The Black Plague in Algiers
Image of a flea in Robert Hooke's Micrographia, Londen 1665
Misfortune rarely comes alone. As if the suffering of the slaves in Algiers were not already severe enough, the plague also broke out in 1679 — the very year in which In Barbary is set.
It was by no means the first outbreak. Epidemics had previously struck in 1620–21, 1654–57, 1665, again at the end of the summer of 1679, and once more in 1691. The outbreak of 1679 is mentioned in the journals of both Thomas Hees and Cornelis Stout. The latter contracted the disease himself, but survived. Hees recorded that the plague had appeared on 4 June.
Algiers was also indirectly responsible for the plague epidemic that struck Amsterdam in 1663. A warship of the Dutch Republic had spent a considerable time off the corsair city before returning to Amsterdam that same year. During the voyage home, several crew members fell ill. Once in Amsterdam, the captain allowed the sick men to disembark, and shortly afterwards the plague erupted in the overcrowded and filthy city. Hundreds died each week.
The authorities reacted swiftly. Trade was suspended, and ships arriving from the Republic were required to remain in “quarantine” for forty days outside the harbours, in order to ensure that no plague remained aboard.
Historically, the plague ranks among the deadliest diseases ever recorded, causing the deaths of roughly one third of Europe’s population in the mid-fourteenth century. Worldwide, the disease is estimated to have claimed between 75 and 100 million lives. In Europe, population levels did not recover to those of the early fourteenth century until around the year 1600.
According to many historians, the geographical origin of the plague must be sought in Central Asia, from where it gradually spread across the continent. In October 1347, a Genoese vessel arriving from the Crimea brought the plague to Sicily. From there, the disease spread through Italy to the rest of Europe during the years that followed.
Because of the intensive maritime traffic between the port cities of the Mediterranean and those of Western Europe, there was almost always an active source of infection somewhere between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, and both minor and major epidemics broke out with alarming regularity.
It is not known how many victims the plague claimed in Algiers in 1679. We can, however, compare the outbreak with those in other cities. Records from the great plague epidemic in Amsterdam in 1663–1664, for example, show that 24,148 people died — more than ten percent of the city’s population at the time. Old city maps reveal that the plague struck hardest in the overcrowded and filthy districts inhabited by the poor. The situation in Algiers is unlikely to have been different.
Conditions in the slave prisons, the bagnios, were particularly disastrous. People were crammed together without even the most basic sanitary facilities. In such an environment, the disease could spread almost unchecked. Of the original group of 420 Dutch slaves known to have been in Algiers in 1678, no fewer than 147 had already died by 1680, most likely from the plague.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that, of the approximately 30,000 slaves who continuously populated the city, somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 fell victim to the epidemic.
Sources: Historiek, De pest in Europa 1347-1352 by M. Boshart; Wikipedia; The Diary of Thomas Hees; Christian Slaves: The Slave Experiences of Cornelis Stout in Algiers (1678–1680) and Maria ter Meetelen in Morocco (1731–1743) by Laura van den Broek and Maaike Jacobs.
Bernard Tolomei imploring God to bring an end to the plague in Siena, by Giuseppe Maria Crespi, c. 1735.
Cause of the Plague
In the book, the epidemic is caused by an infected rat that comes aboard a Turkish ship arriving in Algiers. This is not a proven historical fact, though it is certainly plausible. We now know that rats were among the principal carriers of the disease, and that ships in those days were heavily infested with them.
The actual cause of the plague is the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Transmission occurs through fleas infected with the bacterium. While feeding on the blood of its host, the flea ingests the plague bacteria. After several days, the flea’s foregut becomes blocked by clumps of multiplying bacteria. When the flea subsequently attempts to feed again, it can no longer swallow the blood, triggering a regurgitation reflex. In this way, infected blood is injected back into the bite wound, transmitting the infection to the new host.
Another route of infection is through microscopic droplets suspended in the air as a result of coughing or sneezing by an infected person. This form of transmission occurs primarily in cases of pneumonic plague.
The Pague, by Jan Luyken, 1695
In the seventeenth century, people had no understanding of what actually caused the plague. Sailors did know from experience that difficult times were ahead whenever the rats aboard ship suddenly began dying in large numbers (rats themselves also succumb to the disease). What they did not realise was that the fleas living on those animals would then seek out new hosts — and that they themselves would become the next victims.
Seventeenth-century ideas concerning health and disease were entirely shaped by the theory of the humours, developed by Hippocrates and later elaborated by Galen. According to this doctrine, illness resulted from disturbances in the balance of the four bodily fluids: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Each of these corresponded to two qualities derived from the four fundamental elements — fire, water, air, and earth — from which all living things were believed to be composed. Blood, for instance, was considered warm and moist; phlegm moist and cold; black bile cold and dry; and yellow bile dry and warm.
Disease was believed to arise when the proper balance between these humours was disturbed. The causes of such disturbances were sought either in changes in the atmosphere and the movements of the heavenly bodies, or in various forms of decay and putrefaction. In both cases, the composition of the air was thought to become corrupted, thereby upsetting the balance of the bodily humours and causing illness.
People were convinced that miasma — unhealthy, poisonous vapours — lay behind epidemics. Others regarded plague simply as a punishment sent by God. The Arab belief that locusts were responsible for contagious diseases, and the resulting prohibition against importing or consuming fruit and vegetables that might have come into contact with such insects, is mentioned in the diary of Gerrit Metzon (1814). This belief also plays a role in the book.
Paul Barbette, a seventeenth-century physician from Amsterdam, wrote in general terms: “The plague is an incomprehensible disease which appears to arise from a spiritual and contagious vapour.”
His contemporary and colleague Van Diemerbroeck went somewhat further: “A pestilential seed descending from the heavens in countless tiny particles, corrupting the air and ultimately causing infection through the breath.”
A similar view was expressed by the physician Swinnas, who in his 1664 treatise on the plague described the catastrophe as being caused by: “… atoms or minute indivisible particles from an inflamed (= infected) body, dispersing themselves through the air and coming into contact with and infecting a healthy body.”
Sources: Wikipedia, Brabants Erfgoed, Dagverhaal van mijne Lotgevallen, door Gerrit Metzon, DBNL: de Gave Gods,
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