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"Insults Unpunished": Barbary Captives, American Slaves, and the Negotiation of Liberty

2003; University of Pennsylvania Press; Volume: 1; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/eam.2007.0061

1559-0895

Martha Elena Rojas,

Colonialism, slavery, and trade

"Insults Unpunished"Barbary Captives, American Slaves, and the Negotiation of Liberty Martha Elena Rojas In 1785, news of the Algerian seizures of U.S. ships and sailors made its way to the American ministers in Europe and to the United States. The captures triggered a flurry of diplomatic activity, an investigation into how other European countries responded to the detention of ships and enslavement of men, and calculations of the value of trade in the Mediterranean. Episodes of Barbary piracy in which crews and passengers of merchant ships were enslaved and held for ransom influenced the way Americans thought about the North African world and Muslim culture. Because of their popularity and their affective power, accounts of Barbary captivity were vital to the development of U.S. diplomatic practice and foreign policy. Early in 1791, George Washington had determined to be more aggressive in his efforts to conclude a peace with Algiers and the other Barbary States, and to effect the ransom of the U.S. captives.1 By 1794, the news of further Algerian captures the previous year had made its way back to the United States. The public, particularly people living in large coastal towns and cities, organized relief societies and petitioned the federal government to act more [End Page 159] quickly and effectively.2 An outraged public donated hundreds of dollars to send provisions and to contribute to the necessary ransoms. Balls and banquets were thrown to raise money. Plays were performed as benefits, including a production at the New Theatre in Philadelphia starring Susanna Rowson just a few months before the performance of her own Slaves in Algiers (1794).3 To meet the demand for information, Mathew Carey published A Short Account of Algiers (1794), which denounced Britain for "plunging our fellow-citizens into slavery." Letters from captives began to be printed in newspapers and read out loud at Republican society meetings. Letters from readers on the subject also appeared in the press.4 One asked President Washington [End Page 160] to "issue a proclamation for a general contribution for their Relief."5 The public pressure asserted by these efforts kept the issue before the Congress and before the nation until the captives were finally released in 1796. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. James Leander Cathcart. This portrait of Cathcart was reproduced in The Captives: Eleven Years a Prisoner in Algiers, compiled by his descendent J. B. Newkirk (La Porte, Ind.: Herald Print, 1899). Courtesy of the La Porte County Historical Society. In this essay, I offer an account of how U.S. diplomacy was practiced in Algiers in the late eighteenth century through the lens of the captivity of James Leander Cathcart. An American sailor taken captive by Algerian privateers, Cathcart recorded his experiences in a personal diary and in a voluminous correspondence with U.S. diplomats and politicians. I argue that James Leander Cathcart's journal and letter-book exemplify how concepts of honor, masculinity, and patriotism commingled with appeals to sympathy for male victims of foreign aggression in order to fashion a discourse of nationhood that could simultaneously sustain tropes of beleaguered and avenging manhood. Furthermore, Cathcart's writing poignantly illustrates how the political issues of diplomacy converge with the personal challenges of being diplomatic. James Leander Cathcart was captured in July 1785, and by 1793 he had [End Page 161] risen to the highest position open to a Christian slave in Algerian society, Christian secretary to the Algerian dey.6 Relatively comfortable and prestigious, Cathcart's position was unique among the American captives, but like them he felt mortified by his status as a slave, abandoned by the U.S. government, and forgotten by its people. Languishing for years in captivity, subject to the whims of the dey, he was among several of the American captives in Algiers who wrote home about their situation in a language they hoped would move their readers and, in turn, their government to intervene on their behalf. In the context of broader eighteenth-century cultural preoccupations with honor, sympathy, and stoicism, Cathcart's account of his experiences underscore the importance of personal comportment for the establishment of "friendship" between nations. Cathcart survived...