White Gold

by Giles Milton

  Commander Triffoe ordered the men to strike camp at dawn. He was anxious about the next stage of the march, which would take them through the forested flood plains of the River Cherrat. This uninhabited woodland was a haunt of lion, leopard and wild boar, and the men were instructed to keep a close watch on the tangled undergrowth as they rode. The commander was leading the troops when he was startled by a crashing noise from one side. Before he could wheel his horse around, a huge boar struck with great force, ramming its tusks into the belly of his stallion and “killing his horse under him.” Pellow flinched when he saw the size of the animal, which had “very long tusks as keen as knives … [which] will rip up anything.” His men reached for their guns and fired at the boar, which “instantly lost his life.” The men sighted many more during their ride through the forest “[and] killed some hundreds.” They looked at their prey with hungry eyes, hoping for a feast at the end of the day, but Commander Triffoe prohibited them from eating the meat. He reminded these reluctant converts to Islam that boars were unclean and that “their flesh is by the Mahometan law forbidden.”

  The men pushed south along the banks of the River Cherrat, pausing occasionally to fish. At one point, the banks narrowed sufficiently to allow the army to ford the river. On the following day, Pellow and his men finally reached Kasbah Temsna, “where I, by the pasha’s order, immediately entered with two hundred of my men.”

  The kasbah occupied a commanding hillside position, with sweeping views across the surrounding countryside. The wooded slopes were dotted with oaks and junipers, while the valley below was watered by the springs and rills of the El-Arîcha River. The kasbah itself—which was to be Pellow’s home for the next six years—is no longer standing. Its pink pise walls crumbled to powder long ago, and all trace of the structure has been sluiced away by the winter rains. But it was constructed according to a template that varied little throughout Morocco. The exterior walls were studded with towers that provided a platform for heavy weaponry. The entrance, too, was protected by cannon. Inside, there was probably a row of low houses, and there would also have been a little mosque roofed with malachite-green tiles.

  Pellow was quickly disabused of the hope that the kasbah would provide him and his men with a comfortable home. “At my entrance to the castle,” he wrote, “I found all things pretty much in disorder, there being almost a general want of everything.” Commander Triffoe took control of the situation, “sending us in provisions and stores enough for our subsistence for six months.” Once he had installed the men in the kasbah, he departed for Marrakesh with his own troops. Pellow, who was still just sixteen years of age, now found himself in charge of 300 fellow renegades. It was a remarkable change in fortune for a slave who, just a few years earlier, had been tortured to within a whisker of his life.

  Pellow quickly discovered that life in Temsna was far preferable to his existence in Meknes. There was no fear of harsh treatment at the hands of the sultan, nor was there any fighting to be done. “I and my comrades … [had] nothing to do,” wrote Pellow, “but to contrive ways and means to divert ourselves … living in an amicable manner and passing our time very pleasantly.” Far from the imperial capital and surrounded by dense forest, the men spent much of their time hunting “vast plenty of game, as partridges, hares and jackals.” Every time their guns blasted, the sky would fill with birds, which were picked from the air by the sharpest shooters.

  Pellow himself spent four days a week hunting, “and with very good success, killing vast numbers of all kinds, coming home at nights laden, and seldom or never failing to refresh ourselves by a good supper.” Now that Commander Triffoe was not around, the men ate with relish the wild boar they had shot. “At our return home at night,” wrote Pellow, “we never failed of three or four wild porkers roasted whole.” He and his men were even happier when they managed to acquire wine from the local population. “The inhabitants of the country round”—almost certainly Jews—“bringing us in several skins a week, together with many other presents, on account of our destroying the wild beasts.” Pellow added that the pork and wine were “two very presumptuous breaches of their law at Meknes”—and would have been punished by death—but here in the countryside they could do exactly as they pleased. Although escape was impossible, for the area was crawling with informers, there was no one to keep watch on them within the compound of the kasbah.

