Linda Colley - Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850

Table of Contents

In memory of my mother
Marjorie Colley, ne Hughes
19201998

When the prison-doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out.

Ho Chi Minh, Prison Diary (Hanoi, 1962)

Acclaim for Linda Colleys

CAPTIVES

Engaging, gracefully written.... Sharp-eyed.... There is marvelous detail on every page. The New York Times Book Review

Captives is another important and beautifully written book by this first-rank British historian. The Irish Times

A sort of White Teeth version of imperial history.... A completely original intelligence. Financial Times

A brilliantly illuminating study by one of Britains most distinguished historians. New Statesman

Consistently enlightening.... An insightful and stimulating book that presents history with a fresh perspective. BookPage

Innovative.... Colley brings a contemporary edge to her writing.... [She is] one of the most interesting historians at work today. The Wilson Quarterly

Colleys fascinating book links captivity with imperial expansion and underscores the Britons ultimate dependence on loyal natives. The New York Review of Books

Captives is an invitation to think again about an old story too often told in the same old way.... It is a book which should alter the way in which the history not only of the British, but of all the European empires is written.London Review of Books

Superb... coruscating. The Independent on Sunday (London)

Abounds in fascinating human stories and constantly requires the reader to reconsider accepted dogma.The Daily Telegraph (London)

Sublimely well written: cunningly paced, beguilingly fluent, deftly allusive, vividly evocative. It is a major contribution to understanding the paradox of the British: the weak who wangled the earth. Literary Review

Linda Colley is a great storyteller and she breathes life into the manuscripts she has discovered by captives in the early days of the Empire. The Observer (London)

Dexterous, wonderfully subtle. The Sunday Times (London)

This fine, thought-provoking bookat once readable and educativeis crammed full of telling insights. The Sunday Telegraph (London)

Stunningly revisionist.... Almost every page of Captives challenges a settled orthodoxy or opens up a fertile new field for research. History Today

List of Illustrations

The illustrations in this book form an integral part of the text and have been captioned accordingly. Their full titles and provenance are as follows.

I am most grateful to the libraries, art galleries and private owners listed below for allowing me to reproduce images in their possession. Images with no provenance cited are from my own collection of prints, books and photographs.

1. Britain as global empire: a detail from an 1893 map (British Library, Maps, 17.c.13).

2. The Peters World Map, Akademische Verlagsanstalt, supplied by Oxford Cartographers.

3. The title page of Madagascar: or Robert Drurys Journal, London, 1729 (Cambridge University Library).

4. Title page of Wenceslaus Hollar, Divers Prospects in and about Tangier, London, 1673 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich).

5. The South-east Corner of Tangier, etching by Wenceslaus Hollar (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich).

6. Prospect of ye Inner Part of Tangier, etching by Wenceslaus Hollar (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich).

7. Prospect of ye Bowling Green at Whitehall, by Tangier, etching by Wencelaus Hollar (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich).

8. Plan of the mole at Tangier (Public Record Office).

9. Dirck Stoop, Demolishing Tangiers mole in 1684 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich).

10. The frontispiece of John Ogilby, Africa, London, 1670 (British Library).

11. C. Runker, View of the City of Algiers, 1816 (British Library, Maps. K. Top. 117.73.e).

12. The Going into Slavery at Algiers, an engraving of c. 1700 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich).

13. A battle between Barbary corsairs and Royal Navy warships, c. 1670s (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich).

14. A birds eye view of Tripoli, c. 1660 (British Library, Maps. K. Top. 117.62).

15. Lorenzo A Castro, Seapiece: A Fight with Barbary Corsairs (by permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery).

16. Illustration from Thomas Troughton, Barbarian Cruelty: or an Accurate... Narrative of the Sufferings, London, 1751 (Beinecke Library, Yale University).

17. Title page of The History of the Long Captivity and Adventures of ThomasPellow, London, c. 1740.

18. Frontispiece of William Okeley, Eben-ezer: or a Small Monument ofGreat Mercy, London, 1675 (British Library).

19. Title page of Joseph Pitts, A True and Faithful Account of the Religionand Manners of the Mohammetans, Exeter, 1704.

20. A section of the Mechouar at Mekns.

21. The massive walls of one of Moulay Ismals storehouses.

22. Illustration from Joseph Pitts, A True and Faithful Account of the Religionand Manners of the Mohammetans, London, 1731 (British Library).

23. R. Ball, A Plan of Algiers, 1776 (British Library, Maps. K. Top. 177.72).

24. Francis Birds Indian (Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art)

25. The severed head of a captive: detail from Francis Birds Indian (Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art).

26. Illustration from Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodnessof God (courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts).

27. John Verelst, Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, Emperor of the Six Nations (courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University).

28. John Verelst, Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Ton, King of the Maquas (courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University).

29. A Presentation of Several Humorous Heads, 1765 (courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University).

30. George Townshend, Unknown Native American (courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London).

31. Benjamin West, General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer fromthe Tomahawk of a North American Indian (Derby Museum and Art Gallery).

32.33. Two British portrait prints of an Iroquois ally, Hendrick, during the Seven Years War.

34. Frontispiece of French and Indian Cruelty Exemplified in the Life... ofPeter Williamson, Edinburgh, 1762.

35. Benjamin West, The Indians Delivering up the English Captives to ColonelBouquet (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection).

36. Major John Andr, self-portrait (Yale University Art Gallery; gift of Ebenezer Baldwin, B.A. 1808).

37. The execution of John Andr (courtesy of the Print Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University).

38. Lieutenant Moodie rescuing a British prisoner: a 1785 print (courtesy of the Director, National Army Museum, London).

39. The Commissioners Interview with Congress, 1778 (British Museum).

40. James Gillray, The American Rattle Snake, 1782 (British Museum).

41. John Vanderlyn, The Murder of Jane McCrea, 18034 (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund).