Time: Early nineteenth century
As the third and youngest son of an English aristocrat, the career options for Lord Harry de Crespigny were very limited. The law of primogeniture meant that he could never inherit his father's titles and estates while his two older brothers were alive and he must find his own way in the world.
Tradition held that the second son of an aristocrat would chose the military as a career while the third son would enter the Church.
Lord Harry was an active and spirited lad and the prospect of becoming a country vicar appalled him. Really, he couldn't see himself as leading in hymn-singing and giving dull sermons to a captive congregation for the rest of his life. No, he sought something far more adventurous and exciting and with the prospect of making his fortune. Therefore, he prevailed upon his father to allow him to join the private army of the Honourable East India Company and at sixteen years of age, he started his military career as an army Ensign (standard/flag bearer).
All went well for young Harry and after two years service, he was popular with his peers and of course, as a young lord, he was also very popular with the older officers and society matrons who viewed him favourably as a suitable husband for their daughters.
It has to be said that at eighteen, things never looked better for Lord Harry and his future prospects for advancement to the higher echelons of the company were assured.
That is until the natives rebelled against the policies and attitudes of their English overlords. Naturally, the rebellion had to be crushed and the ingrates who'd caused it punished and an ongoing war ensured.
Sadly for Harry, he was the sole survivor in a skirmish with a numerically superior group of rebels who spared his life because of his youth, superb young body and handsome features. Instead of having his throat slit like his companions, he was spared and presented to a Mogul prince as a slave.
No longer a lord, Harry is now just a naked slave who serves as a pleasure-slave in his master's male harem.
Here we see Harry "exciting" himself with a feather as he thinks wistfully of his aristocratic home and family both of which are now lost to him forever.
Still in time, Harry will adjust to his new life and will even derive some pleasure from servicing his new master.
The beautiful artwork for post is by Theo Blaze another artist whose works never disappoint. The text is mine.
Excellent
ReplyDeleteChris, what a superb possible “inspiration” for a longer story you have written here ! a possible story situated inside a wider “theme” on slavery, i.e. the many an many real and historical episodes, dating from at least the 16th century up to today, in which “white” soldiers, from all Western Countries, have been captured by natives and exploited as slaves by their captors or sold into slavery in Slave Markets while fighting in Colonial or Post-Colonial wars in many lands of Africa, of Asia and of the Middle East.
ReplyDeleteBy chance, just a few weeks ago, I was reading a book by the Scottish historian Robert Bertram Serjeant that was narrating the fascinating history of Portuguese colonization in the Southern Arabic peninsula, especially in Yemen and in Oman during the 16th and 17th century.
In particular one episode stroke me: during those centuries Portuguese merchants, protected by the Portuguese Navy and Army, were the most active slave traders from the coasts of Eastern Africa.
They had transformed their colonies and military outposts in Zanzibar and in Southern Arabia, like in Yemen and Oman, in the exceptionally vast and profitable Slave Markets.
In particular Oman was a Portuguese Colony for 135 years, between 1515 and 1650 and especially Muscat, the main port and town in Oman, had been converted by the Portuguese colonial government into the greatest Slave Market of the whole area of the Indian Ocean, supplying with thousands and thousands of slaves not only the whole Arabian peninsula and the Middle East, but also for India and Persia.
And, as an “irony of the Fate”, such restless activity of Portuguese colonists and military in slave hunting and trading was eventually transformed into a very disgraceful and sad situation for their soldiers.
In 1624, the Omani tribes led by Sultan Nasir bin Murshid and then by Sultan bin Sayf started a violent uprising and guerrilla war against the colonial power of Portugal, Initially the war was contained inside the wild mountains of the region, but then, victory after victory of the Arab guerrillas, the revolt was spreading to the whole Oman.
At the end of 1649 the town and port of Muscat and its flourishing Slave Market were the only and last stronghold that remained under Portuguese control. During the night of January 23rd 1650 the Arab forces of Sultan bin Sayf conquered, most likely thanks to a betrayal, the city of Muscat. Most of the Portuguese soldiers plus a few hundreds of auxiliary mercenary sailors, mainly English and Dutch men, were able to escape and lock themselves into the Fort of Al-Jalaly, built on an island in the harbor of Muscat.
However after five days, on January 28th, for still unknown reasons – probably hoping in a “merciful treatment” by Arab insurgents- the Portuguese commander of the fort decided to surrender himself and his men, with no conditions, to the “mercy” of the Omani Sultan.
So about 600 Portuguese soldiers and about 200 English and Dutch auxiliary sailors (by the way, Arabs had captured also four European ships anchored in the port) handed themselves over helpless into the hands of the Arab guerrillas.
No other decision could have been more wretched and worse than that decision.
(CONTINUES BELOW)
The Omani Sultan commanded to shackle the European captives in heavy chains and they were imprisoned in the dungeons of the same Fort.
ReplyDeleteThen the victorious Sultan bin Sayf ordered that the about 800 infidel European prisoners of war were to be publicly auctioned into slavery in the same vast Slave Market of Muscat, that their government …….. irony of the Fate ! …….. had just contributed to develop to such outstanding vastness and activity.
The preparation of said exceptionally large slave-auction of rare European slaves took a quite long time, also because the slave-traders of the Sultan, who were organizing such extraordinary auction, were spreading the news in the whole Arabic peninsula and in other Countries that were in the usual habit of trading slaves with the Market of Muscat.
So, when in the beginning of the following month of May, the auctions of the white slaves, prisoners of war, started in the Slave Market of Muscat, the chronicles tell that many of the prospective buyers had arrived even from the farthest countries, not only from the whole Arabia but also from various regions of the Middle East, from Persia and even from India.
The auctions of the very rare and very well paid 800 Portuguese, English and Dutch “infidel” white prisoners continued for more than three months, up to the mid of the following month of July.
At the end of that endless series of slave-auctions, historians tell that the sale as slaves of those 800 European soldiers had earned Sultan bin Sayf the enormous sum of about 1,3 millions silver Dirhams ! …….. a sum that was astronomical especially for that age, and that today would be more or less equivalent to more than 2 millions US dollars ! or also about 1.8 millions Euro !
Perhaps also among those 800 English sailors and Portuguese soldiers, really auctioned to the highest bidder in the vast Slave Market of Muscat in Oman, in the Spring and Summer of 1650, there were several gorgeous youths similar to the very handsome and noble eighteen years old English Officer Harry, that you, Chris, have imagined sold into slavery in an Arab Slave Market about 150 years later !
Karel