Songs for white slaves?

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 04:49 PM

Hee are some beautiful hookers from Galway. But it's a common name for this kind of small boat in many places, and in most English-speaking countries I believe.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 03:56 PM

It must have been pretty rough being a slave in North Africa, or an Irish transportee to Australia - but nothing was as bad as the slave system in America.

Slaves in other times and places were often treated badly, even as badly, but they were not not seen as lower than human, which was the peculiar quality of that kind of chattel slavery which survived so long in America.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 01:07 PM

Hooker was-is a Galway fishing boat, the name derives from the hook and line method of fishing. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 12:35 PM

Slight thread creep here. In Thomas Davis' poem "The Sack of Baltimore," referenced w-a-a-y up above, there are two references to "hookers" . These appear not to have quite the same meaning as "prostitute" - does it mean fishermen, or is there another more obscure meaning ?? It's a bit unclear from the context.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 08:39 AM

Robert Hughes in his book The Fatal Shore, states, " The Irish [prisoners], on arriving in Australia were treated as as a special class.

As bearers of Jacobin contagion, as idealogically and physically dangerous traitors, they were opressed with special vigilance and unusually hard punisments.

They formed Australia`s first white minority. From the outset, the Irish in Australia saw themselves as a doubly colonised people".

A descripition of the type of punishment meted out to the Irish prisoners was described by Joseph Holt an Irish political prisoner, "They were tied to a tree and squeezed tightly to the trunk,
There were two floggers, Richard Rice and John Johnson [the hangman from Sydney], Rice was left-handed and Johnson right handed, so they stood at each side, and I never saw two threshers in a barn move their strokes more handier than those two man-killers did.

Maurice Fitzgerald the recipient of the two butchers handi-work stood up manfully as pieces of his flesh blew in my face as it flew of the cats".

Fitzgerald was being made an example of on the whim of a protestant clergyman Marsden who suspected, wrongly, that Fitzgerald along with other Irish prisoners was making Pikes in readiness for a revolt, an earlier version of the non-exsistence of WMD`s.

Hughes goes on decribe the opression and cruelty handed out to the Irish prisoners on Van Diemans land, this was nothing in comparsion to the native inhabitants who were wiped out by 1836, Eichmann could have taken lessons in genocide from the colonists. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:30 AM

Oh, ooah, [Did you walk on a rusty nail]. my humble apoligies to you and super Brit Gareth, how bloody stupid of me, and after there sojurn in Van Diemans Butlins, the felons of our land were grant R&R on Bondi Beach. Aye, and Cromwell was cashing in on the Irish long before the Britsh made their millions on the Blacks. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: paddymac
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 09:43 PM

It'll take a bit of time to dig up my reference, but The English crown issued slaving patents for Counties Kerry & Cork in Ireland, sometime in the middle 1500s. They were revoked after about 15-20 years, when the slavers (English) started taking members of the ascendancy of the day (Anglo/Norman-Irish). Slaving was a popular commercial venture there long before the English turned it into big business. When talking about St Patrick, you can never be really sure where to draw the line between fact and fiction, but most accounts consider that he first came to Ireland as a slave. And then, of course, Cromwell profited handsomely selling Irish folk in "the barbadoes." Without getting over-wrought about racial or ethnic injustice, it's probably more productive to consider slavery as an aspect of the corruption wrought by near absolute power.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 07:24 PM

Guest Ooh-Ah

Please recall that Ard Mhacha has a fixation that anything the Brits did was wrong, which is a pity, because if he could remove this fixation his comments are otherwise objective.

I have my copy of Hughes "The Fatal Shore" on my book case to hand as I write, I think your synopsis is a little oversymplified, and there where those who took a delight in the powers in petty vindictivnes, and prejudice.

