White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves: The Forgotten Story of North Africa's One Million European Slaves - Softcover

Milton, Giles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340895098 ISBN 13: 9780340895092

Publisher: Sceptre, 2005

Synopsis

In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and fifty-two of his comrades were captured at sea by the Barbary corsairs. Their captors - fanatical Islamic slave traders - had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Thousands of Europeans had been snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Salé in Morocco to be sold to the highest bidder.

Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco, who bragged that his white slaves enabled him to hold all of Europe to ransom. The sultan was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale and grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. Thomas Pellow was selected to be a personal slave of the sultan, and he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of the imperial Moroccan court, as well as experience daily terror. For twenty-three years, he would dream of his home, his family and freedom. He was one of the fortunate few who survived to tell his tale.

WHITE GOLD is an extraordinary and shocking story. Drawn from unpublished letters and manuscripts written by slaves, and by the padres and ambassadors sent to free them, it reveals a disturbing and forgotten chapter of history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.

About this title

About the Author

Giles Milton is a writer and journalist. He has contributed articles for most of the British national newspapers as well as many foreign publications and specialises in the history of travel and exploration. In the course of his researches, he has travelled extensively in Europe and the Middle East.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sceptre
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0340895098
• ISBN 13: 9780340895092
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336