Abolitionism and the Persistence of

Slavery in Italian States, 1750–1850

Giulia Bonazza
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S T U D I E S
A M E R I C A N

ABOLITIONISM AND
I T A L I A N

THE PERSISTENCE OF
SLAVERY IN ITALIAN
A N D

STATES, 17501850
I T A L I A N

giulia bonazza
Italian and Italian American Studies

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Editorial Board
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More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14835
 Giulia Bonazza

Abolitionism and the

Persistence of Slavery
in Italian States,
1750–1850
Giulia Bonazza
German Historical Institute
Rome, Italy

Italian and Italian American Studies

ISBN 978-3-030-01348-6 ISBN 978-3-030-01349-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01349-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018959732

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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A Giulio
 Foreword

Giulia Bonazza’s Abolitionism and the Persistence of Slavery in Italian

States (1750–1850) offers a radically new perspective on slavery in Italian
states. It represents a significant departure from the established histori-
ography, the majority of which deals with early modern slavery and looks
on Atlantic and Mediterranean slavery as distinct subjects. The studies
on Mediterranean slavery tend to concentrate on either the quantitative
aspects of the slave trade or official registers of cases of captivity in the
specific context of traditional Christian and Muslim societies and econo-
mies. Bonazza revisits these classic themes, but within a new chronology:
1750–1850. She demonstrates that the abolitionist discourse opposing
the Atlantic trade was irreconcilable with the persistence of forms of
slavery in Italian states and that the Mediterranean was not just a foot-
note to the dynamics at play in the Atlantic. At the same time, the form
and function of Mediterranean and Atlantic slavery were markedly dif-
ferent. In effect, the depiction of the status of slaves in Italian states is
part of a long history of representations of working unfree relationships
as well as of social, economic and hierarchical frameworks. The persis-
tence of the phenomenon of slavery for so long after the abolition of the
Atlantic trade indicates the willingness of the Papal States and political
élites to maintain the status quo for the sake of social peace and stabil-
ity. Their priority was not to disturb the established order. Bonazza also
explains how, despite the presence of the abolitionist movement in the
Italian area, together with the introduction of abolitionist laws in certain
regions, the phenomenon of slavery still persisted in certain cases.

vii
viii    Foreword

Bonazza’s remarkable treatment of terminology (slaves, captives,

serfs) and her elucidation of the power of words in pre-unitarian Italy
highlight the variety of routes into slavery—war, raid, trade, debt—but
also the multitude of possible exits. Ethnic origin could be an aggra-
vating factor but it was not necessarily a determining factor. Skin col-
our was associated with certain degrading activities but it was rarely the
only reason an individual was enslaved or continued to be held in slavery.
Only a minority of the slaves in the Italian states in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries were black but racial tensions were clearly present.
Bonazza’s interpretation of the permanence of representations but also
the taxonomy of sources relating to “blacks” leads her to reconceptualise
the traditional break between colonial slavery and metropolitan slavery,
and between slave societies and societies with slaves. Political societies
in Italian cities did not offer equality of opportunity and mobility to all
inhabitants. Slaves were “racialised” and treated differently to freeborn
whites. Bonazza’s reconstruction of the life trajectories of slaves allows
us to rethink the way in which the abolitionist discourse in Southern
Europe has been portrayed. In terms of the atmosphere in Southern
European cities and in the abolitionist campaign generally during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the relative invisibility of slaves (as
well as of rebellions and territorial segregation) in public spaces, along
with their increasing assimilation, encouraged among jurists, philos-
ophers and wider supporters the erroneous sentiment that in Europe
slavery was only a late manifestation of serfdom or even just a particu-
lar form of domestic serfdom. Bonazza debates this notion of “gentle”
slavery. The forms of violence and of civil exclusion attached to differ-
ent forms of slavery did not always run through the colour line and also
involved other criteria: geographical, religious and ethnic.
What became of the descendants of slaves in Italy? What is the role of
memory of slavery in Italy? To these vast questions, with which special-
ists have been preoccupied for two decades, we find the first answers for
the Italian context in Abolitionism and the Persistence of Slavery in Italian
States (1750–1850). For Giulia Bonazza, the problem of the scarcity
of memory of slaves must be understood in the context of the absence
of a formal Italian states’ colonial empire in the Early Modern period.
Public memory of slavery revolves around the Italian colonial empire
that came into being in the late nineteenth century. Little attention is
paid to slavery and slaves in Italian cities before that point. The study
of slavery cannot be separated from other forms of serfdom, of violence
 Foreword    ix

and of domination exercised in everyday life between women and men

who share the same spaces and social practices. Recovering the mem-
ory of slavery requires thinking about its history in full, rather than just
dwelling on colonial slavery. Bonazza’s book is an important step in that
direction.

Nantes, France Antonio De Almeida Mendes

Université de Nantes
 Preface

This book explores the manifold contradictions involved in the persistence

of slavery in Italy during the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic period
despite the introduction of legislation abolishing slavery in most of the
Italian states and an ongoing campaign to abolish colonial slavery. The
analysis is double-edged: an empirical archival investigation documenting
the persistence of slavery in six major Italian cities is complemented by a
review of abolitionist laws and the abolitionist intellectual debate. Thus,
Abolitionism and the Persistence of Slavery in Italian States (1750–1850)
is innovative in two ways. Firstly, it documents cases of slavery in various
Italian cities even after the Napoleonic period, meaning after the point
by which the legal abolition of slavery had occurred across most of Italy.
This finding breaks new ground by demonstrating the persistence of slav-
ery and captivity in this area beyond the chronological limits set by the
existing historiography. Secondly, it presents a critical reassessment of the
transnational abolitionist debate by developing a new understanding of
the important role played by Italian intellectuals in philosophical medita-
tions on colonial slavery and the slave trade, and associated developments
in the Italian public sphere. After the Napoleonic period, the Italian states
(with the exception of the Pontifical States) adopted constitutions mod-
elled on the French constitution, which contained anti-slavery articles;
after the Congress of Vienna, the Italian states, France and Great Britain,
intensified diplomatic efforts regarding the external abolition of the slave
trade. The temporal span chosen (1750–1850) makes it possible to iden-
tify and analyse differences and continuities in attitudes towards slavery

