The Ransom Companies: A Forgotten Page in the Relationship Between Europe and the Muslim World
Written by Marco Lenci
The entire Mediterranean area, from the early sixteenth century until the early nineteenth century, was more or less marked by the predatory exploits of the Barbary pirates who had their main operational bases in the regencies of Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers, semi-independent entities formally dependent on the Ottoman Empire.
Due to its geographical location in the center of the Mediterranean, Italy was very strongly involved. For more than three centuries the coastal populations of the peninsula had to live with the constant threat of sudden ruinous incursions from the sea. The danger, however, was not limited only to those who lived on the coast.
It was enough in fact that an individual had the need to travel by sea, which meant that he too could become, in turn, the victim of a Barbary abduction. Those who paid the consequences were tens of thousands of men who, upon being captured, were then transferred to the Maghreb or some distant region of the Levant where they were treated not as prisoners of war to be released at the end of each conflict, but as slaves for life because they came from the world of the "infidels".
In short, in a context of total religious opposition, the Christian who fell into the hands of Muslims could never return free, much less return home. In this condition, how could any citizen of an Italian State have regained his freedom?
Of course one could always try to escape at the risk of cruel punishments and even at the risk of losing one's life; but few tried to escape, and still less were those who succeeded.
Or one could convert to the religion of the enemy by denying their own faith. But with such an option one would also thereby forfeit from the beginning any thought of repatriation by agreeing to live the rest of one's life as a Muslim among Muslims.
Finally, one could hope to end one's enslavement through a prisoner exchange, which, from time to time, actually took place.
However, the most followed way for the recovery of freedom and return home was that of ransom. In other words, the Barbary pirates were willing to release the Christian slave in return for the payment of a substantial sum of money. This corresponded to a specific economic logic.
In fact, the Barbary pirates (and this is valid for the whole Ottoman Empire) considered the Christians who fell into their hands not so much as a labor force to be exploited, but more as a potential instrument of rapid and consistent monetary enrichment. Certainly they did not hesitate to impose upon slaves works that involved a considerable physical wear and tear, especially if they were young and attractive. Therefore many were used as rowers on ships; not a few were destined for mines, quarries or construction activities; others were used for labor in the fields...
But their practical use was always considered temporary, since from the Barbary point of view the Christian prisoners had first of all to be treated essentially as a commodity from which to draw the maximum possible profit, favoring, precisely, a return home through the payment of a substantial ransom.
In practice, however, faced with the very real possibility of being released upon payment of a ransom, the fate was still not equal for all Christian slaves. The rich could indeed ransom themselves with relative ease, paying from their own pockets often disproportionate figures compared to their counterparts. The situation of the majority, who were not rich, was much more problematic: to them nothing remained but to hope for some intervention of public charity.
In response to such a pressing need in Italy (although the phenomenon affected more or less all of Europe) many companies known as "ransom companies" or "redemption companies" were founded and developed, with the aim of collecting money to be used towards paying ransoms in order to liberate those who were – according to the terminology in use at the time – "prisoners of the infidel Turk".
These associations constituted the main response of solidarity that the Christian West was able to prepare in the face of the forced deportation of several thousand people to the Islamic world, people who were preyed upon at sea or captured on land by the Ottoman and Barbary enemy. In fact, it was thanks to the charitable generosity of the ransom companies – who paid a significant amount of money – that so many Christian slaves were able to end their enslavement and return home.
In Italy such institutions came to be constituted beginning in the sixteenth century, then saw an exceptional increase between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, in direct connection with the increase of predatory Barbary activity.
Usually linked to the Mercedarians or the Trinitarians (the two great religious orders in charge of the assistance of those Christians who fell "into the hands of the infidels") and actively supported by the ecclesiastical authorities, the various ransom companies enjoyed a large popular following also in virtue of the numerous indulgences and spiritual graces that their members could gradually benefit from.
Through the collection of a large amount of money (the fruits of collections, alms, donations and bequests), these institutions thus constituted an important ring for the preparation of exchanging men for ransom, upon which a significant portion of the economic system of the Barbary pirates was based. This explains their widespread diffusion in all Italian regions.
One of the earliest was the Confraternity of Santa Maria del Gesù della Redenzione dei Cattivi, otherwise known as the Confraternity for the Redemption of Captives (the term "cattivi", derived from the Latin captivi, here means "captives" or "slaves"), founded in Naples in 1548.
In Rome, Pope Gregory XIII, in 1581, entrusted the Archconfraternity of the Gonfalone with the collection of money for the ransom of papal subjects held in captivity in Muslim hands. In Sicily, the Archconfraternity for the Redemption of Poor Captives, founded in Palermo, was very active since 1595.
