OBAMA-STUDENT OF HISTORY? (Part 3)
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Posted: 08/14/09
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OBAMA-STUDENT OF HISTORY? (Part 3)
William J. Federer
In his speech in Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009, President Barack Obama stated: "As a student of history, I also know...the first nation to recognize my country was Morocco."
The Muslim nation of Morocco was indeed the first nation to recognize the United States, but the President's presentation hints of intentional ambiguity, or "obamaguity."
Pilgrims settled Massachusetts in 1620.
Governor William Bradford recorded in his "History of the Plymouth Settlement" that in 1625 two ships sailed back to England filled with dried fish and beaver skins to trade for supplies:
"They went joyfully...and had such fine weather...till they were well within the England channel...
"But even there she was unhappily taken by a Turkish man-of-war and carried off to Saller (Morocco) where the captain and crew were made slaves...
"Thus all their hopes were dashed and the joyful news they meant to carry home was turned to heavy tidings...
"Adventurers were so reduced by their losses last year, and now by the ship taken by the Turks...that all trade was dead."
Giles Milton, in his book, White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves (UK: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2004), wrote of Muslim corsairs (pirates) who raided England in 1625.
"Muslim pirates from Morocco attacked the English coast of Cornwall, capturing 60 villagers at Mount's Bay and 80 at Looe. Muslims took Lundy Island in Bristol Channel and raised the standard of Islam.
"By the end of 1625, over 1,000 English subjects were sent to the slave markets of Sale, Morocco."
Robert C. Davis' book, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy 1500-1800 (Palgrave Macmillian, 2003, chp. 1, p. 3), gives the record Francis Knight, an Englishman who had been kidnapped and enslaved in Algiers, then made a rowing slave on Algerian galleys for seven years:
"January the 16th day, in the year before nominated (1631); I arrived in Algiers, that Citie fatall to all Christians, and the butchery of mankind...
"My condolation is for the losse of many Christians, taken from their parents and countries, of all sorts and sexes.
"Some in infancy, both by land and by sea, being forced to abuses (most incorrigible flagitions) not onely so, but bereaft of Christian Religion, and means of grace and repentence.
"How many thousands of the Nazarian nations have beene and are continually lost by that monster, what rationall creature can be ignorant of?"
By 1640, hundreds of English ships and over 3,000 British subjects were enslaved in Algiers and 1,500 in Tunis. In three centuries, over a million Europeans were enslaved by Muslim Barbary Pirates.
Giles Milton wrote of Thomas Pellow, born in an English fishing village in 1704.
"At the age of 11, Thomas Pellow was captured by Muslim Barbary Pirates when his uncle's ship was taken.
"Thomas Pellow became property of Sultan Moulay Ismail, and, along with 25,000 other European slaves, was put to work building the Sultan's grand palace in Meknes, nicknamed the "Versailles of Morocco."
An account of Sultan Moulay Ismail, titled A Journey to Mequinez (Meknes), written by John Windus and published in London, 1825, stated:
"His trembling court assemble, which consists of his great officers, the alcaydes, blacks, whites, tawnies and his favourite Jews, all barefooted...
"He is...known by his very looks and motions; and sometimes the colour of the habit that he wears, yellow being observed to be his killing colour; from all of which they calculate whether they may hope to live twenty-four hours longer...
"Sometimes when he goes out of town...he will be attended by fifteen or twenty thousand blacks on horseback, with whom he now and then diverts himself at (by throwing) the lance...
"His travelling utensils are two or three guns, a sword or two, and two lances, because one broke once while he was murdering;
"His boys carry short Brazil sticks, knotted cords for whipping, a change of clothes to shift when bloody, and a hatchet, two of which he took in a Portuguese ship, and the first time they were bought to him, killed a man without any provocation, to try if they were good."
The accounts of Sultan Moulay Ismail include ordering soldiers to push Christian slaves off a high wall they were building because they did not synchronize their hammer strokes. He beat his slaves "in the cruellest manner imaginable, to try if they were hard" and murdered some for "hiding pieces of bread."
Sultan Moulay Ismail had some 500 wives, mostly captured European women, who reportedly bore him a record 1,042 children.
Witnessing tortures, beheadings and forced conversions to Islam, Thomas Pellow escaped after 23 years. A distant relative, Sir Edward Pellew, led the British fleet to bombard Algiers in 1816, freeing thousands of slaves.
President Obama was correct in his Cairo speech: "As a student of history, I also know...the first nation to recognize my country was Morocco," yet he presents his information with some "obamaguity."
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William J. Federer is author of the best-selling book, What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur'an-A History of Islam & the United States.
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