Exile in Barbary: English‐speaking expatriates, biblical theology, and mercantile ethics in the seventeenth‐century Maghreb☆

Abstract

AbstractDuring the seventeenth century, thousands of English‐speaking Protestants went to the Maghreb as captives, diplomats, traders, and travellers. Distant from the guiding and controlling hands of monopoly trading companies and the established churches, and placed under various pressures by non‐Christian neighbours, colleagues, and captors, these Protestants faced the temptation (or opportunity) to compromise or abandon their Christianity and nationality to survive and thrive in their new circumstances. Most English‐speaking residents, whether free expatriates, captives, or converts, felt a tension between attraction to local norms and longing for their lives at home. Using a vast and little‐known collection of merchant correspondence and financial records, this article explores the tension of exile in the professional, material, religious, moral, and ethical lives and views of long‐term free English‐speaking residents (‘expatriates’) in the Maghreb. I argue that the biblical‐theological framework of exile, widespread in contemporary English culture and brought to mind by their circumstances, provided many expatriates with a way of understanding their lives and a set of ethical principles for conducting them appropriately. By considering the ways in which British Protestants made use of this framework, historians can better make sense of their experiences of living in the early modern Islamic world.