructures coming under repeated bombardment, the Maghariba could not keep pace with European advancement. With their highly effective technology of war, the English and the French navies repeatedly destroyed the North African ports, along with the fishing, trading, and privateering fleets, the docks and extensive parts of the port cities. Simultaneously, the Maghariba seized scores of English and French ships, causing damage to European trading. But, throughout, they were never able to damage the naval facilities in the European port cities: Portsmouth and Marseilles and Brest were never destroyed in the manner of Algiers and Tripoli. Not only was the English and French strategy aimed at disabling North African maritime activity, it also prepared to conquer and dominate Colin Heywood, ‗An English merchant and Consul-General in Algiers, c. 1676-1712: Robert Cole and his Circle‘, in Abdeljalil Temimi and Mohamed-Salah Omri eds., The Movement of People and Ideas between Britain and the Maghreb (Zaghouan, 2003), 49-66, 65. 91 Greene, ‗Beyond the Northern Invasion‘, 64. 92 Herman Moll, The Turkish Empire in Europe, Asia and Africa, Divided into all its Governments (London, 1720). 93 When Narbrough attacked Tripoli in 1675, the Libyans took ―all their Masts out of their ships‖ in order to preserve them, as he reported (5 August 1675), NA, SP 71/22/111v. See also the reference to the Algerian request for ―six main masts for a ship of 60 guns,‖ NA, SP 71/4/45 (5 October 1702). The absence of wood was serious. Unfortunately, the Ottomancontrolled regencies did not turn to Morocco which had resources that were being utilized by the British in Gibraltar: in 1711, the British wanted to ―cutt down Timbers near Larache [where there were] [...] great quantities of Timber which they make no manner of use‖, NA, SP 41/34/86. 90
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both the ports as well as the rest of the countries. On 6 September 1661, King Charles instructed his cousin, Henry Mordaunt, second Earl of Peterborough, who went as Tangier‘s governor, that he was to rule Tangier ―& suburbs thereof, and of all other Citys, Townes, Villages, Forests, Castles & Islands, Landes & Countreyes which now are or which hereafter during this Our Commission shall be delivered or reduced to our Obedience‖.94 Tangier was to become another Charlestown or Plymouth (in New England) – or Madras. In India, the East India Company, a ―Politie of Civill & Military Power,‖ wielded control over Madras (1639) and Bombay (1668), and, in the former, ―administered justice, coined money, and exercised other functions of government‖. 95 On 20 November 1672, the governor of Tangier indicated that he would ―assist Gaylan [a rebel against the Moroccan king] with men, if he should desire it and promise to own the King [Charles II] as imperial protector of Barbary‖.96 Although neither England nor France launched an imperial conquest of North Africa as they would in the eighteenth and nineteenth century (the English were driven out from Tangier in 1684), the discourse of empire and the preparation for such an empire were underway.97 By 1688, the French had increased the number of men in their ―Colonnie du Bastion‖ in Algeria to 430,98 and by 1706, the English were working to ―obtain‖ ―the Fortress of Marsa al Kebier under which is a very good port‖,99 at exactly the same time that the French were viewing the ―Port Soliman‖ in the Gulf of Certa as an ideal (―pas difficille‖) location for landing an army.100 Both powers were beginning to establish permanent outposts in the regions they had bombarded and intimidated. Two decades later (1728), Daniel Defoe was blunt about Algeria and the rest of the ―Coast of Africa,‖ which is considerable as we find it to be, even now, under the Indolence and Sloth of the most barbarous People in the World, how may we suppose all those valuable things to be encreas‘d in their Quantity, by the Industry and Application of the diligent Europeans, especially the French or Dutch, or English; all which nations BL, Harley MSS, 1592, 11. Philip J. Stern, ‗‗A Politie of Civill & Military Power‘: Political Thought and the Late Seventeenth-Century Foundation of the East India Company State‘, Journal of British Studies, 47 (2008): 253-283, 264. 96 BL, Harley MSS, 1592, 175. 97 See my discussion of the ‗imperial‘ theme in chapter 2 of Britain and Barbary, ―‗Imperialism,‘ Captivity and the Civil Wars‖. 98 AN, Marine, B/7/213, 49. 99 NA, SP 71/15/218. 100 AN, Marine, B/7/224, 29. 94 95
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joining in the Conquest, we might reasonably suppose should have their several and separate Allotments of Territory upon the Coast, and in the Country adjacent.101
Daniel Defoe, A Plan of the English Commerce Being a Compleat Prospect of the Trade of this Nation, as well the Home Trade as the Foreign (Oxford, 1928 (1749)), 243. 101
7 SACRA MILITIA, THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN Crusade, Corsairing and Trade in Rhodes and Malta, 1460-1631 Ann Williams The Order of St. John, the Knights Hospitaller, or after 1530, the Knights of Malta, was first and foremost a religious Order of the Catholic Church. Its members, right up to its overthrow by Napoleon in 1798, took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience which, certainly under the reforms of the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, were not regarded lightly. Contemporary masculine codes of knighthood, chivalry and honour also shaped their conduct. The rhetoric of crusade, which in this period of religious upheaval in Europe, could still inspire the actions of the papacy and secular rulers in the West, gave the Knights a justification for their continued existence. The Order, expelled from Latin Syria after the fall of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291, took the island of Rhodes in 1309 and stayed there until Suleyman the Magnificent conquered it in 1522. A period of wandering around southern Europe was ended by the acceptance of the Emperor Charles V‘s gift of the islands of Malta and Gozo and the poorly fortified city of Maghribi Tripoli in 1530. The latter was lost in 1551, but the Order remained in Malta until the French conquest. The purpose of this essay is to examine, from the Order‘s own institutions and record keeping, why it took three centuries after it first began to rule its own small state to develop its organisation in order to meet the exigencies of regulating its trading and corsairing activities. The Structure of the Order The Convent was the central governing body of the Order at its chef-lieu in the Mediterranean, wherever it might be, in Rhodes or in Malta. The name, which it kept until the end of its existence, again reflected its
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religious origin, and in Rhodes its buildings and its members were confined within the boundaries of a walled ‗collachium‘. Unlike the Venetians and the Genoese for whom their Eastern Mediterranean possessions were ‗outremer‘, ‗outremer‘ for the Knights was Europe. However, the main source of their revenue was their landed property in the West. These estates were grouped in ‗langues‘ or ‗nations‘, eight after 1462 when Spain was divided into Aragon/Catalonia and Castille/Portugal, until the early sixteenth century when the Langue of England effectively disappeared when Henry VIII annexed all monastic property in the kingdom as a result of his break with Rome. The Reformation movement also meant that the Langue of Germany, including its Scandinavian attachments, was severely depleted, leaving the Priory of Brandenburg in the strange position of being Protestant, but remaining within the Catholic order. The Commanderies, or estates at local level, were grouped into Priories within the Langues. They contributed annual ‗responsions‘ or taxes to the Convent. The total number of Knights at any one time is impossible to assess, but the ruling elite in the Mediterranean was small, some 350 in Rhodes and 500 in Malta. They were supported by the other ranks of the Order, Serjeants-at-Arms and Chaplains, all three groups doing tours of duty on their ships in the Mediterranean which gave them seniority for preferment and the acquisition of Commanderies and Priories in the West. Neither in Rhodes nor in Malta did they allow the indigenous population to join the Order, so the pool of talent was limited. The Grand Master was elected for life and could be chosen from any Langue. The members of the individual Langues resident in the Convent elected the great officers of state, the Grand Commander for Provence, the Marshal for Auvergne, the Hospitaller for France, the Admiral for Italy, the Draper (later the Grand Conservator), for Aragon/Catalonia, the Turcoplier for England, the Grand Bailiff for Germany and the Chancellor for Castille/Portugal. There was no guarantee that these officials would be skilled in their own area, but fortunately a Captain of the Galleys was appointed for his naval ability. The legislation for the Order, as in all other Western monastic institutions, was drawn up in a Chapter General which met roughly every five years until 1631, and then only once more in 1776, not long before the Order‘s collapse. It comprised those present in the Convent with representatives from the houses in Europe. When the Chapter General met for a brief period of fifteen days, a Council of Sixteen, two representatives from each of the Langues, withdrew from the assembly
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and met secretly to draw up the statutes of the Order.1 The majority of these covered their religious and hospital activities, but material on administration, the building of fortifications and preparedness for war, did appear. The fifteenth century documents show the pressures on the members of the Order from the papacy to carry out their role as holy warriors. The Grand Master governed with the assistance of a Council which could meet in various forms: the Ordinary Council (which comprised the great officers and the Grand Master), the Complete Council (one further member from each Langue was added to the previous group) or as a disciplinary court, the Court of Esgart. The last was held solemnly in the conventual church where it arraigned members of the Order for misdemeanours, and imposed punishments or expulsion on them. There was no clear distinction between the kind of business done in the first two councils during the period under discussion. The Ordinary Council could discuss major matters like defence, the appointment of ambassadors and requests to the West for money. Both councils could deal with the routine appointments to Commanderies and the relentless scrutiny of proofs of nobility.2 There was no separate Council of State until 1623. Trading and Corsairing No systematic record was kept of the caravane maritime by any of these bodies. In contrast to the island of Mallorca in the same period where details of marine ownership, tonnage, goods and destinations were regularly collected, comparable information for the Order‘s activities has to be gleaned from indirect references.3 It is chiefly disciplinary cases that reveal the Knights as traders or corsairs. On 24 th September 1470 Fra Bernard Berengarius appeared before the Council accused of owing two Genoese merchants, Toby Lomelinus and Caspar de Nigro, money and refusing to pay it. A document in his own hand was produced to prove the debt. The Grand Master ordered him to pay, but he attempted
Statutes survive from the twelfth century, but it is only in the fifteenth century that fuller records of the meetings survive. The Archives of the Order of Malta (AOM) housed in the National Library of Malta, in Valletta have relevant volumes, AOM Sacra Capitula Generalia 282, 1454, 1459, 1462; AOM 283, 1466, 1471,1475, 1478 (the last three are the most detailed until the Malta records); AOM 284, 1498,1501,1504. No further meetings survive until AOM 286, 1526, 1532, 1538. Then the volumes in AOM 287 to AOM 296 cover the period 1543 to 1631. 2 The relevant Libri Conciliorum are from AOM 73 the first recorded meeting in 1459 to AOM 113 1631. In the Rhodes period there are lacunae from 1467 to 1469 and from 1517 to 1519. 3 Onofre Vaquer Bennasar, El Commerç Maritim a Mallorca, 1448- 1531 (Palma de Mallorca, 2001). 1
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unsuccessfully to appeal to his peers against the judgment. 4 This case was brought to the attention of the Council by the Magister Scutifer, (a kind of liaison officer between the Grand Master and the Knights), at the instigation of the Marshal. This is a unique indication of how seculars could raise their grievances against members of the Order. No regular procedure seemed to exist for bringing this type of case. The Castellania and Commercial courts, discussed below, dealt with causes among seculars, both inhabitants and visitors, but Hospitallers were not brought before them. The other source of information about commercial affairs is in the Chancery records.5 They deal primarily with issues and arrangements concerning property for the individual Langues in Western Europe, but in the Rhodes period there was always a section called Partes Cismarinae which dealt with matters in the Eastern Mediterranean.6 Commissions to consuls in Alexandria, instructions to governors in Kos and the mainland fortress of Bodrum, as well as mercantile and naval activities, corn supplies and relations with Cyprus and with the Venetians and Genoese can be found here. It is not, however, a comprehensive collection. The principle of selection is not apparent and the documents which survive are probably just those that were presented to the Vice Chancellor for registration. Nicolas Vatin, in trying to assemble a statistic for foreign merchants trading in Rhodes, could only produce a list in single figures for each of the nations involved. 7 The documentation may present the Knights of St. John as a religious and military Order, but in its day-to-day existence, both in Rhodes and Malta, it was a small secular state, holding on tenuously in hostile seas.8 In the Eastern Mediterranean, down to 1522, the Knights held Rhodes and a number of other islands, including Kos (also known as Lango), and Leros, respectively 100 and 150 kilometres away from the mother island. The farthest away was the small island of Kastellorizo, off the coast of the south-west Anatolian emirate of Tekke, which served as an advance warning post of attacks from Mamluk Egypt. They also had a foothold on the mainland, a fortress at Bodrum (the ancient Halicarnassus), which they had persuaded the Ottoman sultan, Bayezid I (1389-1402) to grant them, at the expense of the Emir of Karaman, at the AOM 74, ff. 42r- 43r. Libri Bullarum in the Archives of the Order. 6 In Malta this section is called Miscellaneous. 7 Nicolas Vatin, L‟Ordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem, l‟Empire Ottoman et la Méditerranée orientale entre les deux Siegès de Rhodes, 1480- 1522 (Louvain and Paris, 1994), 56. 8 Ann Williams, ‗Crusaders as Frontiersmen: the Case of the Order of St. John in the Mediterranean‘, in Daniel Power and Naomi Standen eds., Frontiers in Question (London, 1999), 209-227, 219, 224-5. 4 5
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time of the Mongol invasions. A constant drain on their resources, needing wood and stone for its fortifications as well as food supplies, it was nonetheless never taken by the Ottomans, but its garrison withdrew in 1523 to follow the other Knights to the West. The presence of the order in Rhodes gave the island a greater importance economically than it had enjoyed as a remote possession of the Byzantine empire or as a base for Genoese pirates. The revenues which the Knights brought, the Latins they encouraged to settle, and the defences with which they protected the city, made Rhodes an attractive port of call. On the trade routes from Alexandria and Syria to the Maghreb, Sicily and Catalonia, it was used as a distribution point for goods, particularly by the Genoese. Cotton, until the latter part of the fifteenth century, was an important cargo. 9 Corn and wine, much of the latter from the Order‘s own estates in Cyprus, were also imported to supply the growing population, the merchant communities who settled, and the transient groups of merchants and pilgrims who passed through. 10 The Order also had a Grand Commandery in Cyprus, under its Latin rulers, the Lusignan dynasty, whose lands and factory produced sugar. This crop was important for medicaments in the Hospital as well as for export to West, until the end of the fifteenth century, when the Venetian occupation of Cyprus, and the growth of the Sicilian sugar industry, made its cultivation less profitable.11 The Order maintained good relations with the Genoese, and in particular with its colony, Chios. A small Genoese community was resident in Rhodes and their ships brought slaves from the Black Sea ports, some remaining in the island, but greater numbers being shipped on to Alexandria. The Knights had a more ambivalent relationship with Venice. Until the loss of the Venetian colony of Negroponte to the Ottomans in 1471 they had depended on corn imports from the island. 12 However, the close contacts of Venice with the Ottomans were difficult for a self-professed Catholic religious order, while Venetian-Ottoman closeness could be used as an excuse for attacking Venetian vessels. One particular incident caused a serious rift between the two powers. In 1465, two Venetian great galleys with rich cargoes and ‗Moorish‘ passengers, the 9 Jong-Kuk Nam, Le Commerce de Coton en Méditerrannée à la fin du Moyen Age (Leiden and Boston, 2007), 150-152. 10 The population of the islands is impossible to assess at any time during the Knights‘ occupation. The base figure when they conquered Rhodes is not known and losses from warfare, depopulation and plague have to be set against incomers. 11 Mohamed Ouerfelli, Le Sucre: Production, Commercialisation et Usages dans la Méditerrannée médieval (Leiden and Boston, 2006), 112-116. 12 AOM 74, Liber Conciliorum, f.69v.
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latter providing the excuse for an attack on a Christian ship, were taken captive, just off Rhodes.13 The Venetian captain was told they would not be returned. Diplomatic exchanges took place, and Venice even had to send two legates to the Mamluk Sultan, who promptly imprisoned them. Finally after a long debate in the Council, unusually recorded, the Grand Master gave his casting vote that the goods should be restored. None of the prisoners, neither in Cairo nor Rhodes, was released. Venice could have done without the Knights in the matter of trade, had it not been for the extensive pilgrimage traffic to Jerusalem and other ‗holy places‘ of which Rhodes was one.14 Local trade in foodstuffs, such as honey and fruit, was engaged in by all the participants in the Eastern Mediterranean. This meant frequent contact with Muslim traders as well. After the hostile attacks on Rhodes in 1440 and 1444, caused by Hospitaller support of Christian Cyprus, relations with Mamluk Egypt improved. The longstanding agreement provided for the protection of Mamluk consuls, usually Greek Rhodiots, in Alexandria and Syria, and allowed the continuance of the Order‘s Hospital in Jerusalem. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, the latter tried to impose a tribute on the Order which was rejected. As the Sultan was also moving against the Turkish emirates on the Anatolian littoral, relations with the Emir of Karaman became close, particularly during the long reign of Ibrahim Beg (1433- 1464), because the Karamanids were often at war with the Ottomans on their northern frontier as well as from the sea in the south. 15 In July 1482 a Karamanid ‗orator‘ came to Rhodes to ask for arms. 16 Trade agreements were also concluded with the ‗king‘ of Tunis, as for example in 1478 when the Rhodiot, Giovanni Philo was sent there to negotiate. 17 The Knights‘ contacts with the Maghreb had developed because of their relationship with Catalonia, and it is this relationship which illustrated most clearly the tensions between the Knights‘ crusading and trading activities. Catalan merchants, who never acquired a colony in the Eastern Mediterranean to match Venetian Crete and Genoese Chios, used the port of Rhodes to shelter its regular small caravans bringing cloth from Aragon to the Levant and collecting spices to take back. In 13 AOM 73, Liber Conciliorum, 1465, exact date not given, ff. 139v – 141v, 145v – 146r, 149r – 151v. 14 Anthony Luttrell, The Hospitallers of Rhodes and their Mediterranean World, (Aldershot, 1992), X, 190- 207. 15 Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd edn., P.J. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs eds., 12 vols (Leiden, 1960-2005), IV: 623- 624. 16 AOM 75, Liber Conciliorum,f 109r. The outcome is not recorded. 17 AOM 75, Liber Conciliorum, ff 180v- 181r.
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Barcelona itself, the wealth of local Hospitallers was invested in local trading enterprises and they were represented in the local Corts, the assembly where the three orders of nobles, merchants and ecclesiastics, met frequently to hold their own against the King of Aragon. 18 Support came from the Order in Rhodes because, after three centuries of domination by the three French langues, Aragon was in the ascendant. 19 Antoni Fluvia (1421-1437) and Jean de Lastic (1437-1454) and Pedro Zacosta (1461-1467) were Grand Masters of Aragonese origin at this period. These administrations coincided with the reign of Alfonso V the Magnanimous of Aragon (1415-1458), whose claims to Naples, which he conquered in 1442, brought with them a title to the kingdom of Jerusalem. He saw Rhodes as the centre for his crusading ambitions and offered the Order the protection of his fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean. The patronage was two-edged: Alfonso took over the island of Kastellorizo, temporarily abandoned by the Knights, and refused to return it. 20 However, joint Hospitaller–Catalan ventures took place, evidencing a thin line between legitimate trade with Mamluk Alexandria and Beirut and piratical attacks on Mamluk coasts and ships. 21 Damien Coulon, in contrast with earlier historians,22 sees the policy of King and Grand Master as purely economic, but in the world view of the time, both their ambition for trade and the rhetoric of crusade could be embraced with no difficulty. The decline of Barcelona in the 1460s because of internal problems, reduced Aragon‘s political influence on the Order, but the habit of piracy continued. The records contain very little information about official attitudes to the activity, but the smallness of the Order‘s fleet and the expense of acquiring ships meant that it encouraged individual knights to spend their own money in ventures, often of the joint-stock variety. A rare entry in the council records illustrated the extent of official interest. An agreement was made on 11th December 1503 with Fra Juan d‘Ayala to
18 Claude Carrère, Barcelone, Centre économique à l'époque des difficultés, 1380-1462, 2 vols (Paris, 1967), 1: 640-643. 19 The flamboyant Grand Master at the end of the fourteenth century, Juan Fernandez Heredia had increased the Order‘s property in Aragon and its prestige by his employment as Captain General in papal Avignon. 20 Daniel Duran Duelt, Kastellórizo, Una Isla Griega bajo el dominio de Alfonso el Magnánimo (14501458) Coleccion Documental (Barcelona, 2003), 21-28. 21 Damien Coulon, Barcelone et le grand commerce d‟orient au moyen âge: un siècle de relations avec l‟Egypte et la Syrie-Palestine, ca. 1330-ca. 1430 (Madrid, 2004), 54-62. 22 See, for example, Constantin Marinescu, ‗L‘Ile de Rhodes au XVe Siecle et l‘Ordre de Saint-Jean de Jerusalem d‘apres des Documents Inedits‘, in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, 6 vols (Cittá del Vaticano, 1946), 5: 382-401.
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arm the barque Santa Maria.23 The Order supplied sails and artillery, and 50 men with supplies for four months. Ayala raised 50 more men and provided the powder for the guns. The booty was to be divided into three. The first two parts were divided inequitably, three parts to the Order and one part to Ayala. The third part went to the crew. It is not known what sort of expeditions the Santa Maria went on, but it was probably corsairing, and the Order‘s Treasury was happy to benefit from it. Corn was often in very short supply and the Order tended to turn a blind eye to how it was acquired, whether from Muslim or Christian ships. Another necessity on Rhodes was for slaves, some bought from Genoese merchants, others taken at sea. These were needed for building the fortifications, for the galleys and domestically both by the Knights and the Greeks. When the Knights arrived in Rhodes they established a servitudo marina in which the male Greek population was bound to serve on the Order‘s ships.24 This had to be given up in 1467 because it was impossible to enforce, and Luttrell suggests the indigenous manpower was probably replaced by bought and captured slaves. 25 There is, however, only one figure for the slave population. The Venetian diarist Marin Sanudo recorded the Grand Master L‘Isle Adam as saying that there were 3,000 slaves in Rhodes when the island was lost in 1522.26 In the last quarter of the fifteenth century attacks from the Ottoman Turks alternating with diplomatic relations with them dictated the Order‘s activities. This period coincides with the career of perhaps their ablest Grand Master, Pierre d‘Aubusson (1476- 1503). Experienced as a soldier, an engineer and an administrator, d‘Aubusson prepared Rhodes for the expected full scale siege of Rhodes which came in 1480. His personal leadership united the Knights and the Greek population to withstand the destruction of the city and the devastation of the islands in the following year by a great earthquake in the Aegean. The reputation of the victory resounded in the West because the appearance of an eyewitness account of the siege by the Order‘s Vice Chancellor, Guillaume Caoursin, coincided with the early development of printing. 27 D‘Aubusson‘s reputation was further enhanced by his diplomatic success in receiving Sultan Bayezid‘s younger brother, Jem Sultan, who took
AOM 80, Liber Conciliorum, 74r-75r. Anthony Luttrell, ‗The Servitudo Marina at Rhodes, 1306- 1462‘, in his The Hospitallers in Cyprus. Rhodes, Greece and the West, 1291-1440, (London, 1978), IV, 50-65. 25 Anthony Luttrell, ‗Slavery at Rhodes: 1306-1440‘, in Latin Greece, The Hospitallers and the Crusades, 1291- 1440, (London, 1982), VI, 81-100. 26 Vatin, L‟Ordre, 107, n. 54. 27 Guillaume Caoursin, Obsidionis Rhodie Vrbis descriptio (Ulm, 1496). 23 24
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refuge in Rhodes.28 It was now the turn of the Ottomans to pay large sums of tribute to the Order. The prestige which d‘Aubusson gained enabled him to negotiate with the Sultan, the Pope and the King of France until his death in 1503. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Ottomans were preoccupied with campaigns on their eastern border with the emerging Safavids and the Order gained a respite.29 The Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, however, and the consequent increase in trade between Alexandria and Istanbul, made the Knights‘ corsairing an increasing irritation to the new Sultan Suleyman, who marked the second year of his reign in 1522 with a determined attack on Rhodes. 30 The Knights had to leave the islands, but they left with honour, their ships carrying away their archives to the West. State Organization in Malta How successful had they been in organising a small state in their two centuries in Rhodes? It was clear that they had developed some institutions to cope in their dealings with their subjects and the merchants who visited the islands. An early sixteenth century manuscript of Pragmaticae, or Regulations, dated to the Magistracy of Aimery d‘Amboise (1503-1512), suggested that the port of Rhodes was well organised by this time.31 The regular two yearly appointments of two Knights, the Castellan and the Commercial Bailiff had been noted from the first Council records, but their duties are laid down here. They presided over the Court of Castellania which was established with its civil and criminal jurisdiction. Judges of Appeal and Ordinary sat three days a week. A Procurator Fiscal was responsible for bringing the cases. Two Greek and two Latin notaries were given space and an armatorio, a secure chest for keeping documents, for each group, in the building. A range of security guards and inspectors were listed with their duties. Regulations were laid down for the butchers, the bakers and the other craftsmen in the town. No documents survive from the courts or the notaries so there is no record of matters dealt with in them, nor any indication of how successful the Pragmaticae regulations were in administering the local and transient population of the city. Although the Order‘s experience of governing had developed in Rhodes, an explanation is needed of why it took nearly another hundred 28 Nicolas Vatin, Sultan Djem. Un prince ottoman dans l‟Europe du XVe siècle d‟après deux sources contemporaines (Ankara, 1997). 29 Palmira Brummett, ‗Rhodes the Overrated Adversary: Rhodes and Ottoman Naval Power‘, Historical Journal, 36 (1993): 517-541. 30 Nicolas Vatin, ‗La Conquête de Rhodes‘, in Gilles Veinstein ed., Soliman le Magnifique et son temps (Paris, 1992), 435-454. 31 National Library of Malta, MS 153, rebound in leather (in the eighteenth century?).
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years after their arrival in Malta to build adequately on these foundations. The material losses of the move to the West cannot be underestimated. The investment in fortifications, buildings and lands they had owned, was abandoned without any hope of compensation. Although they were allowed to leave with their small navy, everything else was left behind. An Ottoman account of what was discarded in one fortress, Bodrum, gave some indication of the loss. A total of 64 artillery pieces, plus armour, swords and a workshop (kar-hane) with all its tools ready for work, was recorded.32 For the knights of the Order there followed eight years of wandering around southern Europe during which even the Order‘s existence came into question. No Western ruler welcomed the prospect of a small independent community in his territory. The Pope, entrenched in the Italian wars that drew Imperial and French armies into the peninsula, saw the Knights as a papal guard and gave them Viterbo as a base. They left from there hurriedly in June 1527, pleading ―difficulty of supply, plague and warfare‖, thus narrowly missing the imperial sack of Rome. 33 It was three years before they accepted an offer from Charles V of the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the small praesidio of Tripoli in the Maghreb. The Emperor, also King of Spain, faced an Ottoman threat both on the Habsburgs‘ Balkan frontier and in the Mediterranean. In the latter he ruled, as well as the provinces along the Spanish littoral, the transPyrenean county of Roussillon, the Balearic islands and Sicily. He also granted a number of licences to individuals to maintain fortresses with a permanent garrison (praesidio) in cities conquered along the North African coast.34 Tripoli was one of these, and its grant to the Knights fitted in with Charles‘ belief that attacks on the Ottomans were a new kind of holy war. The Deed of Donation to the Order in 1530 put them right back into their medieval past. Malta was granted so that the Grand Master and Knights [...] should at last obtain a fixed residence and that they should once more return to those duties for the benefit of the Christian community which appertain
Halil İnalcik, ‗The Socio- Political Effects of the Diffusion of Firearms in the Middle East‘, in Vernon J. Parry and Malcolm E. Yapp eds., War, Technology and Society in the Middle East (London, 1975), 195- 217, see Appendix IV, List of Arms and Ammunition at the Fortress of Bodrum in January, 1523, 215. 33 AOM 85, Liber Conciliorum, 28v., 8th June 1527. 34 Melilla had been taken in 1497, Penon de Velez in 1508, Oran a year later, and Algiers and Tripoli in 1510. The Spanish fleet was meant to supply and support these bases, but had failed to prevent Tripoli being destroyed in the 1520s. See Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra, ‗La Vida en los Presidios del Norte de Africa‘ in Mercedes Garcìa Arenal and Maria J. Viguera eds., Relaciones de la Península Ibérica con el Magreb (siglos XIII-XVI) (Madrid, 1988), 563-590. 32
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to their Religion and should diligently exert their strength against the perfidious enemies of the Christian religion. 35 The Knights‘ reluctance to accept the offer was based on two major considerations. A report from eight commissioners sent to examine the territories had declared the islands to be very bare and sparsely populated, while Tripoli was completely in ruins. Any attempt to rebuild the latter would mean importing stone and wood to construct new fortifications and accommodation for a garrison. The local population, cut off from its hinterland, needed supplies of every sort, even the bakeries having been destroyed.36 The second consideration was the Order‘s wish to reconquer Rhodes, a project it did not relinquish for a number of years, possibly as late as the 1565 siege of Malta. This apparently unrealistic scheme has to be set against their great material losses in the Eastern Mediterranean. Their position on Rhodes as a trading entrepôt and pilgrimage centre no longer existed. Eight years of wandering, from Crete to Viterbo, then to Nice and Messina had meant the construction of new facilities in every city; a new hospital, for example, was always the first priority. It was in these years too, that the spread of Protestantism meant the loss of property and resources in England and Germany. 37 As well as their own community, a group of Greeks, unwilling to live under Ottoman rule had followed them into exile from Rhodes.38 The Maltese islands were part of the Spanish empire and an outpost of the Viceregency of Sicily. A small group of Spanish nobles from Sicily had been granted lands in Malta, and in the century before the Knights‘ arrival had gained much independence from the Viceroy‘s control.39 Below this small elite group was a group of officials, probably Spanish or Sicilian in origin but by 1530 considering themselves Maltese, who controlled the Universitá, a body which elected the administrative officials such as the Governor (Hakem) and the head of the Militia. The Deed of Donation, AOM 70. Giacomo Bosio, Dell‟Istoria della Sacra Religione di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme (Rome, 1628), III: 30- 31, records the comments. The document does not survive. 37 Henry VIII of England took over the estates of the Order at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, while in the German states the imperial policy of cuius regio eius religio led to losses in the new Protestant states. 38 Bosio says 3,000, almost certainly too high a number. A later assessment suggested 500, see Fra Giovanni Francesco Abela, Della Descrizione di Malta (Malta, 1647), 76. Some Greeks had remained in Crete and others preferred Messina to the barren Malta. This may have facilitated the Order‘s trading contacts. 39 Henri Bresc, ‗The Secrezia and the Royal Patrimony in Malta, 1240-1450‘, in Anthony Luttrell ed., Medieval Malta: Studies in Malta before the Knights (London, 1975), 126-162, particularly 126-127: the account of Luca Barberini‘s survey of 1506 for the Viceroy. 35
36
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administrative centre and the palazzi of the nobles were in Mdina, the small city in the centre of the island. The other centre of population was Birgu, a settlement on the major harbour, guarded by a fortress housing the Viceroy‘s garrison. A small merchant community, trading mainly with Sicily for food, was grouped behind the castle. The population of the islands was estimated at 20,000 on the eve of the Knights‘ arrival. 40 This number fluctuated, in spite of the new regime, because of the razzias of North African corsairs, such as the raid which depopulated Gozo in 1551.41 The islands were dependent on Sicily for a regular supply of corn and this was managed by the Universitá. There was a tradition of representative bodies in the towns of Spain and its dependencies and they provided a forum for criticism of the king.42 The Knights inherited the system and, although they kept up the ritual of ceremonial entry into Mdina and acceptance by the Universitá, they quietly marginalised the role of the Hakem and the Jurats. Finally, after the foundation of the new city of Valletta in the harbour area in 1566, they created under their aegis, a new Universitá there, which took over the role of negotiating the corn supply with Sicily. Apart from the poverty of the islands, Charles‘ gift was fraught with problems. The Order had to tread carefully with the King of France, where the bulk of its wealth remained, after accepting a fief from Spain. The gift of a falcon each year, in itself a small gesture, nevertheless symbolised homage to the Spanish ruler. In the Western Mediterranean the Order was much more visible than it had been in Rhodes. Nowhere was this more evident than in its relations with the papacy. Although the population was Catholic, the religious situation was much less favourable than it had been in Rhodes. There was already a Bishop of Malta, and the Viceroy had a say in his appointment. The Donation allowed the Knights to present three names for a new appointment, but the Viceroy made the decision. The Bishop had a place in the Order‘s Council which did not ease a difficult situation The papacy then intervened in the 1560s with the establishment on Malta of an Inquisitor and his court, authorised to try cases of heresy, necromancy and other suspected abuses, and the Knights themselves could be brought before him. Three religious authorities thus existed in the island and the Maltese played them off against one another.
40 Godfrey Wettinger, ‗The Militia List of 1419-20, a New Starting Point for the Study of Malta‘s Population‘, Melita Historica, V (1969): 184-186. 41 Stanley Fiorini, ‗The Resettlement of Gozo after 1551‘, Melita Historica, IX (1996): 203-244. 42 The heated debates which took place in the Universitá of Mdina have been recently trascribed and published, see Godfrey Wettinger ed., Acta Juratorum et Consilii et Insulae Melitae (Palermo, 1998).
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The Order‘s arrival in Malta, as in Rhodes on an earlier occasion, brought a resident ruler, the wealth of its European property and the prospect of aid from Pope and king who themselves were threatened by the Ottoman advance in the Mediterranean. The Knights themselves settled in Birgu and the immediate need was to fortify the harbour area, a task which was done and then re-done after the destruction caused by the 1565 siege.43 The Order was still only able to support a very small navy. In 1530 they had ―a squadron of three galleys, the old carrack Santa Maria, the new carrack Santa Anna, (herself replaced in 1540), a galleon and a few brigantines‖.44 By the end of the sixteenth century individual knights, like Claramont in 1598, were investing funds in a foundation set up to provide an income for the repair of ships. Others were continuing to furnish ships for corsairing on their own account. In 1549, a vessel was captured off Tripoli. The Knights boarded her and stripped her of everything, clothing, gold silver and monies (―vestum, auri, argenti et pecuniae‖), but they failed to make any payment to the Treasury, which is why they were summoned before the Council sitting as a disciplinary court. 45 In 1561, Fra Ferrante Coiro, who combined the important Priory of Messina with a rich life on the waves, fell foul of the Council by taking ―many sacks of merchandise‖ and selling them privately.46 The Order was still trying to conduct all aspects of its government in the Council, to the frustration of historians attempting to differentiate separate aspects of its policy. However an important further source of historical information becomes available in this period. Malta‘s longstanding links with the Spanish empire, although peripheral, meant that a Roman legal system with a group of notaries was already in place before the arrival of the Order. Notarial records exist from 1465, and so far Maltese historians such as Charles Dalli, Stanley Fiorini and Godfrey Wettinger have worked on the pre-Order period.47 As in most notarial collections in countries practising Roman law, the papers are gathered together by individual notary. The Registers contain either the copy of the deed, written by the Notary in the presence of the contracting parties, or the registered copy. The latter is more frequent, but they are often enriched with marginalia indicating the follow up to the case or comments Alison Hoppen, The Fortification of Malta by the Order of St. John, 1530-1798 (Edinburgh, 1979). 44 Joseph Muscat, ‗The Warships of the Order of St. John, 1530- 1798‘, Malta Historical Society Proceedings of History Week 1994, (Malta, 1996), 77-113, 83. 45 AOM 87, Liber Conciliorum, f 142v. 46 AOM 93, Liber Conciliorum, f 135v. 47 Stanley Fiorini, Documentary Sources for Maltese History, part 1 Notarial Documents. N.1 Notary Giacomo Zabbara, R494/1 (1), 1486-1488 (Malta, 2005) is part of a larger project of printing this material. 43
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on it.48 The use of these records will provide a more nuanced picture of trade and corsairing in the sixteenth century. A recent thesis by Joan Abela has shown how quickly after 1530 the Knights became involved with local merchants in trading contracts.49 The trade was mostly directed towards Sicily where traditional ties existed and the exchange of foodstuffs for Maltese cotton and cumin was well established.50 A Long Transition The period of transition from Rhodes to Malta was a long and difficult one for the Knights. The double obligation to hold the Maltese islands and Tripoli was ended in 1551 by an Ottoman attack on Tripoli and the garrison‘s withdrawal, leaving the population and the Order‘s mercenary troops to their fate. All resources could then be concentrated on the fortifications of Malta‘s harbour, although the high ground opposite Birgu, Sciberras, was left unfortified because of its lack of water. The long expected ‗great siege‘ came in 1565 and the devastation of the city and the countryside put the Order back to where it was in 1530. The one advantage was that the Order‘s reputation rose in the eyes of Europe and finances were again available for rebuilding. The most far reaching decision made by the Grand Master La Vallette was to found a new city on the high ground of Sciberras and thereby to ring the whole harbour with settlements. The city, Valletta, begun in 1566, was to become ‗an engine of growth‘ for the Maltese economy, but again it is necessary to stress what a slow process this was. Valletta‘s population reached 8,856 in 1590, 17,528 (including Knights) in 1614, 18,691 (including Knights) in 1617 and 18, 491 (without the Order) in 1632.51 Constitutionally, the Order went through a period of crisis in the late 1570s and 1580s. The Grand Master‘s position had become stronger because in periods of crisis he was granted control of the Treasury. The Council still met as regularly as it had done in Rhodes, but it was almost entirely pre-occupied with appointing knights to Commanderies and studying proofs of nobility, as the Order became obsessed with questions of pedigree. In 1581 there was a revolt against the Grand Master Jean de la The Notarial Archives in Valletta were until recently kept in very poor condition in the Law Courts. They have now been moved to an Archive in St. Christopher Street, Valletta, where they are being repaired and catalogued. 49 Joan Abela, Port Activities in Sixteenth century Malta, MA dissertation, University of Malta, (2007). 50 Godfrey Wettinger, ‗Agriculture in Malta in the Late Middle Ages‘, in Mario Buhagiar ed., Proceedings of History Week 1981, (Malta, 1982), 1-48, 21. 51 Stanley Fiorini, ‗Demographical Aspects of Birgu up to 1800‘, in Louis Bugeja, Mario Buhagiar and Stanley Fiorini eds., Birgu, a Maltese Maritime City, 2 vols (Malta, 1993), 1: 219254, 221. The figures are from the ‗corn censuses‘ for the new city. 48
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Cassière which ended in direct papal intervention in the next election and frequent exchanges between Rome and Valletta until the Chapter General in 1631 produced statutes that defined the religious practice of the Order. After the battle of Lepanto in 1571 direct encounters of the Order‘s ships with the Ottoman fleet became rarer, but Maghribi pirates still menaced the islands. Uluj Ali (known in Europe as ‗Occhiali‘) was a threat until his death in 1587. Ottoman attacks were rarer, but in 1614 eighty galleys arrived off the island‘s second port, Marsaxlokk. Troops were landed and destroyed crops and the village of Zeitun, burning its houses and church. The Militia forced them out, but the Ottoman fleet stood off the mouth of Grand Harbour for a number of days.52 The final causes of depression in Malta in the last two decades of the sixteenth century were famine and plague. At the beginning of the 1580s bad weather caused a succession of bad harvests and penury in the islands.53 The shortages spread to Sicily and southern Italy in the next decade, making it impossible to get supplies from elsewhere.54 Although nowhere was there any statement of the need for better organisation in the Order, the Grand Masters, Martin Garzes (15951601) and more especially, Alof de Wignacourt (1601-1622) marked the development of more specialised committees and better record keeping in the Order.55 The Congregation of the Galleys, comprising the Admiral, the Captain of the Galleys and four Knights, was set up in 1596 as a permanent committee to manage the navy. The Castellania Court, an institution brought from Rhodes, had competed with the Universitá already existing in Malta, but it began at the end of the century to keep its records more efficiently so civil legal decisions could be known. From 1623 a Council of State dealt with foreign affairs. Even the long established Chancery recorded more corsairing contracts, 280 in the period 1600 – 1624.56 Most important for the management of the growth of Valletta and the Three Cities on the other side of the harbour was the setting up of the Tribunale degli Armamenti, which dealt with merchant claims and disputes and particularly the business of the corso. Molly Greene shows in her AOM, Liber Conciliorum, 103, 67r-68r. Bartolomeo dal Pozzo, Historia della Sacra Religione di S. Giovanni detta di Malta, vol. I (Verona, 1703), 195 said the Maltese called 1580 ―the year of the Flood‖. 54 Peter Burke, ‗Southern Italy in 1590: Hard Times or Crisis?‘, in Peter Clark ed. The Crisis of the 1590s (London, 1988), 177-190. 55 The reforms of the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent and the papacy‘s continual demands for the religious improvement of the Order, backed up by the Inquisitor and the establishment of the Jesuit Order in the islands, may have made it aware too of the shortcomings of its organisation of the state. 56 Michel Fontenay, ‗Le Role des Chevaliers de Malte dans le Corso Mediterranéen au XVIe siècle‘, in Las Ordenes en el Mediterraneo Occidental (Madrid, 1983), 369-396, 377. 52 53
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contribution to this volume the value of this material for the study of a particular community.57 Her discussion of the statute of 1605 laying down the regulations for the conduct of the court, reveals that the information demanded and recorded was well thought out. The Order and Malta The historian Anne Brogini, considering the role of the Order of St. John in Malta, thinks it was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that it achieved a recognised position in the Western Mediterranean. The ambivalent attitude to corsairing, which had made it rather a dubious activity for a Christian state, was replaced by a recognition of the Order‘s place on the frontier between Islam and Christendom and the importance, even the necessity, of its ships carrying on this low level holy war. 58 The increase of wealth on the island, and the growing mixed population of Valletta, which was becoming an important port thanks to developing new trade routes, meant that a more elaborate organisation of the state was required. However, Malta under the Knights remained poorly governed: treasury records were not kept in sufficient detail, there was no attempt at drawing up a budget until the eighteenth century, and then only occasional efforts were made to draw one up. The frequent unsuccessful attempts at gathering information on the size of the slave population, something which was vital for the economy, both on the galleys and domestically, is a major example of this inadequacy of governance. In April 1552 the Council appointed a Commission to list the slaves of the Order and those held privately, both at sea and on land, but there is no record of whether this survey was carried out or not. 59 In absence of official records, we have to rely on alternative sources, such as the eyewitness observer of the Great Siege who spoke of Malta possessing 1,000 slaves at that time. 60 In 1582 a papal official in Rome, reporting on the deposition of La Cassière, said that there were 600 slaves on the galleys and 200 owned privately, although it is not clear if the latter group belonged to the Order alone, or if this number included the ones belonging to the Maltese nobility as well.61 The traveller George Sandys, writing in 1610, reported the total Victor Mallia Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530- 1798: Aspects of a Relationship (Malta, 1992) has used the Tribunal‘s records to trace the fraught relations between the two states. 58 Anne Brogini, Malte, Frontière de la Chrétienté (1530- 1670) (Rome, 2006), particularly chapter VI, 253 –331. 59 AOM 88, Liber Conciliorum, f 116r (formerly 110r). 60 Francesco Balbi de Correggio, La verdadera relacion de todo lo que el anno de M.D.LXV ha succedido en la isla de Malta (Barcelona, 1568), 28. 61 National Library of Malta, MS. 1306, Relazioni di Malta, f 8r. 57
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number of slaves as 1,500.62 In 1632 we find recorded the number of 1,284 galley slaves and of 649 privately owned, a figure whose untidiness possibly hints at greater accuracy.63 The Knights never produced a bureaucracy large enough to run a modern state. Nobility and religion prevented the Order either from employing the Maltese population efficiently in the administration, or from acquiring the requisite skills to undertake the task themselves. The revenues of their European estates, and the levies from European rulers, mitigated for a long time the effect of poor accounting. In spite of their small number, the Knights reputation as a ‗Christian bulwark‘ in the Western Mediterranean gave the Order an important leadership position amongst other small states in the Mediterranean area at large – Savoy, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the papal states – all active in this low level war against the Ottoman, a position that Malta maintained well into the seventeenth century. The poverty of the islands meant that, although the Knights had lost the entrepôt advantages of Rhodes, they were forced to link immediately into the network of food provision already established with Sicily, and expand it over time to cope with Malta‘s fluctuating population of immigrant builders, mercenaries and traders. 64 The construction of fortifications and civic and private buildings continued apace throughout the seventeenth century. Malta fortunately possessed rich quarries of globigerina limestone, but wood and other necessities had to be imported. For all its major contracts to build carracks and great galleys, the Order continued to make use of European shipyards, such as those of Barcelona, Marseilles and Messina.65 The creation of an Arsenal in Birgu further enhanced the facilities for ships repair and construction which already existed in Malta before the arrival of the Knights. There individual knights could commission their own vessels for privateering, and local merchants could do the same to acquire smaller boats for coastal treading.66 Foreign merchants as well as local ship-owners could also use the safe harbour for repairs. The economic take off of Valletta and the complex of cities round the Grand Harbour (the term Great Harbour is more usual in this period), made the new city in the early seventeenth century an attractive George Sandys, Relation of a Journey begun in Anno Domini 1610 (London, 1637), 234. National Library of Malta, MS. 162, ff 127r-127v. 64 Michel Fontenay, ‗The Mediterranean 1500-1800: Social and Economic Perspectives‘, in Victor Mallia-Milanes ed., Hospitaller Malta 1530-1798 (Malta, 1993), 43-110, 63-71. 65 Brogini, Malte Frontière de la Chrétienté, 84-85. 66 The large consignment of wood which arrived on 11th May 1639 from Calabria, AOM 416, 248r-v, illustrated the importance of these ventures. 62 63
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place for merchants throughout the Mediterranean, both Eastern and Western. The Prammatiche (port regulations) of 1640 showed the development of a more elaborate system, compared with the previous organisation in Rhodes, with the procedure in the civil courts laid out more clearly than before.67 The ‗City of Nobles‘ also became part of the Grand Tour, attracting travellers from all over Europe, young aristocrats anxious to enjoy the hospitality of this unique state. The regular boats which brought ice from Mt. Etna to the Grand Master‘s increasingly elaborate court, carried passengers too, and by the end of the seventeenth century this same court‘s needs required the import of luxury goods. Finally, the Knights did not forget their earliest role as Hospitallers and, in the 1580s, the building of the new Hospital – the Sacra Infirmaria – paid for by Grand Master La Cassière, marked a change and expansion in the medical provision of the island. Influenced by practice in the hospitals of Renaissance Italy, the Infirmaria gave an excellent training to its doctors, frequently sending them to Florence and Montpellier to study. The hospital was open to all patients, not just to members of the Order, and some patients were coming from the whole eastern Mediterranean or from as far as Scandinavia. The import of materia medica from Venice, Messina and North Africa also contributed to the increasing demands of the island‘s economy.
67
NLM, Ms. 148 (old list CXLVIII).