In the following decades confraternities for the redemption of slaves were also established throughout central-northern Italy from Trento to Bologna, from Ferrara to Milan, from Turin to Parma, etc. In the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the first ransom company, founded in Florence in 1598, was joined by a close network of associations that operated – on the initiative of the Trinitarians – in Livorno, Pisa, Pistoia, Carrara and in various other cities, and this impulse was followed also in the Republic of Lucca.
Quite particular was the case of the Republic of Genoa. Having taken notice of the dramatic increase in the number of Genoese citizens taken into captivity in North Africa, they decided in 1597 to create a special government institution (the Magistracy for the Redemption of Slaves) dedicated to liberating those captives at any cost.
Also in Venice the management of ransom was entrusted to a government agency (the Provveditori sopra ospedali, or Hospital Overseers) supported by the important School of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Slaves, established in 1604 in the Church of Santa Maria Formosa.
Beyond their various nature, all the institutions mentioned above operated more or less according to the same module. Their first task was to prepare lists of their fellow citizens being held prisoner in Muslim lands for whom the ransom could be organized.
A preliminary investigation was then initiated on each name to determine each one's economic and patrimonial conditions so that, if necessary, the family of the interested party would then be asked to pay a certain sum to be added to the allocation already prepared by the redemptive institution. The practice of ransoming the slaves then entered its executive phase.
Some associations had the ability to organize the redemption of large groups of Christian slaves by sending specific missions to Tripoli, Algiers and Tunis. But much more frequently they preferred to rely on the experience and the availability of the already mentioned Trinitarians and Mercedarians. However, the task of those who materially had to then enter into negotiations with the other party was never easy.
The criteria and priorities followed by the Barbary pirates were not always compatible with the redeemers' programs. For example, often the Barbary authorities tried to impose ransoms for elderly or disabled elements while refusing to satisfy requests for slaves who, by age or profession, were deemed non-transferable by their masters.
Sometimes, precisely because their initial programs could not be fully realized due to opposition from the other party, the redeemers found themselves in a position to freely dispose of part of the money entrusted to them. They then had to decide on the spot which captive to ransom and, under such circumstances, one can well imagine the multiple pressures to which they were subjected, since each slave would certainly not fail to complain of his own poor conditions and explain the various reasons why he believed he should be freed before the others.
It is not the place here to dwell upon the variation of the sums which the Barbary pirates requested for the liberation of slaves. On the other hand, it is worth pointing out that, for each redeemed captive, the redeemers had to pay a whole series of fixed rights and ancillary taxes which inevitably made the final price rise. All things considered, the sum of the additional costs could even amount to a third of the total actually paid for the ransom.
One can easily understand how, in such a context, the negotiations were almost never short and simple. Sometimes the price of a slave or group of slaves led to a sort of back and forth negotiation destined to last for months and even years. Nor was there any lack of cases, truly unfortunate, in which negotiations were broken off altogether.
Nor did the difficulties end with the successful conclusion of the affair, as the journey home required another difficult set of tasks. The organization of safe sea passages for the redeemed slaves required new permits and other expenses. Ultimately, only when the ship carrying the redeemed slaves landed in an Italian port could the operation really be concluded.
The liberated captives, after spending the necessary period of time isolated in quarantine for sanitary reasons, were finally welcomed triumphantly in their city from which they had been missing for years and sometimes even for decades.
The ransom companies organized solemn ceremonies in their honor, consisting mostly of long processions in which an overwhelming crowd was eager to meet and greet their fellow citizen(s) whose survival of terrible imprisonment in the Islamic world was regarded as truly miraculous.
The procession usually ended at the headquarters of the ransom confraternity which, in the wake of the happily concluded redemption, could then collect substantial donations and alms from among the large public, which could be used in turn for the redemption of more Christian slaves.
Bibliographic references
G. Bonaffini, La Sicilia e i Barbareschi. Incursioni corsare e riscatto degli schiavi (1570-1606), Palermo 1983.
S. Bono, I corsari barbareschi, Torino 1964.
R.C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters. White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800, New York 2004.
M. Lenci, Lucchesi nel Maghreb. Storie di schiavi, mercanti e missionari, Lucca 1994.
M. Lenci, Corsari. Guerra, schiavi, rinnegati nel Mediterraneo, Roma 2006.
E. Lucchini, La merce umana. Schiavitù e riscatto dei liguri nel Seicento, Roma 1990.
C. Manca, Il modello di sviluppo economico delle città marittime barbaresche dopo Lepanto, Napoli 1982.
A. Pelizza, Riammessi a respirare l'aria tranquilla. Venezia e il riscatto degli schiavi in età moderna, Venezia 2014.
G. Ricci, Ossessione turca. In una retrovia cristiana dell’Europa moderna, Bologna 2002.
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