xi
xii    Preface

and slavery practices in the wake of these two important juridical and
political watersheds.
This volume presents and discusses cases of slavery uncovered in six
Italian cities—Naples, Caserta, Rome, Palermo, Livorno and Genoa—
during the period in question. These cities have been chosen because
they are situated on the west coast of the Italian Peninsula and—with the
exception of Caserta and Rome—were the sites of significant ports. Their
location meant that they were closely connected to the Atlantic and
North Africa. While the limited number of cases encountered suggests
that, in quantitative terms, slavery may be viewed as a “residual phenom-
enon” during the period under review, the life stories of the individuals
concerned and the forms of slavery practised in these various urban con-
texts were not unlike those typical of the Italian Peninsula in previous
centuries: points of continuity included captivity, the role of privateering,
the link between slavery and serfdom and, finally, baptism as a route to
freedom.
This work also contributes to the study of historical geography and
international politics by investigating the extent to which transna-
tional abolitionism, directed against the practice of colonial slavery by
European powers, brought about a true and immediate suppression of
various forms of slavery in the pre-unitarian Italian states; it also docu-
ments how slavery related to other forms of bondage and forced labour.
The book demonstrates that, despite the grand abolitionist principles
espoused, forms of slavery survived on the Italian Peninsula. It also
classifies the legislative acts abolishing slavery in Italian states, framing
them in the light of international legal norms concerning the abolition
of the various slave trade routes. A final and fundamental contribu-
tion of Abolitionism and the Persistence of Slavery is that it sheds light
on the connections between the Mediterranean and Atlantic slave trades
and confirms that captivity and slavery existed in both arenas. In con-
junction with its innovative chronology, which resets the traditional his-
toriographical clock, and original methodology, which treats of both
slavery and the abolitionist debate and legal abolitionism, this means that
Abolitionism and the Persistence of Slavery will add another layer to our
knowledge and understanding of slavery studies, the history of Italy and
contemporary studies of the Mediterranean.
The book is divided into four chapters. After reviewing the current
historiography on the topic and addressing the problem of the definition
of the term “slave” (Chapter 1), Chapters 2 and 3 branch out into the
 Preface    xiii

two main thematic lenses through which the slavery issue is examined.
Chapter 2 examines the abolitionist debate in the Italian states and dis-
cusses its connections with transnational abolitionism; Chapter 3 focusses
on cases of slavery in the Italian states (1750–1850) discovered during
archival research in Naples, Caserta, Rome, Palermo, Livorno and Genoa.
Chapter 4 considers the memory of slavery and related issues of cultural
heritage—in Italy in particular and in Europe as a whole. Chapter 5 pre-
sents conclusions on abolitionism and the continuity of slavery.
Chapter 1, Historiographical Perspectives, opens by problematis-
ing the absence of a historical memory of slavery in the Italian context.
It then provides an overview of the most important publications on
Mediterranean, Atlantic and African slavery before looking at studies on
slavery in various parts of Italy from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries.
The chapter discusses the recent historiographical shift from a focus on
the history of slavery in a wider sense to a focus on the history of indi-
vidual slaves, highlighting the importance of life stories and trajectories
and the interconnection between the local and the global. I address the
problem of the definition of different forms of bondage, distinguishing
between slaves, captives and servants. I trace the history of the seman-
tic uses of the vocabulary of slavery in Europe. I discuss both levels of
taxonomy: the categorisation used in recent historiography and how the
terms were used during the period under examination. My own use of
the words “slave”, “captives” and “servants” reflects contemporary his-
toriographical perspectives: in particular, I use Michel Fontenay’s defini-
tion of the difference between a “slave” and a “captive”. In Fontenay’s
view, a slave is a person purchased on the basis of his or her value as
part of the workforce and not on the basis of his or her exchange value,
in contrast to captives, in which case it is precisely the price of the
exchange/ransom which is relevant (Fontenay, Esclaves et/ou captifs.
Préciser les concepts, 16). I simultaneously examine the terminology used
at the time, through an analysis (in Chapter 3) of the categories used in
primary sources, for instance “slave”, “black”, “moor”. I further address
the methodological question of whether possessing a given legal status
is enough to define a “slave”. The chapter ends with a brief contextual-
isation of the six pre-unitarian Italian states in which the six case studies
were conducted, focusing on the 1750–1850 period.
Chapter 2, The Reverberations of the Abolitionist Debate in the Italian
States, is concerned with international treaties and agreements related to
the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery and with juridical abolitions
xiv    Preface

