Slaves Revolt - Malta

Picture shows underwater statues in memory of slaves lost at sea near Grenada slaves thrown overboard

In 1749 there was a famous slave revolt that took place in Malta.  In the history of Malta it is betrayed as a terrible conspiracy where slaves were planning to slaughter the local inhabitants.  The slaves are portrayed as a violent murderers willing to slaughter their masters to gain freedom.   Here is a typical account of the event.

“A plot of the most dangerous character, and one that threatened the direst disaster to the Christian inhabitants of the island, was, however, discovered on the 6th June 1749. At the head of this conspiracy was the Pascha Mustafa, Governor of Rhodes, then a prisoner of war in Malta. This dignitary, while on his way to Rhodes, had been captured by the Christian slaves who manned his galley. The mutineers, after having murdered their officers and become masters of the vessel, made for Malta, where they arrived on the 2nd February 1748. 

The Pascha, instead of being looked upon as an ordinary prisoner of war, was treated by the Order with every mark of respect. From the moment of his arrival Mustafa devised the detestable plot of massacring the whole Christian population of Malta with the assistance of the Turkish slaves in the island, who at the time numbered about 1,500, and then annexing Malta to the Ottoman Empire. Continual promises of support from Constantinople emboldened the conspirators, and the 29th June, the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul was selected as the date on which their atrocious designs were to be carried out. As on that day the city would be practically deserted the majority of the inhabitants being away at the festivities at Notabile. Had it not been for an accidental quarrel that led to the betrayal of the plot, a wholesale massacre would have most undoubtedly ensued. 

The quarrel originated in a tavern where two of the conspirators had gone to endeavour to enlist as a confederate a young Maltese soldier of Pinto's bodyguard. Enraged by his continual refusals to join their ranks, they attempted to stab him. He would have been torn to pieces had it not been for the timely interference of the innkeeper, who, on learning the motive of the quarrel, lost no time in revealing this dangerous plot to the Grand Master himself. Several of the conspirators were at once seized and subjected to torture, under the extreme agonies of which a complete confession was extorted and some sixty of the ringleaders were put to death. The honest innkeeper, Cohen, was handsomely rewarded, and the faithful young soldier, Cassar, for his unflinching devotedness to his colours, was promoted from the ranks and given the command of Pinto's bodyguard, known as the " Guardia Urbana." On the anniversary of the discovery of the plot, the Knights of Malta regularly held a thanksgiving service in the church of St. John in commemoration of this providential escape from massacre."

However, if you examine the life of slaves in the world at that time there were many changes happening.  In the Caribbean on the island of Saint John in 1733 there was an uprising of the slaves to try and obtain freedom.  In South Carolina in 1739 there was also a slave revolt.  In 1747 Africans rose up on the Rhode Island ship (Captain Beers) which was off the Cape Coast in Ghana.  It is important to remember that off the millions transported to America in slavery, over a period of 300 years almost 40% died on that journey.  Many fortunes were made, it was seen as a strictly economic endeavour with the human beings simply a product to be sold.  Many aristocratic estates all over the world, many of our rich today gained fortunes on the back of slavery.  

But the tide on slavery was beginning to turn and many people were speaking out against this trade.  Legislation was soon to be in place that would gradually make it illegal in various parts of the world.  It is unfortunate that long after the African American slavery route was halted, African European slavery continued.  So, it is important to understand what conditions were like for slaves in Malta at that time.  The seaborne crusade demanded a largely unarmed and coerced labour force. The Knights of St John needed captives. They needed them as oarsmen in the galleys and labourers in the docks. Whether they were prisoners of war, victims of shipwreck or persons kidnapped, they were a vital resource.  There were simply not enough crew or convicts to man the ships that the knights needed without slaves.  Ottoman cities remained multi religious while most of western Christendom was purged of its Jews and Muslims. After the Reformation it was also purged of even if its Christian dissenters.  While Catholic merchants and consuls who lived in Istanbul Alexandra or Tripoli could practice their faith and find a small community of practising Catholics, supported by Rome, there were no such parallel infrastructures for Moslems in Christendom.  In fact between 1609 and the late 19th century no free community of Muslims, including those converted to Christianity, resided within Western Europe.  The Knights of St John Malta would target all non-Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Jews alike and enslave them. They would seize the cargo of Jews, even those with permits and passports, and send them to the slave market in Valletta.  Within the Mediterranean, the numbers of east and sub Sahara African inhabitants sold into bondage outnumbered the numbers of either Western Christians or Mediterranean Muslims.  As long as galley fleets were used for transport slavery persisted. It was only when wind powered vessels came into being that the need for slaves on board was reduced somewhat.