  Pellow and his men always dreaded the day when they would be called upon to fight for the sultan, and the summons eventually came within three months of their arrival at Kasbah Temsna. “I received a peremptory command from the pasha [Triffoe] to attend him with two hundred of my men,” wrote Pellow, “ … and to leave my other hundred to secure my several garrisons.” This news, which was a cause of despondency among all of the men at the kasbah, must have come as a particularly heavy blow to Pellow. He had just learned that his wife was pregnant with their first child. Now he knew that he would not be there to see her through her pregnancy. He must also have feared that he would never set eyes on his child, since almost every campaign against rebel forces resulted in a large number of casualties and deaths. With the greatest regret, Pellow bade farewell to his wife, selected the requisite number of men and set out for Marrakesh.

  The news that greeted him was as grim as he had anticipated. Several tribes in the Atlas Mountains had sworn themselves to rebellion, and their opening salvo was a refusal to pay their customary annual tribute to Moulay Ismail. Such disobedience could not be left unpunished, and the sultan had ordered that they be destroyed by force of arms. Pellow and his company were instructed to bring the unpaid tribute to Meknes, along with the captured rebel chieftains.

  Pellow was appalled at the thought that, after five years of captivity, he was no longer merely an instrument of Moulay Ismail’s regime, but an enforcer of it. He was even more horrified at the thought of doing battle with the rebels. Several of the tribes lived in the High Atlas and were entrenched in their mountain fastnesses. Their kasbahs were surrounded by precipitous walls of rock and ice, and the warriors inside had spent much of their lives fighting in this inhospitable terrain. Although many of Pellow’s fellow renegades came from a military background, they knew little of the lay of the land and could only hope that their superior weaponry—and Commander Triffoe’s leadership—would provide them with the advantage they so sorely lacked.

  “We rested seven days at Marrakesh,” wrote Pellow, “being ordered on the eighth early to march out and join the army.” After fording the fast-flowing River Nffîs, the men headed for the impoverished village of Amîzmîz—at the foot of the mountains—where a small group of rebels was believed to be hiding. Their leader soon made contact with Commander Triffoe and begged for mercy, claiming that “he had no hand in the rebellion, as he understood had been basely and maliciously rumoured of him.” He proffered four fine horses and “a handsome purse of gold,” as well as several exquisite turbans. Commander Triffoe picked over these gifts and was rather pleased with them. According to Pellow, “[he] had not the heart to refuse.” After reprovisioning his troops, the commander ordered the men to strike camp and head upward toward the snow line.

  “We marched on foot up the mountain,” wrote Pellow, “ … which, being very woody, steep and craggy, our horses could have been of no service to us.” The men began to suffer from the freezing nights and damp mountain air, and wished themselves back in the comfort of Kasbah Temsna.”This being the month of February, [it was] wet, very cold and the nights pretty long.“The men pushed on until they reached the kasbah of Yahyâ ben Bel‘ayd, which surrendered after a short, sharp engagement. Their spirits were further lifted when they learned that many of the surrounding mountain tribes were offering to submit, and that just four mountaintop kasbahs remained in rebellion against the sultan.

  These particular kasbahs were almost inaccessible, clinging like eyries to the icy crags “lying on or very nigh the top of the mountain.” They were lost in swirling banks of freezing fog, and the su
rrounding scree was “covered with snow and very difficult to get up.” The men wondered how they would scale the upper slopes and at the same time conserve enough energy to attack the 4,000 fighters hiding out on the mountaintop. For two weeks, the atrocious weather hampered their offensive against the rebels. But on the sixteenth day, the wind shifted and it became mild and damp,”there falling a very great flood of rain … washing the snow down the mountain.” The troops wasted no time in striking camp and scaling the mountain, scrambling over loose scree and dirty patches of snow. As evening fell, the weary men reached the first of the kasbahs,”but found it quite desolate, the inhabitants having all retired into the next town, at about half a mile’s distance.” The men pillaged all they could and then torched the place. Then, they”retired to some distance, where [we] were settled for the night in an open camp.”

