When you think of the slave trade I am sure you picture black Africans torn from their homes and cruelly treated in America, or maybe the Israelites in Ancient Egypt, but I don’t expect you picture the millions of white Europeans sold in the slave markets of North Africa in the 17th century. This is their story, action packed, extraordinary reading, gleaned from original diaries, journals and letters. I was surprised to discover the Moroccans invading the south coast of England in 1625 and the fact that it wasn’t until 1816 that the British fleet attacked Algiers.
Giles Milton's White Gold tells the true story of white European slaves in eighteenth century Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco."An elegantly discursive retelling . . . customarily elegant prose." --Simon Winchester, The Boston Globe In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and fifty-one of his comrades were captured at sea by Barbary corsairs. Their captors--Ali Hakem and his network of Islamic slave traders--had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Pellow and his shipmates were bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco. Drawn from the unpublished letters and manuscripts of Pellow and survivors like him, Giles Milton's White Gold is a fascinating glimpse at a time long forgotten by history.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
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Their captors--Ali Hakem and his network of Islamic slave traders--had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Pellow and his shipmates were bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco.
White Gold features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, eBooks of the Month, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Recommendations
Paperback. Not Available.
White Gold was written by Giles Milton and published by Picador USA
White Gold has 352 pages