Being condemned to the galleys was a dreadful form of punishment for even the convicts. What was supposed to be a short-term at sea, for them, could become a death sentence. Many men would maim themselves rather than face the ordeal. After a few weeks of confinement on ships the stench of human sweat and excrement was overwhelming. The oarsman who were chained to the benches could not change their clothing or even move to relieve themselves. For weeks they might have only brief sleep periods. Many slaves died on these ships; the plague of 1720 carried off one fifth of France’s rowing force. A small amount of galley slaves survived for decades some remaining at the oars into their 60s and 70s. They were not permitted to marry .  Given its role as one of the chief traffickers of non-Catholic slaves within the Mediterranean, Maltese cities held more than 1000 Muslims in slavery at the end of the 18th century.  In battle or if the boat foundered the slaves chained to the benches, not the captain, would go down with the ship.  At the end of the sailing season Muslims slaves would be pressed into the construction of public works such as bridges and walls in the Maltese cities of Valetta and Senglea. In the mid 18 century, 639 of the 782 men at the oars were enslaved Muslims.  Muslim slaves in Malta complained that unlike the practices in Istanbul or North African ports they were not allowed to eat or drink their purchases of food inside shops or taverns were forced to eat outside on the street.  Their heads were shaved except for a distinctive pigtail, they wore a roughly woven woollen cape with a hood. Converted slaves and Muslims alike carried a 1 to 2 pound lock around the ankle.   

With this knowledge, it is not hard to see that many desired freedom. If they could arrange for relatives, back home, to provide a ransom then there was a hope freedom could be purchased.  However, for many poor slaves this was not an option. It is important to note that slavery was common place at this time across the world and practised by most nations.  With the advantage of hindsight we can observe the whole machinery of enslavement through horrified eyes.  The loss of lives was heavy, the mistreatment and torture of human beings intolerable.  Perhaps, it is a salutary lesson of the past that all it took was a different religion/sect or race to enable us to feel righteous and noble in enslaving them.  

There are perhaps parallels in today’s world where we will allow people to starve to death, drown in our seas, fester in refuge camps and still manage to feel disengaged from their suffering.  The slave trade was ultimately economically driven, so too we must ensure that economic considerations are not driving nations into despair,destitution and a new modern form of slavery.

Worth a read - puts the topic in perspective today

A Persistent Evil: The Global Problem of Slavery, a report published by the Harvard International Review in 2002, Richard Re suggested: "Conservative estimates indicate that at least 27 million people, in places as diverse as Nigeria, Indonesia, and Brazil, live in conditions of forced bondage"

May your pain be short and your pleasure long!

I have always been bad with pain.  The tiniest cut, from an early age, brought forth howls of despair. Usually, this would be followed by requests for bandages, the bigger the better.  At times my mother was placing bandages on wounds that were so small she could not even see them.  As I grew older, I became aware that I had a remarkably low pain threshold.  Watching other children in school fall and bleed only to get up and run off amazed me.  As I progressed through adolescence my mother would remark, “What on earth are you going do when you have to give birth?”  It was one of those questions that an adolescence feels a parent asks just to manipulate you.  Akin, to her other favourite, “You must learn to cook and clean now because one day you will have your own house!”  To this I always smugly replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll always have servants!”  This must have been particularly abrasive to my sweet mother who carried trays of breakfast to all of us in bed every morning, while Don Williams filled the house with his songs.  I only have to hear one of his songs to find myself hungering for tea and toast on a tray.