8 MARITIME CARAVANS AND THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN Aspects of Mediterranean Seaborne Traffic (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries) Simon Mercieca In this essay, I shall be discussing the application of the word ‗caravane‘ to different maritime activities in the Mediterranean during the early modern period. Daniel Panzac‘s recent study of the French caravane maritime has demonstrated its relevance for Mediterranean maritime history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.1 This is a period when the Mediterranean is considered to have lost its centrality, at least in terms of world history: there are no more epic upheavals on the scale of the Siege of Malta in 1565 or the struggles of Cyprus or Lepanto, 2 and it is easy, if misleading, to think that the sea became something of a backwater until Napoleon‘s invasion of Egypt two centuries later. Panzac‘s work focuses on the commercial activity conducted around the caravane, and I would like to build on his work to first discuss the origins of the term caravane, and then to analyse its different associations in history. In the earliest documents to make use of this term in the Christian West, dating from the thirteenth century, it signifies a fleet of ships travelling together to the Levant for commercial purposes. 3 However, it was from the sixteenth century onwards that this term begins to be used with greater frequency and eventually takes on in Maltese Daniel Panzac, La caravane maritime. Marins européens et marchands ottomans en Méditerranée (1680-1830) (Paris, 2004). 2 John Julius Norwich, The Middle Sea. A History of the Mediterranean (London, 2007), 341. 3 Jan Fennis, Trésor du Langage des galères, 3 vols (Tübingen 1995), 1: 61; Fennis defines the term ‗caravane‘ as a ―réunion de navires (le plus souvent marchands) naviguant de conserve‖. Then, he asserts that the earliest references to this word are from the period 1218-43: ―treze galees de Jenevois vindrent d‘outre mer en Lymesson en dues carevanes‖. 1
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history the secondary significance of a sea raiding mission in squadron formation against the Turks. 4 Thus, it comes to denote not only the wellstudied phenomenon European shipping engaged in inter-port traffic in Ottoman waters, as analysed by Panzac, but also, as will be explored below, certain leading aspects of Maltese corsairing activity. An early nineteenth-century maritime dictionary by Jean-Baptiste Willaumez gives two different meanings for the term caravane. In a maritime context, a ‗caravan‘ (or ‗caravane‘) meant either port-to-port maritime traffic in the Levant or else a cruise (‗course‘) against the Turks.5 Even if Willaumez fails to make any specific references to his second explanation, he was implicitly referring to the maritime operations undertaken in the Levant by the Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John. As already mentioned, the first meaning of ‗caravane‘ has been extensively dealt with by Panzac in his above-mentioned book. The second, however, is a basic key factor in the history of the Order in Malta. As this essay will show, this can be attested both from seventeenth and eighteenth century dictionaries, and from documents related to Hospitaller history. Furthermore, it transpires that the first use of the term caravane in the West in connection with a maritime expedition was employed in relation to the Knights of St. John. Thus, the use by the Order of the term ‗caravane‘ is deserving of study. For the sake of clarity, the terms ‗caravana‘ or ‗caravane‘ will be used in relation to the naval history of the Order of St. John, while the term ‗caravan‘ will be employed in relation to commercial inter-port traffic to or in the Levant. The Hospitaller Caravane Etymologically, the term caravana in the West dates back to the High Middle Ages and is linked to the time of the Crusades. Its adoption in Western vocabulary follows upon the original Persian karawan, referring to a group of traders travelling together. Eventually, this term was assimilated within Semitic languages, and it is in this sense that the West borrowed the word from the Arabic vocabulary. By the time of the Crusades, the term was used to denote a group of people, mostly merchants, who for reasons of safety travelled together in East and North Africa: as mentioned above, the earliest Western usage of the term caravane is found in relation to voyages made by the Genoese to ‗Lymesson‘ (Limassol in Cyprus) during
When the caravan concept was introduced by the Knights in 1528, Ottoman shipping was still mainly concentrated in the Levant. 5 Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, Dictionnaire de Marine, (Paris, 1820), 84: ―Cabotage sur la côte des Échelles du Levant. – Ceux qui allaient jadis croiser sur les Turcs disaient qu‘ils allaient faire une caravane ou une course‖. 4
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the thirteenth century.6 Du Cange speaks about the use of the term caravala in his Codex Italiae diplomaticus, whilst in the Annali Genovesi di Caffaro, the term caravana was in use by the Genoese for the transportation of merchandise in a document of 1284. 7 However, it should be pointed out that such an expression still possessed only an isolated meaning. During the late sixteenth century, the term caravane began to be applied to a group of ships sailing together in convoy formation engaged in a bellicose mission. It is in this sense that the historian of the Order, Giacomo Bosio, refers to the sailing practices of the Knights against the Muslim enemy, in this case the Ottomans. The date of the first mission so denominated is 1528, date significant in itself, as it falls in the period after the Knights had lost Rhodes (whilst there they had never referred to their maritime expeditions as such), but now that they were forced to move their base of operations to the Western Mediterranean, even before they gained possession of Malta, they began to make use of this term in reference to their naval missions to the eastern Mediterranean. 8 At first, the person to regulate these caravane, and who selected the prospective candidates, was the mastro scudiero. Eventually such a responsibility was transferred to the Grand Master and Council, 9 with each of the Order‘s Langues continuing to have a say on the selection process. This meaning of the term – that of ‗a sea convoy‘ – is credited by The English Oxford Dictionary to have entered English usage in the middle of the nineteenth century, after Whitworth Porter made use of it in his book History of the Knights of Malta.10 ―Every Knight‖, says Porter, ―during his residence in Malta, was bound to complete four caravans, or cruises of six months each‖.11 Porter‘s statement is unqualified, but when one examines the manuscripts of Housterhausen, Cagliola and Caravita, one realises that this complex activity only came into being towards the end of the sixteenth century, but it was only in the following century that it became fully institutionalised as part of the Order‘s maritime activities. The whole See Augustin Jal, Nouveau Glossaire Nautique (Paris, 1978 (1848)), 221: ―Réunion de navires marchands naviguant de conserve dans les mers du Levant‖. 7 Henry Kahane, Renée Kahane and Andreas Tietze, The Lingua Franca in the Levant. Turkish Nautical Terms of Italian and Greek Origin (Istanbul-Ankara-Izmir, 1988 (1958)), 151. 8 Giacomo Bosio, Dell'istoria della Sacra Religione et Ill.ma Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano, 3 vols (Rome, 1602), 3: 65: ―E partite furono le Caravane, cioé descritti i Cavalieri, che per armamento di quelle, navigar dovevano; á nominatione delle congregazioni dell‘istesse Lingue. E questa fù la prima volta, che con tal ordine partite fossero‖. 9 Bosio, Dell'istoria della Sacra Religione, 3: 65. 10 The Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. ‗caravan‘. 11 Whitworth Porter, A History of the Knights of Malta, or The Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem 2 vols (London, 1858), 2: 209. 6
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system for the defence of Malta by the Order was based on mobility, with their fleet always ready to strike at the enemy both pre-emptively and, where needed and especially in corsairing, pro-actively.12 Initially the Knights of Malta pursued an aggressive policy, based on raiding, and conditioned by the fact that in 1530 the Knights of St. John had been granted not only Malta but also Tripoli in North Africa. Thus, they needed to rely heavily on the fleet as it furnished the necessary bridge between their two locations, until Tripoli was lost. 13 In 1551, a change in policy occurred after the Barbary corsair Dragut (Turgut Reis) successfully raided and laid waste Gozo, Malta‘s sister island, before heading for Tripoli and successfully laying siege to the town. The loss of Tripoli was a turning point. The Knights of St. John temporarily abandoned their aggressive policy in order to focus on strengthening their land defences on Malta. The reinforcement and massive extension of the island‘s fortifications would become central to the Hospitallers‘ defence policy for the next five decades. The Knights first focused on strengthening the fortifications of the harbour area, in particular the towns of Birgu and Senglea, creating a new town on the peninsula of Sciberras after the siege of 1565 which was to be named Valletta, and later, by developing a suburb on the Eastern flank, in the hinterland of Birgu, the town of Bormla. When the area of the harbour appeared to be impregnable, the Knights turned their eyes to the coastal fortifications. At the same time, the Grand Masters began to organise squadron expeditions against the Levant and Ottoman shipping. The French Grand Master, Jean L‘Evesque de la Cassière (1572-1581), sought to reorganise these expeditions using his own finances to support these missions. In a deposition made before an Ecclesiastical Court in Malta in 1581, the corsair Giovanni Greco declared that he had participated in the Grand Master‘s caravane of galleots raiding the Barbary Coast. 14 In such a declaration there is one of the earliest uses of caravane as employed in common parlance by European sailors in connection with seaborne expeditions against the enemy. Until the Grand Mastership of the Aragonese Martin Garzes (1595-1601) there had been no obligation for a Knight to participate in sea expeditions, and the Order‘s naval squadron had been manned on the basis of voluntary participation. Garzes re-introduced a more rigorous Simon Mercieca, ‗Malta, un avamposto di nostalgia cavalleresca‘, in Antonella Pellettieri ed., Alle Origini dell‟Europa Mediterranea, L‟Ordine Dei Cavalieri Giovanniti (Florence, 2007), 134177. 13 Mercieca, ‗Malta, un avamposto‘. 14 Archivium Archiepiscopale Melitensis (henceforth AAM) (Floriana), File Box 1579-99, 25, plaintiff Ventura widow Grech (05-08-1581). 12
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defence policy, which gave a new strength to the Order‘s military potential. Superficially, it seemed that Garzes would not change this principle of voluntary participation, but what he did was to introduce incentives for the Knights to join the navy, and at the same time make the duty unavoidable in practice for every member of the Order. Garzes‘ reforms should be discussed within the framework of his overall military policy. Garzes‘ policy was twofold: it focused on land as well as on sea defences as he wanted to reinforce areas that were still vulnerable to enemy attack. Gozo was on his agenda since, unlike Malta, it lacked proper fortification, and this policy helped this isolated island to experience a demographic increase. Secondly, whilst defending the islands, the Grand Master wanted to have a small but efficient fleet capable of striking at the enemy‘s flanks. The method adopted was primarily that of maritime ambush and raids on the coastal zones of the extensive Ottoman empire. To better achieve this objective, Garzes formally introduced the caravane principle within the lower ranks of the Order. This had a twofold effect: firstly it guaranteed that the Hospitaller navy had an appropriate crew made up of Hospitaller recruits, secondly, as has already been shown in a number of articles, the system ensured that the young Knights were kept occupied.15 This rule was thought to discourage the moral risks associated with an idle life. It was the general belief that, as specifically indicated by Caravita in his writings, ―the young brothers living in Convents are to be ready to carry out all duties that will be asked of them by their Order‖.16 Interestingly enough, to keep young Knights occupied, the Order adopted maritime tactics that were being developed by their enemies, the Turks. The Ottomans had a well structured recruitment policy, even if it was not free of problems, as bribes began to be paid by Ottoman subjects to avoid conscription. 17 There were also problems of discipline on board.18 On their part, through this system, the Knights were introducing a form of regular conscription amongst the brethren to serve Ann Williams, ‗Boys will be boys, the problem of the novitiate in the order of St. John in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries‘, in Toni Cortis, Thomas Freller and Lino Bugeja eds., Melitensium Amor. Festschrift in honour of Dun Ġwann Azzopardi (Malta, 2002), 179184, 181-183. 16 National Library of Malta (henceforth NLM) Library Collection (henceforth Libr.), 185 (ii) Compendio di un Lungo Trattato sopra le Constituzioni della Religione di San Giovanni Gerosolimitano del Ven. Prior Caravita, f.313r: ―Che i fratelli risiedono nella loro gioventu in convento e sian pronti all‘esercuzion di quanto viene loro imposto dalla Religione‖. 17 George Fournier, Hydrographie contenant la Theorie et la Pratique de toutes les parties de la Navigation, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1667), 77. 18 Ernle Bradford, The Sultan's Admiral: Barbarossa - Pirate and Empire Builder (New York, 1968), 151. 15
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their fleet. Thus, they would be hitting back at the enemy with his own weapons. The Grand Master‘s first move was to seek the support of his Council to restructure the operations of the Knights‘ cruises. Becoming a seaman was now practically part and parcel of a Knight‘s curriculum. It was no longer a non-obligatory duty. From Garzes‘ time onwards, none of the Knights could make headway or advance in the Hospitaller‘s structures unless they had not first gone to sea, and no Knight was entitled to receive any money or benefices from the Order unless he produced written evidence that he had undertaken his caravane. Hospitaller jurists, such as Fabrizio Cagliola, already understood the relationship between the new maritime structures and the governance of fortifications. For Garzes, these two different military structures were interdependent. Cagliola makes a comparison between the governance of the Gozo citadel, with its fortifications, as already noted, revamped by Garzes, and the wielding of authority on a galley. The governor of any castle demanded unswerving loyalty from his men. At the same time, it was the responsibility of the Governor of the Gozo castle to provide victuals to his men and subjects. This principle was similar to the one operated at sea, where the captains bore the responsibility for the crew‘s nourishment and in return, the latter had to express unconditional obedience to their superiors.19 The Caravane at Sea At this point, it may be appropriate to focus more on the operational structures of the Hospitaller caravans. The official duration of a Hospitaller caravana was six months. The year was divided into two. The first period began on 1st January up to the end of June. The second was from the 1st July until the end of December. This meant that the caravane period was separate from the sailing season of the Order. The latter began in April and extended up till the end of September. The wintry weather was not considered safe for the galleys. The structure of these boats made them unsuitable for braving rough seas. Thus, during a year, Knights would have covered two caravanes, which could consist of one extensive voyage that would start in April and extend to September but in statutory terms, had the value of two voyages as the period of the trip overlapped the two periods assigned by the statutes for the caravan trips. Thus, it became normal practice for Knights and other members of the Order to
NLM, Libr. 541, Ristretto e Compendio delli Statuti, Costumi et Ordinationi della Sacra Religione Gierosolimitana, composto dal fu‟ Venerando Prior di Datia Fra Cristiano Haserhausen, f.120.
19
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perform their four caravans over a two year period.20 In the interim, once he was on call, the Knight was bound to stay in the Convent so that in case of an emergency he could be called upon to join a sailing sortie in the wintry months. These were normally short trips to Sicily. It should be noted that, in theory, the Knights could not leave the Convent without prior authorisation from the Grand Master. This regulation bound all Knights, irrespective of whether or not they had applied to join a caravana. When they applied to do their tour of duty the difference would be that they were on call for a period of six months. In the seventeenth century, these caravanes were undertaken on any of the five galleys that constituted the core of the Hospitallers‘ navy. These vessels were formidable war machines for the period, fitted out with multiple and multidirectional guns. By the seventeenth century, sailors in Malta had no difficulty identifying in the word carovana a raiding mission against Muslim ships undertaken by Hospitallers‘ galleys. Nicola De Crasson, who hailed from Sifno in Greece and worked as a mariner with the special task of performing caulking work, was one of those who in the records declared that he had been sailing on the vascelli of the carovana. During this period, sailors in Malta used the word vascello as a general term simply to denote a big boat. In this case, De Crasson would have meant a galley.21 It should be noted that until the 1680s, any ship which was not a galleon risked being termed a vascello. After the 1700s, a vascello began to mean a specific type of warship which in the case of Malta was the 56 gun third-rate ship-of-the-line. This new class of ships entered the Hospitaller navy at the turn of the eighteenth century, a good few decades after such ships had been introduced by other European nations and after a similar reform had been undertaken by one of Malta‘s perennial enemies at the time, the corsair city of Algiers. 22 Once introduced, they slowly replaced the galleys in importance and became the backbone of the Hospitaller squadron. Their firepower was impressive and they did not depend on banks of rowers for speed and manoeuvrability. Thus, the maritime caravans of the knights formed part of what Panzac qualifies as the ―navigation vagabonde en Mediterranée‖,23 and were at par with corsairing and piracy. In theory, one should differentiate between the two, for while the corsairs worked and acted within a legitimate framework governed by state laws, pirates were pure bandits Ayşe Devrim Atauz, Eight Thousand Years of Maltese Maritime History, Trade, Piracy and Naval Warfare in the Central Mediterranean (Gainesville, 2008), 160. 21 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1637, 28, plaintiff Nicola De Crasson (04-12-1637). 22 Moulay Belhamissi, Marine et Marins d‟Alger (1518-1830), 3 vols (Algiers, 2003), 1: 171. 23 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 81. 20
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working solely for themselves and on nobody else‘s behalf. 24 However, more often than not, both were one and the same and were part and parcel of the seagoing economy, as at the end of the day both the corsairs and the pirates attacked anything that fell under their sway.25 A number of sailors who were directly involved in these activities hardly made any distinction between ships belonging to enemy or friendly country. They simply obeyed the orders of their superior and took their share in the booty. When, at the turn of the seventeenth century, they were interrogated by the local courts about their activities, their answer was that they were ‗pirates‘. One such answer was given by Decius Mainora, a Neapolitan, who declared himself to be a nauta or ―sailor on bergantini armati ad piratical [sic]‖.26 Scipio d‘Arena gave a similar answer when asked to appear as a witness in favour of a friend of his who was seeking permission to marry in Malta. Arena asserted that he was a miles or soldier on ―navigis ad piraticam [sic]‖.27 Despite the fact that Latin was normally associated with a precise use of terminology, this was no longer the case in the seventeenth century, in particular, when scribes had now to accommodate new expressions which were missing from the classical diction. Thus, in Malta they ended up using a form of debased Latin mixed with words from modern Italian and the lingua franca of the Mediterranean. For this reason, the Latin language used by the scribes at the time did not help much in registering subtle differences in these types of activities. In sum, therefore, the Knights‘ caravans were galleys (and later ships-of-the-line) sailing in a squadron formation in search of Muslim shipping. Significantly, beside the Knights, the crew included young novices studying hands-on sailing and naval tactics. In other words, these trips became de facto nautical schools for all aspiring Knights, an essential training course if they were make headway in the Order. Furthermore, if during such missions it was decided by the Grand Master and Council that the squadron should also make raids on land, such amphibious operations were considered as part of the caravan duties.28 Therefore, the Knights‘ caravan also had its terra ferma factor.
Panzac, La caravane maritime, 72. Arthur Herman, To Rule The Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the World, (New York, 2005), 50. 26 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1579-99, 45, plaintiff Rosa widow Michardo (07-08-1599). 27 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1612, 14, plaintiff Pasqualina widow Del Piano (31-10-1612). 28 NLM, Libr. 726, Ceremoniale delle Galere ossia delle Squadre, f. 10 et seq. 24 25
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The Commercial Category Daniel Panzac brings to the fore the concept and the mechanics behind the caravane maritime practice. His work focuses on southern France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when a commercial voyage was understood to mean a maritime trip undertaken by a squadron of ships or even by just one ship. What made the voyage qualify as a caravan was the fact that the ship sailed to the Eastern Mediterranean or, as it was better known at the time, to the Levant on a commercial errand. According to Panzac, the caravane maritime reached its peak in the eighteenth century after which it went into decline until it disappeared at the turn of the nineteenth century, failing to withstand the effects of the new political and industrial realities that developed across the Mediterranean during this century.29 Panzac observes that the use of Christian ships by Muslims for their commercial activities is an old practice in history, and examples of this type of activity can be traced back to the twelfth century. 30 However, the real moment of change came around the sixteenth century and the Knights of St. John were, in one way or another, implicated in this new development in the Eastern Mediterranean.31 Panzac states that from the beginning of that century, when the Order of St. John was still at Rhodes, it used to give safe conduct to Ottoman merchants to travel to the West and allowed them to make use of their Hospitaller ships. But these were still at the time occasional cases and by no means a general practice. 32 The Knights failed to (or were not interested to) develop this practice. They were more concerned with the expanding power of the Ottoman world and with developing a war machine with which they could counter any Ottoman aggression. This hindered the Knights from developing the caravane on these commercial lines. Now it was for others to take up this idea of a caravan as a maritime expedition and intensify its commercial aspect. France realised that maritime security could only be achieved by establishing friendship with the Ottoman empire and cultivating it once it had been gained. This was not par hasard but also came about due to predetermined historical circumstances. In any case, French merchants and sailors began to penetrate in even greater numbers into the Eastern Mediterranean, taking advantage of the fact that Islamic jurists barred Muslims from undertaking trading Panzac, La caravane maritime, 8. Panzac, La caravane maritime, 9. 31 Molly Greene, ‗Resurgent Islam: 1500-1700‘, in David Abulafia ed., The Mediterranean in History, (London, 2003), 219-249, 237; Godfrey Wettinger, Slavery in the Islands of Malta and Gozo ca. 1000-1812 (Malta, 2002), 206-7, 212-5, 291-2. 32 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 10. 29 30
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activity in any infidel territory. Michel Balard reads in this fact the explanation of why few Muslim merchants can be found in Christian Europe.33 As a result, Europeans began to undertake coasting trade on behalf of Ottoman affreteurs.34 Strictly speaking, explains Panzac, the caravanistes and the affréteurs were two different realities that joined forces for the sake of profit.35 The caravan maritime was officially recognised by the Sultan in 1686 and, from that date onwards, this activity began to be regulated by contracts signed by all the contracting parties. 36 Therefore, for historical precision, the seventeenth century did not witness the beginning of the caravane maritime, but the official recognition of its existence.37 Originally, one of the reasons why the Ottoman empire began to make use of French shipping for its commercial transportation had been the pressure that Maltese corsairs were exercising against Muslim and Ottoman shipping.38 Paradoxically, from the late sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century, a number of French sailors from the Midi, in particular from the cities of Marseilles and La Ciotat, are found settling in Malta. A number of French sailors who married in Malta also left, in writing, a short biography of their maritime experiences up to the point of their settling on the island. This is due to the fact that the Catholic Church obliged non-resident grooms or brides to make declarations and to produce witnesses to prove their civil non-married status. Many of these court proceedings – known under the heading of Status Liberi – have survived, and for the purpose of this study I examined those undertaken between 1570 (from when this series of records survives) until 1640, when the French caravan system came into full practice. From these documents it appears that sailors, then as now, were in the habit of changing vessels. Their terms of employment were very flexible because they also worked on a form of definite contract. Normally, they were contracted by a captain to undertake one or a set number of voyages. Once this term of engagement ended the sailors were free to change vessel. Thus, sailors are found working one time on the Hospitaller Knights‘ corsairing vessels, at other times on private corsairing ships and also on boats contracted to effect commercial shipments. The Michel Balard, ‗A Christian Mediterranean: 1000-1500‘, in Abulafia The Mediterranean in History, 183-217, 186. 34 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 5. 35 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 8. 36 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 122. 37 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 14. 38 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 24. 33
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end result was that the seafarers were a crowd of thoroughly diverse nationalities, with the sailors not bothering much under whose flag they sailed.39 Sailors changed flags frequently, the Status Liberi documentation attests to this reality. Among their contemporaries, these European mariners became known as caravaneurs – or caravanistes – but the last term did not find similar linguistic application in contemporary English. Without doubt, this French word carried a different meaning from that given by the Knights. One can perhaps argue that the Knights‘ use of the word caravan was an antithesis of the French caravane maritime. For the Knights, a caravane meant a military mission against the Turks and Muslims. For the French merchants, this word meant commercial cooperation with the Knights‘ enemies. Ironically, they ended up using the same word and one is tempted to give an etymological explanation and conclude that the use of the term caravane entered the French vocabulary through the contact that French seamen had with the Hospitaller Knights. The Language of the Caravanistes: An Excursus Within this background, one may attempt to make an educated guess and say that such a movement and contact from one ship to another brought sailors to define all types of voyages to the Levant under the term caravane. The existence of a lingua franca helped also in the diffusion of this term, as suggested further below. The French caravan maritime undertook the same usage to describe their military missions to the East. On their part, the Knights may have borrowed their term from Muslim corsairs. It is interesting to note that a number of past studies relate the origins of the word caravan to the Ottoman language. Referring to Guillet‘s work, Fennis considers that the word caravan is a Turkish word, meaning ―a group of travellers, engaged in either a land or a sea voyage‖.40 If one looks up the meaning given to the word caravan in eighteenthcentury dictionaries, one finds that this word was being associated either with the Order of St. John or the ‗Turkish empire‘. These authors did not enter into an etymological study of this word. At the same time, judging from these dictionaries, the use of this term in relation to the Ottoman empire was relative to the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The dictionary of Alexandre Savérien refers to the term caravan as first of all meaning ―a sea company that the Knights of Malta are Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2002), 161. Fennis, Trésor du Langage, 487: ―Caravane est un mot turc, qui signifie une troupe de voyageurs, soit par mer, soit par terre‖. 39 40
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obliged to undertake against the Turks before reaching the age of fifty to obtain the commanderies from their Order‖. Then, the author continues to affirm that ―this word is Turkish and means a company of pilgrims or merchants, either on a sea or land voyage‖. 41 Saverien explains, perhaps somewhat ingenuously, that the origin of this word amongst the Knights derives from the fact that they used to attack these Muslim convoys to Mecca, and for this reason he gives extensive details about the Ottoman pilgrimage caravans which need not be entered into here.42 The same information given by Saverien about the caravan origins, and their relationship with the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca is found in other maritime dictionaries among which the Dictionaire de Marine, which was published in Amsterdam in 174043 and in another maritime dictionary, which has remained in manuscript form and is preserved at the Malta National Library.44 The word caravane as a maritime expression was recently discussed by Andreas Tietze and Henry and Renée Kahane in their book about the use of lingua franca in the Levant. These authors associated it with the word karavéla, which was the name given to a type of ship, used by the Portuguese. The Turks also used this type of ship. According to these authors, this type of caravel ship was also known in the seventeenth century under the heading of Karavana, and this latter term was popular amongst the Turks.45 Then, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the term karavana in Turkish was used to mean a kitchen utensil.46 Alexandre Savérien, Dizionario Istorico, Teorico e pratico di Marina (Venice, 1769) f. 139r: ―Questa parola é Turchesca, e significa una truppa di pellegrini, o di mercanti, sia per mare, sia per terra‖. 42 Savérien, Dizionario Istorico, f. 139v: ―D‘Ordinario i Cavalieri di Malta attaccano questa truppa; a tale si é l‘origine del nome che si da‘ alle loro campagne. Ecco come marcia la Caravana Turchesca‖. 43 Nicolas Aubin, Dictionaire De Marine Contenant Les Termes De La Navigation et de l‟Architecture Navale. Avec les Règles et Proportions qui Doivent y être observées (Amsterdam, 1740), 172. 44 NLM, Libr. 223, Nuovo Dizionario della Marina Italiano e Francese nel quale vengono spiegati i termini della navigazione e dell‟archettura Navale arricchito di vari trattati spettant‟ all‟Astronomia, Pilotaggio, Costruzione Corredi e Manovre de Vasselli con molt‟altre cose, che possono istruire un giovane Cavaliere nella Navigaz(io)ne e particolarm(en)te in quella de Vasselli del Sacro e Militar Ordine di San Giovanni opera d‟un Cavaliere attualm: Uff:Le sui Vasselli della med: Sacra Religione che ha raccolto questa da vari buoni Autori (Parte Prima), f. 87r-v: ―Caravana Caravane - Nella nostra Marina significa il tempo di sei mesi che ogni Cavaliere deve impiegare o sia in terra o sia in mare secondo ove sara destinato) in servizio della religione contro del Turco ogni Cavaliere e‘ in obbligo di farne quattro non potendo senza di queste (oltre la professione ed i cinque anni di residenza in convento) pervenire alla Comanda che gli tocca d‘anzianitá‖. 45 Kahane, Kahane and Tietze, The Lingua Franca, 149-151: ―It seems difficult, perhaps, to connect etymologically karavela ‗ship‘ and karavana ‗ship‘ for reasons of form, and karavana ‗ship‘ and karavana ‗platter‘ for reasons of meaning. Nevertheless, we suggest interpreting the three words as cognates which constitute part of the eastern development of the ship name 41
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Unfortunately, Alberto Guglielmotti avoids entering into a diachronical analysis of this word in his Vocabolario Marino e Militare. He prefers to associate the origins of this word with the Levant and explains that it meant a company of merchants, travellers, pilgrims who for security reasons decide to travel together, either at sea or on land for security purposes. Guglielmotti gives various meanings for the use of this term, including the one that it assumed in the Order of St. John. But Guglielmotti continues that the term Carovanista was only used in Italian in relation to the Order of St. John for a novice knight who undertook the Hospitaller cruise.47 Thus, despite the use of this term in Genoese notarial documents, scholars seem to favour an Ottoman origin. The physical presence of the Knights of St. John at Rhodes can explain the origins of this word amongst the Hospitaller terminology. Thus, these explanations strengthen the idea that this word entered the French language through the past contact that existed between the Knights of St. John and French sailors. This is to be linked to the lingua franca that was spoken in the Mediterranean throughout early modern times and even before. With reference to the commercial maritime caravan, Panzac observes that eighteenth-century caravanistes had at their disposal a form of lingua franca based on Italian. In reality, in both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, caravanistes continued to build on previous experiences employing this sort of pidgin language to their advantage, thus facilitating caravella. The history of this term has been analysed by Benedictus Vidos (in Storia delle parole marinesche italiane passate in francese. Contributo storico-linguistico all‟espansione della lingua nautica italiana… (Florence, 1939)), ‗Caravo‘ ship produces the derivative caravela, attested in the thirteenth century, which spreads to northern navigation. In the central and eastern Mediterranean, word and thing become fashionable through the Spaniards and Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th c. Eastern records‖. However the authors of this dictionary then say that ―For some unknown reason this Turkish form of karavela changes to karavana. Alessio Bombaci (‗Il viaggio in Abissinia di Evliya Čelebi (1673)‘, Annali dell‟Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, ns II (1943): 259-275) considers karavana as being, possibly, an erroneous reading for karavela; but the numerious records (a few of which have been compared with the manuscripts) exclude this hypothesis. It is striking that all the Turkish records of the 16th century show the variant karavela, and all those of the 17th c., the variant karavana. Therefore, karavana seems to have been the usual Turkish form of the word used in the 17th c. The existence of Portuguese karavanas, as shown in the Turkish record of 1673 quoted above, supports our assumption. As far as the phonetic change is concerned, it may or may not be of significance that in the same period in which variant with the same ending: caravenne; this type may, then, perhaps have spread more widely than our records show‖. 46 Kahane, Kahane and Tietze, The Lingua Franca, 150, 151. According to these authors, the term caravana for utensils seems to have a different etymological origin and comes from Romanian. 47 Alberto Guglielmotti, Vocabolario Marino e Militare (Milan, 1967 (1898)), 368.
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communication among Ottoman subjects who spoke a different sort of dialectal Arabic, Greek and Ottoman language amongst others. This lingua franca was a mixture of Italian, Latin and other Mediterranean Romance languages and was spoken by most seamen. Guido Cifoletti notices its use in the early sixteenth century and affirms that when twice, in different circumstances, La Valette, the later hero of the Siege of Malta, but then still a knight, met Dragut after La Valette‘s capture by the latter, they communicated with each other in this language. 48 The existence of such a language helped eighteenth-century caravanistes in their trade endeavours, and there can be no doubt that the use of the term caravane in French for this form of maritime expedition came through the operation of this word in the vocabulary of the lingua franca.49 Thus, the term caravan, which seems to have originated in Persia in relation to land cruises, was borrowed by the Knights to designate first an expedition of a fleet of ships to the Levant. Eventually, the meaning of this term changed and it began to refer to the service of about two years that members of the Order, the knights, chaplains and servants-at-arms, rendered on one of the Hospitallers‘ vessels to develop their professional careers in the navy.50 It was against this background that the term became part of the vocabulary of the lingua franca and is found used by sailors coming from different nations. Then, in the first decades of the seventeenth century, French sailors adopted this word to refer to a particular kind of mercantile voyage to the East involving the transportation of Ottoman merchandise in their Christian owned French vessels. Malta and the Commercial Caravane Malta was strictly speaking at permanent war with the Muslim Orient and Ottoman empire, and no Maltese merchant was supposed to trade in any part of the Ottoman domains, as this would have been an infringement of both state and religious regulations. Both the Hospitallers themselves and the local Inquisition supervised and checked that these regulations were observed. In theory, there was not supposed to be any trade done with the so-called Orient.51 In practice, the situation was completely different, even if trading with the Levant was undertaken with great discretion. As with 48 Guido Cifoletti, La Lingua Franca Barbaresca (Rome, 2004), 195-196; see also Kahane, Kahane and Tietze, The Lingua Franca. 49 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 8. 50 NLM, Libr, 185, vol. ii, ff. 310v-315v. 51 Frans Ciappara, ‗La Chrétienté et l‘Islam au XVIII e Siécle: Une Frontiére Encore Floue‘, in François Moureau ed., Captifs en Méditerranée (XVIe-XVIIIe siécles). Histoires, récits et légendes, (Paris, 2008), 23-35.
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the French caravane maritime, local Maltese traders went to local notaries to sign deeds to protect their business and trading affairs. However, the exact form of their venture was not spelled out in the deal. The principles of trade were clearly written down, but the extent of the sailing, and the countries to be visited, and with whom trade was going to be effected, were recorded as going the ―quattro parti del mondo‖, 52 or ―a quattro venti‖, literally, to the four corners of the world or at the mercy of the four winds.53 Thus, when one analyses these documents, one discovers that the entrepôt of preference for Maltese merchants engaged in commerce with the Ottoman lands was the port of Smyrna, where, unlike the situation in Istanbul or Aleppo, foreign merchants were able to join forces with the locals to subvert imperial directives.54 The privileged situation of Smyrna explains why even merchants from Malta, traditionally considered as a staunch enemy of the Turks, developed commercial relations with this city. The commercial interests of the Maltese, in particular with regards to the importation of wheat from Smyrna is attested in Maltese archival documentation such as the arrival booklets known as Libretti,55 and in occasional references in the notarial archives.56 The names of Maltese businessmen begin to feature in eighteenth-century documentation together with those of Genoese, English and Ragusan merchants as joining French merchants and entering into agreements to carry out a maritime caravan. 57 It is no surprise, therefore, that Malta begins to feature more and more in the eighteenthcentury French caravane itinerary. Panzac details a number of family names, such as that of Isouard, in relation to this French trade in the Levant, who are found to have settled in Malta. Whenever an agreement was being signed outside Malta, the Maltese merchants were found entering these partnership agreements or the contracts in an official manner.58 While such a contract had legal justification in Malta, the merchant concerned was not liable to prosecution by either State and Church, in particular the Roman Inquisition, as the commercial agreement John Debono, Trade and Port Activity in Malta, 1750-1800 (Malta, 2000), 108. Simon Mercieca ‗Commerce in Eighteenth-Century Malta. The Story of the Prepaud Family‘, in Carmel Vassallo ed., Consolati di Mare and Chambers of Commerce, (Malta, 2000), 185197, 188-189. 54 Goffman, The Ottoman Empire, 205. 55 National Archives of Malta (henceforth NAM), Libretti. The libretti are catalogued according to year. 56 Debono, Trade and Port Activity, 84, 200. 57 Joseph Muscat, Rules and Regulations for Maltese Corsairs, in Cortis, Freller and Bugeja (eds), Melitensium Amor, 185-198. 58 Muscat, Rules and Regulations, 127. 52 53
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with the ‗Infidel‘ had been drawn up outside the island‘s jurisdiction. As already explained, those commercial agreements undertaken in Malta for trading purposes with the Levant were disguised by coded euphemisms. In this context, it should not appear strange that in Malta, such expressions were most common in notarial documents contracted by Maltese seamen or merchants with French captains.59 Different Typologies of Seafaring Experiences: The Evidence of the Status Liberi Records More importantly, this new experience gave the opportunity for a number of Maltese seamen to take advantage of this new trade and work on numerous vessels, of different types, crossing the central Mediterranean to the East and vice-versa, transporting merchandise and passengers.60 Much evidence of these different typologies of seafaring experiences can be gained from the Maltese Status Liberi records. Three different categories of mariners emerge. Some declared themselves to have been to the Levant on corsairing activity, others declared they had been sailing to the Levant only on merchant ships. The third group stated they had been sailing to the Levant both on commercial as well as on corsairing ships. The last constituted by far the largest group and there is no doubt that all the sailors who had been on merchant ships in the early seventeenth century had at some point or other also travelled on corsairing ships.61 Many of them, of course, ended up in captivity. During this period, the Status Liberi accounts for a number of Maltese and foreigners, including French, who ended up as slaves in Constantinople. 62 Some were never to return back home for they died at the slave bagno. Others were ransomed and some even succeeded in escaping from prison.63 Mariano Mussolino from Senglea managed to escape together with a group of around ten prisoners. 64 Others were released after the ship on which they had been put to the oars was attacked by Christian vessels; Debono, Trade and Port Activity, 108. Debono, Trade and Port Activity, 105. 61 Simon Mercieca, ‗The Spatial Mobility of Seafarers in the Mediterranean: A case study based on Status Liberi Documentation (1581-1640)‘, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 12 (2002): 385-410. 62 The following are some of the acts containing information about the death of Maltese during slavery in Constantinople: AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1608, 1, plaintiff was Caterina Bajada (01-09-1608), widow of Thomas Bajada; AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1613, 10, plaintiff was Vittoria Bonnici (16-11-1613), widow of Antonio Bonnici; AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1613, 14, plaintiff was Isabella Buttar (21-11-1613), widow of Andrea Buttar. 63 Frans Ciappara, ‗Christendom and Islam: A Fluid Frontier‘, The Journal of the Mediterranean Studies Association, 13 (2004): 165-187, 178. 64 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1577-99, 50, plaintiff Giovanna Mussolino (14-07-1599). 59 60
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following victory, all Christian slaves were freed. For example, Giacomo Oliver, who was from the region of Marseilles, got employed as a sailor on the galleys of the Cardinal Grand Master Hugues de Verdala (1582-95). He was unlucky as he fell into slavery during one of the galleys voyages to the Levant but regained his freedom, after the Ottoman saetta on which he was held captive, was captured by the squadron of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.65 The Status Liberi also gives an idea of the work that the slaves in the bagno were subjected to, including quarrying stone. 66 The Status Liberi records also show that during this period it was not easy and perhaps may have been even dangerous for foreign sailors to declare that they had been engaged in commercial activities with the Levant for the reasons explained above. Even French sailors showed a certain amount of fear in this regard, and at the turn of the seventeenth century a number of these sought to hide their voyages to the Levant by attesting that they travelled ―in diversi parti del mondo‖; Giovanni Bedorino and Perorus Tolan, both from Marseilles, made such a declaration.67 Another expression used at the time, to hide participating in commercial voyages to the Levant, was that used by Baptista Schiolol also from Marseilles ―modo errendis in presenti generali porti‖. 68 As can be construed from the explanation given by the Frenchman, Marc‘Antonio Cabellotto in his deposition, he explained that sailing in different parts of the world meant travelling to Venice, Naples and the Levant. 69 In the seventeenth century this expression was resorted to also by other foreigners such as Spanish,70 Flemish,71 and sailors from Livorno72 and the Greek world.73 At this time, it was still possible to legally hide the real reason for going to the Levant, due to the presence of Crete, a Venetian colony. Crete was considered Christian territory and commerce with this island was permitted. Some sailors sought to be a little AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1577-99, 53, plaintiff Giacomo Oliver (07-08-1599). AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1612, 21, plaintiff Veronica Fromento (18-09-1612). She was another widow seeking remarriage after her husband, a sailor, had died at sea. The term used was ‗conigevano pietre‟. 67 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1603, [no case number] plaintiff Giorgio Di Dimetrio (27-021603). 68 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1600 -1601, 5, plaintiff Giovanni Bedorino (05-01-1600). 69 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1623, 19, plaintiff Marc‘Antonio Cabellotto (12-12-1623). 70 A.A.M. Status Liberi, File Box 1630, 59, plaintiff Giovanni Stamati (05-10-1630); see also File Box 1640, 54, plaintiff Stamatio Gervo (03-08-1640); and File Box 1641, 9, plaintiff Panaiotti Circiacuri (25-06-1641). 71 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1628 41, plaintiff Giovanni Di Alberto (11-01-1628); and File Box 1636, 64, plaintiff Andrea Mandrett (13-12-1636). 72 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1641, 11, plaintiff Cosma Costa (07-06-1641). 73 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1603, [no case number] plaintiff Giorgio Di Dimetrio (27-021603). 65 66
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more specific, and declared to have been touring the Levant as was the case of the Venetian sailor Marco De Francesco.74 On their part, the Greeks in Malta sought either to be specific, and declared to have been travelling to the Levant,75 or else hid their participation in trading in this area, as was the case of Giorgio Di Dimetrio who declared that he had been travelling on different vascelli ―to different parts of the world‖.76 The Maltese Status Liberi for the eighteenth century attests to six important facts. First that maritime trade with the Levant was predominantly in the hands of the French. Secondly, that the term caravan began to be used even in Malta in relation to commerce, before this it was only applied to describe a military squadron in search of enemy booty. Thus, one now begins to encounter phrases such as the one by Giuseppe de Nurchi from Cagliari who declared he joined a French mercantile pollacca on which he sailed to the Levant to make ―viaggi di caroava‖.77 Third, that the voyages could be undertaken either by a group of mercantile ships or by a single vessel, the records account for such names as ―pollacha Francese mercantile‖78, or a French tartana79 or on a French pinchio80 in use for trading purposes with the Levant. As has already been explained by Panzac81 many times, these boats took advantage of the quarantine facilities existing in Malta (described in some of the Acts as the days of contumacia)82 and then proceeded on their voyage back to Marseilles or to any other southern French harbour. The fifth point concerns the crew on board. These French merchant ships were being manned more and more by mariners coming not only from the south of France 83 but also from the nearby islands of Corsica 84 or Sardinia,85 as well as from the AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1603, [no case number] plaintiff Marco De Francesco (10-051603). 75 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1640, 54, plaintiff Stamatio Gervo (03-08-1640). 76 AAM, Status Liberi, File Box 1603, [no case number] plaintiff Giorgio Di Dimetrio (27-021603). 77 Cathedral Archives Mdina, Curia Episcopalis Melitensis (henceforth CEM), Acta Originaria (henceforth AO) 776 (1748) Status Liberi, 210 Giuseppe de Nurchi, f.210r-v. 78 CEM, AO 775 (1747) Status Liberi, 150 Zicavi Giovanni – Corsica, f.150r. 79 CEM, AO 938 Status Liberi, 162, Giovanni Carta, f.162r; also ivi 733 (1714) Giuseppe Costa, f. 213r-v. 80 CEM, AO 776 (1748) Status Liberi, 210 Giuseppe de Nurchi, f.210r-v; also ivi 810, 179 Gioacchino Carta, f. 182v. 81 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 61, 63; Paul Cassar, Malta‟s role in Maritime Health: under the auspices of the Order of St. John in the 18th Century (Malta, 1989), 4-5; Joseph Galea, ‗The Quarantine Service and the Lazzeretto of Malta‘, Melita Historica, iv (1966): 184-209, 186-193. 82 CEM, AO 776 (1748) Status Liberi, 210, Giuseppe de Nurchi, (f.210r-v). 83 From example, Beneto Bernardo Angelica was from Savoy: CEM, AO 771 Status Liberi, 39, Beneto Bernardo Angelica, f. 39r. 84 Giovanni Zicavi was from Corsica and left the island on a ―pollacha Francese mercantile‖: CEM, AO 775 (1747), 150, Giovanni Zicavi, f. 150r. 74
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mainland ports on the Ligurian coast.86 Finally, unlike their predecessors, French sailors could now speak openly in front of the Ecclesiastical Court about their commercial missions to the Levant. On its part, the development of a commercial side to maritime history in the Mediterranean inevitably left its mark even on a small island like Malta. Historians notice a general decline in corsairing activity in the eighteenth century when compared with the scale of the previous century. The explanation given for this decline was linked to the rise of a commercial mentality in Malta, where various people on the island began to diversify their activity from piracy to commerce.87 In other words, this change was taking place in a century when the caravane maritime was at their peak. Under Ottoman pressure, the French sought continuously to restrict the space for manoeuvre by the Knights in the Levant. The pressure exercised by Louis XIV of France and his successors to limit and eventually stop corsairing operations by the Knights of St. John in the Levant brought about a decline in corso activities that had a positive influence on Malta and Maltese merchants. 88 It encouraged them to breach the war frontiers in favour of trade. Molly Greene already records the presence of Maltese merchants in Tunisia, when Malta was supposed to have been in a continuous and endemic war with this country.89 In the eighteenth century, the notarial archives bring into evidence the existence of commercial activities with the distant city of Smyrna, taking advantage of the lucrative grain trade present in this part of the Ottoman empire for the benefit of Malta. In these cases, the Maltese merchants resorted to the use of the old formula employed by the French merchants at the start of their caravane maritime experience and registered their mission as ‗travelling to the four winds‘ to legally cover up an open secret.90 However, before the first formula for a peaceful co-existence with the Levant was used by merchants and traders, preparatory work had been carried out by a number of ecclesiastical intellectuals who crossed over to this area in search of an understanding with what may have appeared as a culturally distinct world. But this is another story which deserves a study of its own.
