Giles Milton's Epic Journey to White Gold: A Historical Tale of Adventure

MS: Having recently traveled to Morocco, our trip leader there recommended this book, and I'm so thankful that he did. It is the proverbial 'page turner ' and hard to put down once you start. We stopped for just a few hours in the Imperial City of Meknes, and having read the book and how central it is to the narrative, I wish I had known then what this story enlightened me to, and could have spent more time there with this knowledge. It's at once an incredible tale of survival by the protagonist, Thomas Pellow, who was only ten years old when he and the crew of his uncle's ship, having sailed from England, were captured and sold into slavery by the infamous Barbary Pirates, and his tale of 23 years in captivity, surviving against incredible odds, is the backbone of this amazing narrative. Highly recommended!!

United States on Oct 23, 2023

Vannessa: A good read for those who don't know the history of white slaves.

United States on Oct 20, 2023

Stephen Winterton: Well told. Wish there was more to the epilogue, but historical sources may not be available.

United States on Oct 18, 2023

Lucia: Second hand book in perfect condition
Interesting topic
I appreciate it

United Kingdom on Oct 11, 2023

Jerry: An often overlooked branch of history that ought not be forgotten or ignored. Whether riveting or revolting, it is always captivating.

United Kingdom on Sep 11, 2023

Amos Spitalhatch: I fully expected this book to be dry and largely a catalogue of dates and statistics, but I had only a very vague knowledge of the White Slave Trade and wanted to learn more about it. It turned out to be one of those books that keep you up at night, reluctant to put it down until you find out what happened next.
The author is skilful - his style is such that you are not aware of the printed words, only of the action. And the action: a combination of Star Trek and Star Wars all wrapped up in an historical setting from Hornblower.
If this had been taught at school, I would have paid a lot more attention!

United States on May 25, 2023

Hank Norville Carter: I've been a fan of Giles Milton since reading Samurai William, about twenty years ago. The wonderfully readable exploration of William Adams - the inspiration for Richard Chamberlain's character in Shogun, reminded why I preferred history to fiction "Fiction must make sense". In Milton's Nathaniel's Nutmeg I discovered that the English took New York, then New Amsterdam, in retaliation [partially] for losing the Indonesian island of Run to the Dutch. A large proportion of the worlds nutmeg was grown there and the Dutch were determined to monopolise the spice trade. A situation that led to the area being called the Dutch East Indies for 250 years. I'm less inclined towards Milton's more recent books because they focus on the 20th Century but Russian Roulette, which describes how a motley crew of English upper class patriots pretty much created MI6 for a lark. One of their first missions was to silence Rasputin from encouraging Tsarina Alexandra with his antiwar sentiments. They were so successful that British involvement in the murder remained secret for over 90 years.

White Gold. I was reluctant to read this because so many right wing types tend to mention the forced...

United Kingdom on May 15, 2023

Stotzy: When we turn our minds to the subject of slavery, the images that we associate with that word are almost always that of Blacks in chains on some plantation in the Caribbean or the American South, with Whites as their overlords. This is, of course, due to the obsessive concentration on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in media, education and politics. However, when you understand that slavery was endemic throughout the world, amongst all racial and ethnic groups, you do wonder if this concentration on one particular slave trade is to engender within Whites a constant feeling of guilt about the past, and, as a result, the total rejection of ancestral roots for the embrace of multiculturalism. If so, this book is very important in counteracting that somewhat skewed view of history, as it details the largely forgotten enslavement of a million and a half Europeans by North Africans during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; which only came to an end with the British Navy's bombardment of Algiers in 1816. However, this is a mere backdrop to the main storyline of the book: the capture and enslavement of Cornish cabin boy Thomas Pellow in 1716, and his twenty-three years as...

United Kingdom on Feb 27, 2022

JayOTee: A riveting multi-sourced account of a majorly overlooked era of European history, the reasons for which you may make of as you will. Also, the author provides a fab bibliography of further reading of accounts of the Barbary (or White) Slave Trade as told by those who were captured and lived, or the opinions of their contemporaries, and a fantastic introduction to the extraordinary life of Thomas Pellow.

It was Pellow's sharp and smart nature that led him to follow his uncle on his ship, which made slaves of the whole crew, but it was also the same strength of character that allowed him to defy all odds (his uncle died and most of the crew) and become something of a valued slave to Moulay Ismail, ruler of Morocco, in Meknes and beyond. Even his forced apostasy from Christianity to Islam didn't dampen his hopes of returning to England one day, even though apostasy was highly frowned upon back then (but not, might I add, to the death). He was ordered to marry, and his wife bore him a daughter. Still he never gave up hope of escape. It was practically a miracle that his final journey across mountains swarming with bandits, who almost killed him, was a success, and he made it to...

United Kingdom on Jul 17, 2017

Reviewer: Milton uses the story of Thomas Pellow, a cabin boy enslaved by Muslims at age 12 and finally returning to Cornwall 23 years later, as a framework overview of the Muslim slave trade - which preyed on European Christians as far away as the coasts of Iceland and Cornwall.

It's an exciting read, a proverbial 'page turner', and a perfect blend of story telling and history. Milton masterfully interweaves backstory and general history with Pellow's saga. I would hate to use another cliche...but I really couldn't put it down!

Its a shame the WP post reviewer uses it as excuse to vent his political views, and browbeat us with nonsense about 'Orientalism', I would highly recommend this book as an introduction to an all but forgotten part of our history (Yes Alsan, us, as in European Christians). I imagine like Aslan are afraid of this book because the indisputable facts shatter their victim status, and takes away a 'tool' by which to guilt-trip Europeans and Americans. After all if we were 'victims' of slavery, all the sudden 'imperialism' and 'white privilege' lose their sting.

A few examples of Aslan's bias:

"in which his 11-year-old self patiently endures...

United States on Oct 29, 2007