of internal slavery in the pre-unitarian Italian states. Both types of aboli-

tions were often imposed by the two main external powers: France and
Great Britain. Different geographical areas were subjected to different
diplomatic influences. For instance, the Papal States were not originally
an abolitionist power because they were allied with Spain and France
against Great Britain; later, when the Anglo-American abolitionist move-
ment became dominant, the Papal States adopted the abolitionist cause
in support of Great Britain and assumed the role of sponsor of aboli-
tionism in Europe. I highlight the contradiction between condemnation
of the Atlantic slave trade and, tangentially, of Mediterranean slavery
and the persistence of slavery in most of the Italian states, in particular
in the Papal States. Pope Gregory XVI promulgated the apostolic letter
In supremo apostolatus, and the Holy See was also involved in the little
known Italian abolitionist campaign. I also analyse the abolitionist debate
in the wider Italian context, discussing the abolitionist argument against
the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as it was presented in Italian news-
papers, annals and books; particular attention is dedicated to an analysis
of articles from the Florentine newspaper Antologia, directed by Giovan
Pietro Vieusseux.
Methodologically, in Chapter 2 I use official juridical sources and dip-
lomatic sources exclusively. As regards the attitude of the Papal States
to the abolitionist debate, I analyse newspaper accounts and, to a more
limited extent, diplomatic records, especially documents concerning
Consalvi’s mission at the Congress of Vienna. In respect of the aboli-
tionist debate in the Italian states, I examine nineteenth-century newspa-
pers and books, principally Civiltà Cattolica, l’Antologia, L’ape italiana,
Giovanni Ferri’s Nuovo giornale dei letterati, Lo spettatore italiano:
preceduto da un saggio critico sopra i filosofi morali e i dipintori de’ costumi
e de’ caratteri (1755–1830) and Andrea Zambelli’s essay (memoria) Sulla
schiavitù de’negri. In particular, my analysis of the Florentine newspaper
Antologia reveals direct links with the written work of the French aboli-
tionist society, Société de la Morale Chrétienne, and translations and cri-
tiques of philosophical works, such as Raynal’s Histoire des Deux Indes.
This provides concrete evidence of the participation of Italian abolition-
ists in European networks involving both newspapers and intellectuals.
It also highlights the fact that Italian abolitionist thinkers of the period
were mainly intellectuals. Enslavement practices in Italian territory, I
conclude, persisted in spite of the abolitionist movement: they were not
invisible, but they were ignored.
 Preface    xv

Chapter 3, Forms of Slavery in the Italian States, documents the exist-

ence of cases of slavery and captivity in the cities of Naples, Caserta,
Rome, Palermo, Livorno and Genoa until well into the first half of the
nineteenth century. The number of slaves, their living conditions and
religious problems are considered. I highlight how the rite of baptism
can be seen as an expression of the link between slavery and religious
issues in the Italian area. Religious conversion represented an attempt
on the part of mainstream society to integrate these individuals, but it
was also an attempt to persuade or coerce them by confronting them
with the dilemma of deciding between maintaining their “otherness”
(and thus visibility) on the one hand and assimilation on the other.
Significantly, in the cities examined, conversion did not immediately
guarantee legal freedom: it was, however, a way of improving one’s sta-
tus and a step towards eventually obtaining legal freedom. The change of
name involved in baptism led to the creation of a new identity, a process
that demonstrates how interactions between master, state and captives
or slaves could be free or unfree. For example, masters, noble families
and even cardinals gave their own family name to the slave during the
baptismal celebration. Chapter 3 also demonstrates why examining the
trajectories of slaves’ lives is very important, as it allows us to understand
not just the flows of people to the South of Europe from North Africa,
but from different areas bordering on the Mediterranean and from the
Atlantic.
Chapter 4, The Memory of Slavery, focusses on the memory of slavery
and on the analysis of memory spaces in the Italian area. The empha-
sis is on architectural and artistic elements that provide additional con-
firmation of the existence of slavery in the Italian states. The chapter
highlights the long-standing absence of a public memory of slavery in
the Euro-Mediterranean world, while documenting a progressive change
in the perception of the cultural heritage of the memory of slavery even
in the Mediterranean. Finally, I also focus on the problems of taxonomy
and race, and patrimony and the memory of slavery.
Obviously, Mediterranean slavery as a whole differed greatly from
Atlantic slavery in terms of numbers and typological composition.
For example, there was no plantation or chattel slavery tout court.
But this does not mean that a different set of forms of slavery in the
Mediterranean justifies categorisation of Mediterranean slavery as distinct
from others. In reality, the circulation of slaves and captives demonstrates
that all trades were closely intertwined.
xvi    Preface

Taken together, these chapters, particularly Chapter 5 on Abolitionism

and the Continuity of Slavery, will conclusively demonstrate that the
international abolitionist campaign of the colonial powers against the
slave trade and slavery did not lead to the immediate and complete sup-
pression of forms of slavery, captivity and forced labour in the Italian
states. Despite their espousal of abolitionist principles, certain forms of
slavery survived in some Italian states well into the nineteenth century,
and the legal abolitions of slavery in these states were mostly imposed
from outside, rather than resulting from internal legal debate.

Rome, Italy Giulia Bonazza

 Acknowledgements

This book is the result of 4 years of Ph.D. research and of many

stimulating discussions with my professors, colleagues and friends. It
­
would not have been possible without their support so now it is a pleas-
ure to finally acknowledge them. I wish to thank my supervisors Myriam
Cottias and Rolf Petri for their fundamental guidance during this cru-
cial formative period and for their great kindness and humanity. A major
acknowledgement is due also to Professor Francesca Sofia for follow-
ing my research with passion from many years. I owe many other debts
of gratitude, including Professor Salvatore Bono, whose publications
were the starting point for this research and whose advice on sources
and the development of the work was invaluable. I am greatly appre-
ciative of the suggestions offered by Professors Giovanna Fiume, Luca
Lo Basso, Wolfgang Kaiser, Rebekka von Mallinckrodt, Antonio De
Almeida Mendes, Lucy Riall, Silvia Sebastiani and Giuliana Boccadamo.
For methodological and bibliographical insights, I thank my colleagues
Cecilia Tarruell, Alessandro Tuccillo, Andrea Zappia, Bruno Pomara,
Michele Bosco, Cesare Santus, Alessandro Capone, Emiliano Beri,
José Miguel Escribano. The year I spent at the Centre International
de Recherches dur les Esclavages (CIRESC) in Paris and my last year as
Max Weber fellow at the European University Institute were enrich-
ing experiences, and I was lucky to work with exceptional colleagues in
both settings, in particular Céline Flory and Laurie Anderson. The feed-
back offered by the Max Weber Programme historians’ working group
was fundamental to writing this book. I would like also to give a special

xvii
xviii    Acknowledgements

acknowledgement to Audrey Millet. Among the archivists and librarians

who helped me, Paolo Arduino, Loredana Gazzara, Fausto De Mattia
and Gaetano Damiano were especially kind. I am also grateful for the
support of Megan Laddusaw, Commissioning Editor, and Christine
Pardue, Editorial Assistant, History, at Palgrave Macmillan.
To conclude, I offer my heartfelt thanks to my mother Giovanna, to
my father Angelo and to my sister Sara. Much of the credit for the book
that follows is rightly theirs.
 Contents

