“A solid introduction and useful survey of slaving activity by the Muslims of North Africa over the course of several centuries.” —Chronicles Everybody knows about the transatlantic slave trade, which saw black Africans snatched from their homes, taken across the Atlantic Ocean and then sold into slavery. However, a century before Britain became involved in this terrible business, whole villages and towns in England, Ireland, Italy, Spain and other European countries were being depopulated by slavers, who transported the men, women and children to Africa where they were sold to the highest bidder. This is the forgotten slave trade; one which saw over a million Christians forced into captivity in the Muslim world. Starting with the practice of slavery in the ancient world, Simon Webb traces the history of slavery in Europe, showing that the numbers involved were vast and that the victims were often treated far more cruelly than black slaves in America and the Caribbean. Castration, used very occasionally against black slaves taken across the Atlantic, was routinely carried out on an industrial scale on European boys who were exported to Africa and the Middle East. Most people are aware that the English city of Bristol was a major center for the transatlantic slave trade in the eighteenth century, but hardly anyone knows that 1,000 years earlier it had been an important staging-post for the transfer of English slaves to Africa. Reading this book will forever change how you view the slave trade and show that many commonly held beliefs about this controversial subject are almost wholly inaccurate and mistaken.

White Cargo is the forgotten story of the thousands of Britons who lived and died in bondage in Britain's American colonies. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than 300,000 white people were shipped to America as slaves. Urchins were swept up from London's streets to labor in the tobacco fields, where life expectancy was no more than two years. Brothels were raided to provide "breeders" for Virginia. Hopeful migrants were duped into signing as indentured servants, unaware they would become personal property who could be bought, sold, and even gambled away. Transported convicts were paraded for sale like livestock. Drawing on letters crying for help, diaries, and court and government archives, Don Jordan and Michael Walsh demonstrate that the brutalities usually associated with black slavery alone were perpetrated on whites throughout British rule. The trade ended with American independence, but the British still tried to sell convicts in their former colonies, which prompted one of the most audacious plots in Anglo-American history. This is a saga of exploration and cruelty spanning 170 years that has been submerged under the overwhelming memory of black slavery. White Cargo brings the brutal, uncomfortable story to the surface.

This is the forgotten story of the million white Europeans, snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of North Africa to be sold to the highest bidder. Ignored by their own governments, and forced to endure the harshest of conditions, very few lived to tell the tale. Using the firsthand testimony of a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow, Giles Milton vividly reconstructs a disturbing, little known chapter of history. Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco who was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale and grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. As his personal slave, he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of the imperial court, as well as experience the daily terror of a cruel regime. Gripping, immaculately researched, and brilliantly realised, WHITE GOLD reveals an explosive chapter of popular history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.

IntroductionCotton Mather: The Glory of GoodnessJohn D. Foss: A Journal, of the Captivity and Sufferings of John FossJames Leander Cathcart: The Captives, Eleven Years in AlgiersMaria Martin: History of the Captivity and Sufferings of Mrs. Maria MartinJonathan Cowdery: American Captives in TripoliWilliam Ray: Horrors of SlaveryRobert Adams: The Narrative of Robert AdamsEliza Bradley: An Authentic NarrativeIon H. Perdicaris: In Raissuli's HandsAppendix: Publishing History of the American Barbary Captive Narrative Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.