Both Giuseppe Antonio Cos and Bernardo Di Giorgio were sailors on French caravan maritime from Cagliari: CEM, AO 786 (1753) Status Liberi, 77, Bernardo Di Giorgio. f. 77r; also ivi, 793, 167, Giuseppe Antonio Cos, f. 167r. 86 Giuseppe Costa was from the city of Livorno: CEM, AO 733, 1714, f. 213r-v. 87 Carmel Vassallo, Corsairing to commerce: Maltese merchants in XVIII century Spain (Malta, 1997). 88 Greene, ‗Resurgent Islam‘, 238. 89 Greene, ‗Resurgent Islam‘, 237. 90 Simon Mercieca, ‗Commerce in Eighteenth-Century Malta‘. 85
9 ―VICTIMS OF PIRACY?‖ Ottoman Lawsuits in Malta (1602-1687) and the Changing Course of Mediterranean Maritime History Molly Greene The question of when, how, why and to what extent European shipping became dominant in the early modern Ottoman Mediterranean is one that has received a considerable amount of attention. 1 The natural counterpart to that question is the history of Ottoman shipping and commerce during the same period, a subject about which we know much less. This latter topic is the focus of this essay. The shipping lane between Alexandria and Istanbul was a vital highway for the empire as fleets of Ottoman ships, the Alexandria convoy, routinely brought precious Egyptian grain and rice, as well as luxury goods from the Indian Ocean, to the imperial capital. 2 Both Daniel Panzac and Andre Raymond have written specifically on the history of this route, Studies of Ottoman commercial cities in the early modern period, particularly those along the coast, invariably include a discussion of European shipping and the reasons for its strength. See, among others, Daniel Goffman, Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550-1650 (Seattle, 1990); Bruce Masters, The Origins of Western Economic Dominance in the Middle East: Mercantilism and the Islamic Economy in Aleppo (New York, 1988); Robert Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siécle; essai d‟histoire institutionnelle, économique et sociale (Paris, 1962) and Nicolas G. Svoronos, Le commerce de Salonique au XVIIIe sieècle (Paris, 1956). It should be pointed out that this question of European shipping in the waters of the Empire is tied up with larger, existential assumptions about the nature of the Ottoman Empire and the Turks as a people. According to certain essentialist views which are happily less prevalent now, both were in some fundamental way uncomfortable with the sea. As recently as 1999, a study of the Mediterranean which won four European literary prizes proclaimed that the Turks ―came from the depths of Asia‘ and thus had ‗no feeling for the sea‘…they have always been more warriors than sailors‖, see Predrag Matvejevic, Mediterranean: A Cultural History (Berkeley, 1999), 77; the book was originally published in Zagreb in 1987 and was subsequently translated into several European languages. 2 This is the term used by Daniel Panzac, La caravane maritime: Marins européens et marchands ottomans en Méditerranée (1680-1830) (Paris, 2004), 20. 1
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which Panzac calls ―l‘axe majeur de l‘empire‖, and both emphasize the important role played by European, and particularly French, shipping. Panzac argues that the French caravan had its origins in the second half of the seventeenth century. During the war with Venice over Crete (16451669), Ottoman shipping was devastated by Venetian attacks. The Ottoman response was to turn to neutral European shipping and to ask for help in maintaining this vital link. French ships took advantage of this opportunity and quickly established their dominance over this maritime route (and over Ottoman maritime commerce more generally).3 In his study of Egypt, and particularly Egyptian cities during the Ottoman period, Raymond also gives a good deal of weight to the importance of France, but he does estimate that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries roughly half of Egypt‘s maritime trade with the rest of the empire was carried on what he calls ―navires turcs et grecs‖. 4 This suggests that the dominance which Panzac posits for French shipping still left a lot of room for local initiative. As is to be expected, we know much more about European shippers and shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean than we do about the Ottoman participants in this maritime world, which was organized around, and nourished by, the link between the northern and southern shores which the Ottoman conquest of Egypt had brought about. The French commercial sources are abundant and of course they tend to emphasize French trade at the expense of others. 5 Happily, work is beginning in the Ottoman sources and they reveal other aspects of this world. Using kadi court records from Thessaloniki, Eyal Ginio has demonstrated that the trade between Egypt and the Balkan port city was overwhelmingly in the hands of local Muslim merchants from Thessaloniki who were known as Misircilar or ‗Egyptians‘, the ships were mostly Greek. 6 It is worth noting that in Svoronos‘s work on the commercial history of Thessaloniki in the eighteenth century, which is still the major book on this topic, the Muslim community in the city is entirely absent. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that, like so much of the early work that was written, Svoronos
Panzac, La caravane maritime, 19-22. André Raymond, Artisans et commercants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle (Damascus, 1973), 64. The rest was carried on European ships. 5 Daniel Panzac, Commerce et Navigation dans l‟Empire ottoman au XVIII siècle (Istanbul, 1996) is the premier study of French commercial shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean. 6 Eyal Ginio, ‗When coffee brought about wealth and prestige: the impact of Egyptian trade on Salonica‘, Oriente Moderno, XXV n.s. (2006): 93-107, 94. Europeans invariably referred to the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire as ‗Turks,‘ even though that is not how they would have referred to themselves. When the term ‗Turk‘ is used in this paper, it is because the European source is describing them as such. 3 4
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concentrates almost entirely on the city‘s trade with Europe, rather than intra-imperial commerce.7 In the course of my own research I have discovered another source for the history of Ottoman shipping in the Mediterranean, this one neither Ottoman nor French. We can call it a source that is in between because it sits in the divide between the Ottoman and non-Ottoman world. While it is produced by non-Ottoman institutions, the protagonists behind its production were Ottoman subjects. The Tribunale degli Armamenti In 1605 the Knights of St. John, now installed on the island of Malta, set up a new court under the direction of the long-serving Grand Master, Alofius de Wignacourt.8 The impetus behind the establishment of the Tribunale degli Armamenti, as the new court was known, was the booming business of the corso. The corso was the peculiar Mediterranean practice of sea-raiding that fell somewhere in between piracy and privateering. The term is a pan-Mediterranean one. It derives from the Latin cursus meaning sea voyage. Its close association with the fight against the Muslim enemy is demonstrated by the fact that the term first comes into use in the twelfth century, when the antagonism between Christianity and Islam had been given new life by the First Crusade.9 Like piracy, it was perennial rather than limited to periods of declared war, yet, in the minds of its practitioners, it was more elevated than mere piracy because there was a kind of permanent war in the Mediterranean between Christianity and Islam. Its semi-official status is demonstrated, among other things, by the fact that the Knights set up this court to regulate it. With the withdrawal of both the Spanish and the Ottomans from large-scale conflict in the Mediterranean at the end of the sixteenth century, the age of the corsair commenced. Pirates and corsairs (as those practicing the corso were known) swarmed into the vacuum left by their departure. This was true across the Mediterranean, and in Malta in particular. Between 1590 and 1670 the island‘s population almost doubled, from 32,000 to 60,000 as adventurers from across Christian Europe poured in to pursue the corso.10 The number of patents for the corso climbed accordingly. It jumped from Svoronos, Le commerce de Salonique. He was Grand Master from 1601 to 1622. The Knights were on the island of Rhodes from the early fourteenth century until 1522, when the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman conquered the island. They took up residence on Malta in 1530. 9 Henry Kahane, Renée Kahane and Andreas Tietze, The Lingua Franca in the Levant: Turkish Nautical Terms of Italian and Greek Origin (Urbana, 1958), 193. 10 Pal Fodor, ‗Piracy, Ransom, Slavery and Trade: French Participation in the Liberation of Ottoman Slaves from Malta during the 1620s‘, Turcica, 33 (2001): 119-134, 122. 7 8
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24 issued in the decade between 1585 and 1595 to 76 for the following ten years. It remained at this level, or even higher, through the first three quarters of the seventeenth century.11 The explosion in the corso, and the problems it was creating, is evident in the reasons given for the establishment of the Tribunale. A list of the new court‘s Statutes and Ordinances was prefaced by an introductory paragraph.12 The Grand Master and his Council, it begins, have gathered to consider to the matter of the corso or the armamenti.13 Their first concern was that the very number of individuals pursuing the corso was endangering the proper provisioning of the island, not only were they buying up large quantities of provisions and war materiel, they were also doing it ―in secret‖ (comprando di nascosto) and thus threatening, not only the people of Malta, but the Public Treasury.14 On the other hand, it continued, to prohibit the corso would be to deprive both ordinary subjects, as well as members of the Order, of the opportunity to maintain their seafaring skills. This was something which the island has always been known for and indeed which has been encouraged by the granting of certain concessions to those who were willing to arm ships for the corso. The aim was to attract as many ―bellicose‖ people to the island as possible in order to best pursue military warfare. Bearing these things in mind, then, the Anne Brogini, Malte, Frontière de Chrétienté (1530-1670) (Rome, 2006), 258 and 541. The highest number of departures was recorded for the years 1615 through 1625, when 129 patents were issued. Michel Fontenay cautions, however, that as the seventeenth century wears on the yearly number of patents issued does not give a complete picture of Maltese corsairing activity. This is because earlier in the century corsairs‘ commissions had to be renewed on yearly basis. After 1625, however, as the corsairs were more and more in the habit of spending the winter in the archipelago, commissions were extended. Throughout the period, as well, the number of ships leaving was higher than the number of patents issued since one patent could cover a number of ships. Between 1600 and 1624, for example, 280 patents corresponded to 350 ships, on these issues see Michel Fontenay, ‗Corsaires de la foi ou rentiers du sol? Les chevaliers de Malte dans le ‗corso‘ méditerranéen‘, Revue d‟Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 35 (1988): 361-384, 367. Patents to pursue the corso were issued by the Grand Master himself. 12 Cathedral Museum of Medina (henceforth ACM), Misc.125: Statuti et Ordinationi dell‟eminentissimo Signor Gran Maestro Fra Alofio de Wignacort e suo venerando conseglio sopra l‟armamenti (held at Malta Study Center, St. John‘s University, Minnesota). 13 Armamenti refers to the investors in a corsairing venture. In the first volume of his chronicle of the Knights, covering the years 1571 to 1636, Bartolomeo Dal Pozzo explains that the Tribunale was set up to settle differences ―fra gli Armatori e persone di corso‖, see Bartolomeo Dal Pozzo, Historia della Sacra Religione di San Giovanni Gerosolimitano detta di Malta, 2 vols (Verona, 1703; Venice, 1715), 1: 493-4. 14 The sterile island was not self-sufficient in grain and was dependent upon regular supplies from Sicily, when these did not arrive, great hardship ensued; see Alexander Bonnici, Medieval and Roman Inquisition in Malta (Malta, 1998), 205-7. It seems likely, then, that the large number of people pouring into the island was driving up prices and threatening the proper provisioning of the island. 11
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Grand Master and his Council have decided to draw up certain rules which will both encourage war against ―the enemies of our Christian name‖ while at the same time getting rid of certain ―abuses‖ and ―inconveniences‖ which have caused harm. These rules also aim to put an end to the lawsuits that have become so common. The introduction finishes on a hopeful note: ―With these rules, each person will have what belongs to him, without deception and confusion‖. 15 It is clear that the intent of the court was to bring a rather freewheeling economy under the control of the Order. It makes sense, then, that the majority of statutes and ordinances which were promulgated (and added to over the years) were concerned to regulate the relationship between the Order and individuals pursuing the corso. For example, anyone wanting to outfit a ship for the corso had first to secure a license from the Grand Master. The granting of the license obligated the recipient to pay 10 % of the proceeds of the corsairing venture into the Public Treasury. Before a license would be granted the new Magistrato had to be informed as to the quality of the ship and the amount of munitions on board. 16 Another group of statutes sought to protect all those who had contributed to the success of a corsairing venture. Upon his return to Malta, a corsair was to register the quantity and nature of the spoils with the Magistrato and his prizes were to be shared with the owners of the vessel, his creditors and his crew. The statute that is of interest to us is number fifteen, and it is the only one (out of fifty nine), which addresses the question of licit and illicit prizes. It states that before a license would be granted, the armatori had to pledge that they would not cause any injury to Christians themselves, their goods, or to their merchant vessels. 17 Despite this prohibition, the historical record has shown, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that attacks on Ottoman Christians were widespread.18 Usually they were not enslaved, but their goods were stolen and sometimes they were herded off their ships as well and set adrift in small vessels. It is the combination of these attacks, alongside the strenuous prohibition against such activities, which created the ―Volendo prescrivere certa regola accioche ogni uno senza inganno e confusione habbia quello che giustamente le tocca‖, ACM, Misc. 125. 16 The Tribunale was also known as the Magistrato degli Armamenti; see dal Pozzo, Historia della Sacra Religione, 1: 493-4 for a summary of the provisions. These rules are strikingly similar to North African regulations of the corso, see Peter Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary (London, 1970) for an extended treatment of the parallels. 17 ―Non offendere Vasselli mercanti, beni, persone di Christiani….‖ ACM, Misc. 125. 18 To give just two examples: Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary and Roderic Cavaliero, ‗The Decline of the Maltese Corso in the XVIIIth Century: a Study in Maritime History‘, Melita Historica, 4 (1959): 224-238. 15
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documentation that is at the center of my current project. Most of the cases brought before the Tribunale in the seventeenth century concern internal squabbles amongst those pursuing the corso, arguments over monies owed, agreements broken and obligations unfulfilled. This makes sense, given that the primary purpose of the court was to regulate and control the practice of the corso, to ensure, as the Introduction to the 1605 founding document said, that ―each person will have what belongs to him, without deception and confusion‖. But the records also show that, on more than one occasion, Greek Christian merchants from the Ottoman Mediterranean made the long trek to the island and appeared before the court in the hopes of recovering what had been taken from them. In one series alone, fourteen court cases, some of them over 100 folios long, have come down to us from the first century of the court‘s operation, a time when corsairing, both Muslim and Christian, was at its height. 19 These cases, which stretch from 1602 to 1687, are a rare opportunity to peer into a world that would otherwise remain obscure. The men who appear before the court are ordinary merchants and ship captains, people who, except for the misfortune of having encountered the formidable Knights, and their determination to seek justice, would never have entered the historical record.
Tribunal Armamentorum (or Armamentor) (henceforth TA), Acta Originalia. The records are stored in the Banca Giuratale, or Municipal Palace, which is in Mdina and was built in 1726. Its purpose at that time was to house the offices of the civil administration of the Maltese Islands. Today it houses, among other things, the records of the various Courts and Tribunals of the period of the Order of St. John. See http://www.librariesarchives.gov.mt/nam/ser_law_courts.htm. Although the number of cases is not large, they provide a wealth of information on the Ottoman maritime world, particularly in comparison to Ottoman court records (the kadi court) which, due to the nature of Islamic legal procedure, tend to be very short. A typical Ottoman court case might take up just one third of a page, whereas the Tribunal cases – replete with lawyers and depositions and witness testimony – can be very lengthy indeed. Within the Tribunal Armementorum there are, I believe, two series, the Acta Originalia and the Actorum Originalium. I reviewed all of the court cases from the Acta Originalia for the seventeenth century and identified all those where Ottoman merchants (all of them Christian) appear and lodge a complaint about unfair seizure of their goods. Time constraints did not allow me to go beyond this one series. Since no study of the Tribunal Armamentorum exists, it is difficult to know what the difference is between these two series. Peter Earle, in his study, refers briefly to both series and it seems that both include similar types of cases. As discussed in the text of this article, the vast majority of the cases do not concern Ottoman merchants at all, but rather disputes between corsairs and investors over the spoils of a particular venture. This is in accord with the purposes of the court, as described by Dal Pozzo and others (see footnote 12). There is good reason to believe that these fourteen cases are part of a larger culture of litigation in the Mediterranean between Greek victims and Catholic corsairs. See my forthcoming book with Princeton University Press: Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants: A Maritime History of the Mediterranean of the Early Modern Mediterranean.
19
VICTIMS OF PIRACY?
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Ottoman Merchants and the Caravan Trade These court cases are valuable on a number of levels and can be used to pose, and to answer, a number of questions. I would like to use them in this essay in order to sketch a general picture of an historical phenomenon that has, to date, remained very shadowy, namely the world of Ottoman merchants and shippers in the trade between Egypt and the rest of the empire. Let us begin with a synopsis of the cases. Having done that, we can then ask how the contours of the Ottoman Mediterranean which emerge from these documents differ from the more familiar picture that has been drawn to date (based largely on French documents). 20 In almost every instance the victims were assaulted off the coast of Egypt, where they were heading to or (more often) departing from. In other words, they were operating in the same zone as the European merchants whom I discussed earlier.21 They are the other half of the picture, the ―navires turcs et grecs‖ mentioned in passing by A. Raymond. The plaintiffs tended to be from the small islands of the Eastern Aegean. A number were from Rhodes, others were from Kalymnos, Leros and Mytilene. Athanasio di Pancratio was from Thessaloniki and two others were Cretan. Aside from a name and a place, such as ―Patron Nikita di Rhodi‖ or ―Giovanni Mathsopulo di Calimo,‖ little direct information is given about the individuals involved‖. 22 Rice was the most The term ‗Ottoman Mediterranean‘ is still not a very common one but it is the most appropriate, and accurate, one to use. The world that I am discussing was very much the result of the Pax Ottomanica in several important ways. First, it was the Ottoman conquest of Egypt that revitalized the commercial links between Egypt and Istanbul, as the former was pressed into the service of provisioning the imperial capital. Second, as we shall see, it was Muslims and Christians from the Aegean islands and Muslims from Anatolia, not local Egyptians, who settled in the port cities along the Egyptian coast in order to better control the lucrative trade between the northern and southern shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. This unified imperial space must have facilitated such migration. Third, although this remains little explored, these Ottoman merchants, sailors and ship-owners held their own against the Europeans. As discussed in footnote 4, half of the Empire‘s maritime trade continued to be carried in Ottoman ships right through the eighteenth century. Writing from Rhodes in 1776 the French vice-consul on the island complained that ‗Greeks‘ and ‗Turks‘ still dominated the trade with Egypt and that the Maltese should set their sights on them. Maria Efthymiou, Rhodes et sa Région Élargie au 18ème Siècle: Les Activités Portuaires (Athens, 1988), 284. Among other untouched areas of research, the culture of this world is still almost completely unknown. Efthymiou draws our attention to folk songs that describe the Muslim shipowners of the island, Rhodes et sa Région, 155. 21 This is in keeping with what we know about Maltese corsairing; the Egyptian coast was one of their principal areas of activity: Brogini, Malte, 296. And Fontenay explains that this was so because that was where the big money was, the Knights specifically targeted the caravane from Alexandria precisely because the profits were potentially so large, see Fontenay, ‗Corsaires de la foi‘, 393. 22 TA 2/2 and TA 1/2. When the individual is the captain of the boat, as opposed to a merchant, this information is usually given as well, hence the Patron Nikita in 2/2. 20
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frequently identified cargo.23 The merchants were also carrying coffee, sugar and textiles. A ship coming from Crete, heading for Chios or Istanbul, was loaded down with olive oil and honey. In most of the cases a value is assigned to the cargo and it is usually given in Spanish reals. This makes sense, given that the Spanish real was the most commonly used coin in the seventeenth century Mediterranean (ransom prices were usually stated in reals). 24 Whether we consider the amount or the monetary value of the cargo, it is clear that we are talking about substantial investments. 25 Most of the cases use the measurement known as the ardeb or irdabb. This was a specifically Egyptian unit used for measuring grain and other dry products.26 Throughout the seventeenth century Egypt was obligated to supply the palace in Istanbul with 3000 ardebs of rice per year.27 The merchants who appeared before the Tribunale were typically carrying at least 250 ardeppi of rice; in two cases they reported having loaded the astonishing amounts of 1,010 and 1,230 ardeppi, that is, roughly one third of the yearly supply to the capital in just one shipment. In two cases the merchants were carrying very substantial amounts of olive oil and honey from Crete. Theodoro Taulari was heading for Chios or Constantinople with 400 quintali of olive oil and 50 quintali of honey.28 Given that each quintal was the equivalent to 100 kilos, we are speaking here of 22,520 kilos of olive oil and nearly 3000 kilos of honey.
23 In six out of the fourteen cases; in two cases (TA 1/1 and TA 12/4) the reference is simply to ‗merchandise‘ or ‗diverse goods‘; these, too, probably included rice. Case TA 13/1 revolves around the ownership of the boat; a cargo is never mentioned. 24 Şevket Pamuk, ‗Money in the Ottoman Empire‘, in Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert eds., An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1994), 2: 947-985, 965. Fernand Braudel, speaks of reales being ―shipped by the chestful‖ to the Empire, see The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols (New York, 1972), 1: 495. See the same page for ransom prices. In the Ottoman context, the Spanish real was known as the guruş. 25 Sometimes both are given, sometimes just one or the other. 26 İnalcik and Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 2: 989, use the more unusual spelling of irdabb while Stanford Shaw refers to ardebs throughout his book on Ottoman Egypt, see his The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517-1798 (Princeton, 1962). I will use the latter as it in accord with the spelling used in the documents from the Magistrato. 27 Shaw, Financial and Administrative, 274. The documents seem to be in rough agreement with Shaw as to the value of the ardeb. According to Shaw, each ardeb is worth 12 kilos of Istanbul. Case 2/5, from 1637, notes explicitly that each ―ardeppo piccolo‖ is worth 14 kilos of Istanbul. There is also something called ―ardeppi grandi,‖ where each ardeb is worth 200 kilos of Istanbul (document 2/2.). But this case seems to be the only where the larger ardeb is used as a standard of measurement. The default ardep, as it were, is the ―ardeppo piccolo.‖ (And, if we assume the ―ardeppi grandi‖ then the quantity of the rice being shipped is even higher). 28 TA 13/9.
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The petitioner in the other case claimed compensation for 240 quintals of olive oil, or 13,512 kilos.29 Monetary values were high, too. The merchants who appeared before the Tribunale were typically carrying cargo that ranged from 2,000 to 3,500 reals in value.30 Happily for our purposes, many goods and services across the Mediterranean at this time were priced in reals, given its ubiquity, and this allows us to make comparisons. A study of nearly thirty years of Cretan shipping in the middle of the century (1635-1661) found that the amount invested in a shipping venture ranged from 150 or 200 to 3,500 reals. The average individual investment was 25 to 30 reals. 31 Also in Crete, the construction of the Morosini fountain in Candia in the 1620s, probably the major public work undertaken in seventeenth century Venetian Crete, cost 13,000 reals.32 Across the Mediterranean the price for human cargo, the ransoming business, was also usually given in reals and thus provides more opportunities for comparison. In 1628 a Maltese bombardier enslaved in Tunis fetched a ransom price of 200 reals.33 On average, Ottoman captives paid 442 reales for their freedom in the 1620s. 34 In a high profile case from 1590, where the release of the Muslim captive in Malta included the intervention of both the governor of the Morea and the valide sultan, the price paid was approximately 750 reales.35 The cargoes lost to the Maltese were, at the very least, more than twice that amount. Finally, the historian of the fraught relationship between Venice and the Knights, Victor Mallia-Milanes, provides us with numerous examples of the reales involved in fights between the two powers. The amounts claimed in front of the Tribunale compare very favorably. In a rather spectacular Maltese attack against two Venetian vessels, ―laden with merchandise‖, in the 1650s, the Knights relieved both ships of their cargo. When they were eventually forced to compensate the owners by the Venetian government,
TA 13/10, see Angelo Martini, Manuale di Metrologia (Turin, 1883), 179. The real is described most commonly as either reali da otto or piastri reali. I thank Şevket Pamuk for his assistance on the monetary history of the Mediterranean. Values are given in 10 out of the 14 cases. 31 Angeliki Panopoulou, ‗Συντροφίες και ναυλώσεις πλοίων στο Χάνδακα 1635-1661‘ (Partnerships and chartering of ships in Handaka 1635-1661), in Πεπραγμένα του Σ‟ Διεθνούς Κρητολογικού υνεδρίου (Proceedings of the Sixth International Cretological Conference), 2 vols (Chania, 1991), 2: 419-430, 422. 32 Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Princeton, 2000), 145. 33 Brogini, Malte, 396. 34 Fodor, ‗Piracy, Ransom. Slavery and Trade‘, 127. 35 Fodor, ‗Piracy, Ransom. Slavery and Trade‘, 126, in this case the price quoted was actually 500 guldens. Based on the exchange rate, this amounts to 750 reales. 29 30
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the bill came to 3,390 reales.36 A decade earlier the injured merchant Giorgio Gentile pursued his claim against the Maltese for a number of years: ―[…] the damages he had sustained were far from negligible, amounting to some 1,500 reali‖.37 In 1645 the Venetians were persuaded to lift a sequestro against the Maltese upon payment of 3,200 reali.38 The attacks themselves, in most cases, were vicious. Not only did the merchant lose his goods, the corsairs usually took all of the cargo on board, and the ship itself, and dumped the luckless travelers in some desolate place from which they were lucky to make it back alive. According to testimony in one case, the attackers ―put them in a skiff belonging to the saicha, and left them to the mercy of the sea and of the winds which, by the Grace of God, brought them eventually to Saint Jean d‘Acre. Once there, they were able to procure some clothes through the charity of others, and this allowed them to present themselves in front of us‖.39 In another case the court was told that, after being robbed of everything they owned, Antonio Canbanin and his shipmates were brought to a rock called Gaidronisi and everyone was made to disembark. There they were left ―without any sustenance or provisions at all and they remained there for eleven days. It was a miracle of God that they did not die of thirst or hunger‖.40 They were saved by the appearance of a small boat which appeared on the horizon and took them to Crete. In 1684 ―the Greek Giovanni‖ told the court how he and all the merchants on board his ship had been attacked and detained by the Maltese in the vicinity of the island of Nissero.41 First the boat and everything in it was towed to the island of Stampa.42 Then, after about 50 days at sea, Giovanni, all the merchants and the ship‘s scribe were forced to disembark on the island of Kos, robbed of everything, except the clothes on their back. 43 In another case the ship was seized and the victims were loaded into a small boat that had been on board. They were put out to sea with no provisions but they were given oars to row with. The fact that they had been robbed of all 36 Victor Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530-1798: Aspects of a Relationship (Malta, 1992), 165. 37 Mallia-Milanes, Venice, 152. In one of the court cases under consideration here, a witness was asked how much money the plaintiffs had had with them upon departure from Mytilene. The witness answered that he hadn‘t counted it and thus couldn‘t say exactly the amount but ―from looking at it, it appeared to be a major amount, 1,500 reals‖, see TA 2/5: 11r: ‗ben vero dall‘ochio mostrando esser mag. quantita di reali mille cinq cento da otto‘. 38 Mallia-Milanes, Venice, 162. 39 TA 1/11, 17v. 40 TA 1/1, 3v. 41 Northwest of Rhodes, just off the Anatolia coastline. 42 In modern Greek it is Astypalaia, also known as Stampalia. It is directly west of Nissiros. 43 TA 13/1, 120r.
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their goods, explained the plaintiffs, is why they had arrived in Malta ―almost nude‖.44 The Ottoman Mediterranean These plaintive stories of things gone horribly wrong are fragments of a much larger world that lies unseen. And these fragments suggest a rather different map than the one we are used to consulting, Rosetta (Reshid) and Damietta (Dimyat) loom larger than Alexandria, and the normally obscure Dodecanese islands in the southeast Aegean figure prominently. The imperial repercussions of the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1516 are well-known. The fertile Nile valley was put into the service of the capital, supplying Istanbul with rice (the essential ingredient in the Janissary diet) and sugar, as well as goods coming from India through the Red Sea.45 It was the possession of Egypt that allowed Suleyman, who succeeded Selim to the throne in 1520, to extend the empire‘s reach into the Red Sea, where he tried to stop the Portuguese advance. With the incorporation of Syria and Egypt into the empire, Selim completed his encirclement of the many Latin statelets that remained in the Eastern Mediterranean. Suleyman took Rhodes, home of the Knights of St. John since the early fourteenth century, in 1522. A string of Aegean islands fell in 1538 and by the end of the century Cyprus was Ottoman as well. Only Crete remained as a significant Venetian stronghold in the East. The unification of the northern and southern shores of the Eastern Mediterranean under the rule of the Ottoman sultans put other things into motion. These developments were, in fact, more long lasting than what would turn out to be a rather brief imperial moment. But, as is so often the case in the history of the Ottoman empire, they have received less attention because they were not the result of any sort of official initiative. Egypt‘s commercial possibilities created a stream of migration from the Anatolian coastline and the Aegean islands, and the development TA 2/4, 1r and 2r ―quasi nudi‖. Nelly Hanna, Making big money in 1600: the life and times of Isma„il Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian merchant (Syracuse, 1998), 74 for the Ottoman interest in rice and sugar. Rice from Egypt was so important to the Ottomans that some of the lands around Damietta were set aside to provide rice for the Sultan and his court; as late as the last quarter of the eighteenth century its export to Europe was prohibited, although smuggling was widespread. See Shaw, Financial and Administrative, 125 for the lands set aside for the Sultan‘s rice supply; Daniel Crecelius and Abd Al-Aziz Badr, ‗French Ships and their Cargoes sailing between Damiette and Ottoman ports (1777-1781)‘, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 37 (1994): 251-286, 258, for the ban on exports to Europe. Hanna (Making big money, 96) notes that in the case of sugar, a certain amount had to be sold first for the needs of the palace; once that was accomplished there was no restriction on its sale. 44 45
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of the port cities of Damietta and, especially, Rosetta. This did not happen right away. It was a seventeenth century development, just at the moment in other words, when naval control was slipping from Istanbul‘s grasp.46 The timing was probably not coincidental. Nelly Hanna, in her book on the wealthy Egyptian merchant Isma‗il Abu Taqiyya (active in Cairo between 1580 and 1625), argues that the crises confronting the state at the end of the sixteenth century did not mean a decline in commercial activity, as is often assumed, or in the Egyptian economy as a whole. Rather the increasing inability of Istanbul to dominate the country‘s flourishing trade created opportunities for entrepreneurs such as Abu Taqiyya. 47 Rosetta became Egypt‘s major port in the seventeenth century, a position it held for two hundred years. If functioned as both a transfer point for goods between Cairo and Alexandria, as well as a harbor in and of itself for Mediterranean trade.48 Coming through in 1517, Leo Africanus observed that it was ―plutot un gros bourg qu‘une cite‖, but towards the end of the sixteenth century it began to grow.49 In 1585 Rosetta impressed the German captive Michael Heberer as une importante et riche ville marchande. Ella n‘a ni portes ni murailles, et est situee tout pres du Nil; la arrivent toutes les marchandises du Caire et de toute l‘Egypte, ainsi que de l‘Arabie et de la mer Rouge.50 By the seventeenth century travelers were describing it as the second biggest city in Egypt, after Cairo. A French vice-consul was in residence and twenty nine French merchants were resident there between 1685 and 1719.51 But Rosetta has left behind other reminders of her prosperous past in addition to the accounts of European travelers. Quite unusually, a number of Ottoman houses survive until today in what is now a small town. These monumental dwellings, twenty two in number, all date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and their magnificence suggests the great wealth that the town once enjoyed.52 Most rise up four and even See footnote 72 for a discussion of the issue of naval control. Hanna, Making Big Money, 70, 7. 48 Alexandre Lézine and ‗Abd al-Rahmân (‗Abd al-Tawâb), ‗Introduction à l‘étude des maisons anciennes de Rosette‘, Annales Islamologiques, 10 (1972): 149-205, 152. Ginio notes that most goods imported into eighteenth century Thessaloniki from Egypt came through the port of Rosetta, see Ginio, ‗When Coffee‘, 95. 49 The quote of Leo Africanus is from Lézine and Tawâb, ‗Introduction à l‘etude‘, 152. 50 Johann Michael Heberer, Voyages en Egypte de Michael Heberer von Bretten, 1585-1586 (Cairo, 1976), 39. 51 Lézine and Tawâb, ‗Introduction‘, 153. 52 See the Lézine and Tawâb article. 46 47
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five stories tall, and ornate windows adorn the brick walls of their exteriors. Many of the windows are wooden, carved in the intricate style known as mashrabiyya, and jut out over the street. Others boast elegant iron grates. Carved wooden ceilings and wall panels are common in the spacious interiors. The city‘s faded glory is understandable when we consider, as revisionist histories of Ottoman commerce have pointed out in recent year, that intra-Ottoman trade was superior in value to foreign trade right through the eighteenth century.53 Second, as Eyal Ginio‘s research has revealed, an important city like Thessaloniki depended upon Rosetta for many of its staples, such as rice, coffee, indigo, cotton, henna and spices. The principal market located in the port area was called Mısır çarşısı or the Egyptian market.54 Nevertheless, it is nearly invisible in most accounts of the early modern Mediterranean, overshadowed by Alexandria which, although it did not surpass Rosetta in size until the nineteenth century, became the favored port of Europeans in Egypt. 55 Heberer also took note of Damietta, on the eastern branch of the Nile. The ancients described seven spots where the Nile opened out onto the sea, he wrote, but of those seven, only Damietta and Rosetta remained; both were ―full of ships and well-known‖.56 Damietta seems to have been the smaller of the two ports; no European consuls were there and it traded mostly with ports along the Levantine coast, the southern coast of Anatolia and the islands of Crete and Cyprus. Ships heading out of Rosetta were more likely to be going to Smyrna, Istanbul or Thessaloniki.57 But Vansleb, visiting the city towards the end of the
Andre Raymond points out that Egypt‘s exports to Istanbul alone exceeded those destined for Europe: 178 million paras against 156 million paras in the years 1776-81. The trade with Istanbul, moreover, exhibited a remarkable stability, free of the violent fluctuations that characterized exports to Europe. Raymond, Artisans et Commercants, 1: 188. Suraiya Faroqhi succinctly sums up the bias of the scholarship: ―The over hasty inclination to proclaim the demise of Cairo as a center of international trade shows the persistence of a Eurocentric bias, which renders economic activities not responding to European needs or demands all but invisible‖, see Crisis and Change, in İnalcik and Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 2: 413622, 507. 54 Ginio, ‗When Coffee‘, 96; the principal market located in the port area was called Mısır çarşısı or the Egyptian market. See Crecelius, ‗French Ships and their Cargoes‘, 271 for the continuing dominance of trade within the Ottoman Empire, as opposed to trade with Europe, towards the end of the eighteenth century. 55 Lézine and Tawâb, ‗Introduction‘, 153. For the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Smyrna has attracted far more scholarly attention than Rosetta, certainly because it was a destination point for European merchants. 56 Heberer, Voyages en Egypte, 116. 57 Crecelius and Badr, ‗French Ships and their Cargoes‘, 257. The absence of Europeans does not mean a lack of European interest. Evidence suggests that European merchants were held at arm‘s length in Damietta. The complaint of some French captains towards the end of the 53
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seventeenth century, thought Damietta surpassed Rosetta: ―next to Cairo it is the greatest, most beautiful, the richest, the most populous, and the fullest of merchants of all Egypt, for the conveniency of trade draws hither a great number of people from all parts of Turkey‖. Although his claim that 500 ships laden with rice left the port every year is certainly an exaggeration, it does suggest that he was impressed by the level of activity that he witnessed.58 Greek islanders, like those who went to Malta, were active participants in this world. The several studies that exist on Egyptian trade in this period agree that the merchants trading out of the cities of the delta were not Arab Egyptians.59 Sometimes identified as Muslims and Christians, other times as Greeks and Turks, in any event they came from elsewhere, namely southern and southwest Anatolia and the islands of the southeast Aegean. Daniel Panzac has studied the contracts drawn up in the French chancery in Alexandria in the eighteenth century between Muslim freighters, subjects of the Sultan, and French sea captains; fully 40 % of the Muslims came from the Aegean coastline of Anatolia or the nearby islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Rhodes. 60 The extensive trade between Rosetta and Thessaloniki was in the hands of Muslims from the latter city, who maintained partners or family members in Egypt to handle the Egyptian end of the trade. Christians from Thessaloniki also traded between the two cities, although not nearly to the same extent.61 But the sea captains were Greek and a mideighteenth century court case from Thessaloniki identifies a sea captain from an island near Rhodes, the exact location, in other words, of so many of the petitioners in Malta in the previous century. 62 Specifically in Rosetta travelers commented that the city was populated by Turks and two of the remaining mansions make that connection crystal clear: they are named century that they were not allowed ashore except in cases involving their cargos, and that they frequently had to depart before their full cargoes were loaded, is typical. 58 Johann Michael Vansleb, The Present State of Egypt (London, 1678), 67. Vansleb, a German scholar and member of the Dominican Order, was sent by Colbert to Egypt in 1671 on a fact-finding mission, and he stayed there from 1671 to 1673 also charged with collecting manuscripts: Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 27 vols (London, 1843), 27: 55. 59 I have already mentioned Raymond‘s work, which divides the maritime trade of Egypt evenly between Europeans and ―navires turcs et grecs‖, see also Michael Winter, ‗A statute for the mercantile fleet in 18th century Egypt‘, Mediterranean Historical Review, 3 (1988): 118122. 60 Panzac, La caravane maritime, 146; he studied contracts from the following cities: Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli (in North Africa), Alexandria, Larnaca (in Cyprus), Chania (in Crete) and Istanbul. 61 Ginio, ‗When Coffee‘, 95 and 100-1. 62 Ginio, ‗When Coffee‘, 99.
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Tokatli and Amasyali, from Tokat and Amasya respectively in Anatolia. A European in Damietta towards the end of the seventeenth century remarked that the Greeks were ―most numerous‖ and had ―a considerable church‖.63 The houses themselves testify to the migration of Anatolian culture to the Egyptian delta through trade. Travelers had always noticed the radical difference between these houses and the house that is much more typical of an Arab city. Most dramatically, the latter opens onto an interior courtyard and presents only blank walls along the street. The Rosetta houses open out to the road and proclaim their grandeur to the passersby.64 An architectural study done in the 1970s argues forcefully for the Anatolian model behind the structures.65 More specifically, the use of alternating rows of brick and wood is reminiscent of façades in southern Anatolian cities such as Antalya and Alanya; taken together they comprise a style that is common to the Mediterranean littoral both north and south.66 Two centuries, then, before the rise of what would become the fabled city of Alexandria, there was a similar ingathering along the Egyptian coastline of people from the larger Mediterranean world. We know very little about the islands of the southeast Aegean, where most of the plaintiffs in Malta were from, in the first two centuries after Suleyman the Magnificent wrestled Rhodes from the Knights of St. John in 1522. During the previous several hundred years the Dodecannese, as the islands are collectively known, had been on the frontline of the struggle between the Turkish emirates and the various Latin principalities as the former reached the shores the Aegean and attempted to develop their own seapower. Historians have concentrated their attention on this turbulent period, when the Knights ruled Rhodes and the battle between Christianity and Islam seemed to have found its epicenter in the southeastern Aegean. After 1522 and the triumph of Ottoman sovereignty, the islands disappear, rather abruptly actually, from our view. It doesn‘t help matters that they were no longer included on the itinerary of most Western travelers. Here we must acknowledge, however, that active hostility, as much as indifference, might have kept Western travelers away. One of the very few studies of Rhodes in the sixteenth century describes two conspiracies on the part of Catholic powers to bring the Knights back to the island, the second one as late as the 1570s. This might have led the Ottomans to view contact with the West with Vensleb, The Present State, 68. Lézine and Tawâb, ‗Introduction‘, 158. 65 Lézine and Tawâb, ‗Introduction‘, 190; in terms of their façade, the mode of construction and certain aspects of the interior plan. 66 This is the judgement of Lézine and Tawâb, ‗Introduction‘, 191. 63 64
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suspicion, as the author of the study notes himself. 67 By the seventeenth century these attempts were over. Nor have the Dodecanese attracted much attention from historians relative to the western Aegean, particularly the Cyclades. Greek historians have favored the Cyclades, and the eighteenth century, because their commercial revival during this period can more plausibly be presented as the first act in an emerging nationalist drama. 68 Others have been intrigued by the Cycladic islands due to their long history of Latin and Catholic settlement, including the presence of Western missionaries, who produced voluminous reports, beginning in the seventeenth century. Their uncertain status between Latin (primarily Venetian) and Ottoman sovereignty wins them favor in an age that is captivated by liminality. 69 It is still the case that those areas of the empire which were not of great interest to Westerners in their day (or where it was difficult for them to go) have continued to suffer from a certain invisibility today, and the Dodecanese are no exception.70 We do know quite a bit, however, about the Ottoman convoy between Istanbul and Alexandria and this is probably our best clue as to the place of the Dodecanese, and their inhabitants, in the commercial world that I have been describing. The islands‘ southerly location, in and of itself, would already encourage a connection to Egypt and the route of the Ottoman convoy must have made Egypt‘s commercial importance crystal clear to the mariners and merchants of Rhodes and the smaller islands. As mentioned earlier, Egypt was the most important food supplier of the imperial capital. That is why the only regular Ottoman convoy system which existed was developed for the sea-lane between Alexandria and Istanbul; every year a convoy of heavily armed galleons, escorted by numerous galleys, left Alexandria for Istanbul. They sailed to the west of Cyprus in the direction of Rhodes. From Rhodes they followed the Aegean coastline, passing Chios, Samos and Mytilene before entering the
Zacharias Tsirpanles, τη Ρόδο του 16ου-17ου αιώνα: από τους Ιωαννίτες Ιππότες στους Οθωμανούς Σούρκους (The Rhodes of the 16th-17th century: from the knights of St. John to the Ottoman Turks) (Rhodes, 2002) Chapter One. 68 The merchant marines of Hydra, Spetses and Psara – the storied trio – played a vital and heroic role in the Greek revolution which broke out in 1821; among others, see Stelios A. Papadopoulos ed., The Greek Merchant Marine (Athens, 1972). 69 See the very thorough study by Ben J. Slot, Archipelagus Turbatus: Les Cyclades entre colonisation latine et occupation ottomane c. 1500-1718 (Istanbul, 1982). 70 Maria Efthymiou‘s is one of the very few studies of Ottoman Rhodes. In Rhodes et sa Région, at p. 58: ―En effet, apres la conquete de Rhodes par les Turcs, I‘ile a commence a perdre son importance dans le commerce des nations europeennes telles que la France et les villes d‘Italie‖. 67
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Dardanelles.71 The essential supply route connecting Egypt and Istanbul, in other words, went right through the eastern Aegean and thus it was people from these islands who jumped at the opportunity to ply these waters as well. Declining Ottoman naval strength may have created opportunities for the islanders, similar to what Nelly Hanna has suggested for seventeenth century Egypt. Most accounts of the convoy stress its imperial character, dominated by ships of the Ottoman navy, but one Florentine account says something slightly different. Like the Maltese, the Knights of St. Stephen regularly cruised off the coast of Egypt and one participant observed that, amongst the ships loaded with rice that left Alexandria early in the fall, there were always some Greek ships from the town on Lindos, on the island of Rhodes. Tellingly, this detail comes from the early seventeenth century, a time when the Ottoman navy was struggling to control the Eastern Mediterranean.72 Commerce between Egypt and the ports of the northern Aegean was not, of course, restricted to the demands of the palace. All commerce flowing north and south followed the very long standing itinerary that was described above and this must explain what appears to have been a very pronounced orientation towards commerce, and particularly trade with Egypt, amongst both the Muslims and the Christians of the Dodecanese. The observations all come from the eighteenth century but they fit in well with the picture that emerges from the testimony in front of the Tribunale, suggesting that the islanders‘ commercial prowess predates the eighteenth century. The Dutch traveler Cornelis de Bruyn, writing a century after the above-mentioned Florentine source, also mentioned the town of Lindos on Rhodes: ―the small fort of Lindos around which are many Greeks, all of them sailors‖.73 Just a few years later, 1739, the French vice-consul in Panzac, La caravane maritime, 20. Randolph, the seventeenth century traveler, emphasized the connection between Kos and the route to Egypt: ―All ships that go from Constantinople and those parts bound to Egypt or that come from Egypt and bound upwards, usually call in here‖, Bernard Randolph, The Present State of the Islands in the Archipelago (Oxford, 1687), 26. 72 Alexandra Krantonelle, Ιστορία της πειρατείας στους μέσους χρόνους της Σουρκοκρατίας, 15381699, (History of Piracy in the middle years of Turcocracy, 1538-1699) (Athens 1991), 157. This observation dates from the early seventeenth century. Panzac, in La Caravane Maritime, 23 writes that the big, heavy Ottoman convoy between Alexandria and Istanbul disappeared in the eighteenth century, to be replaced in part by an assortment of more modest Ottoman boats, manned for the most part by Greeks. The comment of the Knight of St. Stephen, along with the argument I am putting forward, suggests that Greek participation in the convoy, and the convoy‘s overall transformation, began in the seventeenth century. A ferman addressed to a group of Muslim merchants and ship-owners based in Egypt (1719) should probably also be understood as part of an ongoing effort to keep the convoy going through private initiative, see Winter, ‗A Statute for the Mercantile Fleet‘, 118-122. 73 Cornelis de Bruyn, Voyage au Levant (Delft, 1700), 173-4. 71
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Alexandria observed that the islanders, both Muslim and Christians, controlled all the trade between Rhodes and Alexandria; throughout the eighteenth century, in fact, French officials would complain about their inability to make gains along this important route. 74 On Rhodes itself another French consul, also writing in the 1730s, said that the Greeks of the island are ―to a very great extent, very wealthy traders with ships that they have made here on the island and then command themselves or have some Venetians do it for them‖. 75 It is particularly interesting for our purposes that the French consuls, as well as more casual observers, all noted the strong presence of Rhodes‘s Muslim community in the trade with Egypt. Rhodes and Crete, in fact, seem to have been the two islands where Muslims not only participated in maritime commerce, but may even have been dominant. 76 The ordinary sailor and the wealthy ship-owner were both likely to be Muslim, a French observer in 1795 counted 500 Muslims amongst the island‘s 800 sailors, 77 a few years later Pouqueville said that the largest ships on the island belonged to Muslims and that the governor of the island himself owned the two largest.78 Popular songs from the island refer to Muslim shipowners, including owners from the political elite.79 The prominence of Muslim sailors, merchants and sea-captains from Rhodes alerts us to the partial view that is afforded to us by the documents from the Tribunale degli Armamenti. None appear in the court cases I have been discussing. The reasons for this have to do with the raison d‟être of the Tribunale. As a self-described crusading institution, devoted to the corso contra infideli, it makes sense that no Muslim (or Jew) would waste his time, and even risk his freedom, by making the long journey to Malta to lodge a claim. It is certain that Muslims from the Dodecannese and the adjacent Anatoalian coastline were in Malta but in a very different capacity; they would have been among the large Muslim slave community that suffered there throughout the seventeenth and
74 Efthymiou, Rhodes, 282-283. In 1776 French consular sources show that 64 % of the ships leaving Alexandria in the direction of Rhodes and southern Anatolia were ‗Turkish‘ or ‗Greek‘, this percentage would continue to grow as the century wore on. 75 Efthymiou, Rhodes, 291. 76 For Muslim ship-owners in Crete in the eighteenth century see Vassilis Kremmydas, ‗Καταγραφή των εμπορικών πλοίων του Ηρακλείου το 1751‘ (‗Register of the merchant ships of Herakleion in 1751‘), Mnimon, 7 (1978): 12-17. 77 Efthymiou, Rhodes, 290. 78 Efthymiou, Rhodes, 155. 79 Efthymiou, Rhodes, 155.
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eighteenth centuries.80 Documents from the French consulate in Izmir show that in just one three-year period in the 1620s the consul assisted 28 Muslim captives to gain their freedom in Malta; the majority were from western and southwestern Anatolia, followed by Rhodes and Kos. 81 Commercial Culture The documents from the Tribunale also provide information on the more elusive questions of merchant culture, things like patterns of association and the circulation of information. The testimony presented in Malta reveals a world of enduring relationships stretching out over many years. These connections are spread out over the entire Eastern Mediterranean, from Thessaloniki in the north to Alexandria in the south. When two merchants from Mytilene, Duca Galeazzo, son of Constantine, and Nicola, son of Micaele, sailed from Mytilene to Alexandria, they stopped on the island of Chios. Upon arrival, they stored two big bags of money in the home of a Chiot named Pantalco Vestarchi, in order to keep the money secure from the Barbary corsairs. At the time of the attack the two merchants had known Pantalco for about fifteen years.82 In 1687 Theodoro Taulari loaded his merchandise onto a boat in Rethymnon (in Crete) together with another merchant named Strati Sanghila. Taulari traced his acquaintance with him all the way back to Taulari‘s place of birth, which was Mistra in the Peloponnese. He knew him then from a place called Zarnata and the two renewed their ties in Rethymnon, where they had a friendship going back about ten years. 83 In the spring of 1633 a merchant from Thessaloniki and a merchant from the island of Mytilene set sail from Damietta in Egypt on board a ship captained by Nikita of Rhodes. 84 We know that the merchant from Thessaloniki whose name is Athanasios, also did business in Volos, on the Greek mainland, and in Chios as well, because one of witnesses – Georgio of Volos – testified that he had done business with him in both places. Not surprisingly, merchants feature prominently in the court records. We have less information on the sailors who were on board, who 80 About 10,000 throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; see Robert Davis, ‗The Geography of Slaving in the Early Modern Mediterranean 1500-1800‘, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 37 (2007): 57-74, 65. 81 Fodor, ‗Piracy, Ransom, Slavery and Trade‘, 126. 82 TA 2/5: ―due borse grande di danari‖. 83 TA 13/9; and see TA 13/4 for another case of a friendship between merchants (in this case Armenians) going back ten years. 84 TA 2/2.
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might or might not appear as witnesses. But the little information that is available indicates that the crews were not uniformly from one island or another. When Andrea Mavranza Choroneo of Chios was attacked while going from Rosetta to Constantinople, he ended up back in Rosetta giving testimony at the French chancery. One sailor who testified was from Limnos while another was from Stanchio (Kos). 85 All of the sailors (there were four) who testified on behalf of Andrea of Chios had known the merchant for at least two years; one had known him for seven and noted that he had been on numerous trips with him. In another case, a sailor from Syros sailed on a ship captained by a Greek from Skopelos. 86 It is clear that merchants often worked with people whom they had known for a long time. At the same time, there seems to have been nothing compulsory about these relationships and market conditions were taken into account in the course of making business decisions. The two merchants from Mytilene – the ones who had stored two bags of money in a friend‘s house on Chios – sailed from Mytilene to Alexandria on the saica of a fellow islander. But coming back, they chose a captain from Lindos, on Rhodes.87 Initially, they approached a ship-owner from Mytilene, Giovanni, son of Manolachi, but the negotiations came to nothing because they could not agree on a freight price. 88 Georgi, a ship captain from the Peloponnese, helped the Armenian merchant Giovanni Marchara find another ship when his own was full. He testified that he put the merchants‘ goods in his barca, sailed over from the customs post to a ship owned by the Turk, Chazzi Chalsan [sic: Haci Hasan?]‖, and introduced him to the two Greek captains. Giovanni‘s goods were promptly loaded.89 Even this relatively sparse information suggests that the Eastern Aegean commercial world which revolved around the link between the northern and southern shores of the Ottoman Mediterranean was different in important ways from the much better known world of Greek shipping in the eighteenth century, when the Cycladic islands became important shipping centers. Numerous studies of the latter have shown that shipping was organized on an island by island basis. 90 The 85 TA 11/19, 5v and 5r: other sailors appear as witnesses but their place of origin is not given. 86 TA 13/4, see 3r for information on the sailor, and 13v for the origin of the captain. 87 TA 2/5. 88 TA 2/5, 8r. 89 TA 13/4, 3r. 90 See Spyros Vryonis, ‗Local Institutions in the Greek Islands and Elements of Byzantine Continuity during Ottoman Rule‘, Annuaire de L‟Université de Sofia: Centre de Recherches SlavoByzantines “Ivan Dujčev”, 83 (1989): 85-144. The unit of organization could be even smaller. ―In those days a ship‘s crew usually consisted of relatives of the master and the owner.
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seventeenth century world seems to have been much more fluid. First, in stark contrast to the Cyclades, both Muslims and Christians were active participants. Second, people routinely did business with others from across the Aegean world rather than working exclusively with those from their immediate environs. This flexibility allowed for the operation of market forces when making decisions, such as how much freight to pay for a particular voyage. We still have a long way to go in terms of understanding the social relationships and the institutional structures that allowed such a commercial world to flourish. The stories told in court also illuminate one of the most intangible yet vital aspects of any commercial world. This is the problem of information: what did merchants know and how did they know it? The question of information flow in the Ottoman empire has received little attention from historians; when it is mentioned, the assumption is that reliable information was hard to come by. This is one of the reasons, historians assert, for the prominence of the ethnic trading network in the organization of Ottoman commerce; information coming from a member of one‘s own community (however defined) was more likely to be trustworthy than that coming from outside. The assumption that good information was a rare commodity, so to speak, seems a reasonable assumption on the face of it. Certainly European merchants complained about what we would call today ―a lack of transparency‖. A French Mémoire sur le commerce du Levant, written in 1750, complained that: one is forced to advance one‘s merchandise or one‘s money to a perfidious nation such as the Jews or the Greeks, who are living amongst a nation, the Turks, who are unjust, capricious and venal. One must then wait a long time and then buy merchandise from that Jew or that Greek for a price which they set as they wish and which one is forced to accept. The French merchant has only a very imperfect knowledge of the prices.91 European merchants were at the mercy of local traders who monopolized information, distribution and pricing. Perhaps contrary to expectations, then, the documents paint a world where information flowed freely through informal, oral channels which cut across religious lines and which Family and ship bound them all together, gave them a common cause and bred community of effort‖ see Anastassios I. Tzamtzis, ‗Ships, Ports and Sailors‘, in Stelios Papadopoulos ed., Ελληνική εμπορική ναυτιλία (1453-1850) (The Greek Merchant Marine (1453-1850)) (Athens, 1972), 57-178, 57. 91 Edhem Eldem, ‗French Trade and Commercial Policy in the Levant in the Eighteenth Century,‘ Oriente Moderno, 18 (1999): 27-47, 35.