1 Introduction: Historiographical Perspectives 1

2 The Reverberations of the Abolitionist Debate

in the Italian States 45

3 Forms of Slavery in the Italian States 103

4 The Memory of Slavery 167

5 Conclusion: Abolitionism and the Continuity of Slavery 211

Index 219

xix
 Abbreviation of Archives and Libraries

ADF Archives Diplomatiques français

APF Archivio Storico di Propaganda Fide
APMM Archivio del Pio Monte della Misericordia di Napoli
ARC Archivio della Reggia di Caserta
ASDN Archivio Diocesano di Napoli
ASG Archivio di Stato di Genova
ASL Archivio di Stato di Livorno
ASP Archivio di Stato di Palermo
ASR Archivio di Stato di Roma
ASRg Archivio di Stato di Roma (sede di Galla Placidia)
ASV Archivio Segreto Vaticano
ASVR Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma
BN Bibliothèque Nationale de France
MAE Biblioteca del Ministero degli Affari Esteri—Farnesina

xxi
 List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Categories of baptisms made by Don Biase Gambaro in Naples

between 1783 and 1845 (Source: Book of Baptisms of Slaves
christened by Rev Parish Priest Biase D. Gambaro, Archivio
Storico Diocesano di Napoli, Cattedrale, 44) 108
Fig. 3.2 Relationship between the number of slaves working on the
construction of the Palace of Caserta and total inhabitants
(Source R. Del Prete and N. Jaulain, Schiavi a Caserta.
Le vite, i lavori, il contributo della schiera di lavoratori
musulmani [Roma: Lunaria, 1999], 17–18) 113
Fig. 3.3 Map of the Old Bagno, 1798, A (Source ASL, Governo
Civile e Militare di Livorno (1764–1860), no. 895) 136
Fig. 3.4 Map of the Old Bagno, 1798, B (Source ASL, Governo
Civile e Militare di Livorno (1764–1860), no. 895) 137
Fig. 3.5 “L’imbarco dei galeotti nel porto di Genova” di Alessandro
Magnasco (1740) circa (Source Musée des Beaux-Arts de
Bordeaux) 144
Fig. 4.1 Monumento a Ferdinando I de Medici named of the “Four
Moors” (Source Gastone Razzaguta, Livorno Nostra.
Nascita, Progesso e Grandezza di Livorno, cui fa seguito il
racconto della sua distruzione e la nostalgia di questa città ed
il suo destino, Tirrenia-Belforte, 1948. Photo courtesy of
Andrea Dani Photography) 188
Fig. 4.2 Pietro Gagliardi, Adorazione dei magi (1847) (Source Chiesa
di San Girolamo dei Croati. Photo courtesy of Bruno Brunelli) 193

xxiii
xxiv    List of Figures

Fig. 4.3 Il ritratto del conte Giuseppe Lechi con attendente by

Giambattista Gigola (around 1801) (Source Private collection,
photograph © Fotostudio Rapuzzi Brescia) 195
Fig. 4.4 Il ritratto del conte Giuseppe Manara con servitore
by Giovanni Carnovali detto il Piccio (1842)
(Source C. Caversazzi, Giovanni Carnovali detto il Piccio,
Bergamo, Istituto italiano d’arti grafiche, 1933, tav. XXX) 197
Fig. 4.5 Il ballo dell’ape nell’harem by Vincenzo Marinelli (1862)
(Source Napoli, Ministero per i beni e le attività
culturali—Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, photograph
© archivio dell’arte | pedicini fotografi) 198
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Slaves registered in the Chivitavecchia dock on 5 February

1803 122
Table 3.2 Captives who arrived in Palermo in 1808 131
Table 3.3 List of the 12 slaves in the Bagno of Livorno in 1790 138
Table 3.4 Number of slaves on Galleys Santa Maria, Raggia,
Capitana and San Giorgio 142

xxv
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction:
Historiographical Perspectives

1.1  Recovered Memory
The historical practice of slavery has long been forgotten in the Western,
Arab and Ottoman worlds, and the role of the memory of slavery has
likewise been overlooked. However, a slew of publications on the
Atlantic and other slave trades has prompted Turkish, Moroccan,
Algerian, American and European historians into efforts to reconstruct
this memory. In France, for example, historiographical interest in the
problem of slavery was renewed by the 150th anniversary of the abo-
lition of slavery in 1998. The associated events highlighted the con-
flict between the oubli de l’histoire de l’esclavage and the oubli du passé.1
More recently again, scholars have turned their attention to the aboli-
tionist movements in France and England,2 although Anglo-Saxon his-
toriography did pay attention to abolitionism in the 1980s, led by Robin
Blackburn.3 In Italy, Salvatore Bono, a pioneer in the study of slavery in
the Italian area, writes about the silence of historiography.4 In the same
vein, Grabriele Turi, in his recent Schiavi in un mondo libero, refers to
Oblivion and memories.5 Y. Hakan Erdem highlights the near-total
collective amnesia about Ottoman slavery,6 and Chouki El-Hamel empha-
sises the culture of silence around the history of race and slavery in
Morocco which meant that black Moroccans were either outsiders in
their own communities or completely absorbed by them.7 The problem
of memory is directly linked to the question of how the past is repre-
sented. Every social group makes decisions on what it wishes to be

© The Author(s) 2019 1

G. Bonazza, Abolitionism and the Persistence of Slavery in Italian
States, 1750–1850, Italian and Italian American Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01349-3_1
2 G. BONAZZA

remembered, and it produces, institutionalises and preserves what is to

become memory and handed down to posterity. Therefore, memory
is the result of a process of selection and it can go beyond the sources
available to the historian.8 But the memory of slavery, previously lost or
ignored, is progressively re-emerging.

