Songs for white slaves?

Subject: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 03:18 PM

A mention of slavery in a current thread reminded me of a program I saw last year some time.
It was about the discovery and excavation, off the South coast of England,of a slaver from the Barbary Coast of North Africa.

It emerged that such vessels raided remote settlements on the SW coast of England and of Ireland. These raids persisted into the 19th Century.
Men who were taken ended their days chained to an oar on a galley. Women, and children of both sexes, were sold for sexual use. Blondes commanded an especially high price in the slave markets of N.Africa.

The program showed a monument in the Irish town of Baltimore commemorating people taken in such a raid.

Is anyone aware of these events being commemorated in song?

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 06:21 PM

Keith - Two sepparate issues here.

First the enslaving of raid victims by Corsairs, Viking, French, Irish etc. (Oh Yes, the Welsh Coast was plagued by these raids up untill the time that Henry IV dealt with the Irish)

Secondly the enslaving and transportation of felons, the loosing side in rebellion,etc. Judge Jeffries, notoriously, had a hand in this, victims being sent out first to the America's, then later Australia.

Transportation Ballads to Australia are well covered, and some of them are genuine. (ie sung by transportees)

Please hold in mind that a significant proportion of the population of the Bahamas, Bermuda, and Barbados are decended from transportees.

Some of the Eastern American States had significant population growth through transportees.

Funny how history seems to overlook this aspect.

But back to the music - I suspect if a proper analasis is done (and HELP has anybody done this - Some 'Catter must know !!) root traces of 16th an 17th Centuary Welsh, Irish, and Scots,and West Country Folksong will be found in the West Indies and Eastern USA.

Just a thought.

And that should enrage the "Politically Corect"

Gareth

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 06:55 PM

I believe that Keith A was asking specifically about raids by the Barbary pirates from North Africa, who were finally put out of business about 1830.
Their booty included Europeans who were sold for ransom or as slaves.
I haven't found any songs.

The Turks, when they occupied parts of eastern Europe, sold slaves well into the 19th century. A famous English African explorer bought the woman who became his constant companion, and explored with him, while on a tour of eastern Europe. I believe he paid 50 pounds for her. As I recall, she was a redhead. Have to look up the book; will give the names later.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 07:45 PM

"And that should enrage the 'Politically Coreect'"

That's a term I loathe and disrust, whoever uses it, whether they say they like it or that they don't.

But I can't imagine why anyone would feel in any way threatened or hostile to the idea that the mix of people in the Caribbean includes slaves from Europe as well as all kinds of other people.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 07:46 PM

In fact in the island of Montserrat there is a great appreciation of the islanders' Irish herritage. (Though the island's troubles with an erupting volcano has rather overshadowed such matters in recent years.)

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 07:57 PM

High Barbaree" is about a clash with a corsair from the Barbary coast, though not necessarily one engaged in slaving.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 08:27 PM

The only song that comes to mind for modern day "white slaves" is Nigel Russell's "White Collar Holler". Slavery is still alive and well and working for corporate America.

Mike

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 08:33 PM

Although slavery is no longer legal, we still have people who are enslaved. Prostitutes, for one group. If you don't believe me, read about how the system works and how they suffer.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 09:30 PM

The Barbary pirates were also known as the Corsairs. They cruised from Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli and were a terror for merchantmen in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. They ranged as far north as Cornwall, Ireland and even Iceland.
Their beginning stemmed from the persecution of the Moors in Spain, and the exiles looked for vengeance. They were joined by Levantine adventurers. The North African states developed with much income from their actions. The expedition to Algiers by the Americans under Decatur in 1815 stopped much of their depredations, and the end came with Lord Exmouth's victory in 1816.
In 1805, the Americans had signed a treaty at Tripoli, but this was soon broken.
Extracted from Chamber's Encyclopaedia and American Memory.

By the latter part of the 19th century, their exploits became romanticised. See "Come, Maiden, With Me, Serenade of the Corsair," 1855, Henry Tucker, at American Memory. Haven't found anything at the Bodleian- surprised by that.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 08:15 AM

Thanks.
Anyone from Baltimore (Eire) who can cast more light on the memorial there?
There is such a wealth of songs from that period, often inspired by much less dramatic events than these, you might expect something to have come down to us.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Charcloth
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 08:49 AM

Contrary to what most folks think slavery isn't outlawed worlwide. In Sudan, Moslem raders often attack Christian villages & capture the children & then sell them as Slaves.
In the middle seventies (I can't remember the specific country or tribe) a South American country was putting Native Americans in concentration camps & then selling them as slaves for $4.00 or less. All because they were in the way of "progress"

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 08:58 AM

And within the last few years some folks in the US (Southern California, I believe) were tried and convicted under the anti-slavery statutes. They would buy "natives" from different countries to work as domestic servants, pay no wages, "discipline" them, provide only minimal foor and care.

Children are treated as slaves in some areas on the Ivory Coast, I believe I've heard.

Piracy is also making a comeback, and pirates have enslaved "boat people" in the past.

Slavery is one of the few things I actually hate.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:26 AM

Slavery exists in all kinds of varieties. Perhaps the vilest form of alkl was the chattel slavery introduced by the settlers in the Americas, with slaves being seen as subjuman property, and the system backed up by the legal structure, but there are plenty of other forms. Debt slavery is one of the most widespread.

If there really are no songs about people being carried off as slaves by raiders, analogous to the songs about that other form of slavery, the press gang, I'd be very surprised. I'd have thought it'd be a natural for a broadsheet ballad. But I can't think of any.

Subject: RE: Songs for white slaves?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:45 AM

I tried Lord Exmouth, but the only song at the Bodleian is about the Crimean War.

Like McGrath, I would expect songs about the Barbary pirates (Corsairs). I tried American Memory as well but found only tons of government papers about them but no pertinent songs.

Odd, Keith, most postings here have nothing to do with the search for Corsair (Barbary) songs. They apparently missed your reference to Cornwall.

I will search for Decatur later. It may lead to one.

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 05:36 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: 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 - 05:59 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 01:51 PM

"The Algier Slaves Releasment"

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: 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: 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: 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: Gareth
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 06:37 AM

Keith

Zebeck

Gareth

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...