  Commander Triffoe woke early after a fitful rest. He sent an uncompromising message to the rebels, demanding immediate obeisance to the sultan. The reply he received was unambiguous: “the inhabitants would not on any terms surrender, but were resolved to fight it out, even to the last man.” Pellow was extremely anguished by this news. He had no idea of the strength of the rebel forces, but knew that his own men were fatigued, cold and suffering from a lack of food. Worse still, the terrain in the High Atlas was extremely rough and devoid of any vegetation. His only hope was that Triffoe, who had hitherto proved himself a competent commander, would not place them in unnecessary danger.

  Triffoe had indeed put much thought into how to attack the kasbah. He was aware that his troops would be exposed to musket fire as they advanced on the stronghold and ordered them to make thick shields out of brushwood. This enabled a small group of sappers to reach the outer walls of the bastion. “About a dozen of our best miners and an engineer advanced with their pick-axes and other necessary implements,” wrote Pellow, “ … and immediately fell to work to undermine them.” As they tunneled into the rocky ground, Pellow and his men”kept a continual fire [of muskets], so that the enemy did not so much as dare to peep at those places of the walls where our people were carrying on their mines.” For three whole days the sappers dug tunnels under the kasbah walls. Then, when they had managed to hack their way through to the foundations, the underground tunnels were packed with powder.

  The resultant blast was so powerful that it not only caused the entire kasbah to shake but carved a massive breach in the walls, allowing Pellow and his men to stream into the fortress. The rebels were shocked by their sudden reversal of fortune, but fought back tenaciously for three hours, “during which there was on both sides very bloody work.” As the two forces engaged in hand-to-hand combat, muskets were discarded and the fight continued with swords and knives. The tide of battle eventually turned, and Pellow and his men gained the upper hand. After much butchery, the rebel forces were finally crushed.

  In the previous showdowns, Triffoe had ordered all the survivors to be taken alive as prisoners of war. This time, he declined to show such clemency. All the men were put to the sword, while the women and children were viewed as booty and carried back to Meknes. The most beautiful women would end up in the imperial harem, while the children would become servants of the regime. The kasbah itself was plundered, destroyed and then burned to the ground. By the evening, only a few charred stumps remained.

  News of the expedition’s success was quickly carried to Moulay Ismail, who declared his wish to view the captured spoils of war. In addition to a large store of silver coin, Pellow and his men had seized more than 200 horses, as well as some fine bridles and saddles. One of these—which the troops intended to present ceremoniously to the sultan—was of exceptionally fine workmanship, “strengthened with plates of gold, and curiously inlaid with many very valuable jewels.” The men had also seized scimitars and daggers, powder horns and gun stocks. There was a large quantity of honey and dates, along with dozens of kegs of gunpowder. But all knew that the most welcome gift would be the 200 black slaves who had been taken during the campaign.

  Commander Triffoe led his forces toward Meknes and instructed Pellow to remain outside the city while he reported to Moulay Ismail about the recent campaign. “The next morning, about eight o’clock, the emperor ordered the pasha [Triffoe] to bring the several prisoners into the yard.” Pellow himself was asked to lead them to the palace, and he remained in the sultan’s presence while the rebels were quizzed about their insurrection. “The old tyrant, looking at them very furiously … told them in an angry tone that they were insolent traitors, and they should soon reap the fruits of their late rebellion.”

  Moulay Ismail was never known to show clemency toward those who contravened his will, and this occasion was to be no exception. “He ordered three of the most notorious of them to stand with their backs pretty nigh to the wall.” The executioner was then told to cut off their heads, “which he instantly did at two strokes, two of them being cleanly severed at one.”

  Pellow was intrigued to discover that the sultan’s chief executioner was “an Exeter man, whose surname I have forgot, though I very well remember his Christian one was Absalom.” Pellow managed to speak to him when the bloodshed was over “and he told me”—with no apparent irony—“[that] he was by trade a butcher.”

  Moulay Ismail taunted the other rebels with execution, but eventually decided to pardon them on the understanding that they were “never more to return to their old respective places of abode, but to reside at those which should be by him allotted for them.” They had one last ordeal to endure before being conducted from the palace. So that they should forever be known as rebels of the sultan, they were “branded with a hot iron in their foreheads.”

  After dealing with the rebels, Moulay Ismail ordered Pellow to show him the trophies and spoils. As the sultan picked over the bridles and saddles, he muttered about the wealth of the rebellious chieftains. “These dogs are certainly very rich,” he said, “but what was this in comparison of what they had yet left behind.”