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were not restricted to particular communities. The very informality of information exchange suggests that there would be little or no trace of this phenomenon in official documentation; it is only through the accident of a corsairing attack that we have access to it at all. As they set sail, Ottoman merchants in the Eastern Mediterranean clearly felt confident that they would be able to discover which one was the best market for their goods. Setting out from Crete in 1687, Theodoro Taulari did not have a specific destination. He loaded olive oil and honey onto the ship of sea-captain Agostino Plati and explained that he planned to ―take it to Chios, to Constantinople or somewhere else in order to realize its full value‖.92 The mention of Chios was not by chance; the island seems to have functioned as something of an information clearinghouse, even though, by the seventeenth century, the new port of Izmir was taking away a good deal of business from Chios. Another merchant on that same voyage said that they left Crete, then went to Stantia and then ―to Chios to get the necessary information‖ as to where the demand for olive oil would be the greatest. 93 Merchants could also learn a lot simply be being on the scene. A certain Giovani [sic] from Gallipoli ended up testifying on behalf of three merchants because he was in Rhodes when the victims limped into port. The Venetian vice-consul on the island wrote down Giovani‘s testimony: The witness had been in Rhodes for ten days when the skiff which belonged to the saica of captain Nichita of Rhodes came into port. In it were twenty three sailors from the crew, among whom was the ship‘s clerk, as well as the merchants Athanasio and Comneno. From these sailors and these merchants he heard that the saica had been taken by a Maltese ship at Cape Chilidoni. After three days had passed the Maltese captain sent away these merchants as well as the twenty three members of the crew. He kept only the captain of the ship Nichita and five sailors.94 As was customary procedure, the witness was asked how he knew this (como lo sa) and he replied, ―He was in Rhodes at this time, and he saw these men, stripped and nude, come in with the skiff, and from them he heard the following‖. Giovani, along with others no doubt, must have 92 ―Per condurli ñ in Scio, ñ pure in Constantinopoli ñ altrove affin di ritrarre la valuta‖, TA 13/9, 1r. 93 And then he specified: ―per pigliare l‘informationi in qual paese sia la piu vendita dell‘oglio‖, TA 13/10, 8r. 94 TA 2/2, 9r: he is described simply as ―di Galipoli‖ so one cannot be sure if that refers to the Gallipoli in southern Italy or, more likely, the one in the Ottoman Empire.
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hung around for a while because he finished up his testimony by saying that, about two hours after the skiff had arrived, the saica with Captain Nichita and the other five sailors arrived as well, at which point he heard the details of the attack again, this time ―from the mouth of the captain‖. Information on prices also circulated through word of mouth. One of the points at issue in the case of the attack upon Captain Nichita was the value of the cargo of rice he was carrying. The Venetian authorities in Rhodes relied upon the ―latest news‖ coming from Smyrna to set the price of rice (the term used is ―li ultimi avisi da Smirne‖).95 One of the witnesses, Lascari, was called upon to confirm the price of rice. When he did, he was asked how he knew this and the notary recorded the following: ―[He knows this because] this is what he heard from some merchants who arrived yesterday, [having left] Smyrna four days ago. And they had some rice with them and they were selling it at that price‖.96 No explicit mention is made of religion in these two cases. But in the extensive paperwork generated by the attack on the ship coming from Crete, one deposition does make it clear that information passed across the religious boundary. This incident actually involved multiple ships, on one of which were eighteen Turkish passengers who were seized by the Maltese. Three of them ransomed themselves while on the island of Spinalonga, just off the coast of Crete and then returned to Rethymnon, where they had started their journey. Back in Rethymnon, they met up with Strati Stanghila, one of the Greek merchants who had been attacked, and they told him the whole story.97 This was how their fate made it into the deposition that Strati gave to the French consul in Rethymnon. No doubt Strati shared his own story – he had a series of adventures before eventually making it back to Rethymnon – with the Turkish merchants as well. As I said earlier, we do not have a good sense of how people – in this specific case merchants – informed themselves on vital matters in the Ottoman empire. To my knowledge, the only model that is out there derives from the ethnic trading network. Benjamin Braude, who has worked extensively on Ottoman Jews, has suggested that information flowed along ethnic lines. He writes ―each trading network provided […] its own distinct system of market intelligence‖.98 The reliance on one‘s own community, his argument runs, makes it logical that communal
TA 2/2, 8v. TA 2/2, 11r. 97 TA 13/10: ―Questo io l‘ha sentito dire a Rethimo dal li sudetti tre schiavi‖. 98 Benjamin Braude, ‗Venture and Faith in the Commercial Life of the Ottoman Balkans‘, International History Review, 7 (1985): 519-542, 528. 95 96
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spaces were also physical sites for information exchange. Thus, Braude continues: Time spent in public worship, in communal celebration, at the coffee-house, or by the fountain in a mosque-courtyard, could help make a contact or confirm a deal. Such gatherings were venues for the informal negotiations the preceded and accompanied most business transactions. Customers were more quickly found in one‘s own group.99 The Maltese documentation suggests that communal spaces were not the only venues where information flowed freely. The port was also an important site, a place where information was passed informally, through word of mouth or through observation. The phrases ―I heard‖ or ―He told me‖ or ―I saw‖ appear constantly throughout the depositions that merchants and sailors give. The port seems to be an ecumenical space where anyone connected to the world of trade could participate on the basis of that connection alone. Religious distinctions do not seem to have been important. Two Christian sea-captains from Lindos, on the island of Rhodes, recounted to the court how they were in port in Alexandria when they were approached by two ―Turkish‖ merchants who wanted to hire their ship to go to Constantinople. 100 They agreed on a price, loaded the ship and were off. In another case Andrea Mavranza of Chios loaded his merchandise onto the ship of a Muslim captain, Selim Raïs, in the port of Rosetta in 1679.101 The documents convey a sense of spontaneous association that is not confined to the port. The Cretan merchant who went to Chios to find out the best place to sell olive oil then continued south to the island of Kos where he came upon (ci trovatta) six ships that were sailing in caravan.102 Two of the six then split off, apparently because they were not going any further (perche non caminavano) but the Cretan joined up with the others and they were all sailing together when they were attacked in the vicinity of Santorini. Later on in the account we learn that these four ships were captained by both Christians and Muslims: Psilachi of Santorini, çavuş Turco, deli Ali Turco and Manoli reis. Clearly, despite the religious mix, the five ships were able to communicate with one another and derived a sense of security from sailing together.
Braude, ‗Venture and Faith‘, 532. TA 1/1. 3v: the year is 1602. 101 TA 11/19, 1r. 102 TA 13/10, 8r. 99
100
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Conclusion The literature on the caravane maritime to date suggests a phenomenon closely linked to European, and particularly French, maritime expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean. The city of Alexandria figures most prominently in this story. Not only was Alexandria more accessible to the French than, say, Damietta, but the long shadow of the nineteenth century, I think, stretches back to give Alexandria an importance in an earlier period that is not entirely deserved. The documents from the Tribunale suggest another set of places and another group of people that should also be part of our picture of the caravane maritime. For two centuries, a mixed Muslim and Christian seafaring population from the Dodecannese islands and the southern and western coasts of Anatolia flocked to Egypt – to Damietta and Rosetta principally – to take advantage of the opportunities created by the commercial superhighway that ran between Egypt and the European provinces of the Ottoman empire.
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Map 1: The Ottoman empire – XVII-XVIII centuries
10 GREEK-OTTOMAN CAPTAINS IN THE SERVICE OF SPANISH COMMERCE In the Late Eighteenth Century Eloy Martín-Corrales Throughout the early modern period, commerce between Spain and the Muslim countries of the Mediterranean was almost always carried out by means of third countries and though it was intermittent, its existence has been proved without doubt throughout the long period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.1 In the case of trade with the Ottoman
The research which forms the basis of this essay was undertaken within the context of the project Dinámicas imperiales, descolonización y transiciones imperiales. El imperio español (1650-1975), ref. HUM2006-07328, financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología. 1 Eloy Martín-Corrales, ‗Il commercio della Catalogna con il mondo mediterraneo nel Settecento‘, Islam. Storia e Civiltá, 22 (1988): 35-51; ‗La importaciñn de telas de algodñn levantino y los inicios del estampado en Cataluða‘, Revista de Historia Industrial, 6 (1994): 4774; ‗El comercio espaðol con Tetuán y el litoral del Rif durante los siglos XVI y XVII‘, Coloquio de historia de Tetuán. Siglos XVI-XII, (Tetuán, 1996), 3-28; ‗Una aproximaciñn al comercio hispano-marroquì en el siglo XVII‘, in Mohammed Salhi ed., El siglo XVII hispanomarroquí (Rabat, 1997), 177-202; ‗The silk trade between Spain and the Islamic Mediterranean area (16th-18th centuries)‘, in Spain and Portugal in the Silk Routes. Ten centuries of production and trade between East and West, (Barcelona, 1998), 89-100; ‗La saca de plata americana desde España hacia el Mediterráneo musulmán, 1942-1830‘, in Antonio M. Bernal ed., Dinero, moneda y crédito en la Monarquía Hispánica (Madrid, 2000), 471-494; Comercio de Cataluña con el Mediterráneo musulmán (siglos XVI-XVIII). El comercio con los “enemigos de la fe” (Barcelona, 2001); ‗Comercio en la frontera. Judìos magrebíes intermediarios en los intercambios mercantiles hispano-norteafricanos (ss. XVI-XVIII)‘, in Mercedes GarcíaArenal ed., Judíos en tierras del Islam II. Entre el Islam y Occidente. Los judíos magrebíes en la Edad Moderna (Madrid, 2003), 253-281; ‗Relaciones de España con Marruecos a través del puerto de Mogador/Essaouira (siglo XVIII)‘, Cuadernos del Archivo Central de Ceuta, 13 (2004): 95-134;
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empire, after the signature in 1782 of the Hispanic-Ottoman ―Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Commerce‖, these commercial interchanges experienced an important period of growth. Interestingly though, Spanish attempts at re-launching a direct commerce with the ports of the Ottoman dominions utilising Spanish vessels were not successful, and the country‘s dependence on third party carriers remained dominant. 2 The Opportunities of a Neutral Flag However, the most important element of Spanish-Ottoman trade at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century was the strong presence in Spanish ports of Greek-Ottoman merchant ships (ships with Greek captains and crews, usually sailing under the Ottoman flag). Although the arrival of some of these Greek-Ottoman ships in Spanish ports may be detected long before the middle 1790s (starting from around 1750, in fact), the most remarkable phenomenon of the whole process was the coming of hundreds of them to the Spanish coast during the periods of the wars between Spain and Britain in 1797-1802 and 1804-1807. These conflicts favoured a spectacular development of maritime activity carried out under neutral flags, something to which the Spanish mercantile sector was forced to resort in order to procure supplies of indispensable products, among them the ever-necessary cereals. Indeed, in the task of supplying grain to the Spanish ports, the British merchant fleet had played a very important role throughout the entirety of the eighteenth century.3 On the outbreak of war not only it became impossible to count ‗El comercio de España con los países musulmanes del Mediterráneo (1492-1782): ―eppur si muove‖‘, in Simonetta Cavaciocchi ed., Relazioni economiche tra Europa e mondo islamico, secc. XIII-XVIII, (Florence, 2007), 485-510; ‗Marseille, échelle des toiles levantines pour l'Espagne, XVIe et XVIIIe siècles‘, Rives nord-méditerranéennes, 29 (2008): 61-78; ‗Exportaciones españolas al Mediterráneo musulmán (siglos XVI-XVIII)‘, in José Antonio Martínez Torres ed., Circulación de personas e intereses comerciales en el Mediterráneo y en el Atlántico (siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII) (Madrid, 2008), 191-214. 2 Eloy Martín-Corrales, ‗El comerç de Catalunya amb els països musulmans al segle XVIII‘, L'Avenç, 108 (1987): 26-32; ‗Una oportunitat perduda per Barcelona per articular l'eix comercial Indies-Llevant‘, II Jornades d'Estudis Catalano-Americans (Barcelona, 1987), 217-227; ‗Cereales y capitanes greco-otomanos en la Malaga de fines del siglo XVIII‘, Estudis d'Història Econòmica, 2 (1987): 87-114; ‗El comercio de Cataluða con el Levante Otomano en el siglo XVIII (1782-1808)‘, in VII Jornades d‟Estudis Històrics Locals. La Mediterrània, antropología i història (Palma de Mallorca, 1991), 145-160; ‗La flota greco-otomana en Cadiz a fines del siglo XVIII‘, in Actas del Congreso de Historia de Andalucía. Andalucía Moderna, II (Córdoba, 1995), 389-400; Ricardo Franch Benavent, ‗El fomento del comercio con el Levante Mediterráneo durante el reinado de Carlos IV‘, in Pere Molas i Ribalta ed., La España de Carlos IV. V. Colección de Actas 2. I Reunión Científica de la Asociación de Historia Moderna (Madrid, 1991), 45-61. 3 For Cadiz see José Ignacio Martínez Ruiz, ‗El mercado internacional de cereales y harinas y el abastecimiento de la periferia española en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII: Cadiz entre la regulaciñn y el mercado‘, Investigaciones de Historia Económica, 1 (2005): 45-79.
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on the British flag for these trades, but to compound these problems, the British fleet also put the coast of Spain under a close sea blockade, making coastal navigation enormously difficult between the various Spanish ports. This was the main reason for Spain‘s generalized recourse to neutrallyflagged ships, foremost amongst them Greek-Ottoman vessels flying the Ottoman flag. Table 5: Greek-Ottoman ships arrived in various Spanish ports (1797-1808) YEAR
BARCELONA
CADIZ
MALAGA
ALICANTE
MAHON
1788 1 1790 1 1791 1 1794 1 1797 12 5 4 1798 41 16 43 1 10 1799 1 1800 2 2 1801 3 2 4 1802 15 2 4 1803 12 3 6 1804 23 33 18 28 1805 21 34 84 1806 48 11 50 1807 9 15 20 TOT 190 111 231 35 19 AL For Barcelona, Malaga and Cadiz: Martín-Corrales, ‗El comerç de Catalunya‘, 28; Sources: ‗Cereales y capitanes greco-otomanos‘, 93; ‗El comercio de Cataluða‘, 152-153; ‗La flota greco-otomana en Cadiz‘, 394. For Alicante: Enrique Giménez López, Alicante en el siglo XVII. Economía de una ciudad portuaria en el Antiguo Régimen (Valencia, 1981), 290, 351. For Mahon: Amador Marí Puig, ‗El comerç del blat al port de Mañ‘, Estudis d'Història Econòmica, 2 (1989): 133-157.
We have evidence of the presence of these ‗Greek‘ ships from the data available for several ports along the Spanish coasts, amongst them: Cadiz, Malaga, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cartagena, Algeciras, Tarragona, Alicante, Mahon.4 Table 5 though, has been constructed utilising figures from only a selection of these ports, namely those ports for which a consistent series of quantitative data of a certain importance has survived. It is necessary to bear in mind that only in the case of Barcelona do we have a complete statistic of its port traffic; the statistics for Cadiz, Malaga, For Palma de Mallorca see Carlos Manera Erbina, ‗El movimiento comercial del puerto de Palma según las series de entradas y salidas de navíos del Semanario Económico (17791820)‘, Bolletí de la Societat Arqueològica Luliana, xxxvii (1980): 553-589, and the sources used for Table 5. 4
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Alicante and Mahon are unfortunately very incomplete. Also we have to emphasize that most of the ships about which we have information called not at just one, but at several Spanish ports. Almost the totality of these ships – polacres in 94 % of the cases, the rest being classified as brigs, frigates and tartans 5 – and their captains are usually designated as ‗Ottoman‘, except for a few occasions in which they are described as ‗Greek‘ or ‗Greek-Ottoman‘.6 Interestingly, when after the interruption caused by the Napoleonic wars, Ottoman-Greek ships reappeared in Spanish ports after 1815, in this post-war period the port records show some changes in the way these ships and men were categorized, describing them now more often as ‗Greeks‘ than as ‗Ottomans‘, at a time when still the great majority of Greek captains came into the Spanish harbours sailing under the Ottoman flag. Subsequently, these kinds of Greek ships virtually disappeared from Spanish ports after the repeated prohibitions restricting the import of foreign wheat which were decreed by the Spanish crown between 1820 and 1830. 7 The principal activity of Greek-Ottoman shipping to Spanish ports lay exactly in supplying wheat, especially that originating from the Black Sea Russian ports, although some of it also came from the Ottoman dominions. As shown in Table 6 below, out of the 190 Greek-Ottoman ship arrivals in Barcelona between 1797 and 1808, 103 ships (more than 54 % of the total) carried wheat; out of the 231 arrived at Malaga, 111 (48 %) carried wheat, and of the 231 arrivals to Cadiz, 86 (37,2 %) carried wheat, although in the case of these two last ports we do not know the composition of the majority of the ships‘ cargoes, and therefore these percentages could be an underestimation. The same pattern is also evident for the ships that arrived in the ports of Alicante and Mahon. It must also be remembered that, unfortunately, not in all cases we do know the exact quantity of wheat which was carried. These Greek The polacre has the same characteristics as the brig regarding its dimensions, masting and equipment. The fundamental difference is in the absence of tops to the masts: these, unlike brigs, have only two pieces (the brigs have masts of three pieces), joined in the crosstree. The polacres‘ capacity ranged between 100 and 200 tons., see Ian C.B. Dear and Peter Kemp eds., The Oxford Companion to ships and the sea (Oxford, 2005). 6 Demetrio Andronopolo (1788), Simon Horfano (1790), Atanasio Podimata (1794), Juan Jorge Cioni (1797), Kagi Canzeliay Antonio (1797), Alguimi de Paolo (1801), Juan de Lazaro (1801), Anan Nostie Ariey (1802), Nicolas de Demetrio (1804), Nicolas Joani Comun (1804) and Larazo de Pietro (1805) appear as Greek-Ottomans. Pedro Sideri (1791) and Juan Aregnusti (1803), as Greeks. 7 For the period 1815-1830 see Josep M. Fradera Barceló, Indústria i mercat. Les bases comercials de la indústria catalana moderna (1814-1845) (Barcelona, 1987); Daniel Panzac, La caravane maritime: marins européens et marchands ottomans en Méditerranée, 1680-1830 (Paris, 2004); Laura Calosci, Nacionalisme econòmic i comerç mediterrani. Pensament i acció de la Junta de Comerç de Barcelona (1763-1847) (Lleida, 2007); see also the essay of Gelina Harlaftis in this volume. 5
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polacres carried also other Levantine products (barley, beans, oil, gum), or those of the Italian peninsula (such as wood for barrels). Table 6: Greek-Ottoman ships arriving with wheat into Spanish Ports (1797-1808) YEAR BARCELONA MALAGA CADIZ MAHON 1791 1 1797 8 4 1798 23 2 10 10 1799 1 1801 2 4 1802 14 2 1 1803 12 2 1804 16 14 29 1805 7 50 32 1806 18 26 6 1807 4 13 8 TOTAL 103 111 86 19 Sources: For Barcelona, Malaga and Cadiz, Martín-Corrales, ‗El comerç de Catalunya‘, 2930; ‗Cereales y capitanes greco-otomanos‘, 100; ‗El comercio de Cataluða con el Levante‘, 152-153; and ‗La flota greco-otomana en Cadiz‘, 396. For Mahon: Marí Puig, ‗El comerç del blat‘, 147-148.
However, one of the most interesting activities of Greek-Ottoman shipping in this period was its participation in the coastal navigation between various Spanish ports, in addition to the ones already mentioned, Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza, Blanes, Vilanova, Tarragona, Salou, Vinaroz, Murviedro, Valencia, Alicante, Denia, Cullera, Aguilas, Cartagena, Almeria, Motril, Marbella, Estepona, Algeciras, Conil, Sanlucar de Barrameda, Sevilla, Ayamonte and Vigo.8 Their specific interest in taking part in the Spanish cabotage trade is also proved by the fact that a substantial percentage of Ottoman ships arrived in the principal Spanish ports either with no cargo or just in ballast; this phenomenon is particularly evident in Barcelona (27 times) and in Cadiz. Once in Spanish waters, these ships participated in the coastal trade transporting typical Spanish products such as tuna, sardines, almonds, hazelnuts, capers, rags, esparto grass,9 wool, oil, brandy, wine, rice, soap and paper. Most remarkably, also included in their trading activities was the redistribution along the Iberian peninsula of
For ships under Muslim flags (Moroccan and Algerian) in the service of the Spanish coastal navigation, see Eloy Martín-Corrales, ‗La flote marocaine et le commerce de cabotaje espaðol (1797-1808)‘, Revue Maroc-Europe. Histoire, Economies, Sociétés, 2 (1992): 71-80. 9 Needle grass, known in Castilian as esparto grass, is used in the manufacture of paper, baskets and shoes (espadrillas). 8
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colonial products from Cadiz: cotton, dye wood (palo Campeche), cacao, sugar, coffee, indigo, raw hides and tallow. Both as part of their coastal trade around the Iberian peninsula, and as part of their own trades with northern Europe, these GreekOttoman vessels appear to have been active also in the Atlantic trade. Evidence of this is in the high number of polacres arriving at various Spanish ports coming from Lisbon; although the port records also report Greek-Ottoman ships coming from Gibraltar, London, Faro, Bristol, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Tonninge, Hamburg, Tangier and Mogador.10 The ‘American Trade’ In the remainder of this essay, I will devote my attention to the participation of Greek vessels under the Ottoman flag in the maritime traffic that linked Spain with its American colonies. The traditional monopolistic commerce system that Spain had maintained with its American colonies during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which was especially evident in the fact that foreign vessels were banned from trading with the Spanish colonies, proved unenforceable and crumbled in the course of the eighteenth century. Amongst the numerous factors that prompted the abandonment of this ban, an important one was the difficulties of keeping active such an essential trade links during the long periods during this century when the Spanish monarchy was at war against other European powers, in particular those which possessed a powerful navy, such as Great Britain. In the trade with America, collective convoys were usually made up of two war ships, one tender and a variable number of merchant ships, which could range from eight to eighteen units. More and more vessels started also to receive special authorization from the Spanish authorities to sail on their own to the American colonies, and several expeditions were organized by the Iberian Privileged Companies of Commerce. But, when conflict broke out, it became soon evident that the Spanish commercial fleet and its galleon system were inadequate to cope with the all-powerful British Navy.11 For that reason, this system was finally abolished by the 1778 Decree of Free Commerce (Reglamento y Aranceles Reales para el Comercio Libre de España a Indias), which freed trade between the various ports of Spanish America, and therefore weakened the long-standing Cadiz‘ monopoly in the ‗American trade‘.
See references in footnote 3. Antonio García-Baquero, Comercio colonial y guerras revolucionarias. La decadencia económica de Cádiz a raíz de la emancipación americana (Seville, 1972); Antonio García-Baquero, Cadiz y el Atlántico (1717-1778): El comercio colonial español bajo el monopolio gaditano, 2 vols (Seville, 1976). 10 11
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On the occasion of the War of Jenkin‘s Ear (1739-1748) and the Seven Years War, which brought Spain and Great Britain into conflict between 1761-1763, to ensure the maintenance of commerce with the American colonies, the Spanish monarchy had no choice but to grant individual authorizations to foreign ships to sail there: these ships were the so-called Navios de Registro. In reality, the practice which allowed the participation in the Carrera de Indias of ships with foreign flags, had already started in the 1720s. But what was originally just an exceptional situation, in the second half of the eighteenth century gradually became a fairly common practice, which ended up taking over from the system of maritime convoys previously in place. This state of affairs was further confirmed as a result of new Spanish-British military confrontations in the American War of Independence (1779-1783), when several royal warrants were passed which authorized the participation in the Spanish American trade of ships with foreign flags, again in order to maintain the trade links between various American colonial ports. In 1796, due to the signature of the Treaty of San Ildefonso between Spain and France, the Spanish monarchy was involved in a new war against Great Britain (1796-1802). The blockade of Cadiz and other peninsular ports, and the British fleet‘s patrol of the Spanish-American routes and many Spanish American ports, made practically impossible the Atlantic navigation of Spanish-flagged ships. In 1797 another Royal Order authorized Spanish merchants to use neutral countries‘ ships, which could leave either from Spanish or from neutral ports. Although these ships were compelled to return directly to Spanish ports, there existed a possibility to authorize them to go to other Europeans ports. In 1799, in view of the Gaditan traders‘ growing protest to these new regulations, the commerce of neutrals was banned; it was then authorized again in 1801, but suppressed once more after the Peace of Amiens (1802). Subsequently, British attacks on the Spanish merchant fleet – 77 ships that participated in the Atlantic trade were captured in 1804 alone – ended up causing a new war (1805-1807), and once again this prompted the Spanish authority to authorize once more trading on neutral bottoms. 12 It is not surprising that, in the context of the war against Great Britain which had begun in 1797, and especially of the difficulties faced by Spain in keeping alive the voyages to the Indies – the so-called ‗American trade‘ – Greek-Ottoman polacres also took part in the Spanish commerce with its distant American colonies, common destinations in the Americas 12 García-Baquero, Comercio colonial y guerras revolucionarias; Carlos Malamud, ‗El comercio de Buenos Aires y sus respuestas coyunturales: el comercio de neutrales (1805-1806)‘, in Antonio Miguel Bernal Rodríguez ed., El comercio libre entre España y América Latina, 1765-1824 (Madrid, 1987), 301-314.
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being Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Veracruz, La Guaira and Puerto Cabello. A Royal Order of 18th November 1797 permitted trade with Spanish-American ports to all Spanish ships or foreign-flagged vessels which had departed Europe from Hispanic ports or from neutral countries; but the obligation to return to a Spanish port remained always in force. Shortly after, in January 1798, another Royal Order arranged that those ships that left Hispanic ports were granted the privilege of a rebate of the entrance/exit customs in the American colonies to the tune of 50 %. One of the key elements of the document which regulated neutral shipping to America (the Escritura de Caución de seguridad y regreso) was the guarantee in writing, by means of which the captain of the ship committed himself personally – before the monarch, the Minister of Navy of the province, the judge of the port of arrival, and all the relevant officials – to faithfully fulfil all the clauses stipulated in the original lading contract. One of these clauses clearly stated that the captain should not ask for patents from any nation at war with Spain. Another, referring to embarked products, stipulated that the ship captain: should not reveal to anyone the fact that the cargo belongs to Spanish subjects, nor the fact that these are Spanish products [...] That [the captain] will not make use of any document or sign that could instil suspicions into the enemies of the Crown of Spain, nor give them any reasons to arrest him. 13 Also, Catalan merchants made use of some Greek-Ottoman ships (―de Naciñn otomana‖, as specified by the documentary sources) to take advantage of the mentioned royal orders regarding shipping. Unfortunately we do not know how many of these actually succeeded in crossing the Atlantic; for this reason the following examples, although not devoid of interest, and providing a good snapshot of this commerce, must be regarded merely as in indication of types of vessels involved in these trades and of the contracts underpinning them.14 A list of the ships involved in this trade and leaving from Barcelona, with details of their cargoes is provided in the Appendix I at the end of this essay.
13 ―Que a nadie revelará la pertenencia de dichos efectos a Vasallos Españoles, ni su producción de parte de ellos… Que no hará uso de documento ni expresiñn que pudiese infundir sospechas a los enemigos de la Corona de España, ni darles motivo de apresarle.‖ See Joaquim Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral a Barcelona: 1798-1799‘, Estudios históricos y documentos de los Archivos de Protocolos de Barcelona, 5 (1977): 129-140, 131-133. 14 The first scholar to draw attention to this topic was Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘.
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Some Case-Studies In December 1797 the Ottoman polacre Virgin of Hydra, with a carrying capacity of ―more or less‖ (―poco mas o menos‖) 350 Catalonian tons, 15 mastered by captain Kagi Kanelaci (or Canelaci), was chartered by the big Barcelonian commercial company of Juan Bautista Cabanyes & Co., that had ownership of the cargo. It was chartered for a roundtrip from Barcelona to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. In its charter it was clearly specified that the ship should not ―pass to other seas or ports not essential to its running‖ (―pasarse a otros Mares, ni Puertos que no sean precisos para su carrera‖), and it was also agreed that the captain should admit aboard the ―pilot or pilots and other Spanish subjects that accompany them‖ (―Piloto o pilotos y demás vasallos espaðoles que les acompaðaren‖), who should be well treated.16 On the 28th of February 1798, the captain formally agreed to this, by signing the guarantee in writing (Escritura de Caución) before a Barcelonian notary.17 On the 3rd of March the local press gave an account of the ship‘s departure from the port of Barcelona.18 On the 11th, after a crossing of eight days, she stopped at the port of Malaga. Once again the local press gave account that the ships carried ―fruits‖ assigned to the captain ―for his own use‖, a measure adopted, in agreement with the prevailing legislation, as a way to conceal the true Spanish consignors of the cargo. 19 After leaving Malaga, with the all the official paperwork (Registro),20 the Virgin of Hydra had to return twice to port because of bad weather, and finally left for America only at the beginning of April.21 Another polacre, the Virgin of Turliani of 250 Catalonian tons, mastered by the Ottoman captain Demetri Cristóforo, also was chartered in December 1797 by Juan Bautista Cabanyes & Co., to transport their 15 The Catalan ‗ton‘ was composed by 20 quintars, each of 100 libras; it corresponded to circa 920 kg. It was used both for wine and for grains, see Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo Americana (Madrid, 1928), 72 vols, 62: 686. See also Claudi Alsina, Gaspar Feliu and Lluís Marquet eds., Pesos, mides i mesures dels països catalans (Barcelona, 1990), 239. 16 Arxiu Històric de Protocols de Barcelona (henceforth AHPB), Escribanía de Marina, Manuals del notary Pau Raurés, 1978, ff .171-173, Freight (20 December 1797). Escritura de Caución (28 July 1798). At f. 177, captain‘s autograph signature in a document by which he declares himself ready to weigh anchor (26 February 1798). 17 Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 132, 140; Joaquim Llovet, Alsina, March i Cona (1794-1808). Tràfic colonial, bloqueig marítim i comerç de neutrals (Mataró, 1986), 76; Josep M. Delgado Ribas, Cataluña y el sistema de Libre Comercio (1778-1818), Universitat de Barcelona, unpublished doctoral thesis, 1981. vol. III, statistical appendix. 18 Diario de Barcelona (3 March 1798). 19 Entries and departures of the port of Malaga, Diario de Barcelona (28 March 1798 and 4 April 1798). 20 Official book on which figured all the goods loaded in its hold. 21 Diario de Barcelona (18 April 1798 and 25 April 1798).
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own merchandise. Demetri Cristóforo signed the guarantee on the same day as Kanelaci.22 He also left Barcelona at the beginning of March for a roundtrip to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. 23 On 11th March, after a crossing of eight days, he stopped in Malaga, and left for Buenos Aires with his Registro one week later. The cargo was also very similar as, like Kanelaci, Cristñforo also took his cargo of ―fruits‖ as his own personal property.24 On his return to Barcelona the following September (1798) coming from Montevideo after a crossing of 53 days, the ship was laden with a cargo of leathers, tallow and some other miscellaneous merchandise which was delivered to Juan Bautista Cabanyes. 25 The Ottoman captain Demetrio Miguel Samado, master of the polacre Virgin of Idhra, of 350 Catalonian tons, also contracted his load with Cabanyes & Co. consignee of the load, in December 1797. Likewise, he signed the writing of guarantee on the 28th of February 1798.26 From Barcelona, the port where he was anchored and where he signed the mandatory Registro, he started his roundtrip towards Montevideo and Buenos Aires at the beginning of March.27 He first stopped at Malaga, and in mid March he left to Buenos Aires, again with a cargo of ―fruits‖ to his name.28 But before successfully crossing the Atlantic he had to return twice to Malaga, which he finally managed to leave to successfully manage the Atlantic crossing only at the beginning of April. 29 A further example of these sorts of issues regarding the cargo ownership, and the problems posited by the state of war, is the voyage of the Ottoman Stavros Kagi Jorge, captain of the polacre San Miguel Arcángel, of 400 Catalonian pipes.30 On the 28th March 1798 he signed the freight declaration and the relevant warranty. In the contract for the freight, arranged with his counterpart, the Barcelona merchant Antonio Ginabreda, both parties agreed that:
22 Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 132,140; Llovet, Alsina, March i Cona, 76 Delgado Ribas, Cataluña y el sistema, vol. III, statistical appendix. 23 Diario de Barcelona (3 March 1798). 24 Entries and sallies of the port of Malaga, Diario de Barcelona (28 March 1798 and 4 April 1798). 25 List of entries to the port of Barcelona, Diario de Barcelona (11 September 1798). 26 Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 132,140; Llovet, Alsina, March i Cona, 76; Delgado Ribas, Cataluña y el sistema, vol. III, statistical appendix. 27 Diario de Barcelona (3 March 1798). 28 Entries and exits of the port of Malaga, Diario de Barcelona (28 March 1798 and 4 April 1798). 29 Diario de Barcelona (18 April 1798 and 25 April 1798). 30 A Barcelonian unit of capacity for wines and brandies equivalent to 485,6 litres, see Alsina, Feliu and Marquet, Pesos, mides, 195. See also Mario Rodríguez Aragón and Luis Callén eds., Unidades. Diccionario técnico de pesas, medidas y monedas (Madrid, 1949), 80.
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The contracting parties have agreed, and the captain has promised to fulfil, that he will declare both the outgoing and the return cargoes as loaded at his own name, and at his own account and risk, and that he will defend, protest and follow up in court any legal suit, litigation and pretension that any of the belligerent Powers bring against these cargoes. 31 The contract was signed for a round trip from Barcelona to Veracruz. The captain had also promised to take with him two Spanish pilots and to treat them with ―the appropriate decency to their class and Catalonian navigation practice‖ (―la decencia correspondiente a su clase y estilo de la navegaciñn catalana‖).32 The freight was agreed to 24,000 pesos (piastras); 10,000 to be paid at Veracruz, once unloaded, and the rest at Barcelona on his return. On 23 May the San Miguel Arcángel arrived at Malaga, leaving one week later for Veracruz with the Registro. According to the freight contract, amongst his miscellaneous cargo were the ever present ‗fruits‖ (―frutos‖).33 On the 18th of September 1798, coming from Barcelona after a crossing of seven days, arrived at the harbour of Malaga the Ottoman captain Jorge de Antonio with his polacre San Nicolás. From there he took the Registro citing Veracruz as his destination, and the consignee of his cargo was the Dutch consul in Malaga. 34 The Ottoman captain Demetri Georgi, with his polacre also named San Nicolás, of 450 Catalonian pipes, signed the usual guarantee on the 6th October 1798. The ship was chartered by the Catalonian merchants Mauricio Prat, Francisco Fabricias and Bonosio Raurés with the amount of 35,500 pesos (piastras). After leaving from Barcelona, with a miscellaneous cargo including spirits and liquors, the ship was supposed to call at Malaga on its way to La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, busy colonial harbours in the territory corresponding to present day Venezuela. 35 This ―Las partes contratantes han convenido y promete el capitán que tanto el cargo de ida, como el de vuelta, lo admitirá a su bordo como cargado por él mismo, por su propia cuenta y riesgo, que lo defenderá, clamará y seguirá cualquier causa, litigio y pretensión que alguna de las Potencias beligerantes formase contra dichos cargos‖, Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 132, 133, 140. 32 AHPB, Escribanía de Marina, (records of the notary J. Raurés), 1798, ff. 238-242. At f.246, captain‘s autograph signature in a document by which he declares himself ready to weigh anchor [depart?] (26 March 1798). 33 Diario de Barcelona (13 June 1798 and 20 June 1798). 34 Diario de Barcelona (10 October 1798). 35 He carried with him two Catalonian pilots, Bruno Guisart and Sebastián Pla. In the documentation the autograph signature of Demetrio Giorgi appeared, AHPB, Escribanía de Marina (records of the notary J. Raurés), 1798, ff. 688-696, 705. On the 6th October 1798 31
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captain though had some problems in his dealings with the merchants about the clauses of the contract, especially with the one clause relative to the total of navigation days, as the merchants argued that the excessive length of the trips was due to the captain pursuing his own economic interests and not those of chartering party and, in short, of not being up to the job.36 Another polacre called San Nicolás, this time of 140 Catalonian tons, captained by the Ottoman Demetrio de Joannes, was chartered for a roundtrip from Barcelona to Cartagena de Indias. The captain signed the guarantee on the 11th October 1798; the freight cost was settled in the important amount of 36,000 pesos or piastras (12,000 at Veracruz and the rest, 24,000 at Barcelona) to transport ―pipes and barrels of spirits and other goods and fruits‖ (―Pipas y barriles de licores y otros géneros y frutos‖). The ship was expected to make two stopovers on the Spanish coast, one in the port of Murviedro and another one in Malaga, where it would have received the remaining part of its cargo, and also collect the Registro and all the other documents and papers necessary for the trip ahead.37 The freight of polacre San Nicolás and San Spiridon, of 250 Catalonian botas,38 under the command of the Ottoman captain Georgi Apostolich, was also for a roundtrip from Barcelona to Puerto Cabello. On the 12th October 1798 Apostolich signed a contract with the local merchant Juan Canaleta for the total sum of 33,000 pesos (piastras). In the contract it was specified that, after leaving to Barcelona, the ship should make a first stop in another Spanish coastal harbour (―puerto que le digan de la costa‖), which would be specified later, and afterwards in Malaga. 39 Other transatlantic wanderings of Greek-Ottoman vessels are worth mentioning. The Ottoman Captain Ciriaco Stamato, with his
they signed the freight contract, and also the guarantee in writing (Escritura de Caución), both documents are reproduced in Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 132. 36 In the transaction that took place between the merchants and the captain took part an expert on the ―idioma italiano‖ (Italian language), with which the two parts at stake could finally reach an understanding, AHPB, Escribanía de Marina, (records of the notary J. Raurés), 1798, ff. 786-787 (27 November 1798). 37 AHPB, Escribanía de Marina, (records of the notary J. Raurés), 1798, ff. 632-635. The freight contract was signed the 11 September 1798), the guarantee (Escritura de Caución) had been signed on the 27 August 1798), see Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 132, 135, 140. 38 The Bota is a unit of measurement for wines, depending on the place corresponding to 8 or 10 quintars, each quintar is equivalent to 41,6 litres. See Gran Enciclopedia Catalana (Barcelona, 1990), vol. 5, 263; see also Alsina, Feliu and Marquet, Pesos, mides, 123-124. 39 AHPB, Escribanía de Marina, (records of the notary J. Raurés), 1798, ff. 711-718. The freight contract was signed the 12 October 1798, the guarantee (Escritura de Caución) had been signed on the 9 September 1798, see Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 135, 140.
