Barbary captivity tropes saturated American pop culture across many media

Evidence

In addition to the published historical accounts of slavery in North Africa, the Barbary captivity topos appeared in at least four early American novels, nine early plays, ten dime novels, and almost a dozen Hollywood movies. The Barbary captivity scenario even provided adventures for Tom Swift and for the sharp-shooting cowboy Tom Mix, as well as sailing into the modern romance novel under such titles as Barbary Bride and Angelique in Barbary. Barbary slave galleys were used to sell the Packard Custom Eight De Luxe automobile in the 1930s, and children could even play the “Pirates of the Barbary Coast” board game. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 592

Categorization

• SEED: The Barbary slave galley selling a Packard De Luxe — commodified orientalism in advertising — could anchor a piece on how the monstrous Muslim image was commercialized, not just narrated.
• XREF: The spread of the image across dime novels, films, toys, and advertising parallels the earlier chapters’ tracking of how literary monsters migrate into ‘other fields of cultural production.’