Barbary captivity tales denounced white slavery while US chattel slavery rose.
Evidence
The immense popularity of Barbary captivity narratives reflected not only an interest in the stories of the increasing number of American sailors captured by North Africans and held in bondage and slavery, but also a demand for captivity tales related to Native Americans. These were stories about a “civilized” West and a “barbaric” North Africa. They were tales of capture, imprisonment, slavery, and escape. While white slavery was clearly denounced, the stories either indirectly justified enslavement of Africans or denounced North Africans as subhuman. … With no sense of irony, white slavery was denounced at the moment when US slavery was on the rise with West African captors having no hope of return. Few of these narratives questioned the hypocrisy at work. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 215
Categorization
- XREF: Directly parallels the vault’s existing claim base that anti-Muslim rhetoric serves to distract from or launder domestic oppression; also echoes eighteenth-nineteenth century abolition-vs-slavery hypocrisy debates in the broader empire cluster. — connects to: Barbary captivity narratives denounced white slavery while ignoring American slavery; Abolitionists invoked images of White slavery in Barbary to oppose Black slavery in America.; White-slavery outrage coexisted with rising Black slavery — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 215 (+1 more)
- ADDENDUM: Supports ‘Grafting and Growth’ style infrastructural/metaphor analysis only marginally, but more directly could bolster an article on how moral panic over distant ‘barbarians’ laundered settler and slave empires at home — a throughline from captivity narratives to post-9/11 anti-Muslim framing.
Broader Connections
- Barbary captivity narratives denounced white slavery while ignoring American slavery
#corroborates(0.95) - Abolitionists invoked images of White slavery in Barbary to oppose Black slavery in America.
#contradicts(0.85) - White-slavery outrage coexisted with rising Black slavery
#expands(0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 215 - Americans condemned white enslavement while justifying African slavery on racial theology.
#expands(0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 510