EARLY MODERN
HISTORY
Muslim Slaves on Christian Ships
Christians enslaved Muslims and Africans from both north and Subsaharan Africa in the Mediterranean for over 200 years, forcing them to row on galleys. Inventories describing the bodies of galley slaves in Florence and Rome from 1555 through 1750 reveal how slaves were treated and punished. Digitally analyzing these inventories and examining cartographic representations of slaving ports has enabled us to reconstruct the experience of a population which left few records.
In a related project, I used slave rosters and Arc-GIS to map the origins and itineraries of galley slaves to show how Mediterranean and Atlantic slave circuits intersected and overlapped.
For additional essays on how chained Muslims walked the streets of papal Rome and on where Florence obtained slaves to staff its galley crews, click below.
Stefano Della Bella depicted harbor scenes and the men who kept them running in 1657, but beyond this, there are few representations of galley slaves. Click here for an essay using slave bodies and maps to reconstruct slave experience.
Slavers kept careful track of the bodies and ethnicities of those whom they enslaved, allowing us insight into their lives. For a transcription of more slave records from 1565, click here.
This statue by Pietro Tacca at Livorno is one of the few representations acknowledging that black Africans were among those enslaved in the Mediterranean. For an essay showing how early modern slaving circuits intersected, click here.
Spain, France, and Italy condemned Christian criminals to row for the galleys for years at a time. These records from 1656 show Spanish men being sent to row for six and ten years. For how Cosimo de'Medici found slaves to row his galleys, click here.
Muslim slaves were housed in a prison beside the port called a 'Bagno' where they engaged in activities such as baking, woodworking, and shoemaking. For the argument that these activities were economically productive, click here.
Using Arc-GIS, I plotted slave origins and battle sites in the greater Mediterranean. As Arc-GIS is proprietary, these aren't shown here. For a discussion of galley logistics, click here.