  He warned Pellow and his men that the huge array of goods they had seized “was no more than … a small part of what was before his own.” He added that if no more booty was forthcoming, he “would send his messengers to fetch it, with their heads into the bargain.” With those words ringing in his ears, Pellow was conducted out of the sultan’s presence.

  THOMAS PELLOW AND the other European renegades in Morocco operated in a shadowy world of servitude and slavery. They were rarely subjected to chain gangs and hard labor, yet they were made to work for the regime they despised. The Frenchman Pidou de St. Olon concluded that although the sultan’s renegades lived apart from the other captives, “they are no less his slaves.” Escape was impossible and freedom remained a dream.

  The exact number of renegades forced to serve under Moulay Ismail remains unknown. They rarely figure in the tallies of captives that were compiled by ambassadors and padres. Nor were they considered worthy of being included in negotiations conducted by their home governments. Despised for having forsaken their Christian faith, they were abandoned to their fate.

  This was a foolish mistake on the part of Europe’s ministers, for the sultan’s renegades vastly outnumbered the captives being held in the slave pens and played a crucial, if unwilling, role in keeping Moulay Ismail in power. Without the services of these apostates—many of whom were desperate to escape—the sultan would have been hard pressed to contain the country’s frequent rebellions. The French consul Jean-Baptiste Estelle noted some years earlier that Moulay Ismail’s armory of 40,000 muskets was in large part cast by renegades, and he added that “soon he will have more since, in Fez, Christian slaves are casting 400 cannon barrels a month, very fine and of good quality.”

  One of the most celebrated of these renegade gun-founders was an Irishman by the name of Carr. A contemporary of Pellow, Carr had been captured as a young lad and voluntarily converted to Islam. “The temptation was very great,” wrote the Englishman John Braithwaite who was to meet Carr in the late 1720s.
“He was offered fine women, and all the riches and grandeur of this country, which if he had not accepted of, he foresaw nothing but slavery, misery and extreme want.” Moulay Ismail showed unusual respect for Carr on account of his skill at casting weaponry. “[He] used to call him brother, and gave him clothes off his back, and would hug and caress him very much, and offered him the greatest governments in the country.” He even made him a kaid and for a short time promoted him to the rank of governor, with control over “the frontiers of Guinea.”

  Carr was a duplicitous individual whose principal skill was self-preservation. “A very handsome man,” wrote Braithwaite, “[and] very ingenious … to us he seemed much to lament his condition and declared himself as much a Christian as ever.” Years of service in Morocco had left him broken and wretched, and he had frequent recourse to the bottle. “He drank with us very hard,” added Braithwaite, “and declared to us if it was not that he locked himself up every now and then and took a hearty dose of wine, he could not have supported his spirits, when he came to think he was for ever lost to his country and friends.” Carr typified so many of the sultan’s renegades: he was desperate to return home, but knew that the chance of this happening was extremely remote.

  Few other apostates won the trust of Moulay Ismail. Those who did rise to positions of prominence were quickly corrupted by their new-found power and authority. A Spanish surgeon named Laureano turned against his former comrades after being made the sultan’s personal attendant. He converted to Islam, changed his name to Sidi Achmet and became a most unsavory individual. “His physiognomy is very bad, his heart deceitful, his behaviour brutal and impious, and he is a great enemy to Christians,” wrote Father Busnot. The most hard-hearted renegades were put in charge of Christian slaves, whom they treated with great contempt. Guilt about their apostasy may have played a part in their brutal behavior, but they may also have been affected by sights of extreme cruelty. According to one unnamed slave, the worst fate for any European captive was to be “belied, back-biten and beaten by some of their own number who are called Christians.” These “Christians”—he means apostates—had gained their positions through flattery and deception, informing on former comrades who were slacking at work. They knew that they would only retain their posts “on proviso that they shall make the other slaves work so much the harder.” To this end, they became savage and sadistic, and “surpass the very barbarians themselves in cruelty, beating their fellows unmercifully.”