The history of captivity in the early modern Mediterranean has been studied exclusively through
European and Ottoman Turkish sources. But from Aghadir to Alexandretta the language of piety
travel religious disputation and chronicle was Arabic (sometimes written as Garshuni). An
extensive archive has survived in Arabic describing the experiences of Muslims Eastern
Christians and Jews in European captivity. After all from the middle of the seventeenth
century on British and French fleets with their advanced naval capabilities seized large
numbers of captives from the 'other shore' (to cite Braudel) - captives who have been ignored
in scholarship but survive in numerous sculptures from Spain and Germany to Malta and Hungary.
This study continues the research into the Arabic archive by introducing further accounts about
captivity by European pirates and privateers showing how the Mediterranean became the scene of
Christian masters and Arabic-speaking slaves. Not surprising by the nineteenth century a
Moroccan traveler prayed that the Mediterranean become a barrier hajiz against European
depredations.