1.2  Between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean

Research on Atlantic and Mediterranean slavery has started to appear
more frequently over the last several years. This scholarship has
demonstrated that the variety of trades and forms of slavery shared
common traits: power relationships, the seas, the movement of men
and the agency of the slaves themselves were all central dynamics.9 The
renewed historical interest in Mediterranean slavery was an offshoot
of research on the Atlantic trade, and the two cannot be fully under-
stood if viewed as wholly distinct.10 While my research focuses on
Mediterranean slavery, some of the slaves I study were products of the
Atlantic trade, reinforcing the interconnectedness of the two dimen-
sions.11 An essential starting point is an overview of the key publica-
tions on slavery and captivity in the Italian area and in other European
and extra-European countries from the fifteenth to the nineteenth
centuries.12
Within the last decade, Anglo-Saxon scholars have worked exten-
sively on the economics of the Atlantic trade, especially the British
trade, among them Seymour Drescher,13 Zoë Laidlaw14 and David
Beck Ryden.15 More general reviews of the Atlantic trade include
David Eltis and David Richardson’s Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave
Trade16 and The Atlantic Slave Trade by Herbert S. Klein.17 Robin
Blackburn’s The Making of New World Slavery is fundamental because
of the global and long-term perspective it takes.18 Blackburn’s analy-
sis encompasses the interconnections between the conceptualisation
of modernity and slavery, and from there to the links with imperial-
ism, the Great War and the emergence of totalitarianism. His quanti-
tative methodology links microhistory and macrohistory, such as in
his reflections on capital accumulation and chattel slavery. Blackburn
demonstrates that the Atlantic trade was not simply an affair between
nation states (including the African Kingdoms), as previously assumed
by the Marxist historian Eric Williams,19 but the result of collaboration
between individuals:
 1 INTRODUCTION: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVES 3

These relationship had emerged in “civil society”, as expression of

“private” relations and coercions relatively free of direct sponsorship by
the formal political structure of the state…Slavery, personal lordship and
contracted labor […]. The colonial state, at various times and in different
degrees, legally sanctioned, encouraged, end even purported to regulate
such relationship.20

Blackburn’s interpretation of the role of states in the Atlantic trade is

interesting because he identifies them as performing a role similar to that
played by intermediaries in Mediterranean slavery, while the most impor-
tant functions in the Atlantic trade are left to individuals and religious
brotherhoods. He considers the process of colonialism beginning with
early Portuguese and Spanish expansion, the growth of the sugar trade
in Brazil, the war of the Dutch West India Company for Brazil and the
origin of the British and French empires. He concludes by reflecting on
racism and on abolitionist thought.
American scholars have also become increasingly interested in the prob-
lem of slavery and captivity in the Mediterranean, foremost among them
Robert C. Davis21 and Gillian Weiss.22 While Davis limits himself geo-
graphically to the Mediterranean, his openness to the role of the Islamic
world therein is refreshing (including raids by the Barbary States for men
from Mediterranean coasts). The basis of his approach is that slavery was
not a prerogative of Europeans only but also of the Arab world. As sug-
gested by his title, his approach is to counterpoise the Christian and the
Muslim worlds. His focus is on the Italian peninsula, and despite a slightly
fragmented archival investigation, his book represents an important addi-
tion to the historiography because it extends the chronology to 1800 and
takes in Christian slavery in the Barbary States.23
Maintaining our gaze on the Mediterranean, Colin Heywood,
together with Maria Fusaro and Mohamed-Salah Omri, recently edited
a collection of articles in the volume Trade and cultural exchange in
the early modern Mediterranean.24 Anglo-Saxon historiography of
Mediterranean slavery featured historians such as Godfrey Fisher in the
last century and Linda Colley since the turn of the century.25 Fisher,
in the late 1950s, rehabilitated the political role of the Barbary States
in the Early Modern period, demonstrating that they were not simply
states devoted to piracy, but states with strong political structures and
negotiating power. He charted the political and economic relation-
ships between the Barbary States and England until 1712,26 and in an
4 G. BONAZZA