But as an alterntive to the "Tyburn/Newgate Jig" transportation had its points.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 04:52 PM

Ard Mhacha is indulging in hyperbole when she claims that "...Van Diemen's land and other hell holes were worse than slavery for the poor unfortunates." As someone who both lives in Tasmania and has read Robert Hughes' excellent book 'The Fatal Shore' I can assure you that this is nonsense unless you were silly enough to buck the system and get yourself sent to Macquarie Harbour. We all know that people were trasported for absurdly trivial offences but it was only the real hard cases who ended up in places like the harbour and Norfolk Island, which was the worst hell-hole of all.Keep your nose clean and serve your time and you could end up not only free but prosperous in the new colony. Convicts also had some limited rights and were protected by law when they were sent out as labour to farms etc - Hughes shows convicingly that the well known cases of abuse were well-known precisely because they were uncommon. Comments like Mhaccha's are in danger of trivialising the absolute unrelieved horror of slavery.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 02:36 PM

Willie O, the numbers surprised me too. They were for white slaves, but perhaps they were taken from other shores besides these.
The programme was authoritative, with contributions from professors and historians from UK, Irish Rep., Morroco, and USA (Univ of Ohio).
When the figures were given, the camera was scanning documents and old papers.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Margret RoadKnight
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 10:37 PM

"Amazing Grace" written by ex-slave ship owner, after being himself captured....

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 05:54 PM

I guess I will not amaze the singaround with a song of Moorish abduction from a seaside village.

Unless you write one...

YY

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Emma B
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 12:03 PM

I saw the rerun last night too - thanks for the information about the song; do you know who was singing? Why do they never put that type of information on the credits? (winge winge)
I have been in The Algiers in Baltimore a number of times (en route to Cape Clear) but never knew the full history of the original abandoned village further up stream.
109 people were taken from Baltimore alone (all of whom reportedly/suprisingly survived the journey) so I suppose over a couple of centuries the estimated numbers are probably quite credible.There must be a song in there somewhere even if it hasn't been written yet - quite touching was the story of the slave who became the Sultans beloved wife and was buried next to him. One woman was 'sold back' for £1300, a small fortune in those days! as opposed to 'male christians' who (I quote!) could be exchanged for an onion!

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 07:30 AM

Maggie Gordon? Peggy Gordon? I can't see that there's anything more sellable about the latter. But it seems to me, using the plosive consonant "P" instead of the nasal consonant"M", it just is better for singing out, and I'd assume thta's where the change comes in.

Anyway they are both versions of the same name, Margaret. He might well have called her both ways.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Willie-O
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 07:29 AM

Interesting subject, but I gotta be dubious about those numbers, Keith. One to two million? Wouldn't that be most of the population? If it was that regular, it would have gotten a lot more press. Say, a minimum of ten thousand raids if they got a hundred people each time...we hear a lot more about Viking raids ten centuries earlier and I bet they didn't have anything like those numbers. Besides, it seems clear that as far as the Barbary pirates went, the UK & Ireland area was not where they did most of their plundering...

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Gareth
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 06:37 AM

Keith

Zebeck

Gareth

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 04:42 AM

I have just seen a rerun of the programme I mentioned in the opening post.
The wreck is just off Morsands, near Saltcombe, Devon.
It was believed to be of a Barbary seebeck (sp?)
Only artefacts were found, suggesting that it overturned. The lightly timbered vessel would then have come ashore, the bodies of the crew very likely giving Morsands its name.
It was dated to 18th century. The finds included guns , a fortune in African gold colns and jewelry, and part of a N.African cauldron.
A number of artefacts of Dutch origin were also found.
Research shows that between one and a quarter and two million whites slaves were taken from these shores and inshore vessels during the period from 17th to 19th centuries.
A lovely song was used in the programme with opening line, My love is gone.
Keith.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 04:22 PM

Her real name was Maggie Goddon, but her song-writer lover realized that name wouldn't sell.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 12:56 PM

Peggy Gordon?, the way Luke Kelly sang about her, she must have been some Dame, but oul Betty, the slaves dream, it seems would have gave her a run for her money. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST,kendra
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 10:45 PM

excuse me, but who is Peggy Gordon?