Being a coward about pain I asked everyone about what giving birth was really like.  One said it was the most amazing experience of her life.  Another babbled on about this small baby and how beautiful it was.  A third said ominously that one soon forgets the pain.  My mother said, in her day, you were expected to give birth in silence, a slight whimpering was tolerated but not for long.  You were expected to approach birthing in a ladylike way.  She looked at me with a forlorn expression before repeating, “I really don’t know how you will ever get through it!”  When I was pregnant people became much more honest.  One friend told me it was like having a knife plunged into your innards and twisted.  This was altogether too frighteningly honest I felt.

True to form, I was racing to hospital with every little twinge convinced the birth was imminent.  Surely, such excruciating squeezes meant the baby was on their way.   Medical staff said, in ominous tones, I would know it when the real contractions began.  Then, when the murderous contractions actually kicked in I understood exactly what they meant.  I distinctly remember not being ladylike about the whole business.  When asked about pain relief, I retorted “give me everything you’ve got and if that doesn’t work get a big club and knock me out”. At one point, I remember clearly instructing the medical staff to cut off my head and haul the baby out that way.   

My sister-in-law had an even more painful birth but within a matter of hours was saying she would be happy to have another baby soon.  It was as if her memory had selectively eradicated all the pain and suffering.  Today when reading a book, it suddenly all made sense.  It is by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner, entitled Thinking Fast and Slow.  It helps you understand why we make the choices we do in life.  In one section they carry out an experiment on a group of subjects.  The experiment was simple; each person would have their hand immersed in cold water 14 degrees for 60 seconds and at the end would be given a warm towel.  The second experiment lasted 90 seconds, the first 60 seconds was identical to the first and then for the last 30 seconds warm water would be bringing the temperature up by one degree.  The third experiment subjects were told would be a repeat of either the short or long experiment.  They were allowed to choose which.  A surprising 80% chose the 90 second immersion.  Despite this being obviously longer that the first.  What was going on?  According to Kahneman,

“The subjects who preferred the long episode were not masochists and did not deliberately choose to expose themselves to the worst experience; they simple made a mistake.  They chose to repeat the episode of which they had the less aversive memory.  Their decision was governed by a simple rule of intuitive choice: pick the option you like the most, or dislike the least.”

We are strongly influenced by the peak and the end.  That feeling of warming water was such a relief after the pain of the cold it managed to over-ride our rational brain.  Obviously, endings when dramatic/traumatic enough reach parts of our brain that have little to do with rational fact but are emotionally powerful.  Our intuition has lead us to make a mistake.  So too, the pain of giving birth when followed by the joy of a baby is simply edited out.

I used to find when teaching a class you could give a truly awful 40-minute lesson, boring, stilted with little content and follow it with a five-minute exciting game to end.  The classes would invariably close with kids laughing delightedly and a feeling that the lesson had been brilliant.  They had been fooled by the end.  It had dominated their experience and effectively wiped out the previous dire 40 minutes.  This influence also indicates why coping with dementia or a pain filled death etc. creates such an overriding despair in relatives.  A whole lifetime is forgotten and the agony of the last months or years over rides everything.  It almost manages to wipe out every joyous memory of a loved one. 

Our intuition is a powerful tool but also a flawed one, on occasion.  Or, as Kahneman puts it,

“It seems an inconsistency is built into the design of our minds.” 

Our memory has evolved to register the most intense moment (pain or pleasure the peak) and the feelings at the end of the episode.  This neglect of the duration will not serve our desire for pain to be short and pleasure to last.  In other words our instinctive preferences may be seriously flawed.  He ends with this warning.

“This is a bad case of duration neglect.  You are giving the good and the bad part of your experience equal weight, although the good part lasted ten times as long as the other.”

My wish for you - May your pain be ever short and your pleasure exceedingly long!