appendix (Mediterranean Passes) provided partial information on these

relationships up to 1830, the year of the French conquest of Algiers.27
Algerian historian Yacine Daddi-Addoun completed his Ph.D. on
the problem of captivity and the abolition of slavery in Algeria. Addoun
argues that European historians have neglected or only superficially
considered the subject of Christian captivity in Algeria. The work that
has been carried out, suggests Addoun, is flawed because it relies on
sources or memories originating from religious congregations and
tending to stereotype the Muslim as exotic or demonic. Therefore, they
do not facilitate an objective evaluation of the phenomenon.28 Actually,
Addoun’s criticism is only partially accurate, given that European histo-
rians have recently concentrated on the relativism of identities more so
than the manifestation of Christian–Muslim divisions in the processes
of slavery. A clear attempt is being made to illustrate the complexity
and non-uniformity of Mediterranean slavery across religious and state
boundaries. This is most productively implemented by reconstructing
and charting the personal biographies of individual slaves because it is
not possible to generalise with sufficient accuracy on the religious char-
acteristics of Mediterranean slavery or the pattern of state involvement.29
European historians are inclined to speak rather of proximate, recipro-
cal, provisional and reiterated slavery. Proximity and reciprocity relate to
Christian–Muslim dynamics. Captivity could be provisional when ran-
soms and prisoner exchanges were factors. And the fact that some slaves
were repeatedly traded must also be taken into account.30
An important contribution on the trans-Saharan slave trade and abo-
litionism in Tunisia is the book The Abolition of Slavery in Ottoman
Tunisia by Isamel M. Montana, which identifies important parallels
between the Atlantic and Saharan slave trades. Montana successfully
demonstrates that Tunisian abolitionism in the first half of the nineteenth
century had its roots in the Islamic legal tradition and was not just a
response to developments in Great Britain.31 Concerning the Ottoman
Empire, Ehud R. Toledano magisterial first book, The Ottoman Slave
Trade and Its Suppression: 1840–1890, appeared in the 1980s. Toledano’s
work remains crucial to our understanding of the different forms of slav-
ery (including military slavery and domestic service), the living condition
of slaves and the complexity of the taxonomy of slavery in the Ottoman
world. It also sheds much light on British foreign policy in the East and
the forces promoting the abolition of the slave trade in the Ottoman
Empire.32
 1 INTRODUCTION: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVES 5

Continental European academia’s growing interest in Mediterranean

slavery—long restricted to the Medieval period despite its prevalence
throughout the Early Modern period—features Maximiliano Barrio
Gozalo, Alessandro Stella, Jocelyne Dakhlia and Wolfgang Kaiser, and
for the Italian area in particular, Salvatore Bono, Giovanna Fiume and
Luca Lo Basso. Gozalo, while concentrating on the Iberian Peninsula,
also takes into account the related dynamics of Muslim slavery in other
Christian countries, especially in Spain, France, Italy and Malta. The
Spanish historian is critical of the traditional historiography of the topic
because it devoted itself only to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
neglecting the eighteenth century.33 Prior to Gozalo, the Algerian his-
torian Moulay Belhamissi was one of the first to analyse the phenome-
non of Muslim captivity in Europe at a point when the study of Christian
captivity was well established. He assumes that this neglect was the com-
bined result of a lack of aptitude among European historians together
with a scarcity of sources.34
Remaining on the Iberian peninsula, a full picture of the problem of
slavery there emerges in Alessandro Stella’s Histoires d’esclaves dans la
péninsule ibérique thanks to the varied sources employed. Marriage acts,
verbal trails and testaments are used to establish statistical and personal
accounts of slavery and slaves’ lives.35 Stella dismantles the historiograph-
ical theory that the slave-man in Europe was an aristocratic luxury, a
dependent plaything rather than a productive part of the labour force in
his own right. In reality, slaves worked in all sectors of the economy: on
the land and in factories, workshops and mines.36 Quantitative data on
the number of slaves in the city of Cadiz and the reconstruction of the
geographical origin of slaves are interesting and useful, data on enfran-
chisement even more so.37 Stella, together with Bernard Vincent and
Myriam Cottias, also studied how slavery is related to other concomi-
tant or consequent forms of servile dependence. Their work covered the
Greco-Roman world, the Arab world, the USA and the Caribbean.38
Aurelia Martín Casares makes a vital contribution to the history of slav-
ery, métissage and abolitionism in Spain in the book Esclavitud, Mestizaje
y abolicionismo en los mundos hispánicos, while José Miguel Lopez’s work
concentrates specifically on Madrid.39
Spanish historian Cecilia Tarruell recently published an article on
Christian captivity in the Mediterranean between the end of the sixteenth
century and the beginning of the seventeenth century. The innovative
part of her research is its analysis of the captivity of return; that is,
6 G. BONAZZA

she calculates the rate of return of Christian slaves to the Iberian Peninsula
after captivity in Northern Africa and identifies the roles which they
assumed on their return.40 Remaining on the Iberian Peninsula, Antonio
De Almeida Mendes is a well-established scholar of the phenomenon of
captivity and slavery in Portugal in the Early Modern period. He pro-
poses an open approach to the analysis of the Portuguese Atlantic and
Atlantic slavery more broadly, using the concepts of circulation, interac-
tion and cross-culturalism. The aim is to go beyond the closed historio-
graphical traditions of strictly demarcated cultural areas, which sometimes
amount to little more than national addendums to the histories of Atlantic
empires.41 In the second half of the sixteenth century, both black men and
captives were common in Portugal. In his article “Musulmans et mour­
iscos du Portugal au XVIe siècle”, Antonio De Almeida Mendes debates
the closely related problems of baptism, conversion and slave identity.42
In any case, mouriscos maintained a double identity and used their new
Christian or Muslim name according to circumstances. They established
communities where they settled into their new identities and passed
them on to succeeding generations.43 The article is included in a recent
book on Muslims in European history which does not deal specifically
with slavery but still shows that religion and slavery were strongly linked.
This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that many of the contributions
in the book concern slaves. Mediterranean- or Atlantic-facing European
ports had significant Muslim populations, who were employed in the
ports or on galleys. Oarsmen were not necessarily slaves; they could also
be free Muslims. The majority, however, were originally slaves or captives
of some kind. Muslim slaves were to be found inland too, but in lesser
numbers.44
Wolfgang Kaiser’s Le commerce des captifs. Les intermédiaires dans
l’échange et le rachat des prisonniers en Méditerranée, XV e–XVIIIe siècle
synthesises some of the most important European research on captiv-
ity. In particular, it looks at captivity at the local level, a phenomenon
that often remained hidden. Kaiser’s introduction specifies that the role
of intermediaries in the capture of men in the Mediterranean cannot be
compared to their equivalent role in the Atlantic when it comes to defi-
nitions.45 Another recent addition to the literature is Religion and Trade,
edited by Francesca Trivellato, Leor Halevi and Cátia Antunes. This vol-
ume includes an important contribution by Kaiser and Guillaume Calafat
on the economy of the ransom of captives in the Mediterranean between
the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.46 The problem of privateering,
 1 INTRODUCTION: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVES 7