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 01:51 PM

"The Algier Slaves Releasment"

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 01:32 PM

Algier Slave's Releasement or the Unchangeable Boat-Swain (see Ard mhacha, above), 1671-1704, is in the Bodleian, Douce Ballads 1(3b).
Suggested tune, Awake, Oh My Cloris. The copy is clean and readable.

No prison like the Jayl of Love
Nor no such torments found, ...

Bodleian Library

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 09:09 AM

In the book,- Piracy, Slavery and Redemption, there are two Ballads, the first , The Algerian Slave’s releasement or The Unchangeable Boatswain, this Ballad is from A Century of Ballads, edited by John Ashton [London, Elliot Stock 1887] pages 221-224, no date given for the Ballad, but the Publisher who issued the Ballad a J Deacon was active circa 1684-95. to the tune of "Awake, Oh my Cloris,"
[And three weeks holiday in Baghdad to the first person who knows the tune].

The Ballad is strung out in 12 verses mostly of the poor man’s longing for his beloved Betty, here are three verses which give the gist of the man’s plight,

Sometime in the Galleys
I am forced to go
Though amongst all my fellows,
Like a Slave I do row,
And when I am spent
With this labour and pain
The thought of my love
Doth revive me again.

But a renegado
To make me thy strive
I’ll never consent to it
Whilst I am alive
But will a courageous
True Protestant be
I’ll be true to my faith
And be constant to thee.

And now, through providence,
I am returned
By shipwrack I ‘scaped
For our ship it was burned.
No torment like mine was
When I was a slave,
For the want of my Betty
Was worse than the grave.

Peggy Gordon eat yer heart out.

And the second Ballad no Title given, the information on the footnote reads, From C. H. Firth, Naval Songs and Ballads [London] Navy Records Society, 1908] Pages 31-33. The text is taken from a manuscript in the Bodleian Lbrary, [MS Rawlinson Poet, Clii, F 36]. Originally printed in 1624. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 02:56 AM

The raids persisted through the 18th and into the 19th Century, a prolific period for songs in use today.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 06:40 PM

It's just occurred to me thatbthere are versions of the Golden Vanity song in which the ship the lad sinks is "the Turkish Reverie" - which would very likely mean a corsair.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 06:26 PM

I suppose there might be some songs out in Morocco or similar places. Slaves can still sing.

I suspect the problem is that, though we talk about folksongs as being ancient, most of them don't date back that far - and by the 18th and 19th century such episodes were long gone. There could well have been songs about this, but they haven't come down to us. Or perhaps in some cases they were rewritten to deal with a more contemporary phenomenon, such as the press gangs or transportation.

Though you'd have thought there'd have been contemporary broadsheet ballads about such things - after all, the pirate raids in the early 17th century were quite a political hot potato, since they were used as the grounds for the King trying to raise Ship Money, which caused ructions.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 05:29 PM

She only smiled, O'Driscolls child, she thought of Baltimore.

Thanks for that poem Ard Mhacha and McGrath. Interesting that conspiracy theories abounded then.

Thanks Lady Jean for giving another literary reference, but how few there are. As mentioned above, abduction by press gang, recruiters and gypsies (though the latter usually of willing females) is well represented in the tradition.

I guess I will not amaze the singaround with a song of Moorish abduction from a seaside village.

Keith.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: LadyJean
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 01:21 AM

I don't know any songs about Algerian Corsairs, but I do know a novel; "The Sea Hawk" by Raphael Sabatini. It's available as a trade paperback, with a preface by Bernard Cornwell. Sabatini was no Patrick O'Brian, but his historical novels are fun. The Sea Hawk does indeed raid Cornwall, to abduct his brother, and his erstwhile ladylove. He has them both sold into slavery. No one wants to buy his brother because the skinny boy wouldn't be any good for physical labor. That there were other uses for skinny boys wasn't mentioned in Sabatini's time, at least not in polite circles.
I know two songs about convicts who became slaves in the Americas. I believe the one is called "Virginia" and the other, a recent piece by a local singer is called "It's a Hard Row to Hoe".

