The ‘American in Chains’: (Cons)Piracy and the Specter of North Africa in U.S. Barbary Captivity Narratives

Brandt, Stefan L.

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-13611-5_4

Stefan L. Brandt³

Part of the book series: Renewing the American Narrative ((RAN))

64 Accesses

Abstract

The chapter discusses the fantastic construction of the Orient as America’s ‘Other’ in early U.S. Barbary narratives. It contends that the specter of the ‘American in chains’ has remained an effectual device throughout the centuries as a vivid part of the U.S. cultural imagination. Focusing on three important texts of the early republic, Susanna Rowson’s Slaves in Algiers, Peter Markoe’s The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania, and Royall Tyler’s The Algerine Captive, my analysis scrutinizes a common rhetoric of fearmongering that exploited fears of a Muslim threat, with the so-called Barbary states functioning as antitheses to American democracy.

An earlier version of this chapter was published as “The Algerine Dilemma: (Cons)Piracy and the Specter of North Africa in Early U.S. Barbary Narratives,” in Hemispheric Encounters: The Early United States in a Transnational Perspective, eds. Gabriele Pisarz-Ramirez and Markus Heide (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2016), 157–171.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 99.00; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 129.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 129.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
For a detailed account of the historical timeline of the occurrences of the year 1785, see Joshua E. London, Victory in Tripoli: How America’s War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U. S. Navy and Built a Nation (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2005), 27.
2.
Anne G. Myles, “Slaves in Algiers, Captives in Iraq: The Strange Career of the Barbary Captivity Narrative,” Common-Place, 5.1 (Oct. 2004), http://commonplace.online/article/slaves-in-algiers-captives-in-iraq/ (accessed 11 May 2022).
3.
London, Victory in Tripoli, 27.
4.
Murray, Liminal Whiteness, 7.
5.
As to North Africa, the name of a region’s capital city often functioned as a signifier for the whole territory. Modern-day Libya, for example, was known under the name Tripoli, Tunisia was commonly called Tunis. By the same token, modern-day Algeria went under the name of Algiers. See London, Victory in Tripoli, 15.
6.
Ibid., 5.
7.
Bhabha, Location, 17.
8.
See Maria Martin, Captivity and Sufferings of Mrs. Maria Martin, Who Was Six Years a Slave in Algiers. Written by Herself (Boston: W. Crary, 1807), 39.
9.
Qtd. in “The ‘Barbary Wars’ and Their Philadelphia Connections,” HSP’s Hidden Histories: Discovering Individuals and Events of the Past, 6 May 2009, http://frontierhistory.blogspot.co.at/2009/05/barbary-wars-and-their-philadelphia.html (accessed 12 May 2022). See also Henry Jones Ford, “Tribute to the Algerines,” in H.J. Ford (ed.), Washington and His Colleagues (New Haven: Yale UP, 1918), 104–115; 106.
10.
See Edward W. Said, Orientalism (1978; London: Penguin, 2003) and Malini Johar Schueller, U.S. Orientalisms: Nation, Race, and Gender in Literature, 1790–1890 (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1998).
11.
Don Jordan and Michael Walsh have shown in White Cargo that the “indentured-servant system,” as they call it, affected substantial numbers of white Americans who consequently feared they might lose their freedom. Jordan & Walsh, White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America (New York: New York UP, 2008), 11–19; 15.
12.
Qtd. in ibid., 15–16.
13.
During peace negotiations in Algiers, Logie allegedly declared “that the United States were no longer under the protection of his Master [the King of England], and, that wherever the Cruisers of Algiers should fall in with the vessels of the United States of America, they were good prizes and wished them success in their attempts to capture those who refused allegiance to his Master.” James Leander Cathcart, “The Captives, Eleven Years as a Prisoner in Algiers,” compiled by J.B. Newkirk, 1899, repr. in Paul Baepler (ed.), White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives (Chicago and London: The U of Chicago P, 1999), 103–146; 107.
14.
See Paul Baepler, “Introduction,” in White Slaves, African Masters, 1–58; 1.
15.
Letter to Robert R. Livingston, 22 July 1783, in: Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin. Vol. IX: Correspondence (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1840), 544.
16.
See Baepler, “Introduction,” 8.
17.
Bhabha, Location, 287.
18.
See Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy (Basingstoke, Hampshire, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 15.
19.
Erin Mackie, “Welcome the Outlaw: Pirates, Maroons, and Caribbean Countercultures,” Cultural Critique, 59 (Winter 2005): 24–62; 54.
20.
See Baepler, “Introduction,” 2.
21.
Cf. Charles F. Gallagher, The United States and North Africa: Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1967), 3, 45, 59–63, 232.
22.
M.L. Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (2nd ed., New York, Routledge, 2008), 7.
23.
See Baepler, “Introduction,” 24.
24.
See Martin, Captivity and Sufferings, 50.
25.
Jacob Rama Berman, “The Barbarous Voice of Democracy: American Captivity in Barbary and the Multicultural Specter,” American Literature, 79.1 (Mar. 2007): 1–27; 3.
26.
Ibid.
27.
Maria Martin, Captivity and Sufferings of Mrs. Maria Martin, Who Was Six Years a Slave in Algiers. Written by Herself (Boston: W. Crary, 1807), cover page.
28.
Anon., “History of Algiers: A Description of the Country, the Manners and Customs of the Natives—Their Treatment of Their Slaves—Their Laws and Religion,” 1807, in: Martin, Captivity and Sufferings, 5–40.
29.
Martin, Captivity and Sufferings, 46.