first dealt with in his own unique style by Godfrey Fisher, has since
received thorough attention from Salvatore Bono, Michel Fontenay,
Alberto Tenenti and Daniel Panzac.
In Kaiser’s edited volume, other contributions refer to intermedi-
aries and religious institutions that ransomed slaves, such as Giuliana
Boccadamo’s analysis of the Neapolitan Santa Casa della Redenzione
dei Cattivi or Rosita D’Amora’s examination of the Pio Monte della
Misericordia.47 On ransoming in the Italian area, we are fortunate to be
able to rely on the work of Luca Lo Basso on the Genoese Magistrato
per il Riscatto and of Giuseppe Bonaffini on intermediaries and Sicilian
slaves in the Mediterranean.48 Anne Brogini’s article on the ransom
intermediaries active on Malta during the sixteenth and early seven-
teenth centuries demonstrates that only 21% of ransoms were paid
by slaves themselves. Between 1580 and 1630, 42% of ransoms were
paid by shipmasters or merchants. Finally, at the beginning of the sev-
enteenth century 25% of Christian intermediaries were from Venice,
Ragusa, Naples and Sicily. Another 10% were Greek. Malta, because
of its strategic mid-Mediterranean position, was crucial for the ransom
of both Christian and Muslim slaves.49 Andrea Pelizza itemised the
ways Venetians ransomed slaves in Riammessi a respirare l’aria tran­
quilla. Venezia e il riscatto degli schiavi in età moderna. Thanks to the
researches on the archival collection of the institution for the ransom of
slaves. Using the archives of the Provveditori sopra ospedali e luoghi pii
(the institution established to effect ransoms) and the Trinitari religious
(whose Venetian priests introduced a new and more successful ransom
method), Pelizza presented a statistical breakdown of Venetian ransom
cases and also looked at processions that followed the repatriation of
freed slaves. Pelizza place the Venetian experience in the Mediterranean
context as well as comparing it with the Ottoman world and with other
ransom procedures in Europe and the Italian states.50 Considering reli-
gious intermediaries specifically, Michele Bosco’s doctoral thesis was enti-
tled “La Santa Obra de la Redención”: modelli e protagonisti del riscatto
dei captivi nel Mediterraneo moderno. Il caso dei mercedari tra Italia e
Spagna while Andrea Zappia’s Ph.D. was entitled Il Magistrato del
riscatto degli schiavi di Genova e le realtà della redenzione nell’Italia sette­
centesca: dinamiche, rapporti, artefici.51 On Moriscos in Italian cities, see
Bruno Pomara, I Rifugiati. I moriscos e l’Italia.52
According to Wolfgang Kaiser, Muslim communities were well
represented in the Iberian Peninsula and Italian ports, and Muslims were
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Fig. 1
Fig. 2 Fig. 3
Fig. 4 Fig. 5
Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8
The House
Accommodates 20
Pigeons; Additional
Stories may be
Added. Fig. 1, Floor
and Ceiling; Fig. 3,
Arrangement of
Compartments; Fig.
8, Lower Story
Fig. 10 Fig. 9
Assembled Ready for
Roof Story; Fig. 10,
Framing of the Roof;
Fig. 11, Side View,
Showing Spacing of
Roof Boards; Fig. 12,
End View, Showing
Trim and Door on
Gable End
Fig. 11 Fig. 12

The post should be sunk into the ground about 2¹⁄₂ ft. and set into
a concrete foundation, if convenient. This will insure a more nearly
permanent as well as a more rigid support. Care should be taken
that the post is set plumb and this can be accomplished if a plumb
bob is used. The post should be braced to keep it vertical,
particularly if a concrete foundation is poured and tamped around it.
The construction should be painted two coats, inside and out, of a
color to harmonize with buildings or other surroundings.
The cost of building the house shown in the illustration was $3.50
and by using tar paper for the roof and discarded wire mesh, hinges,
and other fittings, this may be reduced considerably.

¶In matching molding into corners it is often difficult to make miter

joints. The molding may then be “coped” together by matching the
end of the piece to be joined to it with the curves or surface of the
molding. A coping saw is used in sawing the irregular end.
 Roses Tinged Blue by Chemicals

Roses may be colored without any detrimental effect by placing

their stems in a solution of 100 cubic centimeters of water, 2 grams
of saltpeter, and 2 grams of an aniline dye. A centerpiece of roses
colored to represent the national colors was made in this way and
proved very effective as a table decoration. A convenient way to
color the flowers is to place their stems in a test tube containing the
mixture.—Contributed by Chester Keene, Hoboken, N. J.
 Making Photographic Trays
Serviceable trays for use in developing and printing photographs
may be made quickly of cardboard boxes of suitable sizes. Where
one is unable to transport readily a full photographic equipment
these trays will prove convenient as well as inexpensive. They are
made as follows:
Procure boxes of proper sizes and see that they have no holes or
openings at the corners. Melt paraffin and pour it into the box,
permitting it to cover both outside and inside surfaces. If the paraffin
hardens too rapidly the box may be heated and the work completed.
—Contributed by Paul A. Baumeister, Flushing, N. Y.
 Camp Lantern Made of a Tin Can