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 04:49 PM

Of course I should have added that Thomas Davis the poet behind "The Sack of Baltimore" also wrote "A Nation once again", which was voted the World`s number one song in a poll on the BBC World Service. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:29 PM

One of the most intriguing thigs about the Baltimore story is that the Corsair captain was actually Dutch. Actually there seems to have been a fair bit of cooperation in the 17th cebtury between pirates based in North Africa and in the Low Countries (notably Dunkirk) and in the Hebrides.

There were lots of other raids by Corsairs and others - in 1640 thirty people near Penzance were carried away by them - so there really were "Pirates of Penzance"

One song about a captive escaping from "Turkish" captivity is of course Lord Bateman, though he's not envisaged as having been captured by Corsairs.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:02 PM

that last one was me, my cookie had been carried away by Algerines.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 08:42 AM

I regularly play in Baltimore,Skibbereen, Sherkin Island and Cape Clear. Given that the O'Driscolls are still pretty much in control round there, we always keep a cautious eye on the sea for approaching lateen sails.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 08:35 AM

Q, Thanks for the credit, but, this poem by Thomas Davis has never been converted to song.
The many songs concerning transportation could readily qualify as slave songs, Van Diemans Land and other choice hell-holes were worse than slavery for the poor unfortunates. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:53 PM

"O Bear Me Away from this Corsair," from 17-, is in Bodleian Ballads, but is unreadable.Johnson Ballads 3070.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:59 PM

From Byron's The Corsair -

On Conrad's stricken soul exhaustion prest,
And stupor almost lull'd it into rest;
So feeble now - his mothere's softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept:
It was the very weakness of his brain,
Which thus confess'd without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears - perchance, if seen,
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flow'd - he dried them to depart...


But you wouldn't want to sing that...

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:43 PM

Baltimore (Ireland) was sacked by Algerine pirates in 1631; many citizens carried off as slaves.
Several Americans wrote of their experiences as slaves taken by the Algerines (Algerine Slave Narratives, by both men and women).
Much history, and ransom negotiations (Thomas Jefferson Papers, George Washington papers, etc.) at American Memory.

Ard Mhacha- so far the only song contribution.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:36 PM

And here's what a Baltimore (Cork) website says about it: "The allegation is sometimes made that the raid may even have been organised by the O'Driscolls, who did not care to see their lands being taken over by English settlers - You'd never know!"

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:35 PM

There appears some controversy about what actually happened. From thta site I linked to: "Baltimore, by 1631, was an English settlement. founded by Thomas Crooke in 1607, having been sold away by Finín the Rover. Early one morning, at 2am, two Barbary Corsairs arrived in Baltimore Harbour, under the command of Captain Matthew Rice, a Dutch renegade.

They plundered and pillaged and caused general mayhem and departed that afternoon loaded with booty and 119 prisoners. Not one of these was an O'Driscoll, and it appears that, in fact, all or most of the captives were English. Some say that, on meeting the fiersome native women, the pirates determined not to risk taking them aboard their galleys."

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:34 PM

Here's a site with more about this event which happened in 1631.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:29 PM

I wonder if "the maid on the shore" (if I have the title right, Carthy used to sing it) reflects this sort of raiding.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:26 PM

A good read on this particular subject is, Piracy, Slavery and Redemption, Barbary captivity narritives from early modern England.
Selected and edited by Daniel L Vitkus. I got my copy at Amazon.

Another piece on the Baltimore incident,
Baltimore in 1631 was an English settlement founded by Thomas Crooke in 1607.
Early one morning in 1631, two barbary Corsairs arrived in Baltimore Harbour under the command of Captain Matthew Rice a Dutch renegade.

They plundered and pillaged and caused general mayhem and departed that afternoon loaded with booty and 119 captives, most of the captives were English. Some 15 years later the English sent a Mr Cason to reedeem captives from raids around the coast of England.
Two of those reedemed were Baltimore captives.

Following the the sack of Baltimore, the English built a number of protective beacons around the coast, the English settlers later moved upriver from Baltimore founding the town of Skibereen. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:19 PM

Well done that man - and here it is, courtesy Google and this site, all 56 lines.

Exceot that since I'm having troubles posting anything longer than a paragraoph or two becuase of a hard disk problem, I leave it to others to follow that link.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:16 PM

I've just re-read the note in Sam Richards and Tish Stubbs' anthology, "The English Folksinger" for "When that I was weary":

Broadside ballad in the Douce collection. Also in Pepys, Crawford and Roxburgh. The Roxburgh copy tells us that this ballad was printed c 1690. The Virginia Company was formed in 1606, and the government offered incentives for traders and colonizers to go there. One way of providing labourers for the colony was simply to kidnap and sell into slavery any victims that could be conveniently seized, and petty criminals were given transportation sentences as well. The system had ceased by the end of the century, although white slavery (euphemistically referred to as "indentured servitude" in old history books) continued for some time.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:04 PM

Keith, This poem which I was taught at school, a long time ago, always fascinated me.
I do remember clearly the third verse,

All,all asleep within each roof along that rocky street

and these must be the lover`s friends, with gently gliding feet-

A stifled gasp,a dreamy noise!"the roof is in a flame"

From out their beds and to their doors rush maid and sire and dame,

And meet upon the threshold stone the gleaming sabre`s fall,

and o`er each black and bearded face the white or crimson shawl.

The yell of "Allah" breaks above the the prayer, and shriek and roar,
O blessed God the Algerine is lord of Baltimore.

And it goes on and on, something like eight verses, the Author was Thomas Davis. Ard Mhacha

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: fretless
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 02:31 PM

Thread creap (perhaps): Keith A -- do you have any more information or a further source for the program you saw last year some time about the discovery and excavation, off the South coast of England, of a slaver from the Barbary Coast of North Africa?

Informative book on the Barbary coast slaves: Clissold, Stephen, The Barbary Slaves (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield 1977).

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 02:22 PM

McGrath, the site you linked to has interesting song
excerpts about fishing the Newfoundland coast and up the Labrador. Many thanks!

Mozart wrote a comic opera, "Maid in Algiers" (? not exact title). The romanticization of the corsairs and their masters on shore started when they were still active, 18th century.

Still plagued by posts not keeping to the point.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 01:33 PM

Chattel slavery is something else, introduced by the settlers. An extraordinary and relatively modern invention.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST,Casual Observer
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 01:27 PM

McGrath, the Native Americans were making slaves of each other long before white settlers touched the shore.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 01:14 PM

The September 2003 issue of National Geographic Magazine has an apalling article entitled "21st-Century Slaves". Exerpts are online here, though I don't know if that link will last.

"There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The modern commerce in humans rivals illegal drug trafficking in its global reach — and in the destruction of lives."

There's hardly a nation that's immune, although there is no country where it is legal.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 12:38 PM

There's a reference in this page about French traditional songs to "ballads about the corsairs".

And the 19th Century Romantics used to see Corsairs as glamorous and picturesque - Byron wrote a poem called The Corsair, which later became a ballet.

And here is an extract from this year's Hay on Wye (literary) Festival programme: Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850 Linda Colley talks to Christopher Hitchens The historian discusses her stories of the flipside of Imperialism: the soldiers ans settlers seized in India and North America, the men and women captured from Devon and Cornwall by Moroccan slavers, or taken at sea by Barbary corsairs. She explores the parallels with empire today, and the West's relationship with Islam.

All the makings - but no sign of any folk songs, so far.