Captive in Barbary: The Stereotyping of Arabs, Turks, and Islam in Early American Society, 1785-1850
Date
2012-05
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Scholars have primarily used the enslavement of American sailors in the Barbary Coast of North Africa to do comparative slavery analyses, diplomatic history, or the study of early American identity formation. I have used the same events to analyze how early American society perceived and stereotyped the Muslim inhabitants of the Barbary States. To accomplish this goal, I have analyzed the Barbary captivity narratives that filled bookshelves in the United States from the late 1780s until the 1850s. These narratives helped to construct two stereotypically and racially distinct Arab and Turkish archetypes in the minds of early American readers. The Barbary captivity narratives also provided Americans with some of their first experiences with Islam. Unlike the development of the Arab and Turkish archetypes, the Barbary captivity narratives did not present a universal depiction of Islam. The ways in which these authors varied in their views of Islam reveals a great deal about how the role religion varied in early American society. The Barbary literature also put a great deal of emphasis on the perceived failure of the Barbary States and their belief that Turkish despotism led to that failure. This tendency highlights how early Americans saw themselves as the worldâs modern race and believed that they were truly constructing a new society following their independence from Great Britain.
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Keywords
North Africa, Barbary captivity narratives, Muslim inhabitants, Barbary States, American identity formation, 1780-1850, stereotypes of Arabs, stereotypes of Turks, stereotypes of Islam