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polacre Virgin of Hydra, capacity 3,500 Catalonian quarteras40, on the 26th October 1798 signed a guarantee in writing to go from Barcelona to La Guaira and Puerto Cabello.41 Other parties could be involved in these trades, and this can complicate matters further. On the 28th November 1798 the Ottoman captain Joanni Anieri (or Arrieri) arrived at Malaga from Barcelona with his polacre San Nicolás after 21 days of navigation. From there he took the Registro citing Veracruz as his destination, and the consignee of his cargo was the Dutch consul in Malaga.42 In an unspecified month of 1798 the Ottoman captain Stamaty Nicolas Sanny, in command of his polacre San Miguel, left Barcelona for the Colombian port of Santa Marta.43 In that very same year, seven Greek-Ottoman merchant ships with American destinations were being loaded in the port of Barcelona. These ships did not sail as political events took over. Eventually their cargoes were unloaded, since the British, the French and even the Algerians had declared the war against the Ottoman empire,44 which dissuaded Catalan merchants from making use of Ottoman shipping. This is made clear in the commercial correspondence between the partners of a Barcelona company: The Grand Signor of the Ottoman Porte has declared war to the French; war is everywhere, all the powers are now arming against the French, France remains strong in its stance and we Spanish, remaining on her side, every day become more entangled. Many suppose we will have peace with the British soon but I do not believe anything; there is a lot of news going around, but they are completely contradictory. The Algerians have captured 14 Ottoman boats, some of which were on their way to America, and others coming from the Levant, and there are a large number of corsairs at sea [looking] for these and the French. It is all a labyrinth and our naval forces all are retired from the scene of action. The British are also capturing Ottoman vessels, like those of the French, so that in this one [port] are seven of the [former] already loaded for Measurement of capacity for wheat equivalent to 69.518 litres, measurement of Barcelona, see Alsina, Feliu and Marquet, Pesos, mides, 210. 41 Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 132. 42 Diario de Barcelona (5 December 1798). 43 Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 132. 44 For the problems faced by the Ottoman fleet in this period see Panzac, La caravane maritime, and now his La marine ottomane, de l‟apogée à la chute de l‟Empire (1572-1923), (Paris, 2009). 40
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The last data that has been uncovered on the participation of Ottoman polacres in the Spanish-American trade, at least at the present state of the research, dates from the arrival in Malaga of the Ottoman captain Jorge Dimitri in May 1804, coming from ―America‖ and Lisbon, and leaving soon afterwards sailing to the ―East‖. 46 Undoubtedly, many more Greek captains sailing under the Ottoman flag took part in the Spanish trade with American during those years. Unfortunately, the data we have uncovered utilised does not cover all possible trips, especially in relation to the ports of Malaga and Cadiz, for which only incomplete records have survived. But we have more details on some further, possibly American, destinations, although this time in the service of France or of other countries‘ commerce. In July 1804 the Ottoman captain Juan Manolo Cutuluma arrived at the port of Malaga coming from Italy with a cargo of wine and oil, and leaving soon afterwards with the same cargo directed this time to ―San Bartolomé‖. Could this be the French possession on the Caribbean, Saint-Barthélemy?47 Besides, two other Ottoman captains who had arrived at Malaga – Teodoro Crítico, coming from Brindisi in 1797, and Dimitri Philini, from Marseilles in 1804 – had left towards ―Santo Tomás‖, which possibly was the island of St Thomas in the Antilles at that time under Danish control, though it could also have been Sao Tomé, on the Atlantic coast of Africa.48
―El gran señor de la Puerta Otomana ha declarado la guerra a la Franza; todo es guerra, todas las potencias se arman contra la Franza, y ella sigue su tenacidad y nosotros siguiendo a ella cada día nos enredamos más. Muchos suponen tendremos luego la paz con el inglés y yo no creo nada; son varias las novedades pero tan contrarias unas de otras que no pueden ser mas. El argelino ha apresado 14 barcos otomanos, algunos que iban a América, otros venían del Levante y tiene una infinidad de corsarios a la mar para éstos y para los franceses. Es todo un laberinto y nuestras fuerzas navales todas están retiradas; el inglés también apresa los otomanos, y asimismo el francés, de modo que en ésta se hallan siete de ellos cargados para América y ahora los van a descargar y ya no saldrá ningún otomano más para ninguna parte‖, Letter from Alsina i March to his associate Cona, from Barcelona (17 November 1798; Llovet, ‗Tràfic colonial sota pavellò neutral‘, 87. 46 Diario de Barcelona (30 May 1804 and 6 June1804). 47 Cutuluma arrived in the third week of July and left the following week, Diario de Barcelona (8 and 15 August 1804). 48 Crítico, who had arrived to Malaga from Brindisi on February 1797, left to Santo Tomas the following September; Diario de Barcelona (8 March 1797 and 11 October 1797). Philini arrived at Malaga with ―genre‖ from Marseilles at the beginning of 1804 and left a week later; Diario de Barcelona (22 and 29 August 1804). 45
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The ‘Greeks’ and Spanish Trade: some conclusions In addition to the participation of Greek-Ottoman captains in the direct traffic between Spanish and American ports, it is also necessary to consider their share in the redistribution of the colonial goods, merchandise which they usually loaded in Lisbon and Cadiz,49 and then transported to various other Spanish ports. As an example, the Ottoman polacre Santísima Trinidad, with the captain Jose Juan, arrived in Barcelona from Lisbon in 1802, with a load of 351 bales of Pernambuco cotton and 609 raw hides from Buenos Aires, sent to Barcelona for the local merchant Juan Bacigalupi.50 Within the same context it is necessary also to include the phenomenon of the acquisitions of merchant ships of Greek-Ottoman construction or flag to replace the losses sustained by the Catalan fleet involved in trade with America. Amongst these was the polacre Jorge, which was advertised for sale in Barcelona in 1803, of Greek construction, of 5,000 fanegas of deportment, it was built six years ago, and is provided with anchors, cables, rigging, sails and all other necessary equipment, according to the inventory which is in the hands of the agent Salvador Crous. 51 In conclusion, the participation of Greek-Ottoman shipping in Spanish trade in the Western Mediterranean and even in the Spanish Atlantic – without forgetting that some of the captains were not under the sovereignty of the Ottoman empire – played a far more important role Some Greek and Turkish men were listed as neighbours between 1787 and 1801, see García-Baquero, Comercio colonial y guerras revolucionarias, 98. About the presence of Eastern Christians in Cadiz in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Eloy Martin-Corrales, ‗Armenios en Andalucìa en la Edad Moderna: entre el negocio y la limosna‘, in IX Reunión Cientifica de la Fundación Española de Historia Moderna, (Malaga, forthcoming). 50 Bacigalupi presented a memorial, dated 17th February 1802, to the sanitary authorities seeking permission to unload without taking the goods to the lazaretto. He explained that they had to pay to the captain 23,100 duros of mortgage on the load. The aforementioned captain threatened he would weigh anchor if he was not given that amount, as that eventuality was in the contract signed by both parts. Bacigalupi argued that he could not give him that amount before removing the goods, and cleverly he added that the Ministry of Finance would lose more than 6,000 duros because of the growing expenses necessary for his dispatch. Arxiu Històrich Municipal de Barcelona, Fons de Sanitat, Serie I, 23, ff. 148-149, two reports of Barón de Serrahí to the Junta Sanidad de Barcelona, 18 and 20 February 1802. On the value of the duro – also known as peso fuerte, peso duro o real de a ocho, see Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, 18 (2ª part): 2624. 51. ―de construcción griega, y porte de 5.000 fanegas, construidas 6 años hace, y esta provista de ancoras, cables, xarcias, velamen y demás necesario, según consta por el Inventario que está en poder del corredor Salvador Crous‖, Diario de Barcelona (30 August 1803 and 5, 11 and 22 September 1803).The fanega was a capacity measure used for grains, and equivalent to 55.5 litres, see Rodríguez Aragón and Callén, Unidades, 80. 49
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than had been known until now. Without any doubt, the fact that the economic activity of the Spanish ports has hardly been integrated into the studies on European maritime commerce between the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, has much to do with this. Appendix I: Greek-Ottoman Captains and Ships arriving at the Port of Barcelona (1788-1807) Cargoes: AL = Almond BAL = Ballast BAR = Barley BE = Beans BR = Brandy BW = Barrell wood CL = Cloths CO = Cocoa
DATE 2-5-1788 1-4-1790 10-2-1791 17-10-1794 15-7-1797 15-7-1797 24-7-1797 2-8-1797 20-8-1797 20-9-1797 10-10-1797 30-11-1797 3-12-1797 7-12-1797 18-12-1797 19-12-1797 30-1-1798 31-1-1798 31-1-1798 12-2-1798 1-3-1798 1-3-1798 17-3-1798 17-3-1798 12-4-1798 2-5-1798 16-5-1798 20-5-1798 21-5-1798 12-6-1798 1-7-1798
COD = Codfish COT = Cotton COF = Coffee EG = Esparto grass GA = Gallnuts GU = Gum IN = Indigo LO = Logwood (Palo Campeche) CAPTAIN (BOAT)
Demetrio Andronopolo (Nª.Sª.Bosso) Simon Horfano (Virgen de Bosso) Pedro Sideri (...) Atanasio Podimata (...) Demetrio de Joani (Nª.Sª. de Idhra) Lazaro de Nicola (Nª.Sª. de Idhra) Teodoro Demetrio (Virgen de Idhra) Giovanni Inglesi (Caballo Pegaso) Constantino Nicolas (Providencia Divina) Anastasio de Nicolas (Esperanza) Juan Jorge Cioni (Virgen de Idhra) Demetrio Cristofono (Virgen de Turliani) Kagi Canzelay Ant.(Nª.Sª.Idhra) Angili Tomasini (Virgen de Idhra) Jorge de Antonio (San Nicolás) Demetrio Samados (Virgen de Idhra) Giovanni Theodosi (San Nicolás) Ciriaco Demetrio (Virgen de Idhra) Demetrio Joanni Jaca (Nª.Sª.Evangelista) Stauro Caggi (San Miguel Arcangel) George Johanni (Constantino) Gika Nicola (Buena Fortuna) Demetrio de Antonio (Virgen de Idhra) Lucas de Juan (B) Dima de Joanni (Nª.Sª.Idhra) Stamati Pandeli (Virgen de Idhra) Demetrio J.Melochini (San Nicolas) Nicolas Aggi (San Nicolas) Nicolas Juan Trippo (Santísima Virgen) Elias de Nicolas (Virgen de Idhra) George de Antonio (San Nicolas)
MA = Maize MG = Misc. Goods OI = Oil PE = Pepper RA = Rags RH = Raw Hides RI = Rice SA = Sardines
SO = Soap SP = Spears SU = Sugar TA = Tallow TU = Tuna W = Wheat WAX = Wax WO = Wool
ORIGIN (PORT/S OF CALL) Livorno (Tolon/Palamos) Livorno (Marseilles) Naples (Sant Feliu Guixols) Mallorca Mallorca Genoa Trieste (Messina) Civitavecchia Murviedro (Mallorca) Hydra (Tolon) Hydra (Genoa) Hydra (Villefranche [sur-mer]) Mytilene [?] Hydra Ancona Salonika (Hydra, Salou) Hydra (Genoa) Hydra (Genoa) Salonika (Livorno) Hydra Hydra Hydra Genoa Hydra (Palermo) Castiglione Mallorca Mallorca Navarino [?] (Genoa, Rosas) Napoles (Corigliano) Volos (Hydra, Genoa, Malorca)
LOAD BW W BW, MG BR BAL W, BE, SO, RI BW W, OI,GU W W W OI W W W W W W W W W BAR W BW BAL BAL OI OI W
GREEK-OTTOMAN CAPTAINS 8-7-1798 10-7-1798 12-7-1798 15-7-1798 18-7-1798 18-7-1798 18-7-1798 21-7-1798 24-7-1798 3-8-1798 5-8-1798 8-8-1798 12-8-1798 15-8-1798 21-8-1798 24-8-1798 24-8-1798 28-8-1798 3-9-1798 7-9-1798 10-9-1798 10-9-1798 11-9-1798 11-9-1798 21-9-1798 11-11-1798 12-4-1800 12-4-1800 16-3-1801 4-4-1801 22-5-1801 12-2-1802 30-4-1802 9-5-1802 9-5-1802 12-5-1802 16-5-1802 26-5-1802 30-5-1802 30-5-1802 30-5-1802 3-6-1802 3-6-1802 21-6-1802 12-7-1802 29-3-1803 1-4-1803 6-4-1803 23-4-1803 24-4-1803 12-8-1803 16-8-1803 17-8-1803 17-8-1803
Constantino de Mateo (San Nicolas Ipsara) Juan Demitri (Virgen Idhra) Teodoro Basili (San Nicolas) Antonio Andrea Zerba (Virgen Idhra) Juan Arieri (San Nicolas) Demetrio de Juan (San Nicolas) Demetrio Gixa (Virgen de Idhra) Andrea Garafulo (Virgen de Idhra) Andres Basili Buduri (Virgen de Idhra) Juan de Teodosio (San Nicolas) Constantino de Mateo (San Nicolas) Marcos Capsalopolo (San Miguel Arcangel) Anastasio de Juan, (San Nicolas) Jorge Haggi Andrie (San Nicolas) Gika Giovanni (Virgen de Idhra)
Castellammare (Naples) Volos (Malta, Mallorca) Mallorca Hydra (Salonika, Mallorca) Volos (Mallorca) Volos (Mallorca) Alicante Volos (Hydra, Alicante) Mallorca Canea (Mallorca) Vinaroz Castellammare [di Stabia] (Naples, Livorno,Alicante) Genoa) Cadiz (Algeciras, Spetses (Mallorca) Siria (Malta, Mallorca, Tarragona) Ciriaco Stamati (Virgen de Idhra) Hydra Lazaro Giovanni (Virgen de Idhra) Hydra Estamazio Nicolazan (San Miguel Ayamonte (Salou) Arcangel)Georgio (San Nicolas) Dimitrio Volos (Mallorca) Elias de Nicolas (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Lisbon, Gibraltar Teodoro Mezzi (San Nicolas) Ayamonte Georgio Apostolo (San Nicolas) Psara (Mallorca) Pandeli Demetri (Virgen de Idhra) Lisbon Demetri Christofolo (Virgen de Turliani) Montevideo Nicolo Giovanni (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Morea (Mallorca) Antonio Jorge Camini (Virgen de Idhra) Alicante Ant. Demetrio Bern (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Malaga (Salou) Demetrio M.Samado (Nª.Sª. de Idhra) Malaga (Salou) Hagi Argiri de Paolo (San Nicolas) Genoa Nicolas Gini (...) Genoa (Salou) Juan de Lázaro (San Nicolas) Genoa (Rosas) Jorge Juan (Santísima Trinidad) Lisbon Anan Nostie Ariery (San Nicolas) Spetses (Genoa) Juan Adrimon (Virgen...) Goro (Trapani) Nicolas Michet (San Nicolas) Zara Andres Demetrio Vocco (Aquiles) Hydra (Livorno, Genoa) Marseilles) Demetrio de Juan (San Nicolas) Genoa Siriaco Demetrio (Virge de Sara) Hydra (Genoa) Antonio Miloy (San Miguel Arcangel) Psara (Santo Stefano, Livorno) Anastasio de Dimitri (...) Hydra (Messina, Livorno, S. Stefano) Nicolas C.Milaitis (San Nicolas) Psara (Livorno) Aggi Juan Nechs (San Nicolas) Spetses (Civitavecchia, Melasso) Juan Tuedesia (San Nicolas) Hydra (Livorno) Anastasio Siriaco (Virgen de Idhra) Hydra (Genoa, Tolon) Anastasio de Juan (San Nicolas) Spetses (Naples, Messina) Genoa) Juan Aregnusti (San Nicolas) Genoa Antonio Tudori (San Dimitri) Hydra (Livorno) Manuel Miquel (San Nicolas) Zara (Livorno) Anastasio D.Todorich (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Hydra Dimitri Stamati (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Hydra (Genoa, Marseilles) Esteban Dimitri (Nª.Sªde Idhra) Hydra (Portofino) Contantin Dimitri (San Nicolas) Psara (Cefalonia, Calabria) Genoa, Nice) Livorno, Genoa) Dimitri Migue (San Nicolas) Psara (Malta, Ciriaco de Nicola (Buena Esperanza) Hydra (Livorno)
219 BW W BAL W W W W W W OI BAL BW W, LO, COT W W W W TU W SU, LO TU W SU, CO, COD RH, TA, SP OI BAL SU SU MG COT, MG COT, RH W W W W, MA W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W
220 22-8-1803 24-8-1803 24-12-1803 10-1-804 13-1-1804 16-1-1804 5-2-1804 7-2-1804 13-2-1804 16-2-1804 18-3-1804 19-3-1804 24-3-1804 24-3-1804 27-3-1804 28-3-1804 13-4-1804 19-4-1804 25-4-1804 13-6-1804 2-7-1804 24-11-1804 24-11-1804 4-12-1804 4-12-1804 10-12-1804 8-1-1805 16-1-1805 19-1-1805 24-4-1805 7-5-1805 5-6-1805 8-6-1805 30-6-1805 39-7-1805 1-8-1805 12-8-1805 25-8-1805 5-9-1805 10-9-1805 16-9-1805 18-9-1805 20-9-1805 5-10-1805 16-10-1805 18-10-1805 9-12-1805 12-1-1806 28-1-1806 11-2-1806 18-2-1806 24-2-1806 27-2-1806 11-3-1806 16-3-1806 22-3-1806
TRADE AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE Anastasio Siriaco (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Constantino Jorge Pagi (San Nicolas) Ciriaco Stamati (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Dimitri Juan Jaque (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Antonio Jorgen (Nª.Sª. de Idhra) Antonio Teodoro (San Dimitri) Siriaco Estamato (Nª.Sª. de Idhra) Canacci Lazaro (Nª.Sª. de Idhra) Dimitrio Jorge Brusco (Nª.Sª. de Idhra) Nicolas Agi Dimitrio (San Nicolas) Antonio de Juan (Anastasia) Nicola Dimitri (Nª.Sª. de Idhra) Jorge Xilli (Alexandro Primero) Juan Nicolas Lazaro (Carlos Constantino) Juan Francisco (Nª.Sª. de Idhra) Nicola Demetri (Generosidad) Andres Jorge (San Nicolas) Jorge Dimitri (Rondinela) Carambolo de Dimitri (San Piridion) Juan de Lazaro Meca (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Jorge Abelicopuli (Santísima Trinidad) Nicolas de Demetrio (San Nicolas) Nicolas Joanni Comun (San Nicolas) Jorge Papa Nicola (San Nicolas) Teodoro Demetrio (Arigiste) Teodoro Calarin (San Nicolas) Argüir de Mitre Baru (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Teodoro Jorge Calari (San Nicolas) Andres Jorge (San Nicolas) Constantino Zipares (San Nicolas) Teodoro Jorge (San Nicolas) Teodoro C.Alebriot (Principe Calimachi) Demetrio Miguel (Madonna Torlera) Antonio Elias (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Domingo Jordán (Virgen Dolores) Astraci de Nicola (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Nicola Caxi J.Argemi (San Nicolas) Antonio Bavachiqui (Nª.Sª.de Idhra) Juan Estamati (Santísima Trinidad) Ananosti Cachademitri (San Nicolas) Demetrio de Nicola (San Nicolas) Nicolas de Giorgio (San Nicolas) Antonio Castrofilaca (Santísima Trinidad) Domingo Giordano (Virgen Dolores) Teodoro de Giorgio (San Nicolas) Demetrio Miguel (Virgen del Carmen) Demetrio Constantino (Demistocles) Juan Andrea (Virgen de Idhra) Demitri Juan (Virgen de Idhra) Jorge Apostol (San Nicolas) Lazaro Cataro (Virgen de Idhra) Miguel E.Raiscovich (Virgen de Gracia) Jorge Apostoli (San Nicolas) Juan Estamati (Santísima Trinidad) Siriaco Nicola (Virgen de Idhra) Dimitri Estamate (Genaro)
Hydra (Mallorca) Psara (Livorno) Hydra (Malta) Hydra (Livorno) Hydra (Livorno) Hydra (Mahon) Mallorca (Denia) Mallorca (Denia) Hydra (Livorno, Tolon) Lisbon (Cartagena) Hydra (Livorno) Hydra (Messina) Psara (Messina, Mahon) Livorno (Palamos) Livorno (Rosas) Hydra (Messina, Livorno) Livorno Livorno (Palamos) Cyprus (Livorno, Cagliari) Porto Maurizio [Imperia] Castellammare [di Stabia] Psara (Santo Stefano) Psara (Santo Stefano) Psara (Naples) Gaeta (Genoa) Psara Hydra (Mallorca) Mallorca Nice (Mallorca) Psara (Denia, Tarragona) Mallorca Smyrna Livorno (Civitavecchia) Algeciras Vietri Hydra Levant (Mallorca, Valencia) Mahon Mallorca Mahon Denia Mallorca Naples Vietri Ipsara (Messina, Rosas) Cartagena Mallorca Ayamonte (Mallorca) Mallorca Scala Nova [Yenifoça] Cadiz (Ibiza) Constantinople (Malta) Tarragona Ancona (Mallorca) Ayamonte (Valencia) Hydra (Ibiza)
W W W W W BE BAL BAL W COD W W W W W BAR W W W, BAR, BE OI BW W W W W W BAL BAL BAL W BAL W, GA BE, RI SU, RH, MG BW OI W BAL BAL W W BAL BW BW W BAL W TU BE BE COT, MG W HE W SA W
GREEK-OTTOMAN CAPTAINS 9-4-1806 26-4-1806 27-4-1806 10-5-1806 14-5-1806 14-5-1806 2-6-1806
Nicolas Dimitri (San Nicolas) Pedro de Jorge (San Nicolas) Lazaro de Pedro (Virgen de Idhra) Juan Demitri (Virgen de Idhra) Arrieri Dimitri (Virgen de Idhra) Andrea Garafulo (Santísima Trinidad) Ofari Dimitri Voch (Virgen de Idhra)
24-6-1806 27-6-1806 14-7-1806 15-7-1806 18-7-1806 24-7-1806 4-8-1806 8-8-1806 9-8-1806 12-8-1806 12-8-1806 13-8-1806 13-8-1806 14-8-1806 20-8-1806 9-9-1806 9-9-1806 21-9-1806 2-10-1806 2-10-1806 6-10-1806 8-10-1806 14-10-1806 1-11-1806 15-11-1806
Estamati de Joani (Virgen de Idhra) Demetrio Constantino (Temistocles) Jorge Apostoly (San Nicolas) Juan Salaca (Anunciata) Micael E.Drascovich (Virgen de Gracia) Jorge Francisco (San Nicolas) Nicola Dimitri (San Nicolas) Andrea Jordi (San Nicolas) Anargiro Demetrio (Virgen de Idhra) Juan Nicola Atrono (Virgen de Idhra) Angelo Michel (San Nicolas) Manuel Jorge (San Nicolas) Teodore George (San Nicolas) Nicola Dimitri (San Nicolas) Dimitri de Juan (Minerva) Dup Potteto Sideri (Etulia) Lazaro Demitri (Virgen de Idhra) Lazaro Pinosi (Virgen de Idhra) Jorge Miguel (San Nicolas) Juan Demetri (Virgen de Idhra) Sotinio Maratia (Carolina) Const. Vangelopolis (San Nicolas) Teodoro Constantino (San Nicolas) Constantino Pandeli (Virgen de Idhra) Dimitri Zuado (Madonna Turnellich)
15-11-1806 16-11-1806 20-11-1806 16-12-1806
Nicolas Constantino (San Nicolas) Jorge Francisco (San Nicolas) Dimitri Joani Zaca (Virgen de Idhra) Dimitri Adamopoulo (San Nicolas)
18-12-1806 20-12-1806 21-12-1806 9-1-1807 16-1-1807 2-2-1807 19-2-1807 24-2-1807 6-3-1807 14-3-1807 17-3-1807 24-3-1807 22-3-1807
Jose Andrea Esposati (San Roque) Domingo Artaquinos (Virgen Trrglani) Juan Salaca (Anunciata) Jorge Joani Ostrich (Santa Catalina) Dimitri Nicola (San Nicolas) Constantino de Juan (San Nicolas) Angelo Dimitri (Virgen de Idhra) Juani Pandeli (San Nicolas) Demetrio Driso (San Demetri) Ciriaco Stamati (Virgen de Idhra) Antonio de Georgachi (San Miguel) Jorge Juan (San Nicolas) Antonio de Andrea (...)
221
Mahon Scala Nova [Yenifoça] (Cagliari) Hydra (Mallorca, Tarragona) Mallorca Hydra (Mallorca) Hydra (Mallorca) Cádiz
BAL BE, WA W BAL W W COT, LO, RH, RA, Mallorca RA, GO Sevilla (Sanlucar, Cadiz) W, COT, IN Algeciras BAL Alicante AL, BAL Aguilas(Sant Feliu Guixols) BAL Aguilas (Tarragona) EG Psara (Mallorca) W Psara (Mallorca) W Hydra (Ibiza, Mallorca) W Hydra (Mahon) W Psara (Mahon) W Psara (Ibiza) W Psara (Mallorca) W Pontevedra SA Malta (Mallorca) BAL Tarragona BAL Valencia (Tarragona) BAL Hydra BE Malta (Palermo) W Vigo (Tarragona) SA Cagliari (Mahon) W Palermo (Cagliari) BE Malta (Mallorca, Tarragona) W Livorno BW Scala Nova [Yenifoça] (Malta, BE Fornells) Civitavecchia BE Mallorca BAR, EG Mahon BAL Cadiz COT,GU,RH, RA, LO Constantinople (Tunis, Mahon) W Mykonos [?] (Paxos, Mahon) BAR Vigo (Alicante) SA Constantinople W Apulia (Tarragona) W Lisbon (Alicante) BAL Hydra (Mahon) BAL Lisbon SU, COF Smyrna (Cagliari) W Spetses (Portoferraio) Lisbon Cadiz (Alicante)
W SU, COF, CO COT, RH COF,RA, Sources: For the period 1792-1807, Diario de Barcelona; for the period 1788-1791, MartínWO,PE, Corrales, ‗El comercio de Cataluña con el Levante otomano‘, 145-160. All the names of TA the
captains and ships have been trascribed exactly as they appear in the Diario de Barcelona.
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Map 2: Greek Ottoman Trade in Iberian harbours
1.- Ayamonte 2.- Sanlucar de Barrameda 3.- Sevilla 4.- Cadiz 5.- Conil 6.- Algeciras 7.- Gibraltar 8.- Estepona 9.- Marbella 10.- Malaga 11.- Motril 12.- Almeria
13.- Aguilas 14.- Cartagena 15.- Alicante 16.- Denia 17.- Cullera 18.- Valencia 19.- Murviedro (Sagunto) 20.- Vinaroz 21.- Salou 22.- Tarragona 23.- Vilanova 24.- Barcelona
25.- Blanes 26.- Sant Feliu de Guixols 27.- Palamos 28.- Rosas 29.- Palma de Mallorca 30.- Mahon 31.- Fornells 32.- Ibiza 33.- Vigo 34.- Pontevedra 35.- Faro 36.- Lisbon
11 THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘ Greeks in Mediterranean Trade and Shipping in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries Gelina Harlaftis Our ships do not only work in the White Sea, but in all the seas of the Levante and Ponente, and beyond the Straits in the Ocean, in America, in Holland and in England, in the Baltic Sea, and last year merchants asked for our ships to be chartered for India.1 So wrote some Ottoman Greek captains to the Sublime Porte on the 15 December 1804. Less than two hundred years after the ‗Northerners‘ invaded the Mediterranean, the ‗Easterners‘ struck back. According to Fernand Braudel, early in the seventeenth century the Northerners – that is mainly the English and the Dutch – swarmed into the Mediterranean, and with their bigger and superior vessels took over Mediterranean trade and shipping from the fleets of the main Italian cities, in a move that he described as northern invasion. 2 But was this really the case? Colin Heywood in his essay in this volume brings this argument to the fore in the context of Molly Greene‘s recent article in which she argues that this notion of the northern invasion was exaggerated and misleading.3 And it is probably the case that, although the English and the Dutch did indeed take a portion of the Mediterranean trade and shipping, in the seventeenth Antonios Lignos, Αρχείον Κοινότητος Ύδρας 1778-1832 (Archive of the Community of Hydra, 1778-1832), 15 vols (Piraeus, 1921), 2: 190-191. 2 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and he Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols (New York, 1992), 1: 615-642. The same is argued by Michel Fontenay, ‗The Mediterranean World, 1500-1800: Social and Economic Perspectives‘ in Victor Mallia Milanes ed., Hospitaller Malta, 1530-1798, Studies on the Early Modern Malta and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem ( Malta, 1993), 41-110. 3 Molly Greene, ‗Beyond the northern invasion: the Mediterranean in the Seventeenth Century‘, Past and Present, 174 (2002): 42-71. 1
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century the largest part of it remained in the hands of the local Mediterranean merchant fleets. The history of the Mediterranean trade ‗after Braudel‘, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has attracted little attention from mainstream historians in the last decades.4 The expansion of European trade in the Atlantic and Indian oceans and the wealth that this brought has overshadowed the importance of Mediterranean trade. The eighteenth century can be instead considered the ‗golden century‘ of international trade. From the end of that century the Mediterranean also profited from the opening of the Black Sea trade and from growing grain exports from south Russia: two factors which brought the Levant and Black Sea trades gradually to the centre stage of European international trade. While it is true that the French that were the undisputable main seafarers and carriers of the Levant trade of the first half of the eighteenth century, the Greeks were able to take advantage of the almost continuous wars between the French and the British and, from the American War of Independence to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, they managed to turn the northern trend into a different quarter: it was now the Eastern ships and not those of Western, maritime Europe that carried the trade from the east to the west. Consequently, during the era of the Pax Britannica, Black Sea grain on Greek ships competed with American grain on British ships to feed the industrialising countries of Northern Europe. The ‗Eastern grain Invasion‘ this time conquered not only the Western Mediterranean but also the northern European markets. With the main interest of Western European historians in the Venetian, the French, the English and the Dutch presences in the Mediterranean, there is almost no literature on the seafarers of the Levant, the Ottoman and Venetian Greeks. In Greek historiography the rise of Greek shipping is located in the second half of the eighteenth century. 5 Some historians, however, have indicated that it was the seventeenth century, or even earlier, which witnessed the ascendancy of Greek The relatively recent and fascinating volume by Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea. A Study of Mediterranean History (London, 2000) mainly concerns ancient and medieval Mediterranean history despite the multiple references to early modern and modern era. 5 Georgios B. Leon (Leontaritis), ‗Ελληνική εμπορική ναυτιλία (1453-1850)‘ (‗Greek Merchant Shipping‘) in Stelios A. Papadopoulos ed., Eλληνική εμπορική ναυτιλία (Greek Merchant Shipping), (Athens, 1972), 13-48; Olga Katsiardi-Hering, ‗Η Αυστριακή Πολιτική και η ελληνική ναυσιπλοϊα, 1750-1800‘ (‗Austrian Policy and Greek Navigation, 1750-1800‘), Parousia, 5 (1987): 445-537; Olga Katsiardi-Hering, Λησμονημένοι ορίζοντες ελλήνων εμπόρων: Σο πανηγύρι της Senigallia (18ος-αρχές 19ου αιώνα) (Forgotten Horizons of Greek Merchants. The Fair of Senigallia (eighteenth century-beginning of nineteenth century)) (Athens, 1989); Vassilis Kremmydas, Eλληνική ναυτιλία, 1776-1835 (Greek Shipping, 1776-1835), 2 vols (Athens, 1985). 4
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
225
maritime power.6 Greek seamen – Ottoman-Greeks and Venetian-Greeks – were the local seafarers of the Levant who worked as merchant captains and seamen in Istanbul, the Black Sea, the Aegean and Ionian ports, as shipwrights in the Ottoman and Venetian shipyards, as crews in the Imperial Ottoman fleet, or as crews and captains in the fleets of the Barbary corsairs.7 They owned small craft for the coastal trade between the islands and the main coasts of Greece and Asia Minor, a traffic which they gradually enlarged, and in the seventeenth century they began trading into the central Mediterranean, moving swiftly into the vacuum left by Venice and assuming a significant role in the caravane maritime. This essay will map the ‗Eastern Invasion‘, the rise of Greek-owned shipping, in the long-haul Mediterranean trade of the eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century. It will further examine in a comparative perspective the importance of the Greek-owned fleet and its dynamism in the overall Mediterranean trade and shipping of this period. As I am going to describe the Greek invasion to the West quantitatively, based on recent research, it is necessary to clarify the data of the database Amphitrete that I will be making use of.8 Amphitrete includes Greene, ‗Beyond the northern invasion‘. Greene gives multiple paradigms of an affluent ship-owning class in Sifnos, Crete and Patmos that were engaged in maritime trade with the central Mediterranean. More information on Patmos shipping and its activities on the Patmos-Adriatic route in the seventeenth century in Chryssa Maltezou, ‗Τα πλοία της Μονής Πάτμου, 16ος-17ος αιώνας‘ (‗The ships of the Monastery of Patmos, sixteenth-seventeenth century‘), in Πρακτικά Ι. Μονής Αγίου Ιωάννου Θεολόγου. Εννιακόσια χρόνια ιστορικής μαρτυρίας (1088-1988) (Proceedings of the International Symposium I. I. Moni Ag. Ioannou tou Theologou. 900 years of historical evidence (1088-1988)), (Athens, 1989), 115-125. We have also ample evidence on the importance of the Greek ship-owners and merchants from Zante and Corfu in the Anglo-Venetian trade in the last third of the sixteenth century; see Maria Fusaro, ‗Les Anglais et le Grecs. Un réseau de cooperation commercial en Méditerranée vénitienne‘, in Annales HSS, 58 (2003): 605-625, and Gerassimos D. Pagratis, Θαλάσσιο εμπόριο στη βενετοκρατούμενη Κέρκυρα 1496-1538 (Maritime trade in Venetian-ruled Corfu 1496-1538), Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ionian University (Corfu, 2001). 7 Frederic Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic (Baltimore, 1973), 415; Vassilis Sfyroeras, Ελληνικά πληρώματα του τουρκικού στόλου (The Greek Crews of the Turkish Fleet) (Athens, 1968); Aikaterini Bekiaroglou-Exadaktylou, Οθωμανικά ναυπηγεία στον παραδοσιακό ελληνικό χώρο, (Ottoman Shipyards in the Traditional Greek Area) (Athens, 1994), 138-149; Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert eds., An Economic History of the Ottoman Empire,1300-1914 (Cambridge, 1994), 181; Nikos Svoronos, Σο εμπόριο της Θεσσαλονίκης τον 18ο αιώνα (The Commerce of Thessaloniki in the eighteenth Century) (Athens, 1996), 157. 8 This database is the result of a research project titled ―Greek Maritime History, 1700-1821‖ funded by the EU and the Greek Ministry of Education and undertaken by the Department of History of the Ionian University during the period 2004-2006. Its aim was to identify, chart and interpret the path of the fleet of Ottoman and Venetian Greek subjects in the trade and shipping of the Mediterranean Sea during the eighteenth century. The team consisted of 20 individuals including Greek, Turkish, Italian, Maltese and Dutch researchers that worked in the Archives of Venice, Istanbul, Trieste, Malta, Messina, Naples, Livorno, Genoa, Marseilles, London and Amsterdam, along with those of Athens, Salonika, Heraklion, Corfu, 6
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Greek-owned vessels sailing under various flags (Ottoman, Venetian, Maltese, Russian, Prussian, Austrian, British, French and the flag of Jerusalem) that arrived in Venice, Trieste, Ancona, Malta, Messina, Naples, Livorno, Genoa and Marseilles.9 By the term ‗Greek-owned‘, I mean vessels with captains with Greek names, sailing under various flags. Greek-owned vessels were selected according to the names of the captain and the ship, the main criterion for the identification of the Greek-owned vessels in the archives being the name of the captain. For example the ―polacre La Vierge d‟ Ydra with the russe Captain Dimitri Anagnosti‖, or the ―pollaca Madonna di Broso of captain ―Giorgio Burbachi di Messolongi‖ or the ―pollaca St Niccolo of the captain ―Andrea Mammuni‖ who is ―ottomano ipsariotto‖ are all registered as Greek-owned. The Ottoman archives do not record names of ships but ships are registered under the name of their captains: ―Niko son of Yiorgi from Psara‖, or ―Nikola Hatzi Yianni Argiri from Psara‖ or ―Nikola son of Dimitri from Çamlıca [Hydra]‖ or ―Nikola son of Anastas from Suluca [Spetses]‖ with the type of ship, for example ―iki direkli birik [two-masted brig]‖. Moreover, the employees of the Malta Sanità classified the captains of Ottoman flag vessels owned by Greeks as ‗Greci‘; the Genoese officials distinguished them instead according to their island of origin, ―ottomano idriotto‖ or ―ottomano ipsariotto‖; while the French consuls referred to the Ottoman vessels as ―grecs‖ or ―turcs‖. A question that arises is why would vessels and captains be described as ‗Greek‘ in the Western Mediterranean European ports? A provisional response could be that what we have here is a sort of ethnic-religious self-determination on behalf of Ottoman Greeks, but further research is necessary especially for the periods in which this term is used.10 Also, it seems that this ethno-religious connotation was accepted or applied by the port authorities of Malta or the French consuls. Finally, could this specific characterization, apart from being an ethno-religious determination, also denote a sort of ‗brand name‘ in the Mediterranean entrepreneurship that reflected ‗trustworthy service‘? Cephalonia, Hydra and Spetses. The final product is Amphitrete, a database with about 24,000 entries in six languages, Greek, Ottoman, Italian, French, English and Dutch (homogenised in Greek). Amphitrete is still under process and more data is being added. For the sources used on this project see Gelina Harlaftis and Sophia Laiou, ‗Ottoman State Policy in Mediterranean Trade and Shipping, c.1780-c.1820: The Rise of the Greek-Owned Ottoman Merchant Fleet‘ in Mark Mazower ed., Networks of Power in Modern Greece (London, 2008), 144; Gelina Harlaftis, ‗The fleet ‗dei Greci‘. Ottoman and Venetian Greeks in the Mediterranean sea-trade, eighteenth century‘ in Michela d‘Angelo, Gelina Harlaftis and Carmel Vassallo eds., Making Waves in the Mediterranean, Messina, forthcoming. 9 More than 80 % of all the number of Greek-owned vessels that we have traced used the Ottoman flag. See Harlaftis and Laiou, ‗Ottoman State Policy‘, Table 6, 28. 10 See Harlaftis and Laiou, ‗Ottoman State Policy‘, Table 6, 28.
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
227
Namely, an Ottoman Greek captain from Messolongi or Hydra, or Psara who traded regularly to the West was thereby considered reliable? Whatever the case, we presuppose that when Western European archives register a vessel as ‗Greco‘ what they really mean is ‗Ottoman-Greek‘. Then there is the question of ownership. Are the captains also the ship-owners? And how do we know that these ships were not Muslimowned and Greek-captained? And were there not mixed crews in the ships? On the ownership front, there is evidence that there were certainly vessels owned by Ottoman Muslims, or co-owned with the Greeks.11 But it seems that these were mostly engaged in the regional trade of the Eastern Mediterranean, and that the Ottoman Muslims preferred to act mainly as investors in maritime commerce, including the ownership of portions of ships, and not necessarily as ship-owners/captains and/or merchants. So, although we cannot prove the ownership structure of every vessel we have registered, our working hypothesis here is that most captains were also owners of their vessels or co-owners with other local entrepreneurs.12 Moreover, we also presuppose that Greek-owned ships were manned by Greek seamen: this hypothesis stems from the ample evidence of crew lists from the beginning to the end of the nineteenth century that indicates that crews on Greek-owned ships were manned by See Vassilis Kremmydas, ‗Καταγραφή των εμπορικών πλοίων του Ηρακλείου το 1751‘ (‗Register of the merchant ships of Herakleion in 1751‘), Mnimon 7 (1978-1979): 12-17; Murat Çizakça, A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships: The Islamic World and Europe, with Specific Reference to the Ottoman Archives, (Leiden, 1996), 86-130; Eldem Edhem, ‗Strangers in their own seas? The Ottomans in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century‘, unpublished paper; a shorter version has been published as Eldem Edhem, ‗Kontrolü Kaybetmek: 18 Yüzyılın İkinci Yarısında Doğu Akdeniz‘de Osmanlı Varlığı‘ (‗Losing control? Ottoman presence in Eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the eighteenth century‘), in Özlem Kumrular ed., Türkler ve Deniz (The Turks and the Sea) (Istanbul, 2007), 63-78. 12 The main financier of the ship-owners of Spetses for example was the Peloponnesian Hadjipanayiotis Politis, also a merchant and ship-owner, established in Leonidion, a town on the Peloponnesian coast, opposite from Spetses. Hadjipanayiotis-Politis was a relative of the equally wealthy Peloponnesian merchant Trouchanis or Trochanis, as well as of the leading Spetsiot Mexis family, which in turn was related through intermarriage to most of the important Spetsiot shipping families. From the archives of his business that were found and studied by Vassilis Kremmydas, it has been calculated that between 1783 and 1821 he was the co-owner of 26 deep-sea going sailing ships, together with the Spetsiots Hadjiyannis and Tehodarakis Mexis, Demetrakis Yannouzas, Lazarou-Orloff, Dimigionis (Ginis), Zakithinaios, Klissas, Panos, Santos, Sklias, Gikas Tzioupas (Tsoupas) and Spyridonos. Apart from being a co-owner of sailing ships, he collaborated with over fifty Spetsiot ship-owners and provided the capital required sermagia, for the purchase of cargo. During the forty-year course of his commercial and maritime enterprises he provided capital for cargoes on over 300 ships, over and above the cargoes transported by his own vessels. See Vassilis Kremmydas, Αρχείο Χατζηπαναγιώτη. Χατζηπαναγιώτης-Πολίτης (Hadjipanayotis Archive. Hadjipanayotis-Politis) (Athens, 1973), 149-151. 11
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Greeks. Even more specifically, captains from a certain island or port-city hired almost exclusive Greek seamen from the same island or port. 13 The Greek-owned fleet of Ottoman subjects under Ottoman flag was part of the Ottoman mercantile fleet. A fleet of any nation is the fleet under which the ship flies; a ship, then, under a national flag is considered an extension of the state, part of the state‘s territory. All ships registered to Ottoman subjects and sailing under the Ottoman flag constituted the Ottoman cargo fleet; and in addition to this merchant fleet, there was the Ottoman Imperial Navy. It should also be remembered that our statistics rely on arrivals of ships to Western European ports, and are counted under what flag they were registered upon arrival. It is very probable that a number of captains changed the flag of their ship during the voyage to the West, only to change it again to the Ottoman colours when back home. These practices, however, are of no consequence to the reality that the Hydriot captain, despite the use of many flags, was an Ottoman subject with the right to use the Ottoman flag when sailing in the Mediterranean, and the right to apply to the Ottoman authorities to be protected. 14 For the Ottoman authorities the Greeks were the main seafaring subjects of their empire, who manned to a large extent their Imperial Navy and shipyards, and owned a large Ottoman merchant fleet that could be ordered at any time to bring supplies at any port of the empire when necessary.15 In all ports under examination (apart from Venice), Sanitá Archives have survived for most or all the eighteenth century up to the mid-nineteenth century. These include detailed and valuable information, as ships were registered by the quarantine officials, according to the declaration of their captains, including the name of the ship, the type of ship, the name of the captain, the place of origin, the nationality of vessel, the number of seamen, the port(s) where cargoes were loaded, the kind of cargo and weight, the length of the journey and the list of merchants to which cargoes were destined. We have registered the total number of entries in each port, which means that one captain could have entered the port two or three times. In shipping statistics however, the total number of entries is calculated and not the number of particular vessels trading in
Gelina Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping: The Making of an International Tramp Fleet, 1830 to the Present Day (London, 1996), chapter 5. 14 Harlaftis and Laiou, ‗Ottoman State Policy‘. 15 See footnote 7 for Greeks in the Ottoman Imperial Navy and Lignos, Archive of the Community of Hydra, where there is a plethora of orders from the Porte to the Hydriots to bring grain to Istanbul. For the manning of the Ottoman fleet with Greek crews and the Ottoman shipyards, see also the bibliography in footnote 7. 13
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
229
one port.16 The total number of ships and tonnage entering a port is calculated, because what is important is the volume of cargoes traded in a particular port, indicative of which is the total number of the ships entering a port, even if that implies repetitive voyages by a limited number of ships. By calculating the total number of ships entering a port from a foreign country, one has a good comparative tool for estimating the importance and the trends the maritime traffic in a particular port or a region, and in identifying the flags the ships are carrying one has an idea of the main nationalities involved in the trade of a port. Moreover, the Sanitá archives in all Italian ports and Malta included information on all ships entering from beyond their state, so our information does not include small coastal vessels which were usually below 30 tons. In order to trace Greek-owned ships, we have investigated 121 years of maritime traffic (1700-1821) in Trieste, Venice, Ancona, Messina, Malta, Naples, Livorno, Genoa and Marseilles. Although the data for every year for all ports was not available, we have had adequate results. 17 For Malta, Venice, Ancona and Trieste we have satisfactory data for at least two-thirds or half of the period, but this means that we still have missing values for many years of these ports. Also, for ports like Naples and Messina, where other archival evidence indicates a continuous presence of Greek-owned ships, we have very little statistical data. In the case of Genoa and Marseilles we know that Greek traffic only developed in the 1780s, so we do not possess values for the presence of Greekowned ships in these ports for the earlier period. Accordingly, in order to give some indication of the real movements of Greek-owned ships we have added the estimated entries of ships for the years without data to the existing archival data, by using the statistical method of estimating the missing values with the ‗trend method‘ and/or econometrically with ‗missing value analysis regression‘. 18
In all National Shipping Statistics of all National Statistical Services of all European countries, for example, in the twentieth century, (and for nineteenth or previous centuries if these existed) the total number of ships and tonnage entering national ports is calculated. See for example the ‗shipping statistics‘ in Brian R. Mitchell, British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1988) that includes British shipping statistics since the seventeenth century. 17 Processed data from Amphitrete, database indicates that out of the 121 years under examination we have annual shipping data for Greek-owned ships, for 94 years for Malta, 91 years for Venice, 72 years for Ancona, 59 years for Livorno, 53 years for Trieste, 29 years for Genoa, 17 years for Messina, 9 years for Naples, 14 years for Marseilles. This means for example, that we looked in the Sanità books of Livorno from, say, 1767 to 1815 and we found evidence of Greek-owned ships, for 59 years. 18 For trend estimation see Christofer Chatfield, ‗Calculating Interval Forecasts‘, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 11 (1993): 121-135. For the basic theory and practice of regressions see David A. Freedman, Statistical Models: Theory and Practice (Cambridge, 2005). 16
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Regression analysis is a statistical technique for the modelling and analysis of numerical data consisting of values of a dependent variable and one more independent variable. The dependent variable in the regression equation is modelled as a function of the independent variables. As missing data can seriously affect our conclusions, the regression analysis is used to replace the missing values with estimates and thus to increase our ability to interpret the trend in the most correct way. In our case the independent variables are the archival data we have for the shipping entrances and the dependent variables are the missing values. As, for example, we have very good data for Malta, Venice and Ancona, we calculate the missing values of the entrances to Trieste by making them dependent on the existing statistics of the previous three ports. Or, as we have very few values for Naples, we make the estimations of the entrances to Naples dependent on those for Livorno and Malta. 19 The fact that we did not find any surviving Sanitá books before 1767 in Livorno does not mean that no Greek-owned ships entered that harbour in the first half of the eighteenth century, but it just means that we have no or scanty archival evidence with which to prove it. As we have, however, evidence from the Maltese Archives on Greek-owned ships arriving in Malta, we can estimate the missing values of Greek-owned ships entering Livorno by following backward estimates based on the variations of Malta. As historians, however, are frequently very sceptical of econometrics and the use of statistics, I have constructed Figures 1 and 2; Figure 1 is made just with figures from the available archival data, leaving blank the years with no evidence, while Figure 2 is made with the available data plus the estimates. Both Figures 1 and 2 indicate a continuous rise of the Greekowned fleet that reached its peak during the Napoleonic wars. Because we have much less data for the first half of the eighteenth century, adding the missing values increases the presence of Greek-owned ships during this period from 5-10 to about 30-40 average in the Western Mediterranean. I would like to thank George Kostelenos for the valuable help in using these methods. The calculated estimates will be published in Gelina Harlaftis and Katerina Papakonstantinou (eds.), Η άνοδος της ναυτιλίας των Ελλήνων στη Μεσόγειο του 18ου αι. (The Rise of Greek Shipping in the Mediterranean Trade of the eighteenth century), Appendix, forthcoming. It should be noted that for Trieste, Venice, Ancona, Malta and Livorno, we have used the statistical method of estimations from predictions on the basis of trend. For these ports for the whole period of 1700-1821 we have observations for at least two-thirds or half of the years. For Naples, Messina, Genoa and Marseilles where we have much less information we have used the econometric method of regression estimates missing values using multiple linear regression; the missing values of the last four ports were estimated according to the existing values of Malta and Livorno. 19
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
231
Figure 1: The ‘Eastern Invasion’. Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the ports of the Western Mediterranean, 1700-1821 (real data)
600
500 Greek-owned ships
400 300 200
trend line
100
1812
1798
1784
1770
1756
1742
1728
1714
-100
1700
0
Source: Amphitrete, 1700-1821, Research Project « Pythagoras », Ionian University/Greek Ministry of Education, 2004-2006. Figure 2: The ‘Eastern Invasion’. Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the ports of the Western Mediterranean, 1700-1821 (real data with estimated missing values)
600 500 Greek-owned ships
400
300 200 trend line
100 1817
1804
1791
1778
1765
1752
1739
1726
1713
1700
0
Source: As in Figure 1.
The trend emerging from the seventeenth century in both Figures also indicates that there must have been a substantial activity of a Greekowned fleet already in that century. Our data for the years around 1821 is
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scarce, and Figure 1 indicates a long-term decline of Greek-owned shipping. If we add the missing data, the trend line of Figure 2 based on estimated figures gives us the trend of what really happened; an upward trend after the 1820s. Both Figure 1 and 2, however, give the same results. It seems that before the 1700s there was some important activity that slowed down during the wars early in the eighteenth century, followed by a distinct rise in the 1740s, 1750s and 1780s with a peak during the Napoleonic wars. By the end of the century, the fleet ‗dei Greci‘ had emerged as the most dynamic neutral fleet in the Mediterranean, and took advantage of European rivalry for the economic and political control of the Levant. There they competed with other local Mediterranean fleets like the French, the Ragusans, the fleets of the Italian states (Venetians, Neapolitans, Genoese), along with the Spanish. They also competed with other important northern European fleets that traded in the Mediterranean, such as the British, the Dutch, the Swedish and the Danish. By the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Greeks had more than doubled the number of their ships and had consolidated their presence. After the 1820s, Greeks under the flag of the Greek state, along with the British became the main carriers in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, a position that they maintained during the remainder of the nineteenth century.20 We will examine more closely the penetration of Greek-owned shipping, in the Mediterranean long-haul trade and in the interconnected four regional trades. The four Mediterranean regional trades consist of, firstly, the Levant or Ottoman trade, secondly, the central Mediterranean trade, which included the Italian peninsula and Malta with the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian seas, thirdly the north-western Mediterranean trade including the French and Spanish coasts, and fourthly the south-western Mediterranean including the Barbary states of the North African littoral. These regional trades were connected with the long-haul trade between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean and between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The most important longhaul intra-Mediterranean trade of the eighteenth century was the Levant trade, followed by the Mediterranean-Atlantic trade.
20
Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping, tables 3.5-3.13, 76-88.
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
233
Map 3: The main regions of Greek shipping (late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries)
The greatest volume of all Levant trades in the eighteenth century – and in fact of all Mediterranean trades – was in cereals, particularly grain, wheat and barley, which came mainly from the Aegean and Ionian coasts and, after the 1790s, increasingly from the Black Sea. Other important westward cargoes of the Levant trade were olive oil and currants from the Peloponnese, Crete and the Ionian islands, cotton and wool from Smyrna, the Peloponnese and continental Greece, tobacco from Salonika, and rice, flax and coffee from Alexandria. And of course there was also a large range of other cargoes, particularly from the Asia Minor and Syrian coast, such as silk, angora wool, dried fruit, opium, carpets etc. In order to identify the changes in Levant trade the eighteenth century we must distinguish two periods; the first starts with the treaty of Utrecht (1713) and covers the period until the American War of Independence in 1780, and the second period starts with the American War of Independence and ends with the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. During the first period there was a clear superiority of French shipping in the Mediterranean and particularly in the Levant trades.21 It was Marseilles and its merchants and ship-owners that had the monopoly of this trade:22 already from 1685 the entrance of ships with cargoes from the Levant and the Barbary states was prohibited to any French port other than Marseilles and Rouen, something that gave In fact in 1784, the French handled 36 % of the Ottoman external trade, the Austrians 24 %, the Dutch 18 %, the Venetians 12 % and the English 9 %, on this see Bruce McGowan, The Age of the Ayans (1699-1812), in Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert eds., An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1994), 2: 639-742, 734; see also Daniel Panzac, ‗International and Domestic Maritime Trade in the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century‘, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 24 (1992): 189-206. 22 Paul Masson, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1911), 97. 21
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Marseilles a virtual monopoly of this trade. In order to promote her own fleet, in 1699 France set an import tax for all cargoes that entered France on foreign ships, another measure that gave Marseilles a clear advantage. 23 The main competitor of Marseilles for the Levant trade was Livorno, a cosmopolitan port and, contrary to Marseilles, a centre of international shipping. Livorno was the main emporium for the English in the Mediterranean, the port of Jewish and Greek merchants, and also the port of call for the Dutch, the Swedes and the Danes, but Livorno did not have a fleet of its own, and its merchants chartered foreign ships to carry their own cargoes. Since 1593 Livorno had extremely low tariffs, and became officially a portofranco in 1676, formally sanctioning its policies of levying low custom duties on all ships in transit. Its policy remained distinct from that of Marseilles, a portofranco since 1669, which there meant that the extremely high duties on non-French shipping had been slightly lowered, but there was still discrimination against Jewish and Armenian merchants, unlike what happened in Livorno.24 In their attempt to ensure an important portion of the Mediterranean sea trade, the Italian port-cities competed with each other and became one after the other portofrancos, precipitating a tacit ‗quarantine war‘ (guerra sanitaria) against Livorno, which was the emporium of Western Mediterranean international trade. Each Italian state tried to replace Livorno with its own ‗national‘ port as the most important port for the transit and deposit trade of the Italian peninsula. In this way Genoa became a portofranco in 1714, closing its port to the transit trade via Livorno. Genoa had since 1590s a status of ‗free port‘ for grain, meaning that tax exemptions were available for its trade, but it was not exactly a portofranco in the way it became in the eighteenth century. Thomas A. Kirk gives a detailed analysis of the ‗free port‘ and portofranco as it was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: ―the creation of free ports was one of the few means available to small countries attempting to respond to the increasingly restrictive mercantilist policies of some of the larger European powers. [...] It is important to bear in mind that the term ‗free port‘ (portofranco) did not have a single, universally accepted definition during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, nor did it represent a forebear of generalized free trade or an island of liberalism as the word free or franco might seem to suggest. Rather [...] the term described two distinct but not mutually exclusive policies. In some cases ‗free port‘ meant a port that is open to all, to which everyone has free access. In this sense the port of Livorno could be See Xavier Labat Saint Vincent, Malte, une escale du commerce français en Méditerranée au XVIII siècle (Paris, forthcoming), Part I, Chapter 2, I.5. 24 See Masson, Histoire du commerce français, 97, 106; Jean Pierre Filippini, Il porto di Livorno e la Toscana (1676-1814), 3 vols (Naples, 1998), 1: 21, 39-73, 93. 23
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
235
described as a free port following the 1593 reforms known as the Livornina allowing any and all merchants to live and trade in Livorno regardless of nationality or religion. The second definition of the free port, and the one most widely used today (causing some confusion over the nomenclature of the past), refers to a port or zone where goods may transit free of import and export duties. The Genoese free port, at least until 1654, belonged more to this category‖.25 In 1719 the Austrian emperor created the portofrancos of Trieste and Naples. In 1728 Messina also became a portofranco.26 In 1732 the Pope made Ancona a portofranco. All these ports acquired their own lazarettos and warehouses.27 Until the outbreak of the Seven Years War, the prime competitors of the French in the Levant trade were the Venetians and the Northerners (Dutch and English, later British). The rise of the Greekowned fleet was slow but steady in the first half of the eighteenth century. The first area that the Greeks infiltrated was the central Mediterranean, the Italian port-cities and Malta, as Figure 3 indicates. The figures include the arrivals of Greek-owned ships at Venice, Ancona, Malta, Naples and Livorno. The wars of the eighteenth century affected the Mediterranean trade: wars can be sources of high profits and losses, frequently profits for the neutral flags and losses for the belligerents. The Greeks had two advantages in the Mediterranean trade: (a) they were mainly sailing under the neutral Ottoman flag; and (b) they were Christians, specialised in shipping despite the fact that they were Ottoman subjects, something that gave them free access to Western ports. During the period of peace from 1720 to 1733 we notice the first wave of the rise of Greek-owned shipping in the central Mediterranean ports, which reached its peak in 1729 with 50 ships (Figure 3). If we take under consideration the line in Figure 3 that includes the estimated missing values, the number of Greek ships trading to the West is larger. During the next period, from 1733 to 1742, which witnessed the War of Polish succession (1733-1738) and the Anglo-Spanish war of (1739-1742) – the so-called War of Jenkins‘ Ear – which later merged into the War of the Austrian succession (1740-1748), again we see a contraction followed by a rise. But it was the Anglo-French Seven Years War (1756-1763) that gave the first big push to Greek-owned shipping. The French were not able to apply the convoy system which they had used in their previous wars, and British privateers and the Royal Navy Thomas A. Kirk, Genoa and the Sea. Policy and Power in an Early Modern Maritime Republic, 1559-1684 (Baltimore and London, 2005), 166, 181. 26 See Michela D‘Angelo, ‗Aspetti commerciali e finanziari in un porto Mediterraneo: Messina (1795-1805)‘ in Atti Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti, LV (1979): 201-247. 27See Filippini, Il porto di Livorno, 1: 39-73. 25
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TRADE AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE
were able to stop almost completely their Levant trade.28 Among the British privateers were the famous ‗Angli-Grecs‘ who proved a menace for the French; these were Greeks mainly established in the Greek colony at Port Mahon in British-ruled Minorca, as we are going to explain later on. 29 However, Greek-owned merchant ships that used the Ottoman flag were neutrals, and along with Ragusan and Venetian ships were able to penetrate and secure a larger portion of this trade. The rise of Greekowned shipping is evident during the Seven Years war (Figure 3): more than 80 Greek-owned ships arrived in the Italian ports and Malta in 1763; and if we take under consideration the estimated numbers, more than 100. Figure 3: Greek-owned ships in the Central Mediterranean (arrivals at Venice, Trieste, Ancona, Malta, Messina, Naples and Livorno)
Real numbers
1775
1770
1765
1760
1755
1750
1745
1740
1735
1730
1725
1720
1715
1710
1705
1700
140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0
Estimated numbers
Source: As in Figure 1.
See Labat Saint Vincent, Malte, Part I, chapter III, Part II, chapter II, section I.5c. Desmond Gregory, Minorca, the Illusory prize. A History of the British Occupation of Minorca between 1708 and 1802 (London and Rutherford), 1990. 28 29
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
237
Figure 4: Greek-owned shipping in the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian port-cities and in Malta, 1700-1780 (real numbers)
Adriatic ports
Malta
1778
1772
1766
1760
1754
1748
1742
1736
1730
1724
1718
1712
1706
1700
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Tyrrhenian ports
Source: As in Figure 1.
Figure 4 indicates the importance of the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian ports and of Malta during the period 1700s-1780s. During the first half of the century the main Adriatic ports (Venice, Trieste and Ancona) were the major centres of attraction for Greek-owned shipping. The sea trade of the port-cities of the Adriatic, in connection with the Balkan land trade and the trade and shipping of the adjacent Ionian sea, stimulated the growth of the Greek fleets of Cephalonia and Ithaca (belonging to Venice) and of Messolonghi, Aetoliko and Galaxidi (belonging to the Ottoman empire) and the formation of a unified market within the region of the Adriatic and Ionian seas, the ‗Adriatic economy‘. This was based on the pre-existing relation of Greeks with the Italian cities, where communities of Greek merchants involved in shipping were established on both the Italian Adriatic coast (Venice, Trieste, Ancona and Senigaglia) and the Tyrrhenian coast (Messina, Naples and Livorno). 30 The rise of Greekowned shipping in Malta and the Tyrrhenian ports, particularly Livorno, is more evident between 1750 and 1770s as again can be seen in Figure 4. The penetration of the Greeks in the Western Mediterranean actually started in the 1730s, on the axis of the Livorno-Minorca front. The Olga Katsiardi-Hering, Η ελληνική παροικία της Σεργέστης, 1751-1830 (The Greek Community in Trieste, 1751-1830), 2 vols (Athens, 1986); Katsiardi-Hering, Forgotten Horizons; Michela D‘ Angelo, Comunità straniere a Messina tra XVIII e XIX secolo, (Messina, 1995), 19-20; Despoina Vlami, Σο φιορίνι, το σιτάρι και η οδός Κήπου. Έλληνες Έμποροι στο Λιβόρνο, 1750-1868 (The fiorino, the grain and the Garden street. Greek merchants in Livorno, 1750-1868) (Athens, 2000).
30
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conquest of Minorca by the British in 1708 and its transformation into the first British Mediterranean colony was significant for the Greek-owned merchant fleet and its expansion into the Western Mediterranean. The British, established just a few miles from the French coast, in their attempt to penetrate in the economy and society of the Catholic population of the island, attempted to draw non-Catholic settlers by providing economic and religious concessions. In this way a Greek community was formed in Minorca, which flourished during the British dominion over the island (1709-1756, 1763-1783).31 Most Greeks established in Minorca were experienced seafarers involved in the sea trade and in privateering; they became known as ‗Angli-Grecs‘, providing the British with a small but effective privateering fleet that was active in the area from the French to the Ottoman coasts. Port Mahon became a transit centre of grain from North Africa, Sardinia, Sicily and the Ottoman empire, in this way a triangular trade was formed: the Mahonians bought French cloth which they sold to the Barbary States and the Ottoman empire in return for grain which they sold in Spanish ports. The grain purchased there was paid for in Spanish silver dollars that financed the next circuit of this trade.32 It was via Livorno and Minorca and Malta that Greek-owned vessels developed trading links, of which we know much less, with the south-western Mediterranean, including the Barbary states of the north African coast. During the second period, from 1780 to 1821, Greek-owned shipping – ―i Greci‖ – experienced a significant rise during the American War of Independence, and an apogee during the Napoleonic Wars. According to Xavier Labat Saint Vincent, the commercial primacy of the French in the Mediterranean trade was really challenged by the Greeks during the period of the American Revolution. 33 Their penetration into the Western Mediterranean routes was then consolidated. The involvement of the French in the American War of Independence (1778Evidence on the Greek community of Minorca is found in the National Archives (London), in Consejo de Estado in the Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid) and in the Municipal Archive (Port Mahon). See also Ioannis K. Hassiotis, ‗Οι Αλεξιανοί της Μινόρκα. Συμβολή στην ιστορία των ελληνικών αποδημιών τον ιη‘ αιώνα‘ (‗The Alexianos of Minorca. Contribution to the history of Greek diaspora in the eighteenth century‘), Rodonia, 2 vols (Rethymnon, 1994), 2: 649-660; Nikos G. Svoronos, ‗Η ελληνική παροικία της Μινόρκας. Συμβολή στην ιστορία του ελληνικού εμπορικού ναυτικού του 18ου αιώνα‘ (‗Contribution to the history of the Greek merchant shipping of the eighteenth century‘) in Mélanges offerts à Octave et Melpo Merlier, 2 vols, (Athens, 1956), 1: 323-343. Apart from the above two articles in Greek, there is also the study of Francisco Hernández Sanz, La colonia griega establecida en Mahón durante el siglo XVIII (Mahon, 1925). 32 Miquel Àngel Casasnovas Camps, ‗The British presence in Menorca during the XVIII century‘, in International Maritime Economic History Association, Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of Maritime History, CD, (Corfu 21-27 June 2004). 33 See Labat Saint Vincent, Malte, Part II, Chapter III, section II-1b. 31
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
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1783) did not produce any problems for the French Levant trade, as the introduction of the convoy system this time was fully implemented. The French were able to defend themselves against the guerre de course and the Royal Navy, and also to prevent the destruction of their trade as had happened in the Seven Years War. During the six war years there were about 30 convoys of about 700 French ships that entered the port of Malta from the Levant without being attacked either by British or AngliGrec privateers.34 Figure 5: Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the Western Mediterranean, 1780-1821 (Venice, Trieste, Ancona, Malta, Messina, Naples, Livorno, Genoa, Marseilles, Barcelona, Malaga and Cadiz)
600 500 400 300 200 100
Real numbers
1819
1816
1813
1810
1807
1804
1801
1798
1795
1792
1789
1786
1783
1780
0
Estimated numbers
Source: As Figure 1.
However, after the war of American Independence the number of the French ships in the Levant trade dropped dramatically. The reasons lie exactly in the successful convoy-system applied extensively by the French. In the case of Malta, for example, French convoys stayed a limited number of days on the island and did not have time to conduct much business. French ships could not do business and sail independently, but had to conform to the convoy system. This meant that during the period 1784-1792, which includes the years of the French Revolution (17891792), the three competitors of the French, the Greeks, the Venetians and the Ragusans, took over the Levant trade. With the absence of the French, cargoes arrived on Greek, Ragusan and Venetian vessels and were handled
34
See Labat Saint Vincent, Malte, Part II, Chapter III, section II-1b.
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TRADE AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE
by those merchants, who were able thus not only to form but also to expand and consolidate their networks. Figure 6: Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, French and Spanish ports, (1780-1821)
Tyrrhenian ports
1819
1816
1813
1810
1807
1804
1801
1798
1795
1792
1789
1786
1783
1780
400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0
French and Spanish ports
Adriatic ports & Malta Source: As Figure 1.
As Figure 6 indicates, during this period there is a continuation of the importance of Greek-owned shipping in the Adriatic ports and Malta, and a substantial increase of Greek-owned shipping in Livorno and Genoa and in the French and the Spanish ports. The creation of Greek commercial links with Genoa, which had close connections with the Spanish trade, meant the expansion of Greek-owned shipping in the ports of the Iberian peninsula. The grain trade from the Levant valuable for the populations of Italy and France, became important also for those of Spain. Moreover, as the Spanish had close links with Genoa, Livorno and Marseilles, the Greek-owned ships that reached those ports sought carriage of cargoes and remained within the Western Mediterranean Sea to carry regional trade between Italian, French and Spanish ports. Grain trade was particularly important for Barcelona, which imported grain and exported wine and other colonial goods from America and the Indies. The Catalonian market was entirely dependent on grain imports, as the agricultural production of the area specialised in the production of wine. Hence, Barcelona became one of the main grain importing ports of the Western Mediterranean.35 Grain traditionally was imported into Spain via For the Barcelona grain trade and its relation with the depot grain trade with Genoa see Laura Calosci, ‗Génova y la transformaciñn del comercio Mediterráneo de Cataluða (181535
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
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the eastern coast of the Iberian peninsula, from Spanish-ruled Sicily, but from the end of eighteenth century it came increasingly from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. While the Ionian fleets remained focused on the Adriatic ports, Malta and Livorno, the expansion of routes to Genoa, Marseilles and the Iberian ports during this period involved mainly the Aegean fleets, particularly those of Hydra, Spetses and Psara. By carrying grain to Spanish ports these ships remained there and reached the Atlantic trade and the American continent. Table 7 is indicative of how Greek-owned ships on the Iberian coast served, apart from the Levant and Western Mediterranean trade, the Spanish trade in the Atlantic. Out of the 183 Ottoman ships that left Malaga between 1797 and 1807, 52 % were heading to the Atlantic. Table 7: Arrivals of Ottoman ships in the port of Malaga, 1797-1807 Destination Number of ships % to total Levant 55 30% W. Mediterranean 34 18% Atlantic 94 52% Total 183 100% Source: Eloy Martìn Corrales, ‗Cereales y capitanes greco-ottomanos en la Malaga de fines del siglo XVIII‘, Estudis d‟ Història Econòmica, 2 (1989): 87-114.
The Iberian trade can be further divided between the American trade and the European Atlantic trade. The Carrera de Indias, the long-haul trade with Spanish America, remained a Spanish monopoly until this trade was liberalised after 1789. The period of comercio libre had really started in 1778, including trade to most ports of Spanish America and the Antilles.36 It will come as a surprise to many that the Greek-owned ships travelled to the American ports. It is true however, that between 1780 and 1814, and particularly in the 1790s and 1800s, we found 14 Greek-owned ships coming to Malaga from Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Veracruz (Gulf of Mexico), the island of Saint Thomas (Eastern Caribbean) and the islands of Guadaloupe and St. Barthélemy (Antilles). And this history becomes fascinating when one finds some of Greece‘s future national heroes like Dimitrios Michali Tsamados from Hydra sailing with his ship Madonna di Idra (Panaya tis Ydras) from Buenos Aires and Monte Video to Barcelona in 1840)‘, unpublished Master thesis, Departament d‘Història i Instituciones Econòmiques, Divisio de Ciencies Juridiques, Economiques i Sociales, Universitat de Barcelona, (20022003): 34-44. 36 Calosci, ‗Génova y la transformaciñn‘, 22.
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December 1799, some twenty-two years before the Declaration of Greek Independence.37 It seems that captain Tsamados, who carried cargoes from Latin America insured by Dutch merchants in Barcelona in the Amsterdam market, was attacked by corsairs off the Spanish coast. It was this kind of Greek-owned merchant vessel that was turned into ships of war and formed the nucleus of the Greek Navy in the Greek Revolution of 1821. Merchant captains from Hydra like Andreas (Miaoulis) Vokos or Nikolis Apostolis from Psara, whom we find very often in the archives trading in the Mediterranean and Atlantic routes in the period from the 1780s to the 1810s, became two of post-independence Greece‘s famous admirals and national heroes. Ploughing the seas in the maritime caravans of armed merchant vessels in the turbulent Mediterranean seas for more than thirty years gave ample war experience to these future revolutionaries and admirals. In the eighteenth century both Lisbon and Cadiz developed as great centres of commerce, both ports and entrepôts, in the trade with Brazil, the Far East, the Mediterranean and northern Europe. 38 The main cargoes carried to northern Europe, Amsterdam and London and to the Western Mediterranean ports of Marseilles, Genoa and Livorno were dying substances (cochineal, Brazilian wood and indigo), other colonial goods (coffee, cocoa, sugar, tobacco, vanilla, quinine), raw materials (hides and cotton) or Spanish products (wool, lead, oil and wine). 39 As Table 8 indicates, 148 Greek-owned ships arrived in the Western Mediterranean ports (and more particularly at Malaga, Marseilles, Genoa and Livorno) from Lisbon and Cadiz during the period 1780-1814.
Amsterdam Municipal Archives (henceforth AMA), Archives of Insurance Companies (henceforth IC), n.562, file 167. 38 For Lisbon in the eighteenth century see Stephen Fisher, ‗Lisbon as a port town in the eighteenth century‘, in Simonetta Cavaciocchi ed., I porti come impresa economica, (Prato, 1988), 703-731. For Cadiz see Arnau Bartolomei, La Bourse et la vie. Destin collectif et trajectories individuelles des marchands français de Cadix, de l‟instauration du comercio libre á la disparition de l‟empire espagnol (1778-1824), unpublished doctoral thesis, Université Aix-Marseilles 1Université de Provence, 2007. 39 Bartolomei, La Bourse et la vie, 74. 37
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
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Table 8: Arrivals of Greek-owned ships in the Western Mediterranean ports from Atlantic and northern European ports, 1780-1814 European Atlantic ports 148 Lisbon 109 Cadiz 28 Algeciras 11 Northern European ports 40 Amsterdam 32 Hamburg 1 Copenhagen 1 Tonningen 1 London 4 Liverpool 1 American Atlantic ports 13 Buenos Aires 4 Montevideo 1 Veracruz 3 Saint Thomas (Virgin Islands) 3 Guadaloupe (Antilles) 1 Saint Barthélemy (Antilles) 1 Sources: combination of data from Amphitrete (ports of origin) and Martín Corrales, ‗Cereales y capitanes greco-ottomanos‘ (arrivals in Malaga).
In the trade with the northern European ports it was mainly Amsterdam that had an open direct link with the Levant, especially with Smyrna, a trade partially carried on Ottoman vessels. 40 We were able to trace 32 Greek-owned vessels on this route; for example, from the Dutch archives we have evidence that captain Nikolis Apostolis (1770-1827), from Psara, performed consecutive trips with his ship St. Giorgio on the route SmyrnaAmsterdam during the years 1798, 1804, 1806 and 1814. 41 At this point it is useful to point out that Greek seafarers in the Mediterranean used the same method of travelling, the caravane maritime, that their competitors used. According to Daniel Panzac, the caravane maritime is defined by navigation from one Ottoman port to another, 42 by Elena Frangakis-Syrett, ‗Commercial practices and competition in the Levant: The British and the Dutch in Eighteenth-Century Izmir‘, in Alastair Hamilton, Alexander H. de Groot and Maurits H. van den Boogert eds., Friends and Rivals in the East. Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Levant from the Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century (Leiden, 2000), 135-158. 41 Klaas Heeringa and J.G. Nanninga eds., Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Levantschen Handel, 6 vols (The Hague, 1910-66); National Archives (formerly called General State Archives, Algemeneen Rijksarchief), The Hague, Levantine Trade file nr. 269. 42 Panzac, ‗International and Domestic Maritime Trade‘, 189-206. 40
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TRADE AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE
a ‗Greek maritime caravane‘ we mean instead the navigation from one Mediterranean port to another, in groups of ships. In Amphitrete we have plenty of evidence of this Greek caravane. Greek-owned ships entered the Western Mediterranean ports in groups of four, six, eight, ten or more. For example on the 20th of April 1795 a Greek caravane of ten ships from Cephalonia, Messolongi, Galaxidi (in the Corinthian bay) and Hydra entered the port of Livorno (Appendix II). Similarly on the eighteenth of June, 1796, a Greek caravane of 21 vessels from Hydra, Spetses and Psara entered the port of Genoa (Appendix III). These ships were armed with 6 to 16 cannon, and manned with crews of 30 to 60 men: each of them carried a rifle, a carbine, a knife and a pair of pistols (Appendix IV). Ottoman officials registered armed Ottoman merchant vessels in every detail during the era of Selim III, when Ottoman-Greek seafarers were supported and encouraged to carry the foreign trade.43 One can imagine that a fleet of 20 armed merchant vessels, sailing together, appeared quite threatening at sea, something like an independent navy ready to defend itself at any time. One has to take under consideration that Greek captains were, in many cases, not only compatriots but also relatives, hence the spirit of solidarity and mutual support was particularly strong. The system of caravane maritime, apart from providing protection, furnished the captain with the security of not losing their way in foreign waters. Despite their good knowledge of the seas and coasts, the caravane method was adopted in the Mediterranean at least until the mid-nineteenth century. Evidence from the logbook of the Ithacan captain Antonis PetalasMaratos, reveals such practices. Captain Antonis sailed in the 1830s, and although he knew his way, before entering the Black Sea he agreed to sail with other ships – in conserva, as he wrote – to make certain that he did not make any miscalculations: [From Yeniköy in the Dardanelles on 9 March 1838] all the ships went to the shallow waters and there was north wind and all the twenty-eight ships moored [...] We stayed there until midnight and then there was some south wind and [...] we also put up our sails. 44 But how important was Greek-owned shipping in the ports they traded to? In the Western Mediterranean the evidence we have from Marseilles for the years 1794-1798 indicates that an average of 36 % of all ships arriving there from the Levant were Greek-owned.45 For Livorno and Harlaftis and Laiou, ‗Ottoman State Policy‘. John S. Vlassopulos, Odysseas. A Sailing Ship from Ithaca, 1837-1841 (Athens, 1992). 45 Charles Carriére, Négociants marseillais au XVIIIe sieècle. Contribution à l‟étude des économies maritimes, 2 vols (Marseilles, 1973), 2: 1043. 43 44
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
245
Genoa the annual average of ‗Greek‘ arrivals for both ports for the period 1792-1805 was 11 %, and in Malta for the period 1784-1797 was 18 %.46 In all three cases, in Livorno, Genoa and Malta, the Greeks were of prime importance in the Levant grain trade, something that is underestimated if the whole traffic of the ports is taken under consideration. As we have already indicated the Greeks had started penetrating in a more massive scale in the French Levant trade ever since the Seven Years War, and took off after the American Revolution, reaching their apogee during the Napoleonic wars. Their increasing importance in Malta, the French ‗station‘ of the Levant trade is indicative. At the same time, the Greeks seemed to be able to compete well with the British in the Livorno trade. During the Napoleonic wars Greeks were able to fill the gap that was created by the retreat of the British from Livorno during the French occupation, as Greeks under the Ottoman flag were considered neutral shipping. For the same reason, during the 1790s and 1800s, they got involved in the regional trade of the Spanish coast with French and Italian Mediterranean ports. The importance of the Northerners seems to be much diminished in Livorno after the 1780s. During the years between the American and the French Revolutions, the Greek-owned ships were more numerous than the British in the Livorno trade. During the Napoleonic wars, however, the British almost disappeared and the Greeks took the lead in the Tuscan port, reaching the unprecedented number of almost 140 ships in 1797. The rising importance of the Americans, as neutrals, particularly during the embargo years, is also interesting. 47 In the Eastern Mediterranean the importance of Greek-owned ships is much more evident. With an annual average of 270 Greek-owned ships entering Alexandria, the Greeks represented 57 % of total entries to the port during the period 1780-1821.48 In the Black Sea the importance of the Greek-owned ships is undisputable. Research in the Ottoman archives has indicated that during the period 1780-1787, 212 Greek-owned ships entered the Black Sea, while during the period 1792-1806 this number had more than quadrupled, to 993 ships. 49 Moreover, during the Harlaftis and Laiou, ‗Ottoman State Policy‘, Figure 2. Comparative analysis of Greek, British and American shipping in Livorno based on the Livorno Sanitá archives in Katerina Galani, ‗The Napoleonic Wars and the disruption of Mediterranean trade; British and Greek merchants in Livorno‘, unpublished paper delivered at the Athens Workshop, ―Social Groups and Practices of Trading in the Mediterranean, 17th-19th centuries‖, Institute for Neohellenic Research/National Hellenic Research Foundation (April 2008). 48 Kremmydas, Greek Shipping, 1: 39, 73. His data for Alexandria derives from the French Archives; see also Harlaftis and Laiou, ‗Ottoman State Policy‘, Appendix. 49 Haci Veli Aydin, ‗The Greek Merchants and Seamen in the Black Sea between 1780 and 1820‘ in Harlaftis and Papakonstantinou, The Rise of Greek shipping, forthcoming. 46 47
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TRADE AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE
period 1801-1821 around 245 Greek-owned ships arrived yearly in the port of Odessa, forming an annual average of 59 % of all entries. 50 It is interesting to follow what happened in the second half of the nineteenth century until the First World War. The Greek entrepreneurial network in the Mediterranean trade which began to take shape in the last third of eighteenth century culminated in the final third of the nineteenth.51 The building of this transnational maritime and trading circuit was founded on two pillars: the Greek diaspora trading houses established in the main Western European ports, and the Greekowned shipping companies based in the islands of the Ionian and Aegean seas. The Greek entrepreneurial diaspora played a critical role in the construction and competitive operation of the transnational Greek network, which served European colonial expansion to the East and contributed to the growth of long-distance sea trade.52 The impressive growth of Greek diaspora trading houses came about through their connection with British trade. The diaspora merchants kept branch offices in all the main Black Sea and Mediterranean ports, and by the 1820s a significant number of them had established their headquarters in London.53 In this way they served British economic expansion in the difficult areas of the Black Sea by opening up new markets, sea routes and carrying the trade from east to west. These diaspora merchants collaborated closely with the Greek-owned fleets of the Aegean and Ionian islands. Greek-owned vessels, chartered mainly by Greek merchants, outnumbered British ships in all the main ports of southern Russia. It is noteworthy that in Odessa and the Crimea, half of the total departing tonnage belonged to Greek and British owners; in the case of the Sea of Azov, two-thirds of the total tonnage of departing vessels belonged to Greek and British owners. It should also be remembered that these were the two main grain-exporting areas, southern Russia and the whole Black Sea region: for example, in the peak year 1847 more than four million imperial quarters of grain were exported from southern Russian ports, whereas less than two million were shipped from Danubian ports.54 See details in footnote 54. Gelina Harlaftis, ‗Mapping the Greek Maritime Diaspora from the Early Eighteenth to the Late Twentieth Century‘, in Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Gelina Harlaftis, and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou eds., Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Five Centuries of History (Oxford, 2005), 147171. 52 Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping, chapters 1-3. 53 Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping, chapters 1 and 2. 54 1 metric ton = 4.593 imperial quarters. For grain exports from the Black Sea see Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping, Table 2.2; data based on Mose L. Harvey, The Development of Russian Commerce on the Black Sea and its Significance, Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University 50 51
THE ‗EASTERN INVASION‘
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Table 9 indicates the relative importance of Greek-owned shipping in the Mediterranean fleets in the 1780s, and one hundred years later, in the 1880s. The data for 1787 is based on Ruggiero Romano.55 In 1787 the main Mediterranean merchant shipping fleets were, on the Western side: the French, those of the Italian states, the Spanish and the Austrians; and on the Eastern side: the Ragusans and the Ottomans. Not all fleets were involved in the long-routes of Mediterranean trade, between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean and beyond Gibraltar. The French owned the largest fleet, however, only a portion of these ships were involved in the Mediterranean trade, the others were trading in the Atlantic and northern Europe. The five Italian regional states (which despite the various changes of power in the 1780s, had remained more or less the same since the fifteenth century (Republic of Venice, Kingdom of Two Sicilies, the Papal States, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and Republic of Genoa), owned altogether the second biggest fleet in the Mediterranean (Table 9). But it was only the fleets of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (Naples) and that of the Republic of Venice who owned ships of an average size of 130-140 tons that traded in the long routes of the Mediterranean. The rest, Genoa (and Piedmont), the Papal States and Tuscany owned small vessels that carried the local trade of the Italian peninsula and of the regional trade within the Western Mediterranean, particularly with the French and Spanish coasts. The third shipping fleet in the Mediterranean was that of Spain. Almost all large Spanish ships were involved in the colonial trade with America; the Mediterranean Spanish fleet consisted of small vessels engaged entirely in the Western Mediterranean trade, very rarely trading beyond Sicily and Malta.56 The fourth power that rose in the Adriatic – centred in Trieste – was that of the Hapsburg empire. This was a fleet composed of small and medium-sized vessels with an average size of 74 tons; from the evidence of Amphitrete, the ships of this empire were equipped with crews from the Dalmatian coastline, involved mostly in the trade between the Adriatic and the ports of the Italian peninsula. The two key local fleets of the Eastern Mediterranean were those of the Ragusans and the Ottomans. Mariners from Ragusa (Dubrovnik), of California (Berkeley, 1938). See also Gelina Harlaftis and Vassilis Kardasis, ‗International Bulk Trade and Shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea‘, in Jeffrey Williamson and Şevket Pamuk eds., The Mediterranean Response to Globalization (London, 2000), 233–65. 55 Ruggiero Romano, ‗Per una valutazione della flotta mercantile europea alla fine del secolo XVIII‘, in Studi in onore di Amintore Fanfani, 6 vols (Milan, 1962), 5: 573-591, 578-80. 56 Martìn Corrales, ‗Cereales y capitanes‘.
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an affiliated/vassal state to the Ottoman empire, were among the traditional local seafarers of the Balkans, trading with big vessels in the Mediterranean. It seems that there was an increase of their shipping activities in the second half of the eighteenth century, and although they carried cargoes from Salonika and Smyrna, they were heavily involved especially in the Alexandria-Livorno route.57 In 1787 they owned 163 vessels of 40,479 tons, which means vessels of an average of 250 tons. Ruggiero Romano in his statistics does not include the Ottoman fleet or Greek owned fleet as there were barely any available statistics of Ottomanflag vessels involved in the long routes of the Mediterranean. 58 For the 1780s there is an estimate of about 400 vessels (48,000 tons); the fleet was composed of vessels of an average of 120 tons. 59 It seems then that in the 1780s, the Greek-owned fleet was bigger than those of Genoa (42,130 tons), Ragusa (40,739 tons) and the Russian empire (39,394 tons) and was comparable to that of Venice (60,332 tons) and Austria (84,090 tons) (Table 9). One hundred years later, in 1880, the Greek-owned fleet had increased its size more than eight times and compared very well with the Russian, Spanish and French, whose Mediterranean fleets were only part of their total tonnage, and was bigger than that of Austro-Hungary (see Table 9).
Jean Filippini, Il porto di Livorno, 2: 84. Ruggiero Romano, ‗Per una valutazione della flotta mercantile europea‘, 573-591. 59 The number of 400 Ottoman ships is an estimate based on French sources, given by Traian Stoianovich, L‟economie balkanique aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (principalement d‟ après les archives consulaires françaises), Unpublished doctoral thesis, Université de Paris (1952), 114, quoted in Leon, ‗Greek Merchant Shipping‘, 42. The average tonnage of 120 tons for the Ottoman Greek vessels is based on evidence from Amphitrete. An estimate of the size of the Ottoman flag fleet is a work under process and will be published in Harlaftis and Papakonstantinou, The Rise of Greek shipping. Michel Fontenay, based on Romano‘s statistics, made an estimate of about 500 Ottoman Greek ships of 100 tons in his ‗The Mediterranean World, 1500-1800: Social and Economic Perspectives‘, in Victor Mallia Milanes ed., Hospitaller Malta, 1530-1798, Studies on the Early Modern Malta and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, (Malta 1993), 41-110. 57 58
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Table 9: Mediterranean Merchant Fleets, 1787 and 1880 1787 Area/Country
Ships
Tons
France Italian states Kingdom of Two Sicilies Republic of Venice Genoa Papal States Tuscany Piedmont Spain Habsburg Empire
5,268 3,492 1,047 418 643 181 18 42 1,202 1,142
729,340 337,905 132,222 60,332 42,130 13,547 2,916 2,688 149,460 84,090
400
48,000
Greek-owned*
1880 Average Tonnage
Country
Tons
138 97 126 144 65 75 162 63 124 74
France Italy
919,298 999,176
Spain Austro Hungary
560,133 322,612
100
Greekowned*
389,351
Russia 39,394 Russia 666,192 Ragusa 163 40,749 250 Sources: For 1787 see Ruggiero Romano, ‗Per una valutazione della flotta mercantile europea‘. For 1880 see Αdam W. Kirkaldy, British Shipping. Its History, Organisation and Importance (London, 1914), Appendix XVII. * For the size of Greek-owned shipping see footnote 59. ** Processed data of the size of Greek-owned shipping, 1830-1914, based on the evidence of Table A1 in Gelina Harlaftis and Nikos Vlassopoulos, Ποντοπόρεια, Ιστορικός Νηογνώμονας. Ποντοπόρα Ιστιοφόρα και Ατμόπλοια 1830-1939 (Pontoporeia, Historical Registry Book. Greek cargo sailing ships and steamships, 1830-1939), (Athens, 2002); Gelina Harlaftis and George Kostelenos, ‗Tertiary sector and economic development: the shipping income, 1835-1914‘, in Thanassis Kalafatis and Evangelos Prontzas eds., Ελληνική Οικονομική Ιστορία, 19ος-20ος αι. (Greek Economic History, 19th-20th centuries), (Athens, forthcoming), Appendix I.
In 1910 Greece was in the ninth place of European shipping, which really meant then, of world shipping. It may be even more important to note that the Greek owned fleet consisted almost exclusively of ocean-going cargo vessels for the transportation of bulk cargoes (mainly raw materials), the so-called tramp ships that were international cross-traders, chartered on demand. By comparison, the fleets of Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, France and Spain mostly consisted of liners running regular routes and owned by large subsidized shipping companies which essentially carried passengers and finished or packaged products. This means that
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throughout the nineteenth century the Greeks owned the largest cargo fleet of the Mediterranean involved exclusively in bulk trades.60 Bulk sea trade increased the importance of the Mediterranean Sea in the northern European trade. The Black Sea was the most important granary of Europe for most of the nineteenth century, and Alexandria was an important source of cotton. The opening of the Suez Canal meant the expansion of the sea-routes to the Indian Ocean markets that reinforced the existing land trade connections. 61 The increase of the sea-trade and the opening of new routes brought the Mediterranean to the centre of international sea-trade, with direct links and integration of its commodity markets with the international markets east and west. Moreover, it brought the Eastern Mediterranean lands and the Black Sea to play a protagonist role in the international grain trade, next to the Atlantic. The ‗Eastern Invasion‘ that started in the eighteenth century certainly continued not only through the nineteenth century but also into the twentieth. Appendix II: A Greek-owned maritime caravane arriving at Livorno (20 April 1795) Captain
Name of ship
Demitri Antonopolo
Madonna di Borso
Place of origin* Cephalonia
Atanasio Luccheri
S. Spiridione
Galaxidi
Giorgio Carvaello
St. Dionisio
Galaxidi
Giorgio Lalacea
Giorgio Martire
Greek
Gregorio Reis
St. Nicolo
Greek
Strati Tomopulo
S. Spiridione
Greek
Andrea Sava
Madonna d' Idra
Hydra
Argiri Masino
Madona d' Idra
Hydra
Niccola di Pandeli
Madonna d' Idra
Hydra
Giovanni Pedaco
Michele Arcangelo
Messolongi
* Captain‘s place of origin where specified in the documents, otherwise the captain is referred to ‗Greek‘. Source: Amphitrete, 1700-1821, Research Project ―Pythagoras‖, Ionian University/Greek Ministry of Education, 2004-2006.
Harlaftis, A History of Greek-owned Shipping, tables 3.5-3.13. For insightful approaches in the relations particularly of the south-eastern Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean see Leila Tarazi Fawaz and Christopher A. Bayly eds., Modernity and Culture. From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean (New York, 2002). 60 61
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Appendix III: Greek-owned maritime caravane arriving at Genoa (18 June 1796) Captain
Name of Ship
Origin of Captain*
1.
Antonio Giorgio Camini
N. S. di Cavabosso
Greek
2.
Cancallier Gio di Nicolo
Nostra Signoria di Cipro
Greek
3.
Gio. Nitti
S. Niccolo
Greek
4.
Giorgio di Dimitrio
S. Niccolo
Greek
5.
Giorgio Dimitri
S. Nicolo
Greek
6.
Moliglia Giovani Andrea
S. Nicolo
Greek
7.
Musoli Anagnosti
V. q. S. Giovani
Greek
8.
Niccolo di Dimitrio
S. Niccolo
Greek
9.
Panajiotti di Gio.
S. Niccolo
Greek
10. Teodoro Vassilio Londaritti
La Citta di Smirne
Greek
11. Vichi Gio
S. Nicolo
Greek
12. Malachini Dimitrio di Giorgio
S. Nicolo
Spetses
13. Mexi Caggi Ianni
S. Nicolo
Spetses
14. Barca Dimitri Antonio
Nostra Signoria d' Idra
Hydra
15. Elia Antonio
Nostra Signoria d' Idra
Hydra
16. Niccolo Ciriaco
N.S. d' Idra
Hydra
17. Nicolo di Ciriaco
Nostra Signoria d' Idra
Hydra
18. Zacca Lazari
S. Spiridione
Hydra
19. Cagi Alesandri Nicolo
S. Nicolo
Psara
20. Mamugni Demetri
S. Nicolo
Psara
21. Niccolo Caggi Alessandro
S. Niccolo
Psara
Source: Amphitrete, 1700-1821, Research Project ―Pythagoras‖, Ionian University/Greek Ministry of Education, 2004-2006.
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Appendix IV: A sample of Ottoman-Greek merchant armed vessels, July 1805 Captain
Name of Ship
Gianni Francesco
Place of origin Hydra
Armament 14 cannons, 60 rifles, 45 carbines, 60 knives, 30 pairs of pistols
Kyriako Stamati
Panayia
Hydra
8 cannons, 36 rifles, 30 carbines, 36 knives, 36 pairs of pistols
Andoula Kyriako
Panayia
Hydra
10 cannons, 50 rifles, 40 carbines, 50 knives, 50 pairs of pistols
Antoni Papa Gika
Panayia
Hydra
6 cannons, 30 rifles, 20 carbines, 30 knives, 15 pairs of pistols
Jacumachi Nichola
Themistocli
Hydra
14 cannons, 50 rifles, 40 carbines, 50 knives, 25 pairs of pistols
Stavri
Παναγιά
Hydra
8 cannons, 35 rifles, 25 carbines, 35 knives, 36 pairs of pistols
Hydra
14 cannons, 40 rifles, 30 carbines, 40 knives, 20 pairs of pistols
San Nikola
Psara
10 cannons, 40 rifles, 30 carbines, 40 knives, 40 pairs of pistols
San Nikola
Psara
10 cannons, 45 rifles, 30 carbines, 50 knives, 50 pairs of pistols
Gianni Stamati Andria Teodori of Giorgi Giorgi Mike
Source: Amphitrete, 1700-1821, Research Project ―Pythagoras‖, Ionian University/Greek Ministry of Education, 2004-2006.
12 REWRITING THE SEA FROM THE DESERT SHORE Equine and Equestrian Perspectives on a New Maritime History Donna Landry What can we learn from studying a certain Mediterranean trafficking in horseflesh within maritime history? This essay proposes bringing together what we might call Desert Studies with the Sea Studies at the heart of traditional maritime history research. Sea and desert bear to each other relations of comparability as well as adjacency or contingency. Both are geopolitically overwritten, strategically important spaces that may at first sight appear empty to those unfamiliar with their intricate ecosystems. Both are hostile environments for humans to inhabit, requiring specific kinds of knowledge for survival. Both are crisscrossed by trade routes, rendering their negotiation strategically valuable. Aesthetically, both sea and desert provoke experiences of the sublime and have inspired rich traditions of writing, painting, music, cinema, and other media.1 Both are ‗horizontal‘ rather than ‗vertical‘ spaces, encouraging forms of sociality that might be understood as less hierarchical and more egalitarian than those bred by other localities. The buried metaphor within the term caravane maritime, although that term describes a specific eighteenth-century shipping practice, invites a comparison between the land trade and the maritime trade within the early modern Mediterranean. Camels may be the ships of the desert, but in the horse-powered nations of early modern Europe, it was the Eastern blood horse obtainable through the Levant trade that signified what was prized equally by both East and West. Grasping the On the sea and representations of the sea particularly relevant to this analysis, see Caroline Rooney, ‗What Is the Oceanic?‘, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 12 (2007): 19-32. 1
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desert as a space comparable with the sea in the early modern period requires understanding not only the mechanisms of trade, such as the social and economic organisation of caravans, and camel, donkey, and horse power, but also the immense symbolic importance of horses and horse culture within the desert regions of North Africa and the Middle East. One of the prime commodities of the Mediterranean trade-routes linking Europe, Africa, and Asia was the Eastern blood horse. Desert studies, although not limited to a focus on the equine and equestrian, would be seriously incapacitated without such a focus. Sea Studies as a truly interdisciplinary enterprise has much to gain from attending to the sandy shores where land meets sea, enabling maritime research to be networked explicitly with its hinterlands. The issues raised by archival records of the Anglo-Ottoman horse trade between 1650 and 1750 are remarkably similar to those raised by the more strictly maritime studies in this book. This overlap suggests a confluence of interests and historical forces worthy of attention. What my research illuminates in particular are the symbolic loadings of otherwise practical matters – questions of trade, transport, and war – and the seemingly inescapable hybridity of early modern culture, in which transnational fascinations with exotic luxury goods, including fine horses, overrode emerging nation-state divisions. These symbolic loadings have both a benign and a sinister face. On one hand, they invite us to celebrate early modern instances of cultural exchange that refute notions of an inevitable conflict between East and West. On the other, connections between the equine trade and the trade in slaves must give us pause. Such parallels between equine and equestrian culture, and a broader maritime commercial culture, suggest that we might do well to investigate both together. This essay is a first foray in a project to articulate what Sea and Desert Studies might mean as a new multidisciplinary array, out of which a new inter-discipline or trans-disciplinary paradigm might emerge.2 The trade in equine bloodstock between Britain and the Ottoman empire was to prove crucial to the development of early modern English culture. Between 1650 and 1750, more than two hundred horses of Eastern blood were imported into the British Isles from ports in the Ottoman empire and the regencies of North Africa. Their arrival, usually on Levant Company ships, changed ideas about equine capabilities, as well as racing, riding, and painting. The glowing heart of England‘s green and
On the appeal of new inter- or trans-disciplinary approaches to knowledge in an era of global restructuring, see Katie King, ‗Networked Re-enactments: A Thick Description amid Authorships, Audiences and Agencies in the Nineties‘, Writing Technologies, 2 (2008), accessible online at: www.ntu.ac.uk/writing_technologies/Current_journal/index.html 2
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pleasant land was thus transformed from within by an alien incursion from the East. From the Portland Papers held at the British Library and University of Nottingham Library, we can learn a great deal about this trade and its effects on horsemanship in Britain, as well as begin to compare Eastern and Western philosophies of the proper relations between homo sapiens and equus caballus. Ideas of equine purity, beauty, and utility changed, as did notions of pedigree-keeping and theories of the efficacy of leniency versus cruelty in breaking, training, and grooming. Papers of Levantine merchants, stewards of great estates, and landowners who hoped to breed a fine ‗race‘ of ‗through-bred‘ or ‗thoroughbred‘ horses from Eastern strains constitute a rich repository of early modern East-West cultural exchanges both metaphorical and material. By the later nineteenth century, the Eastern blood horse had been fully incorporated into English life, but geopolitical changes, and imperial interest in the Great Game, gave English horse fanciers a renewed interest in retracing and re-appropriating the Eastern bloodlines that had contributed so much to the genetic matrix of the Thoroughbred. Both moments of archival richness – the early modern Levantine horse trade of 1650-1750, and the later nineteenth-century desert explorations and search for the legendary origins of the Thoroughbred – indicate how the Eastern blood horse functioned as a largely peaceful currency of exchange within imperial rivalries, as well as a shared obsession of both East and West. Horses as Commodities, Sentient Beings, Slaves: Horses at Sea Between 1650 and 1750, horses were imported into the British Isles from the Mediterranean by sea, usually in Levant Company ships or men of war. The shipping of horses marks the site of closest overlap between the concerns of traditional maritime history and a more interdisciplinary approach to cultures of sea and desert. Horses appear in this maritime trafficking in multiple ways. Horses are both commodified and not completely commodifiable. Horses are both sentient beings and capable of being treated as mere engines or machines. Eastern horses are sometimes ennobled within the ordered ranks of non-human animals, yet they are often subject to abuse. They are both afforded the careful handling accorded to fellow creatures and treated as slaves of humankind. Horses and ships have a long shared history, especially in the Mediterranean. In antiquity, when specialisation was rare in ship-building, there were distinctly designed hippagogoi, or ships for transporting horses; these appear comparable to the huissiers of the Middle Ages used for the
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same purpose.3 Lisa Jardine and Jerry Brotton mention a sixteenth-century ―heavy, round-bottomed‖ Portuguese ship of thirty guns designed to carry horses in its hold ―as humanely as possible for long voyages‖, but also note that this was the kind of ship ―infamously used to transport African slaves across the Atlantic‖.4 Horses in the Levant trade fit well with Arjun Appadurai‘s definition of commodities that also function as ―incarnated signs‘, goods whose ‗principal use is rhetorical and social‖, and which respond to a necessity that is, as well as aesthetic, ―fundamentally political‖. 5 Drawing out the implications of Marx‘s model of the commodity form, Appadurai demonstrates how commodities may function as animate social agents. If commodities or goods can function as social agents, how much more potential for agency might there be in a living creature, especially one with a high price in the international market? Jardine and Brotton argue that horses are best understood not as commodities in any strict sense – as in shipments of wheat or copper, anonymously interchangeable, exchangeable items – but as akin to precious works of art, which are dealt in individually.6 The fine horses of the East, who figured quality in their bodies and reproductive capacities, were given further ‗figurative meaning‘ by their representation in paintings and other art objects. 7 Jardine and Brotton also note the living sentience of horses, who thereby provoked relationships and feelings on the part of their human handlers that were more complex than would be experienced with inanimate objects, however unique or valuable.8 The work of Appadurai, and of Jardine and Brotton, makes clear the complexity of the figurative, social, and political significations of the Eastern blood horse as simultaneously a commodity and not one. Fine Eastern horses thus combined the aesthetic and monetary value of luxury goods with the bodily reality of being a beast of burden and engine of labour. They were equivalent to works of art, on one hand, and to slaves on the other. This gave them a special status, rendering these non-humans more valuable than many human cargoes. Jardine and Brotton comment that in shipping terms, horses outweighed in value human slaves by eight to one: the customary equation for the low value Jean Rougé, Ships and Fleets of the Ancient Mediterranean (Middletown, 1981), 180. Lisa Jardine and Jerry Brotton, Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West (London and Ithaca, 2000), 148, 208, n. 51. 5 Arjun Appadurai, ‗Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value‘, in Appadurai ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, 1986), 3-63, 38. 6 Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 172, 212, n. 88. 7 Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 133. 8 Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 133. 3 4
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placed on slaves‘ lives was that one horse equalled eight slaves, corresponding to the ―space allocation in the deep hull of a ship: eight slaves could be stowed in the space required for a single horse‖. 9 Like human chattel slaves in the transatlantic trade with Africa, horses usually travelled in the holds of ships, rather than on deck, as smaller animals such as sheep, goats, pigs, or chickens did. It will not surprise maritime historians that horses tended to survive sea voyages better if there were only a few of them on board. 10 Horses sent to England on English men of war or Levant Company merchant ships, such as those exported from Aleppo by Nathaniel Harley,11 went in very small shipments of one or two at a time. It is also important to note that the specific character of Eastern horses, whether of Turkic, Arabian, or Barbary origin, may well have enabled them to withstand the rigours of shipboard life better than their northern European counterparts. An example from the nineteenth century proves illustrative. British cavalry horses were given every care in their voyaging to the Crimea in 1854, at the beginning of the war with Russia, yet many did not survive. Frances Isabella Duberly, accompanying her husband Henry to the front, reported that after nine days at sea the slings supporting the horses in the hold had begun to gall them, and the oppressive atmosphere made it hard for them to breathe. Their nostrils were regularly sponged with vinegar in an effort to ―alleviate their sufferings‖, but many died on the passage. 12 Mrs. Duberly was struck that a ―small French brig, containing a detachment of the Chasseurs d‟Afrique‖, a vessel of 150 tons, ―had twenty-eight horses on board, and had lost none, although they provided no stalls for them, but huddled them into the hold as closely as they could stow them away‖.13 If these North African horses were desert-bred, they might well have been better accustomed to short Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 208, n. 51. Matthew Horace Hayes, Horses on Board Ship: A Guide to their Management (London, 1902), 1. 11 Eight other horses besides the Harley Dun, the small ‗Scrub‘ who accompanied him, and the Bloody-Shouldered Arabian are mentioned in Nathaniel Harley‘s letters from Aleppo (1682-1720), British Library, (henceforth BL) Additional Manuscripts (henceforth Add. Mss.) 70143, 181r, 194r, 215v, and 227r, and in Charles Matthew Prior, Early Records of the Thoroughbred Horse Containing Reproductions of Some Original Stud-books, and Other Papers, of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1924), 137, 138. The ninth we have no record of shipping for, but the Welbeck stud-book records that Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, who in 1713 married Edward, Lord Harley, received a ―Barb Mare Creem Coller 5 years old‖ given her ―by Cousen Harley‖; An Acct of What Horses belongs to the Stud July ye 24th 1711, Portland Collection, University of Nottingham Library, Manuscripts Department, P W 2/331: fol. 4; also quoted in Prior, Early Records, 122. 12 Frances Duberly, Journal kept during The Russian War: from the departure of the army from England in April, 1854, to the fall of Sebastopol, (London, 1855), 5. 13 Duberly, Journal, 8. 9
10
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rations and water shortages, as well as being stabled closely together in hot conditions, than bigger, heavier, better-fed European horses. Provisioning horses aboard ship was a perpetual problem. As grazing animals, horses ideally require unlimited supplies of grass, or the best and safest grass substitute, hay. But storing sufficient hay to feed a number of horses on a long voyage presented a considerable inconvenience to the crew, and could even jeopardise the safety of a ship. James Deane, an English captive in Algiers, reported that when the ship on which he was travelling to Barbados was seized, the crew were impeded from defending against the attackers by the hay bales with which they were lumbered. He reported that when it was clear that ―Turkish men of war‖ were bearing down upon them, all aboard were thrown into ―a great and General Consternation, as knowing how unprepared we were for resistance, both for our small strength, and for that ours was a Pesterd Ship by reason of a quantity of Hay we had on Deck and elsewhere, for a dozen Horses we carried with us‖ in the ―Hold‖. 14 Nathaniel Harley reported disappointment at being prevented from shipping the Bloody Shouldered Arabian to England in May 1717, ostensibly because the sea was ―too Ruff‖ for him to be put aboard the ship, but the ―true reason‖ was, according to Harley, ―The Apprehensions, of a Warr with Sweeden haveing made the Cap.t unwilling to incomber his Ship with a Horse and the necessary provisions for him‖.15 In the absence of sufficient supplies of hay, fodder for Eastern exports from the Ottoman empire was likely to have been what is called in Turkish saman, chopped hay and straw, which can still be found being fed to horses in Turkey today in colourful nosebags. 16 Such food is less nourishing than hay, and less safe for horses‘ digestive systems. If a poor mixture is concocted, or becomes spoiled, it can cause fatal attacks of colic. However, Arabian or Turkmen horses were accustomed to being kept from regular grazing for months at a time, just as they were accustomed to going for comparatively long periods without water. Such horses often had to make do with the most meagre of rations, and only the toughest survived. Among the Bedouin, Arab horses might be fed on
14 James Deane, A Further Narrative of James Deane and Others, in William Okeley, Eben-ezer: or, a small Monument of Great Mercy, appearing in the Miraculous Deliverance of a William Okeley, Williams Adams, John Anthony, John Jephs, John Carpenter, From the Miserable Slavery of Algiers . . ., 2nd edn. (London, 1684), 86-100, 88-89. 15 Nathaniel Harley, Letter to his brother Edward ‗Auditor of the Imprest‘ Harley, 18 May 1717, BL, Add. Mss. 70143, 289r. 16 Jeremy James notes the prevalence of saman in Saddletramp: From Ottoman Hills to Offa‟s Dyke (London and New York, 1989), 18.