30.
James Wilson Stephens, Historical and Geographical Account of Algiers, and Detail of Events relative to the American Captives, etc. (Brooklyn, NY: Printed by Thomas Kirk for Alexander Brodie, 1800).
31.
Ford, “Tribute to the Algerines,” 104.
32.
Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People (10th ed., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980), 65.
33.
Peter Markoe, The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania, or, Letters Written by a Native of Algiers on the Affairs of the United States of America, from the Close of the Year 1783 to the Meeting of the Convention, ed. Timothy Marr (1787; Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2008), 104.
34.
T. Jefferson, “Notes on Algerine Captives,” 11 Mar. 1792, Thomas Jefferson Papers, The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., https://www.loc.gov/item/mtjbib005981/ (accessed 15 May 2022).
35.
Jared Gardner, Master Plots: Race and the Founding of an American Literature, 1787–1845 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1998), 33.
36.
Anon., “History of Algiers,” 7.
37.
Berman, “The Barbarous Voice of Democracy,” 4.
38.
Interestingly enough, Benjamin Franklin, in his final publication one month prior to his death in 1790, also uses the guise of a fictional Mehemet from Algiers (Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim) to satirize a pro-slavery speech by a Georgia congressman. See Timothy Marr, “Introduction” to Peter Markoe, The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania, vii–xxxiv; xxviii.
39.
Ibid., vii.
40.
See Peter Knight (ed.), Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2003), 196–197.
41.
Bhabha, Location, 293.
42.
Ibid., 299.
43.
Markoe, Algerine Spy, 91.
44.
Ibid. 100.
45.
Ibid, 101–102.
46.
Ibid., 125.
47.
Ibid.
48.
Susanna Rowson, Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom (1794; eds. Jennifer Margulis and Karen M. Poremski, Acton, MA: Copley, 2000), 8.
49.
Ibid., 75.
50.
See Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, “Slaves in Algiers: Race, Republican Genealogies, and the Global Stage,” American Literary History, 16.3 (Fall 2004): 407–436; 417.
51.
Rowson, Slaves in Algiers, 21. Cf. ibid., 16.
52.
Cf. E.M. Dillon, “Slaves in Algiers,” 415.
53.
Rowson, Slaves in Algiers, 56. In this passage, the text conjures up the specter of the Ottoman Empire. Such references to the ‘Turks’ in the context of the practices of impalement, burning, and foot whipping serve as powerful buzzwords to warn against the horrors of Islamic rule. By situating the character of Ben Hassan between the spheres of civilization and savagery, Slaves in Algiers capitalizes on the presumptive dangers of boundary crossing.
54.
Ibid., 57.
55.
Ibid., 73.
56.
Ibid.
57.
Jennifer Margulis and Karen M. Poremski, “Introduction” to Susanna Rowson’s Slaves in Algiers<Emphasis Type="Italic">, vii–xxix; xxiv.
58.
At the time Rowson wrote her play, the estimated 2000 Jews in the U.S. represented a clear minority. Ibid.
59.
Ford, “Tribute to the Algerines,” 113.
60.
Royall Tyler, The Algerine Captive, or, The Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill (1797; New York: The Modern Library, 2002), 164.
61.
Ibid., 194.
62.
Ibid., 220–223.
63.
Ibid., 154.
64.
Ibid.
65.
Ibid., 155–162.
66.
Ibid., 163.
67.
Ibid.
68.
The choice of the protagonist’s name was certainly not coincidental. We are instantly reminded of the most famous Underhill of early America: Captain John Underhill, who led the Pequot Massacre in September 1637 and who also led later bloody expeditions to expel Native Americans from colonized areas.
69.
Edward Larkin, “Nation and Empire in the Early US,” American Literary History, 22.3 (July 2010): 501–526; 516.
70.
Ibid., 515.
71.
Tyler, Algerine Captive, 225–226; capitalization in the original.
72.
Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York: Oxford UP, 1986), 209.
73.
Tyler, Algerine Captive, 34.
74.
Ibid., 134.
75.
Ibid.
76.
Ibid., 136.
77.
Ibid., 131.
78.
Ibid.
79.
Ibid., 138.
80.
Ibid., 137; emphasis in the original.
81.
Murray, Liminal Whiteness, 5–9.
82.
Ibid., 5.
83.
Gardner, Master Plots, 33.
84.
Mathew Carey, A Short Account of Algiers (Philadelphia: J. Parker, 1794), 36.
85.
Murray, Liminal Whiteness, 5, capitalizations in the original.
86.
By using the term ‘negative productivity,’ I follow Sacvan Bercovitch’s notion that negations in cultural practice often harbor a productive potential, instilling a series of identity-forming processes. S. Bercovitch, The Office of ‘The Scarlet Letter’ (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1991), 153.
87.
Caleb Crain, “Introduction” to Royall Tyler’s The Algerine Captive (New York: The Modern Library, 2002), xvii–xxxvi; xxxi.
88.
London, Victory in Tripoli, 8–9.
89.
Berman, “The Barbarous Voice of Democracy,” 2.
90.
“Treaty of Peace and Amity, signed at Algiers, September 5, 1795,” The Barbary Treaties, 1786–1816, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1795t.asp (accessed 15 May 2022).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Department of American Studies, University of Graz, Graz, Styria, Austria
Stefan L. Brandt

Authors

Stefan L. Brandt
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefan L. Brandt .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Brandt, S.L. (2022). The ‘American in Chains’: (Cons)Piracy and the Specter of North Africa in U.S. Barbary Captivity Narratives. In: Moveable Designs, Liminal Aesthetics, and Cultural Production in America since 1772. Renewing the American Narrative. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13611-5_4

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13611-5_4
Published: 01 December 2022
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-13610-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-13611-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics