Product Description

This is the forgotten story of the million white Europeans, snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of North Africa to be sold to the highest bidder. Ignored by their own governments, and forced to endure the harshest of conditions, very few lived to tell the tale.

Using the firsthand testimony of a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow, Giles Milton vividly reconstructs a disturbing, little known chapter of history. Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco who was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale and grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. As his personal slave, he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of he imperial court, as well as experience the daily terror of a cruel regime.

Gripping, immaculately researched, and brilliantly realised, WHITE GOLD reveals an explosive chapter of popular history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians. (20040704)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15718 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk
Writer and journalist Giles Milton specializes in the history of travel and exploration. His latest literary adventure, White Gold, is the story of Thomas Pellow, a Cornish cabin boy who was captured at sea by a group of fanatical Islamic slave traders—the Barbary corsairs, taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Salè in Morocco and sold to the highest bidder. Pellow’s purchaser happened to be the tyrannical sultan of Morroco, Moulay Ismail, a man committed to building a vast imperial pleasure palace of unsurpassable splendour built entirely by Christian slave labour. After enduring long periods of torture Pellow converted to Islam and became the personal slave of the sultan for over two decades—including a stint as a soldier in the sultan’s army—before finally making a dramatic escape and return to Cornwall. The account is supported by the unpublished letters and manuscripts of slaves and the various ambassadors sent to free them. This is an excellently written account of the history of the white slave trade. Pellow’s story is an extraordinary one but the real interest lies in the picture Milton builds of life in the slave pens and especially of daily life at the court of the spectacularly barbaric Moulay Ismail. --Larry Brown

Independent on Sunday on NATHANIEL's NUTMEG
‘A magnificent piece of popular history'

Review
'Giles Milton has a gift for searching out odd and forgotten corners of history and turning them into bestselling books... this is not a dry history, but a full-blooded narrative closer in style to a historical novel than to an academic study.' (William Palmer, Literary Review )

'Milton's story could scarcely be more action-packed, and its setting and subsidiary characters are as fantastic as its events.' (The Sunday Times )

'An extraordinary story which few people will be at all familiar with... an exciting and sensational account of a really swash-buckling historical episode' (Philip Hensher, Spectator )

Giles Milton’s narrative races along as he stitches together a story of heroism, sacrifice and misplaced zeal, painstakingly researched from contemporary writing and records’ (Observer )

‘Giles Milton... has crafted an inspiration for those of us who believe that history can be exciting and entertaining’ (The Times )

Customer Reviews

Exceptional Work!
Brilliant research and background work bring to life the story of Morocco's White slave trade. Milton has the skill of a novelist and manages to engage the reader immediately. His stories of Barbary corsairs sailing with inpunity up and down the English channel during the 17th century is incredible-particularly the year when they established a slave gathering base on Lundy Island. He estimates over 1 million European slaves were taken. He centralises his story around Thomas Pellow who endured 23 years in captivity before escaping.
I thoroughly recommend this book to all lovers of well written history.It fills a gap in our knowledge.

An excellent read
I was quite surprised to see a book on this subject as I had never heard about it before. It deals with the trade of White slaves in North Africa, focusing primarily on Morocco between 1600 and up until about 1750. At school, I was only taught about the Black slave trade but was never told about one dealing with White's. Using first hand accounts of survivors, it shows the hardships that were imposed on these men and women. Not only did they suffer with the heat, the backbreaking work or the squalid conditions in which they were kept, they were in constant fear of their lives. Their slave masters would use torture to make them change their religion or could be executed for the most minor of things.

The bias for primary sources does centre on British slaves, but there are mention of and recollections from other nationalities from all over Europe, as well North America. The only faults I found with it were in the way it has been speculated how people felt, when they did not leave a record or the way there was not more of a background to the events that are covered in this work. These are only minor gripes and have not taken away from my enjoyment of the piece. If history is the new Rock n' Roll, then it is nice to see someone come up with a subject that is not only new, but interesting. This has been an absolutely brilliant read and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

what a book
captivating story,pardon the pun.this book really is an amazing
story of human endurance through the most horrific experiences
fate could throw at anyone,it also gave me an insight into how
the muslim world of north africa held christianity in hatred and
contempt.the tale of thomas pellow captured by barbary pirates
and his servitude under a cruel and sadistic ruler is a truly
remarkable and nightmarish journey told at a terrific pace but
still manages to pack in masses of historical facts and insight
into numerous locations and characters.apart from the central story of pellow and his adventures the descriptions of the conditions and labour of the european slaves is heart rending.
families torn apart,british governments powerless to stop the
white slavers is an episode of our history that needed to be told.a brilliant read.