Libraries - the oldest and the most beautiful

I have always loved libraries.  There is something wonderful about them.  Our house was always filled with books and I can remember picking up books and pretending to read them from a young age.  So today I explored the National Library of Malta in Valletta.  It was built to house the books and valuables of the Order of St John including items belonging to  knights who had died in 1766.  A decree in 1555 had decreed that the property of the knights should be preserved.  You can visit this by handing in a passport or ID at the desk, in exchange you will be given a visitors badge.  It is worth doing as the library has an atmosphere like a scene out of Indiana Jones.  This is an old image of the library.

Here is how it looks more recently.  Unfortunately, since this recent photo was taken they have removed the lovely trees which used to be in front of the building and which were filled with hundreds of birds.

Inside the building used to look like this.

Here is how it looks today.

It does have a lovely atmosphere and is well worth a visit.  I have several libraries that I love and have included them below.  Starting one of the oldest, the National Library of Czech Republic, built in 1366.

The National Library of Austria comes a close second dating from 1368.

Another favourite is the Marciana National Library of Italy which was built in 1468.

The National Library of France is exceptional, built in 1480.

Another library I personally love, though not so old as those above, is Trinity Library in Dublin.

Mind you, if we really wanted to look at the oldest existing library we'd probably have to put St Catherine's Monastery in Egypt up there ahead of all of them.  Built in 565 AD this has been a running library since its establishment.  Only open to monks and invited scholars this gem of a library was constructed, it is claimed, on the site where Moses saw the burning bush.  The monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library. It contains Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Hebrew, Georgian, and Aramaic texts.  It also contains the oldest icons in the world.  Much of its treasures avoided destruction due to the monastery’s remote position in the Sinai desert.  However, it was also protected throughout the centuries by popes, sultans, queens and kings. Napoleon and even Muhammad provided documents of protection for St Catherine's which are themselves still in existence in this unique library.  Which only goes to show, that while it can take only one fool to burn down a priceless library, it takes over a millennium of careful, constant, protection to preserve such a gem.

Maritime Museum Birgu - Malta

I wanted to explore the Maritime Museum in Birgu, Malta and decided not to do the trip by bus from Sliema.  Last time I explored the Inquisitors palace in Birgu I had to take a bus to Valetta and then follow it up with another windy bus route to Birgu. The whole journey had taken an extraordinary length of time.  So this time I decided to do it by ferry all the way.  Starting at Sliema I caught the ferry to Valetta.

Arriving in Valetta, I climbed the hill towards the centre of Valetta.  The last time I came here with guests a huge argument broke out between two families on opposite balconies.  My friends were so mesmerised by the loud shouting and families pouring out of doorways to continue the shouting match it was hard to drag them away.

Eventually, I reach the main entrance of Valetta and the new parliament building.  There has been much controversy over this building with some calling it a monstrosity and others a work of art.  I've experimented with my guests and have to say it is 50/50.  Roughly half hate it and half love it.  I have to confess I don't like it myself and much prefer the old building style opposite.  It is all those tiny windows that offend me.

Here is the view of the opposite side of the street, giving a more traditional feel.  To my eye they seem so much more elegant than the carbuncle facing them.

Mind you, I would have loved to see the old opera house rebuilt.  That looked to be a really grand building from the remaining ruins.

You can tell really lovely architecture, even when bombed to pieces it retains a beauty and presence. Here's a reminder of how it used to look before the war.

Nice to see Valetta look so busy with people, it makes it feel a city that is very much alive.

Heading up towards the saluting battery I see that now the horses have shade to stand in.  One local wit pointed out in the Malta Times that if the local councillors had to stand in blazing sunshine like the horses all day then canopies would have been quickly provided.  Sometimes it takes smart comments to win the day!  

The Saluting Battery is a lovely place to be in Valetta and everyday at noon you can hear the cannons being fired.  Lovely to have the shelter of the trees and the sound of water from the fountain.  

But it the view that greets you as you emerge through the arches, that takes the breath away.

From here I can see my goal, Birgu, and must descend to sea level using the lift provided new this year.  It is free to go down but you pay coming up, unless you are willing to walk up all the endless flights of steps.