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locusts or dates.17 Turkmen breeders, famed for their rigorous training programmes, could condition their horses to withstand even such an unnaturally low-bulk diet as high protein grains mixed with mutton fat. 18 Given such provisioning, surviving the voyage might still mean that horses reached England in a very poor condition, much in need of grass to recover flesh and strength. It was best to time the voyage for a late spring arrival, but this was not always possible. Horses that arrived during October or November, as a number of Nathaniel Harley‘s horses did, were put on a diet of ‗corn‘ – hard feed such as barley or oats – soon after landing. Thomas Pulleine, son of the Master of the Stud to William III, wrote to Robert Harley about the horses that had arrived with Captain Charles Cornwall of the Burford at the Downs in October 1711, advising special treatment. It was already known that these ‗Turkish‘ horses did not respond well to or require the kinds of ‗Purges‘ such as the London farriers might suggest; ―for by many repeated experiences‖, Pulleine reported, it had been discovered that the London methods ‗utterly spoild and ruind the Turkish Horses‘, and it was best to avoid them. 19 Pulleine recommended shredding ―a Large Carrott every day for abt 6 Weeks amongst their Corne for each Horse‖, provided that the carrots had not been ―frozen or wormeaten‖.20 A tasty organic vitamin supplement was worth much more to these horses than any amount of medicine. Travelling like slaves in suffocating holds, yet on account of commanding high prices and attracting aristocratic attention upon their arrival in European destinations, often being treated more carefully than their human counterparts, Eastern horses expose the contradictions in early modern human and animal relations. The price of slaves varied, of course, as did the price of horses. Yet some comparisons are possible. Hugh Thomas reports a gradual rise in human slave prices in Africa that eventually rendered humans more costly commodities than equine ones, but at the beginning of the trade, horses were worth far more: in the 1440s, in Senegambia, one horse was worth twenty-five or thirty slaves; by the years between 1500-1510, in Senegambia, one horse was worth eight, seven, or six slaves.21 Fernand Braudel found slaves fetching thirty-five These were reported by Lady Anne Blunt as fed to horses by Bedouins in A Pilgrimage to Nejd: The Cradle of the Arab Race, 2nd edn., 2 vols (London, 1968 (1881)), 2: 5, 58, 79. 18 This last was the usual diet of the Turkmen or Akhal-Teke. Because ―the sandy Kara Kum desert occupies 90 % of Turkmenistan‖, fresh grass was available only a few months of the year; ‗The Akhal-Teke‘, Museum of the Horse website: http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/akhal.html. 19 Prior, Early Records, 137-38. 20 Prior, Early Records, 137-38. 21 Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870 (London and Basingstoke, 1997), 807. 17
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ducats ―apiece‖ during the first half of the sixteenth century. 22 Ransomed European captives, in a market in which human slave prices were rising, might fetch between 200 and 300 ducats during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, according to Robert C. Davis. 23 Between 1679 and 1685, captives sold in the slave market at Tripoli for 200 or 300 dollars. 24 Eastern equine bloodstock was more valuable than human chattel in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The shipping of horses to England was in itself expensive, over and above the purchase price. Robert Harley, then Secretary of State, paid Captain Thomas Stepney £53 15s. for bringing two horses from Turkey in November 1706.25 He also paid £3 4s. 6d. to the ―Person who had ye care of ye Horses in ye Voyage‖, £8 12s. to ―Mr. Wm. Thomas towards ye Charge of Landing Horses from Turkey‖, and £10 4s. 6d. to one Simon Chapman ―upon account of a Journey to Deal to fetch up two Horses‖. 26 Expensive shipping did not guarantee appropriate care of the precious cargo, however. In November 1713, Robert Harley‘s son Edward, Lord Harley, complained to William Thomas regarding a new shipment of horses that ―Capt Gare‘s demand for the charges since the Horses landed very unreasonable considering the ill care yt was taken of them‖, and ―When you do pay him, you will let him understand how little he deserved so much when he abused the Horses at that rate‖. 27 However valuable they might be to their owners, horses, like human chattel slaves, were always vulnerable to poor usage and even abuse. Because Eastern blood horses were equally prized by horsemen in the East and the West, fine horses were expensive to purchase, as well as to ship. They might travel with currants, fine wines, precious textiles, but they were considered much more valuable than such inanimate exchangeable goods. Their value could better be compared with that of the exquisite individually commissioned tapestries analysed by Jardine and Brotton, worthy to be given as royal gifts.28 ―[F]ive Hundred even to a Thousand Dollars is as common a price as twenty or thirty Bunds [i. e., pounds or punts--silver ingots--OED] is in England‖ reported Nathaniel
Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols (London, 1972-73), 2: 755. 23 Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800 (Basingstoke and New York, 2003), 44. 24 Davis, Christian Slaves, 49. 25 Prior, Early Records, 137. 26 Prior, Early Records, 137. 27 Prior, Early Records, 138. 28 Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 63-131. 22
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Harley from Aleppo, in 1705.29 The English ambassador to Constantinople, Sir Robert Sutton, reported in 1708 that purebred Arabian mares were ―valued at most extravagant rates, 3, 4, or £500 sterling being a common price for them, and when a Frank appears to buy them, the price is always most unreasonably enhanced‖. 30 Stories of the reluctance of Bedouin tribesmen to part with their mares at any price haunt the early modern records, suggesting that the symbolic as well as real value of horses needs to be factored into the calculus. The French diplomat Laurence D‘Arvieux reported in the 1680s an Emir who ―had a Mare that he would not part with for Five thousand Crowns, because she had travell‘d three days and three Nights without drawing Bit‖; although, according to D‘Arvieux, there were ―few of that Price‖, there were in Greater Syria ―abundance‖ of horses, especially mares, for which ―a Thousand, Twelve hundred, Sixteen hundred, and Two thousand Crowns a-piece‖ were asked.31 ‗Frank‘ is, of course, a general term for Europeans, suggesting that the export market in horses was flourishing. This circumstance should give the lie to the suggestion sometimes made that there was an absolute prohibition upon the exporting of horses from ports of the Ottoman empire.32 Although there were regulations, there was also an established East-West horse trade, dating back at least to the time of Marco Polo. From time to time, export taxes were imposed, and export licenses were demanded, and at times, political conflicts precipitated a ban on specific exports to specific purchasers. 33 29 Nathaniel Harley, Letter to Edward ‗Auditor‘ Harley, 29 December 1705, BL, Add. Mss. 70143, 180v. 30 Quoted in Prior, Early Records, 126-27. 31 Laurence D‘Arvieux, The Chevalier D‟Arvieux‟s Travels in Arabia the Desart; Written by Himself, and Publish‟d by Mr. De la Roque: Giving a very accurate and entertaining Account of the Religion, Rights, Customs, Diversions, &c. of the Bedouins, or Arabian Scenites. Undertaken by Order of the late French King. To which is added, A General Description of Arabia, by Sultan Ishmael Abulfeda, translated from the best Manuscripts; with Notes, Done into English by an Eminent Hand (London, 1718), 170-71. 32 See Richard Nash, ‗―Honest English Breed‖: The Thoroughbred as Cultural Metaphor‘, in Karen Raber and Treva J. Tucker eds., The Culture of the Horse: Status, Discipline, and Identity in the Early Modern World (New York and Basingstoke, 2005), 245-272, 249-50. He follows Alexander Mackay-Smith, Speed and the Thoroughbred: The Complete History (Lanham, MD, 2000), 122-27, who cites no sources for this claim. 33 Kate Fleet, European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: The Merchants of Genoa and Turkey (Cambridge and New York, 1999), 29-30. After describing the importance of the horse trade for the Ottoman economy, Fleet carefully states: ―The Turks were not always willing to export their horses‖. Her example is the Hospitallers, who in 1365 were forced, ―due to Turkish annoyance over the capture of Alexandria that year by King Peter of Cyprus‖, to buy horses in Apulia rather than Turchia. Elizabeth Tobey discusses how extensive Ottoman trade with Europe was in ‗The Palio Horse in Renaissance and Early Modern Italy‘, in Raber and Tucker, eds., Culture of the Horse, 63-90, see esp. 67-73.
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Nathaniel Harley congratulated himself on outwitting the Ottoman authorities whenever he wished to export a particular horse against their wishes. Writing to his brother in 1715 about the horse that would become known in England as Lord Harley‘s Dun, Nathaniel congratulated himself on deceiving the agents who were always on the look-out for horses for the imperial stables in Istanbul. The ―Dunn or Cream Colt‖, a horse ―that has made more Noise and been more taken Notice of here then I desired, And has had the honour of being Visited by the Turke Himself incognito---who would have had him for the Grd. Sig.‘s own Stable‖, caused an export ban to be put in place. 34 Apparently, ―upon the first notice‖ of the horse‘s being shipped, ―Three Expresses‘ were sent after him, and ‗all the passes of the Mountains between this and Scanderone Ordered to be watched‖, and ―ye Marine Strictly guarded to prevent his being Ship‘d off‖, Harley reported with some complacency. 35 The horse did indeed slip through the Ottoman imperial net, and arrived to great acclaim in England, where he would become a famous sire, fathering the Harley or Oxford Dun Mare, from whom were descended many successful racehorses, including West Australian, Wisdom, Flying Fox, and Persimmon.36 Nathaniel‘s nephew Lord Harley reported gleefully that the horse was ―thought by all that have seen him to be the finest Horse that ever came over‖.37 Ascertaining exactly the genetic blueprint of this horse, however, proves particularly tricky, and this trickiness in turn reveals something of the indeterminacy and undoubted hybridity of these Eastern equine imports. Of the Dun, Nathaniel Harley opined that he believed that ―few such Horses have ever come to England‖ but he broke off the letter without detailing the horse‘s precise ‗race‘ or pedigree, saying only: ―Twould be too tedious at this time to give you the whole History of him and his Race, which I shall reserve till I am so happy as to See you‖.38 Illfated Nathaniel, who wrote as if he lived in perpetual hope of being reunited with his family in England, was never to return, dying of a fever in Aleppo in July 1720.39 The conundrum of the Harley Dun, and whether this horse ought to be classified as an ‗Arabian‘, like Nathaniel‘s other Nathaniel Harley, Letter to Edward ‗Auditor‘ Harley, Esq., in London, under cover to Mr. Kingston, Aleppo, 15 February 1714/15, BL, Add. Mss. 70143, 225v. 35 Harley, BL, Add. Mss. 70143, 225v. 36 Prior, Early Records, 141. 37 Edward, Lord Harley, Letter to Nathaniel Harley, 4 December 1716, quoted in Prior, Early Records, 142. 38 Harley, BL, Add. Mss. 70143, 225v. 39 Nathaniel Harley died in Aleppo on 17 July 1720; Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of His Grace The Duke of Portland, K.G. Preserved at Welbeck Abbey, 9 vols (Norwich and London, 1891-1923), 5: 603. 34
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famous export, the Bloody Shouldered Arabian, or as something else, illustrates the problem of determining identity within the Levant equine trade. What exactly was this horse‘s breeding? ―The whole History of him and his Race‖ is never related in the Harley correspondence. Like other imports from Aleppo, he is often referred to by contemporaries and, later, by historians of the Thoroughbred as ―the Harley Dun Arabian‖. However, dun or cream is an unusual colour among purebred Arabians. The artist Bridget Tempest, who specializes in portraying today‘s Turkmen horses, Akhal-Tekes, speculates that, based on the evidence of John Wootton‘s portrait and Nathaniel Harley‘s letter, with its mysterious omission of the horse‘s ‗Race‘, the Harley Dun might well have been a Turcoman or Turkmen. Tempest observes of the Turkmen that they sometimes ―have a distinctive shimmering golden coat, just like that of the horse in Wootton‘s splendid portrait‖. 40 In the Harley Dun, then, we might find further evidence, to add to the example of the Byerley Turk, that the Ottoman empire contributed Turkic as well as Arabian bloodlines to the richly hybrid mixture known as the Thoroughbred. Equine Identity Politics The breed of horse known as the Thoroughbred (with a capital ‗T‘) is considered today by most people to be a product of certifiable purity. And yet this breed was developed from a mongrel mixture of formerly separate Eastern gene pools. Ironies abound; this origin story, like all origin stories, is contested; and the exact origins of the breed will forever remain a matter of speculation. Describing how this particular breed of horse, selectively bred for racing, came into being remains a theoretical and descriptive minefield. The attribution of an English point of origin must appear arbitrary, as Franco Varola has pointed out: ―The fact that presentday racehorses are recorded as descendants of the specimens bred in England from about the time of Charles II‖, and not as ―descendants of specimens bred in Italy by the Duke of Mantua or of Milan, or, for that matter, by the Turkish sultans‖, is not ―a genetic issue, but purely a political and sociological issue‖.41 Like many other agents and artefacts of Mediterranean culture, the so-called English Thoroughbred is a hybrid product, and a construction based upon disparate sources diffused throughout the Mediterranean basin. ‗Eastern bloodstock‘ in itself is a catachresis, a concept for which there is no singular, literal referent,
40 41
Bridget Tempest, Turkmen At Wimpole: Artists from Turkmenistan (Ashgabat, n.d. [2001]), 20. Franco Varola, Typology of the Racehorse (London and New York, 1977 (1974)), 2.
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although there are many horses, members of the species equus caballus, who would be considered reasonable facsimiles of such a concept. What the evidence shows, both from an eighteenth-century archival perspective, and from the perspective of the latest genetics research, is that an infusion of Eastern blood into the British Isles, most intensively between 1650 and 1750, produced the fastest and finest horse ever seen. And the capital ‗T‘ Thoroughbred came to be seen as quintessentially an English product, the outcome of selective crossing on English soil. The horse‘s Eastern origins were quickly buried within a rhetoric of improvement consonant with the second or landlords‘ ―agricultural revolution‖, in Robert C. Allen‘s terms. 42 Sifting through the available evidence reveals paradoxes of naming and classification typical of Mediterranean forms of cultural hybridity in considerable tension with ideas of purity. Although the most recent genetics research appears to confirm what has long been believed in Thoroughbred breeding circles, that Eastern, and in particular, Arabian blood is most crucial to the Thoroughbred‘s make-up, a theory of genetic mongrelisation remains hard to avoid. Between 1650 and 1750, English dealers in Eastern bloodstock represent themselves as growing increasingly knowledgeable about distinct breeds or ‗races‘ of horse, but there remained a tendency to confuse spatial location with racial designation. What remained consistent was the view that Eastern horses possessed certain qualities that outclassed their northern European counterparts. Cultural hybridity merges with genetic hybridity in the case of the early modern mingling of formerly separate Eastern bloodstock lineages. Both in the Ottoman Mediterranean and in the British Isles there are mergers of East and West, North and South, in both equine and equestrian cultures. Postcolonial studies, following Homi Bhabha, has defined cultural hybridity as the specific effect of colonialism. For Bhabha what is important is the ambivalence such a recognition of colonial hybridity, experienced by coloniser as well as colonised, introduces into the colonial scene. Ambivalence registers as both acute anxiety in the coloniser faced with native mimicry, and subversively ‗warlike‘ signs within the native‘s mimicry itself.43 ―If the effect of colonial power is seen to be the production of hybridization rather than the hegemonic command of 42 Between 1750 and 1850, what Robert C. Allen calls the ―second or landlords‘ Agricultural Revolution‖ occurred, see his Enclosure and the Yeoman (Oxford, 1992), 21. 43 Homi K. Bhabha, ‗Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of Ambivalence and Authority under a Tree outside Delhi, May 1817‘, in Francis Barker et alia eds., Europe and Its Others: Proceedings of the Essex Conference on the Sociology of Literature, 1984, 2 vols (Colchester, 1985), 1: 104.
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colonialist authority or the silent repression of native traditions‖, Bhabha argues, ―then an important change of perspective occurs‖.44 What study of the early modern Mediterranean reveals is that colonial hybridity is not the only brand of cultural hybridity. Hybridity produced without the violence of imperialism, cultural hybridity produced by commerce and exchange, may lack the frisson of such volatile ambivalence as Bhabha describes, but it nevertheless interrupts seamless narratives of nation, bringing about ―an important change of perspective‖, in Bhabha‘s terms. To recognise cultural hybridity can destabilise and defamiliarize what has been taken for granted about the integrity and authenticity of national cultures and their narratives. For centuries horse breeders have divided the equine species into hot-, cold-, and warm-blooded breeds; horses of the indigenous northern European type, whether native ponies or heavy cart and draught horses, are classified as cold-blooded. The so-called blood horse is another name for the hot-blooded kind, representing gene pools selectively bred for centuries by Asian nomads. ‗Warmbloods‘ represent a cross between the hot and cold-blooded varieties; Germany and Central and Eastern Europe are especially known today for their ‗warmblood‘ breeds, suggesting how their relative geographical proximity to the East in the form of the Ottoman empire appears to have influenced the development of horse breeding. Hot-blooded breeds include the Arabian, the Barb from North Africa, and the Turanian, Turkmen or Akhal-Teke of the Central Asian steppe. The legendary trio of foundation sires, from whom all Thoroughbred pedigrees are said to derive, emblematises this mixture: the Byerley Turk, Darley Arabian, and Godolphin Barb (or Arabian, though he was imported into Europe from North Africa). The Islamic conquest of much of Asia and the Mediterranean, including North Africa and Spain, brought in its wake an extensive diffusion of Eastern breeding stock. The North African Barbary horse, or Barb, a Berber horse, often contains some Arabian as well as Spanish lineage. Close-coupled, with sloping hindquarters and thickly arched or ‗crested‘ neck, the Barb and the Spanish Andalusian have a number of traits in common, distinguishing them from Arabians and other breeds from further East. The Turkmen or Akhal-Teke shares many features with the Arabian, but is nevertheless of an observably different type. The Akhal-Teke is taller and more longlegged than the Arabian, with a fine head but lacking the concave or ‗dished‘ face of the Arabian. Still sometimes referred to as an argamak, the early modern Russian term for a blood horse, the Akhal-Teke is beginning 44
Bhabha, ‗Signs Taken for Wonders‘, 97.
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to come into its own in the West as a competition horse for eventing and endurance riding.45 The term ‗blood horse‘ itself combines aristocratic mysterymaking with empirical observation. Zoologically speaking, all domestic horses of the past and present are descended from a common ancestor, Equus ferus.46 Therefore, while the taxonomy of ‗blood‘, or hot-blooded, horses – distinguished from cold-blooded ones or ‗warmblood‘ crosses between the two – may be useful terms for the horse-breeder, as the zoologist Juliet Clutton-Brock observes, such distinctions possess ―no scientific credence‖.47 Zoologically speaking, a ‗blood horse‘ merely describes a geographical ‗cline‘ – a sequence of differences within a species – adapted to hot arid regions.48 As Clutton-Brock describes this difference, in northern latitudes and cold climates, ―mammals tend to be large (a generalization that is often called Bergmann‘s ―rule‖)‖ and have ―heavy bodies with short legs, while the extremities, such as the ears, are short and compact (Allen‘s ―rule‖)‖, while in hot climates the same species tend to have ―longer and finer limbs relative to the size of the body and longer extremities‖, as well as a ―shorter and sleeker coat‖. 49 The connection between the hotter climates of Eastern desert and steppe and the fine-limbed, fine-coated, small-eared horse is thus a reasonable one, but the attribution of superiority to these features cannot be substantiated in purely zoological terms. Although a precise location of evolutionary origin for the equine species cannot be determined, according to Clutton-Brock, the earliest records of domestication of the horse ―occur on the Scythian steppes, north of the Caspian Sea‖, giving this region a certain claim to priority. 50 The archæo-zoologist Sándor Bökönyi, arguing from the evidence left by Iron Age horse breeders, offers a different view from Clutton-Brock‘s rather categorical dismissal of the question of blood or breed distinctions while emphasising the importance of Scythian or Caspian origins. Bökönyi identifies an important difference between Eastern ‗Scythian‘ and Western 45 On the early modern argamak, see Ann M. Kleimola, ‗Cultural Convergence: The Equine Connection between Muscovy and Europe,‘ in Raber and Tucker, eds., Culture of the Horse, 45-62. Jill Thomas, an English endurance rider who has recently imported an Akhal-Teke from Russia, reports that today the breed is ―also known as Argamak‖, see Annabel Groom, ‗Golden chance as Jill finds colt of dreams‘, Western Morning News, Wednesday, 9 July 2008, ‗Horses‘ supplement, 12. 46 Juliet Clutton-Brock, Horse Power: A History of the Horse and the Donkey in Human Societies (London, 1992), 61. 47 Clutton-Brock, Horse Power, 61. 48 Clutton-Brock, personal communication to the author, January 2004. 49 Clutton-Brock, Horse Power, 61. 50 Clutton-Brock, Horse Power, 61.
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‗Celtic‘ horse types, finding ―considerable difference – approximately 10 cm – of size between the two groups, quite unexpectedly in favour of the eastern group‖, so that it was in the interests of Western people to acquire these larger Eastern horses, who could carry heavier loads, move more rapidly with a rider of equal weight, carry more easily riders wearing armour, and cover longer distances.51 The Scythian horses, Bökönyi claims, ―owing to the Scythian expansion on the one hand‖, and ―commercial connexions‖ on the other, ―spread from North Iran and South Russia to Central Europe and North Africa and in Asia as far as the Altai Mountains‖.52 Size mattered, and horses bigger of body were better from a breeder‘s point of view.53 In conjuring this Eastern/Western difference, Bökönyi has recourse to the horse pictured on the electrum vase discovered in the kurgan at Chertomlyk (fourth century B. C. E.), which, Bökönyi opines, would be considered a ―very fine‖ animal ―even by present breeders‘ standards‖, which Bökönyi glosses as being ―mostly reminiscent of Arab thoroughbreds‖.54 Like the term ‗Thoroughbred‘, the term ‗blood horse‘ came into use during the eighteenth century. The word ‗thoroughbred‘ or ‗throughbred‘ for a pedigreed horse is in fact a translation of the Arabic word kuhaylân, meaning ―purebred all through‖.55 ‗Renowned for its physical beauty, endurance, intelligence and touching devotion to its master‘, the eminent Arabist Philip K. Hitti remarks, ―the Arabian thoroughbred (kuhaylan) is the exemplar from which all Western ideas about the goodbreeding of horseflesh have been derived‖.56 English breeders had begun to adopt this usage by the second decade of the eighteenth century. C. M. Prior remarked in 1924 that this early usage of ‗thoroughbred‘ was no longer widely known: [T]he term ―thoroughbreds‖ as applied to horses supposed to be of pure blood, is of much older use than is generally supposed. We find the expression ―bred horses‖ . . . as early as 1729, but a still earlier instance occurs in a letter of the first Lord Bristol, who, writing to his son in July, 1713, says:--―As thro-bred English horses Sándor Bökönyi, History of Domestic Mammals in Central and Eastern Europe (Budapest, 1974), 252-54. 52 Bökönyi, History of Domestic Mammals, 255. 53 Sándor Bökönyi, Data on Iron Age Horses of Central and Eastern Europe in the Mecklenberg Collection, Part I, American School of Prehistoric Research Bulletin 25 (Cambridge, MA, 1968), 52. 54 Bökönyi, History of Domestic Mammals, 255. 55 Elwyn Hartley Edwards ed., Encyclopedia of the Horse (New York, 1990), 41, citing Lady Wentworth. 56 Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs from the Earliest Times to the Present, rev. 10th edn. (Basingstoke and New York, 2002 (1937)), 21. 51
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―The term ‗blood-horse‘‖, commented Major-General Tweedie, who describes himself as ―for many years H. B. M.‘s Consul-General, Baghdad, and Political Resident for the government of India in Turkish Arabia‖, ―may be merely a vestige of the primitive notion, that there is an essential difference between the red corpuscles of the ‗quality‘ and the commonalty respectively. But the name also points to that beautiful swelling out of the veins after a gallop, in the racer and his descendants, by means of which the heart and lungs obtain relief‖.58 In Russia and the former Soviet states, argamak refers to much the same concatenation of ‗quality‘ or evidence of fine breeding and known pedigree.59 The beauty and athleticism of Eastern horses so impressed early modern Europeans that these horses strained existing categories. It was almost as if these imports were a different species of beast from their western and northern fellows. In December 1684, John Evelyn recorded seeing in St James‘s Park ―three Turkish or Asian Horses, newly brought over‖, which had been ―taken from a Bashaw at the seige of Vienna in Austria‖.60 Evelyn rhapsodised about the horses‘ beauty, searching for a language with which to express his awe and admiration: & with my Eyes never did I behold so delicate a Creature as was one of them, of somwhat a bright bay, two white feete, a blaze; such an head, [Eye,] eares, neck, breast, belly, buttock, Gaskins, leggs, pasterns, & feete in all reguards beautifull & proportion‘d to admiration, spiritous & prowd, nimble, making halt, turning with that sweiftnesse & in so small a compase as was incomparable, with all this so gentle & tractable, as called to mind what I remember Busbequius speakes of them; to the reproch of our Groomes in Europ who bring them up so churlishly, as makes our horse most of them to retaine so many ill habits &c: They trotted like Does, as if they did not feele the Ground; for this first Creature was demanded 500 Ginnies, for the 2d 300, which was of a brighter bay, for the 3d 200 pound, which was browne, all of them choicely shaped, but not Prior, Early Records, 15. Major-General William Tweedie, The Arabian Horse, His Country and People (Alhambra, CA, 1961 (1894)), title-page and 246, n. 59 Kleimola, in Raber and Tucker, Culture of the Horse, 45-62. 60 John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn, Esmond Samuel de Beer ed., 6 vols (Oxford, 1955), 4: 398. 57 58
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altogether so perfect as the first. In a word, it was judg‘d by the Spectators, (among whom was the King, Prince of Denmark, the Duke of Yorke, and severall of the Court Noble persons skilled in Horses, especially Monsieur Faubert & his sonn & Prevost, Masters of the Accademie and esteemed of the best in Europe), that there were never seene any horses in these parts, to be compared with them.61 Several of the greatest English and Continental European authorities on horsemanship are united in their admiration for these horses. Their beauty and exceptional quality and athleticism surpass anything ever seen before, even by such elite connoisseurs. These Ottoman chargers, like the Byerley Turk, who was also a spoil of war from the 1680s, induce in Evelyn a paean of equine superiority. We should also notice that Evelyn is struck not only by the horses‘ exquisite shapes and movements but also by superior behaviour, indicating how kindly and respectfully they have always been treated – a far cry from the kind of treatment they could expect in England, or the rest of Europe, a point repeatedly made by Western visitors to the Ottoman empire such as Ogier de Busbecq, whom Evelyn cites.62 A sixteenth-century ambassador to the Sublime Porte from the Habsburg empire, Busbecq commended the kindness and leniency of Ottoman horse-keeping. Other travellers and foreign residents reported being similarly impressed by the superiority of Eastern, Islamic methods of horse-keeping, a subject I have discussed extensively elsewhere, and for which there is no space here.63 For purposes of this discussion, I will merely remark two things: first, that the very sight of these Eastern/Ottoman horses, left the European crowd in awe. Not surprisingly, concerted efforts to obtain such horses marked the decades between Evelyn‘s account and 1750, by which time a critical mass of Eastern bloodstock had been gathered on English soil. The letter book of Thomas Baker, English consul at Tripoli, for instance, records that in 1684 he had Sha‛bân Khujja, later dey of Algiers, Evelyn, Diary, 4: 398-99. Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Travels into Turkey: Containing the most accurate Account of the Turks, and Neighbouring Nations, Their Manners, Customs, Religion, Superstition, Policy, Riches, Coins, &c. The whole being a series of remarkable observations and events, interspers‟d with great variety of entertaining incidents, never before printed, Translated from the Original Latin of the Learned A. G. Busbequius, With Memoirs of the Life of the Illustrious Author (London, 1744), 131; see also Edward Seymour Forster ed., The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople 1554-1562, Newly Translated from the Latin of the Elzevir Edition of 1633 (Oxford, 1927), 105-06. 63 See Donna Landry, Noble Brutes: How Eastern Horses Transformed English Culture (Baltimore and London, 2008). 61 62
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bring two fine horses from Cairo on his return from the pilgrimage to Mecca. Baker intended them as gifts for James, Duke of York, and he reported to Samuel Pepys that he had been applying for ―almost six years‖ to have such horses brought to him: ―One a Bay of Gran Cairo, the other a Coale Black of the Breed of Damascus, Both sizeable from six to seaven yeares old, I shall not dare to adventure too far in their commendation, only that they passe with us for fine ones, and are hardly to bee matched in this country, and wth English keeping they will bee in a short tyme much improved‖.64 Baker‘s caginess about how the horses will be received at court, coupled with his suggestion that he had gone to great lengths to obtain them, anticipates exactly the caginess and satisfaction at persistence having paid off expressed by Nathaniel Harley thirty years later. Second, Evelyn says nothing about the breeding of these horses, beyond calling them ‗Turkish or Asian‘; he does not even speculate about their ‗race‘. The proof of their bloodlines lies in their quality. They are clearly ‗blood horses‘, instances of that Eastern geographical cline, exquisitely fine horses in which the veins clearly show after exertion. Distinctions between horses bred by the Bedouin tribes of the Arabian and Greater Syrian deserts, the larger Turcoman or Turkmen horses originally developed in the Central Asian steppe but subsequently bred throughout the Ottoman empire, and Barbary horses from North Africa, represented new kinds of knowledge for people in seventeenthcentury England. There was a tendency to conflate breed with point of embarkation, as Peter Edwards, following the advice of Daphne Machin Goodall, has shown: ―It is difficult to know the origin of many of these Eastern horses as they came from a number of sources. Arabs, for instance, were often shipped through ports in the Turkish empire. The term ―barb,‖ moreover, was used in a general sense to denote a swift horse‖.65 During the seventeenth century, far more ‗Turks‘ and ‗Barbs‘ seem to have been imported than would be the case during the eighteenth century, when the designation ‗Arabian‘ became much more common. Whether there was a genuine substitution of the spatial origin – the port of embarkation – for the ‗racial‘ origin, the particular breed, will forever remain a matter of speculation.
64 For Thomas Baker, see Richard J. Pennell ed., Piracy and Diplomacy in Seventeenth-Century North Africa: The Journal of Thomas Baker, English Consul at Tripoli, 1677-1685 (London and Toronto, 1989), 171-72, 184. Baker‘s successor, Robert Cole, continued exporting horses from North Africa, sending a horse and saddle to William III in 1700, and mentioning six other Barbs in 1701 for which he was hoping a man of war passage to England would be forthcoming; see John S. Bromley, Corsairs and Navies, 1660-1760 (London, 1987), 35. 65 Peter Edwards, The Horse Trade of Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge, 1988), 41, n. 46.
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However, two competing lines of argument need to be established here. The official origin story of the English Thoroughbred emblematises, in the legendary trio of stallions whose genetic legacy can still be found in all Thoroughbreds today, a combination of previously separate equine ‗races‘. The Byerley Turk (c.1680-1714), the Darley Arabian (foaled 1700; imported 1704), and the Godolphin Barb, also known as the Godolphin Arabian (1724-1753), taken together, point towards a heterogeneous, though undoubtedly Eastern, origin. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, as English confidence about being able to distinguish between these different breeds and assess their relative contribution to producing the fastest race-horse increased, it was the Arabian who emerged as the most fashionable of the three. Ideas about the superiority of the Arabian took time to become established wisdom, but there were inklings early on of English preference for this type of horse, especially when it was contrasted explicitly with the horse preferred by the Ottoman cavalry. Nathaniel Harley wrote to his brother from Aleppo in 1705 that there were at least two distinct breeds to be found in Syria, the Arabian and the Turcoman or Turkman, and he seems to have preferred to obtain Arabians if he could: The Aga‘s who are Gentry of this Country Breed few or no Horses themselves, or if they doe tis of ye Large Turkman Breed wch serve ‗em for presents and are most Esteemed at Court, By which means the Arab Breed is cheefly in the hands of the Villains or the Arabs themselves, and neither of ‗em are duely carefull of the Size of their Stallions Their Cheef care being that they are of the true race. 66 Harley already had in mind that the Arabian was the breed he should try to secure for his family back home in England, despite the relatively small size of those horses. Four decades earlier, in 1667, Heneage Finch, the second earl of Winchilsea and Charles II‘s ambassador at Constantinople, had expressed a similar preference in reporting to the Habsburg ambassador Count Lesley that it was difficult to obtain Arabian horses because they were ―all either at Court or going for Candia‖ (being shipped for the Ottoman siege of Candia on Crete). Finch declared that he was, as a consequence, now on the lookout for the larger ‗Turcoman‘ breed: ―I intend to try for some of the Turcoman breed, for I despair of getting any
Nathaniel Harley, Letter to Edward ‗Auditor‘ Harley, Aleppo, 29 December 1705, BL, Add. Mss. 70143, 180r.
66
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Arabs from Aleppo, where my correspondent cannot even procure any for the King‖.67 The fabled status of Arabians among the English can be traced further back still – to Oliver Cromwell, who sought and may have succeeded in obtaining one during the 1650s, 68 and even further back to Gervase Markham, who in the 1590s praised the Arabian above all other breeds of horse, ―who for his braue trot, and pure vertue of valure in the fielde, is a staine to all other Horses‖.69 Whether trotting, ambling, or racing pace was desired, it was the Arabian ―who by nature hath all things perfect, nothing defectiue‖, according to Markham: ―him I hold a fit Stallion to breed on, and a fit beast for his Maister to hazard his life on, and this is onely the Courser of Arabia‖. 70 This particular version of the English romance with the East would continue well into the twentieth century, with travellers continuing to seek the desert-bred Arabian. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ascertaining exactly what was, and what was not, an ‗Arabian‘, as opposed to a ‗Turk‘ or ‗Barb‘, remained a far from exact science. Early Modern Horse Breeding Represents an Exchange of Knowledge as Well as Equine Commodities between East and West The very idea of equine purity was an idea that Europeans derived from their Eastern travels, along with glimpses of superior kinds of horses unlike those with which they were familiar at home. In the early modern archives we can observe Englishmen grappling with unfamiliar terms and kinds, eager to master this new domain of knowledge. The most surprising thing is that within one generation of crossing newly imported horses with the progeny of earlier imports, the product should be labelled entirely English. That was how quickly the new knowledge about Eastern ‗races‘ of horse could be both absorbed and, frankly, made to disappear. 67 Heneage Finch, second Earl of Winchilsea, Letter to Count Lesley, Pera, 24 February-6 March 1666/7, Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of Allan George Finch, Esq., of Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland, 2 vols (London, 1913-1922), 1: 457-58; this passage 458. 68 Thomas Birch ed., A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, Esq., Secretary, First, to the Council of State, And afterwards to The Two Protectors, Oliver and Richard Cromwell, 7 vols (London, 1742), 4: 464, 3: 526; also cited in Roy Sherwood, The Court of Oliver Cromwell (London, 1977), 57. 69 [Gervase Markham], How to chuse, ride, traine, and diet, both Hunting-horses and running Horses. With all the secrets thereto belonging discouered: an Arte neuer heere-to-fore written by any Authour. Also a discourse of horsmanship, wherein the breeding, and ryding of Horses for seruice, in a briefe manner, is more methodically sette downe, then hath beene heeretofore: vvith a more easie and direct course for the ignorant, to attaine to the sayd Arte or knowledge. Together with a newe addition for the cure of horses diseases, of what kinde or nature soeuer (London, 1599 (1593)), A3v. 70 Markham, How to chuse, A3v.
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Describing Yorkshire horse-racing culture in the 1720s, the Londoner Daniel Defoe is impressed by the fact that the Yorkshire stallions are given names, and people appear to know who was sired by whom, going back at least one generation. This knowledge is described in explicit contrast to Eastern practice, where pedigree knowledge extends back many generations, and in implicit contrast to English custom, where little attention was paid to pedigree at all: [T]he breed of their horses in this and the next country are so well known, that though they do not preserve the pedigree of their horses for a succession of ages, as they say they do in Arabia and in Barbary, yet they christen their stallions here, and know them, and will advance the price of a horse according to the reputation of the horse he came of.71 Already by the 1720s, then, both the comparison with and the contrast to the Eastern practice of pedigree-keeping is a commonplace. The English way of thinking is to focus exclusively on the stallion, we notice, and not on the mare – a complete reversal of Bedouin thinking, in which the purity of the mare and the naming of strains through the female line remained paramount. It is clear from Defoe‘s description that outside Yorkshire it was not the custom of the country to pay much mind to horse-breeding, even questions of paternity, and even among the racing fraternity. English knowledge of the Eastern method of pedigree-keeping was gathered by travellers, diplomats, and merchants, beginning in the seventeenth century. In 1636, the traveller Henry Blount was impressed that a registry of purebred Egyptian horses was kept in Cairo, where Ottoman governance was superimposed on earlier Mameluke traditions. 72 In 1667, William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, who never went East, reported that he had it on good authority from English merchants and gentlemen that the ―Arabs are as Careful, and Diligent, in Keeping the Genealogies of their Horses, as any Princes can be in Keeping any of their own Pedigrees‖.73 Laurence D‘Arvieux confirmed these reports with his eye-witness account of Bedouin record-keeping, published in English translation in 1718: ―They know by long Custom the Race of all the Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, Pat Rogers ed. (London and New York, 1971 (1724-6)), 512. 72 Gerald MacLean, The Rise of Oriental Travel: English Visitors to the Ottoman Empire, 1580-1720 (Basingstoke and New York, 2004), 162-63. 73 William Cavendish, A New Method and Extraordinary Invention, To Dress Horses, and Work Them according to Nature: as also, To Perfect Nature by the Subtilty of Art… (London, 1667), 72. 71
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Horses they or their Neighbours have‖, D‘Arvieux observed, adding that witnesses were called to attest to both the covering of mares and the birth of foals of pure blood.74 By the 1770s, George III‘s Gentleman of the Horse, Richard Berenger, and the zoologist Thomas Pennant were both publishing translations of Arabic documents attesting to the purity of horses purchased in Syria by Englishmen.75 Thus, although James Weatherby‘s publication of the General Stud-Book, beginning in 1791, has usually been understood to mark the first instance of systematic recordkeeping of livestock pedigrees, the very notion of such records came from the East. The origins of that pioneering English work, the General StudBook, lay in the Greater Syrian desert.76 So far as the English Thoroughbred goes, the concept of purity is founded on a paradox. Recent archival work on the history of livestock breeding, in the context of the early modern Agricultural Revolution, has shown that a gradualist paradigm combined with mongrelisation seems the most likely explanation for the breed‘s development. According to Nicholas Russell, it was precisely the mingling of formerly separate Oriental breeds – Arabian genes in combination with those of the ‗Turk‘ (Turkmen, Turcoman) and the North African Barb – that was the decisive factor in the creation of Thoroughbred racehorse. Russell believes that the importation of Eastern horses into Britain in small numbers dates back to the Roman occupation and the Crusades. Imported horses appear in archival detail for the first time during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, as the sixteenth century witnessed much ―multiracial crossbreeding‖ of imported Spanish, Neapolitan, and Barbary horses, which would themselves have contained Arabian or other Eastern blood. 77 By the late seventeenth century, English horses were already the products of what Russell calls ―massive mongrelisation‖. 78 However, Russell does not dispute that the so-called English Thoroughbred was essentially a product of imported Oriental bloodstock; in fact, he calls the breed ―a variant of the Oriental horse, adapted to North European conditions‖, and benefiting from the mixture of previously separate ‗Oriental strains‘ or ‗races‘.79 Russell‘s description echoes that of Franco Varola, that the D‘Arvieux, Travels, 169-70. Richard Berenger (Gentleman of the Horse to His Majesty), The History and Art of Horsemanship, 2 vols (London, 1771), 1: 116-18; Thomas Pennant, British Zoology. Illustrated by Plates and Brief Explanations (London, 1770), 46. 76 Also noted by Nash, ‗―Honest English Breed‖‘, in Raber and Tucker, Culture of the Horse, 266. 77 Nicholas Russell, Like engend‟ring like: Heredity and Animal Breeding in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986), 219. 78 Russell, Like engend‟ring like, 219. 79 Russell, Like engend‟ring like, 61, 99, 101. 74 75
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Thoroughbred ―is neither a pure nor an impure animal, but much more simply a hybrid, obtained by crossing different strains for racing purposes, and by keeping these strains isolated from the remainder of the species Caballus of the genus Equus within a register known as the General Stud Book‖.80 Recent genetic research has revealed some errors in the General Stud-Book, while also confirming some long-held beliefs. The Smurfit Institute of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin has suggested that the number of foundation mares for the English Thoroughbred is even smaller than had been thought, while supporting the view that the genetic contribution of certain stallions far outweighs that of dozens of other horses.81 In 2005, Patrick Cunningham of the Smurfit Institute delivered a paper at the British Association‘s Festival of Science in Dublin, in which he claimed that ―a combination of modern molecular genetics and a trawl through 300 years of pedigree stud books‖ revealed that the Darley Arabian‘s ―Y chromosome, which carries the male genes, is found in 95 per cent of modern thoroughbred stallions‖, while Tregonwell‘s Natural Barb ―contributed the largest proportion – 14 per cent – of the genes passed down the female line of racehorses‖. 82 Not to be forgotten, however, is the Irish legacy of the Byerley Turk, whose bloodline has remained influential in Irish stallions, beginning with his great great grandson Herod, whose genes can still be traced through The Tetrarch to the 1992 Epsom Derby winner Dr Devious, by Ahonoora, who stood at the Irish National Stud and then at Coolmore Stud, home of some of the most successful flat-racing sires in the world today.83
80 Varola, Typology of the Racehorse, 2, at 5-6, Varola observes that the prepotency of the three progenitor stallions who continue ―to monopolise virtually all tail-male ancestries of the present-day Thoroughbreds, is a strong indication that the Thoroughbred is destined to be characterised by the emergence of a relatively few influential individuals at every stage of its development‖. 81 Emmeline W. Hill, D. G. Bradley, M. Al-Barody, O. Ertugrul, R. K. Splan, I. Zakharov, and E. P. Cunningham, ‗History and Integrity of Thoroughbred Dam Lines Revealed in Equine mtDNA Variation‘, Animal Genetics, 33 (2002): 287-94. 82 Steve Connor, ‗Modern racehorses can be traced to a single ancestor‘, The Independent, (6 September 2005), 16. 83 See Tony and Annie Sweeney and Francis Hyland, The Sweeney Guide to the Irish Turf from 1501 to 2001 (Dublin, 2002), and Donna Landry, ‗―Delight makes all of the one mind‖: Irish Collectivity at the Races‘, in Willy Mally and Paddy Lyons eds., From Tone to Gonne, (Dublin, forthcoming).
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Hoofprints on the Shore, or Where the Desert Meets the Sea What emerges from studying the early modern traffic in equine bloodstock? Like human slaves, Eastern blood horses occupied a boundary between inanimate commodities and sentient beings. As the English captive William Okeley reported rather archly, describing the slave market of Algiers, procedures for evaluating slaves and horses were remarkably similar. Prospective buyers of slaves would first ―look in their mouths‖, then ―feel their Limbs‖, checking for ―any thing Analogical to Spavin, or Ring-bone‖, and the highest prices would be paid for both humans and equines who were ―clean Limb‘d, close coupled, well jointed‖.84 The purchasers even of European captives, Okeley noted with disgust, were at liberty to dispose of their human and equine property with equal impunity: ―If a Patron shall kill his Slave, for ought I could perceive, he suffers no more for it, than if he should kill his Horse‖.85 Few items of early modern economic exchange possessed the high symbolic value of Eastern blood horses. These prized creatures were recognised for their beauty and utility by connoisseurs in both East and West. Even human slaves were less expensive to purchase and required less extensive research and reconnaissance to obtain. The irony is that these Eastern imports were naturalised as English within one generation of cross-breeding on English (or Irish) soil. So, while equine genetics and equestrian culture were undoubtedly culturally hybrid in the British Isles, heavily indebted to the East, and to the territories of the Ottoman empire in particular, there was something of a mis-recognition of this hybridity. A burying of origins occurred by means of an assumption of the natural belonging, the easy assimilation within Englishness, of exotic foreign goods. During the late seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century, even in England, racial categories, including attitudes toward racial mixing, were highly adaptable, as Felicity Nussbaum has recently shown; it was only by the century‘s end that ―racialized fears‖ had become ―most powerful and disturbing‖.86 Corresponding with ―increasingly public attempts to clarify black inferiority‖, Nussbaum observes, the ―most vigorous attention to hybridity and mongrelization takes fire with the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and with emancipation in 1833‖.87 Once interracial progeny became likely on the home front, given the Okeley, Eben-ezer, 9-10. Okeley, Eben-ezer, 33. 86 Felicity A. Nussbaum, The Limits of the Human: Fictions of Anomaly, Race, and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century (Cambridge and New York, 2003), 254, 255. 87 Nussbaum, Limits of the Human, 254. Although a bill was passed in 1833 emancipating British colonial slaves, slavery was not abolished until 1838. 84 85
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prospect of large numbers of ―freed slaves who possessed only minimal skills‖, Nussbaum concludes, English attitudes hardened, and ―the menace of impurity and degeneration‖ was seen to loom over an increasingly imperial England.88 With a new arrogance and sense of unchallenged superiority both at home and abroad, English horse breeders and fanciers could now look within rather than abroad to perpetuate the Thoroughbred. The General Stud-Book marked a symbolic closing of the ranks against the need for any further foreign imports. The essence of purity was now to be found in the descendents of the critical mass of imports who had survived being transported, mainly by Levant company ships and men of war, to found an equine master race in England. What had once been a fascination with exquisite horses shared by an established imperial power of global importance, and an emergent island nation rapidly developing imperial aspirations, had become an English monopoly, an English brand. This particular view of the sea, and of the emergence of British naval and maritime power, glimpsed from a desert shore trodden by many hoofprints, may help to expose the myth of originatory Englishness that haunts both.
88
Nussbaum, Limits of the Human, 256.
