Algerians, Renegades, and Transnational Rogues in Slaves in Algiers

Abstract

Even as America’s “social undersiders” stood on the gallows, they also appeared in early national dramas of citizenship and national identity. In 1794, Susanna Haswell Rowson’s Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom presented a spectacle of Americans enslaved in Algerian captivity. The play premiered at Philadelphia’s New Theatre (later the Chestnut Street theatre) on June 30, 1794, the proceeds benefitting Rowson and her husband. Rowson wrote and acted in the play, and her growing fame as the author of Charlotte Temple probably helped attract spectators as well. Slaves in Algiers hardly achieved overwhelming success, but it saw occasional performances in Baltimore, New York City, and possibly in Boston (where Rowson would perform and reside after 1796) before the end of the decade.1 The play’s scenes of Algerian captivity had some durability. In 1816, for example, at the end of another American conflict with the Barbary pirates, the play reappeared in Boston.2 Slaves in Algiers participated in a broader theatre culture of “acting Algerian,” showing how offstage performances infuse early American theatre.