Lovely view out of the glass fronted lift as you descend.  Once you reach the bottom you only have to cross the road and you'll see the sign for the ferry to the Three Cities.

Always nice to see you have timed it nicely and the ferry is on its way to pick you up.  At only 1.50 euros these ferry tickets are value for money.  Note the oil rig in for repairs in the harbour.  At such times you realise this is a working harbour with huge dry docks.

This is a much nicer way to arrive at Birgu than by bus.  I have to admire all the yauchts on display as we pass.

There is so much to explore here and I have only investgated a small part, Malta is bigger than it seems.

As I walk along the pier from the ferry I am approaching my goal the Maritime Museum.  On the way I pass on of the few churches to survive the World War 2 bombing.  As this harbour was the major goal of the bombers, this area was blasted severly and very little left standing.

A little further along the pier and here is the Maritime Museum housed in a very fine building that used to be the old naval bakery.

Inside there are displays on all aspects of sailing history.  I am shocked to find I am the only one visiting today and have the entire buidlng to myself.

My grandfather used to use a smaller table top version of this in our old corner shop.  This is my height.  When goods came through the port this kind of device came into its own.  Need to use the toilet in the museum which is nice and clean but has this weird notice on the back of the toilet door.

It shows some one perched with their feet on top of the toilet.  I remember my mother telling me of an aunt who would stand on the toilet when using it.  It somehow made me look at this aunt very differently because it seemed such an odd and tricky thing to do.  To be honest, I kept quiet about this whole business, it was one of those family secrets you carry but need not share.  To discover that there are so many people out there who do this, that a notice is placed to warn them off makes me feel better. Obviously, it is much more common than I thought!

The rooms are filled with models of ships and I'm wondering if being stuck indoors when the sun is shining outside is a wise move.  Then, I discover this Lateen, rigged boat and am cheered.  Love the angles of the sails.  Such a chirpy chappy.  But rounding a corner I come across this brazen cartoon character that seems way over the top - almost theaterical.

It is from the HMS Hibernia, which was flagship of the British Mediterranean Fleet from 1816 until 1855, when she became the flagship for the Royal Navy's base at Malta.  Later she was used to transport convicts to Australia.  Finally scrapped in 1902 the wood was used in bakeries in Malta and caused lead poisoning!  Toxic stuff despite the cartoon-like figurehead.  Here is a model of the actual ship.

In 1523 When the Knights of St John had to flee Rhodes to Malta, they had a huge ship called the Carrack Santa Maria which helped them carry many men and supplies.  The Santa Anna was an even larger Carrack and had a lead lined hull which shots never were able to penetrate.  The mast of the Santa Anna was so large it took seven men to embrace the huge mast.  It had its own mill, bakery (providing fresh bread daily), a large chapel blacksmith and even had gardens of citrus fruit trees and plants on the stern galleries.  It had seven decks and must have dwarfed every other ship around it.  There is a likeness of the carrack in the refectory of the Order of St John’s Palace in Rome but the closest I could find is this one below, which hardly does it justice.

There is a lot to see in this museum including the largest Roman anchor ever found, uniforms, implements used at sea including a surgeon's operating kit.  It is hard to be excited about display after display of stuff and I began to long to be outside in the fresh air.  How I wish there were audio tracks to bring all this alive.  I did ask at the door but was told to just read the information written on each display.  A great audio account can transform a museum experience and bring it all to life with sound effects and personal stories.  Without that it becomes rather dead and dusty.  Here is an example of the information given.

Such a shame when huge posters are carefully printed and laminated but with mistakes everywhere.  'Russia retreated its stand'  'Due to the ranging plague', 'raking havoc'? If it was just one display ,what odds, but there seemed to be errors on so many.  I begin to feel like one of those critical ex pats finding things to complain about. I know so many Maltese whose English is so excellent it makes mistakes like these very strange.  I liked this lovely rowing boat on display with lovely long lines.

Time to head home.  I shall enjoy the ferries all the way back.  It seemed appropriate to visit the maritime museum by sea.

"I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;"

from Sea Fever BY JOHN MASEFIELD