13 REPRESENTING THE EARLY MODERN MEDITERRANEAN IN CONTEMPORARY NORTH AFRICA Mohamed-Salah Omri I am not a historian, I cannot help you (Khodja, El-Euldj, 1929) Rounding off a collection of essays on exchange and cultural contacts in the early-modern Mediterranean by a discussion of historical novels is not only appropriate, it may be actually necessary. The early-modern Mediterranean gave us the very thing we call ‗the novel‘ today. The period and the region, sixteenth century Algeria in particular, are crucial to the rise of the genre and its related subsidiaries such as captivity narratives and the historical novel, beginning in Europe and spreading later back to North Africa.1 And like other European commodities and cultural products, the novel has travelled across the sea and beyond it. The pioneering Spanish novelist, Miguel de Cervantes, in his life as in his art, looms large across the history of the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century and has affected the way it has been perceived since then, in fiction as in historical writing.2 Cervantes the ‗historical‘ figure fought in the famous Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and lost his left arm there. He then moved around, serving in various Christian armies until he was captured by Algerian corsairs while he was on his way back home to Spain in 1575, and remained a captive of the ‗Barbary‘ state of Algiers until 1580. In On Captivity narrative and the rise of the novel in the West, see, for example, Joe Snader, ‗The Oriental captivity tale and early English fiction‘, Eighteenth-century Fiction, 9 (1997): 269298. It is my great pleasure to acknowledge the help of my co-editors in completing this essay. Maria Fusaro suggested the topic itself and commented on an earlier draft while Colin Heywood provided both his perspective on Braudel and valuable historical precision on Ottoman North Africa. I am grateful also to Anissa Daoudi for providing me with rare Algerian sources for this essay. My gratitude to Abdeljalil Temimi, my mentor in all things Ottoman, is immense. 2 Maria Antonia Garces, Cervantes in Algiers: a captive‟s tale (Nashville, 2002). 1
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Algiers, he joined the thousands of captives in this city of 125,000 people, a city that had defeated Charles V in 1541 and had been the home of the Barbarossa brothers.3 He also fought in the lost battles of Navarino in 1572 and at La Goletta and Tunis in 1574. Cervantes was also one of those rare figures who wrote about life on both sides of the sea, giving us a view of Christian Europe from the ‗Muslim‘ shore as well as an account of life on the ‗Barbary Coast‘ as experienced by Spaniards and other European captives. In fact, as Juan Goytisolo put it, only because he crossed over, so to speak, was Cervantes able to write against a Spain that he did not like.4 Cervantes also mixed reality and fiction, by creating a protagonist based on his own life in the sixteenth century. In just a few chapters inserted in Don Quixote, much of the characteristic features of the period are laid out, including the movement of people across the sea, the material culture, the languages, conversion, Christian–Muslim relations, and all forms of trade.5 The ‗spectre‘ of Cervantes, as a literary founding figure and as a sixteenth century Mediterranean subject, is present in the twentiethcentury North African historical fiction set during that period. His themes and his times, as well as some key characters from his Don Quixote (Eucheli or Eulj Ali, Hassan Aga or Hassan Pasha the Venetian, Hadj Murad) figure prominently in the North African novels I explore in this essay.6 And like Cervantes, these literary works delineate intensive contact, complex intermingling and multi-layered conflict within the Mediterranean. In addition, they engage historiography directly, attempting to intervene in the way the period is remembered today while remaining coloured by the ideologies of the moments in which they were written. Yet, the Mediterranean, particularly during the early modern period, presents the Maghrebi novelist with both narrative as well as ideological challenges and opportunities Cervantes was not in a position to Between 1520 and 1660 more than a half a million Christian slaves ended up in Algiers. ―Turks by professions‖ or renegades came from every European country, all the islands and as far away as Brazil see Garces, Cervantes in Algiers, 32, 35. 4 He ―elaborated his complex and admirable vision of Spain while in prison in the African territory, in opposition to the rival model against which he fought‖, Garces, Cervantes in Algiers, 17. 5 He also wrote the plays: El trato de Argel (The Commerce of Algiers), Los banos de Argel (The Dungeons of Algiers), El Gallardo Espagnol (The Gallant Spaniard). 6 Leaning on historical facts and names, Cervantes weaves out a conversion to Christianity by a wealthy and beautiful ‗Moor‘, Zoraida, together with the story of her twin love for Lella Mariena (Virgin Mary) and a Christian captive whom she judges a gentleman who eventually rescues her and both travel back to Spain. All references are to Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, translated by Walter Starkie (New York, 1964). 3
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anticipate. And it is remarkable, but rather surprising, to discover that the historical novel in North Africa has paid special attention to the Ottoman and early modern era. The surprise comes from the fact that this period has been particularly vilified by modern nationalist movements and the nation-states to which they gave rise across the Maghreb. 7 For in nationalist historiography – as well as in its European counterparts – the period of Ottoman and colonial rule has been seen as a time of decline, backwardness and weakness that prepared the ground for European colonial domination. But I would like to argue that it is specifically because of nationalist movements that such a considerable literature has been devoted to the pre-colonial era.8 Indeed, other than the predictable search for explanations of the decline, the tone, themes and characters in those novels – as we will see – reveal, or rather betray, contemporary concerns, ranging from a frantic hunt for early signs of national identity, to poignant stories about religious conversion to Islam in the Mediterranean intended to counter contemporary pressures to convert into Christianity, and to literary pursuits, namely a search for stories and forms of storytelling. Most of all perhaps, the modern writer has to deal with a major reversal of roles between the Maghreb and Europe which has taken place between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. It has involved most aspects of the relationship – conversions, trade, power relations, language and culture, and the movement of people. In the sixteenth century, France was in Algeria as a captive, in metaphorical terms, not as a master. This reversal of fortunes is key to understanding the phenomenon of religious conversion in its historical context, or as a historically-determined phenomenon that is not easily transferable, any more so than the historical conditions themselves. In addition, before the twentieth century, the dimension of modernity was not present; in other words, for Maghrebis, relating the other‘s modernity to the self became a new issue. 9 How to write a historical novel about assimilation, for example, while taking into For an example of history as shaped for the purposes of consolidating a new nation-state, see al-Bashir ben Slama, al-Shaksiyya al-Tûnisiyya: khasâ‟suha wa muqawwimâtuha (The Tunisian Personality: specificities and main components) (Tunis, 1974). 8 On national movements across the Maghreb, see the extensive study by Mohamed alMaliki, al-Harakah al-wataniyyah wa al-Isti„mâr fî al-Maghrib al-„arabî (National movement and colonialism in the Maghrib) (Beirut, 1993). On the intersection between historiography and nationalism, see Youssef Choueiri, Arab History and the Nation State: A study in modern Arabic historiography, 1820-1980 (London, 1989). 9 On the relationship between Europe and Islam, see for example, Hishem Djait, L'Europe et l'Islam (Paris, 1978). On how Muslim societies handled modernity, see Aziz al Azmeh, Islams and Modernities (London, 1993). And for a detailed authoritative analysis of modern Arabic thought, see Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1789-1939 (Oxford, 1983). 7
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account the changes that took place in Algeria between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries? How did these writers handle the challenge? The task of the North African novelist has been both daunting and fraught with challenges to the novel as literature as well as to discourses on colonialism and national identity. Writing the early modern history of the Maghreb, even in narrative fiction, comes with risks. How indeed is the writer to penetrate the thick layers of a recalcitrant nationalism which laid blame for European colonisation of the Maghreb at the feet of the Ottomans? How to respond to the narrative of a stifling colonialism that denied the Maghreb any historical roots – other than the Roman past? How to capture what it must have been like the day before that defining violent encounter of 1830 in Algeria, or 1881 in Tunisia? Moreover, there are the other challenges, posed essentially by the historiography of the Mediterranean as such. One of these is the task of navigating through and negotiating historiographies, East and West. For the novelist, ‗Western‘ historiographies were both unavoidable and unsatisfactory.10 Is the historical novel about the Maghreb destined to pass through the gates (too narrow) of stereotyping and overgeneralization – Blacks and magic, for example?11 And then how can it be possible to shake off (explain or explain away) the image of the Barbary pirates, that caught hold of European imagination and saw countless expressions in cultural production down to recent Disney movies.12 The Maghreb became synonymous with piracy and barbarity, an image replicated in countless captivity tales and throughout popular European imagination. 13 The stuff of novels, daily life, is not easy to glean from historical sources. By and large, the historian of the Mediterranean must struggle, as Heywood put it, to replace ―tropes with facts‖. 14 But this lack of detail on individual lives, while it frustrates the traditional historian, becomes the terrain of the fiction writer, the historical novelist. For these writers, because it could not be reconstructed with any certainty or at least confidence, daily life in the early-modern Maghreb had to be imagined. In Khurayyif and Khodja rely on de La Graviere's Les Corsaires barabaresques et la marine des romains (Paris, 1887) to describe cities and events, even as they expose the shortcomings or bias of these very sources. 11 Khodja, El Euldj, 74 12 Note the figure of Captain Hector Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean: the curse of the black pearl (released in 2003). 13 See Nabil Matar and Daniel Vitkus, Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary captivity narratives from early modern England (New York, 2001). See also Francois Moureau, Captifs en Méditerranée (XVIe-XVIIIe siécles) Histoires, récits et légendes (Paris, 2008). 14 Colin Heywood, from paper presented at the Exeter workshop, for reasons of space, the sections of his paper dealing with North Africa will be published elsewhere. 10
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this they do not shy away from claiming to tell the truth, but it is a truth of what might have happened. In addition, linking the two (daily life and the mythical Mediterranean) sanctions a style of representation, including lyricism, empathy and even mythopoeia, in which novelists engage, liberally at times, as I will demonstrate. In this essay I focus on five novels from, variously, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Three are written in Arabic: al-Bashir Khurayyif's Bullara (1959) and Barg Illîl (1961), and Jârât Abû Mûsa (1997) by Ahmed al-Tawfiq; and two in French: El Eulj, captif des barbaresques by Ckukri Khodja (1929) and Zaphira (2007) by Abdelaziz Ferrah.15 Only one of them has been translated into English.16 They were written between 1929 and 2007, and thus cover the colonial period, the early independence era and the more recent past. These novels play significant roles in their respective cultures. Khurayyif‘s books are classics of Tunisian literature and figure prominently as school textbooks. Khurayyif (1917-1983) is the founding figure of the Tunisian realist and historical novel, most famous for mixing Tunisian dialect and Standard Arabic in his work. His Barg Illîl was made into a feature film in 1990 by Tunisian Director Ali Labidi. It was also translated into Spanish.17 Khodja‘s novel is a landmark in Francophone Algerian literature and therefore has a political as well as historical significance. Khodja, born in Algiers in 1891, has also written another novel, Mamoun, l‟ébauche d‟un ideal (Paris, 1928). El Euldj was reprinted five times, the latest in 2008.18 Zaphira, on the other hand, is part of a rising historical literature, much of which has appeared since the early 1990s as part of a wider interest in historical memory, examples of which include Farrah‘s own other works as well as La Nuit du corsaire (2005) by the historian Corinne Chevalier, and Kitâb al-Amîr (The Book of the Emir) (2007) by Wasini al-A‘raj devoted to the life of Emir Abdelkader.19 Ferrah 15 All quotations from the novels refer to the following editions: Ckukri Khodja, El-Euldj, captif des Barbaresques (Algiers: Editions ENEP 2005); Abdelaziz Ferrah, Zaphira. (Algiers: Edition Alpha 2007); Bechir Khurayyif, Bullara, Fawzi Zmerli ed. (Tunis: bayt al-Hikma, 1992); Bechir Khurayyif, Barg Illîl (Tunis: Dar al-Janub, 2000); Ahmed al-Tawfiq, Jârât Abu Moussa (Abu Musa's women neighbours) (Casablanca: dar al-qubba al-zarqa‘, 1997). 16 All translations from Arabic and French are mine unless specified otherwise. See also Abu Musa‟s Women Neighbors, trans. Roger Allen (Sausalito: Post Apollo Press, 2006). 17 For more on Khurayyif, see Mahmud Tarshuna, Min A„lâm al-riwayah fî tûnis (Key Figures in the Tunisian Novel) (Tunis, 2002). 18 For more on Khodja's work and views, see Abdelkader Djeghloul, ‗Un romancier de l'identité perturbée et de l'assimilation impossible: Chukri Khodja‘, Revue de l'Occident Musulman et de la Méditerrranée, 37 (1984): 81-96. 19 The period also has witnessed reprinting and presentation to the Algerian reader of various texts about Ottoman Algeria. These include: an Algerian edition with an Introduction by Abderrahmane Rebahi of Alger au xviiie siècle (1788-1790): Memoirs, notes et observations d'un diplomate espion, written by Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis (Algiers, 2006); the French
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was trained as agriculture engineer and lives in Paris. He is the writer of several historical essays, including Kahina (1997), Massinissa et Sophonisbe and L‟Algérie: civilisations anciennes du Sahara (2005). The Moroccan novel, Jârât, is audacious in its engagement of issues of spirituality and popular belief in Morocco, in the context of a rising interest in Islamist politics and retreat of secular literature in the region as a whole. Its author Mohamed al-Tawfiq is prominent academic and government official in Morocco. He holds a degree in history and was Dean of the Faculty of Letters in Rabat. In 2002, he was appointed Minister of Habous and Religious Affairs. In addition to essays on the history of Morocco in the nineteenth century, he has written several novels, including Shajat hinnâ‟ wa qamar (A Henna Tree and a Moon). Jârât was made into a feature film by Moroccan Director Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi in 2002. An English translation of the novel appeared in 2006. Because this essay concludes and reflects back on the volume as a whole, I pay particular attention to the linkages between historiography and literature, the style of narrating the early modern Mediterranean in fiction, and the treatment of the key themes dealt with in the essays of the present volume, namely corsairing activities, conversion, and other forms of exchange. And because the volume engages the work and legacy of Braudel, I venture to ask a question that may seem unexpected but will prove to be rather illuminating: what do these North African novels and Braudel have in common? North African Fictions of the Mediterranean El Eulj, captif des barbaresques by Ckukri Khodja (1891-1967), an Algerian pioneering work of historical fiction, written in French in 1929, is the story of Bernard Ledieux, a French captive in sixteenth century Algiers, who converts to Islam, marries the daughter of his master and raises his son, Youssef, to become mufti. This takes place against the political backdrop of Algiers during the regime of Khayreddîn Barbarossa (15181536). Much of the novel‘s focus is the process of conversion at the intellectual and psychological, as well as social, levels. Written during a period of intensive French attempts to convert Algerian intellectuals, the novel is both an explicit and an allegorical take on its time. To stay with Algeria, Zaphira (2007) by Abdelaziz Ferrah traces the days of Salîm Tûmî, the last Berber king of Algiers before it turned Ottoman, overthrown by translation by Louis Adrien Berbrugger and D. Monnereau of Topographie et histoire générale d'Alger by Diego de Haedo, presented by Abderrahmane Rebahi (Algiers, 2004); Les captifs à Alger d'après la relation de Emmanuel d'Aranda, jadis esclave a Alger (XVIIe siècle), Introduction by Latifa El Hassar-Zeghari (Algiers, 2004); L'Algérie Durant la période ottomane (Algiers, 2002) by Mahfoud Kaddache consists of extracts from original texts, maps, etc…
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Khayreddîn‘s brother and predecessor ‗Arûj in 1516. 20 It goes into the details of the politics, society, love and tribal alliances, corsairs and captives, the Spanish and the adventurers, with ‗Arûj at the helm. Salim, who is much loved by his people and by his wife Zaphira, is put under pressure to curb corsair activity by either striking an alliance with the Spanish or fighting them on his own. He calls in ‗Arûj, the ruler of parts of Algeria and who had liberated Djerba from the Spanish earlier; and Bel Qadi, a local tribal leader, to form an alliance against the Spanish. ‗Arûj falls in love with Zaphira and kills Salim, but she rejects him and takes her own life to preserve the memory of her husband. Zaphira is of Berber origin, proud and defiant, and is clearly intended as a symbol for an unattainable Algeria.21 The novel is deeply concerned with the Berber legacy and the identity of Algeria as well as the uses (and misuses) of religion, and tribal affairs. Dealing with the same transition in neighbouring Tunisia, Bechir Khurayyif‘s Bullara was conceived and drafted in Arabic in 1959, but actually published only in 1992. The novel is set in the late 1560s/early 1570s and tells the story of three princesses, Bullara, the daughter of the deposed Hafsid sultan, Mulay Hamida; Aisha, the daughter of Haydar Pasha ruler of Kairawan, and Malika the daughter of Ali Pasha, the ruler of Algiers (Cervantes‘ Euceli). All three unite to help liberate Tunis from the Spanish (carried out in fact by ‗Eulj Ali Pasha and Sinan Pasha in 1574), with Bullara leading the action.22 Love stories, intrigue, travel and war fill the novel. The bulk of events is told by the Raïs Sha‘shu‘ forty years after the fact. This is then a historical recollection of history written shortly after Tunisia‘s independence and during a period of reflection and search for a narrative of direction as well as national cohesion. Khurayyif published an offshoot of Bullara titled Barg Illîl as early as 1961. The key player in the novel is Barg Illîl (literally, ‗night lightning‘ in the Tunisian dialect), who is the black slave of a famous scientist (Ahmad ben Nakhli).23 He falls in love with Rym, a married free woman, whom he
20 For the political and military details of the period see Charles-André Julien, History of North Africa from the Arab Conquest to 1830 (London, 1970), 273-284. 21 Here Zaphira recalls Dido and perhaps the Berber Queen Kahena at once. The queen comes from Zakkar, the Meliana region, where women are said to have legendary beauty, masters the art of love and serves as political council to her husband and her son Yahia, heir to the throne. (The present essay is dedicated to Zaphira‘s legitimate heiress, Belissa bint Issa.) For an argument for the plurality of the Maghreb, and the need to embrace the region‘s pre-Islamic history, see Abdelkebir Khatibi, Le Maghreb pluriel (Paris, 1983). 22 For the confused political chronology of the actual events, see Julien, North Africa, 297-301. 23 Is it possible that this is a reference to Cervantes‘ Cide Hamete Benengeli, the presumed author of the Arabic version of Quixote‘s story? It is worth mentioning that Khurayyif
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spied listening to his singing and drumming. The novel is set forty years before Bullara‘s time, allowing Barg Illîl to make important contributions to the struggle against the Spanish, including poisoning the water supply, which caused the Christian soldiers to fall ill and die in great numbers, prompting the invading Spaniards to flee Tunis.24 The book presents itself as a panoramic as well as in-depth view of life in Tunis in the sixteenth century. It also rehabilitates Khayreddîn Barbarossa, and serves as a motivating message about the courage of Tunisians in defence of their land.25 From further to the West and also in Arabic, is Jârât Abû Moussa (1997), by the Moroccan Ahmad al-Tawfiq, the story of Shama (also known as Warqa‘), talented servant, holy woman and the devout wife of a convert from Spain. It is also the tale of Abu Moussa, a holy man in a town run by a corrupt tyrant. The story takes place in Salé with some events set in Fes and at sea. Time is not specified but there are indications that the story is set after the reconquest of al-Andalus. Key to the novel is Funduq al-Zayt, the caravanserai where merchants from Genoa, Murcia, Alexandria, Southern France and Venice come together to trade in oil, cotton and grain. The funduq is also a refuge for women, including Warqa‘. The latter is transported in a ship said to have been leased from Sicily‘s ruler; most of its crew are Christians who speak a lingua franca made of Arabic and European tongues. 26 Written during the last days of King Hassan II of Morocco (d. 1999), the novel is concerned with corruption, tyranny, and loss of spirituality in a society characterised by the plurality of ethnic and religious identities. The haze, intensity and complexity of the Mediterranean in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries are the focus of these novels. They strive to be realist, historical, and relevant, all at the same time. And like the sixteenth century, the pervasive forms of exchange and interaction are observed through dramas of political intrigue, challenges to faiths, identities and various forms of sovereignty. These dramas are made readable and concrete through stories of contested love and acts of heroism as they impact on individual lives as well as communal destinies. I will focus here only on corsairing, conversion, and languages and codes. devotes a section to Cervantes in the projected outline of his novel. The section remained unwritten. 24 Khurayyif, Barg Illîl, 137. 25 Khurayyif is unique in this focus on the local and the popular, among writers of the historical novel of his time. For the position of Khurayyif in Tunisian literature, see Moustafa Kilani, al-adab al-hadîth wa al-mu„âsir: ishkâliyyât al-riwâya (Modern Contemporary [Tunisian] Literature: the novel) (Tunis, 1990). See also the lengthy introduction by Fawzi Zmerli to his edition of Bullara. 26 Al-Tawfik, Jârât, 42.
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The canvas against which most of the novels are set is detailed by Khurayyif in the novel mentioned above. Before starting his narrative, he introduces what he calls a page from Tunisian history. This is a key document, which sheds light on a vision of the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century, corsairing and the historical narrative within which the novel is located. All the other novels mentioned here adhere to this narrative fairly faithfully, although their analyses or takes on it differ. This historical canvas serves both as a backdrop for the stories and a justification for the relevance of writing about it in the twentieth century. Khurayyif‘s basic narrative is that the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century was the ‗Centre of the world‘; therefore understanding the sixteenth century allows an understanding of subsequent conflicts and alliances. According to the writer, the crux of the conflict was between two blocks: Islam and Christianity (For example, he argues, ―No Christian nation occupied the land of another nation of the same faith after that time‖.)27 As a result of crusades and contact with the Muslim world, Christian nations both developed and united. The Ottomans and Suleyman the Law-giver ―carried the banner of Islam‖ at a time when North Africa was divided into emirates (Marinids in Fez; Hmanids in Tlemçen; Hafsids in Tunis).28 The latter‘s dynasty was in decay, isolated and unable to control the tribes (Kairawan, for example came under the Shabbis). ―Our coasts‖ became the stage for conflict between the two main poles: the Porte and Charles V, who attacked each other‘s ships: that was qarsanah or corsairing.29 Turks (Turkish corsairs) built their bases in Tripoli, Djerba, Mahdia, Tunis, and Algiers; and some of them settled there and paid dues (1/5th) to the Hafside rulers. Legendary figures would emerge: ‗Arûj and Khayreddîn, and then Dragut, Captain Hassan, Eulj Ali. People liked them and they in turn were generous to the locals. Khayreddîn decided to attack Tunis (either encouraged by Ibrahim Pasha or because he discovered that the Sultan of Tunis was plotting against him.30 He landed in Bizerta (1534/A.H. 971). The Hafsid sultan solicits the support of Christians and Charles V responds. Khayreddîn is defeated and retreats to Annaba; his son, Sinan Junior, is captured and taken prisoner to an Italian island where he was thought to be Barbarossa himself at first.31 On this canvas, whose historical sources are rather sidelined, Khurayyif and the other novelist, by and large, construct their tales of a divided sea and contested history. Khurayyif, Bullara, 37. Khurayyif, Bullara, 39; the Hafsid dynasty ruled Tunisia from 1228 to 1525. 29 Khurayyif, Bullara, 40. 30 Khurayyif, Bullara, 41. 31 Khurayyif, Bullara, 41. 27 28
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One of the most pervasive issues in these novels is corsairs and corsairing. It must be noted that Arabic makes no distinction between the terms pirate and corsair: both are qarâsina (singular qursân), derived most likely from the Turkish korsan, which is itself an adaptation from Italian. 32 With that in mind, it is notable that the term and the practice are neither stable nor unanimously agreed in these novels. For Khurayyif, corsairs were folk heroes, loved by a people who found their rulers wanting or impotent against foreign threat. Khayradin, as predictable, gets place of pride and is rarely blameworthy. Here is how Khurayyif describes him in Barg Illîl: ―He was, to judge by his aura, in his eighties; and in his energy and strength, in his forties. His fair face is surrounded by the famous beard that brought him the nickname Barbrosha, a name that made Christians tremble upon hearing it; a beard he coloured regularly. And in his eyes, there was the blue of the sea. He was dressed in a loose red caftan, embroidered with golden thread. Under it, he wore a green velvet gown and an embroidered vest. Around his head, he wrapped a scarf from Mosul as a turban. Around his waist, was the sailor‘s belt in which were tucked two tabanjis (tabancı/tabanji, Turkish for pistol) and three Genoese daggers, decorated with silver and studded with precious stones. On his feet, he wore embroidered yellow slippers (babouj). Behind him, stood the fully armed janissaries‖.33 Nothing short of this would do for someone the novels credits with delivering Tunis from Christians and setting the course for a dynasty that gave the country relative autonomy and stability for centuries. In contrast, in Zaphira, piracy is described as alien to the body of the nation, a Turkish and Christian practice whose perpetuation ruins Algiers and finally delivers it to its enemy, the brutal ‗Arûj who usurps Berber rule and kills a just king. The typical corsair, taking ‗Arûj as a prototype, is a composite ‗brute‘. His arm is sculptured in pure silver in Venice; his beard is dyed the Jerbian way; his wig comes form Egypt; he himself comes from the Greek island of Mitylene. And even when he becomes ruler, he needs royal blood to confer legitimacy on himself hence his failed attempts to marry Zaphira. 34 In El Euldj, piracy is, poignantly, of French origin. It is said to have started there in the 1400s and developed as attacks on New World ships.35 Known corsairs carry their reputations In modern Arabic, whether they are Khayr al-Din in these novels or Somali pirates in alJazeera news reports, or indeed computer hackers, they are all called qursans. The connotation is closer to piracy, most likely under the influence of foreign usage of the term. Arabic usage before the nineteenth century was closer to the French course. 33 Khurayyif, Barg Illîl, 60. 34 Farrah, Zaphira, 126. 35 Farrah, Zaphira, 52-53. 32
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in their names or nicknames: Catchadiablo is the composite name a captain of French origin.36 There is also Ali ben Lemmo; Ibrahim Colchak and others. The author steers clear from condemning Kheyreddin but does not spare him either. He is described as a dictator who does not hesitate to suppress brutally his opponents. Corsairs are then politically and narratively important in all the novels, but are rarely represented as uncontested protagonists. If corsairs carry with them the memory of their travels and conquests across the Mediterranean, converts are the locus of parallel histories or intertwined destines. Conversion permeates all the novels but is most poignantly treated in El Euldj, to the point that the novel can be described as the biography of a convert. It delves deep into the psychology of conversion and its politics, and concludes with the impossibility of final conversion. The fact that it pits the French Ledieux against Islam and Algeria is, of course, poignant and cannot be ignored for a novel written in French and under French occupation. 37 In his lengthy and informative introduction to the 2005 edition of the novel, the historian Abdelkader Djeghloul asserts: ―The novelistic text, in its totality, enacts a rebellion against the ideology of assimilation, which it puts on trial and demonstrates how it is impossible to implement‖.38 In fact a parallel is drawn between two moments of intensive conversion activity between Christianity and Islam, the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. But Islam is not vindicated as the religion to convert to. Djeghloul suggests that the novel demonstrates the ―impossibility of definitive conversion in the sixteenth century as in the twentieth, for a Christian as well as for an Algerian intellectual‖.39 In addition to the Ledieux model, there are three types of conversion at play in El Euldj. The character Cuisinier, argues that conversion is cowardice but that non-conversion leads to martyrdom. The Priest suggests that renegades are misled and will eventually regret it. Conversion is therefore a temporary phase. 40 But Ledieux remains between two exiles, two exteriorities and tries to navigate both. The name Farrah, Zaphira, 42-43. Ledieux is prepared for the drama of conversion; he is educated, pious (Ledieux is his name), somewhat soft but has strong opinions. This is a conversion of an intellectual designed to draw a parallel with attempts to convert educated Algerians under French rule. On French policy in Algeria and missionary activities there, see Jacques Berque, French North Africa: the Maghreb between Two World Wars (London, 1967). 38 ―Le texte romanesque entre ici en sa totalité en rébellion contre l'idéologie assimilationniste dont il fait procès et ‗démontre‘ l‘impossible réalisation‖, Khodja, El Euldj, 25. 39 ―Impossibilité de l'assimilation définitive au XVIe siècle comme au XXème, pour un chrétiens comme pour un intellectuel algérien‖, Khodja, El Euldj, 6. 40 Khodja, El Euldj, 79. 36 37
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he carries tells his status, his position and his exiles. While his name is Muslim, his title marks him out as convert, and in light of the frequency of re-conversions, a suspect. In Zaphira as in Jârât, there are examples of converts who revert to their Christianity in the end (the maid in the first and Shama‘s husband in the second). There are more mundane and altogether familiar reasons for conversion in these novels: putting an end to humiliation, gaining social status and integration. 41 While religious conversion is seen as neither desirable nor sincere, bilingualism, on the other hand, is neither denied nor frowned upon. In fact, as the essays in this volume demonstrate, the Mediterranean cannot be studied without reference to its multiplicity of languages, and a standing critique of Braudel rests on his inability to draw profitably on Ottoman and Arabic sources to complete his otherwise unparalleled history of the sea in the sixteenth century. With this mixture of peoples and faiths, communication becomes an issue particularly in port cities. The novels reflect this diversity in their own way and attempt to account for it. In El Euldj, Youssef, the son of a convert, speaks French, which he learned in secret but does not consider his language. Distancing himself from his French father, Youssef asserts: ―This language, which is yours, but which, unfortunately, will never be mine‖. 42 The subtext is that the emergent Muslim Algerian intellectual may speak French and believe in progress and tolerance but he will remain Muslim and Arab. Youssef recognizes his own hybridity: ―I think I can have French blood running in my veins and nourish my brain with the generous food contained in Islam‖.43 But not everyone is bilingual. Bernard Ledieux speaks French and his master ―l‘franque [i.e. lingua franca]‖.44 ―Bacille toi, ya kelb. Toi li Khodja, Euldj 87-8. In Jârât, Bullara, and Zaphira conversion remains important but not as poignant. Prominent corsairs are converts; army informants too. Bullara‘s lineage also reveals the extent of this diversity. She is the daughter of Juanita, the sister of Elizabeth (165), who is married to the Pasha Sinan. She is of mixed race. But the author has no problem showing her ‗Tunisian‘ patriotism and considering hailing her as well as the black slave, Barg Illîl, as ‗Tunisian‘ heroes and role models. On minorities, and the history of slavery in Tunisia, see the pioneering work by Abdeljalil Temimi, including ‗Min ajl kitâbat târikh al-hayât alijtimâ‗iyyah li al-aqalliya al-ifrîqiyya al-sawdâ‘ bi al-bilâd al-tûnisiyya: al-masâdir wa al-â‘fâq‘ (‗Towards writing the social history of the black African minority in Tunisia‘), al-majallah altârîkhiyya al-maghribiyya (Maghreb Historical Revue), 14 (1987): 61-88. For an ethnographic study of this minority group, see Mohamed Hedi Jwili, Mujtam„ât li al-dhâkirah, mujtama„ât li al-nisyân: mâ hiya ‟âthâr al„ubûdiyyah fi tûnis? (Communities to Remember, Communities to Forget: what are the consequences of slavery in Tunisi?) (Tunis, 1994). See also Etre marginal au Maghreb, Fanny Colonna and Zakya Daoud eds., (Paris, 2003). 42 Khodja, El Euldj, 167. 43 ―J‘ai idée que je puis avoir du sang français dans les veines et alimenter mon cerveau de la nourriture généreuse que contient l‘Islam‖, Khodja, El Euldj, 167. 44 Khodja, El Euldj, 57. 41
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comprends pas l‘franque, moi nou comprends bon franci, ya na pas bono‖.45 The boss gives his orders in this language, mixing Spanish, Italian, French, and Algerian Arabic. ―Alli, Alli (…) viens avic moi, Lou Pacha mi donni toi trabaja li moro; a la casa de moi donar el-Khoubz et fasir al-visalle trabaja bono emchi, ya mansis‖. 46 There is an attempt to accommodate Turkish in a number of novels: Turkish words are used in El Euldj: guedi (kedi ‗cat‘), chupach (köpek: ‗dog‘), chefuti (çifut: pimp, dog, Jew).47 Khurayyif uses Turkish seafaring terms and titles frequently. 48 The novels try to replicate the linguistic complexity of the period, including formulaic oral poetry that seems to have survived. An effective example of this is uttered by a mythic figure in Bullara in the shape of an oracle: O companions! Much time has passed. Too long has been the wait. There is much hearsay, But no surprising news in sight. The Turks and the Spanish are heading your way, Scattering your gazelles in fright.49 Judging by the reference to the Spanish-Ottoman battles over North Africa, and in line with Khurayyif‘s enterprise aimed at writing the people‘s perspective on history, these lines, written in Tunisian colloquial Arabic, bear witness to the manner and language in which local memory preserved disruptive and devastating events in which the local population had no say. Khodja, El Euldj, 59. Khodja, El Euldj, 57. 47 Khodja, El Euldj, 57. 48 This multiplicity in languages is also revealing of power structures and hierarchies. These can be explained only through analysis of specific instances of their use. For this phenomenon in the novel, the most compelling argument remains Bakhtin‘s heteroglossia and his work on dialogism in the novel, where languages are not only revealing of social positions and intentions but also interact in complex ways in the narrative text. See Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination (Austin, 1981). For a specific application of Bakhtin on a late seventeenth century text which features Turkish, Standard Arabic, colloquial dialect as well as ‗high‘ and ‗low‘ poetry, and where Turkish is used to gain social advantage, see MohamedSalah Omri, ‗Adab in the Seventeenth Century: Narrative and Parody in al-Shirbini‘s Hazz alQuhuf‘, Edebiyat, 11 (2000): 169-196. 49 Yâ sâahbîi tâl wa atwâl w „ayyit w na nrâji W „ayyit min qâl w aqwâl w mâ jâsh khbar illî yfaji Haw jâykum turk w sbân irrîm „la irrîm sâji (Khurayyif, Bullara, 125). 45 46
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From Fiction to History In the course of a discussion between characters in Khodja‘s novel, El Eulj, captif des barbaresques, whose title is most likely inspired by de la Graviere's 1886 work Les Corsaires barbaresques, Mostepha, a rebellious notable from the sixteenth century, questions the treatment of Christian captives and the standard defence of piracy by the rulers at the time. When the debate gets tough and evidence is sought, his cornered opponent cries out: ―I am not a historian; I cannot help you‖. 50 The Tunisian, Bechir Khurayyif introduces his 1959 novel, Bullara, whose focus is the Spanish/Ottoman dispute over Tunisia and Algeria in the sixteenth century, by declaring that historians are actually unable to help. He expresses dissatisfaction with ‗official‘ history and its focus on elites, with nothing on common people and daily life. He even pushes this perceived lacuna to a narrative device. It is while reading old historical documents, his narrator declares, that he comes across a magnifying glass designed to read what is ―hidden between the lines‖. He applies it to these documents and a story is revealed, which ―quenches my thirst‖, he says; so he decides to report it to his readers.51 For Khurayyif it is the lack of detail about daily life and the marginalization of popular classes that call for an imaginative reconstruction and reclaiming of hidden history. This deficiency may be caused by an official historiography which either idolised the heroes of the day or followed a strong state line. On the narrative level, the crux of the historical novel, in a way, is that it is captive to the historical period within which it is set. If the novel strays from the period, it stops being a work of fiction. 52 Yet, this occurs again and again in our novels. Intrusions of authorial or narrator's voice occurs in Zaphira, Bullara and El-Euldj. This voice interferes, authorizes and guides interpretation. While describing the meadows of Algiers, the narrator of El Euldj observes: ―This magnificent bouquet of green beauty and rich vegetation, which elicited the admiring astonishment of many officers of the French army, at the time of occupation in 1830‖. 53 Here the novel as a self-contained narrative looses its integrity. While it crumbles completely as a fiction at this moment, it gives away its secret key – 1830 dispels the story in order to reveal the history, the colonial factor. The novel becomes historical, in a different sense: of history, about Khodja, El Euldj, 52. Khurayyif, Bullara, 30. 52 The key study of the historical novel remains: Georg Lukacs, The Historical Novel (Lincoln, 1983). 53 ―Ce bouquet magnifique de beauté verdoyante et de végétation luxuriante, qui a provoque l‘étonnement admiratif de moult officiers de l‘armée française, au moment de l‘occupation de 1830‖, Khodja, El Euldj, 97. 50 51
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history, and subject to the weight of history. Ledieux dreams that he saw thousands of soldiers invading Algeria. The narrator adds: ―[T]his old ElDjezair that is being dismembered bit by bit at the moment, for the needs of an invading civilization‖.54 In Bullara, Khurayyif makes an analogy between moments of popular uprising against repression in the time of the novel (sixteenth century) and outside of it (1930). He explains that Khatrat al-dâmûs (a moment of national crisis when people rose against the Spanish and were forced to take shelter in a cave or dâmûs) refers to a day, as in ―Days of the Arabs‖ in the mythopoeic narratives of Arab epic tribal raids. He further adds that recent history includes the khatra of 9 April 1938, when Tunisians rose against the French and many of them were killed. 55 A memory of resistance links past and present, leaving little doubt as to the didactic intent of the novel. And in Zaphira, with more recent history in mind, the narrator reflects on the term jihad and the need to be careful with it.56 Idir reappears fighting under Spanish banner. 57 The narrator justifies the movement of this Algerian prince (son of King Salim from his first wife) over to the other camp as neither odd nor reprehensible. The Spaniards and the Berbers can collaborate because they know each other; it is the Turks who are alien.58 In addition, conscious of the power of representation of their cultures in Western literature informed by sensational captivity narratives and orientalist representation, these novelists ‗step out‘ of the narrative world of their novels to engage these discourses. In Zaphira images of harem are faced directly and openly (―Harem, the intimacy of the home, not this harem with exotic connotations‖).59 There is no narrative logic or function to the remark. To whom does the writer speak? The burden of orientalism and the need to debunk it cut through narrative directly and brutally, particularly when the book sets out a direct response to exotic depictions of harem and colonialist writing on Algerian women. Zaphira is depicted as a powerful political counsel to her husband, a fierce Berber nationalist and proud mother. Yet she also perfects the arts of love and courtship. Yet, she is not a typical odalisque or a submissive oriental woman of leisure, but a subject playing an active role in the politics of her time. Her idealization is rather political and contemporary, as she stands for the nation of Algeria. Khodja, El Euldj, 118. Khurayyif, Bullara, 122. 56 Farrah, Zaphira, 216. 57 Farrah, Zaphira, 450. 58 Farrah, Zaphira, 451. 59 Farrah, Zaphira, 307. 54 55
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Another response consist in showing a thriving culture, education and social refinement in the Ottoman Maghreb (e.g., the chapter on local festivals in Barg Illîl; bookish culture in El- Euldj, spiritual learning in Jârât). In a discussion between Cuisinier and a priest in El Euldj, we are told that Africa is barbarian and stands against civilization; the Thousand and One Nights is evoked as a story of frightening salacity. 60 But the writer includes passages of ethnographic nature, such as a narratively unnecessary kitchen scene with explicit name dropping of local dishes and sweets.61 The implied reader is clearly the French public. In Bullara, there is a typical description of popular festival. Yet Khrayif dispels certain images, for example by showing the black Barg Illîl as crafty man, clever as well as being endowed with magic, a lover and a patriot. The role of these incursions is to mediate and ‗regulate‘ the linkages between past and present, Western narrative and Arabic story. They also ‗orient‘ the reader towards present and pressing action to affect changes in power relations. And it is here that Bullara becomes instructive, since it is a draft, or a novel in the making, not a finished one. The book includes several outlines, notes form sources, references, and comments by the author about his won characters and events. It is appropriate to ask: Is this ‗problem‘ a structural feature of historical fiction specific to these novels – i.e., a deviation from the canonical features of the genre – or is it due to the imaginative representation of this particular transition between the early modern and the twentieth century Mediterranean? As a provisional response, I suggest that the seriousness of the task facing Maghrebi writers during and in the aftermath of colonial occupation, ‗forced‘ them to engage historical narratives head on, and in forceful ways. To understand this, one needs to look into what motivated writers to focus on the pre-colonial period. There were clearly serious unanswered questions: Was Ottoman rule a form of colonization or a liberation? To what extent an answer to the decline and weakness of the Maghrebi states can be found in their pre-colonial history? In addition, there was need to make an argument for the origin of the nation-state, specifically Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan identities that predate French colonial rule. 62 Intellectuals wanted to argue that the roots of colonialist interests in the regions go far back in history, locating these in broad, primarily religious, terms, as continuation of the crusades or Christian revenge over Muslim occupation of Spain. In addition, there is to the literary aim of searching for new and relevant local material for novelistic writing. Khodja, El Euldj, 94. Khodja, El Euldj, 135-7. 62 Mohamed-Salah Omri, ‗History, Literature and Settler Colonialism in North Africa‘, Modern Language Quarterly, 66 (2005): 273-298. See also Khatibi, Le Maghreb pluriel. 60 61
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But with the Mediterranean, there are two additional layers that exercised the minds of independent historians and novelists alike. The first is the intertwined and thereby disputed history of the sea/region while the other is the tendency to lyricise the Mediterranean. To stay with the latter point for a moment, let us consider the question: What do Braudel and the twentieth century Maghrebian historical novel have in common? The existence of the Mediterranean as a creation of poetry, myth and epic (or what I call the ‗lyrical sea‘) is a fact no serious writer can ignore; and as we discover in this volume, it is a condition that ‗infected‘ even the most well-intentioned of historians.63 Is it possible to write about the Mediterranean without what might be called ‗an aesthetic intrusion‘? Can one put aside Virgil or Homer or even more recently, colonial literature, from French nineteenth century towering figures, such as Flaubert in his Salammbô, to literature about the so-called ‗new Mediterranean man‘ written largely by French colons?64 The Mediterranean was, for all intents and purposes, what I might call a Latin and Greek ‗narrative colony‘ as far as the Arab writer is concerned. Writers of narrative, fictional and historical, perhaps Maghrebis more than others, had to contend with that legacy and heritage even as they tried to produce counter-narratives to it.65 (―The frothing tears of the Mediterranean were rushing noisily against the monuments of El-Djezair, which were bathing their bases gently in the blue flow…‖).66 Braudel could not ignore that narrative and that legacy, but was unable to connect to the Arabic tradition in his stories of the sea. Any attempt to de-mythify the process must avoid the general and systematic, and take account of the local, the ―Of Algiers and Algerine society in the sixteenth century Braudel writes lyrically, but it is a lyricism deriving from Lope de Vega and the Cervantes of The Trato de Argel and Don Quixote…‖, Colin Heywood, ‗Fernand Braudel and the Ottomans: the Emergence of an Involvement (1928-1950)‘, Mediterranean Historical Review, 23 (2008): 165-184, 168. 64 On literature by French colon, see Yves Chatelain, La vie littéraire et intellectuelle en Tunisie de 1900 à 1937 (Paris, 1937) For a critical assessment of the same, see Omri, ‗Literature, History and Settler Colonialism‘. 65 Arabs did not really have the equivalents to this poetic and mythopoeic specifically Mediterranean literary heritage. Except perhaps al-Andalus and some of Sicily; and in geographical and travel writing, they largely ignored the sea in their canonical poetry and prose literature (adab). Popular memory, including oral poetry, however, has kept a record of encounters with the sea, as I mention above; but this literature itself was marginalized and little of it has survived. For a brief overview of Arabic literature see Roger Allen, An Introduction to Arabic Literature (Cambridge, 2000). For the rise of the novel, see Roger Allen, The Arabic Novel: an Historical and Critical Introduction, 2nd edn. (Syracuse, 1995). For responses to depictions of North African ancient history in Latin literature, see Mohamed-Salah Omri, ‗Memory and Representation in Mellah‘s Novels‘, International Journal of Francophone Studies, 3 (2000): 33-41. 66 ―Les larmes écumeuses de la méditerranée se lançaient bourdonnantes sur les édifices d'ElDjezair, qui, baignaient mollement leurs assises dans les flots bleus‖, Khodja, El-Euldj, 49. 63
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particular and the individual. Novels are perhaps the place where both the local and the mythopoeic find their natural home. But the work of fiction affects history in real ways, particularly at times when literature is called upon to participate in the national narrative, and to mobilize for national destinies. The novels mentioned here are part of national myth-creation processes in colonial and postcolonial North Africa. Through them, the Mediterranean is reclaimed as a component of this myth. The novels we have discussed are Braudelian in a different sense as well: they believe in and perform events with significant wider historical import. They are histoires évènementielles or stories of events, rather than histoire évènementielle or a history of events. Characters are developed, to a certain extent, but only as they serve to clarify or recast a major event in national history: the Spanish siege of Algiers, La Goletta battles, etc. Like Braudel‘s work, the novelists accumulate detail, multiply reference, stylize the Mediterranean and take sides in its conflicts and antagonisms. While Braudel saw North Africa through ‗Spanish eyes‘, Heywood tells us, the novels attempt to reverse the vantage point. 67 But this vantage point was rather useful in sparking self-reflection. Just as Cervantes saw Spain from the southern shore, Braudel‘s position in Algiers as he wrote his later work, may have helped him develop sensitivity to that shore, despite his neglect of Arabic and Ottoman sources, going as far as declaring: ―the Mediterranean as seen from the opposite shore, upside down, had considerable impact on my vision of history‖.68 Braudel argued that the Maghreb maintained its independence under Ottoman rule, a statement some Maghrebi novelist were only too happy to concur with as they imagined that independence in their work. Khurayyif‘s sixteenth century Tunisia is a sovereign state while Farrah‘s Algeria is struggling to maintain its own independence and Arabo-Berber identity from Turks and Spaniards alike. Moreover, like Braudel, there is a tendency in these novels to focus on the sixteenth century. Almost without exception, they deal with the transition from ‗native‘ dynasties to Ottoman rule in the face of Spanish threat and occupation. From there, in what may be termed micronarratives, they interpret the course of history in Algeria and Tunisia, mainly. But why the sixteenth century, one might ask? The sixteenth century Mediterranean was marked by the Ottomanization of North Africa. The period also marks the entry of the English to the Mediterranean and the move of maritime action to the Atlantic, as essays Heywood, ‗Fernand Braudel‘, 167. Heywood, ‗Fernand Braudel‘, 169, citing Braudel, ‗Personal Testimony‘, Journal of Modern History, 44 (1972): 448-467, 450. 67 68
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in the present volume demonstrate. This was also an era when most North African states were largely left to their fate and developed relative autonomy from the Porte. Yet, while Braudel saw a Mediterranean world coming together in the sixteenth century, most novelists clearly disagree and therefore part ways with him.69 This disagreement had very little to do with the sixteenth century: it was a contemporary dispute where that century was no more than the canvas of a battlefield. Conclusion In a book about sources and discourses, the Maghrebi historical novel set in the early modern Mediterranean manifests a cultural practice that historians would be wise not to ignore. These novels are tied closely to national narratives and contribute directly to them. In addition, on a number of levels, the North African historical novel is a discourse on historiography. The works mentioned here form part of a rising historical awareness, perhaps even of a revision of history. They participate in the recall, academic and literary alike, of history. In turn they benefit from the more nuanced historiography that has been developing largely through closer and original uses of archives and other material in local languages, examples of which make up the bulk of the present volume. This period of history was both defining and disorienting for North Africans. The novels enact dramas of impossible conversions; make manifest ambivalent feelings towards corsairing and corsairs; and search for the roots of the early-modern roots of the European colonisation of the Maghreb starting in the nineteenth century. As novels, they flesh out, albeit as fictions, individual Maghrebis (as well as foreigners) as they adjust to and affect the changing world around them, particularly in the sixteenth century. No wonder then that historians often, and more frequently in recent years, have resorted to writing fiction.70 This imaginative presentation of history fills documentary gaps in the reconstruction of what the past may have been like while pinning fiction down to historical research. Or can it be Braudel was writing at that moment and may have been, perhaps only in part, affected by the ideological content Camus and Audisio have given to the Mediterranean as salvaging colonialism, humanizing empire and creating a new humanism; they were also all enamoured by the sea. On the ideas of Albert Camus and Gabriel Audisio, see Omri, ‗Literature, History and Settler Colonialism‘, 284-86. 70 Mohamed Tawfiq is professor of history; Abdelaziz Ferrah is an amateur historian; and so is Corinne Chevalier who wrote La nuit du Corsaire (Algiers, 2005) set between 1510 and 1570 in Algiers and Prisonnier de Barberousse (Paris, 1992). Mention maybe made of the novels of the leading historian Abdallah Laroui who authored three novels: al-Ghurba (Exile) (1972); alFârîq (The Team) (1986) and Awrâq (Papers) (1989). The famous historian Ibn Khaldoun is the subject of the novel, al-„Allâma (The Scholar) (1997) by the Moroccan academic Salim Himmish. 69
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seen as an attempt to keep at bay the allure of the mythopoeic impulse and narrative desire that often await historians of the Mediterranean, Braudel included?
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