Campers, and others who have need of an emergency lantern,

may be interested in the contrivance shown in the sketch, which was
used in preference to other lanterns and made quickly when no light
was at hand. It consists of an ordinary tin can, in the side of which a
candle has been fixed. A ring of holes was punched through the
metal around the candle and wires were placed at the opposite side
for a support. The glistening interior of the can reflects the light
admirably.—Contributed by F. H. Sweet, Waynesboro, Va.
¶Interior woodwork may be made proof against ordinary flame by
coating it with silicate of soda, known as water glass.
 Sidecar for a Parcel-Delivery Bicycle
By P. P. AVERY

Q uick delivery of small packages within a two-mile radius can be

accomplished with a bicycle by a sturdy boy. An ordinary bicycle
is used, preferably one with coaster brake and mudguards. Iron
braces, ¹⁄₄ by 1¹⁄₄ in., are shaped to make the framework, and the
ends are looped to fasten around the frame of the bicycle and the
supporting fork of the third wheel. This wheel is a bicycle front wheel
with a fork. A mudguard on the third wheel is desirable. Make the
iron parts as detailed, and fasten them into place. The body is made
of ⁷⁄₈-in. wood, preferably oak. The upper portion of the body is cut to
receive the top brace, which is not in the way in loading or unloading
the packages. Fasten the box with ¹⁄₄-in. carriage bolts, using a
spring washer under the nut wherever a joint is made between wood
and iron. A canvas cover can be cut to fit the top and secured at one
end only, with three catch knobs on the sides and corresponding
eyelets in the canvas, keeping the dust and rain from the interior of
the body.
 An Ordinary Strong Bicycle can be Made into a Substantial Delivery Car by
the Addition of a Body and a Third Wheel

It is a good plan to stiffen the body with corner braces, using ¹⁄₈ by
³⁄₄-in. band iron. The floor of the body should be strongly fastened,
tongue-and-groove boards being used, and the side corners should
be fitted with iron braces at the bottom. The body may be extended
farther over the rear, if more loading space is required.
One coat of priming and one of paint finishes the box, and with the
name of the merchant on the front and rear, the whole makes a neat
advertising feature. Regarding the selection of a bicycle, since great
speed is not essential, the lower the gearing is, the easier it will be to
propel the load, and for ordinary work, where only small grades are
covered, a gear of about 65 will be found efficient.
 Handy Use for Adhesive Tape
Adhesive tape is useful in the shop and for the home mechanic,
for many purposes: to mend broken handles temporarily; to bind up
a cut finger; to prevent a hammer or ax handle from slipping in the
hands, by applying tape around the handle; for making a ferrule for
an awl, chisel, etc.; around the nail set it will keep that tool from
jarring the hand; around a lead pencil in the vest pocket as a guard.
A Toy Machine Gun That Fires Wooden Bullets
 For use in the mimic battles which most boys like to stage in this
war time, an interesting mechanical toy that a boy can easily make of
materials picked up in the workshop, is a machine gun having a
magazine for wooden bullets, and which can be made as a single or
a double-barrel gun. The construction of the single-barrel
arrangement is detailed in the sketch and the modification for a
double-barrel gun is shown in the smaller diagram. It is a duplicate of
the first type, suitably mounted as shown. The gun is fired by turning
the crank on the wheel and the bullets can be quickly replaced in the
magazine at the top.
The Machine Gun is Fired by Turning the Crank at the Wheel, the Pins on the
Latter Drawing Back the Hammer, Which is Hooked Up with a Rubber Band

The support for the gun is made of wood and braced strongly at
the base. The gun proper is set into the top of the vertical piece, as
shown, and the magazine, which is bent from a piece of tin to the
shape detailed in the sectional view, fits on top of the breach of the
gun. The hammer, which drives the bullets, is made of a piece of stiff
wire bent to the shape shown. The lower curved end is connected to
a small nail set on a block at the shaft of the wheel. To fire the gun,
the hammer is drawn back by contact with the small nails set into the
side of the wheel. As the wheel is turned, the nails grip the hammer
and then suddenly release it, driving out the lowest bullet each time.
The bullets are piled in the magazine, as shown in the detailed view
at the right, where the rear view of the gun barrel is indicated.—
Edward R. Smith, Walla Walla, Washington.
 Using Plate Holder as Printing Frame
A cumbersome part of a commercial photographer’s equipment
when “on the road” is his set of printing frames. Amateur
photographers who have cameras using plates of more than one
size find these frames an expensive part of their outfits. A method
that is practical and inexpensive for these requirements in many
cases, is as follows: Place the sensitized paper in the plate holder
with the emulsion side up. Then put the plate in the holder in the
same way as if about to expose it in a camera, but with the emulsion
side down, so that the sensitized side of the paper and the emulsion
side of the plate are in contact. The paper and plate are thus held in
close contact without the use of springs, as in the regular printing
frames. The plate and paper can be removed by pressing the spring
catch at the bottom of the holder, and the plate is not easily moved
while in place.—Francis W. Clinton, Brooklyn, New York.

¶Leaks in garden hose may be repaired by wrapping several layers

of adhesive tape over the break, lapping the edges carefully.
 Wire Clips Weight Paper in Typewriter
Three wire paper clips linked together make a good weight for
typewriter sheets that keep rolling or blowing back over the carriage,
into the operator’s way, in a breezy office or where a fan is not
properly stationed. They may be quickly applied to the end of the
sheet, or batch of paper and carbon sheets, and removed as easily,
saving time and annoyance.—H. P. Roy, Kansas City, Mo.
 Chain Weight Prevents Whipping of Flag
A length of chain, sewed into a hem at the lower edge of a flag
makes an inconspicuous and effective weight to prevent whipping of
a flag suspended from a horizontal staff. A piece of cord can be
threaded through the links of a chain to prevent it from rattling, if
necessary.
Poultry-Fence Construction Economical of
Netting